Let's talk about Buff Skills Animations vs Gameplay Fluidity
haakira
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ESO has some really nice gameplay overall but I believe it could be improved in many ways. Some of those ways are regarding to skills that Buff and the animation that goes with it being often rather slow.
Most of the combat happens at a fairly high pace and I find myself breaking off from the combat flow whenever I need to re-buff. When I look at some replays, half of the time all I'm doing is re-applying buffs that have no interaction with players and also run on a very short duration, which further hinders this, as I need to re-apply them very often.
Vigor, forward momentum, shielding, ice fort/warden crystal shield, shuffle and many others feel sluggish to re-apply in the middle of the combat as they have no interaction with other players or mobs and totally break the flow of the combat.
I feel especially this way after playing a bit of Guild Wars 2 where skills happen at a much faster rate, dont lock you in animations, and you can trade off conditions like slows, roots, dots and cleanse them properly without breaking the flow of combat.
I'm aware most of these can be animation cancelled but it really isn't the way it should work for the gameplay to feel fluid (which it still doesn't with ani cancel).
What I feel like would improve the gameplay is shortening out all these buffing animations and getting them to do a little more than they do.
Let's take a look at Forward Momentum. Pretty bad animation, have to cast it often for snare immunity with no other effects other than rebuffing major brutality and a small hot. It doesn't feel good to recast it mid combat whatsoever. Possible solution to make it better and more impactful: Re-work the animation to a thrust, make it faster, have a small leap forward effect to help gain distance (like half a streak distance) and still have the 4 second snare immunity. Cherry on the top: Removes 1 harmful effect (like Betty). We need more cleansing options across the board. Seriously.
If some of these Buff skills had more synergy with the actual combat, it would feel overall better. You've done it in the past for example with DK Wings. We need more re-works like that. Streak could use snare immunity and so could Double Take.
Have skills have more dual effects. One effect that buffs and one that interacts with the environment/players, it will make things smoother. We already have skills that do Damage AND slow/root/stun. So in response we need to be able to buff AND cleanse/create distance/reflect damage/small heals over time etc. Or even deal damage and buff you at the same time. Shrouded Daggers is a good example. Feels smooth, gives major brutality and a small snare. It doesn't break the combat to re-apply a redundant effect such as major brutality.
What are your opinions on what could use a re-work to help make the gameplay smoother and how to go about it?
Most of the combat happens at a fairly high pace and I find myself breaking off from the combat flow whenever I need to re-buff. When I look at some replays, half of the time all I'm doing is re-applying buffs that have no interaction with players and also run on a very short duration, which further hinders this, as I need to re-apply them very often.
Vigor, forward momentum, shielding, ice fort/warden crystal shield, shuffle and many others feel sluggish to re-apply in the middle of the combat as they have no interaction with other players or mobs and totally break the flow of the combat.
I feel especially this way after playing a bit of Guild Wars 2 where skills happen at a much faster rate, dont lock you in animations, and you can trade off conditions like slows, roots, dots and cleanse them properly without breaking the flow of combat.
I'm aware most of these can be animation cancelled but it really isn't the way it should work for the gameplay to feel fluid (which it still doesn't with ani cancel).
What I feel like would improve the gameplay is shortening out all these buffing animations and getting them to do a little more than they do.
Let's take a look at Forward Momentum. Pretty bad animation, have to cast it often for snare immunity with no other effects other than rebuffing major brutality and a small hot. It doesn't feel good to recast it mid combat whatsoever. Possible solution to make it better and more impactful: Re-work the animation to a thrust, make it faster, have a small leap forward effect to help gain distance (like half a streak distance) and still have the 4 second snare immunity. Cherry on the top: Removes 1 harmful effect (like Betty). We need more cleansing options across the board. Seriously.
If some of these Buff skills had more synergy with the actual combat, it would feel overall better. You've done it in the past for example with DK Wings. We need more re-works like that. Streak could use snare immunity and so could Double Take.
Have skills have more dual effects. One effect that buffs and one that interacts with the environment/players, it will make things smoother. We already have skills that do Damage AND slow/root/stun. So in response we need to be able to buff AND cleanse/create distance/reflect damage/small heals over time etc. Or even deal damage and buff you at the same time. Shrouded Daggers is a good example. Feels smooth, gives major brutality and a small snare. It doesn't break the combat to re-apply a redundant effect such as major brutality.
What are your opinions on what could use a re-work to help make the gameplay smoother and how to go about it?
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WoppaBoem✭✭✭✭✭I agree buffs need to have faster animations PVP or PVE does not matter they need to be faster.
Regarding forward momentum I don't get you very solid skill to my opinion.Xbox EU & NA - PVP Only0 -
haakira✭✭✭I agree buffs need to have faster animations PVP or PVE does not matter they need to be faster.
Regarding forward momentum I don't get you very solid skill to my opinion.
To me it often feels like a "wasted slot" that I'm required to have to access major brutality and snare immunity cause there's no other option. I'd like it to do more than just sit there for reapply a buff. There's only 5 skills on each bar plus an ultimate. It could be so much better to have more impactful options!..
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WoppaBoem✭✭✭✭✭give me that skill on a magica char every day, remove snair and major sorcery........Xbox EU & NA - PVP Only0
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ZeroXFF✭✭✭✭✭
✭All of the mechanics should be designed around animation cancelling being unnecessary for top performance. This applies to all skills and also light attacks. Light attacks should be redesigned to take the spot of spammables in people's rotations. And the slow skill animations (like Endless Hail) should be accelerated so that there is no need to block cancel them unless you actually want to block something.1 -
Gnozo✭✭✭✭✭
✭I only agree on the warden buffs.
Netch, artic blast, mushrooms have a awkward animation wich is really really long if not canceled.0 -
Ranger209✭✭✭✭✭I agree buffs need to have faster animations PVP or PVE does not matter they need to be faster.
Regarding forward momentum I don't get you very solid skill to my opinion.
To me it often feels like a "wasted slot" that I'm required to have to access major brutality and snare immunity cause there's no other option. I'd like it to do more than just sit there for reapply a buff. There's only 5 skills on each bar plus an ultimate. It could be so much better to have more impactful options!..
Take it off your bar and play, see how impactful it really is. I think you will find it already has a large impact.0 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Zos seems to have had a Laissez-faire management style when building this game. It is why important game systems were woefully incomplete (like original GF) and the game was in such shambles when it launched. Yes, to a degree it still is today.
But this is why animations were never standardized to the GCD nor were they even standardized amongst themselves.
I really do not think Zos plans on making any changes in this department. After all we still have the same management.
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haakira✭✭✭I agree buffs need to have faster animations PVP or PVE does not matter they need to be faster.
Regarding forward momentum I don't get you very solid skill to my opinion.
To me it often feels like a "wasted slot" that I'm required to have to access major brutality and snare immunity cause there's no other option. I'd like it to do more than just sit there for reapply a buff. There's only 5 skills on each bar plus an ultimate. It could be so much better to have more impactful options!..
Take it off your bar and play, see how impactful it really is. I think you will find it already has a large impact.
I do know how impactful it is, maybe I didn't express myself correctly with Wasted slot.
The effects of the skill are without a doubt extremely crucial on the PVP experience on our current environment.
However, what I meant was how it doesn't feel good to use it in the middle of combat and would rather use it more often for some other defensive mechanism while still providing those buffs, such as creating a small distance or gap closing through a small leap. It is called "Forward Momentum" after all!0 -
Danklord✭✭I think the point of adding "slow dispells" or cleanse to certain abilities is not to buff that specific ability. Its not to buff forward momentum or anything. What we need is to have more counters to playstyles. Slow and putting bleeds/poison etc on people is the current meta. And the way slow works and how theres literally 0 counter to it (unless you play templar, however thats not a logical solution) is atm really poor pvp design. And also how literally only 1 class in the game, can effectively remove debuffs is even more downright stupid.
We need first off, the support spell "cleanse" to be changed, increasing the amount it can remove. And it can be tied to only debuffs that causes dmg. Then we can use dispells or small escapes etc to other abilities. And it can be to a wide variety of abilities so we dont create a meta where you only use abilities that has this or so you don't feel forced to use "x" ability.
Because if you're going to have debuffs to abilities, such as defile, burning, poison, slow etc, you also need abilities that can remove this. Doesn't mean they have to remove all of them in 1 click, but it can perhaps remove one, and increase ur resistance to it so you don't get as slowed next time, then this certain effect gets a CD. This can be looked at and changed over the course of time.
We need more effective ways to counter things without ending the battle, running away, re healing and dark exchange back your resources or the one from Psijic tree. It interrupts the flow as Haaki said and it makes the battle just annoying. Everyone and Zos has always claimed that this game is about countering playstyles, builds etc. So why can we not counter debuffs effectivly, unless we play one very specific class, who also needs to (if you dont play it) chase you around the battlefield.
The only way to "counter" any debuffs is either:
A. Run away, spam heal so you don't die.
B. Shield and run away.
C. Git gud and play templar you scrub.
The 2 serious notes in this one, is all about running away, disrupting the flow and the one effected will be pissed he can't deal with the bleeds, defile, slows in an effective way and the one causing the debuffs, will be annoyed the guy is just running away. If there were ways to deal with these effectivly, the battle would continue and whoever is better at the game, wins.
Just my 2 cents.0