What are your feelings on Animation Canceling and LA Weaving

Browiseth

the game has partially always been fun and unique because of this ability to not be stuck to an action, being able to react instantaneously to a changing circumstance in combat and of course, allowing for the insanely fast paced rotations that we have in eso

now, a better question in my opinion is 'what is your opinion on how zos are reacting to the abuse of animation cancelling', and i would have to say, it seems that looking at patch notes and seeing the visual feedback ingame change over the years they have been trying to integrate this facet of the game more naturally, such as by making visual ques more obvious, allowing cancelled animations to blend into the next in a more visually appealing way

i think the standard question of 'what do you think of animation cancelling' is pointless. its hard baked into the game, and half the reason the game's combat is fun is because it exists. it's not going away, i don't think a discussion about the opinions of it can accomplish anything

Stebarnz

Ermiq wrote: »

Stebarnz wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

Stebarnz wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

AgaTheGreat wrote: »

I love it. It makes the fights fluid and dynamic. You're not stuck in animations when you have to react to the situation. It's beneficial in both pve and pvp. Since it's already a feature, it's here to stay i chuj.

You don't understand what is all about.
When we say "remove AC" it means remove the current instant registration of the ability that ignores the ability's animation.
Nobody ever asked to remove the ability to move away, dodge roll or block in the middle of an ability animation.
With no AC, if it's done the way we want it to, you're still able to cancel your attack when you want to dodge roll or block or bar swap. And you're not have to stand still while you perform any magic ability, keep firing your attacks while running around, because nobody said you shouldn't.

No AC is NOT equal to WOW-like interrupted casts once you move.
No AC is NOT equal to no dodge roll while performing an attack animation.

That is the current system! Everything that is meant to have a cast time has, crystal blast, dizzy swing, jabs, beam, to name but a few and if you cancel these off mid animation they don't fire, everything else is MEANT to be able to be fired off instantly and followed up with a LA then another skill.

Otherwise it would be like watching the same animations over and over and over slowing the combat down to mindnumbing = boring! My mind is faster than processing 1 thing per second or more, I move at nanosecond pace!

You miss one little thing here: you still have to wait for the same 1 second cooldown anyway.
With no AC it's: click-1sec-click-1sec-click.
With AC it's: click-click-1sec-click-click-1sec-click-click-1sec.
Speaking of animations: with AC you still see one animation during the cooldown and it's LA animation. Sure, there's also a cutted short part of a cancelled ability animation, but the most time during the GCD you see an LA animation.

So whats your problem if that's how you see it? (which is wrong but lets go with it).

Because your description gives no advantage so why MAKE me watch a silly animation?

It was you who said "[No AC] would be like watching the same animations over and over and over slowing the combat down to mindnumbing = boring", right?
I answered to this (yours) statement: with AC you still see the same LA animation again and again and again.

My problem with AC has been already described in my previous posts in this thread (not to mention hundreds of other posts from other people all over across these forums). Sorry, but I'm not going to repeat it more than once in a day. You (not you personally but AC defenders in general) don't read them carefully anyway, because if you have read them, you wouldn't ask same questions again and again.

Ive read them but I like getting people to write things on the forums to showcase how wrong they are.

Like your opinion on a/c is your opinion, but your understanding of it is way off, so I wanted you to post your main problem with it so you could understand WHY you are wrong when I explain it to you.

forztr2

I hate weaving because:-

having to mindless click the left mouse button every second during combat just aggravates the RSI in my right shoulder.

the server connections are too inconsistent and screw up the timings which are different for different skills.

I'd much rather they had a shorter internal cooldown for skills to maintain the "pace" of combat and ditched weaving. I'd also like the option to have skills fire on key-press instead of key-release.

Royaji

Ermiq wrote: »

People just have to finally get the idea behind anti-AC.
It doesn't regard dodge rolls, bar swaps and blocks being able to cancel previous animations. That's totally separate thing.
Anti-AC, in almost every case, is against current instant fire registration that leads to the situations where there's no need to successfully swing a sword or to perform any magical action, the situations where the skill activation is always considered successful by the server right after you've released a button and it doesn't matter if you have interrupted it by light attack or block or anything else.

(snip)

The thing I would like to tell is, in the world of properly implemented animation cancelling there's usually the feature called interruption. It means when you're fighting in a game with proper animation cancelling, you can use a lot of tactical maneuvers like forcibly interrupting your opponents (bashing them or using a special abilities), or making them to dodge roll or block to mitigate your attacks and it makes them to cancel their attacks, etc. That's what people call fine tuned fast paced combat system.

And the anti-AC people just have to finally get the idea that there are only two ways to implement what they are looking for.

a) Dynamic animation processing and combat system with damage frames tied to animation which is used in action and fighting games. Which no MMO has ever been able to achieve because the amount of processing power required to make this kind of system work with 40-60-80 players on the screen is beyond the capabilities of even the most modern hardware.

b) Do what other MMOs (and ZOS themselves in case of some skills) do and implement a cast time on every single skill. Which is the very thing AC people are so against of. Because cast time on every skill is indeed incompatible with "fast-paced" action combat.

Stebarnz

forztr2 wrote: »

I hate weaving because:-

having to mindless click the left mouse button every second during combat just aggravates the RSI in my right shoulder.

the server connections are too inconsistent and screw up the timings which are different for different skills.

I'd much rather they had a shorter internal cooldown for skills to maintain the "pace" of combat and ditched weaving. I'd also like the option to have skills fire on key-press instead of key-release.

Get an auto clicking mouse to left click once a second for you on a toggle?

I mean if I got injured by pressing a mouse button I would look at a lifestyle change.

Schemering

it exists...

the devs seem to be fine with it; it provides an opportunity for people who want to invest some time to do things more efficiently.

Its a result of the underlying structure of the software

It will stay

no need for me to have an opinion about it

r3turn2s3nd3r

eleussinkb16_ESO wrote: »

Seeing a whole community pretend that an exploit is in fact a feature. Unacceptable.

The counter to that would be:

If the 'whole community' thinks it's not an exploit, then what right do you have to sit on some high horse and claim the majority are the ones in the wrong?

LoneStar2911

MasterSpatula wrote: »

While I answered "Dislike," Weaving and Canceling are not the same thing. I'm fine with getting a LA in between abilities. I'm less fine with squeezing LAs in what should be considered during the ability.

I've never been crazy about things that give advantages to people with better reflexes/coordination and better connections in what's ostensibly an RPG.

This. Exactly this. Yes.
I keep forgetting to make the distinction between weaving and cancelling.
I'm all-for true cancelling. Where it actually cancels an ability to give you the opportunity to block or do whatever else you need to do.
But weaving? No. I hate it.

Hip_Uncle_Z

Animation Canceling dramatically changed the DCUO experience, encouraging developers to design content around it, thanks to the vocal minority of forum posters.

It's not a good idea. People like it, till mastering it becomes mandatory for content completion.

kathandira

fred4 wrote: »

It remains a futile topic. Why even make a poll?

The poll is to help people understand where the opinion from the forum posters stands. In threads regarding this topic, you often see people saying, most people hate LA Weaving and Animation Canceling. Or the opposite that people love it.

The goal was to have a open poll for people to finally see what the majority of the forum posters think.

I figured stating their like or dislike, as well as what platform they play on, would give a good representation of the statistics.

Nordic__Knights

Tho im good at doing it i still dont like it as its not intended to be here simple as that

Ermiq

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

WOW, you leaped to character judgments REAL quick...

Ermiq wrote: »

And this is not available in ESO because of one simple reason: in ESO animation cancelling doesn't affect anything except the raw damage numbers. No tactics, no reactionary gameplay, no skill requirements. Nothing but a single mouse click every second that allows you to pull more damage.

So you've got it down perfectly then, I take it?

Ermiq wrote: »

Somehow people call ESO's combat "fast paced", probably because they like it when they smash more buttons (it feels so much more action-ish, yeah) and they consider muscle memory a real skill.

People who have animation canceling perfected are doing ANYTHING but mashing buttons. Theasiangod has a video of his hands while he does a parse and it's slow and controlled.

No one is saying that muscle memory is a skill. Getting something to become muscle memory, while not skill-based per se, takes a lot of work. I've put a ton of work into my LA weaving/ani cancelling. I don't think that that makes me more skilled than anyone. It just means that I practiced, and if you practice at anything, you'll usually get better at it.

Ermiq wrote: »

The problem is, those who say "leave anicancelling alone", they like to pull damage,

No kidding?!?!? DDs usually hate dealing damage.

Ermiq wrote: »

they want their opponents not being able to counter play,

No.

Ermiq wrote: »

they like combo style gameplay where they just need to press button combinations to successfully hit the target, rinse and repeat,

No. And if you're not animation cancelling, are you not just pressing ONE button instead of two?

Ermiq wrote: »

and they don't want to be interrupted, no way.

Again, nobody does.

Ermiq wrote: »

Anicancelling defense comes out of the self oriented point of view where people only see it from their personal experience. They're not interested in the global combat mechanics, the only thing they care of is their personal ability to feel some action (by pressing more buttons) and feel strength (by performing non interuptable combos).

This doesn't even make sense.

Okay, "smashing more buttons" was not the best term in this case. "To perform the additional mouse click" would be fine, I guess.

About muscle memory. To me learning rotations in MMOs has always been quite easy, and LA weaving is not hard as well. It's pretty tricky to perform it in the moments when I swap bars however.
What I consider a real skill is when a player knows what to do when, use environments to his advantage, have a fast reaction and awareness of what's happening around and how to use the situation to his advantage. That's what differs bad players from good ones in the first place. Automated rotation execution and aiming are at the second place.

From what I've read on the forums, yes, AC defenders like it when they can deal more damage because they've learned how to AC. Do you think they don't?

LA weaving is a feature that has no counter play. That's what differs it from ability combos in other games. You say it's not one of the reasons why people like AC?
If so, tell me, why do they like it then. It's not because of more damage numbers, not because of no counter play, certainly not because of twitchy jittery visuals.
So, it's just because of the feeling of the more action-ish combat? I wonder, how many AC defenders will continue to use it if ZOS nerf LA damage to the ground?

When I don't AC, I use ability combinations (e.g., Shalks, control, Cliff Racer) to hit harder. When I use AC, I use button combinations in addition to ability combination (LA, Shalks, LA, control, LA, Cliff Racer). I don't need to know which button I press in between, it's always left mouse button. That's what I mean when I call AC a button combos. It's in my muscle memory, I don't think about it, I don't think about whether I should use left mouse button or right mouse button or something different, it's always LMB. I just use it as a button, not an ability. And it never does anything else but a raw damage.

I'd like to be interrupted. I always like to see new interactions in PvP.

As I said, people look at it from personal self oriented point if view. And you do the same. If you, just for a moment, took a look at it as not something that only affects just you personally but the overall combat system as a whole, you wouldn't even had a thought like "nobody likes to be interrupted".
I mean, obviously, nobody does when it comes to the personal experience in a certain fight. But did you really think that all that I said was about some certain real player? Come on, dude! We're talking about the ESO combat system as a whole, aren't we?

zaria

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

AC should also cancel the skill.

This has the downside that all skills would have an cast time or channeling. This would be bad for shields and heals.
It would also make all skills interuptable, this would be bad against groups of mobs and you would be unable to get off attacks or heals not to talk about pvp there some spamming crunching shocks on you would make it very hard to cast anything.

If anything ZOS has made weaving much more important with increased LA damage and all the sets using LA to proc.

CASP3R421

ani cancels and weaving are two completely different things and you shouldnt lump them in together like this.

reported.

dbonifaci_ESO

AC or not, the combat in ESO is far and away it's worst feature. I am in favor of completely redoing the combat so that there is actually some impact to it. Only mmo I've played where you may as well be swinging napkins at someone.

StaticWave

Animation cancelling a skill by blocking, bar swapping, or dodge rolling cannot help you bypass the 1 second Global Cooldown (GCD) of skills, so spamming 1 skill and animation canceling it will not improve your DPS. It can however provide a fast and smooth combat, as well as helping you play more defensively, which is extremely important in PvP because DPS doesn't matter there as much as in PvE. For example if I want to avoid incoming damage while also healing/doing damage myself, I can roll dodge/block cancel vigor/surprise attack to achieve that. What does improve your DPS is light attack weaving. What most people get wrong is that when you incorporate animation cancelling into your rotations, you're actually cancelling the animation of light attacks with a skill. Since they aren't affected by the GCD, canceling the animation of light attacks will effectively increase your DPS. Overwatch's animation cancelling is exactly the same as ESO's, despite it being a cooldown based combat system.

StormeReigns

forztr2 wrote: »

I hate weaving because:-

having to mindless click the left mouse button every second during combat just aggravates the RSI in my right shoulder.

the server connections are too inconsistent and screw up the timings which are different for different skills.

I'd much rather they had a shorter internal cooldown for skills to maintain the "pace" of combat and ditched weaving. I'd also like the option to have skills fire on key-press instead of key-release.

Animation Canceling/ Light Attack weaving, it's a pain, an annoyance. As well, it is a non-issue.

On top of primarily being deaf. I suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, Essential Tremors. In short; my joints are rotting away while being as unstable as a shaken up rusty can of soda in the summer sun, taped to a turned over lawn mower that may or may not have blades.

Sure I can't preform it 50% of the time, hell probably less then 30% on good days. Normal or bad days? Yeah... looking in the single digits there. So, I do what I can and what I am skilled at and still able to keep pace in vets and trials; yes even on the bad of days able to do well. As well hold my own in PvP. A/C isn't the end all be all, do or die, many can preform it flawlessly, others can't, and some are stuck in between.

Sure, I don't speak for others, nor do my experiences dictate that of others, nor do theirs for me. Although, somewhere, in between everything dealing with it, are flimsy excuses. That will always be flimsy, no matter the reason or retort.

Ermiq

Royaji wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

People just have to finally get the idea behind anti-AC.
It doesn't regard dodge rolls, bar swaps and blocks being able to cancel previous animations. That's totally separate thing.
Anti-AC, in almost every case, is against current instant fire registration that leads to the situations where there's no need to successfully swing a sword or to perform any magical action, the situations where the skill activation is always considered successful by the server right after you've released a button and it doesn't matter if you have interrupted it by light attack or block or anything else.

(snip)

The thing I would like to tell is, in the world of properly implemented animation cancelling there's usually the feature called interruption. It means when you're fighting in a game with proper animation cancelling, you can use a lot of tactical maneuvers like forcibly interrupting your opponents (bashing them or using a special abilities), or making them to dodge roll or block to mitigate your attacks and it makes them to cancel their attacks, etc. That's what people call fine tuned fast paced combat system.

And the anti-AC people just have to finally get the idea that there are only two ways to implement what they are looking for.

a) Dynamic animation processing and combat system with damage frames tied to animation which is used in action and fighting games. Which no MMO has ever been able to achieve because the amount of processing power required to make this kind of system work with 40-60-80 players on the screen is beyond the capabilities of even the most modern hardware.

b) Do what other MMOs (and ZOS themselves in case of some skills) do and implement a cast time on every single skill. Which is the very thing AC people are so against of. Because cast time on every skill is indeed incompatible with "fast-paced" action combat.

It's simpler than you think. There's an option c):
Make hidden cast times (no visual progress bar) and don't use the old-school "cancel at move" approach. Just a basic "cast while running around" with no visual progress bar (it will be implemented by addons anyway though).

By the way, about option a):
how's that possible in games like Battlefield (up to 64 players) and Planetside (up to 3000 players) to have a lot of projectiles (rockets, bombs, high caliber guns on planes) registering the hit only at the moment of successful hit instead of registering it at the moment of the fire button click?

About b): that's the problem, I agree.
People like it when they can fire off more sparkles, they feel like there's more action when they have 2 hits per second instead of just 1 hit. In practice however, this action is in their own heads only, because... just imagine a shooter where you push a keyboard button in addition to mouse click every time you shoot, and it makes you gun to shot at higher fire rate. Does it change anything at the battlefield? Does it add anything to the positioning, reaction times required, tactics, environment usage, anything at all? No, it's just more sparkles on the screen.

Royaji

Ermiq wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

People just have to finally get the idea behind anti-AC.
It doesn't regard dodge rolls, bar swaps and blocks being able to cancel previous animations. That's totally separate thing.
Anti-AC, in almost every case, is against current instant fire registration that leads to the situations where there's no need to successfully swing a sword or to perform any magical action, the situations where the skill activation is always considered successful by the server right after you've released a button and it doesn't matter if you have interrupted it by light attack or block or anything else.

(snip)

The thing I would like to tell is, in the world of properly implemented animation cancelling there's usually the feature called interruption. It means when you're fighting in a game with proper animation cancelling, you can use a lot of tactical maneuvers like forcibly interrupting your opponents (bashing them or using a special abilities), or making them to dodge roll or block to mitigate your attacks and it makes them to cancel their attacks, etc. That's what people call fine tuned fast paced combat system.

And the anti-AC people just have to finally get the idea that there are only two ways to implement what they are looking for.

a) Dynamic animation processing and combat system with damage frames tied to animation which is used in action and fighting games. Which no MMO has ever been able to achieve because the amount of processing power required to make this kind of system work with 40-60-80 players on the screen is beyond the capabilities of even the most modern hardware.

b) Do what other MMOs (and ZOS themselves in case of some skills) do and implement a cast time on every single skill. Which is the very thing AC people are so against of. Because cast time on every skill is indeed incompatible with "fast-paced" action combat.

It's simpler than you think. There's an option c):
Make hidden cast times (no visual progress bar) and don't use the old-school "cancel at move" approach. Just a basic "cast while running around" with no visual progress bar (it will be implemented by addons anyway though).

By the way, about option a):
how's that possible in games like Battlefield (up to 64 players) and Planetside (up to 3000 players) to have a lot of projectiles (rockets, bombs, high caliber guns on planes) registering the hit only at the moment of successful hit instead of registering it at the moment of the fire button click?

About b): that's the problem, I agree.
People like it when they can fire off more sparkles, they feel like there's more action when they have 2 hits per second instead of just 1 hit. In practice however, this action is in their own heads only, because... just imagine a shooter where you push a keyboard button in addition to mouse click every time you shoot, and it makes you gun to shot at higher fire rate. Does it change anything at the battlefield? Does it add anything to the positioning, reaction times required, tactics, environment usage, anything at all? No, it's just more sparkles on the screen.

There is no difference between your c) and b). It's the exact same thing. Actually, ZOS has already tried that with a couple of skills. That sure went well.

To your question about a), ESO can also do the same thing as Battlefield. With projectiles. Animations of melee attacks with damage frames are an entirely different thing. You could have gone with better examples like Chivalry and Mordhau which can do something closer to what you want. In an arena game, not an open world MMO. And they are definitely a far way from what I would call "fast-paced" combat.

More than "more sparkles" people like to have their skills work when they use them and actually land. Cast time skills in ESO disappear into the abyss of server lag every third cast on a good day.

Commancho

There is too much button smashing in this game for my taste, but this thread is pointless, because they won't rebalance entire game at its life's end cycle and removing weaving without any buffs would have made half of the DLC vet content impossible to accomplish. Just use it like everyone else does.

zaria

CASP3R421 wrote: »

ani cancels and weaving are two completely different things and you shouldnt lump them in together like this.

reported.

Agree, blocking is useful even overland to avoid the annoying knockdowns from clanfears and other mobs.
Has used block to cancel dark flare or sweep on templar healer for emergency heals countless times.

Again the importance of weaving with the LA tend to be the highest damage component and all the sets needing LA is probably an mistake.
However its not something who can be changed easy.
As in don't rock the boat, and don't give the combat balance team bad ideas if you want to run veteran dungeons.

After all while the primary objective of the combat balance team in the view of Zenimax is to increase player engagement as in using eso+ and the crown store to increase revenue, they has other ideas.
Most are not very good as the last 8 months has shown.

OtarTheMad

I am neutral about it, I understand it's part of the game and think that's perfectly fine but I am not really that great at it, for personal reasons, and so my DPS isn't as high as it probably would be. So that is frustrating when trying to do harder content that requires consistent high DPS, which is hard for me when I don't know mechanics.

Ermiq

Royaji wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

People just have to finally get the idea behind anti-AC.
It doesn't regard dodge rolls, bar swaps and blocks being able to cancel previous animations. That's totally separate thing.
Anti-AC, in almost every case, is against current instant fire registration that leads to the situations where there's no need to successfully swing a sword or to perform any magical action, the situations where the skill activation is always considered successful by the server right after you've released a button and it doesn't matter if you have interrupted it by light attack or block or anything else.

(snip)

The thing I would like to tell is, in the world of properly implemented animation cancelling there's usually the feature called interruption. It means when you're fighting in a game with proper animation cancelling, you can use a lot of tactical maneuvers like forcibly interrupting your opponents (bashing them or using a special abilities), or making them to dodge roll or block to mitigate your attacks and it makes them to cancel their attacks, etc. That's what people call fine tuned fast paced combat system.

And the anti-AC people just have to finally get the idea that there are only two ways to implement what they are looking for.

a) Dynamic animation processing and combat system with damage frames tied to animation which is used in action and fighting games. Which no MMO has ever been able to achieve because the amount of processing power required to make this kind of system work with 40-60-80 players on the screen is beyond the capabilities of even the most modern hardware.

b) Do what other MMOs (and ZOS themselves in case of some skills) do and implement a cast time on every single skill. Which is the very thing AC people are so against of. Because cast time on every skill is indeed incompatible with "fast-paced" action combat.

It's simpler than you think. There's an option c):
Make hidden cast times (no visual progress bar) and don't use the old-school "cancel at move" approach. Just a basic "cast while running around" with no visual progress bar (it will be implemented by addons anyway though).

By the way, about option a):
how's that possible in games like Battlefield (up to 64 players) and Planetside (up to 3000 players) to have a lot of projectiles (rockets, bombs, high caliber guns on planes) registering the hit only at the moment of successful hit instead of registering it at the moment of the fire button click?

About b): that's the problem, I agree.
People like it when they can fire off more sparkles, they feel like there's more action when they have 2 hits per second instead of just 1 hit. In practice however, this action is in their own heads only, because... just imagine a shooter where you push a keyboard button in addition to mouse click every time you shoot, and it makes you gun to shot at higher fire rate. Does it change anything at the battlefield? Does it add anything to the positioning, reaction times required, tactics, environment usage, anything at all? No, it's just more sparkles on the screen.

There is no difference between your c) and b). It's the exact same thing. Actually, ZOS has already tried that with a couple of skills. That sure went well.

To your question about a), ESO can also do the same thing as Battlefield. With projectiles. Animations of melee attacks with damage frames are an entirely different thing. You could have gone with better examples like Chivalry and Mordhau which can do something closer to what you want. In an arena game, not an open world MMO. And they are definitely a far way from what I would call "fast-paced" combat.

More than "more sparkles" people like to have their skills work when they use them and actually land. Cast time skills in ESO disappear into the abyss of server lag every third cast on a good day.

Yeah, I've heard there was a lot of crying about cast times. And yes, I understand people will cry even more if ZOS get rid of AC. And this poll shows that the majority of player base feel fine with as it is now.
I'm not fine, however. But I've never yelled about it. AC players do yell a lot, as it seems. God, you've read that OP you've linked, right? The guy is on fire.

However, I still don't get it, how's that instantly registered hits make a combat fast paced if there's still a GCD anyway?
What is this thing that turns 1 skill per second into a slow turn-based, while 1 cancelled light attack + 1 skill per second is a fast paced combat?

About cast time skills getting lost in the Aetherius, the same happens to instant skills as well. With my WiFi connection I see it a lot. Are you sure the core of the issue is in the cast time?

Sylvermynx

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I am neutral about it, I understand it's part of the game and think that's perfectly fine but I am not really that great at it, for personal reasons, and so my DPS isn't as high as it probably would be. So that is frustrating when trying to do harder content that requires consistent high DPS, which is hard for me when I don't know mechanics.

That says it for me too (though I know better than to even try harder content with my mega ping!) PC.

eso_lags

I play on both console and PC from time to time and animation canceling is one of the reasons eso combat is second to none.

Stebarnz

Ermiq wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

Ermiq wrote: »

People just have to finally get the idea behind anti-AC.
It doesn't regard dodge rolls, bar swaps and blocks being able to cancel previous animations. That's totally separate thing.
Anti-AC, in almost every case, is against current instant fire registration that leads to the situations where there's no need to successfully swing a sword or to perform any magical action, the situations where the skill activation is always considered successful by the server right after you've released a button and it doesn't matter if you have interrupted it by light attack or block or anything else.

(snip)

The thing I would like to tell is, in the world of properly implemented animation cancelling there's usually the feature called interruption. It means when you're fighting in a game with proper animation cancelling, you can use a lot of tactical maneuvers like forcibly interrupting your opponents (bashing them or using a special abilities), or making them to dodge roll or block to mitigate your attacks and it makes them to cancel their attacks, etc. That's what people call fine tuned fast paced combat system.

And the anti-AC people just have to finally get the idea that there are only two ways to implement what they are looking for.

a) Dynamic animation processing and combat system with damage frames tied to animation which is used in action and fighting games. Which no MMO has ever been able to achieve because the amount of processing power required to make this kind of system work with 40-60-80 players on the screen is beyond the capabilities of even the most modern hardware.

b) Do what other MMOs (and ZOS themselves in case of some skills) do and implement a cast time on every single skill. Which is the very thing AC people are so against of. Because cast time on every skill is indeed incompatible with "fast-paced" action combat.

It's simpler than you think. There's an option c):
Make hidden cast times (no visual progress bar) and don't use the old-school "cancel at move" approach. Just a basic "cast while running around" with no visual progress bar (it will be implemented by addons anyway though).

By the way, about option a):
how's that possible in games like Battlefield (up to 64 players) and Planetside (up to 3000 players) to have a lot of projectiles (rockets, bombs, high caliber guns on planes) registering the hit only at the moment of successful hit instead of registering it at the moment of the fire button click?

About b): that's the problem, I agree.
People like it when they can fire off more sparkles, they feel like there's more action when they have 2 hits per second instead of just 1 hit. In practice however, this action is in their own heads only, because... just imagine a shooter where you push a keyboard button in addition to mouse click every time you shoot, and it makes you gun to shot at higher fire rate. Does it change anything at the battlefield? Does it add anything to the positioning, reaction times required, tactics, environment usage, anything at all? No, it's just more sparkles on the screen.

There is no difference between your c) and b). It's the exact same thing. Actually, ZOS has already tried that with a couple of skills. That sure went well.

To your question about a), ESO can also do the same thing as Battlefield. With projectiles. Animations of melee attacks with damage frames are an entirely different thing. You could have gone with better examples like Chivalry and Mordhau which can do something closer to what you want. In an arena game, not an open world MMO. And they are definitely a far way from what I would call "fast-paced" combat.

More than "more sparkles" people like to have their skills work when they use them and actually land. Cast time skills in ESO disappear into the abyss of server lag every third cast on a good day.

Yeah, I've heard there was a lot of crying about cast times. And yes, I understand people will cry even more if ZOS get rid of AC. And this poll shows that the majority of player base feel fine with as it is now.
I'm not fine, however. But I've never yelled about it. AC players do yell a lot, as it seems. God, you've read that OP you've linked, right? The guy is on fire.

However, I still don't get it, how's that instantly registered hits make a combat fast paced if there's still a GCD anyway?
What is this thing that turns 1 skill per second into a slow turn-based, while 1 cancelled light attack + 1 skill per second is a fast paced combat?

About cast time skills getting lost in the Aetherius, the same happens to instant skills as well. With my WiFi connection I see it a lot. Are you sure the core of the issue is in the cast time?

I get what you are saying but you are not looking at the full game effect.

All I talk about is pvp as pve don't matter either way as its scripted so easily predicted.

Your way - I target someone, I press a skill, my character starts the animation (all the while I have to keep target on the person moving or it cancels anyway like dizzy swing), my character finishes the animation and the skill fires, I then start another animation (again having to track a moving, dodge rolling and active target). This way against a skilled opponent or multiple opponents no skill would land so you would have to slow movement down, (lets see how that is received).

My way - I target someone, I press a skill it fires, I immediately cancel the animation and fire off a LA, my target hasn't had chance to move as this has happened immediately so both attacks hit (unless dodged), I'm already hitting another skill and cancelling with another LA coming, starting to work my rotation to get to the burst, a good opponent can see this and works the counter and bad player dies but learns.

This game is terrible at target tracking and prioritisation, the addition of animations that have to finish would simply result in combat taking forever as burst would disappear and skills would never land, you would have to increase the damage of skills and procs to get the burst to break healing.

We all know how good ZOS are changing things so be careful what you wish for.

StaticWave

Ermiq wrote: »

However, I still don't get it, how's that instantly registered hits make a combat fast paced if there's still a GCD anyway?
What is this thing that turns 1 skill per second into a slow turn-based, while 1 cancelled light attack + 1 skill per second is a fast paced combat?

I'm speaking from a PvP perspective here

Think of combat without animation cancelling as a chess game. It takes extra time for each player to make the next move, so we call it slow paced. Now think of combat with animation cancelling as a tennis match. Players are hitting the ball back and forth constantly, so we call it fast paced. Obviously the combat in ESO will never be as slow as a chess game, but weapons have their own animation, so when you're cancelling those light attacks with a skill, you're pretty much removing any window where your character is doing unnecessary animation. Defensive animation cancelling works in the same manner.

idk

I have played on both console and PC and AC is just fine on both. I would have answered in the poll but OP did not offer me an appropriate reply.

Similar to p00tx, I like it because I find the combat more fluid. Especially with bar swap as I recall bar swap early in the game was clunky. Now it is smooth and that would not be possible without AC. Not to mention the current design is needed for the quick reaction we are required to have to avoid and mitigate incoming damage. Though quick reaction to incoming damage does separate skilled players from the rest and makes a huge difference in PvP.

Starlock

Other - I play on console (obviously, it’s in my signature) and think animation cancelling is poorly implemented and in need of improvement. I don’t give a damn about “weaving” and it isn’t even the same thing.

Banana

My connection makes both difficult