Push Weapon Swapping back to the client like Dodge Roll

Ezareth · December 2015

@Wrobel @ZOS_RyanRuzich @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert

Probably the most consistent and longest-lasting issue this game has experienced is weapon-swap delay/non-response. It has killed me more than any other bug. You guys have made several passes at improving/fixing this issue in the past and it hasn't helped. I don't think solving the symptom will cure the problem.

The time has come to make a more drastic change. Push weapon swap back to the client exactly as roll dodge is done. Store whatever information is needed locally and remove weapon swapping as a server call. I don't know what all information the client needs from the server to make the transition but store it locally and maintain it there if needed.

This issue gets worse and worse every patch it seems and nothing makes the combat less fun than using the wrong ability because your abilities work fine but the weapon swap command you issued did not go through. I've had to reconfigure my bars to make the alternate slot of my most used abilities non-castable without a target because of this. I can't even run several ults on my bars reliably because of this. Half the time I end up swapping twice because of the delay. This isn't even a cyrodiil issue. It happens constantly. I died 6 times in a row last night vMSA to this bug, it was ridiculous. My internet connection was flawless with a sub 50ms ping. Everything other than weapon swap worked fine. If I want to experience the combat system without delay I have to play at 4AM EST or later and that is ridiculous.

Is this even possible? What would it take to get it done? It would do wonders for the combat system and general morale of the playerbase if you could pull it off.

zerosingularity · December 2015

I support this thread. I am tired of hitting weapon swap to use overload/pop a shield/drop caltrops/buff and it not go off because I am on the wrong bar, even though I hit the weapon swap button. Also a boon of this is less server calls, which may help performance a bit.

I think weapon swap was moved server side to block an exploit or something, but there has to be a better way.

Merlight · December 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

This issue gets worse and worse every patch it seems and nothing makes the combat less fun than using the wrong ability because your abilities work fine but the weapon swap command you issued did not go through.

If weapon swap command doesn't go through, and you make it locally appear as if it did, you'll end up with lying UI. You can't make it local-only, as weapons/shields carry passives, traits and set bonuses, some abilities trigger passives as well. These need to be applied before you do anything with the new weapon.

Waffennacht · December 2015

Just now started making your bars to deal with such issues? Heck I remember one of my first builds posted had hardened on both bars because the delay in weapon switching is death.

Same with my ult, same on both bars to circumvent any delay.

Oh and the delay in overload or streak can cause just as much death. Notice how your first streak takes so much longer to register than any that come after? These Im sure will be very difficult to fix.

JamilaRaj · December 2015

Merlight wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

This issue gets worse and worse every patch it seems and nothing makes the combat less fun than using the wrong ability because your abilities work fine but the weapon swap command you issued did not go through.

If weapon swap command doesn't go through, and you make it locally appear as if it did, you'll end up with lying UI. You can't make it local-only, as weapons/shields carry passives, traits and set bonuses, some abilities trigger passives as well. These need to be applied before you do anything with the new weapon.

Which is why these should not be attached to weapons/skill bars and weapon swap should just, uh, swap weapons. I am aware there is awful lot of things attached, but they can not design as though there is zero latency. That will not fly.
Anyway, bonuses could be applied implicitly on server if ability commands contained information about locally active bar.

EDIT: in fact, if server received command to fire an ability, it could just lookup on which bar it is and perform swap as needed and match client's state.

tist · December 2015

I approve. At least on xbox where there is little chance of manipulation.

Spacemonkey · December 2015

Or the lazy fix - give us 10* skill slots and make weapon swapping ONLY swap the weapon

*Balancing will be needed, meaning its probably a bad idea since balancing as a whole seems to be an issue.

Ezareth · December 2015

Merlight wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

This issue gets worse and worse every patch it seems and nothing makes the combat less fun than using the wrong ability because your abilities work fine but the weapon swap command you issued did not go through.

If weapon swap command doesn't go through, and you make it locally appear as if it did, you'll end up with lying UI. You can't make it local-only, as weapons/shields carry passives, traits and set bonuses, some abilities trigger passives as well. These need to be applied before you do anything with the new weapon.

All of that is stored locally or can be stored locally which is why I mentioned that.

Waffennacht wrote: »

Just now started making your bars to deal with such issues? Heck I remember one of my first builds posted had hardened on both bars because the delay in weapon switching is death.

Same with my ult, same on both bars to circumvent any delay.

Oh and the delay in overload or streak can cause just as much death. Notice how your first streak takes so much longer to register than any that come after? These Im sure will be very difficult to fix.

Ohh not just now, I did it a long time ago. In 1.6 when ults became no target I finally went double-overload because I kept dumping my entire ult bar on weapon swap delay.

One day at a time. I realize that latency is something we're going to have to deal with daily which is why I'd prefer if we made as many things as possible not require a server response. Dodge roll, light/heavy attack and bash are all things that do no require a server response to go through (i.e.) they are client side commands. Weapon swap needs to be changed in whatever way is necessary to facilitate this.

I understand the UI of this game was designed to be Console friendly and that is fine with me. However, that design should not completely bork the combat during periods of latency because of a failed UI mechanism.

maxjapank · December 2015

Imagine those of us with latency of 300+. I always have to remind myself to hit buttons slower than I really can, especially when swapping weapons. And I know exactly what you mean about using "non-castable without target", but that still didn't save me me when I hit a guard with Crippling Grasp when I really wanted to hit Retreating Maneuvers. I've also blown tons of resources thinking that the weapon has swapped when it really hasn't.

Ezareth · December 2015

maxjapank wrote: »

Imagine those of us with latency of 300+. I always have to remind myself to hit buttons slower than I really can, especially when swapping weapons. And I know exactly what you mean about using "non-castable without target", but that still didn't save me me when I hit a guard with Crippling Grasp when I really wanted to hit Retreating Maneuvers. I've also blown tons of resources thinking that the weapon has swapped when it really hasn't.

Yeah fighting the UI more than you're fighting a player/Mob is one of the infuriating things in this game....primarily because I remember the times when it used to work flawlessly.

zornyan · December 2015

Agreed, was fighting someone in the sewers yesterday, just as I knocked them down I hit weapon swap and both triggers (use controller beta) for meteor, only to have an empowering sweep go off when I was about 10 meters from the target.

Failed bar swap, the guy must have been laughing his ar** off.

Merlight · December 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

All of that is stored locally or can be stored locally which is why I mentioned that.

I'm not arguing against making weapon swap reliable. Only noting the issue runs so deep that they can't "just make it local". Currently numerous mechanics require that the server knows which weapon/bar you're on:

Defending / Nirnhoned - your resistances change, incoming attacks have to account for that
set bonuses like Death's Wind, Whitestrake's Retribution, Twilight's Embrace
Precise / Accuracy - not 100% sure but I think it applies to already running DoT/HoT; did a quick test with Vigor on shrine NPCs, and swapping to a Precise weapon after casting seemed to increase the percentage of crits; but my samples were small (~500 ticks), so it might have been just noise
set bonuses giving recovery

If a weapon swap changes any of the above, it has to reach the server. The only thing they can do without redesigning all of that, and probably what you want, is make weapon swap instant, undeniable (not even when CC'd), so the client can just send "swapping" and assume it happened without waiting for confirmation and all the stat/set updates.

Vangy · December 2015

+1 OP. I agree. Nuff said.

Xeven · December 2015

Quoting my thread from the last PTS:

Xeven wrote: »

Weapon swap is still very unreliable and clunky when it should be the most instant and reliable action in the game considering we only have 6 slots per bar to begin with. I find that 90% of the time a weapon swap fails is because you were CCd at the same exact moment you hit your weapon swap button. You break free and begin to smash the abilities that you thought were on your hotbar, only to find out a split second later that the swap failed, and often times a split second is all it takes.

Weapon swap failure is almost certainly my number one cause of death, and I'm sure it is for many others. I sincerely do not understand why weapon swaps cannot be client side, or why they must eat up a global cooldown. It just feels terrible, and I've been playing for a long time. At the very least, expose a weapon swap function to the LUA API so that addon developers can improve it's reliability.

Ezareth · December 2015

Xeven wrote: »

Quoting my thread from the last PTS:

Xeven wrote: »

Weapon swap is still very unreliable and clunky when it should be the most instant and reliable action in the game considering we only have 6 slots per bar to begin with. I find that 90% of the time a weapon swap fails is because you were CCd at the same exact moment you hit your weapon swap button. You break free and begin to smash the abilities that you thought were on your hotbar, only to find out a split second later that the swap failed, and often times a split second is all it takes.

Weapon swap failure is almost certainly my number one cause of death, and I'm sure it is for many others. I sincerely do not understand why weapon swaps cannot be client side, or why they must eat up a global cooldown. It just feels terrible, and I've been playing for a long time. At the very least, expose a weapon swap function to the LUA API so that addon developers can improve it's reliability.

Yeah I've spent a lot of time thinking about this problem and making it client side is the only acceptable solution.

Weapon swap doesn't eat a global cooldown however, it has it's own global cooldown like all the other abilities (dodge roll etc).

Moglijuana · December 2015

BRUH. I didn't know this was a common issue! It makes sense now. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I hope it's addressed. Nothing is worse than playing a Magicka DK and not being able to swap weapons quick enough to defend against all these WB/Snipe/Ambush spammers. I thought it was just me seeing things and "thinking" there was lag but I've definitely noticed it takes a while for the swap to register and by then I'm dead ='(.

Xeven · December 2015

I assumed at the time of writing that if you swap, cast, and swap back too quickly, the second swap failed because of a shared global cooldown with abilities. Rethinking about the problem I realize that you can in fact animation cancel with a swap, and that tells us that the cooldown is not shared with abilities (if there even is one at all there shouldnt be).

Whatever the problem is, I know that at one time weapon swapping was fluid and reliable. It hasn't been that way for quite some time and it is easily one of my top five most important things to fix. (If not the MOST important thing aside from latency.)

ADarklore · December 2015

I agree... weapon swap latency is horrible and should be looked at. As others noted, it sucks to expect to be casting certain abilities after a swap, only to realize that your weapon never actually swapped.

Xeven · December 2015

It's not just latency. I also suggest that swaps be allowed while stunned. I know this sounds kind of silly, but with a CC happening once every 8 seconds, chances are high a swap will fail because of it. Often enough to make swapping feel unresponsive overall.

Perhaps making swaps client side will reduce this considerably, but if they intend to keep it's current functionality, I believe this will help tremendously. At the very least make a 1 second window where you are still able to swap after being CC'd.

Trihugger · December 2015

Very good thread. I have zero software background so I'm glad that you guys understand how something so annoying could be fixed. +1

MrGrimey · December 2015

So that's why when I'm lagging out, the only thing I can do is dodge roll... I agree with the op, make weapon swapping more responsive

NBrookus · December 2015

Oh lawd, I thought it was me doing something wrong and couldn't figure out for the life of me what it was exactly.

ozmorgudduth · December 2015

I is impossible to fix this game. They have not planned animation cancelling, it is a design flaw that broke this game and can't be addressed without putting cooldown on every single ability like most mmos do. They did not plan for so much server traffic. Because of animation cancelling they get far more server calls than they designed for. Basicly megaserver is overloaded.

Ezareth · December 2015

ozmorgudduth wrote: »

I is impossible to fix this game. They have not planned animation cancelling, it is a design flaw that broke this game and can't be addressed without putting cooldown on every single ability like most mmos do. They did not plan for so much server traffic. Because of animation cancelling they get far more server calls than they designed for. Basicly megaserver is overloaded.

@ozmorgudduth

Animation cancelling increases the server load only negligibly because the only things you can cancel with are themselves very simple. Light attacks, Blocks, Dodge rolls and weapon swaps have no complex algorithms associated with them and animation cancelling with block likely has no server load whatsoever as it is likely a state of your character that is either on or off.

Finally I have to say that the percentage of players that I see animation cancel in Cyrodiil is very small. Probably 10-20% of players if that. It's just a non issue as far as performance goes.

Sparky617 · December 2015

I have noticed it getting worse as well. I support the resolution of this issue.....and why can't we swap weapons as a ghost when we resurrect? So many times I want to throw my resto staff on and drop a heal the second I'm not a ghost anymore..

eliisra · December 2015

I believable at one point, for a few months, it was almost instant. Than they added that global cooldown because people kept double swapping. It became slow again, while still unresponsive. Messy since day one. Yet the combat system revolves around it.

Feels like ZOS just doesn't understand that you dont have the time to weapon swap, wait and see if it really swapped, than use the actual skill. Playing like that gets you killed. But hitting swap + skill on one go, gets you killed to because instead of using a heal, you're still on your offensive bar spamming Puncturing Sweep into thin air. it's not only frustrating, but also totally embarrassing looking like potato of the year

When you do more challenging activities, like PvP or vMA and certain dungeons, than weapon swap need to be instant, or someone dies.

The only way people can work around it is putting the most crucial skill on both bars, like we're basically forced to play like if using a toggle, because cant risk weap not swapping. It's a shame with such limited skill slots.

Ezareth · December 2015

eliisra wrote: »

I believable at one point, for a few months, it was almost instant. Than they added that global cooldown because people kept double swapping. It became slow again, while still unresponsive. Messy since day one. Yet the combat system revolves around it.

Feels like ZOS just doesn't understand that you dont have the time to weapon swap, wait and see if it really swapped, than use the actual skill. Playing like that gets you killed. But hitting swap + skill on one go, gets you killed to because instead of using a heal, you're still on your offensive bar spamming Puncturing Sweep into thin air. it's not only frustrating, but also totally embarrassing looking like potato of the year

When you do more challenging activities, like PvP or vMA and certain dungeons, than weapon swap need to be instant, or someone dies.

The only way people can work around it is putting the most crucial skill on both bars, like we're basically forced to play like if using a toggle, because cant risk weap not swapping. It's a shame with such limited skill slots.

Well said.

Weapon swapping is 100% an interface design choice chosen by ZoS. I'm fine with the mechanic at face value but when your interface ends up neutering your combat systems it is time to go back to the drawing board with some assumptions.