Animation cancelling, bar swapping, and weaving are not fun.

Eiagra

It's interesting to see various thoughts on this topic, especially those who are on Console and have no choice but to use a gamepad (which forces entirely different patterns of attack, it seems), and those who are physically unable due to reflexes, injury, or disability.

It's this last that kind of bothers me. If this "feature" is supposed to be a part of the game, it should be more accessible. There should not only be tutorials in-game to teach it to players, but it should be easier for those with reduced mobility to perform. Otherwise, you're walling off content, and the person with damaged arms doesn't get to play with friends who have no such injury because their Trial leaders say they're not doing enough deeps.

It took ages for ZOS to implement a feature to allow those who are colorblind to finally be able to see telegraphs, though, so I'm not holding my breath.

Stormahawk

Animation cancelling is pretty much the only thing that adds skill differences to the game. If that was removed, everyone would be almost the same.

What I personally don't like is having to heavy attack for resources while doing the weaving and bar swapping since it's disruptive to the rhythm and feels clunky.

technohic

A little consistency across weapon types and different animations would be nice but other than that; no big deal.

bebynnag

The_Protagonist wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

sevomd69 wrote: »

On Xb1...using the elite controller and mapping weapon swap to one of the paddles has helped tremendously...can't imagine playing without the elite controller...

Its the same thing except you jump when you weapon swap when you need to be moving aka in PvP. In static fights like in PvE... There's literally no difference between a normal controller and an Elite one.

Did anyone try using this? I have been eyeing it, but the experience with a regular gamepad made me have reservations. Any feedback would be appreciated.

i had one for about a week before 'glide' set in

i have no idea if i had bad luck, or if this is a known issue, i got a refund

the usability was much better than both traditional & elite contolers
it was lighter, more confortable to hold (no battery as its a wired controller)
the buttons/toggles were all where my fingers naturally fell so no straining or weird positioning, or unnatural movements

btw, i have medium to large sized hands for a female, which is considered small (re male gloves, bandages, controllers)

The_Protagonist

bebynnag wrote: »

The_Protagonist wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

sevomd69 wrote: »

On Xb1...using the elite controller and mapping weapon swap to one of the paddles has helped tremendously...can't imagine playing without the elite controller...

Its the same thing except you jump when you weapon swap when you need to be moving aka in PvP. In static fights like in PvE... There's literally no difference between a normal controller and an Elite one.

Did anyone try using this? I have been eyeing it, but the experience with a regular gamepad made me have reservations. Any feedback would be appreciated.

i had one for about a week before 'glide' set in

i have no idea if i had bad luck, or if this is a known issue, i got a refund

the usability was much better than both traditional & elite contolers
it was lighter, more confortable to hold (no battery as its a wired controller)
the buttons/toggles were all where my fingers naturally fell so no straining or weird positioning, or unnatural movements

btw, i have medium to large sized hands for a female, which is considered small (re male gloves, bandages, controllers)

Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback.

Knootewoot

I do not like animation cancelling. I think it's weird, but I do understand some people like it.

Weaving happens even when your not even trying to do it. That's just something when you press several buttons to attack.

Animation cancelling by bar swapping and blocking or cancelling a heavy attack by performing a skill I think is stupid but that is my opinion. I find it easy to learn and hard to master but find the combat less fun and more of a chore/race then just pressing skills and weaving in a few light attacks.
Also it looks stupid if you see an attack not performed but still do/get damage and people blocking/swapping like drugaddicts during a fight.

I do not use it during PvE and PvP so I have less dps but at least I do not get mouse finger pain and carpal syndrome. I do not think the combat is clunky without using it except maybe heavy attacks. But I do understand people using it for more dps and trying to kill those to_much_health bosses in trials as fast as possible.

But I have to accept it is here to stay. And I have. But I do admit I look forward to another game with skill cooldowns like the old days. I am not 20 anymore and need more slow paced.

kuma82

It's funny even after explaining, and the fact it is in the title, we still had people come in and say learn to play. This was more a question about fun. The combat feels like a tedious chore to have to nail down cancellations and bar swaps. What makes it worse is the fact that it is unnatural. Nothing in the game guides you down that path to show that, probably as people have pointed out because it wasn't intended. Taking away animation cancelling doesn't remove skill. Plenty of other mmos have it and there is still a skill gap in those games among players, mostly though in PvP. Since pve revolves more around just learning boss mechanics and having decent gear. Even in other games that try to balance it out more for casuals there are still plenty of people who can't do all of the content.

Honestly the animations should be part of the fun of the class/combat. Might as well just have a character stand there motionless as if it's glitched if you just cancel it all and want the numbers. The animation should reinforce the fun gameplay/combat. I think zos has some animations that are a little too long that could be shortened.

Shorten some animations, let quick follow up light attacks weave into the others like they do now, and speed up the swings of attacks since those can feel slow. Or give a class/weapon skill that casts like a frenzy ability.

The_Protagonist

kuma82 wrote: »

It's funny even after explaining, and the fact it is in the title, we still had people come in and say learn to play. This was more a question about fun. The combat feels like a tedious chore to have to nail down cancellations and bar swaps. What makes it worse is the fact that it is unnatural. Nothing in the game guides you down that path to show that, probably as people have pointed out because it wasn't intended. Taking away animation cancelling doesn't remove skill. Plenty of other mmos have it and there is still a skill gap in those games among players, mostly though in PvP. Since pve revolves more around just learning boss mechanics and having decent gear. Even in other games that try to balance it out more for casuals there are still plenty of people who can't do all of the content.

Honestly the animations should be part of the fun of the class/combat. Might as well just have a character stand there motionless as if it's glitched if you just cancel it all and want the numbers. The animation should reinforce the fun gameplay/combat. I think zos has some animations that are a little too long that could be shortened.

Shorten some animations, let quick follow up light attacks weave into the others like they do now, and speed up the swings of attacks since those can feel slow. Or give a class/weapon skill that casts like a frenzy ability.

This I can agree with, but unfortunately ZOS seems to have no clue on how to address it and took the easy way out by embracing it, more so as a necessary evil.

Myyth

I agree that attack rotations should be engaging, but having them rely on broken game mechanics like animation cancelling is not good. Thats just bad design.

Light weaving? I am not sure what that even is. Does pressing the attack button constantly in combat count?

inf.toniceb17_ESO

This is why i only play tank these days. Being a DD in this game is just boring.

tunepunk

kuma82 wrote: »

The combat feels like a tedious chore to have to nail down cancellations and bar swaps.

^This

But it luckily in PvE it only applies to longer boss fights. It's pretty much the only part where you actually do any form of rotation, and weaving because everything else in game drops in a few seconds.

The whole stacking of dot's & effects and keeping it up is what makes it a chore when you're casing high DPS in a boss fight. I wouldn't mind it that much if the effects lasted 30seconds+, but swapping bar and reapplying every 10 second or so, is ridiculous, i rather just spam wrecking blow.

nnargun

I personally love the fast paced action combat. The game really got a lot more exciting when I learnded about weaving/cancelling. Also performing a LA between each skill is actually really easy once you've forced yourself to use LA button just before any other skill button. Can't really imagine doing it with mouse and keyboard though. Love my gamepad.

nnargun

Izaki wrote: »

sevomd69 wrote: »

On Xb1...using the elite controller and mapping weapon swap to one of the paddles has helped tremendously...can't imagine playing without the elite controller...

Its the same thing except you jump when you weapon swap when you need to be moving aka in PvP. In static fights like in PvE... There's literally no difference between a normal controller and an Elite one.

Have you tried the elite contoller yourself? It's awesome with the paddles and makes weapon swapping much smoother. How annoying is having to stop moving each time you wanna swap your weapon and move your thumb all the way from the stick to the d-pad?

HeroOfNone

I agree that the current rotation meta is borning, but sadly I don't see an elegant solution to thing.

We could try something like action queues, where each action you take is logged in as a pattern and executed as the last us finished. It may seem a bit boring, but recognizing when to interject an change it, watching your feet, etc. Would then take on most of the challenge.

You could add in boost synergies to a majority of abilities, meaning you do your rotation and every now and then you have to hit a specific key to deal bonus damage. Think of it like a mini quick time event.

There could be double cast abilities that work a little like the afore mentioned action queues, but only allow one follow up ability once a current active one is in its animation, leading to better transfer animations if you're not blocking or roll dodging during the first.

But all these ideas take time, work, and a serious technical overhaul. I'm unsure ZOS has the man power to address it. I also worry if they go back to the way things were, the DPS rotations will be a lot harder for new players to grasp or disabled players to achieve. ZOS has been terrible on offering alternate ways to DPS up till now.

In the meantime I hope they work on correcting bugs like the heavy attack pause and work to equalize some of the ability combos that are ignoring global cooldown and fix others where animation canceling makes the ability not even show on screen (dawnbreaker block canceling for example). These seem like easier targets to address that have impact on the game today.

idk

DeathHouseInc wrote: »

This is the conclusion I have come to after trying to emulate rotations in this game for the past two months.

It makes every DPS class to me monotonous and boring.

I understand light attacks need to be relevant...I think it should be a way that is actually fun.

Makes absolutely no sense. Essentially sounds like OP is saying combat in ESO is no fun.

Weaving light attacks essentially become normal. For someone just starting it is awkward but it will come. Zos has made it clear with various changes over 2.5 years basic attack weaving is here to stay.

As for as ani canceling outside of weaving basic attacks, few make it a focus outside of ehrjnyheyre bar sealing.

As for bar sealing itself, again, it's a normal thing and has been part of the basic design of the game since beta to have the most skills available to us.

Edit: this also seems to be part of the new MMORPG combat based on what seems to be coming down the pipe. That along with other aspects that can alter a skill that is more then just pressing a button then pressing another button.

Azurya

they are fun, just do some training, it is all about muscle memory!
go to some grind spot, and train, you can do it!

GrumpyDuckling

Blanco wrote: »

All those things are fun (and also require skill).

Seriously, and I say this for your own good, you may want to look into an easier game if you can't do/ don't enjoy those things.

What a shortsighted comment.

You are telling someone to leave the game because YOU think animation canceling and weaving is fun and they do not. There is much more to ESO than animation canceling and weaving. They don't speak for the whole game.

Alexandrious

Khenarthi wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

The_Protagonist wrote: »

There are a few things you need to invest in if you want to be good.

or

I also use

Even this requires quite a bit of commitment to get used to, but once you start getting the hang of it, you will never go back

Even fancy gear won't help you if you're just clumsy. I have the naga and the orbweaver, and I'm still quite bad at dd rotations because my fingers just aren't that fast or coordinated.

i suspect he did post them because you can make macros for all the buttons.
you don't have to weave light attacks with stuff like that. you can just tell your mouse to light attack automatically when you use a skill.

Macros are cheating and can get you banned: I'm too attached to my account to risk it.

The extra buttons on the mouse are very handy (I got the thumb programmed for I, T, C, X, E, H, P, R, Alt, Ctrl, Q, F, swap) and I use the orbweaver's joystick as my ASWD with the lower 2 rows of keys for my spells. Utimate and sneak go on the thumb too. The two upper rows on the orbweaver I cannot reach, my fingers are very short...

The amount of kek im doin over this post......kekekekekekekekek

Magdalina

I think weaving is actually pretty fun. And I normally play on a laptop, at over 200 ping, and I'm admittedly not very good at it. What's really NOT fun is heavy attacks spammables. Just...no.

It also used to be a LOT less clunky or is it just me? I feel they kinda broke something during one of their "let the animations flow" updates. Now it does feel kind of a bit jerky which was not the case before in my experience.

Verbal_Earthworm

weaving can be fun...i made a scarf once

SanTii.92

theamazingx wrote: »

It can get boring. Imagine how much more boring it would get if you were just pressing 5 buttons in slow sequence over and over.


It’s true that some rpgs base performance more heavily on the gear grind, allowing the character to essentially play itself, but both the combat system and the gear progression system would have to be entirely reworked for that to happen, and existing players would leave en masse. For many, the skill curve available to dps is the only thing that makes the game interesting for them. I personally like that 2 hours of a concentrated learning effort is significantly larger dps increase than farming a hundred undaunted keys for the right trait or spending 2 months farming normal Maw for a moondancer staff, the same way that spending several hours learning a boss fight helps more than spending several days for a specifc build that trivializes it as you might in other games.

Ping is an obstacle, it will always be an obstacle no matter how much you simplify the combat. But I regularly play with an Australian whos parses equal mine on a regular basis, so I always take that line of reasoning with a grain of salt. It sucks but it’s clearly not gamebreaking.

Pretty much here. Blows my mind how someone could think current system is monotonous and tedious, yet they don't propose any system in it's place. How wouldn't be far more boring to stand idle just pressing skills keys.

In any case, if you don't like waving, or feel like chilling tonight, no one is forcing you to, nor is required except for very few instances. Just find like minded people like you, who dont care going a bit slower.

RazorCaltrops

One of the BIS weapons in the game (vma staff) + bow’s hawk eye passive encourage weaving.

They changed the way relentless focus/merciless resolve works so that you’ll be able to animation cancel it in the last pts patch

And these “exploits” are not fun and intended ?

These kinds of threads never fail to amuse.

Axoinus

Generally agree with OP. However, pointless discussion.

ZOS can't remove it from a technical perspective. Additionally, all balancing has been implemented with weaving and AC built in.

Changing it at this point would straight up kill the game.

With that said, for PvE, I would consider it (Weaving and AC) optional for 95% of content.

starkerealm

bebynnag wrote: »

The_Protagonist wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

sevomd69 wrote: »

On Xb1...using the elite controller and mapping weapon swap to one of the paddles has helped tremendously...can't imagine playing without the elite controller...

Its the same thing except you jump when you weapon swap when you need to be moving aka in PvP. In static fights like in PvE... There's literally no difference between a normal controller and an Elite one.

Did anyone try using this? I have been eyeing it, but the experience with a regular gamepad made me have reservations. Any feedback would be appreciated.

i had one for about a week before 'glide' set in

i have no idea if i had bad luck, or if this is a known issue, i got a refund

the usability was much better than both traditional & elite contolers
it was lighter, more confortable to hold (no battery as its a wired controller)
the buttons/toggles were all where my fingers naturally fell so no straining or weird positioning, or unnatural movements

btw, i have medium to large sized hands for a female, which is considered small (re male gloves, bandages, controllers)

Razer quality control seems to have taken a severe nose dive over the last few years. Used to be, their peripherals were fantastic. I still have the first mouse I bought from them, and it works as well now as it did ten years ago. But in the last couple years I've had two Taipans outright fail within six months of buying them, and the Blackwidow I bought shortly after that first Taipan lasted about a year before croaking. So... yeah, I don't know exactly what's going on, but I've stopped recommending their products to anyone as a result.

generalmyrick

after much analyzation i know it is THE weakness in my game. but that's cool, i don't mind playing second fiddle to those that wanna be great and do it.

Jeremy

DeathHouseInc wrote: »

This is the conclusion I have come to after trying to emulate rotations in this game for the past two months.

It makes every DPS class to me monotonous and boring.

I understand light attacks need to be relevant...I think it should be a way that is actually fun.

I tend to agree with you.

Even the description of it - animation canceling - just sounds cheesy and exploitive. It also looks stupid and disrupts the flow of combat.

I believe the developers made a mistake when they embraced it. It was probably a pain to fix - so instead they decided to just incorporate it and pretend that it made their game more interesting instead.

SanTii.92

Jeremy wrote: »

DeathHouseInc wrote: »

This is the conclusion I have come to after trying to emulate rotations in this game for the past two months.

It makes every DPS class to me monotonous and boring.

I understand light attacks need to be relevant...I think it should be a way that is actually fun.

I tend to agree with you.

Even the description of it - animation canceling - just sounds cheesy and exploitive. It also looks stupid and disrupts the flow of combat.

I believe the developers made a mistake when they embraced it. It was probably a pain to fix - so instead they decided to just incorporate it and pretend that it made their game more interesting instead.

No, they didn't pretend, that's exactly what it does and why they kept it. This isn't even debatable, how more mechianics won't make things more interesting?

D0PAMINE

I just have trouble in long fights cause my hands get sore and lock up.

Alexandrious

starkerealm wrote: »

bebynnag wrote: »

The_Protagonist wrote: »

Izaki wrote: »

sevomd69 wrote: »

On Xb1...using the elite controller and mapping weapon swap to one of the paddles has helped tremendously...can't imagine playing without the elite controller...

Its the same thing except you jump when you weapon swap when you need to be moving aka in PvP. In static fights like in PvE... There's literally no difference between a normal controller and an Elite one.

Did anyone try using this? I have been eyeing it, but the experience with a regular gamepad made me have reservations. Any feedback would be appreciated.

i had one for about a week before 'glide' set in

i have no idea if i had bad luck, or if this is a known issue, i got a refund

the usability was much better than both traditional & elite contolers
it was lighter, more confortable to hold (no battery as its a wired controller)
the buttons/toggles were all where my fingers naturally fell so no straining or weird positioning, or unnatural movements

btw, i have medium to large sized hands for a female, which is considered small (re male gloves, bandages, controllers)

Razer quality control seems to have taken a severe nose dive over the last few years. Used to be, their peripherals were fantastic. I still have the first mouse I bought from them, and it works as well now as it did ten years ago. But in the last couple years I've had two Taipans outright fail within six months of buying them, and the Blackwidow I bought shortly after that first Taipan lasted about a year before croaking. So... yeah, I don't know exactly what's going on, but I've stopped recommending their products to anyone as a result.

Just stop doing this in pvp, it will last longer.
https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/shoddyunripeadder

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

I miss the old weigthed trait... now that LA/HA are an actual thing...attack speed would had been such an awesome addition here...