Combat System Is Keeping Me From Coming Back.

NeillMcAttack

Rungar wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

They are all different games you are naming. Play them if that is what you want. The amount of effort ZOS make to appeal to RPr’s and housing enthusiasts is staggering, along with the amount of different tiers of difficulty in combat in the game.

Im not trying to be insulting here. I’m serious, I like fast, reactive gameplay. As do many of the other players in this game.

I honestly find this whine, and that’s what it is, a whine, to be insulting to players like myself and even to ZOS with the amount of options you have here. Is your next stop the WOW and GW2 forums to ask for better housing and options for RPr’s? Seriously?

This works both ways. I could say people should stop whining about performance. This combat system has limited performance because of the way it works and doesnt work.

It was a lighting patch, and the movement of more and more processes server side that ruined the performance. All the way up to update 25 that ultimately moved EVERYTHING server side. The devs decided that is how it’s going to be, and that’s how we got here.

Rungar

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

NeillMcAttack wrote: »

They are all different games you are naming. Play them if that is what you want. The amount of effort ZOS make to appeal to RPr’s and housing enthusiasts is staggering, along with the amount of different tiers of difficulty in combat in the game.

Im not trying to be insulting here. I’m serious, I like fast, reactive gameplay. As do many of the other players in this game.

I honestly find this whine, and that’s what it is, a whine, to be insulting to players like myself and even to ZOS with the amount of options you have here. Is your next stop the WOW and GW2 forums to ask for better housing and options for RPr’s? Seriously?

This works both ways. I could say people should stop whining about performance. This combat system has limited performance because of the way it works and doesnt work.

It was a lighting patch, and the movement of more and more processes server side that ruined the performance. All the way up to update 25 that ultimately moved EVERYTHING server side. The devs decided that is how it’s going to be, and that’s how we got here.

No. They did that because of rampant cheating and their still doing it.

NeillMcAttack

I’m confused, I thought you were saying that performance is bad because of ani cancelling. But you agree it’s just the decisions to move all processes server side!?

Either way. If you want them to change the combat system, you are gonna have to come up with a better argument than “I don’t particularly like it”!

Rungar

my argument was quite sound and you added nothing other than calling those who dont like it whiners. They moved everything serverside out of necessity due to cheating and that process is basically complete now but they are still trying to maintain the legacy weaving/cancelling style combat and its causing problems all over the place because that needed to change too and didnt.

Its like I said. If you like this system don't complain about performance. It is what it is.

BigBragg

Crash427 wrote: »

New world had no animation cancelling and it sucked compared to eso combat. It felt incredibly clunky, like a huge step backwards.

New World actually does have some animation canceling. Some things didn't because they want you locked into a risk versus reward environment on choosing when to engage and how to do so. There are a number of animations that could be combined to create combos or just block canceling right when the damage ticked. Sword was a great one for it.

nuttytom

Animation cancelling doesn’t even help your dps, light attack weaving is what you need.

Rungar

nuttytom wrote: »

Animation cancelling doesn’t even help your dps, light attack weaving is what you need.

well weaving is a form of cancelling since the light attack animation is cancelled by the skill but you are correct as i believe zos made recent changes to blocking and bash that has addressed that to some degree.

at the end of the day i really dont want to see cooldowns in the game but unless concessions are made i dont see how cooldowns can be avoided given how often people complain about performance but wont agree to tone down the current system to achieve performance.

imagine if you didnt have to weave anymore but also had a 15% damage boost to all your skills. Better performance, better experience for tanks, floor raised up. I dont really see the downside to be honest.

whats more boring? that or cooldowns?

kathandira

Rungar wrote: »

imagine if you didnt have to weave anymore but also had a 15% damage boost to all your skills. Better performance, better experience for tanks, floor raised up. I dont really see the downside to be honest.

I, and many that I have played with, would be very pleased with that change.

Raideen

Smitch_59 wrote: »

Animation cancelling is dumb. I'm with the OP.

Amen.

In fact for me and my GF, we come and go usually because of combat, specifically NEEDing to animation cancel. I can not tell you how many times I have been griefed by some elitist in a dungeon because I was doing 46% of the damage and they expected me to pull 50%, only because they weaved light attacks and I didn't.

My fundamental problem is that it's simply an EXTREMELY uncomfortable playstyle for me. To constantly be pressing a keybind with one hand, then mouse attack with the other, then keybind again, then mouse attack again...It becomes physically painful and is far from fun.

I can't stand it. Animation cancelling (which was NEVER intended, was a "bug" and only implemented and embraced because ZOS could not figure out how to fix the issue) and the lack of a central auction house keep me and my GF from playing this game for more than a couple months at a time. We just get sick of it.

craybest

even though i only recently found out about animation cancelling and i'm having a lot of fun doing it, I think it's a non intended bug and they should remove it and make all attacks be twice as fast, as a base.

Ascarl

Kingslayer513 wrote: »

Myself and everyone I play eso with would quit the game if the combat system were changed to something more like wow. ESO has the best combat system in the genre. While you say other games are "immersive" and "smooth", I say slow, cumbersome, and boring.

It's a good thing the eso combat devs don't care about roleplayers and questers

So your last sentence is actually making me think that folks like you leaving the game would be a positive side-effect of nerfing animation canceling.

Thialmer

They added a cast time to soul harvest and everyone freaked out because of how it ruined the flow of the game. Imagine adding that to all lol. It would literally destroy the player base. I couldn't see most of the end game community sticking around if all animation canceling was gone. I find the combat a lot more immersive and attention grabbing when I have to be constantly doing something. The combat system of FF14 and WoW is what keeps me from playing them for long. It's too slow and makes content feel bland.

You can't say switching the combat system would fix performance. There is not a ton of LA weaving in Cyrodiil and performance is bad there. If you've played at all during this testing, you know that limiting the skills isn't helping. The problem is and will continue to be the move from client calcs to server calcs instead of investing in a solid anti cheat.

precambria

The fluidity of combat in ESO is it's best feature and animation cancelling/LA weave is largely responsible for there being a meaningful skill gap with fast paced decision making, was this thread necroed? because they already all but removed block cancelling from the game, a lot of the ani cancel now are not advantageous they just look cool.

RP/questing/exploring is the most expansive part of this game, please keep your paws off the only thing keeping veteran players around, the people carrying you through random queue vets or giving you your daily win in a battle ground would appreciate it if you stop messing with the combat system.

Kingslayer513

Rungar wrote: »

my argument was quite sound and you added nothing other than calling those who dont like it whiners. They moved everything serverside out of necessity due to cheating and that process is basically complete now but they are still trying to maintain the legacy weaving/cancelling style combat and its causing problems all over the place because that needed to change too and didnt.

Its like I said. If you like this system don't complain about performance. It is what it is.

Sorry to break it to ya, but animation canceling has a negligible effect on performance. The 1s GCD is law and animation canceling at most let's you squeeze out a LA with your skill. But far, far more impactful on server performance is coordinated, layered HoTs, DoTs, and AOEs in an area that can potentially effect tons of players. The absolutely immense amount of calculations required in these circumstances drags the server performance to a crawl. We see it happen all the time in Cyrodiil, especially when organized ball groups are involved. And magically if ball groups are not online and even if the campaign is pop locked, performance is noticeably better.

Rungar

precambria wrote: »

The fluidity of combat in ESO is it's best feature and animation cancelling/LA weave is largely responsible for there being a meaningful skill gap with fast paced decision making, was this thread necroed? because they already all but removed block cancelling from the game, a lot of the ani cancel now are not advantageous they just look cool.

RP/questing/exploring is the most expansive part of this game, please keep your paws off the only thing keeping veteran players around, the people carrying you through random queue vets or giving you your daily win in a battle ground would appreciate it if you stop messing with the combat system.

So you agree then that the best and only effective way to standardize combat, resulting in raising the floor, lowering the ceiling and improving performance is to remove weaving and compensate with a 15% across the board damage increase.

when people stop using macros to over-ride this exploitable system ill stop asking for this to be changed.

Rungar

ya that wont work on me.

AdamBourke

I think ESO has the best combat of any MMO I;ve played. it especially has better combat than anything with a cooldown system. (If PvP permanently gets cooldowns, I don't think i'll ever enter cyrodiil again...).

Having said that - I don't like animation cancelling either. when i press the attack button, I want to see my character attack. And in PvP, I want to see other characters attacking me. (Although... Lag might prevent that part...)

relentless_turnip

darougaroux wrote: »

I played for quite a while, the PvE and Stories and Housing are unequivocal, however, I experience these things through my character. I love to RP when I play as well, but all of that fantastical veil is shattered anytime I enter into combat. It is clunky and unsatisfying. The fact that I have to cancel combat animations in order to be effective just kills my immersion an makes the game less interesting. GW2 and WoW have mush more fluid, smooth combat that is very responsive and doesnt require a "gimmick" to make it effective and top tier.

I am saying this not to trash ESO, in fact IM saying it to help ESO, especially now that it is owned by MS. I thin with the resources MS has, this game can be not good but entirely GREAT. But with the current combat system, no amount of money will make it good. As long as my character, the thing I experience the game through, feels clunky and awkward, I just dont see me returning, which is what I would like to do. I dont want to have to cancel animations, animations are part of the experience and the immersion of the game and I shouldnt have to learn to cancel them to be effective.

That's just my peace, I hope I didnt offend anyone. I just want this game to be great for EVERYONE.

I love the combat system, I don't think I could play an MMO if I didn't...
Only weaving light attacks is really optimal, is that what you mean?
When you get used to it you don't even think about it, nor does it feel bad IMO.

Shantu

Coming from someone who used to truly suck at dsp, I adapted and now don't mind the combat system at all. My only issue is I wish they would stop changing it. Every patch it seems we get substantial changes that contradict ones from a the previous patch and make no sense to anyone but the devs (at that is at times questionable). Quite frankly, people are getting sick of investing copious amounts of time into builds and skills only to get undermined with each new patch.

tzaeru

Personally I actually find GW2s and especially WoWs combat systems more one-dimensional than ESOs. Resource management and weaving in the correct amount of light and heavy attacks is more complicated in ESO than the cooldown based rotation system in GW2 and WoW.

Though, GW2 does have some classes and builds with pretty ridiculous skill ceilings - for example, my favorite, an Elementalist setup utilizing something like 25 different skills and ~30 or so control keys.

The very action-based combat system of ESO is what actually made me like the game at first. The main problem with it to me seems to be lag. Any lag and weaving becomes much harder. And if your ping is fluctuating between say 75 and 125, you'll get a lot of attacks fail to trigger when doing your rotations out of pure muscle memory. That's a shame.

BXR_Lonestar

I'm with you on this. While I play this game daily, the combat system is by far and away my least favorite part of this game. However, there are so many good things about this game that I simply can't give it up. I love the story, the recurring characters (Raz, Stibbons, Naria, Skordo, Raynor & Kireth, just to name a few), the variety of activities, and all the areas I've yet to fully explore. It's a great game to play with friends.

But the combat system is terrible IMO. It feels like playing an arcade fighting game where it's just a bunch of button mashing in a specific order. There is not really any dynamic adaptation to combat situations. Just Support does everything they can to make sure the DPS can sit and run through their rotations undisturbed. Its part of the reason why I don't main DPS.

BXR_Lonestar

BleedMe_AnOcean wrote: »

I guess I don't understand. After spending years with WoW and then another year with FFXIV, ESO combat is definitely superior. Yes, WoW combat is smoother, but that tab target shite breaks immersion FAR more than weaving LAs that I can't even see. ESO combat requires that you pay attention. Dodge roll. Block. Bash. Interrupt. Change your rotation up based on the situation.

That's immersion. Being FORCED to analyze the situation and how it changes one second to the next, then take action to survive it.

Imho, if you're standing there watching every animation intently and waiting for it to complete before starting another, and if you're allowing yourself to get so irritated about those animations that you're about to quit the game.... I don't really know what to say. I guess to each their own. 🤷‍♀️

I find combat in this game to be very different and it could all just boil down to perspective. I don't see the dynamic change and need to analyze the situation from one second to the next. In most situations, the DPS just do everything they can to stand on a spot and run through their rotations - because that is how you maximize DPS - minimal movement and maximum time/efficiency running through your combat rotation, which is just largely clicking through your buttons in a certain order over and over and over again. TO me, that is not fun.

There are mechanics that force players out of those rotations, but I don't see that as being dynamic or forcing you to analyze every situation. You either know the mechanics or you don't, and if you don't, you get killed by a one-shot mechanic more often than not.

It's because of the way DPS have to play that I main support, but even support is kind of dull now because support is all about what buffs you can feed to the DPS - and really nothing more. In fact, in a lot of content, more people prefer to take a 3rd dps over a healer because DPS is king. And how do you get the best overall DPS? Just boringly go through your rotation.

Zardayne

The weaving of light attacks has never really bothered me. My issue has always been that a lot of the skills are just plain boring, uninspired, and/or clunky. A few off of the top of my head are Templars jabs (boring spammable), Shalks (Clunky and uninspired), Warden Dive (slow and boring), force shock (boring), flurry (could be so much cooler looking), twin slashes (zZz), bladecloak (meh), fetcher infection (clunky) and there are more..Shame the skills we use are not better when you have an awesome looking world, great music, and well done quests. I mean those need to be top notch with the amount of it we do day in and day out. It was the 1st complaint I told my friends about when we began playing with open beta and I still say the same thing now. Someone at ZOS needs to get some skill inspiration from other games such as Divinity 2, Diablo series, Dragon age series, and Dragon's Dogma as well as many others.

BigBragg

I kind of feel like when people compare ESO combat to that of cooldown based MMORPGs, it's like trying to judge a penguin by the standards of a sparrow.

Rungar

BigBragg wrote: »

I kind of feel like when people compare ESO combat to that of cooldown based MMORPGs, it's like trying to judge a penguin by the standards of a sparrow.

i am fairly certain that everyone is in agreement that no one wants cooldowns. Given that they are openly testing cooldowns on a live server is not good imo no matter what they say.

Tammany

BigBragg wrote: »

I kind of feel like when people compare ESO combat to that of cooldown based MMORPGs, it's like trying to judge a penguin by the standards of a sparrow.

It's like trying to compare professional fighters with two kids who fight with crutches in their hands (LA weaving) to make the fight at least little bit challenging. Eso combat is tooooo simple so developers keep these ancient mechanic up.
Left mouse button spam is just irritating and it's easy to understand why in 2020 many people dislike this spam.

Thanks god eso pvp is not about light attacks.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

ESO is the most skill based combat system of any MMO. There is a difficulty threshold that needs mastered. Some will love it, some will hate it. Personally, it's the only MMO I would ever play, and it is because of the combat system.

Knightpanther

GW2 Combat is so far ahead of ESO its not even on the same planet.
You will never get decent situational skills and choice with a game designed for a gameboy, er sorry console.

Be Safe

Kingslayer513

Rungar wrote: »

precambria wrote: »

The fluidity of combat in ESO is it's best feature and animation cancelling/LA weave is largely responsible for there being a meaningful skill gap with fast paced decision making, was this thread necroed? because they already all but removed block cancelling from the game, a lot of the ani cancel now are not advantageous they just look cool.

RP/questing/exploring is the most expansive part of this game, please keep your paws off the only thing keeping veteran players around, the people carrying you through random queue vets or giving you your daily win in a battle ground would appreciate it if you stop messing with the combat system.

So you agree then that the best and only effective way to standardize combat, resulting in raising the floor, lowering the ceiling and improving performance is to remove weaving and compensate with a 15% across the board damage increase.

when people stop using macros to over-ride this exploitable system ill stop asking for this to be changed.

It's laughable when casual players accuse us of using macros in endgame. Bruh just light attack before each skill, it's seriously not even hard at all. I do it without thinking. Endgame players don't use macros.

[snip]

[Edited to remove Rude Comments/Baiting]

Merforum

Kingslayer513 wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

precambria wrote: »

The fluidity of combat in ESO is it's best feature and animation cancelling/LA weave is largely responsible for there being a meaningful skill gap with fast paced decision making, was this thread necroed? because they already all but removed block cancelling from the game, a lot of the ani cancel now are not advantageous they just look cool.

RP/questing/exploring is the most expansive part of this game, please keep your paws off the only thing keeping veteran players around, the people carrying you through random queue vets or giving you your daily win in a battle ground would appreciate it if you stop messing with the combat system.

So you agree then that the best and only effective way to standardize combat, resulting in raising the floor, lowering the ceiling and improving performance is to remove weaving and compensate with a 15% across the board damage increase.

when people stop using macros to over-ride this exploitable system ill stop asking for this to be changed.

It's laughable when casual players accuse us of using macros in endgame. Bruh just light attack before each skill, it's seriously not even hard at all. I do it without thinking. Endgame players don't use macros.

[snip]

Sorry you can't have it both ways, you can't say LA exploit is super easy (which it is) then brag that there's a 'skill gap' implying whoever does it is superior to whoever doesn't do it (on purpose). BTW No one is saying it's too hard to do, they're saying it is a clunky, unskillful, boring, brainless, finger irritating, unfun thing to force everyone to do just to get higher DPS (which is a silly goal also).

Being a tank and healer in ever changing situations is infinitely more SKILLFUL, demanding, than smashing the same buttons order over and over. PVPers obsession with 'balance' and DPSers obsession with ever high DPS is making all the classes, gear, skills, etc just the same old boring stuff. Pretty soon every skill in every class line will have the exact same description/functionality just with different skill name giving NO variety at all.

BTW it is trivial to program a keypad, mouse, foot pedal to do LA-Spammable-Bash with one click. And I actually don't care if people do that necessarily. Just don't like when like with LA exploit it becomes so common, everyone will be expected to do it.