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

lassitershawn

People like animation canceling because it adds an extra skill factor to the game. DPS would be really easy if you didn't have to weave. As for animations spazzing out, how do people notice this while keeping track of DoT timers, positioning, mechanics, what the enemy is doing, ally health bars in some cases, etc? Besides ZoS endorsing it, it seems like they build around it with sets, enchants, etc proccing off light attacks and even NB's magic bow. For those saying they don't know how to "fix" it, I'm pretty sure they could. Overload for example counts as a light attack but shares a CD with abilities (or at least it did when I last used it). You can't cancel an overload with a Liquid Lightning. I personally wouldn't want to play the slow game that a game without at least weaving would become.

Balticthunder

Emma_Overload wrote: »

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?

Why you play VIDEO game which tries to simulate real world as much as posible, while you can play Pen an Paper rpgs and enjoy just numbers in great quantity? No animations, nothing, just roll your dice and count the numbers!

rustic_potato

Wrobel the lead combat dev himself stated in one of the interviews that he encourages animation cancelling and it is an integral part of the game. Now whether you agree with him or not is a different story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ThZtwhYkKSs

I don't really consider weaving as animation cancelling. It is just an added mechanic of difficulty/skill for players. You don't need to weave to hit 20k DPS and you could complete most of the content the game has to offer without it.

Having mastery of your class is knowing which skills need animation cancelling or which ones have an animation length less than the GC. It is just added levels of skill in the game. Unfortunately not everyone enjoys the added difficulty.

iiYuki

I believe it was said it was unintentional but something to do with the ways animations and abilities work and there isn't a quick fix to it I cant find where it was said but I'm sure I remember reading it.
I would prefer not to do it but you have to to get the most DPS you can.

NewBlacksmurf

I’d rather they adjust animations so it’s not an animation cancel and just gameplay.
I don’t enjoy it so I choose not to but in some cases i know it’s possible.

It’s just so controversial

Mureel

OP is making way to big a thing over animation cancel. All it means (outside special circumstance like barswap or block cancel, like when a healer needs to cancel for a fast clutch heal or PVP stuff of which I'm ignorant mainly) is hit a mouse button, then mash a key.

It's not some complicated mojo or anything.

If you can click a mouse button then hit a key on your keyboard - that's it.

I think most people who say they cannot do it are likely clicking their skill bar with their mouse over using the keys for them.

I cannot think of any other way that it's impossible.

Having bad ping especially on a Magblade la/siphon weave and trying to get your spectral bow proc is a jerk...also la/FP/frag proc can miss some procs and las but other than that, the actual act of animation cancelling is not arcane, elite knowledge.

If you can use both hands or even map skills to a gaming mouse and click auto attack then a skill, that's it.

Everything else DPS wise is down to rotation and not allowing your dots to expire and using your procs when they pop.

Most builds are set up to time it so that your ability/skill proc will occur on the bar you will/should be on when they proc.

So issues there are down to messy rotation and/or lag.

Click mash for la weave and cliiick mash for heavy.

Give it a try.

Mureel

OP also, I think your issue is with using a set rotation that allows your skills and attacks to work cohesively. You're basically just firing stuff off - but animation cancelling (I'm using this term because I think that's what you mean but it is weaving really) is literally only about hitting a key to get the next skill off over using a skill or attack once every 1 second.

All rotations should be place dots with a la in between - not only for dps but for ult gen, then your single target and any procs and back to the dots before they expire.

Dots should never not be on the target, and the la in between bumps damage And generates ultimate.

So you need to place dots then attack whilst dots are running, rinse and repeat.

Gilvoth

i hate the animation canceling. it allows people to hit you with multiple attacks that happen so fast that within 1 tenth of a second you are dead to what looked like 1 hit.
i hope it is removed from eso.

Destruent

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

i hate the animation canceling. it allows people to hit you with multiple attacks that happen so fast that within 1 tenth of a second you are dead to what looked like 1 hit.
i hope it is removed from eso.

animation cancelling CANNOT BYPASS THE GLOBAL COOLDOWNS....why does such crap always come up in AC-topics?

Luigi_Vampa

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

i hate the animation canceling. it allows people to hit you with multiple attacks that happen so fast that within 1 tenth of a second you are dead to what looked like 1 hit.
i hope it is removed from eso.

This is untrue. Animation cancelling does not allow you to land multiple hits in under a second.

Jhalin

All animation canceling does is allow you to use skills on the global cooldown. If animation canceling was removed then you wouldn't be able to block or roll dodge when you need to, because you'd be forced into attack animations, some of which last 2 full seconds.

Izaki

DoctorESO wrote: »

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

That is so false.

Light attack weaving is not animation canceling. And that's all you need to do for competitive DPS. Actual animation canceling doesn't do anything for DPS at all. Aside from bar swaps, but pretty sure everyone does that without even trying to do it, since its such a natural thing to do.

Mureel

Izaki wrote: »

DoctorESO wrote: »

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

That is so false.

Light attack weaving is not animation canceling. And that's all you need to do for competitive DPS. Actual animation canceling doesn't do anything for DPS at all. Aside from bar swaps, but pretty sure everyone does that without even trying to do it, since its such a natural thing to do.

Hey Hun, a lot of people who don't understand use the terms interchangeably. So I think that's where a lot of the disconnect is.

Ep1kMalware

Dragath wrote: »

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.

I'm prettttttty sure zenimax DID design it this way on thieves guild patch on purpose. ;p fyi they did have a pts. Zeni loves the weave, deal with it.

Destruent

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

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.

I'm prettttttty sure zenimax DID design it this way on thieves guild patch on purpose. ;p fyi they did have a pts. Zeni loves the weave, deal with it.

Light attack weaving exists before thieves guild (and was even better and easier to do back then)...

Swifigames

I don't like it
Why not just scratch it and buff up damage output in general to streamline the process?
Is Cyrodiil the reason? God do I hate Cyrodiil...with such a passion in my heart. Which is strange to a point, as I love the game pretty hardcore. PvP is just a different monster entirely...practically two games in one, this one.

DarkAedin

Swifigames wrote: »

I don't like it
Why not just scratch it and buff up damage output in general to streamline the process?
Is Cyrodiil the reason? God do I hate Cyrodiil...with such a passion in my heart. Which is strange to a point, as I love the game pretty hardcore. PvP is just a different monster entirely...practically two games in one, this one.

No and terrible assumption.

MehrunesFlagon

Sabbathius wrote: »

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.

Attacking faster should grant more damage.

ecru

Sabbathius wrote: »

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.

What you're suggesting here would require an entire revamp of the combat system along with increasing every ability's healing and damage, and probably performing balance and mechanics changes in all trials and dungeons.

Animation cancelling is here to stay.

MehrunesFlagon

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.

Well,then they should abort the entire idea.

Cryptical

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

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.

It used to work.

Tapping block used to cancel animations without inserting any graphics or anything.

Tapping bock used to cancel animations more quickly than a light attack.

That such changes have been made is demonstrable proof that Zeni is slowly but surely uprooting animation cancelling from the system.

MehrunesFlagon

rustic_potato wrote: »

Wrobel the lead combat dev himself stated in one of the interviews that he encourages animation cancelling and it is an integral part of the game. Now whether you agree with him or not is a different story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=ThZtwhYkKSs

I don't really consider weaving as animation cancelling. It is just an added mechanic of difficulty/skill for players. You don't need to weave to hit 20k DPS and you could complete most of the content the game has to offer without it.

Having mastery of your class is knowing which skills need animation cancelling or which ones have an animation length less than the GC. It is just added levels of skill in the game. Unfortunately not everyone enjoys the added difficulty.

One of the few things most people agree with Wrobel on.

MehrunesFlagon

Destruent wrote: »

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

Dragath wrote: »

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.

I'm prettttttty sure zenimax DID design it this way on thieves guild patch on purpose. ;p fyi they did have a pts. Zeni loves the weave, deal with it.

Light attack weaving exists before thieves guild (and was even better and easier to do back then)...

yeah, they really should revert it back to taht.

Tommy_The_Gun

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

jaye63

Camb0Sl1ce wrote: »

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.

Then you havent tried it. At least not successfully. Not all skill work with animation canceling and the effect is +3k DPS


To the OP:
I LOATHE it. Zos should either speed up the animation, lock the animation or at least make the animation irrelevant.

Jayman1000

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

I’d rather they adjust animations so it’s not an animation cancel and just gameplay.
I don’t enjoy it so I choose not to but in some cases i know it’s possible.

It’s just so controversial

Well this is exactly how feel. I don't enjoy doing it, so I don't do it. But it does take some of the top of the joy when you know you aren't performing you're best, because you could be animation cancelling... just got to live with it. Point of my post was to hear what people thought, and I definitely got that. Apart from a few condescending posts here and there I find the replies interesting.

Avran_Sylt

I used to be against it vehemently. But the more I look at it, ZOS has kinda dug themselves into a hole with it, so I don't care about it too much nowadays.

If they really wanted to get rid of it, they'd need to have every attack have its own individual GCD based on its animation length. Have more attacks that lead into combos with one another in a similar fashion to that of the DK power lash, so the slower attacks feel like they have more 'weight'. Overhaul the resource costs that come with an across the board slowing of resource expenditure, balance the DPS of all skills and rotations (or balance the health of enemies). As well as resource returning items.

I don't think this is something that anyone at ZOS will entertain. As I doubt it fits into any timeframe of theirs.

However, one thing that I do hope that they will eventually do, is introduce animation blending for Light and Heavy attacks/abilities.

Lysette

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

I used to be against it vehemently. But the more I look at it, ZOS has kinda dug themselves into a hole with it, so I don't care about it too much nowadays.

If they really wanted to get rid of it, they'd need to have every attack have its own individual GCD based on its animation length. Have more attacks that lead into combos with one another in a similar fashion to that of the DK power lash, so the slower attacks feel like they have more 'weight'. Overhaul the resource costs that come with an across the board slowing of resource expenditure, balance the DPS of all skills and rotations (or balance the health of enemies). As well as resource returning items.

I don't think this is something that anyone at ZOS will entertain. As I doubt it fits into any timeframe of theirs.

However, one thing that I do hope that they will eventually do, is introduce animation blending for Light and Heavy attacks/abilities.

It's actually quite simple to solve - with a dps cap - if one cannot do more than this, people will no longer do it, if they have already enough dps to reach the cap without it.

Edit: and as a side effect, if it is made low enough, hybrid builds become viable - now scale the bigger enemies down with a global scaling factor - and done - this does not take much time at all. It all could be done, but it takes the will to do so.

Aeladiir

Animation cancelling is trash. Nothing else.

DoctorESO

Guild Wars 2 doesn't have animation cancelling.