exeeter702 wrote: »I am in favor of immersion. I admire your intention for a more immersive combat experience. My only worry is the huge dps nerf that all dps classes would experience. Losing light attack weaving would drop every dps parse by a very noticeable amount. A lot of end game content is based off of end-game dps values that most players can achieve. That would make a lot of end game content such as trials much harder due to the drastic dps loss. All skill damage would have to be increased to accommodate the dps loss. Which would require a very large update and many components to consider.
The second issue is that light attacks would be rendered virtually obsolete in dungeon and trials content. When do you use light attacks in a dungeon other than when you are light attack weaving? So to incentivize light attack weaving light attacks would have to give you some kind of bonus. Light attacks would only be used with sets or builds that reward light attacks, such as Twice-Fanged Serpent.
The last issue is that Zenomax has actively embraced light attack weaving with the new patch notes that are coming out for Summerset. Light attack damage is being increased to further incentivize light attack weaving and stamina/magika recovery is being buffed for heavy attacks.
Due to all of this getting rid of animation cancelling or light attack weaving, would require upending the game as we know it. So although I do appreciate immersion and love as much as I can get of it, I think it's too late to do anything about it without a massive change to the damage and scaling of abilities and sets in that game. And I think for ZOS that would be more loss than gain for a little more immersion.
Light attack weaving is not animation cancelling. That is a built in feature from the inception of this game and is even told to players in game via the leveling advisor.
Light attack weaving is AC. The skill cuts off the end of the animation of the light attack. It is very much AC without a doubt and works as it does due to the same game details that the animation lasts longer than GCD for using an action.

I agree with you here; my focus has changed since authoring the original post. Today I’d author it as ‘smooth animations for swapping and interrupts’. I’ve changed the title to reflect this.exeeter702 wrote: »exeeter702 wrote: »I am in favor of immersion. I admire your intention for a more immersive combat experience. My only worry is the huge dps nerf that all dps classes would experience. Losing light attack weaving would drop every dps parse by a very noticeable amount. A lot of end game content is based off of end-game dps values that most players can achieve. That would make a lot of end game content such as trials much harder due to the drastic dps loss. All skill damage would have to be increased to accommodate the dps loss. Which would require a very large update and many components to consider.
The second issue is that light attacks would be rendered virtually obsolete in dungeon and trials content. When do you use light attacks in a dungeon other than when you are light attack weaving? So to incentivize light attack weaving light attacks would have to give you some kind of bonus. Light attacks would only be used with sets or builds that reward light attacks, such as Twice-Fanged Serpent.
The last issue is that Zenomax has actively embraced light attack weaving with the new patch notes that are coming out for Summerset. Light attack damage is being increased to further incentivize light attack weaving and stamina/magika recovery is being buffed for heavy attacks.
Due to all of this getting rid of animation cancelling or light attack weaving, would require upending the game as we know it. So although I do appreciate immersion and love as much as I can get of it, I think it's too late to do anything about it without a massive change to the damage and scaling of abilities and sets in that game. And I think for ZOS that would be more loss than gain for a little more immersion.
Light attack weaving is not animation cancelling. That is a built in feature from the inception of this game and is even told to players in game via the leveling advisor.
Light attack weaving is AC. The skill cuts off the end of the animation of the light attack. It is very much AC without a doubt and works as it does due to the same game details that the animation lasts longer than GCD for using an action.
You are getting into semantics... im fully aware that litetally light attack weaving cancels the recovery animations of skill. When people bring up these threads, this isnt what most are talking about. If it WAS then there would be no argument since light attack weaving was intentionally built into the game as an active form of traditional mmo "white" or "auto" attacks.
This is established as a foundation of combat in this game and has nothing to do with "animation canceling" in regards to blocking, barswaping etc during the GCD and resulting in cutting of animations. Im not arguing this either way. The term animation canceling is stupid regardless as it suggests some deeper layer of complexity when in absolute reality, actively understanding and mastering when to block and dodge, or get on the right ability during the GCD, and understanding the machanics of how to properly weave you light attacks with ability use automatically means you will be "animation canceling" by default.
It does not carry an inherent advantage beyond the sum of the combat systems intended mechanics. Those that argue for or against it are complete missing the point.
exeeter702 wrote: »From a gameplay perspective, ani-cancelling needs to exist.
From and aesthetics perspective, the animations could do with blending with each-other when cancelled, as opposed to being a hard-cutoff. (Animation blending is a thing which is very easily handled in some game engines - but there are so many animations in eso - which can be cancelled in so many different ways, it would be quite a big task to set up, test and refine)
So, for example, in an ideal world, with snb, attacking with a sword, then block-cancelling, should result in the sword-arm animation still playing out, but the shield arm (block part) also playing at the same time as the sword animation is completing. The block effect can still take effect immediately.
More tricky with weaves etc.. where its the same weapon.. May need some extra animations for each ability for different directions, but some smoothing should be possible.
That type of smoothing cant work simply because of the requirement for attacks to animated within a specific time frame. On top of the nature of how many variables that approach presents itself. There is no amount of blending that can work like this consistently. How would you animate a bar swap when your weapon is visually fully extended outward. There are numerous examples like this for all sorts of animations. In more traditional weighted combat in single player games or games that dont function with GCDs (generally games with less players in a given instance or games with SIGNIFICANTLY ability veriety), specifically animating each and every possible combination of actions playing into one another is a realistic objective.
But then you look at the way which is seperating body movement. Those types of animation blending techniques when used (limbs, torso, upper/lower body independent from one another) always tend to end up looking very strange and disjointed.
XiDiabolismiX wrote: »You guys do understand the reason behind animation cancelling right? The way combat is set up in this game with things you have to interrupt and block, you have to be very reactive. If you cast a skill with a 3 second long animation and there’s a one shot mechanic that needs to be blocked, and you block it, you’re essentially using animation cancelling.
Its not anywhere near as rewarding as it use to be. There are internal cool downs with skills now so that even if you want to animation cancel your booty off, you’re only going to pull a minuscule amount of dps higher.
I’ve tried dps parses with a fully animation cancelling rotation, and one where I let all the animations play through and its relatively the same. The biggest factor in dpsing is weaving light and heavy attacks correctly between skills.
Edit: @VaranisArano my bad! I just read through the comments and saw your post was almost identical lol
Ragnarock41 wrote: »It would be a buff to dot builds, and also a massive buff to the ''spam dizzy lmao'' playstyle. so a win-win for me lol.
But lets be honest, they tried to fix it before, it ended up even worse. We all know it won't happen at this point.
Ragnarock41 wrote: »It would be a buff to dot builds, and also a massive buff to the ''spam dizzy lmao'' playstyle. so a win-win for me lol.
But lets be honest, they tried to fix it before, it ended up even worse. We all know it won't happen at this point.
Let me focus on 'We all know it won't happen at this point.':
I'm going to edit the sentence a little to reflect my feelings on the discussion
'We all know it won't happen at this point in time'.
This discussion isn't an excercise in futility; we are building the scaffolding for the future.
Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »Blocking would become the exception to the rules to allow for tanks to function properly, but blocking would cancel the previous animation and the damage it would have caused. Every time you block would reset the GCD, but holding down the block button would retain the buff without triggering additional ticks of GCD.
Ragnarock41 wrote: »
Unless majority asks for a thing, even the simplest and most needed changes for a better combat system, DOES NOT HAPPEN, EVER in this game. You're free to believe in whatever you want of course, I'm just trying to take away the illusion of choice they're trying to make you believe in.
Truth is, in the end of the day, that certain someone just throws some darts and whatever he hits, is the next thing subject to change in this game.
Ragnarock41 wrote: »
Unless majority asks for a thing, even the simplest and most needed changes for a better combat system, DOES NOT HAPPEN, EVER in this game. You're free to believe in whatever you want of course, I'm just trying to take away the illusion of choice they're trying to make you believe in.
Truth is, in the end of the day, that certain someone just throws some darts and whatever he hits, is the next thing subject to change in this game.
"Unless majority asks for a thing"
This is precisely what I'm working toward. This thread exhibits the truth that some of the ideas represented within are shared across many different players.
If the ZOS creative dev team are the commanders of heaven, the creators of our Tamriel, my goal is to build the tower of Babel to reach the heavens and communicate the ideas here-in that we may all enjoy the benefits; be it tomorrow or next decade.
Note: I'm cutting out the part of the Babel reference where the project experienced failure on a massive scale. My argument only uses the the metaphor up until that point.
Keep dreaming buddy. Really some people here are so naive. Devs have openly supported AC and even mention it in skill advisor. And you think at one point in time they will remove it? Ok.Ragnarock41 wrote: »It would be a buff to dot builds, and also a massive buff to the ''spam dizzy lmao'' playstyle. so a win-win for me lol.
But lets be honest, they tried to fix it before, it ended up even worse. We all know it won't happen at this point.
Let me focus on 'We all know it won't happen at this point.':
I'm going to edit the sentence a little to reflect my feelings on the discussion
'We all know it won't happen at this point in time'.
This discussion isn't an excercise in futility; we are building the scaffolding for the future.
I think if the Devs believe a change would be benificial on a large scale that they would act upon it.Keep dreaming buddy. Really some people here are so naive. Devs have openly supported AC and even mention it in skill advisor. And you think at one point in time they will remove it? Ok.Ragnarock41 wrote: »It would be a buff to dot builds, and also a massive buff to the ''spam dizzy lmao'' playstyle. so a win-win for me lol.
But lets be honest, they tried to fix it before, it ended up even worse. We all know it won't happen at this point.
Let me focus on 'We all know it won't happen at this point.':
I'm going to edit the sentence a little to reflect my feelings on the discussion
'We all know it won't happen at this point in time'.
This discussion isn't an excercise in futility; we are building the scaffolding for the future.
I would like animation canceling to remain. HOWEVER, I would like it to do its job which is canceling the ability!!! For instance, I play a bowblade. Sometimes mid snipe I need to cancel it because my situation becomes compromised and I need to hold back. Therefore, canceling my snipe so it does not fire is great. So let's keep animation canceling but have it actually cancel the ability!
The standard should be that the whole animation, even if it's considered "instant", needs to happen or the ability is cancelled.
This is not a valid argument. Please elaborate.No. That would pretty much completely remove all skill based combat in this game. Stupid.
I think if the Devs believe a change would be benificial on a large scale that they would act upon it.Keep dreaming buddy. Really some people here are so naive. Devs have openly supported AC and even mention it in skill advisor. And you think at one point in time they will remove it? Ok.Ragnarock41 wrote: »It would be a buff to dot builds, and also a massive buff to the ''spam dizzy lmao'' playstyle. so a win-win for me lol.
But lets be honest, they tried to fix it before, it ended up even worse. We all know it won't happen at this point.
Let me focus on 'We all know it won't happen at this point.':
I'm going to edit the sentence a little to reflect my feelings on the discussion
'We all know it won't happen at this point in time'.
This discussion isn't an excercise in futility; we are building the scaffolding for the future.
I don’t believe you’ve read each argument in this thread; if you had, you’d see that not every solution to my problem ends in the function of ‘ac’ being removed. Some of them suggest fixes on the animation side that would not impact mechanics at all. Please read some more of the content here-in.
I think if the Devs believe a change would be benificial on a large scale that they would act upon it.Keep dreaming buddy. Really some people here are so naive. Devs have openly supported AC and even mention it in skill advisor. And you think at one point in time they will remove it? Ok.Ragnarock41 wrote: »It would be a buff to dot builds, and also a massive buff to the ''spam dizzy lmao'' playstyle. so a win-win for me lol.
But lets be honest, they tried to fix it before, it ended up even worse. We all know it won't happen at this point.
Let me focus on 'We all know it won't happen at this point.':
I'm going to edit the sentence a little to reflect my feelings on the discussion
'We all know it won't happen at this point in time'.
This discussion isn't an excercise in futility; we are building the scaffolding for the future.
I don’t believe you’ve read each argument in this thread; if you had, you’d see that not every solution to my problem ends in the function of ‘ac’ being removed. Some of them suggest fixes on the animation side that would not impact mechanics at all. Please read some more of the content here-in.
The person you quoted seemed to be spot on in replying to the OP.
I do not think he or anyone else is required to read every post created in order to respond to the OP.
Further, after 3 years since Zos stated AC as here to stay they have reinforced it several times with changes to the game. It does seem they are fairly content with how it is and do not see a need to change animations as some have suggested.
Greetings fellow forum dwellers.
Back in my gaming prime, I was all about pushing games to their limit, finding the tricks to gain an edge against the competition. What combination of actions would break the balance?
From Super Smash Bros. wave-dashing to Warhammer 40k: Space Marine roll dashing, I've tweaked my share of games for a competitive edge.
Now past my prime and lacking the same amount of free time I find that such techniques, while valid, are evidence of broken programming.
Before I continue, I will admit that I utilize animation/weapon-swap canceling.
My problem is as follows: If one is to reach 'top tier', one has to sacrifice many aesthetic and/or immersive aspects in the game. It comes to the point that when you have 40 'top tier' players, it doesn't look like a fantasy battle at all. Its a whole bunch of hopping, random instantaneous weapons swapping, (visually) incomplete spell casting etc.
Immersion broken.
In my opinion, spells have specific animations and animation times for two reasons: one is immersion, two is balance. If, sans-cancel, another skill can not be cast until the animation of the first cast skill is completed, then it was intended that way.
I'd like to see the animation canceling removed. Thoughts?
Praeficere wrote: »Every game I've ever played has had animation cancelling