CC, Animations, and you

Vencenzo

Since the beginning ESO has had issues with CC mechanics such as root preventing breakout while also cced etc. Some of these issue are commonly caused by/compounded by server lag in whatever cyrodiil's main server is at the time (wabbajack, vivec, etc). What's currently plaguing pvp is animations preventing actions. The amount of unbreakable control affects is at the highest I've seen and I've played this game since the start. This needs to be priority to address for Zos above other features/fixes.

Some examples of animations interfering with intended breakout mechanics:

#1 offender is timestop
Depending on what state you are currently in or what has hit you recently it can take 1-2 seconds extra to breakout of this ability or breakout can be entirely prevented. If the channel finished while you are in mid dodge roll, initiating block, int he process of breaking out of a different CC effect, ETC.. There are multiple other scenarios where breakout is delayed or prevented.

#2 is rune cage
I am totally cool with rune cage meteor being a killshot. But there needs to be a tiny window where if the player reacts perfectly they can block before meteor hits. Ultimately the problem with this skill is that the animation your character goes through to kneel down creates an extra second before you can breakout. It's about 1.5 seconds if you're in midair from a jump and 2 seconds if in mid dodge roll. This animation needs to be sped up or changed to not interfere with breakout mechanics.

#3 multiple consecutive ccs hitting you before breakout animation triggers.
I'm talking about getting hit with javelin then destructive touch then javelin and being juggled like this was mortal combat. This happens due to the delay in being hit with a cc vs the trigger of immunity. There's also a bug where if hit with a knock up and knock down ability simultaneously you slide around on the ground for about 15 seconds.

#4 is not as big of a problem as it once was but perma frost animation can delay breakout still.
It's an ultimate so this one is maybe justified.

I suspect some of these things may not be fixable, especially #3. 1 and 2 need attention above virtually anything else in pvp.

When adding skills in the future I'd like to see 3 questions asked :
1. Does this skill function how it was intended?
2. Is this skill at least somewhat balanced?
3. Does this skill promote fun gameplay?

If the answer to all 3 is no then redo the skill.

Let's look at timestop for a moment:
Ignores breakout
Is tool for zergs to clog doorways and can completely prevent healing when spammed by more then 3 people.
Requires players to spend entire pvp experience channeling one ability. Mandatory 2+ for ballgroups.

Lastly for a more functional game in pvp. QA need to test new cc abilities animations under multiple scenarios for breakout functionality before the skill is added.

Sorry for the wall of text everyone and thanks for reading.
If you believe this should be a priority focus as well, let zos know.

Thogard

Problem with rune cage isn’t the animation on the recipients end. It’s the animation on the caster’s end. It still looks a bit like a channel even though it’s instant. Recipient can’t break free until caster finishes animation

Vencenzo

Thogard wrote: »

Problem with rune cage isn’t the animation on the recipients end. It’s the animation on the caster’s end. It still looks a bit like a channel even though it’s instant. Recipient can’t break free until caster finishes animation

Regardless of which side is causing it to be unbreakable. I'd much rather see the animation examined than the damage removed like PTS.

Swimguy

i dont understand why you think its okay for ultis to be op and pretty much guarantee kills.

rune cage+meteor is disgusting especially if the sorc knows right when meteor is gonna hit and can time curse +light attack +infused wpn enchant+frags for almost 25k burst and the only thing that is even possible to dodge is the light attack frag weave so what do?

the moment metoer is cast on you: vigor roll dodge cancel, whatever other heal you have and then block. either way you get stunned by rune cage and have to tank meteor+a light attack weave or two. and if im not mistaken rune cage can be dodged (yay) but this means meteor will still stun you through the dodge and you still face tank a long of damage..

permafrost is also nasty the stun animation is always super late and the CC break never works until the animation has already started.

yes incap is op but its getting nerfed a lot harder than rune cage is. also no incap light attack SA "one hit combo" should kill you if you have shields up and have enough stamina to break free. Yeah good sorcs have to manage stamina too.

Micah_Bayer

Swimguy wrote: »

i dont understand why you think its okay for ultis to be op and pretty much guarantee kills.

rune cage+meteor is disgusting especially if the sorc knows right when meteor is gonna hit and can time curse +light attack +infused wpn enchant+frags for almost 25k burst and the only thing that is even possible to dodge is the light attack frag weave so what do?

the moment metoer is cast on you: vigor roll dodge cancel, whatever other heal you have and then block. either way you get stunned by rune cage and have to tank meteor+a light attack weave or two. and if im not mistaken rune cage can be dodged (yay) but this means meteor will still stun you through the dodge and you still face tank a long of damage..

permafrost is also nasty the stun animation is always super late and the CC break never works until the animation has already started.

yes incap is op but its getting nerfed a lot harder than rune cage is. also no incap light attack SA "one hit combo" should kill you if you have shields up and have enough stamina to break free. Yeah good sorcs have to manage stamina too.

Rune cage is dodgable and got all of its dmg taken away..how is that less than incap nerf?

Feanor

Micah_Bayer wrote: »

Swimguy wrote: »

i dont understand why you think its okay for ultis to be op and pretty much guarantee kills.

rune cage+meteor is disgusting especially if the sorc knows right when meteor is gonna hit and can time curse +light attack +infused wpn enchant+frags for almost 25k burst and the only thing that is even possible to dodge is the light attack frag weave so what do?

the moment metoer is cast on you: vigor roll dodge cancel, whatever other heal you have and then block. either way you get stunned by rune cage and have to tank meteor+a light attack weave or two. and if im not mistaken rune cage can be dodged (yay) but this means meteor will still stun you through the dodge and you still face tank a long of damage..

permafrost is also nasty the stun animation is always super late and the CC break never works until the animation has already started.

yes incap is op but its getting nerfed a lot harder than rune cage is. also no incap light attack SA "one hit combo" should kill you if you have shields up and have enough stamina to break free. Yeah good sorcs have to manage stamina too.

Rune cage is dodgable and got all of its dmg taken away..how is that less than incap nerf?

In a world of NBs, it is.

As for the animation - that comes from lazy design. The copy pasted the code from Fossilize‘s stun (addons still register it as Fossilize even) but didn’t care that the two skills have completely different animations. The Rune Cage one comes from the time when it was a disorient and damage was much lower across the board. Since it broke on direct damage the lengthy animation wasn’t an issue. ZOS doesn’t care about such subtleties though. Nerfing into the ground takes less effort.