Do you think ZOS should eliminate animation cancelling?

  • bowmanz607
    bowmanz607
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Learn to AC.

    Takes skill and practice for consistency.

    Does not rely on gear, cp, lvl, etc. Only skill to do properlly. Anything that takes skill and practice should always stay.
  • MEBengalsFan2001
    MEBengalsFan2001
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    It's sad because all of you are talking about it like it's some exploit or mod. Animation canceling is simply skill. It is not something they can get rid of. Animation canceling is a skill anyone can have.

    You must have missed my post prior to yours post. I even stated that player who support animation cancellation will state exactly what you stated, it takes skill. It takes no skill to hit another button to cancel animation.
  • MEBengalsFan2001
    MEBengalsFan2001
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Emencie wrote: »
    Can someone tell me the last big MMO that didn't have animation canceling?

    Swtor

    I skipped that one. I know DCUO and GW2 had it. Seems like a staple in action MMO'S.

    To be fair they almost immediately fixed it in guild wars 2 because it was terrible.

    It continues to completely drive the meta in DCUO to this day. As in, if your class build does not have skills that can be jump canceled, then they are trash. 90% of abilities that cannot be cancelled are considered trash and the cookie cutter is out of control at end game.

    With ESO at least we don't run into that problem since just about everything can be ACed.

    Even Wildstar patched out animation canceling quickly when it cropped up, because it can get out of control and ruin a game.

    Right now in ESO end content is balanced around AC a function that many people do not know about, something that drives the meta and requires outside game knowledge to perform. It is a terrible system.

    Jump cancelling in DCUO? That is so 2014 or prior. Since GU36 jump cancelling has gone to the wayside in DCUO; however, animation cancellation in the form of using an ability right before the animation of a weapon attack finishes is very common.

    However, DCUO is working on a major update and removing many of the things that make all players cookie cutter and animation cancellation will reduce your damage of your weapon or ability if you do it, and this will result in more players allowing animation to complete, but that update is months away from being ready for release.

    Animation cancellation is very common but as more casual players join the hardcore players, AC starts to rear its head and becomes a problem for the overall community and eventually something has to be done to level the playing field and typically there are three solutions. 1) If you cancel animation you get zero damage from the animation you cancelled, 2) you get 50% of the damage, 3) developers spend countless hours modifying each ability and weapon to remove animation cancellation.

    I like the second option as it still offers some damage as you did allow a portion of the animation to complete and you should get some benefit from that time.
    Edited by MEBengalsFan2001 on January 25, 2017 3:43PM
  • Sigtric
    Sigtric
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Emencie wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    Destruent wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    Shunravi wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    dday3six wrote: »
    Yes, if you interrupt an animation, you should also be interrupting the spell/ability associated with it.

    As easy as that sounds, it's not so simple. Latency would better very impactful if the game were set up like that. Was the animation finished or was it not? It's the same with a % of damage lost based on the length of the animation before it was clipped. There are three instances of what is happening in an online game. What you see, what the other player sees, and what thevserver sees. The server tries to translate the data from the other two so that both see a continuous and seemless instance, but as we all know that is not always the case.

    You'd be leaving it up to the server as to whether or not the animation was completed. That would cause a lot of problems in it's own right, on top of increased server load due to the increased processing needed to calculate the effect of each animation as it's used vs a blanket behavior for all of them.

    This is why skills are generally limited by things like global cooldowns, weapon speeds, or normalized animations. So that there is no overlap, no cancellation and no need for the server to deal with additional processes.

    Though I agree it is not simple for ESO because they built the entire game before they realized this problem, and it would be insane to go back and redo everything to fix it. But that still doesn't make it good for the game IMHO.

    But they dont see it as a problem. They even redesigned ultimate gain and skills like grim focus to benifit more from it.

    I remember when the problem was first brought up the devs did want to fix it. But it's simply too ingrained in the game code. So it was decided to simply make it apart of the game.

    The problem with it is, it makes gameplay normalization impossible.

    Example.
    If we are trying to balance dps skill A. We take many things into account, but primarily we need to know how much dps does skill A do. In eso that basic question is nearly impossible to answer but not just because of the basic things all mmos have like buffs and gear, but also because players and latency play a pivotal role.

    1. A player who has no idea what AC is
    2. The player who is learning to AC
    3. The AC pro
    4. The AC pro with bad latency
    5. The macro keyboard user

    All of these people in eso will have drastically different dps while using a single skill even if they have the exact same gear and buffs.

    In other mmos these 5 people (using simple auto attack and spamming one skill) will do nearly the same if not the exact same damage.

    This is why we have content that is too hard for a group of 4, but also so easy someone can solo it. This is why people complain about unkillable tanks, and instant death gankers in pvp.

    drastically different => less than 5k => 10% difference

    are you serious?

    Very serious.

    1 skill + light attck/block/bash weaving
    VS
    1 skill + spamming it while waiting out the animation.

    Is a lot more than a 10% damage difference.

    @Emencie

    This is simply a false statement. Animation canceling, especially the type i think you are describing, does not decrease the global cooldown of skills. If we are talking about a basic light weave, the number one type of animation canceling done in this game, well it usually adds about 5-6 percent Damage.

    Looking at a 50k parse on the PTS (not mine), light attacks accounted for about 2800 DPS (5.6 percent). That is with a near perfect weave. Most people are going to be less than that. All the weaving in the world is not going to allow you to get off more skills. Skills have global cooldowns.

    I'll try to reiterate what I meant.

    In WoW "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it has a global cool down of 2 seconds, and while using it the player auto attacks once a second for 100 damage.
    A pro player pushes the "Skill A" button once every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A noob player spams the "Skill A" button like a maniac, it still only goes off every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A bot/macro player has a script to push the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A person with bad lag still sees the fight client side and pushes the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds, when the server gets the info guess what? He gets 350 DPS.

    In GW2 "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it has a normalized animation of 2 seconds there is no auto attack.
    A pro player pushes the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds giving them 250 DPS.
    A noob player spams the "Skill A" button but it only goes after the last animation completed, giving them 250 DPS.
    A bot/macro player has a script to push the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds, again 250 DPS.

    In ESO "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it can be ACed and weaved it has an animation of 1.5 seconds and a global cool down of .9 seconds. Light attacks deal 100 damage and can be weaved in, bashes can be used to cancel animation for 50 damage
    A Pro player can weave a light attack in between every "Skill A" button press and ends it with a bash canceling the animation down to 1 second, giving them 650 DPS
    A noob player hits the "Skill A" button every time the animation ends with no weaving and no AC giving them 333 DPS
    A person learning AC may weave a light attack in every other "Skill A" button press, but miff a block cancel or two and put their DPS somewhere between 333 and 650.
    A perfect macro system will get the AC down to .9 seconds every "Skill A" use, while weaving the light attacks and bashes giving the bot 715 DPS

    I brought this up because I feel this is the biggest problem with weaving and AC. My numbers are made up (obviously) but I was just trying to show that weaving/AC has quite an impact on simply how we view/balance skills because it's not, and never can be normalized. This is a problem fairly unique to ESO because most games normalize skills.

    I'm not talking about how much epic damage you get out of AC. I'm talking about on the basic level of "When a character is just using a single skill how much damage does that character do." AC can make that number vary, where most games that number would be consistent across skill lines. This basic idea is seen in game whenever you group with a person that has no idea what AC is and you look at their terrible DPS parse like :# then promptly kick them. We have situations where people are doing content designed for a group, solo. PvP where people are 1v20 and other insane feats that are simply not seen in other MMORPGs.

    Because the difference in ESO between a vet player and a noob is so astronomical not only because of build quality, but also unexplained gameplay mechanics, the biggest of which is AC.

    This is why I don't like it. But I understand why it's here to stay, and of course I use it.

    I don't know how much clearer I can explain this.

    Thank you so much!

    A friend of mine just came back from a three month frustration break, because he could not understand, why the difference between noobs and pros would be so great that a dungeon could one time be a walk in the park, while the other time the group could not down a boss even after many hours of trying.

    I think your post illustrates the problem with AC quite well: It makes balancing even more impossible then it already is by nature in MMOs, leading to more kicks for noobs and nervous breakdowns for patient veterans trying to run a dungeon with whatever the finder gives them. In other games you would only have to explain mechanics and tactic, tell people to and when use skill a-z, and DONT STAND IN STUPID.

    Here in ESO, even if the noob-group does everything of the above right, it is quite possible that they still will not down the boss, because they dont AC and so dont have the DPS for the fight.

    It's a good example for sure but I disagree that it shows any problem with AC but rather shows how much more interactive and dynamic combat in ESO is compared to other games. This sets ESO miles ahead of other games in terms of combat fun for me. I find it extremely boring when I go back and try to play games that have combat systems that look anything similar to the WOW example given in the post you replied to.

    In ESO I feel like I am actually controlling the character. I choose when to hit, I choose when to block or dodge. In WOW/Etc, it is single button presses when the timer says it's time to go. That's boring AF.

    What's really sad about it, is that it's not very hard to get proficient enough at AC for it to bring most players on par, and yet many even refuse to take 5 minutes to learn how.

    ZOS probably would do well to include some sort of tutorial for it, but I'm guessing there's already a lot of stuff in the Help menu tutorial area that never gets looked at.

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  • hydrocynus
    hydrocynus
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Replying to see what I voted for because it was a while ago and I can't remember
    My internet is invalid
  • hydrocynus
    hydrocynus
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    hydrocynus wrote: »
    Replying to see what I voted for because it was a while ago and I can't remember

    Yup. Still no. Now shush!
    My internet is invalid
  • AhPook_Is_Here
    AhPook_Is_Here
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    Yes get rid of it
    I'm pretty sure that way back in the day when this was first discussed zos couldn't find a good way to fix it or it made someones head hurt to think about it so they just decided it was going to stay the way it is and call it working as intended.

    I'm fine with it, i just want better messaging so you can see what's going off and at what time-stamps so you can counter via text instead of counter via animations.
    “Whatever.”
    -Unknown American
  • deepseamk20b14_ESO
    deepseamk20b14_ESO
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    No let it stay
    Why would you try to completely rewrite how people have played for the last 3 years? Ani canceling is an art in itself and I see plenty of people who can't do it. Don't make the people who have spent the time perfecting lose that progress. Example, in PvP you can break free so fast that some CC animations with ani cancel take so long the enemy has broken free before you can even take advantage of the CC, and the whole point of a CC is to get momentary control over an enemy to exploit their time of weakness.

    No to getting rid of animation canceling. Just no.
    Hey everyone! Look! It's a signature!
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
    Oreyn_Bearclaw
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Emencie wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    Destruent wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    Shunravi wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    dday3six wrote: »
    Yes, if you interrupt an animation, you should also be interrupting the spell/ability associated with it.

    As easy as that sounds, it's not so simple. Latency would better very impactful if the game were set up like that. Was the animation finished or was it not? It's the same with a % of damage lost based on the length of the animation before it was clipped. There are three instances of what is happening in an online game. What you see, what the other player sees, and what thevserver sees. The server tries to translate the data from the other two so that both see a continuous and seemless instance, but as we all know that is not always the case.

    You'd be leaving it up to the server as to whether or not the animation was completed. That would cause a lot of problems in it's own right, on top of increased server load due to the increased processing needed to calculate the effect of each animation as it's used vs a blanket behavior for all of them.

    This is why skills are generally limited by things like global cooldowns, weapon speeds, or normalized animations. So that there is no overlap, no cancellation and no need for the server to deal with additional processes.

    Though I agree it is not simple for ESO because they built the entire game before they realized this problem, and it would be insane to go back and redo everything to fix it. But that still doesn't make it good for the game IMHO.

    But they dont see it as a problem. They even redesigned ultimate gain and skills like grim focus to benifit more from it.

    I remember when the problem was first brought up the devs did want to fix it. But it's simply too ingrained in the game code. So it was decided to simply make it apart of the game.

    The problem with it is, it makes gameplay normalization impossible.

    Example.
    If we are trying to balance dps skill A. We take many things into account, but primarily we need to know how much dps does skill A do. In eso that basic question is nearly impossible to answer but not just because of the basic things all mmos have like buffs and gear, but also because players and latency play a pivotal role.

    1. A player who has no idea what AC is
    2. The player who is learning to AC
    3. The AC pro
    4. The AC pro with bad latency
    5. The macro keyboard user

    All of these people in eso will have drastically different dps while using a single skill even if they have the exact same gear and buffs.

    In other mmos these 5 people (using simple auto attack and spamming one skill) will do nearly the same if not the exact same damage.

    This is why we have content that is too hard for a group of 4, but also so easy someone can solo it. This is why people complain about unkillable tanks, and instant death gankers in pvp.

    drastically different => less than 5k => 10% difference

    are you serious?

    Very serious.

    1 skill + light attck/block/bash weaving
    VS
    1 skill + spamming it while waiting out the animation.

    Is a lot more than a 10% damage difference.

    @Emencie

    This is simply a false statement. Animation canceling, especially the type i think you are describing, does not decrease the global cooldown of skills. If we are talking about a basic light weave, the number one type of animation canceling done in this game, well it usually adds about 5-6 percent Damage.

    Looking at a 50k parse on the PTS (not mine), light attacks accounted for about 2800 DPS (5.6 percent). That is with a near perfect weave. Most people are going to be less than that. All the weaving in the world is not going to allow you to get off more skills. Skills have global cooldowns.

    I'll try to reiterate what I meant.

    In WoW "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it has a global cool down of 2 seconds, and while using it the player auto attacks once a second for 100 damage.
    A pro player pushes the "Skill A" button once every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A noob player spams the "Skill A" button like a maniac, it still only goes off every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A bot/macro player has a script to push the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A person with bad lag still sees the fight client side and pushes the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds, when the server gets the info guess what? He gets 350 DPS.

    In GW2 "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it has a normalized animation of 2 seconds there is no auto attack.
    A pro player pushes the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds giving them 250 DPS.
    A noob player spams the "Skill A" button but it only goes after the last animation completed, giving them 250 DPS.
    A bot/macro player has a script to push the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds, again 250 DPS.

    In ESO "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it can be ACed and weaved it has an animation of 1.5 seconds and a global cool down of .9 seconds. Light attacks deal 100 damage and can be weaved in, bashes can be used to cancel animation for 50 damage
    A Pro player can weave a light attack in between every "Skill A" button press and ends it with a bash canceling the animation down to 1 second, giving them 650 DPS
    A noob player hits the "Skill A" button every time the animation ends with no weaving and no AC giving them 333 DPS
    A person learning AC may weave a light attack in every other "Skill A" button press, but miff a block cancel or two and put their DPS somewhere between 333 and 650.
    A perfect macro system will get the AC down to .9 seconds every "Skill A" use, while weaving the light attacks and bashes giving the bot 715 DPS

    I brought this up because I feel this is the biggest problem with weaving and AC. My numbers are made up (obviously) but I was just trying to show that weaving/AC has quite an impact on simply how we view/balance skills because it's not, and never can be normalized. This is a problem fairly unique to ESO because most games normalize skills.

    I'm not talking about how much epic damage you get out of AC. I'm talking about on the basic level of "When a character is just using a single skill how much damage does that character do." AC can make that number vary, where most games that number would be consistent across skill lines. This basic idea is seen in game whenever you group with a person that has no idea what AC is and you look at their terrible DPS parse like :# then promptly kick them. We have situations where people are doing content designed for a group, solo. PvP where people are 1v20 and other insane feats that are simply not seen in other MMORPGs.

    Because the difference in ESO between a vet player and a noob is so astronomical not only because of build quality, but also unexplained gameplay mechanics, the biggest of which is AC.

    This is why I don't like it. But I understand why it's here to stay, and of course I use it.

    I don't know how much clearer I can explain this.

    Thank you so much!

    A friend of mine just came back from a three month frustration break, because he could not understand, why the difference between noobs and pros would be so great that a dungeon could one time be a walk in the park, while the other time the group could not down a boss even after many hours of trying.

    I think your post illustrates the problem with AC quite well: It makes balancing even more impossible then it already is by nature in MMOs, leading to more kicks for noobs and nervous breakdowns for patient veterans trying to run a dungeon with whatever the finder gives them. In other games you would only have to explain mechanics and tactic, tell people to and when use skill a-z, and DONT STAND IN STUPID.

    Here in ESO, even if the noob-group does everything of the above right, it is quite possible that they still will not down the boss, because they dont AC and so dont have the DPS for the fight.

    @Emencie @Lookstowindwards

    I still think you are wildly overstating the issue in PVE. Almost nobody is doing any type of bash canceling there in a DPS rotation. Its light weaving and bar swap cancelling 99% of the time. As I stated before, this is going to amount to about 3K DPS tops. This has nothing to do with your friend that cant pull adequate DPS in dungeons. He has a build and or rotation problem. The other advantage to weaving is that it can help with sustain in longer trial fights. On a staff, it procs elemental drain and you can adjust the length of your weave (at the expense of slowing down your globals) to allow time to regen. That's it. If your buddy is pully 15K, becoming an expert in weaving (or using macros) is not going to turn him into a 40k DPS. He has a fundamental problem somewhere else.

    As to the PVP side of things, well you post illustrates exactly why it shouldnt go anywhere. A skilled player should have an advantage over someone that is just button mashing. In ESO, they do.
    Edited by Oreyn_Bearclaw on January 25, 2017 4:47PM
  • the_man_of_steal
    the_man_of_steal
    ✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Animation cancelling gives combat and DPS in this game such a dynamic progression and it helps separate skilled players from spamming players. It should be REVERTED back to its original algorithm and keep it how it originally was!

    MAKE ESO GREAT AGAIN! @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel
    Edited by the_man_of_steal on January 25, 2017 5:06PM
  • Tinus_92
    Tinus_92
    ✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Imagine completing vmol or any other trial without animation cancelling or weaving.
    Edited by Tinus_92 on January 25, 2017 5:12PM
    Ingame ID: @Suni_92
  • bowmanz607
    bowmanz607
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    I'm pretty sure that way back in the day when this was first discussed zos couldn't find a good way to fix it or it made someones head hurt to think about it so they just decided it was going to stay the way it is and call it working as intended.

    I'm fine with it, i just want better messaging so you can see what's going off and at what time-stamps so you can counter via text instead of counter via animations.

    Was unintended but zos said they liked it and that a brought an element of skill which I agree with. So they left it.
  • Emencie
    Emencie
    ✭✭✭✭
    Yes get rid of it
    Emencie wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    Destruent wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    Shunravi wrote: »
    Emencie wrote: »
    dday3six wrote: »
    Yes, if you interrupt an animation, you should also be interrupting the spell/ability associated with it.

    As easy as that sounds, it's not so simple. Latency would better very impactful if the game were set up like that. Was the animation finished or was it not? It's the same with a % of damage lost based on the length of the animation before it was clipped. There are three instances of what is happening in an online game. What you see, what the other player sees, and what thevserver sees. The server tries to translate the data from the other two so that both see a continuous and seemless instance, but as we all know that is not always the case.

    You'd be leaving it up to the server as to whether or not the animation was completed. That would cause a lot of problems in it's own right, on top of increased server load due to the increased processing needed to calculate the effect of each animation as it's used vs a blanket behavior for all of them.

    This is why skills are generally limited by things like global cooldowns, weapon speeds, or normalized animations. So that there is no overlap, no cancellation and no need for the server to deal with additional processes.

    Though I agree it is not simple for ESO because they built the entire game before they realized this problem, and it would be insane to go back and redo everything to fix it. But that still doesn't make it good for the game IMHO.

    But they dont see it as a problem. They even redesigned ultimate gain and skills like grim focus to benifit more from it.

    I remember when the problem was first brought up the devs did want to fix it. But it's simply too ingrained in the game code. So it was decided to simply make it apart of the game.

    The problem with it is, it makes gameplay normalization impossible.

    Example.
    If we are trying to balance dps skill A. We take many things into account, but primarily we need to know how much dps does skill A do. In eso that basic question is nearly impossible to answer but not just because of the basic things all mmos have like buffs and gear, but also because players and latency play a pivotal role.

    1. A player who has no idea what AC is
    2. The player who is learning to AC
    3. The AC pro
    4. The AC pro with bad latency
    5. The macro keyboard user

    All of these people in eso will have drastically different dps while using a single skill even if they have the exact same gear and buffs.

    In other mmos these 5 people (using simple auto attack and spamming one skill) will do nearly the same if not the exact same damage.

    This is why we have content that is too hard for a group of 4, but also so easy someone can solo it. This is why people complain about unkillable tanks, and instant death gankers in pvp.

    drastically different => less than 5k => 10% difference

    are you serious?

    Very serious.

    1 skill + light attck/block/bash weaving
    VS
    1 skill + spamming it while waiting out the animation.

    Is a lot more than a 10% damage difference.

    @Emencie

    This is simply a false statement. Animation canceling, especially the type i think you are describing, does not decrease the global cooldown of skills. If we are talking about a basic light weave, the number one type of animation canceling done in this game, well it usually adds about 5-6 percent Damage.

    Looking at a 50k parse on the PTS (not mine), light attacks accounted for about 2800 DPS (5.6 percent). That is with a near perfect weave. Most people are going to be less than that. All the weaving in the world is not going to allow you to get off more skills. Skills have global cooldowns.

    I'll try to reiterate what I meant.

    In WoW "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it has a global cool down of 2 seconds, and while using it the player auto attacks once a second for 100 damage.
    A pro player pushes the "Skill A" button once every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A noob player spams the "Skill A" button like a maniac, it still only goes off every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A bot/macro player has a script to push the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds while auto attacking, giving them 350 DPS.
    A person with bad lag still sees the fight client side and pushes the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds, when the server gets the info guess what? He gets 350 DPS.

    In GW2 "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it has a normalized animation of 2 seconds there is no auto attack.
    A pro player pushes the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds giving them 250 DPS.
    A noob player spams the "Skill A" button but it only goes after the last animation completed, giving them 250 DPS.
    A bot/macro player has a script to push the "Skill A" button every 2 seconds, again 250 DPS.

    In ESO "Skill A" deals 500 damage, it can be ACed and weaved it has an animation of 1.5 seconds and a global cool down of .9 seconds. Light attacks deal 100 damage and can be weaved in, bashes can be used to cancel animation for 50 damage
    A Pro player can weave a light attack in between every "Skill A" button press and ends it with a bash canceling the animation down to 1 second, giving them 650 DPS
    A noob player hits the "Skill A" button every time the animation ends with no weaving and no AC giving them 333 DPS
    A person learning AC may weave a light attack in every other "Skill A" button press, but miff a block cancel or two and put their DPS somewhere between 333 and 650.
    A perfect macro system will get the AC down to .9 seconds every "Skill A" use, while weaving the light attacks and bashes giving the bot 715 DPS

    I brought this up because I feel this is the biggest problem with weaving and AC. My numbers are made up (obviously) but I was just trying to show that weaving/AC has quite an impact on simply how we view/balance skills because it's not, and never can be normalized. This is a problem fairly unique to ESO because most games normalize skills.

    I'm not talking about how much epic damage you get out of AC. I'm talking about on the basic level of "When a character is just using a single skill how much damage does that character do." AC can make that number vary, where most games that number would be consistent across skill lines. This basic idea is seen in game whenever you group with a person that has no idea what AC is and you look at their terrible DPS parse like :# then promptly kick them. We have situations where people are doing content designed for a group, solo. PvP where people are 1v20 and other insane feats that are simply not seen in other MMORPGs.

    Because the difference in ESO between a vet player and a noob is so astronomical not only because of build quality, but also unexplained gameplay mechanics, the biggest of which is AC.

    This is why I don't like it. But I understand why it's here to stay, and of course I use it.

    I don't know how much clearer I can explain this.

    Thank you so much!

    A friend of mine just came back from a three month frustration break, because he could not understand, why the difference between noobs and pros would be so great that a dungeon could one time be a walk in the park, while the other time the group could not down a boss even after many hours of trying.

    I think your post illustrates the problem with AC quite well: It makes balancing even more impossible then it already is by nature in MMOs, leading to more kicks for noobs and nervous breakdowns for patient veterans trying to run a dungeon with whatever the finder gives them. In other games you would only have to explain mechanics and tactic, tell people to and when use skill a-z, and DONT STAND IN STUPID.

    Here in ESO, even if the noob-group does everything of the above right, it is quite possible that they still will not down the boss, because they dont AC and so dont have the DPS for the fight.

    @Emencie @Lookstowindwards

    I still think you are wildly overstating the issue in PVE. Almost nobody is doing any type of bash canceling there in a DPS rotation. Its light weaving and bar swap cancelling 99% of the time. As I stated before, this is going to amount to about 3K DPS tops. This has nothing to do with your friend that cant pull adequate DPS in dungeons. He has a build and or rotation problem. The other advantage to weaving is that it can help with sustain in longer trial fights. On a staff, it procs elemental drain and you can adjust the length of your weave (at the expense of slowing down your globals) to allow time to regen. That's it. If your buddy is pully 15K, becoming an expert in weaving (or using macros) is not going to turn him into a 40k DPS. He has a fundamental problem somewhere else.

    As to the PVP side of things, well you post illustrates exactly why it shouldnt go anywhere. A skilled player should have an advantage over someone that is just button mashing. In ESO, they do.
    I would say in every MMO they do.
    Even in a timer heavy, global cooldown game like WoW they do. It's just a different skill set.

    In ESO skill often comes down to who can push their proper rotation with perfect timing while maintaining speed and uptime.This takes a lot of practice and accuracy and relies heavily on twitch skill and your ability to make split second choices. But I would not say it takes more skill than a game like WoW, where skill often comes down to out thinking your opponent, saving cooldowns, and chaining together CC combos when they are vulnerable while saving your own defensive skills so you never become vulnerable. It often plays more like a game of chess, where a single encounter can take a long time to be settled.

    But in both, a person running in and mashing buttons all willynilly is going to get completely smashed by someone with skill.
    Edited by Emencie on January 25, 2017 5:25PM
  • Destruent
    Destruent
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    No let it stay
    Tinus_92 wrote: »
    Imagine completing vmol or any other trial without animation cancelling or weaving.

    When we first completet vmol or any other trial first, we had like 10...20k DPS less per DD. Thats far more than we get by using AC...

    edit: apart from DPS, it would be extremely clunky to play and therefore harder to survive, but in a worse way imo...
    Edited by Destruent on January 25, 2017 6:02PM
    Noobplar
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
    Oreyn_Bearclaw
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Tinus_92 wrote: »
    Imagine completing vmol or any other trial without animation cancelling or weaving.

    I think most good groups would not notice the damage so much, but they sure would notice the sustain. Weaving helps sustain more than people realize I think.
  • Destruent
    Destruent
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    No let it stay
    Tinus_92 wrote: »
    Imagine completing vmol or any other trial without animation cancelling or weaving.

    I think most good groups would not notice the damage so much, but they sure would notice the sustain. Weaving helps sustain more than people realize I think.

    Won't make such a big difference with next patch anyway ^^
    Noobplar
  • Treaborne
    Treaborne
    ✭✭
    Seeing way to many threads about this so I want to see the thoughts of the community on this debate in poll form. Note: the notes said they were going to improve animations so you can see effects when canceled but as of now they will not eliminate it.

    They should just give us an option to turn off animations period.
    Computer Specs by: systemrequirementslab.com
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    • - RAM: 32 GB
  • Treaborne
    Treaborne
    ✭✭
    jeevin wrote: »
    Taking away animation cancelling would ruin the responsiveness and flow of combat, the problem isn't that cancelling is hard to learn or cheating, it's that most people just haven't been taught how to do it. If you don't want to learn to cancel spam this like jabs and wrecking blow.

    Taking away the damage done by a cancelled animation or applying a damage penalty for cancelling an animation would not ruin responsiveness of combat. The responsiveness remains the same, the time to kill would be longer and the game would require more actual "skill" with reactions to combat as it appears on the screen.

    This would not work well with people on low end systems or that have very high ping connections.
    Computer Specs by: systemrequirementslab.com
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    • - Video Card #1: AMD Radeon R7 Graphics + R7 200 Dual Graphics
    • - Video Card #2: AMD Radeon R7 250
    • - RAM: 32 GB
  • nemisan
    nemisan
    ✭✭✭
    Yes get rid of it
    It is a very bad thing for PVP. Those who use it, will defend it to the end of days.
  • bowmanz607
    bowmanz607
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    nemisan wrote: »
    It is a very bad thing for PVP. Those who use it, will defend it to the end of days.

    Typical forum post. "If you don't agree with me your bias and therefore your answer does not matter only mine"

  • bowmanz607
    bowmanz607
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    nemisan wrote: »
    It is a very bad thing for PVP. Those who use it, will defend it to the end of days.

    You don't know how to AC so your against it. You will advocate till end of days.



    See i can do that too
  • Lookstowindwards
    Lookstowindwards
    ✭✭✭
    Yes get rid of it
    Sigtric wrote: »
    What's really sad about it, is that it's not very hard to get proficient enough at AC for it to bring most players on par, and yet many even refuse to take 5 minutes to learn how.

    ZOS probably would do well to include some sort of tutorial for it, but I'm guessing there's already a lot of stuff in the Help menu tutorial area that never gets looked at.

    A (ingame!) tutorial would indeed be needed, for those who want to learn it, so they can start getting used to it while leveling, not somethen at endgame, if they are lucky to find out. We must never forget, that a lot of people dont read the forums.
    I still think you are wildly overstating the issue in PVE. Almost nobody is doing any type of bash canceling there in a DPS rotation. Its light weaving and bar swap cancelling 99% of the time. As I stated before, this is going to amount to about 3K DPS tops. This has nothing to do with your friend that cant pull adequate DPS in dungeons. He has a build and or rotation problem. The other advantage to weaving is that it can help with sustain in longer trial fights. On a staff, it procs elemental drain and you can adjust the length of your weave (at the expense of slowing down your globals) to allow time to regen. That's it. If your buddy is pully 15K, becoming an expert in weaving (or using macros) is not going to turn him into a 40k DPS. He has a fundamental problem somewhere else.

    As to the PVP side of things, well you post illustrates exactly why it shouldnt go anywhere. A skilled player should have an advantage over someone that is just button mashing. In ESO, they do.

    Well, my friend was not the core problem in this frustrating dungeon run of him. He is doing okayish on AC, still learning but pulling his 25-30k DPS, depending on Lag (which btw is the thing making my own experience here in ESO more and more frustrating, as one can never know if it will be good, okay, bearable or horrible on login).

    He was frustrated, because it was impossible to finish a dungeon he thought of being easy with this group of people, because they did not have the DPS needed in this constellation. Because in his world, you should be able to complete a normal dungeon with anyone, if they stay out of stupid and follow the tactics (i think it was WGT or Prison).
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
    Oreyn_Bearclaw
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    Destruent wrote: »
    Tinus_92 wrote: »
    Imagine completing vmol or any other trial without animation cancelling or weaving.

    I think most good groups would not notice the damage so much, but they sure would notice the sustain. Weaving helps sustain more than people realize I think.

    Won't make such a big difference with next patch anyway ^^

    Very true!
  • gard
    gard
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    It's a part of the game. Everyone has access to it. Anyone can do it.

    [snip]
    [edited for baiting]
    Edited by ZOS_Icy on March 14, 2026 6:57PM
    My wife complains that I never listen to her. (Or something like that.)
    -- I'm a one man smurf zerg!

    My ESO addons:
    Midnight - Find out when midnight is so that you can check for ww/vamp spawn.
    Goto - Adds a tab to the map pane allowing you to teleport to a friend, guildmate, or groupmate for free.
  • Rohamad_Ali
    Rohamad_Ali
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yes get rid of it
    OdinForge wrote: »
    Typhoios wrote: »
    Can someone tell me the last big MMO that didn't have animation canceling?

    Swtor

    The combat in that game is so damn boring. I liked the stories, but once I finished the class story lines, I quit.

    The combat is fine in that game in my opinion . There F2P system is garbage . Ever play a Force healer ? Pretty fun . Marauders are fun too .

    That combat is outdated and boring, get over yourself and your misconception of what animation canceling is. Every game with fluid combat features some form of animation canceling, even newer games like Overwatch or Paragon incorporate some form of animation canceling into their combat system to help the combat feel less robotic. Games like Super Smash Bros use some forms of animation canceling as well, people enjoy the responsive and fast combat.

    ESO is plauged by such a misinformed and casual player-base, people who have literally zero understanding of the game are free to come onto the forums and shoot their opinions around like they've been playing the game since launch.

    I've been playing since second round Beta with a second account full cadwells and almost cp capped as well . I have every right to my opinion .
  • Riejael
    Riejael
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Why would you try to completely rewrite how people have played for the last 3 years?

    To change up the meta. I'm not against them deleting skills and replacing them with ones that do something entirely different just to change things up.

    Think about it. What is the goal of playing ESO? Completing VMA? Completing Vet Trials? What's the true endgame for the skilled player?

    The true endgame in ESO isn't like in WoW. Lets be honest there is NO clear line of progression. Doing VMA or Vet Trials doesn't give better gear for many builds. But you do them to TEST your own skill and TEST your own unique builds. Many players aren't on that level of course and have to have their builds made for them.

    But for the truly skilled ESO player, the 'endgame' is testing a new build and making it work.

    So what sense does it make to leave the same meta in the game for 3 years? You have to engage the skilled player with 'new content' and that content could easily be access to new build combinations. This game is alot like Path of Exile and similar games in that regard.

    Removing AC is one way to do that. You change the meta and force players to find entirely new builds and rotations since the tried and true ones are suddenly not the same and other discarded methods (like lightning staves for example, and skills with cast times) are now being considered.

    Leaving the same meta in for 3 years should not happen. Leaving it in for more than 3 months shouldn't happen either.

    Because lets be honest. If you worked up a character for months, perfected the gear. Perfected the rotation. And have completed all Vet Trials. What is left to do? Change in meta means you've got something more. Because simply adding new dungeons isn't the way to engage players. Its the only incentive that really works. Not without giving that content better gear than previous content which makes previous content obsolete.

    If you're one that doesn't make their own builds, I can understand why such a concept would be frightening or annoying. But once you advance your level of play to where you don't need to copy others' builds, you'll understand that is where the real endgame. Maybe someday you'll make a build that others want to copy. Should you decide to go public with it.
  • ethanthefox
    ethanthefox
    ✭✭
    No let it stay
    Hell no! Animation cancel is what make figths interesting, would be boring doing your PvE rotation without any cancel. Just doing skill after skill instead of learning timing and trying to get better at it.
  • dday3six
    dday3six
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    .
    Riejael wrote: »
    Why would you try to completely rewrite how people have played for the last 3 years?

    To change up the meta. I'm not against them deleting skills and replacing them with ones that do something entirely different just to change things up.

    Think about it. What is the goal of playing ESO? Completing VMA? Completing Vet Trials? What's the true endgame for the skilled player?

    The true endgame in ESO isn't like in WoW. Lets be honest there is NO clear line of progression. Doing VMA or Vet Trials doesn't give better gear for many builds. But you do them to TEST your own skill and TEST your own unique builds. Many players aren't on that level of course and have to have their builds made for them.

    But for the truly skilled ESO player, the 'endgame' is testing a new build and making it work.

    So what sense does it make to leave the same meta in the game for 3 years? You have to engage the skilled player with 'new content' and that content could easily be access to new build combinations. This game is alot like Path of Exile and similar games in that regard.

    Removing AC is one way to do that. You change the meta and force players to find entirely new builds and rotations since the tried and true ones are suddenly not the same and other discarded methods (like lightning staves for example, and skills with cast times) are now being considered.

    Leaving the same meta in for 3 years should not happen. Leaving it in for more than 3 months shouldn't happen either.

    Because lets be honest. If you worked up a character for months, perfected the gear. Perfected the rotation. And have completed all Vet Trials. What is left to do? Change in meta means you've got something more. Because simply adding new dungeons isn't the way to engage players. Its the only incentive that really works. Not without giving that content better gear than previous content which makes previous content obsolete.

    If you're one that doesn't make their own builds, I can understand why such a concept would be frightening or annoying. But once you advance your level of play to where you don't need to copy others' builds, you'll understand that is where the real endgame. Maybe someday you'll make a build that others want to copy. Should you decide to go public with it.

    Meta shifts and reworking the entirety of combat and animation interactions aren't that comparable. Further it seems like you've still got a bit to learn about making builds if you don't understand how the AC and weaving add an additional layer of complexity on the road to a perfect rotation consider that all skills that can be woven have a different optimal window to weave them.
  • Bam_Bam
    Bam_Bam
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    No let it stay
    dday3six wrote: »
    .
    Riejael wrote: »
    Why would you try to completely rewrite how people have played for the last 3 years?

    To change up the meta. I'm not against them deleting skills and replacing them with ones that do something entirely different just to change things up.

    Think about it. What is the goal of playing ESO? Completing VMA? Completing Vet Trials? What's the true endgame for the skilled player?

    The true endgame in ESO isn't like in WoW. Lets be honest there is NO clear line of progression. Doing VMA or Vet Trials doesn't give better gear for many builds. But you do them to TEST your own skill and TEST your own unique builds. Many players aren't on that level of course and have to have their builds made for them.

    But for the truly skilled ESO player, the 'endgame' is testing a new build and making it work.

    So what sense does it make to leave the same meta in the game for 3 years? You have to engage the skilled player with 'new content' and that content could easily be access to new build combinations. This game is alot like Path of Exile and similar games in that regard.

    Removing AC is one way to do that. You change the meta and force players to find entirely new builds and rotations since the tried and true ones are suddenly not the same and other discarded methods (like lightning staves for example, and skills with cast times) are now being considered.

    Leaving the same meta in for 3 years should not happen. Leaving it in for more than 3 months shouldn't happen either.

    Because lets be honest. If you worked up a character for months, perfected the gear. Perfected the rotation. And have completed all Vet Trials. What is left to do? Change in meta means you've got something more. Because simply adding new dungeons isn't the way to engage players. Its the only incentive that really works. Not without giving that content better gear than previous content which makes previous content obsolete.

    If you're one that doesn't make their own builds, I can understand why such a concept would be frightening or annoying. But once you advance your level of play to where you don't need to copy others' builds, you'll understand that is where the real endgame. Maybe someday you'll make a build that others want to copy. Should you decide to go public with it.

    Meta shifts and reworking the entirety of combat and animation interactions aren't that comparable. Further it seems like you've still got a bit to learn about making builds if you don't understand how the AC and weaving add an additional layer of complexity on the road to a perfect rotation consider that all skills that can be woven have a different optimal window to weave them.

    Excellent response.
    Joined January 2014
    PC EU - PvE & BGs & PvP (Vivec)
    Grand Master Crafter

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  • LiquidSchwartz
    LiquidSchwartz
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Yes get rid of it
    they are never going to
    May the Schwartz be with you.
    EP/XB1/NA

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