Animation cancelling

Foxic

mikemacon wrote: »

When a bug becomes a feature touted by a developer.

This.

I love ESO - but I was immensely disappointed when I discovered that animation cancelling had been embraced by ZOS devs and that as a result the high-tier endgame content just about requires it to get adequate DPS on bosses.

Ability animations in other games are there for a reason - to help with game balance.

I'll give you an example: In Destiny, there is an exotic sniper known as the No Land Beyond. Because snipers are OHK weapons, Destiny placed them in the "special weapon" slot and restricted the ammo available during PVP. No Land Beyond was an "exotic" (a semi-rare technically overpowered gold-tier weapon) which was equipped in the Primary slot (so it used Primary ammo which was plentiful). Because of that, the devs designed the gun as a bolt-action: It had one round in the camber and the reload animation was comparatively long.

High-end players discovered that they could "reload cancel" the animation by sprinting right after clicking the reload button, which removed the pain point of the long reload time and made the gun unbalanced.

Bungie issued a patch so that while you could still cancel the animation, the actual reload time remain unchanged. Hence, balance was restored.

ZOS's decision to embrace the exploit and incorporate it into the game means that people who suck at animation cancelling (like myself and my potato internet) are effectively excluded from high-end endgame.

It is what it is. Now that it's a part of the game, it's not going away.

But I was and remain very disappointed with that decision.

You proved yourself wrong with your own example. Animation cancelling at this point in the game does not make it possible to use any skill any faster. Zos has patched all instances of this over the years.

What animation canceling is, is weaving separate global cooldowns. Most commonly the light attack cool down and the skill cooldown. You cannot speed up your light attacks or skills this way, you can use them quickly together because they are on separate globals.

Without them being on separate cooldowns you would never auto attack as there would be no point to ever prioritize your weapon attack over a skill.

Gilvoth

idk wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

when i see people killed me in under 1 second and i look at the death recap and it shows MANY hits from several skills that all landed in 1 hit in under 1 second, and i know for a fact i was not lagging, thats from hyper animation canceling that was done with a macro.

Getting hit by several skills in one second is often lag. Might way it was not. There is no hyper animation canceling either. It is limited by the GCD tied to every single skill except ones with activation times, they have longer required times before the animation can be canceled and the skill still fire.

The required time cannot be bypassed. Animation canceling in it's most basic form has been encouraged by changed made at least twice during the past year. Zos realizes it is what sets ESO apart from games like WoW and SWTOR and seems to be part of some new games being developed.

nah, it wasn't lagg.

khele23eb17_ESO

exeeter702 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

mikemacon wrote: »

When a bug becomes a feature touted by a developer.

This.

I love ESO - but I was immensely disappointed when I discovered that animation cancelling had been embraced by ZOS devs and that as a result the high-tier endgame content just about requires it to get adequate DPS on bosses.

Ability animations in other games are there for a reason - to help with game balance.

I'll give you an example: In Destiny, there is an exotic sniper known as the No Land Beyond. Because snipers are OHK weapons, Destiny placed them in the "special weapon" slot and restricted the ammo available during PVP. No Land Beyond was an "exotic" (a semi-rare technically overpowered gold-tier weapon) which was equipped in the Primary slot (so it used Primary ammo which was plentiful). Because of that, the devs designed the gun as a bolt-action: It had one round in the camber and the reload animation was comparatively long.

High-end players discovered that they could "reload cancel" the animation by sprinting right after clicking the reload button, which removed the pain point of the long reload time and made the gun unbalanced.

Bungie issued a patch so that while you could still cancel the animation, the actual reload time remain unchanged. Hence, balance was restored.

ZOS's decision to embrace the exploit and incorporate it into the game means that people who suck at animation cancelling (like myself and my potato internet) are effectively excluded from high-end endgame.

It is what it is. Now that it's a part of the game, it's not going away.

But I was and remain very disappointed with that decision.

Good insight. To piggyback, if you look at channels/cast times, it's almost terrible how overnight those abilities lost importance in the combat system. And AC clashes with the design intent of having the animation system govern your character reaction in the environment. That's why players moved to tank builds in pvp; less DMG from multiple attacks.

Not saying AC is wrong or right. Just that it's hard to see it within the context of how they envisioned the game originally.

Most cast time abilites fit within the GCD and all abilities, cast time or instant will immediately trigger the GCD upon button press. What this means is cast time abilites will resolve right at the GCD refresh, this is why when you see uppercut used back to back, you never see the recovery animation (character sways back due to wepons weight) because that animation is visual flare being shown after the ability successfully completes its cast time. If you were locked into that recovery animation, you would be unfairly punished if for example you successfully aim, complete the cast and connect an uppercut on an opponent and you see a snipe flying your way and are forced to eat it because you cant block until your character finishes recovering from the animation.

So how do you address that?

Do you make the skill look ridiculous by having it not have any type of follow through visual?

Do you make it look equally ridiculous AND visually unintuitive by speeding up the existing animation of uppercut (cast time PLUS follow through animation) and squeeze it all within thr GCD resulting in the resolution point where damage is calculated being placed at the very end of the animation?

The intended battle design is very clear, people just dont understand what is actually happening and the concessions the devs took when creating a battle system for an MMO that obeys traditional mmo rules while emphasising active combat.

ZOS have stated animation cancelling was not an intended feature but that they decided to leave it in regardless. This was not done by design.

Also Ive played games that dont have animation cancelling and Im sure you have as well so I dont see the whole 'it cant be done!' argument. Personally Id rather have animations that play out in full. Its up to the devs to design them in a way that keeps the combat dynamic and engaging, and doesnt look ***. Again, at this point in the game's life such a change is not going to happen. Its too much work and would require redesigning a lot of animations or even making new ones from scratch.

Betsararie

Mureel wrote: »

Blanco wrote: »

You have to be good to do it. It's mainly about knowing when your attacks hit/activate and requires skill.

The people who are against it are simply unable to implement it themselves. Or else they would like it.

It's something that you have to be skilled enough to use, and then it will really help you.

Everyscrub makes posts like these. So ambiguous.

You didn't really say anything useful at all.

What animation cancelling requires is relatively invariable ping so that when you practise your light (or heavy) attack cancelling, you can reliably have the same result from la+skill.

Yes you need some practise - but it reeally is not difficult.

What will get you is when your ping is up and down up and down all the time - and I speak from the perspective of la/siphon which are a pain anyway. LA/Force Pulse is easier - but sustain is harder.

The MAIN ISSUE most people have that I've seen is keeping dots down and not allowing them to expire. Count out your la/spammable till your dots expire and always count them until you are used to replacing your dots in a timely manner, then you will get used to it.

Really variable ping will still mess your weave up - but keeping ground AOE down is just as important or moreso than a perfect LA weave.

Well I don't have any real ping issues, stability is generally fine for me outside of random disconnects and infinite load screens here and there.

I live in the U.S. so a lot of the time lag is manageable.

I don't think animation cancelling is extremely difficult, but maintain it requires skill. LA weaving could be the most beneficial form of animation cancelling, but as I stated before the most crucial part of animation cancelling is knowing when your attacks hit/activate, because if you know exactly when you can bar swap/block/LA/use another skill, then that is when you can be most efficient at animation cancelling.

That is yet another way where it requires skill. And I repeat the people who are against simply were never able to get it down. I basically self-taught, but did a lot of copying from streamers when I was first starting in PvP, something I wholeheartedly recommend anyone who is interested in learning it to do.

exeeter702

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

mikemacon wrote: »

When a bug becomes a feature touted by a developer.

This.

I love ESO - but I was immensely disappointed when I discovered that animation cancelling had been embraced by ZOS devs and that as a result the high-tier endgame content just about requires it to get adequate DPS on bosses.

Ability animations in other games are there for a reason - to help with game balance.

I'll give you an example: In Destiny, there is an exotic sniper known as the No Land Beyond. Because snipers are OHK weapons, Destiny placed them in the "special weapon" slot and restricted the ammo available during PVP. No Land Beyond was an "exotic" (a semi-rare technically overpowered gold-tier weapon) which was equipped in the Primary slot (so it used Primary ammo which was plentiful). Because of that, the devs designed the gun as a bolt-action: It had one round in the camber and the reload animation was comparatively long.

High-end players discovered that they could "reload cancel" the animation by sprinting right after clicking the reload button, which removed the pain point of the long reload time and made the gun unbalanced.

Bungie issued a patch so that while you could still cancel the animation, the actual reload time remain unchanged. Hence, balance was restored.

ZOS's decision to embrace the exploit and incorporate it into the game means that people who suck at animation cancelling (like myself and my potato internet) are effectively excluded from high-end endgame.

It is what it is. Now that it's a part of the game, it's not going away.

But I was and remain very disappointed with that decision.

Good insight. To piggyback, if you look at channels/cast times, it's almost terrible how overnight those abilities lost importance in the combat system. And AC clashes with the design intent of having the animation system govern your character reaction in the environment. That's why players moved to tank builds in pvp; less DMG from multiple attacks.

Not saying AC is wrong or right. Just that it's hard to see it within the context of how they envisioned the game originally.

Most cast time abilites fit within the GCD and all abilities, cast time or instant will immediately trigger the GCD upon button press. What this means is cast time abilites will resolve right at the GCD refresh, this is why when you see uppercut used back to back, you never see the recovery animation (character sways back due to wepons weight) because that animation is visual flare being shown after the ability successfully completes its cast time. If you were locked into that recovery animation, you would be unfairly punished if for example you successfully aim, complete the cast and connect an uppercut on an opponent and you see a snipe flying your way and are forced to eat it because you cant block until your character finishes recovering from the animation.

So how do you address that?

Do you make the skill look ridiculous by having it not have any type of follow through visual?

Do you make it look equally ridiculous AND visually unintuitive by speeding up the existing animation of uppercut (cast time PLUS follow through animation) and squeeze it all within thr GCD resulting in the resolution point where damage is calculated being placed at the very end of the animation?

The intended battle design is very clear, people just dont understand what is actually happening and the concessions the devs took when creating a battle system for an MMO that obeys traditional mmo rules while emphasising active combat.

ZOS have stated animation cancelling was not an intended feature but that they decided to leave it in regardless. This was not done by design.

Also Ive played games that dont have animation cancelling and Im sure you have as well so I dont see the whole 'it cant be done!' argument. Personally Id rather have animations that play out in full. Its up to the devs to design them in a way that keeps the combat dynamic and engaging, and doesnt look ***. Again, at this point in the game's life such a change is not going to happen. Its too much work and would require redesigning a lot of animations or even making new ones from scratch.

Its almsot as if you didnt even read what i wrote.

Animation canceling is a result of the INTENDED combat design of this game. The GCD was not an accident. Creating recovery animation on abilities was not an accident. Intentionally allowing players to take defensive actions at any time was not an accident.

And christ... please stop mentioning other games not having it. Those games arent eso. Souls games and mass effect are not mmos. Frankly any game you want to dare name drop will be under the same criteria. Those games are not beholden to a universal timing mechanic that is server side that needs to operate simultaneously for large amounts of players in a single instance. Those games dont have countless unique abilities that have to all be balanced under the same umbrella to operate within said combat system. Do you really want to get into how utterly awful it would be if combat was intentionally weighted where each and every unique ability behaves differently from one another in both timing and connection to targets and apply that to an environment like cyrodill or trials?

idk

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

idk wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

when i see people killed me in under 1 second and i look at the death recap and it shows MANY hits from several skills that all landed in 1 hit in under 1 second, and i know for a fact i was not lagging, thats from hyper animation canceling that was done with a macro.

Getting hit by several skills in one second is often lag. Might way it was not. There is no hyper animation canceling either. It is limited by the GCD tied to every single skill except ones with activation times, they have longer required times before the animation can be canceled and the skill still fire.

The required time cannot be bypassed. Animation canceling in it's most basic form has been encouraged by changed made at least twice during the past year. Zos realizes it is what sets ESO apart from games like WoW and SWTOR and seems to be part of some new games being developed.

nah, it wasn't lagg.

If you are getting hit buy 3+ things in one second it has to be lag or add-on performance except for snipe being one due to it's long travel time.

There is a GCD of 1 second on all instant skills, activated skills are longer. Animation canceling cannot bypass the GCD.

CyrusArya

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

nah, it wasn't lagg.

Mind posting a combat metrics recap or a death recap or a video so we could see for our selves these multiple attacks in a second? Im willing to bet its either DoTs, delayed burst (like Sorc, Warden, Power of the Light, etc) or simply your mind compressing the time cus you got rekt so hard.

In my experience, the ppl that die incredibly fast and in one clean rotation do so cus they don't cc break with haste or simply don't heal or use any defensive measure at all.

Alexandrious

Lexxypwns wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

when i see people killed me in under 1 second and i look at the death recap and it shows MANY hits from several skills that all landed in 1 hit in under 1 second, and i know for a fact i was not lagging, thats from hyper animation canceling that was done with a macro.

Ffs man.... i give up

Hyper animation canceling, not to be confused with super, mega, or ultra animation canceling

What about ultra alpha omega superkamehameha cancelling? Not the same as hyper cancelling?

All The Kek

dmar613

There is block canceling (hit vigor and block).

There is bar swap canceling ( hit reverb bash and then bar swap).

There is light attack and heavy attack weaving (charge a heavy attack and right as its gonna land, hit suprise attack [most op].

There is dodge roll cancelling (hit executioner then roll right after).

But there also use to be wrecking blow [Low Key taught me when I first started] and crystal frag true animation cancels [ not a thing anymore it was really op]

(Charge a heavy attack and hit wrecking blow half way through, it would literally hide the wb animation so all you saw was a heavy attack, but got hit with both the heavy attack and the Wrecking Blow at the same time, and constantly continue the weaves).

Like i said you can no longer do that because it was op and people complained about not being able to react to the wb because you literallly could not see it, and it pumped out maximum burst.

Reminds me of my glory days running with Golden Guns and The Moving Wall. Reflecting a meteor and dragon leaping off the third story of a resource, Enemies didnt stand a chance quite frankly. Xbox NA.

Gilvoth

dmar613 wrote: »

There is block canceling (hit vigor and block).

There is bar swap canceling ( hit reverb bash and then bar swap).

There is light attack and heavy attack weaving (charge a heavy attack and right as its gonna land, hit suprise attack [most op].

There is dodge roll cancelling (hit executioner then roll right after).

But there also use to be wrecking blow [Low Key taught me when I first started] and crystal frag true animation cancels [ not a thing anymore it was really op]

(Charge a heavy attack and hit wrecking blow half way through, it would literally hide the wb animation so all you saw was a heavy attack, but got hit with both the heavy attack and the Wrecking Blow at the same time, and constantly continue the weaves).

Like i said you can no longer do that because it was op and people complained about not being able to react to the wb because you literallly could not see it, and it pumped out maximum burst.

Reminds me of my glory days running with Golden Guns and The Moving Wall. Reflecting a meteor and dragon leaping off the third story of a resource, Enemies didnt stand a chance quite frankly. Xbox NA.

according to the others here on this thread those dont exist and is only lagg.

Lord-Otto

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

dmar613 wrote: »

There is block canceling (hit vigor and block).

There is bar swap canceling ( hit reverb bash and then bar swap).

There is light attack and heavy attack weaving (charge a heavy attack and right as its gonna land, hit suprise attack [most op].

There is dodge roll cancelling (hit executioner then roll right after).

But there also use to be wrecking blow [Low Key taught me when I first started] and crystal frag true animation cancels [ not a thing anymore it was really op]

(Charge a heavy attack and hit wrecking blow half way through, it would literally hide the wb animation so all you saw was a heavy attack, but got hit with both the heavy attack and the Wrecking Blow at the same time, and constantly continue the weaves).

Like i said you can no longer do that because it was op and people complained about not being able to react to the wb because you literallly could not see it, and it pumped out maximum burst.

Reminds me of my glory days running with Golden Guns and The Moving Wall. Reflecting a meteor and dragon leaping off the third story of a resource, Enemies didnt stand a chance quite frankly. Xbox NA.

according to the others here on this thread those dont exist and is only lagg.

The others have already told you that these cancels don't bypass the global cooldown (1 second).

You can combine two separate cooldowns, like a light attack and a skill. Block and skill. But you can not, under lag-free circumstances, manipulate two same skills to hit at the same time. It is hardcoded into the game to not do that.

So when you drop by five snipes after your resources drained, that is a known server issue. When your death recap shows cursefragfury in one second, that is timing delayed attacks. When you see five surprise attacks in five seconds in that recap, but only saw one in the fight, it's lag messing with what you see.

It's not animation cancelling.

Biro123

Lord-Otto wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

dmar613 wrote: »

There is block canceling (hit vigor and block).

There is bar swap canceling ( hit reverb bash and then bar swap).

There is light attack and heavy attack weaving (charge a heavy attack and right as its gonna land, hit suprise attack [most op].

There is dodge roll cancelling (hit executioner then roll right after).

But there also use to be wrecking blow [Low Key taught me when I first started] and crystal frag true animation cancels [ not a thing anymore it was really op]

(Charge a heavy attack and hit wrecking blow half way through, it would literally hide the wb animation so all you saw was a heavy attack, but got hit with both the heavy attack and the Wrecking Blow at the same time, and constantly continue the weaves).

Like i said you can no longer do that because it was op and people complained about not being able to react to the wb because you literallly could not see it, and it pumped out maximum burst.

Reminds me of my glory days running with Golden Guns and The Moving Wall. Reflecting a meteor and dragon leaping off the third story of a resource, Enemies didnt stand a chance quite frankly. Xbox NA.

according to the others here on this thread those dont exist and is only lagg.

The others have already told you that these cancels don't bypass the global cooldown (1 second).

You can combine two separate cooldowns, like a light attack and a skill. Block and skill. But you can not, under lag-free circumstances, manipulate two same skills to hit at the same time. It is hardcoded into the game to not do that.

So when you drop by five snipes after your resources drained, that is a known server issue. When your death recap shows cursefragfury in one second, that is timing delayed attacks. When you see five surprise attacks in five seconds in that recap, but only saw one in the fight, it's lag messing with what you see.

It's not animation cancelling.

You're wasting your time.

As per other posts on this thread, and other threads, it's obvious that some people would rather preach from their tower of ignorance than read and learn from posts made by those genuinely trying to help/educate them.

Lord-Otto

Biro123 wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

dmar613 wrote: »

There is block canceling (hit vigor and block).

There is bar swap canceling ( hit reverb bash and then bar swap).

There is light attack and heavy attack weaving (charge a heavy attack and right as its gonna land, hit suprise attack [most op].

There is dodge roll cancelling (hit executioner then roll right after).

But there also use to be wrecking blow [Low Key taught me when I first started] and crystal frag true animation cancels [ not a thing anymore it was really op]

(Charge a heavy attack and hit wrecking blow half way through, it would literally hide the wb animation so all you saw was a heavy attack, but got hit with both the heavy attack and the Wrecking Blow at the same time, and constantly continue the weaves).

Like i said you can no longer do that because it was op and people complained about not being able to react to the wb because you literallly could not see it, and it pumped out maximum burst.

Reminds me of my glory days running with Golden Guns and The Moving Wall. Reflecting a meteor and dragon leaping off the third story of a resource, Enemies didnt stand a chance quite frankly. Xbox NA.

according to the others here on this thread those dont exist and is only lagg.

The others have already told you that these cancels don't bypass the global cooldown (1 second).

You can combine two separate cooldowns, like a light attack and a skill. Block and skill. But you can not, under lag-free circumstances, manipulate two same skills to hit at the same time. It is hardcoded into the game to not do that.

So when you drop by five snipes after your resources drained, that is a known server issue. When your death recap shows cursefragfury in one second, that is timing delayed attacks. When you see five surprise attacks in five seconds in that recap, but only saw one in the fight, it's lag messing with what you see.

It's not animation cancelling.

You're wasting your time.

As per other posts on this thread, and other threads, it's obvious that some people would rather preach from their tower of ignorance than read and learn from posts made by those genuinely trying to help/educate them.

Oh, I know he won't listen. I remember this guy regularly posting one-liners like "sorcs have been OP since beta". With the same amount of insight and reasoning he's shown here.

I just couldn't resist revealing his lack of knowledge again. And show him how you can actually have an insightful discussion instead of trying to sell your crappy opinions as facts.

In that regard, it's not a waste of time. It's the little things like this that help me cope with people like him, you know?
(^_-)

Waffennacht

Lord-Otto wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

dmar613 wrote: »

There is block canceling (hit vigor and block).

There is bar swap canceling ( hit reverb bash and then bar swap).

There is light attack and heavy attack weaving (charge a heavy attack and right as its gonna land, hit suprise attack [most op].

There is dodge roll cancelling (hit executioner then roll right after).

But there also use to be wrecking blow [Low Key taught me when I first started] and crystal frag true animation cancels [ not a thing anymore it was really op]

(Charge a heavy attack and hit wrecking blow half way through, it would literally hide the wb animation so all you saw was a heavy attack, but got hit with both the heavy attack and the Wrecking Blow at the same time, and constantly continue the weaves).

Like i said you can no longer do that because it was op and people complained about not being able to react to the wb because you literallly could not see it, and it pumped out maximum burst.

Reminds me of my glory days running with Golden Guns and The Moving Wall. Reflecting a meteor and dragon leaping off the third story of a resource, Enemies didnt stand a chance quite frankly. Xbox NA.

according to the others here on this thread those dont exist and is only lagg.

The others have already told you that these cancels don't bypass the global cooldown (1 second).

You can combine two separate cooldowns, like a light attack and a skill. Block and skill. But you can not, under lag-free circumstances, manipulate two same skills to hit at the same time. It is hardcoded into the game to not do that.

So when you drop by five snipes after your resources drained, that is a known server issue. When your death recap shows cursefragfury in one second, that is timing delayed attacks. When you see five surprise attacks in five seconds in that recap, but only saw one in the fight, it's lag messing with what you see.

It's not animation cancelling.

This explains everything, I don't understand how this isn't understood

khele23eb17_ESO

exeeter702 wrote: »

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

mikemacon wrote: »

When a bug becomes a feature touted by a developer.

This.

I love ESO - but I was immensely disappointed when I discovered that animation cancelling had been embraced by ZOS devs and that as a result the high-tier endgame content just about requires it to get adequate DPS on bosses.

Ability animations in other games are there for a reason - to help with game balance.

I'll give you an example: In Destiny, there is an exotic sniper known as the No Land Beyond. Because snipers are OHK weapons, Destiny placed them in the "special weapon" slot and restricted the ammo available during PVP. No Land Beyond was an "exotic" (a semi-rare technically overpowered gold-tier weapon) which was equipped in the Primary slot (so it used Primary ammo which was plentiful). Because of that, the devs designed the gun as a bolt-action: It had one round in the camber and the reload animation was comparatively long.

High-end players discovered that they could "reload cancel" the animation by sprinting right after clicking the reload button, which removed the pain point of the long reload time and made the gun unbalanced.

Bungie issued a patch so that while you could still cancel the animation, the actual reload time remain unchanged. Hence, balance was restored.

ZOS's decision to embrace the exploit and incorporate it into the game means that people who suck at animation cancelling (like myself and my potato internet) are effectively excluded from high-end endgame.

It is what it is. Now that it's a part of the game, it's not going away.

But I was and remain very disappointed with that decision.

Good insight. To piggyback, if you look at channels/cast times, it's almost terrible how overnight those abilities lost importance in the combat system. And AC clashes with the design intent of having the animation system govern your character reaction in the environment. That's why players moved to tank builds in pvp; less DMG from multiple attacks.

Not saying AC is wrong or right. Just that it's hard to see it within the context of how they envisioned the game originally.

Most cast time abilites fit within the GCD and all abilities, cast time or instant will immediately trigger the GCD upon button press. What this means is cast time abilites will resolve right at the GCD refresh, this is why when you see uppercut used back to back, you never see the recovery animation (character sways back due to wepons weight) because that animation is visual flare being shown after the ability successfully completes its cast time. If you were locked into that recovery animation, you would be unfairly punished if for example you successfully aim, complete the cast and connect an uppercut on an opponent and you see a snipe flying your way and are forced to eat it because you cant block until your character finishes recovering from the animation.

So how do you address that?

Do you make the skill look ridiculous by having it not have any type of follow through visual?

Do you make it look equally ridiculous AND visually unintuitive by speeding up the existing animation of uppercut (cast time PLUS follow through animation) and squeeze it all within thr GCD resulting in the resolution point where damage is calculated being placed at the very end of the animation?

The intended battle design is very clear, people just dont understand what is actually happening and the concessions the devs took when creating a battle system for an MMO that obeys traditional mmo rules while emphasising active combat.

ZOS have stated animation cancelling was not an intended feature but that they decided to leave it in regardless. This was not done by design.

Also Ive played games that dont have animation cancelling and Im sure you have as well so I dont see the whole 'it cant be done!' argument. Personally Id rather have animations that play out in full. Its up to the devs to design them in a way that keeps the combat dynamic and engaging, and doesnt look ***. Again, at this point in the game's life such a change is not going to happen. Its too much work and would require redesigning a lot of animations or even making new ones from scratch.

Its almsot as if you didnt even read what i wrote.

Animation canceling is a result of the INTENDED combat design of this game. The GCD was not an accident. Creating recovery animation on abilities was not an accident. Intentionally allowing players to take defensive actions at any time was not an accident.

And christ... please stop mentioning other games not having it. Those games arent eso. Souls games and mass effect are not mmos. Frankly any game you want to dare name drop will be under the same criteria. Those games are not beholden to a universal timing mechanic that is server side that needs to operate simultaneously for large amounts of players in a single instance. Those games dont have countless unique abilities that have to all be balanced under the same umbrella to operate within said combat system. Do you really want to get into how utterly awful it would be if combat was intentionally weighted where each and every unique ability behaves differently from one another in both timing and connection to targets and apply that to an environment like cyrodill or trials?

If you mean that animation cancelling is an unintended side effect (which is basically what ZOS have stated themselves in one of the ESO live podcasts) of the intended combat design Im fine with that description.

I was mostly talking about MMOs not single player games. Even if a game has animation canceling it can be implemented in a way that doesnt look *** - BDO is an example of that.

Gilvoth

this thread link i list here below ...
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4672443#Comment_4672443
shows more facts about what i am talking about.

Lord-Otto

Haaah...
Could you please be any more specific, Dwemer, FFS?

A quick glance at that thread shows people talking about animation cancelling for a dps rotation.
That focuses on optimizing said two DIFFERENT cooldowns. So, light attack + skill, with barswapping attached. LIGHT. ATTACKS. People there already question the importance of it, as it at best increases your dps by your light attack's damage. This might be 5k with VMA staff in PvE, or... 1k? 2? in PvP.
If you're not okay with that, fine, valid opinion. But it's here to stay and it certainly barely affects your player encounters.

aeowulf

Animation cancelling/weaving is the biggest difference between a skilled player and one that is unable to (due to being new/lack of practice/lag etc)

If ZoS want the difference between experienced and newer players minimised (upping the floor and lowering the ceiling) then removing animation cancelling is probably the best way of doing it as it only affects experienced players. I don't think removing cp is a good option, but I do think that needs a massive revisit.

I think of animation cancelling as similar to 'pulling a punch' Not a problem, but if I pull it I should not expect the same (if any) damage. It definately removes some immersion. For example my character can hit something with a sword, without actually hitting something with a sword.

The big issue with removing it though is like any big change, it will annoy the long term player base particularly those doing end game content. Just like sustain changes in Morrowind - I don't think those changes were healthy or balanced and I very much doubt the number of players after those changes increased.

Biro123

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

khele23eb17_ESO wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

mikemacon wrote: »

When a bug becomes a feature touted by a developer.

This.

I love ESO - but I was immensely disappointed when I discovered that animation cancelling had been embraced by ZOS devs and that as a result the high-tier endgame content just about requires it to get adequate DPS on bosses.

Ability animations in other games are there for a reason - to help with game balance.

I'll give you an example: In Destiny, there is an exotic sniper known as the No Land Beyond. Because snipers are OHK weapons, Destiny placed them in the "special weapon" slot and restricted the ammo available during PVP. No Land Beyond was an "exotic" (a semi-rare technically overpowered gold-tier weapon) which was equipped in the Primary slot (so it used Primary ammo which was plentiful). Because of that, the devs designed the gun as a bolt-action: It had one round in the camber and the reload animation was comparatively long.

High-end players discovered that they could "reload cancel" the animation by sprinting right after clicking the reload button, which removed the pain point of the long reload time and made the gun unbalanced.

Bungie issued a patch so that while you could still cancel the animation, the actual reload time remain unchanged. Hence, balance was restored.

ZOS's decision to embrace the exploit and incorporate it into the game means that people who suck at animation cancelling (like myself and my potato internet) are effectively excluded from high-end endgame.

It is what it is. Now that it's a part of the game, it's not going away.

But I was and remain very disappointed with that decision.

Good insight. To piggyback, if you look at channels/cast times, it's almost terrible how overnight those abilities lost importance in the combat system. And AC clashes with the design intent of having the animation system govern your character reaction in the environment. That's why players moved to tank builds in pvp; less DMG from multiple attacks.

Not saying AC is wrong or right. Just that it's hard to see it within the context of how they envisioned the game originally.

Most cast time abilites fit within the GCD and all abilities, cast time or instant will immediately trigger the GCD upon button press. What this means is cast time abilites will resolve right at the GCD refresh, this is why when you see uppercut used back to back, you never see the recovery animation (character sways back due to wepons weight) because that animation is visual flare being shown after the ability successfully completes its cast time. If you were locked into that recovery animation, you would be unfairly punished if for example you successfully aim, complete the cast and connect an uppercut on an opponent and you see a snipe flying your way and are forced to eat it because you cant block until your character finishes recovering from the animation.

So how do you address that?

Do you make the skill look ridiculous by having it not have any type of follow through visual?

Do you make it look equally ridiculous AND visually unintuitive by speeding up the existing animation of uppercut (cast time PLUS follow through animation) and squeeze it all within thr GCD resulting in the resolution point where damage is calculated being placed at the very end of the animation?

The intended battle design is very clear, people just dont understand what is actually happening and the concessions the devs took when creating a battle system for an MMO that obeys traditional mmo rules while emphasising active combat.

ZOS have stated animation cancelling was not an intended feature but that they decided to leave it in regardless. This was not done by design.

Also Ive played games that dont have animation cancelling and Im sure you have as well so I dont see the whole 'it cant be done!' argument. Personally Id rather have animations that play out in full. Its up to the devs to design them in a way that keeps the combat dynamic and engaging, and doesnt look ***. Again, at this point in the game's life such a change is not going to happen. Its too much work and would require redesigning a lot of animations or even making new ones from scratch.

Its almsot as if you didnt even read what i wrote.

Animation canceling is a result of the INTENDED combat design of this game. The GCD was not an accident. Creating recovery animation on abilities was not an accident. Intentionally allowing players to take defensive actions at any time was not an accident.

And christ... please stop mentioning other games not having it. Those games arent eso. Souls games and mass effect are not mmos. Frankly any game you want to dare name drop will be under the same criteria. Those games are not beholden to a universal timing mechanic that is server side that needs to operate simultaneously for large amounts of players in a single instance. Those games dont have countless unique abilities that have to all be balanced under the same umbrella to operate within said combat system. Do you really want to get into how utterly awful it would be if combat was intentionally weighted where each and every unique ability behaves differently from one another in both timing and connection to targets and apply that to an environment like cyrodill or trials?

If you mean that animation cancelling is an unintended side effect (which is basically what ZOS have stated themselves in one of the ESO live podcasts) of the intended combat design Im fine with that description.

I was mostly talking about MMOs not single player games. Even if a game has animation canceling it can be implemented in a way that doesnt look *** - BDO is an example of that.

BDO? I was looking around for new games to try at one point, saw one vid of the BDO animations and instantly thought 'yuk - I can't play that'..
Its that anime-style of almost instantly moving from 'combat-pose' to 'combat-pose' Personally I think it looks terrible and I hate it. Perhaps they can cancel animations there and it not look more jarring - but to me the whole combat looks jarring already.

ravencbr600

Elfhunter194 wrote: »

I've been trying to get use to animation cancelling but I just cannot click with it for some reason. Same goes for doing an attack and switching weapons fast enough so I don't get caught off guard but the weapon switching fast during combat is far to slow. Timing is a big issue for me and trying to figure out which combination in skills would be best. I've learnt that I've got to figure out what works best for me and that's the hard part. Only if I had a dummy to practice on would make things a whole lot easier.

If your on PS4 send me a message Ravencbr600 and I will send you a dummy no charge.