What do you think about animation cancelling as a means to increase DPS?

Jayman1000

I hate doing animation cancelling so I just don't do it most of the times except when I actually need to do another action, like heal, block, dodge roll etc. Even when it means Im being less effective with my dps. Im wondering if it is an intended feature? Did zos devs actually plan for animation cancelling to be an important part of attaining higher dps?

What do you guys think, do you find it fun to do animation cancelling to increase dps or would you rather you wouldn't have to animation cancel to increase dps?

Camb0Sl1ce

If you mean animation canceling as in "casting a skill and quickly pressing block" that does not help your damage at all. Weaving light attacks is far far better.

Ermiq

Don't know what they thought earlier, but so far they act like this is a built-in feature. Look at those item sets with procs when you make several light/heavy attacks within specified time.

Btw, the efficiency of light attack weaving directly depends on your internet connection stability. With normal internet I do it mostly fine, but when I have unstable and high ping I have like 2 of 10 light attacks being completed successfully. Not that good for MMORPG games which are always've been less ping dependant than shooters.

Jayman1000

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

casting a skill and quickly pressing block" that does not help your damage at all.

No, but that is the only animation cancelling I do, and I do it of necessity, as I wrote in the OP: when I have to roll, block or heal. I don't enjoy animation otherwise. Having to weave light attacks is super annoying imo, I don't enjoy it. But I guess people really enjoy playing like that?

Kova

I love it, but it's not originally intended. It was just originally allowed.

This game use to be so fast. You ran faster, jumped with momentum, mounted faster, opened doors faster, and above all could animation cancel smoothly without any hiccups. Now with the game full of global cooldowns, animation cancelling is the only thing left of how the game use to play and I would sincerely hate to see it go.

I don't get it. I don't understand why it's so hard for someone to just tap a fetching button after an attack. It is LITERALLY one more button. There isn't some big secret or technique. Just.......tap.......a.............button....

You don't have to do it. You don't have to have the BiS gear. You don't have to play everyday, and you don't have to be competitive.

Jayman1000

Kova wrote: »

I don't get it. I don't understand why it's so hard for someone to just tap a fetching button after an attack. It is LITERALLY one more button. There isn't some big secret or technique. Just.......tap.......a.............button....

It's not that it is hard, that is not the reason. It's because I simply just don't enjoy doing it, it feels... I don't know. It feels like it's sort of a n exploit that I constantly have to do if I want to max dps. Very unsatisfying gameplay.

DoctorESO

Animation cancelling? You have to do it if you want to have competitive DPS.

Sabbathius

I think animation canceling is absolutely asinine. Just on purely logical level. Why does ZOS spend the time and effort to come up with and create attack animations, only to have people cancel them?

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a way to do an emergency override (block, dodge, etc) as needed. But the attack being overridden should not happen if it is canceled. That's the whole fallacy with "animation canceling", it cancels the animation, but not the effect. What I want to happen is, if you're doing light attack, and then ability, light attack should finish first. And if you interrupt it, you get no effect from the light attack. Same with abilities. You're doing an ability, and suddenly need to block? Fine, do it. But the ability should not go off. Furthermore, the ability should still cost resources. So you'd have to think "do I spend resources on ability now, and risk having to cancel it to survive a 1-shot, or wait a half second, deal with 1-shot, then do ability?"

ESO's current way is messy visually, as your characters are constantly spazzing out with shortcut animations (dodge cancels, bar swap cancels, etc.) and gameplay itself is far too spammy, with a lot of button mashing, and the more and faster you mash (with proper cadence, I'll grant you that, but still), the better off you are. Which is just absurd. It just looks incredibly sloppy visually. Where in many games (and many MMOs) combat looks like a ballet, in ESO top-tier players' characters look like they are being electrocuted.

And again, for the impaired, I'm not against the ability to do an emergency interrupt. Or light attack weaving. If you have to do LA->Ability->LA->Ability, it's fine. It's just the animation of LA shouldn't be getting clipped. And if it is, then LAs should have no effect, because you didn't finish. Same with abilities. Yes, Wall of Elements and Endless Hail are slow. But if you clip the animation, you shouldn't get the payoff.

Personally, based on the a mount of bugs we get with every patch (thanks for breaking weapon swapping, by the way), I think this is just something they just don't have the chops to fix, so they just decided it's a "feature" now. Which is honestly fine. Because it's not a consideration for at least 70-80% of ESO's players anyway. So in a way I agree, it's not even a priority.

Kova

Jayman1000 wrote: »

Kova wrote: »

I don't get it. I don't understand why it's so hard for someone to just tap a fetching button after an attack. It is LITERALLY one more button. There isn't some big secret or technique. Just.......tap.......a.............button....

It's not that it is hard, that is not the reason. It's because I simply just don't enjoy doing it, it feels... I don't know. It feels like it's sort of a n exploit that I constantly have to do if I want to max dps. Very unsatisfying gameplay.

I understand that. But it's been 4 years. We're sure it's not an exploit at this point.

Lysette

I do rarely cancel an animation in combat, regardless of it providing me with less dps - i think that is a bug which ZOS declared to be a feature because they are unable to fix it. Why have an animation at all, if you cancel it then - this does not make sense and so I say, it is an unfixed bug, basically an exploit, which should have been fixed, but ZOS is unable to.

zsban

Sabbathius wrote: »

... It's just the animation of LA shouldn't be getting clipped. And if it is, then LAs should have no effect, because you didn't finish. Same with abilities. Yes, Wall of Elements and Endless Hail are slow. But if you clip the animation, you shouldn't get the payoff.
...

Well here's the catch: light attacks and instant abilities are ... instant. That is, you expect them to have their effects immediately you release the button. If it would wait until the animation is complete (only way I can imagine to be able to cancel the effect if you cancel the animation) the game would feel lot more sluggish... Just try to fight with cast-time abilities once.

Lynx7386

It's the main reason I dont play DPS (well that and long queue times). 4 out of 5 of my characters are support roles (2 tanks and 2 healers) with only one I use for dps when someone needs it for a run. I hate the animation cancelling setup and how it has such a huge impact on whether or not your damage is acceptable. Not only is it difficult to pull off (for me, anyway), it also makes things look bad because all of your animations are glitching and running together or stopping short, it makes combat like a big epileptic seizure

Recremen

I enjoy having more things to do than press abilities and consider it a huge draw to the flow of combat this game offers. As for whether it was originally intended, I'd say the most likely answer is "yes". The only evidence anyone has ever brought forth to the contrary was a single comment by a community manager (note : specifically NOT a dev) and it takes a pretty slanted reading of what was said to say that they were implying animation canceling wasn't intended. It's basically just another forum myth.

LordSemaj

zsban wrote: »

Sabbathius wrote: »

... It's just the animation of LA shouldn't be getting clipped. And if it is, then LAs should have no effect, because you didn't finish. Same with abilities. Yes, Wall of Elements and Endless Hail are slow. But if you clip the animation, you shouldn't get the payoff.
...

Well here's the catch: light attacks and instant abilities are ... instant. That is, you expect them to have their effects immediately you release the button. If it would wait until the animation is complete (only way I can imagine to be able to cancel the effect if you cancel the animation) the game would feel lot more sluggish... Just try to fight with cast-time abilities once.

Actually the best way they could fix it if they ever chose to fix it would be to put Light and Heavy attacks on the global cooldown. Players wouldn't be able to weave them for more dps and would have to choose between using a skill and using a light attack or heavy attack purposefully.

Animation cancelling can still exist and is not the problem. The problem is that Light and Heavy attacks don't share the same global as skills.

Sabbathius

zsban wrote: »

Sabbathius wrote: »

... It's just the animation of LA shouldn't be getting clipped. And if it is, then LAs should have no effect, because you didn't finish. Same with abilities. Yes, Wall of Elements and Endless Hail are slow. But if you clip the animation, you shouldn't get the payoff.
...

Well here's the catch: light attacks and instant abilities are ... instant. That is, you expect them to have their effects immediately you release the button. If it would wait until the animation is complete (only way I can imagine to be able to cancel the effect if you cancel the animation) the game would feel lot more sluggish... Just try to fight with cast-time abilities once.

Speed up the animations then! If the ability is instant, make cast animation very quick. Not "I'm pulling my stuff all the way back, I'm pushing my staff all the way forward, I am releasing the projectile, and now I'm pulling my arm all the way back again before returning to en garde position". Just just "flick, there goes projectile, and we're back".

Anything to stop the "spazzing out" effect. I mean, you know what I mean, right? Like Wall of Elements->Bar Swap. Or Endless Hail->Bar Swap. Or LA->Ability spam. It just looks like character is having a stroke while simultaneously being electrocuted. It looks choppy, cheap and amateurish. This game has beautiful animations. USE them! Or, conversely, stop wasting time making them. Just don't play animations at all. If we're canceling them anyway, why bother creating them? It's a waste of time. Time that could be better spent putting another 2,000 crown outfit into the cash store to improve the game.

And for the people who enjoy "pressing more stuff", you could still be able to press more stuff in animations are sped up for instant casts. It just wouldn't look stupid when you do it.

Ep1kMalware

Jayman1000 wrote: »

I hate doing animation cancelling so I just don't do it most of the times except when I actually need to do another action, like heal, block, dodge roll etc. Even when it means Im being less effective with my dps. Im wondering if it is an intended feature? Did zos devs actually plan for animation cancelling to be an important part of attaining higher dps?

What do you guys think, do you find it fun to do animation cancelling to increase dps or would you rather you wouldn't have to animation cancel to increase dps?

Uhmm..my oh my.. animation cancelling doesn't increase your dps. But it does mute your resource regen... try light attacking instead blocking xD

Balticthunder

If animation canceling is good or even a must for some situations and built in game by purpose, then I don't understand why there is skill casting animations in first place at all!?

HatchetHaro

If you hate light attack weaving so much, then don't do it. What you'll really be missing out on is being able to complete content that requires the skill needed to be able to light weave.

It's not going to be removed. If it is, then literally the only use for light and heavy attacks would be for players who want to play this game like Skyrim Online.

Anotherone773

I dont use it to gain DPS and probably never will. I also dont use a rotation per se nor is my build a "guide" build. People make games to much into a factory job and suck all the fun out of them. I refuse to allow elitists to suck my fun out of the game. ive managed to do top tier raids in a few MMOs, including tanking and healing WoW raids, without having maximum anything or perfect rotations, or any of that nonsense these elitists claim you need to do content.

Every game has the elitists that think you need to do within 10% of maximum obtainable dps to do end game content. And i have yet to find a game in which this is the case. Its just so they can feel self important and elite. You can probably do everything in this game with DDs doing 20-25k dps.

Want to be elite? start a guild and run a bunch of newbies and casuals through raids...then ill be impressed. Your 40k on a target skeleton with that mate hiding in the background buffing and debuffing doesnt impress me.

DarkAedin

@Jayman1000
Git gud

No but seriously, Git Gud;
animation cancelling has been around in video games since the 90's, possibly earlier.
I was animation cancelling in arcade games at the arcades b4 we had widespread home consoles.
If u dont want to animation cancel, then dont. Or find another game to play.

Kalante

animation canceling used to be way smoother back in 2015. They thought about removing animation canceling during thieves guild early 2016 but the community said no but regardless zos little by little is getting rid of animation canceling. In 2017 i think it was one tamriel where zos changed animations in a subtle way in the guise of more smoother and able to see animations when they go off. When In fact it was nerf to animation cancelling, it was just classic double speak bs to make things sound less scary to not alarm people. The bar swap bug was no accident, they are probably trying to figure out how to get rid of bar swap cancelling. Little by little this game is just become more trash and geared towards casuals. All the issues that this game has right now is due to zos changing the game's core mechanics to make newer players feel more comfortable. PVP for example is a mess, nobody dies because zos has put so much mitigation into their game just to help new players.

Ermiq

Kalante wrote: »

All the issues that this game has right now is due to zos changing the game's core mechanics to make newer players feel more comfortable. PVP for example is a mess, nobody dies because zos has put so much mitigation into their game just to help new players.

Yah, sure. Oh my dear PvP pro players, you'll always blame 'noobs' for every single change in the game. They also disabled critical set procs because of noobs, right?

Jayman1000

Kalante wrote: »

animation canceling used to be way smoother back in 2015. They thought about removing animation canceling during thieves guild early 2016 but the community said no but regardless zos little by little is getting rid of animation canceling. In 2017 i think it was one tamriel where zos changed animations in a subtle way in the guise of more smoother and able to see animations when they go off. When In fact it was nerf to animation cancelling, it was just classic double speak bs to make things sound less scary to not alarm people. The bar swap bug was no accident, they are probably trying to figure out how to get rid of bar swap cancelling. Little by little this game is just become more trash and geared towards casuals. All the issues that this game has right now is due to zos changing the game's core mechanics to make newer players feel more comfortable. PVP for example is a mess, nobody dies because zos has put so much mitigation into their game just to help new players.

Im not sure whether agree with you or not here, but I don't think there has to be an equals sign between animation cancelling and catering to casuals. I'd love for animation cancelling to get ditched as a means to increase dps; but Im not in favor of catering to casuals. In fact I greatly value parts of the game that require learning and performing skills to overcome challenge. The animation cancelling skills though Im not a fan of. I still feel like it's an exploit that I have to do constantly to stay on top.

Jayman1000

DarkAedin wrote: »

@Jayman1000
Git gud

No but seriously, Git Gud;
animation cancelling has been around in video games since the 90's, possibly earlier.
I was animation cancelling in arcade games at the arcades b4 we had widespread home consoles.
If u dont want to animation cancel, then dont. Or find another game to play.

sigh.... read the OP please.

Jayman1000

HatchetHaro wrote: »

If you hate light attack weaving so much, then don't do it. What you'll really be missing out on is being able to complete content that requires the skill needed to be able to light weave.

It's not going to be removed. If it is, then literally the only use for light and heavy attacks would be for players who want to play this game like Skyrim Online.

What content would that be, competetive PVP? Im not going to do that anyway, so no loss on that front. It's not a requirement to do animation cancelling in any PVE content, maybe vMA, I don't know , haven't even got around to completing normal yet, so don't know whether anim cancel is a set requirement to be able to do it? It's too bad if it is though.

I don't buy your sentiment that combat could not work great without animation cancelling; think you are just being a naysayer here, perhaps because you enjoy animation cancelling? But that is fine, it's good when people enjoy something, I am not trying to take away anything from anyone. If Zos wanted to they could make combat work great without anim cancelling, but I think they decided that the players want it and so they keep it.

Dragath

light attack weaving wasn't an intended feature, it slipped through when changing the game in early alpha from auto attacking to the left click system we have now.
because zos is not able to change how it works, they are fine with it.
personally, i really like the weaving system. it makes the combat more interesting because you actually have to keep track of what you are doing a little bit more than with the usual auto attack and punishes lazy players.

Draxys

I think people need to leave this dead horse alone

Splattercat_83

This is a public service announcement from your friendly neighbor hood splatter cat. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ANIMATION CANCELING SINCE THEIVES GUILD DLC. Thank you for your time and attention.

Getern

Jayman1000 wrote: »

Kova wrote: »

I don't get it. I don't understand why it's so hard for someone to just tap a fetching button after an attack. It is LITERALLY one more button. There isn't some big secret or technique. Just.......tap.......a.............button....

It's not that it is hard, that is not the reason. It's because I simply just don't enjoy doing it, it feels... I don't know. It feels like it's sort of a n exploit that I constantly have to do if I want to max dps. Very unsatisfying gameplay.

You misspelled "very" satisfying gameplay, like @Kova metioned already, you could animation cancel everything without a hiccups. LA+Skill+Block, u didnt see skill being casted, barely slight character's hand movement when timed correctly. It was so dope. You can now too, but somehow it doesnt work or feels the same. Currently auto attack + skill weave is the only dynamic factor game has to offer in combat so... Just let it be and stop whinning for screwing it even more.

btw I smell l2p issues

Emma_Overload

There must be dozens (if not hundreds) of MMOs that have such long-assed cooldowns that you never have to worry about animations needing to be canceled. Why don't you play one of those and let ESO be ESO?

DarkAedin

Jayman1000 wrote: »

DarkAedin wrote: »

@Jayman1000
Git gud

No but seriously, Git Gud;
animation cancelling has been around in video games since the 90's, possibly earlier.
I was animation cancelling in arcade games at the arcades b4 we had widespread home consoles.
If u dont want to animation cancel, then dont. Or find another game to play.

sigh.... read the OP please.

I did. And stand by my statement. U can make any strawman argument u want but the bottom line is that if u time ur button presses ur going to do better then mashing ur buttons. Ant there are plenty of other mmos that have have auto attack built in so u dont have to. Stop QQing and Git Gud.