Animation Canceling, Attack Weaving, is it cheating?

Rodario · October 2014

Circuitous wrote: »

Rodario wrote: »

Circuitous wrote: »

Rodario wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

No, it's not. End of story.

But since OP apparently isn't familiar with the history behind this issue, here it is:

First, Jessica Folsom wrote months ago that it is "not an exploit," in response to a comment about using animation cancelling to maximize dps.

What confused people was that she also wrote something along the lines of it being "not exactly intended." In context, it was clear to many people that what was "not intended" was the importance of animation cancelling in order to maximize dps, rather than saying that the mechanic itself wasn't intended, but people disagreed on this point.

But to erase all doubt, it's been reported from the guild summit that the mechanic of animation cancelling is "intended"

Animation and attack priority is currently driven by gameplay mechanics, and animation design is created to support the gameplay features. Animation cancelling with macro usage is “cheating”, but the way that attacks currently interact is intended, but will hopefully be improved in the future.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2014/10/eso-guild-summit/

So clearly, a legitimate feature of the game, based on "attack priority" (to use the terminology quoted above.

My theory is ZOS really did not intend for animation cancelling to work this way, but they have no idea how to fix it without breaking something else or causing forther imbalaces, so now they're just rolling with it.

This theory is ridiculous. The game has animations that you can't cancel, and animations that you can cancel. The difference between them is a matter of programming, and the decisions involved were intentional. If they wanted to make every skill completely uncancelable, they could do so easily.

When I say "to work this way", what I mean is not the fact you can cancel animations, but that the effect goes through anyway and allows for much higher dps than fighting "normally". I read Jessica's post on the subject and she didn't just say "not exactly intended". It was more along the lines of "this surprised us".

The effect goes through anyway because the skills are given a cast time of 0/Instant. It's no surprise that they hit instantly when the animation is taken out of the equation. (And of course you can't cancel skills that do have a cast time until that cast time is complete.)

They could give everything a short cast time and voila, but they don't.

I just can't believe it's intended because fighting looks and feels a lot better when you let animations finish. It makes sense to be able to cancel them to react and block, but for the effects to still go through must be an unintended side effect (you just explained why it happens).

Muizer · October 2014

No

ZoS quote roughly translates to "the timing of the actual attacks is working as intended but the animations give faulty visual clues"

From a player perspective it's logical to take the visual clues as being "intended" and blaming faulty mechanics (which would make "animation cancelling" an exploit).

I don't think anything that the rules allow is really a cheat. Cheating to me says "hacking the game".

I do think it's something that needs to be fixed of course. The timing descrepancy is causing a lot of "WTF just happened" moments. I too would prefer to have a clue about what's going on before I see it in my death recap :P

TehMagnus · October 2014

I don't care. Stuff dies, and I look pro.

In the end, who cares about what it is? If it was an exploit ZOS would have removed it a long time ago.

As long as it's in the game and people are using it, I'll use it. If it's removed then fine,.

It's useless to debate about what we think is right/wrong, things are what they are

Cherryblossom · October 2014

No

As everyone can do it, it's not really an advantage to anyone. !

Lag in PVP makes this worse as you can get hit by four things in one global cooldown so have no way to re-act.

I don't play DK in PVP, but I have noted that reflective scales fail sometimes against Bows!

So if everything worked fine in the game, this would not be an issue, but the fact is great many things don't work and haven't since launch, so it makes issues like this more pronounced.

Circuitous · October 2014

No

Rodario wrote: »

Circuitous wrote: »

Rodario wrote: »

Circuitous wrote: »

Rodario wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

No, it's not. End of story.

But since OP apparently isn't familiar with the history behind this issue, here it is:

First, Jessica Folsom wrote months ago that it is "not an exploit," in response to a comment about using animation cancelling to maximize dps.

What confused people was that she also wrote something along the lines of it being "not exactly intended." In context, it was clear to many people that what was "not intended" was the importance of animation cancelling in order to maximize dps, rather than saying that the mechanic itself wasn't intended, but people disagreed on this point.

But to erase all doubt, it's been reported from the guild summit that the mechanic of animation cancelling is "intended"

Animation and attack priority is currently driven by gameplay mechanics, and animation design is created to support the gameplay features. Animation cancelling with macro usage is “cheating”, but the way that attacks currently interact is intended, but will hopefully be improved in the future.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2014/10/eso-guild-summit/

So clearly, a legitimate feature of the game, based on "attack priority" (to use the terminology quoted above.

My theory is ZOS really did not intend for animation cancelling to work this way, but they have no idea how to fix it without breaking something else or causing forther imbalaces, so now they're just rolling with it.

This theory is ridiculous. The game has animations that you can't cancel, and animations that you can cancel. The difference between them is a matter of programming, and the decisions involved were intentional. If they wanted to make every skill completely uncancelable, they could do so easily.

When I say "to work this way", what I mean is not the fact you can cancel animations, but that the effect goes through anyway and allows for much higher dps than fighting "normally". I read Jessica's post on the subject and she didn't just say "not exactly intended". It was more along the lines of "this surprised us".

The effect goes through anyway because the skills are given a cast time of 0/Instant. It's no surprise that they hit instantly when the animation is taken out of the equation. (And of course you can't cancel skills that do have a cast time until that cast time is complete.)

They could give everything a short cast time and voila, but they don't.

I just can't believe it's intended because fighting looks and feels a lot better when you let animations finish. It makes sense to be able to cancel them to react and block, but for the effects to still go through must be an unintended side effect (you just explained why it happens).

They said quite plainly that the animations were made to support the mechanics, but the mechanics came first. It may look odd, but this is what they designed. These are the numbers they punched in. The animation team did what they could to keep it smooth, but at the end of the day it's the mechanics making the decisions, not the animations.

butterfly442 · October 2014

Yes

Aeratus wrote: »

ferzalrwb17_ESO wrote: »

It can not be classed, officially, as cheating because it's a basic, flawed mechanic and you can even do it accidentally. It is NOT working as intended and ZOS want to do something about it but they've been... unable.. to do so to this point.

ZOS confirmed that it is working as intended. Did you even read the quote from the earlier post? It said that "the way that attacks currently interact is intended."

Furthermore, everyone who has voted "yes" on this poll has used animation cancelling at one point. If you've ever mashed buttons or even attempted to use a skill after a normal attack, then you've done animation cancelling. So go label yourselves as cheaters then, lol.

So, doing it by accident is the same as the guy that sets up a macro and does it 24/7.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on inappropriate content and trolling/baiting]

tordr86b16_ESO · October 2014

No

no it's not. also, trying to light attack weave in cyrodiil is a freaking nightmare with all the delays.

butterfly442 · October 2014

Yes

Sunrock wrote: »

Do the OP even know what the word cheating means? FFS how stupid is this thread?

It has a lot of votes, lots of insightful input. The only thing stupid here is... well, not going to call you stupid. But since you did that already, no need for me to.

I know what cheating is. Just because Zenimax cannot program to save their sad little subscription base, lets think here...

You can abuse this bug to get extra attacks. Lots of extra attacks. Way way way more attacks than possible normally. It is not as intended.

Getting things for free when not intended is cheating. Bug abuse is cheating.

We know you are not responsible for your inability to understand that. The big push to keep things this way is based on the no skilled *** that will get eaten by the real players when it is fixed. No more free skill machine gun spamming of skills that only do 100 damage each, but because of the high spam rate, they can kill anyone.

Jroc · October 2014

No

It's not cheating but it is an exploit. It seems pretty clear that the game wasn't intended to be played that way. That being said I don't see it as being as bad and some have eluded.

jeevin · October 2014

Yes

Very interesting results thus far with those of us who have an opinion on this still so evenly divided. +insightful OP

Cuyler · October 2014

I don't care. Stuff dies, and I look pro.

I could care less either way.

My $0.02 would be it appears that some animations are easier to cancel than others and that creates inequality between classes.

For instance trying to cancel animations of the skills I prefer on my NB archer seem to be slower than cancelling the skills I prefer on my Sorcerer.

I think because of this anyone trying to get the fastest cancelling will default to those skills that work the best for cancelling and it will inevitably end up creating more cookie cutter animation cancelling type builds.

NordJitsu · October 2014

Yes

It's a bit hard to say.

I think it's clearly not the intended way of playing the game. It ruins the fun and flow of combat.

People who do it are everything that is wrong with gaming. They are people who are not playing fairly in the spirit of the game. They are looking for dumb unintended tricks to gain an advantage in an imaginary world where victory is meaningless.

I can't really respect anyone who does this crap. All it does is serve to drive people away from the game.

They are like a parasite in the gaming world. They hop from game to game, killing them off and driving away legitimate players.

That said, you have to expect the worst out of people. It's ZOS's job to ensure that things like this are not possible, not the players job not to take advantage of faulty mechanics.

So should they be punished? Only if my unending scorn is the limit of that punishment.

I'd much rather have ZOS fix their game than go around banning people for their failures.

xMovingTarget · October 2014

No

Without weaving combat would feel dull for me. It adds a lil fun value

PBpsy · October 2014

No

No it is not cheating. For some classes LA weaving happens very naturally actually. NB with Siphoning attacks do need to add a light attack before each and every skill to get their ~30stam/magicka and so does everyone that uses resource leaching glyphs. I was light attack weaving before I knew it was a thing.

I wouldn't mind them removing this mechanic if they changed the animations so that it isn't the most sluggish game in the last decade. The game non skill combat animations are even more sluggish than Skyrim's which is pretty bad compared to games of its generation.

NordJitsu · October 2014

Yes

xMovingTarget wrote: »

Without weaving combat would feel dull for me. It adds a lil Skill Value

@xMovingTarget‌

No, it removes skill.

Or rather, it replaces the appropriate type of skill with something that is not fun for a majority of players and was not intended by the developers.

For all you Halo 2 players, it's much like the B-X-R debacle.

Illumous · October 2014

No

I don't think it is since it is really easy to do and it kinda works with the overall mechanics of the game to make combat more fluid and without constant global cooldowns.

I do, however, think they need to make it so the actual animation has to go through to the point where the actual shooting animation finishes or to the end of a weapon swing. As it is right now, it's like a magic fireball or an arrows shoots from your chest without any actual weapon movement. This isn't to say the animation cancel should be removed entirely, but just to the point where it can only be activated after the actual "important" animation goes through (the end of the standard/heavy attack cooldown where the player is idle until he/she can use the next standard/heavy attack).

Nestor · October 2014

No

As long as the animations are taking longer than the actions take, then everyone is Animation Canceling, at least at some point, whether they intend to or not.

This is not cheating, this is maximizing the damage your character can do.

guybrushtb16_ESO · October 2014

Circuitous wrote: »

They said quite plainly that the animations were made to support the mechanics, but the mechanics came first. It may look odd, but this is what they designed. These are the numbers they punched in. The animation team did what they could to keep it smooth, but at the end of the day it's the mechanics making the decisions, not the animations.

That's half true I guess. In an older quote someone from the team said they intended for skills to be "interruptable" by your own actions, so you wouldn't feel as restricted by the system, but they never expected us to use strict 1 light attack 1 skill rotations infinitely as the best dps option.

This is also the reason so many skills/morphs are "broken", or made redundant by attack weaving. At the very least, maybe somebody from the team expected us to do it, but they clearly didn't all know as the skill design shows.

xMovingTarget · October 2014

No

NordJitsu wrote: »

xMovingTarget wrote: »

Without weaving combat would feel dull for me. It adds a lil Skill Value

@xMovingTarget‌

No, it removes skill.

Or rather, it replaces the appropriate type of skill with something that is not fun for a majority of players and was not intended by the developers.

For all you Halo 2 players, it's much like the B-X-R debacle.

why would it remove skill? press 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 2 is more skill for you then add a light with good timing in between all? Also why is it so many ppl cant do it then?

Voodoo · October 2014

No

The makers of this game state that it is not cheating. End of subject!

Heishi · October 2014

I don't care. Stuff dies, and I look pro.

I don't really think it's cheating, more a flaw in the combat system that ZOS said "Well whatever, let's roll with it". If the animation speeds were quick enough to look like proper combat, there wouldn't be a need to look like a stuttering bunny.

There are many parts of combat that need animation fixes. Diving through an enemy with critical charge, trying to change to werewolf and just getting a black/red aura and slow movement, pounce stalling or missing, teleport strike going through an enemy or not connecting (though not as bad as pounce), blocking while attack is still charging and still getting full hit, It goes on and on.

So.. animation cancelling is a cop out and shouldn't be, but it's there, so it adds a tiny help to the player to compensate for the problems. Seems fair enough

Edit: Corrected a positive that should have been negative

Aeratus · October 2014

No

I think the problem is that when people read fancy words like "animation cancelling", they think it's something exotic and exploitative.

So, I propose renaming the term to "efficient utilization of attack priorities."

So the rephrased question would be "is efficient utilization of attack priorities cheating?" Phrased in this more accurate manner, it is more understandable that the answer is "No."

GnatB · October 2014

No

Rodario wrote: »

It's not cheating but it should be removed. Yes, blocking should still abort animations but the effects shouldn't go through.

Agreed. It's not cheating, it's poor design.

You should not be able to animation cancel attacks with skills. Since attacks are manually triggered and not automatic auto-attacks, unlike most MMO's there's no reason for skills to clobber attacks.
Blocking/interrupting should have a long enough minimum duration that using either of them to animation cancel would result in reduced DPS, not increased DPS.

(Thinking about it some, not all that much in favor of skills cancelled by blocks/interrupts either doing no damage, or doing damage proportionate to how much of the animation is cancelled. Think that may end up creating a latency advantage as people with better connections would be able to squeeze out more damage before needing to throw up the block to block attacks/interrupt, but that would alse be a viable alternate to the minimum block duration)

Oh, and P.S. Why I feel it should change? Feels like the current mechanics makes it really hard to balance skills with a cast time/channel. And, as somebody else pointed out, there's a latency advantage.

NordJitsu · October 2014

Yes

@xMovingTarget‌

Re-read my post. The answer to your question is contained in the post you quoted.

Spectrasoul · October 2014

Didn't vote because my answer would be: It's annoying as hell, please get rid.

My latency isn't the greatest and even if it was I'd still find it annoying to do. It's not freekin WoW where you have to min max every spell and time it perfectly. Yes there is logic and sense to having a good rotation and that should be part of the game but having to mess about trying to fit in extra attacks in a certain way is lame as hell. Global cooldown would go some way to fixing this.

It might not be an exploit in the way of cheating or breaking the rules, but it's still exploiting a flaw in the game mechanics, one which not everyone can use to its full effectiveness.

Rune_Relic · October 2014

No

I say no for 1 reason....
the animation and attack rate should be matched anyway.
So if ZOS do it right animation cancelling shouldnt be possible anyway.
They are in the process of fixing this judging from the summit notes.

eventide03b14a_ESO · October 2014

I don't care. Stuff dies, and I look pro.

I was completely unaware this was a problem. How much could it possibly help out anyway?

jelliedsoup · October 2014

I don't care. Stuff dies, and I look pro.

If it's cheating zos should fix it.

Varicite · October 2014

No

Uh, ZOS already flat out said that it isn't cheating.

There doesn't seem to be much point to this poll, or the other threads concerning it.

ZOS has already taken an official stance, and considering they are looking at changing Haste (NB skill) in the future so that it's more valuable w/ the existence of animation cancelling, it doesn't look like it's going away.

I don't even really understand why people are against it. It's really nothing but a priority system that has to exist in some manner for dynamic combat to occur.

Because of internal cooldowns on abilities / skills / basic attacks, it's not as though animation cancelling will ever increase your dps by a substantial amount. It's already kept in check by these cooldowns.

I feel like people who are against this don't actually understand how the game works. : /

butterfly442 wrote: »

So, gaining more attacks, a lot more attacks, than are intended is the right thing to do.

Like this guy. Clearly has no idea how the mechanics work. Pretty much the norm around here, I guess.

Sav72 · October 2014

Yes

Yes..
I think its BS...

It never stops to amaze me, what people will do to win...at a game..