On Animation Canceling, Yes, Again

alexj4596b14_ESO

Elwendryll wrote: »

To sum it up, not letting an animation totally run is bad, but using macro is fine in some cases, everyone uses macro anyway, including me. 99% of the playerbase knows how to cancel animation and do that regularly, but it's bad and not acceptable. The hardest content of this game should be designed around physically disabled people.

Well, *troll off*, as many people said, there is a global cooldown. Bashing is totally useless in a rotation, you can do it in a burst in pvp, but in pve it's straight up useless. So, the only thing you actually do is weaving light attacks, and swap cancel.

I'm convinced players using animation canceling are a minority. Keep in mind there are less than 1% of the playerbase that finished vMA or vet trials. I'm pretty sure there are some people out there using macros. But the thing is... They don't provide any advantage, they don't allow you to do anything that can't easily be done with some practice, because there are global cooldowns. Why use them in the first place? If you're not physically disabled.

And about being able to complete all content... It's a multiplayer game, not skyrim. You can't pause the game whenever you want. There is enough content in this game for years of entertainment even before touching anything that requires animation canceling to be completed. Some online games require a 0.1s reaction time on some mechanics, less than that would be absurd due to network limitations, ESO is very generous on the reaction time. There is content for everyone, asking for all the content to be available to the lower performing players is the same as depriving the most mechanically skilled players of the content they're looking for.

I don't even understand where the problem with animation canceling really is, it's only visual. You don't have to use it. And complaining about other people using it is the same as complaining their characters looks ugly. That's their choice. Anyway. I may be biased, I'm a stamsorc, I don't even see my character while I play (hurricane...).

An honest request would be to change the animations so they match the global cooldown, because that's just that, the animations don't follow the global cooldown, that's not the cooldown that doesn't follow the animations. Asking for a removal of animation canceling is just asking for the game to become slow paced and lower the ceiling.

So a number of errors in your post here.

First "Skill Ceiling" the largest problem with this term is that the community has more control over this "Ceiling" then the game developer. Why do they? The reason is because the community create the trends associated with content.

For example, Vet Trails the community understands they are designed to be difficult and accept that. What is not acceptable is that certain barriers that are created as a unintentionally result. I posted about a a situation before where a group expected XYZ and if you couldn't do those XYZ things you were unable to participate. Fine I can agree to that until the point of something being out of a persons control. So a person who lacks motor control for any reason beyond there control says alright I'll use a macro to adapt to my situation because I want to complete content to make my toon stronger. ToS requirements state this is punishable offence and creates a negative impact loop on the community ZoS servers.

Now let's think of an alternative way to solve this. If LA waving only accounts for 10% of the total damage as people seem to claim, and that 10% of damage loss lowers the DPS bellow the threshold established by the community to find a group. Now this person has no other way to obtain items this person needs and there are no alternative way to obtain these items. A way to solve this would be launching a light attack at the firing of a skill, and this would reduce amount of Inputts in a repetitive sequence that would have to be completed in less then 2 seconds over a long sequence of imputs. This could be made into a option that can be turned on in the settings menu on the client side. This would solve this whole "Celling" problem created by the community, solve some of issues people like myself have and NOT effect others in the game.

alexj4596b14_ESO

cpuScientist wrote: »

How can one not animation cancel. Like take out those with a disability sure. What's so hard about left click and then skill. It's like the simplest thing. My buddy who just got the game I told em you wanna light attack before every skill.

Further those that absolutely cannot light weave just play a heavy attack build or just spam one ability. With Max CP and decent gear a templar can get about 15k DPS just jabbing. Just fo that lol.

Seriously though weaving is the easiest thing to do. My Aussie friends can do it. The only time latency becomes a real issue is when it's so bad it breaks the game so that even just trying to press a skill isn't quite firing. I mean I've parsed with 400+ ping and still did fine lol. And if that's what you normally play with, look for a solution or quit the game cause that's unplayable Ani cancelling or not.

I think your missing a key understanding based on this statement. It's not the game itself preventing people who have motor control issue from excuting a weave or animation cancel it is the TOS from ZoS that is preventing people from adapting who can't do this. Ping can prevent animation canceling mechanically but the problem starts at the Rules level not the game level.

central_scrutinizer

Animation cancelling isn't skillful, it's just busywork. It's not mechanically hard to achieve at all, it's mostly just a cadence to memorize. Get over yourselves.

That said, I don't want it changed because I doubt that it would be replaced with a better system, if ZOS could build a coherent combat system then animation canceling wouldn't exist in the first place and I'd rather deal with the devil that I know and have already geared around in many cases.

alexj4596b14_ESO

D0PAMINE wrote: »

pelle412 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

So should a completely blind person be allowed to drive?

Yes absolutely. Push the start button and the car drives itself.

Then you're just a passenger.

Sure, but you are still able to participate in a reasonable Manor within your community and contribute. Something that would reduce imputs per second in the case of rapid imputs in a sequence would in effect do the same thing. The self driving car does not effect anything else on the road but does help that one group that needs or wants it.

alexj4596b14_ESO

LeagueTroll wrote: »

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

Bonusfeatures75 wrote: »

Why do you want to dumb the game down? Animation canceling adds another layer of skill, something most MMO’s are really missing. How about people get good and learn how to do it?

Yes, that would require the big scary E word- Effort

i can promise, and assure you that the amount of people who DO NOT know how to and cannot animation cancel is about 1% of ALL of eso community.
everyone animation cancels
we all do it.
it is even taught in the game by the devs.

what people are angry about is the over use of it when lagg and macros are involved that create and allow cheats to exist.
i have a list of people who do it regularly, i report them when i see them.
its allways the same thing, they hit people with 5 to 8 skills or light attacks in less then 1 second, its allways the same guys, i never see other people doing it.

in addition to that, i see those same guys at resources take out those guards on the flags instantly.
you see the guard fall and all you hear is one hit.
it's not "skill"

This is statitical % can't even be close to true. For DPS PvE animation canceling is required to achieve community based DPS requirements for end game raids. I am a part who can't animation cancel due to a metal issue which makes it nearly impossible for me to do fast pase repeating patters due to a lack of motor control. No amount of practice will fix this for me and people like me and my issue is very common. Now their are different degrees to which people are effected. At the end of the day this actually locks people out of content they pay for. There is a better way to do it that allows for skill and Ease of access for everyone.

I can’t do it properly. I play a tank and animation cancel is completely not required for a tank. Tanks should heavy attack whenever possible and never even light attack. I don’t feel limited at all.

Its great that you feel fullfilled from this role. But your disability shouldn't cause you to be limmited to one roll within MMO when there are solutions that would increase overall in game satisfaction and not affect other players in a negative way.

alexj4596b14_ESO

central_scrutinizer wrote: »

Animation cancelling isn't skillful, it's just busywork. It's not mechanically hard to achieve at all, it's mostly just a cadence to memorize. Get over yourselves.

Let's address this. One of the most common conditions mental health conditions in the U.S is ADHD/ADD. One of the most common symptoms of this condition is lack of short term memory, lack of memory recall, and unable to stick routines for a significant period of time, and lack of motor control. Now these symptoms effect everyone differently ranging from server to mild. So saying "just memory" is like saying "why can't you remember what you were you put your keys?" To someone with Alzheimer's or Dementia. Now to be clear I'm not comparing ADHD/ADD to those conditions. This is just an example.

exeeter702

Sharee wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

I can't help but feel that if we couldn't ani cancel, the same people moaning its a thing would be moaning that it wasn't.

Only if you removed it. If it wasnt there in the firstplace, people would think it is normal.

Look at Dark Souls. No animation cancelling there, and no torch-and-pitchfork mob demanding there should be.

I’d say being able to dodge without first returning to a resting position would qualify as “animation canceling”, and having played Bloodborne, those game definitely don’t require you wait through entire recovery animation sequences before they let you dodge.

Now you are twisting the definition of "animation cancelling" to suit your argument.

There is no such thing as landing a light attack, skill, and a bash all in a split second in dark souls, which is the essence of TESO animation cancelling.

Sharee wrote: »

commdt wrote: »

Guys. Animation cancelling do absolutely zero, nill, nothing. My friend tested it on his stam NB a year ago and he did absolutely same 51k parses with and totally without it.

Becauese yes, you can skip animation, but you cant skip global cooldown which is 1 second. Since all animations are below 1 second, you get nothing for skipping them. Just be done with this myth already

Light attacks have their own cooldown. Abilities have their own cooldown. Bashing has its own cooldown.

You can use all three at the same time, LA being cancelled by skill, and skill being cancelled by bash, and see a huge increase in your damage output compared to letting every animation finish.

With all due respect, you do not know what you're talking about.

With all due respect, what i said is exactly how it works. If you disagree, feel free to point out where you think i made a mistake, instead of making blanket statements like "ur wrong".

Aside from the fact that explanations with much detail have already been expressed, i find it exhausting having to constantly repeat myslef. But to be concise.

No one twisted the arguement to suit their needs. Animation canceling is simply about cutting off the recovery animation with an action that is permitted off the GCD, to which the dark souls example was absolutely apt. This discussion can only go somewhere if those involved accept the simple truth that weaving light attacks into each GCD ability use is not animation canceling even though it literally cuts off inconsequential animations.

Bash and light attacks do not in any way shape or form have their own cool downs. You are conflating particular systems and how they effect priorities from a gameplay perspective. .

Light atracks obey the GCD in that they are unusable during the GCD refresh. They simply do not initiate the GCD on use. Its exactly why the devs allow an ability to cut off the animation of a light attack so you can get both actions in per every GCD.

Actions such as bash, block, roll dodge and bar swap, are off the GCD to maintain reactionary freedom and player agency. Bash in particular has a small damage component that allows an additional tick of damage, but is rarely worth a potential stamina (or magicka with frost staff) regen tick loss. And it most definitely does not lead to obscene burst combos that the anti "animation cancel" crowd would try to (and depressingly succeed in) have many believe.

There is no huge damage output, that is hyperbolic nonsense exacerbated by poorly educated individuals who believe they know how the combat system works under the hood. Its these same individuals who think tying damage calculations and ability resolve points to the end of a recovery animation is a conceivable solution, which it is absolutely not for numerous reasons, but at this point im repeating myself for a third time on this thread alone and wont elaborate any further.

D0PAMINE

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

D0PAMINE wrote: »

pelle412 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

So should a completely blind person be allowed to drive?

Yes absolutely. Push the start button and the car drives itself.

Then you're just a passenger.

Sure, but you are still able to participate in a reasonable Manor within your community and contribute. Something that would reduce imputs per second in the case of rapid imputs in a sequence would in effect do the same thing. The self driving car does not effect anything else on the road but does help that one group that needs or wants it.

I have never EVER said someone couldn't run content with me because they were disabled or couldn't animation cancel. We don't do that in the ESO community.

alexj4596b14_ESO

D0PAMINE wrote: »

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

D0PAMINE wrote: »

pelle412 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

So should a completely blind person be allowed to drive?

Yes absolutely. Push the start button and the car drives itself.

Then you're just a passenger.

Sure, but you are still able to participate in a reasonable Manor within your community and contribute. Something that would reduce imputs per second in the case of rapid imputs in a sequence would in effect do the same thing. The self driving car does not effect anything else on the road but does help that one group that needs or wants it.

I have never EVER said someone couldn't run content with me because they were disabled or couldn't animation cancel. We don't do that in the ESO community.

I was not accusing anyone in this thread of doing it. I'm saying it does in fact happen. I would also point out that the person who is disabled would probably not explain why they can't perform due to a multiple reasons. The main one is that Video games are one of the few places you can escape to, without having to worry about being judged or "treated differently". Even tho ironically I am basically asking for a non invasive accommodation for people who can't.

D0PAMINE

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

D0PAMINE wrote: »

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

D0PAMINE wrote: »

pelle412 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

So should a completely blind person be allowed to drive?

Yes absolutely. Push the start button and the car drives itself.

Then you're just a passenger.

Sure, but you are still able to participate in a reasonable Manor within your community and contribute. Something that would reduce imputs per second in the case of rapid imputs in a sequence would in effect do the same thing. The self driving car does not effect anything else on the road but does help that one group that needs or wants it.

I have never EVER said someone couldn't run content with me because they were disabled or couldn't animation cancel. We don't do that in the ESO community.

I was not accusing anyone in this thread of doing it. I'm saying it does in fact happen. I would also point out that the person who is disabled would probably not explain why they can't perform due to a multiple reasons. The main one is that Video games are one of the few places you can escape to, without having to worry about being judged or "treated differently". Even tho ironically I am basically asking for a non invasive accommodation for people who can't.

No one is being treated differently over Animation Canceling. This thread is full of people demanding it is removed or demanding it stays. The judgement only occurs when it's opinionated, which this thread is based upon. People with disabilities shouldn't be used as a scapegoat. Look at all the posters getting worked up whether they agree or disagree about Animation Canceling. You can't group people as disabled or not to gain support for anything.

Itoq

An option rarely discussed would be to increase the global cool down by a small amount (somewhere between a tenth and a third of a second.) This would keep animation cancelling intact, make efficient light attack weaving more obtainable for a higher percentage of players and allow slightly more fluid appearing animations.

alexj4596b14_ESO

D0PAMINE wrote: »

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

D0PAMINE wrote: »

alexj4596b14_ESO wrote: »

D0PAMINE wrote: »

pelle412 wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

So should a completely blind person be allowed to drive?

Yes absolutely. Push the start button and the car drives itself.

Then you're just a passenger.

Sure, but you are still able to participate in a reasonable Manor within your community and contribute. Something that would reduce imputs per second in the case of rapid imputs in a sequence would in effect do the same thing. The self driving car does not effect anything else on the road but does help that one group that needs or wants it.

I have never EVER said someone couldn't run content with me because they were disabled or couldn't animation cancel. We don't do that in the ESO community.

I was not accusing anyone in this thread of doing it. I'm saying it does in fact happen. I would also point out that the person who is disabled would probably not explain why they can't perform due to a multiple reasons. The main one is that Video games are one of the few places you can escape to, without having to worry about being judged or "treated differently". Even tho ironically I am basically asking for a non invasive accommodation for people who can't.

No one is being treated differently over Animation Canceling. This thread is full of people demanding it is removed or demanding it stays. The judgement only occurs when it's opinionated, which this thread is based upon. People with disabilities shouldn't be used as a scapegoat. Look at all the posters getting worked up whether they agree or disagree about Animation Canceling. You can't group people as disabled or not to gain support for anything.

I am one of those impaired people, so I'm speaking from my own experiences. I also don't share the remove it from the game or keep it in the game opinions, I have simply asked that another option be made available to people who need them, and in some way it also helps the "get rid of them crowd" and "keep it crowd" by removing some of problems that people have with canceling and weaving which canceling an animation just not considered "animation canceling".

Mr_Walker

Elwendryll wrote: »

Some online games require a 0.1s reaction time on some mechanics, less than that would be absurd due to network limitations,

Uh, hate to be that guy, but that's inside the speed for transmission of the signal from brain to limb... and by quite some margin.

alexj4596b14_ESO

Itoq wrote: »

An option rarely discussed would be to increase the global cool down by a small amount (somewhere between a tenth and a third of a second.) This would keep animation cancelling intact, make efficient light attack weaving more obtainable for a higher percentage of players and allow slightly more fluid appearing animations.

That is actually a really amazing idea and could help with the problem.

The_Brosteen

After 9 hrs of scrolling down to find the end of the post and the tl;dr, I found there was none. Because of this I fundamentally disagree with whatever your point was.

FearlessOne_2014

In my opinion Animation Canceling should stay. Players should make the distinction of legetimate Ani-Canceling, and illegal multi-combo macroing.

ZOS should either actually perma bann macro users. Or just make the use of macros completely legal for ALL ESOers. Just in the past 24 hours alone that have came back to ESO. It's gotten to the point now. That these macro users are so good that they've figured out a way to bypass the Global Cooldown. The situation has also gotten so bad that these heavy macro users are extremely blatant, with their heavy use of multi-skill macros combinations.

So again either ZOS should completely shut down these types of users. (Which they don't, even with video proof of such) Or just make it legal and fair play for all ESO players to use.

It's completely game-breaking to lose to these types of folk. Just because you don't want to risk your own account, getting banned out of left field. Another area that ZOS and other MMO devs. should start looking into is the rise of smart intrusive AIs in gaming. Tho I don't believe any game maker could formulate a defense against AIs of this nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAu1ZsTCA64

It's only a matter of time before this start, to become a thing in other genres like MMOs.

lassitershawn

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Trancestor wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

Bonusfeatures75 wrote: »

Why do you want to dumb the game down? Animation canceling adds another layer of skill, something most MMO’s are really missing. How about people get good and learn how to do it?

Yes, that would require the big scary E word- Effort

i can promise, and assure you that the amount of people who DO NOT know how to and cannot animation cancel is about 1% of ALL of eso community.
everyone animation cancels
we all do it.
it is even taught in the game by the devs.

what people are angry about is the over use of it when lagg and macros are involved that create and allow cheats to exist.
i have a list of people who do it regularly, i report them when i see them.
its allways the same thing, they hit people with 5 to 8 skills or light attacks in less then 1 second, its allways the same guys, i never see other people doing it.

in addition to that, i see those same guys at resources take out those guards on the flags instantly.
you see the guard fall and all you hear is one hit.
it's not "skill"

How have i never seen anything like that in the thousands of hours that i played? Bad players always accuse good players of macros when they get destroyed by them.

Because its physically impossible to perform five actions in under a second . Macros exist its designed to support third party additions.i think everyone should use them in pvp.

Honestly pretty common in endgame, certainly a far cry from impossible. It is entirely possible and common in endgame PvE to be swapping directions (sometimes multiple times rapidly), light weaving skills, bar swapping, using synergies, and potentially going into a block, bash, or roll dodge depending on what is going on. Without moving at all you can be doing four actions in one second just from a LA > Skill > Swap while popping a synergy and that is an extremely routine event in a raid. I know a lot of endgame players and afaik none of them use macros in raid. Perhaps a few for testing purposes and some people macro their synergy button to just spam x but that isn't extremely common and is pretty unnecessary.

Wifeaggro13

lassitershawn wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Trancestor wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

Bonusfeatures75 wrote: »

Why do you want to dumb the game down? Animation canceling adds another layer of skill, something most MMO’s are really missing. How about people get good and learn how to do it?

Yes, that would require the big scary E word- Effort

i can promise, and assure you that the amount of people who DO NOT know how to and cannot animation cancel is about 1% of ALL of eso community.
everyone animation cancels
we all do it.
it is even taught in the game by the devs.

what people are angry about is the over use of it when lagg and macros are involved that create and allow cheats to exist.
i have a list of people who do it regularly, i report them when i see them.
its allways the same thing, they hit people with 5 to 8 skills or light attacks in less then 1 second, its allways the same guys, i never see other people doing it.

in addition to that, i see those same guys at resources take out those guards on the flags instantly.
you see the guard fall and all you hear is one hit.
it's not "skill"

How have i never seen anything like that in the thousands of hours that i played? Bad players always accuse good players of macros when they get destroyed by them.

Because its physically impossible to perform five actions in under a second . Macros exist its designed to support third party additions.i think everyone should use them in pvp.

Honestly pretty common in endgame, certainly a far cry from impossible. It is entirely possible and common in endgame PvE to be swapping directions (sometimes multiple times rapidly), light weaving skills, bar swapping, using synergies, and potentially going into a block, bash, or roll dodge depending on what is going on. Without moving at all you can be doing four actions in one second just from a LA > Skill > Swap while popping a synergy and that is an extremely routine event in a raid. I know a lot of endgame players and afaik none of them use macros in raid. Perhaps a few for testing purposes and some people macro their synergy button to just spam x but that isn't extremely common and is pretty unnecessary.

what we are talking about is doing them in under half a second. not 1 second or 1. 5 seconds his screen shot if accurate is clocking all five action in under .44 of a second i cant find the screen shot going off memory. I dont think they should remove animation canceling now anyway for the record, ive already stated my opinion on ESO's combat in other threads. i will not bore this one

mairwen85 wrote: »

probabkyravi wrote: »

https://youtu.be/ThZtwhYkKSs

Last comment on that video:

Mr. Grey
10 months ago
Pretty much, and whenever someone complains or says it wasn't intended they'll link us to this video.

and this guy was one of the reasons combat in eSO is so damn imbalanced and we have a floating meta. not to bash but many cheered when he was let go

Rungar

I think zos knows players are able to abuse this system and the costs of it are starting to mount. People quickly forget that the COMBAT lead was let go last month without explanation.

klowdy1

That was way to long to care to read, because the problem people ignore is they don't know how to remove animation cancelling without completely changing how combat works, more than likely copying someone else's style, instead of what they have made. Its here to stay.

Smasherx74

tl;dr pls

Sy1ph5

Smasherx74 wrote: »

tl;dr pls

Some people are mad cause bad. Some people think that everyone better than them are hacking. Some people think that the game should change on a fundamental level to account for their personal problems.

lassitershawn

FearlessOne_2014 wrote: »

In my opinion Animation Canceling should stay. Players should make the distinction of legetimate Ani-Canceling, and illegal multi-combo macroing.

ZOS should either actually perma bann macro users. Or just make the use of macros completely legal for ALL ESOers. Just in the past 24 hours alone that have came back to ESO. It's gotten to the point now. That these macro users are so good that they've figured out a way to bypass the Global Cooldown. The situation has also gotten so bad that these heavy macro users are extremely blatant, with their heavy use of multi-skill macros combinations.

:facepalm:

alexj4596b14_ESO

Smasherx74 wrote: »

tl;dr pls

Tl;dr people who can't animation cancel or weave attacks want a different options that would enable them to. Some have suggested that we make a option in the client settings for light attacks to go off with skill activation to reduce the number of imputs required to animation cancel. This would help people with motor control issues with figners and hands as well remove a step making it combat easier for people who struggle with animation canceling. Some have suggested to increase the GD by a 3rd of a second or so to make weaving and animation canceling easier in general. Other just want it gone others want it to stay the same.

alexj4596b14_ESO

klowdy1 wrote: »

That was way to long to care to read, because the problem people ignore is they don't know how to remove animation cancelling without completely changing how combat works, more than likely copying someone else's style, instead of what they have made. Its here to stay.

It can stay but options can be added to make easier for people who struggle with it.

Joy_Division

After 5 years, can you please find another game that has a combat system you like?

Sabbathius wrote: »

OK, so we have another wave of posts and polls about animation canceling, as we have had, for pretty much the past 5 years. A goodly portion of players (41% on the poll currently on front page) believe it's bad for the game, for one reason or another.

So what you want is in the minority, yet you want to impose that minority opinion. Gotcha. No bonus points for inserting a misleading adjective "goodly".

First, when people say they want animation canceling gone, first counterargument is that this will make the game unplayable. If you start Endless Hail animation, with no way to interrupt it, and boss initiates a 1-shot mechanic you must block or die, without animation canceling you die. That's the argument. But that is not what people who are asking for animation canceling to go away are asking for. A distinction has to be made between *EMERGENCY* animation canceling, and *ROUTINE* animation canceling that is part of the rotation.

Why is this distinction so important to you? And by "people," are you trying to impose what you believe in guise of the community? I seem to recall hearing a lot of folks saying they don;t like any animation canceling at all. Please say "I believe" because this is your opinion.

Currently, routine animation canceling is what we have. We cancel animations for the sake of canceling animations, and squeezing out more performance. We do not cancel only in emergencies. By comparison, most other MMOs have animation canceling for emergencies only, and this is reinforced by cast-and-effect. That is, the effect of the spell only occurs if the animation is allowed to play in full, or for the cast to complete. ESO already has some of this, if you animation cancel anything with a cast time, you won't get an effect. Trouble is, vast majority of ESO's abilities are instant, thus you cancel the animation, but still get the effect. Think of it this way - I am pouring a glass of water, and someone interrupts me. Do I magically end up holding a glass full of water? No. I was interrupted. I didn't finish pouring. My glass isn't full. In ESO, currently, you can interrupt, and still end up with a full glass.

OK first of all, I don;t animation cancel for the sake of canceling animation. I cancel because I find it an enjoyable part of the game, I find it realistic in that martial combat is comprised of combinations and not slow wielding 1 second long moves, and I do so because PvP in the game is already too defensive oriented and we don't need any more mechanics that encourage defensive gameplay. Again, please say "I think" when referring to your opinion, not "we".

And why are you privileging the word "cancel," which is inaccurately describing what's going on? I'm not "canceling" a skill. I am pressing a light attack command before activating a skill, which I am not cancelling. I'm not pouring water here.

So, what's a better way? Allow animation canceling, like today. But the trigger is tied to the animation finish. You press a button, resource cost (magicka, stamina, etc) is subtracted from your resource pool, and animation begins to play. No effect has occurred yet. Animation finishes playing. Effect occurs. At any point throughout this, you can cancel via block, dodge, bar swap, bash, etc. But if you do, no effect will occur, because animation never finishes, and no resources are refunded. Meaning, if you have to move, if you have to block, etc., you CAN, that aspect of the game doesn't change. But now you can't just spam stuff at the target willy-nilly, you have to be selective about what you cast and when, as opposed to hammering out a rotation blindly regardless of context.

I've heard people making this argument for the past 5 years. You're take is not new. And I don;t spam stuff at targets willy-nilly. I am selective about what I cast and when and so are people who are skilled at the game. So your change is unnecessary to achieve this objective..

Now, this usually spawns two other arguments. First being "this will make the game too slow". Yes, for some, and also not necessarily. You have to remember, some people like lightning-fast gameplay, others like slow and tactical gameplay (which is also why turn-based games are still a thing), and there's people in the middle. So, if the game got a little slower and that was bad for you, there's be other players for whom this would be good. So the change wouldn't be a net negative. And when I said "not necessarily", it means some of the longer animations can be sped up, or buffed in damage so that the result is commensurate with the animation duration. Longer animation -> bigger bang. Another alternative would be longer animation -> less cost, you'd be trading animation time for lower resource consumption, but risk forced interrupt via mechanics.

Why do I have to remember what some people like? You're already reminded us what people like in the poll that you cited. And the majority of people did not did not think it was bad for the game. And that's why your change would be a net negative: because you're in the minority of opinion

Now, let me delve into the logical objection to animation canceling. Can we all agree that developers spend time and effort creating those pretty animations? Yes, yes? Anybody disagree? Remember the Warden reveal, where they spent half an hour just showing off those pretty animations, and how much love and care went into those? If you don't, just wait another month, they will do the same with Necromancer. BUT, why are they doing this, if we're all supposed to L2P and git gud and cancel animations? I have yet to have anyone make a cogent, logical argument why developers would waste precious time and money on creating animations we're never meant to see in full. Anyone care to try and explain? So, right there, is a logical contradiction.

Logic? According to who? You and 41%? First of all, I do see the animations because when a light attacked is "weaved" into a skill, which is a more accurate description by the way, the animation does fully play out. So thank you devs for putting the time and effort into this stuff that I see. Secondly, the devs put a ton of time into stuff that doesn;t get used or have been completely discarded: entire dungeon and trial fight mechanics, gear sets, player skills, veteran ranks, entry into the Imperial city, etc. Thirdly, I don't find it logical to prioritize aesthetics over gameplay. I'd rather have the latter. Your position is not irrefutable logic. It's an opinion.

Second logical objection is, animations in this game are meant to convey what is being cast. Enemy starts casting, you see what is being cast, you react accordingly. That's how it works with NPCs, including bosses. You see the animation, you know what's coming, you take steps. That is not the case for players. You often get hit by things the animation of which you never saw, because they were block-canceled 0.2 seconds after they began. Imagine PvE in this game, like a vet boss fight or raid, if bosses suddenly started animation canceling. Would that be fun? And would that look good? Doubt it, right? If you disagree, fire up a poll, and ask "Should bosses be animation canceling? Yea/Nay" and see the results. But I think we both know what the results will be, yes? Moving on.

Nobody is asking for PvE opponents to "animation cancel" and they don't so why even bring this up? Because you can;t hack in in PvP? I am able to compete and excel in PvP just fine with the game's combat mechanics. Stop blaming animation canceling.

Third, what about discrimination against partially disabled players. OK, the easiest response would be "screw them!" or "who cares?" Not something most people here would say to someone's face in person, of course, but this is internet and /r/iamverybasass is a thing. However, let me point out that a lot of ESO's player base aren't kids. They're middle aged people *with* kids. Some of these people work with their hands, and the last thing they need after a 12 hr shift is to have to physically abuse their keyboard and mouse, trying to squeeze out Starcraft-like 400 APM. Again, I am not dismissing people who enjoy this, just pointing out that vast, vast majority of us cannot, physically, pull this off any longer. And when it comes to partial disabilities, this game ALREADY took steps towards helping these players. We can now set the telegraph color and opacity for better visibility, for example. There's still no colorblind mode, as far as I know, but most modern games that care about their user base have them by default. Last game I played would be recently-released Anthem, for example, which has multiple colorblind options built in since beta, to make sure players can see what is happening. And while these people are a minority, current estimate is approximately 8% for males. That's not insignificant. Well, in that vein, what about people who can't, due to age, arthritis, injury, etc., hammer out the perfect LA->Ability->Block cancel all the time, every time? Do we leave them overboard?

You're absolutely desperate to be trying to use discrimination as a way to implement a change into a game for 5 years. Who appointed you to speak for this group? And it's not discrimination; there's no law or legal statute mandating video games to limit the number of button presses or actions to play at the highest level And stop with the "physically abuse" their mouse and keyboard. You exaggerate as if it takes strenuous physical exertion to press a mouse button. The game can be played and completed without perfect light attack weaving. And if they are so arthritic and physically debilitated, they're still going to die in PvP since they won;t be able to do the "Emergency" animation cancelling you are willing to allow.

Then, there's also the question of animation canceling on a purely technical level not being attainable by some players, due to distance from server. Yes, people with 30-50ms latency can get these nice, crisp rotations. It's lovely. What about those of us with consistently triple digit latency, which spikes? Especially in places like Cyrodiil, where even bar-swapping sometimes doesn't register? I am asking this in the interests of fairness. We all know how in P2P games the host has the advantage, right? Well, can we then admit that someone at 30ms has a significant advantage, even just in PvE performance, to someone sitting at 300ms? Especially if that latency isn't uniform, but fluctuates between 200 and 400ms for the average of 300ms? Ever tried to animation cancel under these conditions? It's unreliable. So what is your response? Move closer to the server, you scrub? Not a very good response, now is it? But without animation canceling, suddenly it's not much of an issue. With ability queuing buffer (sometimes even under player's control to tweak to their liking), most other MMOs play just fine at those latencies. So that's another reason to ditch animation canceling.

Asking for the interest in fairness? No you are not. You're asking in the interest of your personal preference and trying to justify a minority opinion that has not found acceptance for 5 years. Yes, I've played with those sorts of conditions and my response is I'd still rather have the game function as it does. I'd rather ZOS devote resources to improving the game's performance to to change everything about the game, which they would by the way, to implement your personal preference.

Another argument to do away with animation canceling is balancing. Again, we've all seen the threads, haven't we? Please make X dungeon easier. No, make X dungeon harder. If ZOS balances the game for animation cancelers in mind, the dungeon will be so hard for Nana, Nono and Lil' Fabrizio. Who cannot, for love or money, animation cancel as well as you. Filthy casuals... Ehem, anyway. On the flipside, if ZOS balances the game for non-cancelers, the animation cancelers will go through that content, to quote General Patton, "like crap through a goose". And nobody is happy! Well, with animation canceling removed, this is no longer a consideration. And now the mechanics can be centered around making people *think* as opposed to hammering on keys like a spastic monkey. Choose what abilities to use, and when, based on animation length and context, as opposed to locking down the muscle memory and just hammering it out. Which brings us to macros.

The game already has three modes: normal, veteran, Hard mode. Nana, Nono, and Lil' Fabriizio can do normal mode, not ever animation cancel and complete every quest and instance without a problem whatsoever. Your bias is really coming out now. I animation cancel and I do think. I don;t hammer on my keys like a spastic monkey.

Ah, yes. Zee macros, the horrible M-word. OK, first off, macros exist. Most of us use them. YES, probably even you! It just depends on how rigidly or loosely you define the word "macro". If your mouse or keyboard is programmable, you already use a macro, it's just the macro is simple. Press 4 with your thumb on the mouse, mouse executes 4. That's a simple macro - press 4, get 4. More complicated macro would be press 4, get left mouse button->short wait->4->short wait->right mouse button. This performs a light weave, an ability bound to 4, and block-cancels the animation. Now, these are against TOS, but people still use them. Especially people with disabilities or injuries, like a guildmate of mine last summer after a car crash. It was that, or walk away from ESO, and considering the guy was bedridden, that's just cruel and unusual punishment. OK, so against TOS, and it's bad, so don't do it, m'kay? But how far are we willing to take this mentality?

More unfounded assumptions about the player base. What do you mean "most of us use them?" Who is this us? You better not be including me in the same group as you, who obviously prefers a different sort of MMO than I do. If you got rid of "animation canceling," people could still use macros so what's your point here? That macros and "animation canceling" allowed your friend who had a disability to play the game at a competitive level, which invalidates your previous paragraph?

What I mean is, abilities in ESO are on-release. They fire not when you depress the key, but when you release the key. So would a macro that does "depress and release key" be cheating, and against TOS? It's still 1-to-1 input, you press 4, you get 4. But with this macro, the game doesn't wait for you to release the key, keypress and release are simultaneous. Is this cheating? Prooooobably, right? Though maybe not quite? Starting to get a little grey? OK, so let's take it a little farther towards absurdity. Would using a short travel time keyboard be cheating then? Especially if the keyboard doesn't allow hold-key, meaning every keypress the keyboard considers an automatic key release. Think about it. Where with a normal average keyboard you start depressing the key, it moves a while, then registers the keypress, but keeps moving down a bit until it bottoms out, and then you release the key, it starts moving back, and spring strength (or rubber or what have you) determines the acceleration of that snapback, and registers a release, and only THEN does your ability begin to fire? As opposed to someone using a short travel time keyboard, and with a slightest movement it registers a keypress, and immediately generates a release as well. That's mechanical cheating! They are shaving off microseconds with every single keypress, accruing entire seconds over the course of a play session! Monsters! Sooo, do we persecute and punish that as well? Do we track down people using red switches, and force them to use black switches instead? No, we don't.

You've gone so far beyond the point. Why are you so obsessed with macros? I fight people who use them in Cyrodiil and most of them are terrible, precisely because they think that marcos are some substitute for actually playing the game.

What I'm getting at is that macro isn't a script. It's not automation. You're still at the keyboard, pressing all the same buttons. And global cooldown still prevents you from activating more abilities in a second than anybody else. But you have pressing *fewer* buttons. Which brinngs me to manual light attacking. I wasn't going to touch it, so it wouldn't muddy the waters, but I'll mention it quick. There's a very good reason vast majority of MMOS either don't have these, or have these on autocast (also known as autoattack). Picture EVE Online ('03) or WoW ('04) or WAR ('08), etc., where autoattacks in those games had to be done manually with a left mouse click. Did the game just get better, or worse? I bet most would say it got significantly worse. It's just busy work. It distracts, puts unnecessary wear on the user's fingers and needlessly reduces the lifespan of our peripherals. It is, for lack of a better word, medieval.

I'm picturing those games and it sounds like they'd be better with the mechanics ESO has. The reason I enjoy ESO's combat is precisely because its mechanics are different. And I'm not alone, please note your own poll. Why can;t you just accept that there are people out there who enjoy weaving light attacks instead of assuming that they are so "wrong," ESO must be changed to accommodate your preference? Why can't you just leave us be, allow us to play this unique MMO that we like, and instead go play a game that does not have a feature that you find so objectionable?

OK, so I'll wrap this up on that. If you are going to respond, please start with attempting to answer some of the questions I posed. Like, how do you reconcile developers spending a lot of time creating animations, with apparent intent for those animations to not be seen via animation canceling. Or how would WoW or EVE's gameplay improve by making all autoattacks manual cast.

I have addressed every question that you have raised. You might have been able to figure them out yourself had you not simply assumed that your particular preference was so indisputably correct that it is necessary to throw into the garbage 5 years of ESO tradition and those of us who have played for 5 years precisely because we do not think it's bad for the game.

If you don;t like the combat mechanics of ESO, find another game instead of asking the devs to change this one.

Sharee

exeeter702 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

exeeter702 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Jhalin wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

I can't help but feel that if we couldn't ani cancel, the same people moaning its a thing would be moaning that it wasn't.

Only if you removed it. If it wasnt there in the firstplace, people would think it is normal.

Look at Dark Souls. No animation cancelling there, and no torch-and-pitchfork mob demanding there should be.

I’d say being able to dodge without first returning to a resting position would qualify as “animation canceling”, and having played Bloodborne, those game definitely don’t require you wait through entire recovery animation sequences before they let you dodge.

Now you are twisting the definition of "animation cancelling" to suit your argument.

There is no such thing as landing a light attack, skill, and a bash all in a split second in dark souls, which is the essence of TESO animation cancelling.

Sharee wrote: »

commdt wrote: »

Guys. Animation cancelling do absolutely zero, nill, nothing. My friend tested it on his stam NB a year ago and he did absolutely same 51k parses with and totally without it.

Becauese yes, you can skip animation, but you cant skip global cooldown which is 1 second. Since all animations are below 1 second, you get nothing for skipping them. Just be done with this myth already

Light attacks have their own cooldown. Abilities have their own cooldown. Bashing has its own cooldown.

You can use all three at the same time, LA being cancelled by skill, and skill being cancelled by bash, and see a huge increase in your damage output compared to letting every animation finish.

With all due respect, you do not know what you're talking about.

With all due respect, what i said is exactly how it works. If you disagree, feel free to point out where you think i made a mistake, instead of making blanket statements like "ur wrong".

Aside from the fact that explanations with much detail have already been expressed, i find it exhausting having to constantly repeat myslef. But to be concise.

No one twisted the arguement to suit their needs. Animation canceling is simply about cutting off the recovery animation with an action that is permitted off the GCD, to which the dark souls example was absolutely apt. This discussion can only go somewhere if those involved accept the simple truth that weaving light attacks into each GCD ability use is not animation canceling even though it literally cuts off inconsequential animations.

Bash and light attacks do not in any way shape or form have their own cool downs. You are conflating particular systems and how they effect priorities from a gameplay perspective. .

Light atracks obey the GCD in that they are unusable during the GCD refresh. They simply do not initiate the GCD on use. Its exactly why the devs allow an ability to cut off the animation of a light attack so you can get both actions in per every GCD.

Actions such as bash, block, roll dodge and bar swap, are off the GCD to maintain reactionary freedom and player agency. Bash in particular has a small damage component that allows an additional tick of damage, but is rarely worth a potential stamina (or magicka with frost staff) regen tick loss. And it most definitely does not lead to obscene burst combos that the anti "animation cancel" crowd would try to (and depressingly succeed in) have many believe.

There is no huge damage output, that is hyperbolic nonsense exacerbated by poorly educated individuals who believe they know how the combat system works under the hood. Its these same individuals who think tying damage calculations and ability resolve points to the end of a recovery animation is a conceivable solution, which it is absolutely not for numerous reasons, but at this point im repeating myself for a third time on this thread alone and wont elaborate any further.

"And it most definitely does not lead to obscene burst combos that the anti "animation cancel" crowd would try to (and depressingly succeed in) have many believe. " - The damage of light attack+skill+bash(with all three hitting virtually at the same time thanks to animation cancelling) can be up to 100% higher than the damage of simply using a skill. Surprise attack: 3254 dmg. SA+LA+bash: 6175 dmg. Bash alone increased the damage during this GCD by 20%

"Bash in particular has a small damage component that allows an additional tick of damage, but is rarely worth a potential stamina (or magicka with frost staff) regen tick loss." - increasing your damage output by 20% is definitely worth it. And there is no regen loss, unless you play on console (but thats a console thing, not a bash thing).

"There is no huge damage output, that is hyperbolic nonsense" - right. That's why noone does it.

D0PAMINE

@Joy_Division I lost my sh*t at " Nana, Nono, and Lil' Fabrizio". That was great.

Commancho

There is nothing difficult in animation cancel, neither there is no big skill behind this. It's just so confusing for new players and it annoys me that I need to spam mouse/keyboard like I would be playing latest Mortal Combat in order to get good DPS.

mairwen85

Commancho wrote: »

There is nothing difficult in animation cancel, neither there is no big skill behind this. It's just so confusing for new players and it annoys me that I need to spam mouse/keyboard like I would be playing latest Mortal Combat in order to get good DPS.

Spam? sequentially pressing 3 buttons is far from spamming -- most times you'll only be sequentially pressing 2 buttons. If you spam/button mash, your dps will suffer. Decent dps in ESO is achieved via well-timed, precision button pressing and considered targeting.