Remove ultimate cast times for balance

NoodleESO

If changes to sprint and block were made in the name of improving performance then the cast time on Ults should be removed in the name of performance, the current skill delay and sever lag makes these offensive ultimates less "powerful" too. Adding a cast time because they are powerful skills was one of the points made when this went through, but if this was the case then why are all defensive Ults still instant cast?

Lockon Ults (like meteor and ballista) and defensive ults are over preforming in PVP according to the combat team's standards.

Most of the Ults that received cast times require the player to get close to an enemy. During the time it takes to close a distance gap, the opposing group can already see an incoming charge and then, with no cast time, all hold block and/or cast barrier, remembrance, resto ult, shield ult, Healing trees, (insert instant ult here) add to that sets that do thinking for you and it becomes apparent why there is a problem in pvp with groups not dying and just allowed to walk all over a keep full of people.

Do not give these ults cast times, instead remove the current cast times to bring back balance and satisfaction in gameplay.

MurderMostFoul

At the very least, Incap/Soul Harvest needs its cast time removed.

All other classes have signature offensive Ultimates that are INSTANT and AOE, making them MUCH MORE reliable. Poor NB's signature offensive Ultimate is SINGLE TARGET with a CAST TIME. Really?

As far as Dawn Breaker and Berserker Strike are concerned, I'm mostly ok with the cast time since it effects all classes evenly. Although a removal of the cast time would make combat feel a lot more fluid.

OBJnoob

At the most the OP should get what he wants-- I like the idea.

At the very least-- he shouldn't get what he wants.

I see no reason to 'buff' Incap but nothing else. I mean the one class that can walk up and cast their ultimate while invisible isn't the class struggling most with cast times.

Dawnbreaker is juuuuunk. Because of the cast time. And because of lag (sometimes you think they're 7m away but they are actually 10,) and just because frankly sometimes other people avoid it or I just miss.

Random thought-- this isn't a super serious idea-- but I might be okay if they took some of these 'failing' Ultis and, rather than removing the cast time, increased their range to like 10, 11, 12m. Something that still feels 'melee' but frankly just allows for a little margin of error/lag.

ThePedge

Did Templar sweep Ult ever get a cast time?

DK Leap has felt horrible to use, and be a recipient of, since it's added delay.

Incap/Soul Harvest are dodged or cancelled

Onslaught always dodged

Dawnbreaker is always animation cancelled

But wanna clap your hands and heal your whole group? Yeah no problem.

OBJnoob

^--- LOL. There is so much truth to this.

Okay I'm gonna be 100% honest here. I am not a player who is so talented that I notice every animation the opponent casts and react to it quickly and perfectly. I play mostly by having a solid build, intuition, and experience. I play on Xbox so nothing shows up on my screen telling me when to block or roll.

I notice meteors. I notice caluurions. I hear snipes. I know if I just got ambushed and I immediately roll dodge away from the incap. I roll dodge occasionally when a sorcerer is hitting me from range. I block dizzy swings and D-leaps when I'm lucky.

If you find a player who doesn't eat your Incap you gotta get a little creative. Maybe stop doing the same 3 skill gank combination over and over? Stop ambushing into a heavy attack wind-up. We know the plan. We know the timing. We aren't trash players.

But again. If Incap needs to have the cast time taken off then eeeverything else does too. Cuz the person using their Ulti out of invis is not the truest victim here.

Dr_Ganknstein

No way man I kinda like clunky combat

Myconos

Soul Siphon/Soul Tether still have a cast time and are defensive ults. Particularly Soul Siphon is annoying, since you would often want to block cast it and can't thanks to its cast time, plus the heal is delayed a half second.

PapaWeeb

Myconos wrote: »

Soul Siphon/Soul Tether still have a cast time and are defensive ults. Particularly Soul Siphon is annoying, since you would often want to block cast it and can't thanks to its cast time, plus the heal is delayed a half second.

Yeah, the amount of times I tried to block/roll cancel it (because using it means you're taking a lot of damage) were too many. Was one of my favourite defensive skills, now I don't touch it

Mankeyyyyy

Adding cast times to ultimates was one of the worst decisions ZoS ever made. Remove them all like yesterday please

Moonsorrow

PapaWeeb wrote: »

Myconos wrote: »

Soul Siphon/Soul Tether still have a cast time and are defensive ults. Particularly Soul Siphon is annoying, since you would often want to block cast it and can't thanks to its cast time, plus the heal is delayed a half second.

Yeah, the amount of times I tried to block/roll cancel it (because using it means you're taking a lot of damage) were too many. Was one of my favourite defensive skills, now I don't touch it

Yeah, it just does not work anymore.

Anything, even Snare casted at you or someone pew pewing you when you try to use it.. and it stops the animation/cast time and nothing happens, not work.

Sadly not worth the slot anymore, after i tried and tried and it was as a support NB (even as a solo it was my "oh nuu" -button for emergency heal, since Magblade heals....) my IDENTITY heal. Or big part of my "power fantasy" as ZOS says it, now.. i feel like Magblade is just a self-torture spec to play on most times compared to other classes that has working skills.

So cool to use Barrier and/or Resto Ult, i sure feel the Nightblade power fantasy and class identity while playing./s

Then can slot Fighters Guild Fear, since its better than NB`s own Fear skill. And it`s Minor Protection actually works too.

Nightblade life: "It is what it is."

*sigh*

Atherakhia

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

OBJnoob

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

That’s such a good answer. But I still have some concerns. Was anything (specific to this,) actually that bad when there weren’t cast times? What were they trying to fix by adding the cast time? Did it work?

Fur_like_snow

Given the choice between getting hit with the occasional invisible DB or getting stunned mid ultimate while never firing the ultimate at all or sometimes it just eats my ultimate for no reason I’d choose the old system.

Joy_Division

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

If you don;t anticipate, you will never be good at pretty much anything. It's not about being telepathic, it's about applying a little bit of experience to the limited number of cookie-cutter builds that perform well in PvP. The vast majority of skills in this game are instant-cast - many of them hard hitting - so if you're relying on wind-up animations to figure out what you should do and think that the only solution is to always block, then the game is going to be a struggle in any competitive environment.

Atherakhia

Joy_Division wrote: »

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

If you don;t anticipate, you will never be good at pretty much anything. It's not about being telepathic, it's about applying a little bit of experience to the limited number of cookie-cutter builds that perform well in PvP. The vast majority of skills in this game are instant-cast - many of them hard hitting - so if you're relying on wind-up animations to figure out what you should do and think that the only solution is to always block, then the game is going to be a struggle in any competitive environment.

That's all well and good, and that is what separates a veteran from a novice.But having counterplay allows players to learn from their mistakes so they aren't just instantly blown up without any way to tell how they died, where they could improve, or what they did wrong.

Mayrael

Atherakhia wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

If you don;t anticipate, you will never be good at pretty much anything. It's not about being telepathic, it's about applying a little bit of experience to the limited number of cookie-cutter builds that perform well in PvP. The vast majority of skills in this game are instant-cast - many of them hard hitting - so if you're relying on wind-up animations to figure out what you should do and think that the only solution is to always block, then the game is going to be a struggle in any competitive environment.

That's all well and good, and that is what separates a veteran from a novice.But having counterplay allows players to learn from their mistakes so they aren't just instantly blown up without any way to tell how they died, where they could improve, or what they did wrong.

Then why Cersent Sweep doesn't have cast time? Resto staff and shield ult have no cast time (like defensive ult of NB have).

And you know what? People still die to incap, but after 3 or 4 attempts to cast it through lag - somehow warning and wind up doesn't help them. There is dozens of ways to address the issue, but ZOS used one of the worst.

You want to have a chance to counter, we want fluent fight what to do? Simple - make skill instant, add delay equal to cast time. This way user can fluidly rotate his combo while receiver gets the warning and the same time as currently to react. Everyone's happy.

Kadoin

OBJnoob wrote: »

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

That’s such a good answer. But I still have some concerns. Was anything (specific to this,) actually that bad when there weren’t cast times? What were they trying to fix by adding the cast time? Did it work?

What was bad was that players were deleted with no counterplay.

Yet, this patch, because balance is a joke esp. for builds using stragglers, the same thing happens anyway...

Believe it or not, PvP used to not be as bad in performance, balance, and quality as it is now. I know, I know, even I have a hard time believing it sometimes. It's easier to believe that the game since Elsweyr has been a nightmare...

Joy_Division

Atherakhia wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

If you don;t anticipate, you will never be good at pretty much anything. It's not about being telepathic, it's about applying a little bit of experience to the limited number of cookie-cutter builds that perform well in PvP. The vast majority of skills in this game are instant-cast - many of them hard hitting - so if you're relying on wind-up animations to figure out what you should do and think that the only solution is to always block, then the game is going to be a struggle in any competitive environment.

That's all well and good, and that is what separates a veteran from a novice.But having counterplay allows players to learn from their mistakes so they aren't just instantly blown up without any way to tell how they died, where they could improve, or what they did wrong.

There is counterplay - when you are below 10K health fighting a melee stamina build you had better mist form, dodge, streak, block-cast burst heal, et al. - because you are in danger of dying in a single global cooldown by multiple things, such as an animation canceled off-balanced basic attack + proc + executioner for which there is no cast time. Or you can just wear one of the numerous gear sets in the game that automatically activates a powerful defensive bonus without any input or experience needed from a veteran player. In fact, so much counterplay exists that ZOS felt it necessary to implement sweeping nerfs to PvP healing because it felt not enough players were dying in these scenarios.

The way PvP combat is in this game, and pretty much has been since launch, is that novice players are instantly blown up without hardly scratching experienced players. It has been this way because while the game is relatively easy and simple to play (only 10 active skills, many standardized skills that remove the mystery/unknowns of fighting unfamiliar classes, constant failed attempts to "raise the floor," etc.) at the end of the day it requires a lot of competitive experience - and by that I don't mean joining a group of 20 and spamming steel tornado or endless fury - in order to understand how to effectively and efficiently synergize those easy mechanics. Adding a 0.4 second cast time to Dawnbreaker is not going to prevent the novice player from consistently getting 1vXed, it just makes the game unnecessarily more frustrating to play.

There is something else to consider, removing the cast-time would more than likely help the novice player. If anyone is going to be able to take advantage of that 0.4 second cast-time, it most certainly is going to be the experienced player, not the noob. An instant cast would make it more likely the novice player can get a lucky hit. I used to dabble in playing chess. I once beat a ranked Master level player (over 2000 rank) in a match in which they were forced to make moves in under 3 seconds. In such a sped up chaotic environment, luck and mistakes become much more prevalent factors, both of which favor inexperenced players.

NoodleESO

@JoyDivsion Pretty much hit the nail on the head.

The 0.4 cast time benefits me the veteran player because I "can tell when an Ultimate is coming" far before the new player, experience helps memorize the combos.

Meteor and ballista are only viable because one is back loaded burst and the other is a channel that allows the player to move freely, every ultimate that received a 0.4 cast time were built on the ult hitting instantly, if they added lockon stuns (which would be ridiculous) it would be a different story but that's not how it was designed.

Players getting "deleted" comes from:

A: Not having your buffs up (the actually matter)
B: Not knowing what skills and abilities buff others (siting in a negate)
C: Not knowing how to mitigate different kinds of damage (dodge rolling AOE)

And players continue to get "deleted" because they lack the knowledge above, not because of instant cast abilities.

OBJnoob

^--- 100% agreed and will add that even when you do things 100% right sometimes you run out of resources or just get well-timed and yes even people who think they are good get borderline one-shotted sometimes. Obviously, we all know it's basically never a 1 shot though right? It is right to sometimes get smoked like that. Not to discredit whatever complaints are being made... but I think we should start from a place of 'well, in an online pvp game, sometimes I am going to get smoked.'

@Kadoin
So I'm going to be in the huge minority here but I'm gonna go ahead and say... hmm. I understand that performance is abysmal. With snipe desyncs and double CCs and inability to barswap blockcancel whatever. But frankly I suffer through it. It's sad that the sign of a good ESO player is how well they mitigate and manage bullcrap... but I'm pretty good at it so it is what it is. Ha. ANYWAY. I play in a low-ish populated campaign. Lag? What lag? Xbox Ravenwatch. What lag? I don't know why anyone would've spent any significant amount of time in, for example, Grayhost and somehow fell in love with it and said "gee if only this worked." I never would've fell in love with it to begin with is my point. That's why I'm in Ravenwatch. I just don't know how you all ever fell into this desperate state to begin with! Why IS it so populated if EVERYBODY thinks it sucks?? Spread ooooout. It's on yoooou.

Positioning, buffing, and intuition are so important. I'm not even saying you're wrong about anything. I'd like to be considered as 'on the fence' at the moment. But just so we're clear... my stance is "I get deleted sometimes and I'm not so sure it's a bad thing.'

pieratsos

Atherakhia wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Atherakhia wrote: »

Poor server/game performance should not be a consideration when balancing the game. Things need cast times and wind-up animations to ensure a certain level of counterplay exists. I laugh when people say "well you should have blocked" as if we somehow are telepathic and could tell when an opponent was going to use an instant cast, no animation, ultimate ability. The only solution is to simply always block, and that's silly.

No, ALL skills that do appreciable damage and have the ability to considerably change an engagement need some kind of tell to give the opponent some way to realistically counter them. Look at games that actually have respected PvP systems and you'll find this to be true in all of them. The MMO PvP genre is already a low bar and ESO is a disgrace even for that. But this isn't a solution.

If you don;t anticipate, you will never be good at pretty much anything. It's not about being telepathic, it's about applying a little bit of experience to the limited number of cookie-cutter builds that perform well in PvP. The vast majority of skills in this game are instant-cast - many of them hard hitting - so if you're relying on wind-up animations to figure out what you should do and think that the only solution is to always block, then the game is going to be a struggle in any competitive environment.

That's all well and good, and that is what separates a veteran from a novice.But having counterplay allows players to learn from their mistakes so they aren't just instantly blown up without any way to tell how they died, where they could improve, or what they did wrong.

And holding their hand and dumbing down combat helps people improve? Let me put it like this, if the skill cap is high then u are most definitely going to improve. If it's low then u aren't really improving much. Oh and by the way, if not having a cast time means no counterplay then according to you the majority of abilities have no counterplay either. So put a cast time on all of them?

Look, you can make the usual argument about abilities and animations for rp reasons etc which is kinda irrelevant but whatever, however, the second u bring actual combat, counterplay, skill cap, improvement etc in the discussion then cast times should be going out the window.

Oh and btw, even if u were to implement cast times, you still don't do it like that. Cast times and instant abilities play differently. You can't just slap a cast time on skills and call it a day cause you are fundamentally changing the skill and how it interacts with other abilities and the classes In general. A skill that was designed to be instant can't have a cast time. If u are going to implement cast times on skills then u have to redesign the skills from scratch.

This is the most important thing and this is why combat is clunky as hell. Because skills that were designed to be instant have a cast time and people can't even use the effectively half the time.

laissezfaire

Myconos wrote: »

Soul Siphon/Soul Tether still have a cast time and are defensive ults. Particularly Soul Siphon is annoying, since you would often want to block cast it and can't thanks to its cast time, plus the heal is delayed a half second.

Tell that to a good bomber. :P

Mayrael

We asked, we begged, we explained, we tried to discuss but there is no discussion. ZOS made a decision, very stupid and unfiar decision, and they are not willing to change it even though vast majority of players hates it... Sad, really sad.

Rakdos

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

At the very least, Incap/Soul Harvest needs its cast time removed.

All other classes have signature offensive Ultimates that are INSTANT and AOE, making them MUCH MORE reliable. Poor NB's signature offensive Ultimate is SINGLE TARGET with a CAST TIME. Really?

As far as Dawn Breaker and Berserker Strike are concerned, I'm mostly ok with the cast time since it effects all classes evenly. Although a removal of the cast time would make combat feel a lot more fluid.

As a magblade, I feel ok with the Soul Harvest cast time. the grindmore patch give the conceal weapon a flanking stun, which in my opinion is a hugh buff. Now we do not always need the conceal weapon as a opener to stun, instead, we can cast Soul Harvest from cloak as a opener to get the garentee crit, and then following with conceal stun + Caluurion/Zann proc. In this way, all the proc damage will take the advantage of the 20% more damage bonus from the soul Harvest, and the cast time of Soul Harvest is no longer a problem since we are not casting it between different skills.

olsborg

Myconos wrote: »

Soul Siphon/Soul Tether still have a cast time and are defensive ults. Particularly Soul Siphon is annoying, since you would often want to block cast it and can't thanks to its cast time, plus the heal is delayed a half second.

Soul Siphon is basicly a restoult for nbs, but with a cast time...dunno why in the XX they gave that morph a cast time.

Mayrael

olsborg wrote: »

Myconos wrote: »

Soul Siphon/Soul Tether still have a cast time and are defensive ults. Particularly Soul Siphon is annoying, since you would often want to block cast it and can't thanks to its cast time, plus the heal is delayed a half second.

Soul Siphon is basicly a restoult for nbs, but with a cast time...dunno why in the XX they gave that morph a cast time.

Because it was decission made and implemented within 5 minutes. It's the same reason why DBoS or Incap got cast time while Radial Sweep (templar ult) remain instant.