Is Animation Cancelling Considered Cheating or Exploiting? Are the consequences the same? If At All?

Mutagem

So recently a couple friends from another alliance showed me something I had heard of prior but never seen in action; Animation Cancelling.

My thoughts are kind of neutral. It's in there for PVE content to prioritize certain moves during boss fights. Yet is this allowed or not if blatantly used in a PVP context?

Bakven

It's allowed. Zos has no intention of making it impossible to animation cancel

Hempyre

Discussed to death, and got the ok years ago.

WreckfulAbandon

The bane of this game, coincidentally the only way to compete in PvP. Go figure...

*required for PvE too

God_flakes

It has always amused me that AC is considered skillful play and macros to be shite play. To me they're essentially the same thing just one is clever fingering and one is lazily letting the mouse do the work for you. How can the person on the receiving end tell the difference? They can't.

Recremen

Animation canceling isn't even real anymore with the changes to animation prioritization, or at the very least there have been significant changes to the amount that a skill's animation will get clipped. You can still fire off your attacks just as fast as you could previously, which was entirely intended and not an exploit to begin with, but now more of the animation will play so that people can better see what's happening/lets the coolness factor sink in.

Bakven

Recremen wrote: »

Animation canceling isn't even real anymore with the changes to animation prioritization, or at the very least there have been significant changes to the amount that a skill's animation will get clipped. You can still fire off your attacks just as fast as you could previously, which was entirely intended and not an exploit to begin with, but now more of the animation will play so that people can better see what's happening/lets the coolness factor sink in.

Not really, I was killed by someone who barely moved but some of his animations still showed. His character looked like he was just waiting to attack but I was hit with Incap, DS, executioner, executioner, executioner. Animation Canceling is still very real

KenaPKK

God_flakes wrote: »

It has always amused me that AC is considered skillful play and macros to be shite play. To me they're essentially the same thing just one is clever fingering and one is lazily letting the mouse do the work for you. How can the person on the receiving end tell the difference? They can't.

It's not about the person on the receiving end. It's about the dexterity and capabilities on the player.

But now we all suspect you use macros, so...

zyk

God_flakes wrote: »

It has always amused me that AC is considered skillful play and macros to be shite play. To me they're essentially the same thing just one is clever fingering and one is lazily letting the mouse do the work for you. How can the person on the receiving end tell the difference? They can't.

This is irrelevant. If a player cannot tell the difference between dying to a CE exploiter and clean player, does that make playing clean the same as using CE?

The difference is animation cancelling manually, especially while on the move and in heavy combat, requires dexterity and good motor skills while macroing does not. I do not love the concept of animation cancelling, but do not compare it to macroing.

Animation cancelling is still relevant. The recent changes made it less reliable to cancel some abilities, but it's still beneficial.

God_flakes

KenaPKK wrote: »

God_flakes wrote: »

It has always amused me that AC is considered skillful play and macros to be shite play. To me they're essentially the same thing just one is clever fingering and one is lazily letting the mouse do the work for you. How can the person on the receiving end tell the difference? They can't.

It's not about the person on the receiving end. It's about the dexterity and capabilities on the player.

But now we all suspect you use macros, so...

Lmao!!!! You're kidding right? I either suck at this game or I'm savvy enough to use macros. Make up your mind, Kena.

God_flakes

zyk wrote: »

God_flakes wrote: »

It has always amused me that AC is considered skillful play and macros to be shite play. To me they're essentially the same thing just one is clever fingering and one is lazily letting the mouse do the work for you. How can the person on the receiving end tell the difference? They can't.

This is irrelevant. If a player cannot tell the difference between dying to a CE exploiter and clean player, does that make playing clean the same as using CE?

The difference is animation cancelling manually, especially while on the move and in heavy combat, requires dexterity and good motor skills while macroing does not. I do not love the concept of animation cancelling, but do not compare it to macroing.

Animation cancelling is still relevant. The recent changes made it less reliable to cancel some abilities, but it's still beneficial.

I didn't mean to imply macros were "ok". I happen to think both macros and Ac are crap and both shouldn't be allowed or at the very least limited.

blabafat

It's allowed, and it should stay. No need to remove more skill requirement from the game.

God_flakes

I personally think in a game with VISUAL combat between individual players, one should not be able to make his combat moves invisible and thereby preventing his opponents from plotting out and executing their own combat moves. JMO. You may not like it but it's my opinion and stand by it. AC is dickmove gameplay. It's kinda cowardly. It's saying, "I don't want a fair fight with you, I want to kill you instantly just because I can".

zyk

God_flakes wrote: »

I didn't mean to imply macros were "ok". I happen to think both macros and Ac are crap and both shouldn't be allowed or at the very least limited.

I consider it to be tedious and bad game design (because dexterous gameplay can be implemented in better ways), but ZOS has explicitly called it legal gameplay -- unlike macroing which is cheating.

There is so much confusion about what is and isn't legitimate these days, I think it is better not to muddy the waters further by comparing it to macroing which isn't a like thing -- even if macros can be used to cancel.

God_flakes

zyk wrote: »

God_flakes wrote: »

I didn't mean to imply macros were "ok". I happen to think both macros and Ac are crap and both shouldn't be allowed or at the very least limited.

I consider it to be tedious and bad game design (because dexterous gameplay can be implemented in better ways), but ZOS has explicitly called it legal gameplay -- unlike macroing which is cheating.

There is so much confusion about what is and isn't legitimate these days, I think it is better not to muddy the waters further by comparing it to macroing which isn't a like thing -- even if macros can be used to cancel.

You're right, macros can be used to cancel. Making your animations invisible and dealing 3 or 4 punches at once both strike me as unfair gameplay advantage. Again, jmho. and trust me I fully realize most PC gamers vehemently defend AC to the hilt. I know I'm an odd man out here. Being a visual game, though...what makes anyone think deliberately obscuring visual combat is fair? This truly baffles me.

RinaldoGandolphi

I have posted some very long post on here explaining how AC doesn't belong in a game with a mininimal interface where the game is wholly designed on animations being feedback mechanic fails the principles of user interface design and anyone saying hiding animations is good for the game from a design perspective would be laughed out of any professional developer conference in the world pretty much.

It's getting better then it was but ZOS still has a way to go. When I played my DK as a tank I loved running into guys where I would hear "clang,clang,clang,"on my shield but only see a light attack animation had I not been a block heavy tank I would have been dead solely because my enemy was able to obfuscate key game visual feedback mechanics from me, but that's left skill

Imagine if all the trash mobs in VMA canceled and hid their animations no player would have completed yet, that wouldn't be fair but it's perfectly fair to do that players lol the hypocrisy is ridiculous.

You can design the game to have fluid responsive combat without allowing the obfuscation of the key game combat feedback mechanics. Just saying and I AC because I'm forced to but it still stinks

God_flakes

Careful @RinaldoGandolphi, @Wollust will now come call you a baddie.

And hey what a great idea!!!! Zos ought to have vma bosses animation cancel! (Then let's see @Mythk get that perfect score!)

KenaPKK

Jauriel looking to do some forum 1vX.

blabafat

@God_flakes

I respect your opinion. However, I disagree with your logic. So, animation canceling is a skill based aspect of the game. It requires skill/practice. You said that it's not fair, but if one person has not spent time to master a certain aspect of the game, while the opponent has, that opponent should have the upper hand. It's like me saying someone who has played longer than me and more skilled than me has an unfair advantage. It's not an unfair advantage.

Rohamad_Ali

Animation canceling as stated before OP is legal . I'm very good at it and can make the 4 attack combos super fast where you only see one and a half of them . However , this is a 5 button game so I hate it and don't see it as a skill but a gankering tool in combat . Anyone can get good at animation canceling with practice but it does not equal skill in a 5 button game . Speeding up 5 buttons just makes the game a spam fest .

Most games I play in the past 10 buttons 6 toolbars , no animation canceling . Thos games take skill and those who don't know how to toolbar swap quickly lean on macros from lack of skill . Those games , weaving attacks , interrupts and escapes are truly skill based games . That's why this place harbors a lot of easy mode still need macros for five button combat UI scrubs . They have no real skills with large tool option games so even automate easy mode stuff here .

If the Devs ever owned up to their mistake of animation canceling , because it was not intended ,they had to be shown , and fixed it , we would have a better system . Harder to macro and harder to CE without being noticed . Then the skill bar would be accurate with time of attacks to match with easy mode 5 buttons game .

All my opinion of course .

leepalmer95

Animation cancelling is the only thing still in this game that requires skill.

No need to remove it so the bad players can close the skill gap without doing anything even more.

Avenias

Animation cancelling is basically a bug. ZOS cant fix it, so they are just pretending that its how they wanted it to work in the first place.

ToRelax

It's also a myth that you can hide your actions completely with animation cancelling, even before their last overhaul. Just that players who can't animation cancel properly certainly have no clue what to look for when someone does.

NeillMcAttack

The thing that annoys me about AC is that it is now the ONLY required skill. Co-ordination, anticipation, communication, organization, positioning etc etc are all supposed to be required skills in group play environments. Dueling aside obviously. The game is clearly designed with group play at the forefront but AC granting so much more burst than was originally intended, I feel it actually completely hinders many of these gameplay aspects.

Wheeler himself stated that they are working on animation prioritization and that they will always feel that blocking should take precedent, which I do agree with as it is reactionary and thus warranted in my opinion. But to what degree should block cancel animations? Let's take Incap stike for example. It has a fairly large animation before the damage is applied without canceling. But how can we justify that the damage should go through instantly when block is pushed thereby removing the opponents chance at reacting, and at the same time claim that the attacker should have the ability to react with a block?! It doesn't make any sense...!

Draxys

Why does this keep coming up? Unless I missed an update, zenimax has explicitly stated that animation cancelling is prt of the game.

Emma_Overload

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Animation canceling as stated before OP is legal . I'm very good at it and can make the 4 attack combos super fast where you only see one and a half of them . However , this is a 5 button game so I hate it and don't see it as a skill but a gankering tool in combat . Anyone can get good at animation canceling with practice but it does not equal skill in a 5 button game . Speeding up 5 buttons just makes the game a spam fest .

Most games I play in the past 10 buttons 6 toolbars , no animation canceling . Thos games take skill and those who don't know how to toolbar swap quickly lean on macros from lack of skill . Those games , weaving attacks , interrupts and escapes are truly skill based games . That's why this place harbors a lot of easy mode still need macros for five button combat UI scrubs . They have no real skills with large tool option games so even automate easy mode stuff here .

If the Devs ever owned up to their mistake of animation canceling , because it was not intended ,they had to be shown , and fixed it , we would have a better system . Harder to macro and harder to CE without being noticed . Then the skill bar would be accurate with time of attacks to match with easy mode 5 buttons game .

All my opinion of course .

The only way to get rid of AC would be to make light/heavy attacks and abilities share the same cooldown. If they did this, no one would ever use light/heavy attacks except to proc something!

OdinForge

ToRelax wrote: »

It's also a myth that you can hide your actions completely with animation cancelling, even before their last overhaul. Just that players who can't animation cancel properly certainly have no clue what to look for when someone does.

This. Animation canceling is fine, the people who don't understand it or know how to do it will always be behind.

outsideworld76

Animation canceling should be taken out of the game. If you don't see the animation, what good is a VIDEO game?
No animation, no effect, period.

caeliusstarbreaker

My question is, why is animation canceling a problem for any of you? It's the only thing in the game that even resembles a "combo."

RinaldoGandolphi

Even though I'm not a fan of AC they can't remove it until they can make combat fluid without it. It can be done but would require some major work. Until that is done AC has to stay and I will continue to use it even though I don't like it.

Fluid combat is most important they would need some major re works to get it done but the game would be better for it. Until then however AC needs to stay or combat fluidity would be gone completely

God_flakes

If animation canceling was *meant* to be part of the game.....why did they implement animations at all then? Gee why not just make all animations diminished or invisible? Why have animations at all?