Unpopular opinion, Light attack weaving (the perennial bug)

Lapin_Logic

As we approach update 33 and an acknowledgment has been made about the state of the servers/code, I have to ask the question, Why are we still propping up scaffolding around and duct taping a Zimmer frame to old man Light weaving?

why are we torturing ourselves to make a Beta Test Bug feel comfortable in 2022 despite the roulette wheel of "Will my skill actually fire at my target this fight" with the answer generally being "No" if you are playing with any amount of ping on your alt server account (EU/NA) or you are playing in prime time or during a high population event where even "the Imperfect" boss breaks for 2 days and your 100fps inexplicably feels like 20 (on multiple machines at multiple locations during the event)?

For my fellow players that are no doubt furiously typing that "It is more skilful to have weaving" or "But our DPS will suffer if you remove Light weaving" I would have to ask in their personal experience is it really more skilful to be absent mindedly slapping a button repeatedly while concentrating on pressing the buttons you actually want?

Is it desirable or optimal to be playing the game you love while deliberately triggering a unfixed bug multiple times in a fight while the combat is chugging and then complaining that you missed a no death run because X happened?

And we all know that any reduction in DPS due to removing light weaving would be compensated in additional damage added to skills.

So I pose the question, Would you sooner have a game that works better with no reduction in damage done or would you sooner put a drinking bird on your additional skilful bug triggering button?
I vote for a fixed game and Light attacks to be on the GCD with all the other player triggered skills...

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>>>>> For now. <<<<

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kringled_1

That ship has long since sailed. Regardless of whether or not you think weaving was a bug at the outset of the game, it is by now accepted and endorsed by the developers, and numerous sets and skills are balanced around it.

Fennwitty

If they could have fixed it they would have.

Not gonna do it at this point.

But they should always pay attention to how much damage is involved and be ready to adjust.

BronzeCaiman

Gotta agree with kringled_1. You're right LA being the core of DPS performance is pretty lame in my opinion. It's a major turn off for a lot of players who quit long ago because it's not intuitive. After 8 years it's still a major turn off for me and keeps me from trying to improve my DPS.

People who trained for the muscle memory don't want their perfect weaving to become inferior to anything else. APM is important to the vocal endgame community.

Toxic casuals aren't really a problem because endgame players should stay in their own bubble with their friends. But some people complain about it because they become content creators but don't realize people want you to represent them and their ideals when you become a prominent part of the community.

Let's not forget how ZoS refuses to balance PvE and PvP separate, but also like making PvP centric morphs, a prime example being Warhorn.

Amottica

kringled_1 wrote: »

That ship has long since sailed. Regardless of whether or not you think weaving was a bug at the outset of the game, it is by now accepted and endorsed by the developers, and numerous sets and skills are balanced around it.

And that it would require a complete revamp to make the combat design into something more akin to the games we no longer want to play in order to eliminate it.

I do not want to go back to the slow pace of WoW or FF14 and I pretty much expect Zenimax knows this game is successful it has evolved beyond what those games have to offer.

divnyi

Animation cancelling chains present in any fighting game, so this would not be a new concept if we look on PvP.

Troodon80

To be perfectly honest, if light attack weaving was removed from the game or was placed on either the same 1s global cooldown as abilities or a unique cooldown (higher than 700ms which is where it is right now), the combat wouldn't feel anywhere nearly as enjoyable, fluid, or engaging for a lot of people. Weaving, and queuing abilities, exists in almost every game/MMO out there. FFXIV is an example I refer to fairly often. You combine your GCDs with your oGCDs with even double weaving if your skill/spell speed is high/low enough to allow for it. If you only use your GCDs without weaving then you are severaly gimping your total DPS. Light attacks in ESO are the direct comparison to off-global cooldown abilities in FFXIV.

Sluggy

Suggestions like this are not something that can be brought up so lightly. It's not a simple thing to remove light-attack weaving and expect the game to function the same. It has a cascading effect that will work it's way through the entirety of the combat system and then sail right on through every player skill, set, NPC, and encounter in the whole game. When you change a fundamental pillar of the game itself it can't have an effect that is in isolation.

Just ask yourself, if light attack weaving was removed.... why would anyone ever use a light attack? You're goin to have to climb down a very deep rabbit hole before you come to an acceptable answer.

Faulgor

It's never going to be removed, that ship has indeed sailed. Although there's an argument for decreasing light attack damage in general, to make perfect weaving less important for good DPS.

Vaoh had an idea in another thread that I really liked.
With the possible consolidation of Spell and Weapon Power, maybe they should keep both stats - Spell Power for all abilities, and Weapon Power for the basic attacks such as Light Attack and Heavy Attack. This way, you could still build for Light and Heavy Attack builds if you prefer a more casual approach to combat via Weapon Power, or stick with the familiar by going for Ability (Spell) Power for optimal DPS, where weaving is still preferable to not weaving, even with lower Light Attack damage.

ESO_Nightingale

i like light attack weaving. it's fun and fast.

Brrrofski

No thanks.

It would firstly make combat feel sluggish. I've tried it out before, just to see what it was like and it just makes it feel so boring.

Secondly, there has to be some skill gap. When you master weaving it feels like the game comes alive that bit more, and that you've improved

I don't just mean in pve either. Someone with good weaving will have an advantage in PvP, which they should. They're doing that bit extra.

Also, ult gain would be a lot slower, and too many sets are "when you light attack". It would feel bad to just stop doing skills, just to light attack to proc a set.

Bug or not, weaving is here to stay. And honestly, it only maker a difference in such a small part of the game, that it's not a big deal if someone doesn't master it. But on the flip to that, it gives people something to work on.

Parrot1986

The issue here is there are just as many vocal opponents of weaving as their are supporters. The fact that it’s in the game, acknowledged as part of the game and contributes to so much of your dps means it’s not going to be taken out as doing so would trigger people way more.

Taking it out would create a much bigger amount of noise as well as requiring a whole new re-look at damage amounts; rework of skills and sets that light and heavy attacks are required to trigger as well as the change in combat style all together.

I get why people don’t like it and why it can seem so different but ultimately it’s a part of eso. In the same way we don’t really have tab targeting like in other mmos and people dislike this. This makes the combat feel totally different but it’s unique and something players will either like or hate.

Removing light attack weaving will still mean people love and hate that part of the combat it’ll just be a different group of people.

Firstmep

Talk about beating a dead horse.
Weaving and animation cancelling may have started out as a bug, but it's a feature now.
It's not going away, you can stop wasting your time.

colossalvoids

I'm still unsure how it would help players who can't do it, as they're still would be expected to press a skill every second, just without accompanying left mouse trigger before it. One less perfectly timed click but same once a GCD "button mashing" by another hand.

Only decent idea *might* be increasing la damage for players doing no rotation or extremely low dps (another calculation and check on top, like the game isn't laggy enough) and decreasing it's impact when player understand what he's doing but bumping skills damage like grim focus/merciless, BA and imbue weapon which are working from LA's in return.

Einstein_

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

As we approach update 33 and an acknowledgment has been made about the state of the servers/code, I have to ask the question, Why are we still propping up scaffolding around and duct taping a Zimmer frame to old man Light weaving?

why are we torturing ourselves to make a Beta Test Bug feel comfortable in 2022 despite the roulette wheel of "Will my skill actually fire at my target this fight" with the answer generally being "No" if you are playing with any amount of ping on your alt server account (EU/NA) or you are playing in prime time or during a high population event where even "the Imperfect" boss breaks for 2 days and your 100fps inexplicably feels like 20 (on multiple machines at multiple locations during the event)?

For my fellow players that are no doubt furiously typing that "It is more skilful to have weaving" or "But our DPS will suffer if you remove Light weaving" I would have to ask in their personal experience is it really more skilful to be absent mindedly slapping a button repeatedly while concentrating on pressing the buttons you actually want?

Is it desirable or optimal to be playing the game you love while deliberately triggering a unfixed bug multiple times in a fight while the combat is chugging and then complaining that you missed a no death run because X happened?

And we all know that any reduction in DPS due to removing light weaving would be compensated in additional damage added to skills.

So I pose the question, Would you sooner have a game that works better with no reduction in damage done or would you sooner put a drinking bird on your additional skilful bug triggering button?
I vote for a fixed game and Light attacks to be on the GCD with all the other player triggered skills...

---

>>>>> For now. <<<<

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And maybe add Tap target so you also dont need to aim anything !!!
and then also implement chain skills so you dont even need to think about what skills i need to cast next.
sounds great lets make the game more cassual !!!

NONONONONO

IF YOU DONT LIKE WEAVING DONT DO IT, YOU CAN COMPLETE ANY VET CONTENT WITHOUT IT. BUT LET THE PLAYERS FEEL THAT THERE SKILL IS WORTH SOMETHING. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Lapin_Logic

Brrrofski wrote: »

No thanks.

It would firstly make combat feel sluggish. I've tried it out before, just to see what it was like and it just makes it feel so boring.

Secondly, there has to be some skill gap. When you master weaving it feels like the game comes alive that bit more, and that you've improved

I don't just mean in pve either. Someone with good weaving will have an advantage in PvP, which they should. They're doing that bit extra.

Also, ult gain would be a lot slower, and too many sets are "when you light attack". It would feel bad to just stop doing skills, just to light attack to proc a set.

Bug or not, weaving is here to stay. And honestly, it only maker a difference in such a small part of the game, that it's not a big deal if someone doesn't master it. But on the flip to that, it gives people something to work on.

Having played the game since launch, and before that WoW and Guild wars 1+2, I can't honestly say removing weaving makes the game feel anymore sluggish than a stamplar just spamming Jabbs the whole rotation and doing 40k in a dungeon.

It might keep your fingers busy and give a false sense of speed, but what does make the game feel sluggish currently is the games own timers and buff trackers not knowing I have a proc Frag or showing me I have one only for me to start hard casting instead, or when the game refuses to fire a skill so I am standing there doing 3 light attacks in a row at a beetle at the side of the boss.

I pray the server rework is swift and effective.

etchedpixels

Einstein_ wrote: »

And maybe add Tap target so you also dont need to aim anything !!!
and then also implement chain skills so you dont even need to think about what skills i need to cast next.
sounds great lets make the game more cassual !!!

It's not always about being more casual, it's just about play approaches.

ESO really isn't much different to a lot of games except light attack is a mouse button not a key. Plenty of MMOs have skill combination patterns entirely based on keyboard that are basically the same as moving light attack to a key instead. In fact if you struggle with light attacks being on the other hand or have dyspraxia or over hand to hand co-ordination issues like from a stroke it's not totally crazy to move light attacks over. That turns "weaving" into typing a 2 digit number once a second, which for many people is far easier and more natural as the timing is on one hand.

Chaining skills has also been used in quite a few games in far from casual ways in the form of combo attacks and the like so that's not about casual play - it can be be but it's not so simple. In things like BDO you've got explicit combos but in ESO you've got your own (think of it as 'combocrafting' ) and that is exactly what PvP takedowns are built upon.

Tab targetting has been requested forever in this game and often by end game players because of the problems with visual cliutter in ESO and difficulty targetting in some environments. Can't see it happening because it would break PvP something terrible.

Finally all of this ignores the important detail. With the exception of end game content you don't need to be any good at light attack weaving (or indeed bother). For overland and delve content it's sufficient to wear something vaguely looking like armour, heavy attack with a staff and press a heal button now and then or move out of the large patch of flames you are standing in. Ditto most easier dungeon content.

When you take a player who is doing terrible dps you don't worry about light attack weaving first. You fix the skills, the gear and explain major sorcery/brutality/etc to them. Most of those 'maybe scrapes 10K' random dps can go way higher without weaving. They won't do 100K but it doesn't matter.

In fact it's a positive disadvantage in some ways for a casual storyline player coming from Skyrim to be doing 30K+ dps because the story goes through a massive build up, you meet supreme evil overload and 15 seconds later he's a smoking pile of ash and didn't actually have time to do any of his super-scary visually flashy mechanics.

Lastly - a lot of players - regardless of what ZoS may have to say - use macros for the light weaving. Personally I don't care if they do - it's not useful in PvP or top end game PvE so it's not hurting anyone and it helps the disabled a lot.

Or to put it short and bluntly - light weaving isn't a casual ESO player issue and never has been. It's a "now I want to get good at end game content" issue.

axi

Year 2022 and people still calling it a bug.

Amottica

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

No thanks.

It would firstly make combat feel sluggish. I've tried it out before, just to see what it was like and it just makes it feel so boring.

Secondly, there has to be some skill gap. When you master weaving it feels like the game comes alive that bit more, and that you've improved

I don't just mean in pve either. Someone with good weaving will have an advantage in PvP, which they should. They're doing that bit extra.

Also, ult gain would be a lot slower, and too many sets are "when you light attack". It would feel bad to just stop doing skills, just to light attack to proc a set.

Bug or not, weaving is here to stay. And honestly, it only maker a difference in such a small part of the game, that it's not a big deal if someone doesn't master it. But on the flip to that, it gives people something to work on.

Having played the game since launch, and before that WoW and Guild wars 1+2, I can't honestly say removing weaving makes the game feel anymore sluggish than a stamplar just spamming Jabbs the whole rotation and doing 40k in a dungeon.

It might keep your fingers busy and give a false sense of speed, but what does make the game feel sluggish currently is the games own timers and buff trackers not knowing I have a proc Frag or showing me I have one only for me to start hard casting instead, or when the game refuses to fire a skill so I am standing there doing 3 light attacks in a row at a beetle at the side of the boss.

I pray the server rework is swift and effective.

It does not give a false sense of a faster pace of combat (speed). Since the APM is higher it is factually a faster pace of combat.

OWLTHEMAD

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

As we approach update 33 and an acknowledgment has been made about the state of the servers/code, I have to ask the question, Why are we still propping up scaffolding around and duct taping a Zimmer frame to old man Light weaving?

why are we torturing ourselves to make a Beta Test Bug feel comfortable in 2022 despite the roulette wheel of "Will my skill actually fire at my target this fight" with the answer generally being "No" if you are playing with any amount of ping on your alt server account (EU/NA) or you are playing in prime time or during a high population event where even "the Imperfect" boss breaks for 2 days and your 100fps inexplicably feels like 20 (on multiple machines at multiple locations during the event)?

For my fellow players that are no doubt furiously typing that "It is more skilful to have weaving" or "But our DPS will suffer if you remove Light weaving" I would have to ask in their personal experience is it really more skilful to be absent mindedly slapping a button repeatedly while concentrating on pressing the buttons you actually want?

Is it desirable or optimal to be playing the game you love while deliberately triggering a unfixed bug multiple times in a fight while the combat is chugging and then complaining that you missed a no death run because X happened?

And we all know that any reduction in DPS due to removing light weaving would be compensated in additional damage added to skills.

So I pose the question, Would you sooner have a game that works better with no reduction in damage done or would you sooner put a drinking bird on your additional skilful bug triggering button?
I vote for a fixed game and Light attacks to be on the GCD with all the other player triggered skills...

---

>>>>> For now. <<<<

---

Sounds like someone who cant weave.

Personally i think they need to make it easier to weave. Its unique to eso and a requirement at this point. Make it less wonky so that more people can do it.

maximusrex45

My issue with weaving is it isn't intuitive or easy to discover, can be hard to tell if you are doing it right, and in a lot of content it's even hard to mix in because things die too fast.

Xebov

kringled_1 wrote: »

That ship has long since sailed. Regardless of whether or not you think weaving was a bug at the outset of the game, it is by now accepted and endorsed by the developers, and numerous sets and skills are balanced around it.

Iam not so sure about it. While it is accepted to use it the reason why was never made clear. Its possible they accepted it because its used, its also possible that they are unable to fix it with the current server code. The tests for light and heavy attacks at least showed that they are interested in reworking or chaning it somehow.
So far weaving is not exactly a good mechanic because its not straight forward and results can vary based on different factors, so at the very least i would expect some sort of fixes to make it more stable and usable.
Removing animation canceling would have some benefits, especially with balancing damage and effects to the duration of animation and having a queue like system thats commonly used.

Amottica wrote: »

I do not want to go back to the slow pace of WoW or FF14 and I pretty much expect Zenimax knows this game is successful it has evolved beyond what those games have to offer.

Straighten things out doesnt mean that the fights have to become slower. Even if you turn anything into a queue you could work with animation times and generate a decent feeling of speed.

Sluggy wrote: »

Just ask yourself, if light attack weaving was removed.... why would anyone ever use a light attack? You're goin to have to climb down a very deep rabbit hole before you come to an acceptable answer.

You dont have to climb down anywhere. You gain ultimate from light attacks and thats one of the major reasons why its so effective using it.

themaddaedra

Incredible thing, truly incredible to complain about LA weaving in this game. It's arguably the best thing in ESO's combat.

Also, there's so little that you can't do without even trying to weave properly, i really don't understand why these threads keep popping up. Are you going for HM trifectas? If no, why give a heck about light weaving, anything dies in this game even if you nicely ask them to. If answer is yes, then better get good.

Sluggy

Xebov wrote: »

You dont have to climb down anywhere. You gain ultimate from light attacks and thats one of the major reasons why its so effective using it.

So light attacks have been relegated to effectively a universal 8-second long buff and they eat up a GCD. Why not just heavy attack instead? It would take just as long in most cases and would deal more damage and restore resources at the same time. There is a hole but you're stepping up to the precipice looking straight ahead and about to stumble into the abyss.

MashmalloMan

At no point did they say the issues for pvp and rewriting the source code are related to light attack weaving. Why did anyone come to that conclusion?

You know what else was a "bug"? Penicillin. Sometimes mistakes lead to great things.

At this point, entire sets, game systems, skills and even the tutorial is built around light attack weaving so it's obvious ZOS wants their combat to behave this way.

Animation cancelling is a part of every popular fighting game for the past 30 years because they allow you to achieve snappy and responsive combat. It would be like scolding the original Smash Bro mechanics on N64 that have since been adopted by every single iteration of the game following.

If you want an MMO with cast times and cooldowns on everything you do, there are a few major ones that come to mind.

pelle412

Why do people still keep bringing this up? Someone who's really good at it will deal about 20% of their damage as light attacks. Someone who's not as good at it maybe 10-15%. If someone feels their damage is really low it's probably not as much related to light attack weaving. There's lots of other reasons for that.

MashmalloMan

pelle412 wrote: »

Why do people still keep bringing this up? Someone who's really good at it will deal about 20% of their damage as light attacks. Someone who's not as good at it maybe 10-15%. If someone feels their damage is really low it's probably not as much related to light attack weaving. There's lots of other reasons for that.

20% is even pretty high and usually only applicable to builds using MA Destro Staves.

This vid has 15%, 127k dps. If you were as good as him, you'd be able to do about 108k dps by not doing a single light attack, maybe more because you could just queue skills perfectly to the GCD instead of any potential hiccups from weaving.

Nothing they're using requires light attacks either, no Relequen and no Crushing Weapon. You would just want to tap light attacks every 8s or so to continue to get your 3 ult a second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78kkVFce-nA&amp;ab_channel=oLulu

Amottica

maximusrex45 wrote: »

My issue with weaving is it isn't intuitive or easy to discover, can be hard to tell if you are doing it right, and in a lot of content it's even hard to mix in because things die too fast.

It is easy to tell if you are weaving. Light weaving is what can be more challenging.

EF321

What they could do is make skill queue more generous, so you can tap LA SKILL whenever it would animation cancel perfectly by itself at correct time, so you can take a nap for the rest of the second.

renne

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

why are we torturing ourselves to make a Beta Test Bug feel comfortable in 2022 despite the roulette wheel of "Will my skill actually fire at my target this fight" with the answer generally being "No" if you are playing with any amount of ping on your alt server account (EU/NA)

On no, not your "alt server account".

Cute. Try playing on any server in Australia. And yet we still manage to do it.

Ascarl

IMHO ESO must create another playstyle other that LA weaving or slowly die.

Many people complain about that all builds are resulting in a similar appearance. They blame lack of class uniqueness but for me it s style uniqueness, it's all about LA 1 LA 1 LA 2 LA 1 LA 1 LA 3 Barswap LA 1 LA 2 Barswap rinse and repeat.