it is, no add on should affect combat in this way it tell you to dodge before the animation and sound effects happen

Grabmoore wrote: »

This doesn't make any sense to me. Yes, preventing others from seeing your cast time would be beneficial to the game. You actually would have to react, you could try some unconventional Dark Flare builds or whatever.

You propose to react to, say, flight time of flare only instead of the channel time and the flight time.

The ability was designed with noticeable and interruptible channel time to offset for its higher (compared to instant skills) damage part. How exactly is it beneficial to the game to hide the channel part of the skill, why it was designed with the channel, but not to try to notice and interrupt it and how exactly hiding the intended channel part of the skill is not an exploit?:)

Grabmoore wrote: »

Of course you should be able to dodge/interrupt and have a counter play, but scripting it should not be possible.

Casting these skills from stealth prevents noticing, dodging and interrupting the spell and reduces the opportunity for counterplay. If i 'should be able' to do all that, what besides this addon provides a way to do that?

Grabmoore wrote: »

I hope you also promote a fair and even playing field. Thats what PvP is supposed to be be.

Yep, and a good start would be to make channels from channeled abilities always visible.

Inarre wrote: »

The game does not "hide" the channel of the skill, it is visible in the characters posture.

it is not, if the character is stealthed/invisible.

The point of this thread is pleading to zos to hide the channels from stealth specifically from addons.

Inarre wrote: »

The difference in damage should be enough justification for a channeled skills higher damage, even without it's risk of being interrupted or avoided.

Difference in what exactly?

Inarre wrote: »

But it should be a RISK that your opponent is clever and skillful enough to see the cast of your skill and interrupt or dodge, not a given.

This severely overestimates requirements to notice a channel animation.

Clever and skillful to recognize an animation?

Inarre wrote: »

If these skills were meant to be anticipated by anything other than characters posture and sound, zos would and could implement a visual telegraph (like they did with monster helms)

Source of this claim? They could. They didn't. They didn't add anything that any addon provides (thus people use those), should we assume that none of the addons is meant to exist?

Inarre wrote: »

By (for all intents and purposes) eliminating an entire playstyle (channeled burst) it leaves the game with a static, stale meta of slow, consistent damage.

Instant damage meta is far from 'slow, consistent damage'. Channeled skills provide higher burst (even higher than we have now) for higher costs. Why would we want to get rid of the higher costs? Do we need even higher burst in the meta that was forced into heavy?

Inarre wrote: »

And lets not mention how this gimps certain classes potential (lets say, templars burst abilities with flare vs sorcs insta cast rune)

Yet again it is assumed that clear telegraphs 'gimps' classes. The claim that a clear telegraph was not meant to exist so far relies on a subjective judgement on the obscurity of the animation cues. I find them really clear and distinct. What can we do about that?

Inarre wrote: »

I believe you said yourself that end game 1v1 almost always ends in a draw.

Because combat system design implies a draw if players don't make (huge) mistakes. To be more precise, the combat system supports the builds that can force this draw, without large sacrifices in offensive power.

Inarre wrote: »

Why do you think that happens in a game with as many classes, armor types, and skill lines as eso? Maybe it has something to do with an entire community using the same builds against each other?

See above. Meta builds are designed not to die in 1v1 without mistakes. It's a separate issue whether we like a system like that.

Exploiting channeled abilities doesn't make this situation better. Meta builds still won't die. Instead 1vx and 1vgankers will become harder (and even more unfair, since the player is tasked with anticipating a stealthed burst when he already fights 3-4).

Inarre wrote: »

Allowing layers of depth to combat (within reason) can only stand to benefit the game. It benefits the game by raising its skill ceiling (more rewarding), allowing diversity (more interesting) and allowing all classes to use burst combos effectively and not just a few (more fair).

But why all that has to rely on exploitation of the intended design? isn't it possible to add depth to the combat without that? And, additionally, this 'depths' to the combat heavily favors low effort and low skill combat (gank from stealth). 1vx builds don't gank from stealth. Zerg builds don't gank from stealth. Small mans don't gank from stealth (besides a dedicated all nightblades gank groups). Why do we want to promote low skill builds that purely rely on hiding channels of channeled abilities in stealth?

Inarre wrote: »

Those skillful enough to recognise the channel should get to avoid it, and those unskilled in observing their opponent should eat a darkflare.

No skill will allow you to 'recognise the channel' from stealth. My addon adds this opportunity, thus promoting skillful play. What do you propose to use instead to 'recognize the channel from stealth'?

Inarre wrote: »

Edit: you mention stealth as a reason for scripting a counter, but stealth has counters already in the form of skills and potions. Scripting is not the right or balanced counter to channeled casting from stealth and for context, that message is from a 100% fail of a ganker and pure healer that gets ganked all of the time.

it is you(and some other people) that for some reason think about 'scripting a counter'. I never did that. I added a way to see channels (stealth included). Reacting to those channels is up to the player and, as you're teaching me, 'Those skillful enough to recognise the channel should get to avoid it, and those unskilled in observing their opponent should eat a darkflare'.

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

Publius_Scipio

have you any link of that event?

Do you doubt me? Are you an agent of the Pact or Dominion in Vivec Cyrodiil campaign out to get me?

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/20x73q/welcome_to_the_eso_ama/cg7ks9w/?context=3

Edit: Wow I just reread what Paul Sage said and he specifically mentions "macro programs" being easier to use.

You're DC off course we doubt you

Feanor wrote: »

I played without sound as I was listening to music while playing yesterday. The only indication of attacks like snipe are the stun and the debuff on a buff tracker. I could barely avoid some Warbow ganks, and once he got me in the open with a 2 shot. It was well played. But luckily sounds always play in Cyrodiil and there is no lag.

So you willingly chose to gimp yourself by turning off sound, and then complain that you died or barely survived, because you didn't have any information thrown at you so you could avoid a snipe. Wow, yea... that is totally the fault of the game, which would also totally justify the need for this addon. Really convincing! /s

And seriously, stop bringing lag into the discussion. Lag is a universal problem we all have. We all get killed by *** we didn't hear or even see because of lag. And yes, often it is a snipe, and that sucks... But lag is a byproduct of a (poorly optimized) online game, and it is not a feature or mechanic. Therefore, it shouldn't be taken into account in discussions like this. Balancing your game around the presence of lag would be a highly ridiculous decision.

At the end of the day, if you repeatedly die to a snipe when the sound cue has been displayed, which it does the majority of the time, your situational awareness just sucks major donkey b@lls. Or you willingly chose to gimp yourself by listening to music, in which case you shouldn't complain.

Whatever the nature of the addon, this thread pretty much is a shining example of why PvP is in such a sad state.

If it creates the perception of advantage, then its in the minds of players already, and no matter what the author uses as justification for it, it creates conflict within an already very, very small portion of the community.

Is it a advantage? Who knows. Does it create tension between players? ABSOLUTELY.

InvitationNotFound wrote: »

Idinuse wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

Publius_Scipio

have you any link of that event?

Do you doubt me? Are you an agent of the Pact or Dominion in Vivec Cyrodiil campaign out to get me?

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/20x73q/welcome_to_the_eso_ama/cg7ks9w/?context=3

Edit: Wow I just reread what Paul Sage said and he specifically mentions "macro programs" being easier to use.

In the link that Rohamad_Ali posted Paul is even explaining it deeper. Linking it again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/21cgkf/zos_paulsage_followup_recent_changes_to_api/

"The initial release of our API was intentionally wide open in order to test the boundaries of what could be done - which is exactly what happened. We saw things which necessitated that we change the API. When we made the changes to restrict our API, our goal was to make sure you couldn't see more information about your enemies than we intended. But we also found that certain events could be used to allow add-ons and macro programs, used in conjunction, to do many things which otherwise should require player skill. For example, it was trivial to create an add-on "listen" for a debuff, and be able to remove this debuff automatically - or to create an add-on that allowed group members' adds-ons to report their status through chat allowing party members with the same add-on to automatically cast heals."

You know, if you know how to program and how cheats work, you don't need addons to achieve any of the above mentioned issues, right? There's no need for addons to automate things, or do you believe aimbots in other games are only there because some addon API exist?

That is not the point. Neither mine nor I believe Pauls. But if you want to argue what Paul stated I suggest you contact him directly.

I don't believe we need the API to further facilitate cheats and foul play in this game, it's full of it as it is but at least we'd have something done about private adds too.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

The game does not "hide" the channel of the skill, it is visible in the characters posture.

it is not, if the character is stealthed/invisible.

The point of this thread is pleading to zos to hide the channels from stealth specifically from addons.

Why not address that before zos announces its removing api functionality from your addon? Genuine honest question.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

The difference in damage should be enough justification for a channeled skills higher damage, even without it's risk of being interrupted or avoided.

Difference in what exactly?

The difference in damage between channeled skills and instant cast skills is directly to make overall dps roughly equal. If all channeled skills had the same lesser damage as instant skills you would be at a loss to use them because you could pour out more damage spamming more skills with the same damage. This should be enough to make them (instant and channeled) equally viable.

But you argue that because channeled skills do higher damage they should always be interrupted as a counter to it, which makes no sense considering the "counter" is built in to the original stats of these skills (one does higher damage with a downtime and chance for interrupt, one does lesser with immediate results) . Always interrupting through notification makes channeled skills completely useless since as the caster you would waste time and resources for nothing, and would give a huge advantage to instant cast skills.

This is evidenced in any number of places, from vma (how many times do you get killed by Voriak Salkyn's Necrotic wave after you learn his tell for interrupt? There is no cue or combat alert for this, yet many complete vma) to the current pvp community who have by and large abandoned these skills.

Which brings me to ask why, in your opinion, do you believe we need an additional counter (or bringing a counter from say, 50% chance based on skill to 100% chance based on no skill) to channeled skills but no counter to instant cast skills? Instant skills have no counterplay but you do not seem concerned with this.

The only reason i can think of is that channeled abilities are often incorporated into macros which give huge burst damage of many skills at once (which has no real counterplay), and to that i would say that that is a completely different issue that needs to be addressed, but not in a way that ruins balance of the base game for innocent players who do not use macros.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

But it should be a RISK that your opponent is clever and skillful enough to see the cast of your skill and interrupt or dodge, not a given.

This severely overestimates requirements to notice a channel animation.

Clever and skillful to recognize an animation?

It maybe overestimates the skill and cleverness of the average player. Currently interrupt happens all of the time in pve and is absolutely necessary to progress through content yet there is no notification or visual cue beyond npc posture. Players are very practiced with this so i am not sure why you believe the transition of that to pvp is so harrowing.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

If these skills were meant to be anticipated by anything other than characters posture and sound, zos would and could implement a visual telegraph (like they did with monster helms)

Source of this claim? They could. They didn't. They didn't add anything that any addon provides (thus people use those), should we assume that none of the addons is meant to exist?

Incorrect, zos has added several features to the base game that originally existed (and still do) as add ons. Furthermore these are combat based, so they are very, very similar to your addon. These features zos added are combat text including statuses like stunned or off-balance and damage ticks (originally available only through ftc or cloud combat etc) and buff/debuff trackers (aui, srendarrs etc).

The source of my claim that zos would and could add a visual telegraph if it was intended is one, pve bosses and mobs currently do not have advanced cues or visual alerts for channeled skills and players advance through content just fine (we often see our skills with similar tells to pve versions), and two, that zos would add the functionality of Miat's PVP alerts to the base game if it was an intended part of combat like the addons above I mentioned (rather than removing the API).

Players complained about combat vs proc sets, they added a combat cue to the base game. They complained about buffs and damage trackers, they added these. Currently there is no core combat feature that is left out of the base game. Addons are currently addons, providing frills like potion timers, quickslot ui or kill counters. There is nothing so important as combat cues from an otherwise unrecognizable source provided only by addon. The one exception to this statement is being adjusted by zos.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

By (for all intents and purposes) eliminating an entire playstyle (channeled burst) it leaves the game with a static, stale meta of slow, consistent damage.

Instant damage meta is far from 'slow, consistent damage'. Channeled skills provide higher burst (even higher than we have now) for higher costs. Why would we want to get rid of the higher costs? Do we need even higher burst in the meta that was forced into heavy?

Heavy is being nerfed, and nowhere did i imply we needed to get rid of higher costs. I think you would benefit from rereading my statement. I have suggested no change to the game or its mechanics beyond eliminating channeled skill notification to opponents beyond regular animation cues.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

And lets not mention how this gimps certain classes potential (lets say, templars burst abilities with flare vs sorcs insta cast rune)

Yet again it is assumed that clear telegraphs 'gimps' classes. The claim that a clear telegraph was not meant to exist so far relies on a subjective judgement on the obscurity of the animation cues. I find them really clear and distinct. What can we do about that?

Again, If a clear telegraph was meant to exist zos would either let the api remain for your addon or add it themselves to the base game (like proc set cues as i stated above). Maybe one day they will, but so far the evidence i see points to this lack being intentional by zos.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

I believe you said yourself that end game 1v1 almost always ends in a draw.

Because combat system design implies a draw if players don't make (huge) mistakes. To be more precise, the combat system supports the builds that can force this draw, without large sacrifices in offensive power.

Inarre wrote: »

Why do you think that happens in a game with as many classes, armor types, and skill lines as eso? Maybe it has something to do with an entire community using the same builds against each other?

See above. Meta builds are designed not to die in 1v1 without mistakes. It's a separate issue whether we like a system like that.

Exploiting channeled abilities doesn't make this situation better. Meta builds still won't die. Instead 1vx and 1vgankers will become harder (and even more unfair, since the player is tasked with anticipating a stealthed burst when he already fights 3-4).

I'm confident that using any one of the numerous channeled skills in the game is not an exploit. If it was we all would be banned.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

Allowing layers of depth to combat (within reason) can only stand to benefit the game. It benefits the game by raising its skill ceiling (more rewarding), allowing diversity (more interesting) and allowing all classes to use burst combos effectively and not just a few (more fair).

But why all that has to rely on exploitation of the intended design? isn't it possible to add depth to the combat without that? And, additionally, this 'depths' to the combat heavily favors low effort and low skill combat (gank from stealth). 1vx builds don't gank from stealth. Zerg builds don't gank from stealth. Small mans don't gank from stealth (besides a dedicated all nightblades gank groups). Why do we want to promote low skill builds that purely rely on hiding channels of channeled abilities in stealth?

Again you are suggesting using skills built into zos' skill trees are exploits, which they are not. There currently already is depth to the game and it doesnt need to be added, but you are calling it an exploit rather than seeing it for the rich combat diversity that it is.

I wont argue about your mission against stealth. I have inner light and stealth potions slotted so i personally have no issue with it. I am not sure also if you have ever tried to play a gank build and i can say hands down that playstyle takes a ridiculous amount of skill. The issue i take with your resolution is that it solves your stealth problem while making legitimate unstealthed use of the same skills useless.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

Those skillful enough to recognise the channel should get to avoid it, and those unskilled in observing their opponent should eat a darkflare.

No skill will allow you to 'recognise the channel' from stealth. My addon adds this opportunity, thus promoting skillful play. What do you propose to use instead to 'recognize the channel from stealth'?

Incorrect, inner light and stealth potions allow you to recognise a target channeling a skill from stealth. You are mixing counters for stealth with counters for channeled abilities when in reality they are different and already exist separately.

Dorrino wrote: »

Inarre wrote: »

Edit: you mention stealth as a reason for scripting a counter, but stealth has counters already in the form of skills and potions. Scripting is not the right or balanced counter to channeled casting from stealth and for context, that message is from a 100% fail of a ganker and pure healer that gets ganked all of the time.

it is you(and some other people) that for some reason think about 'scripting a counter'. I never did that. I added a way to see channels (stealth included). Reacting to those channels is up to the player and, as you're teaching me, 'Those skillful enough to recognise the channel should get to avoid it, and those unskilled in observing their opponent should eat a darkflare'.

How did you make the channeling of other players visible? Wasnt it by writing a script? I mean, we can call it baking cupcakes if using the word script offends you, but it still is what it is and now we're talking semantics.

I respect the core of what you are trying to promote: If I understand correctly you would like the ability to react to stealthed attacks.It is still possible that zos could add, for example, a visual cue of a charged channel attack from stealth like they do with for example Dogas the Berserker, and they still might. However, the difference between Dogas' tell and what your addon provides and what you are arguing for is that a visual tell like Dogas' does not make combat with channeled abilities for characters out of stealth an impossibility while the API that reveals channeled attacks makes ALL channeled abilities useless.

Understand I mean you no disrespect, I only wanted my thoughts on the matter recorded here since zos seems to be watching these threads (maybe). I hope they take this into consideration when they review the api available for miats pvp alerts and any adjustments to the base game in light of it. If it comes to light that the lack of cue for channeled skills was unintended i hope zos will add them to the base game, but only after considering the current counterplay available for these playstyles.



Thats my last input i wish you luck!

Feanor wrote: »

@Dorrino

We still don’t get it, you and me. Binding counterplay against high damage abilities to audio cues solely is great game design, stealth is skillful and should always be rewarded with an extra bonus, and you are a filthy hacker.

I played without sound as I was listening to music while playing yesterday. The only indication of attacks like snipe are the stun and the debuff on a buff tracker. I could barely avoid some Warbow ganks, and once he got me in the open with a 2 shot. It was well played. But luckily sounds always play in Cyrodiil and there is no lag.

Yep:) I wish the non UI cues were noticeable enough. The game doesn't even have a distinct 3d sound separation. Even in headphones 'a snipe from left-forward' sounds the same as the one from 'left-back'.

Generally having bright and distinct audio-visual cues provide for an exciting type of gameplay if done right (ex. pubg).

In eso both of those cues are not done right to any degree in pvp environment. And that's when they don't glitch. But since all of them glitch a noticeable amount of time (lacking cc-immunity animation, skills animations, lacking or delayed sounds) this turns the whole ideal of a 'video-audial combat' a non-working mess.

That's even without adding stealthed attacks to the picture.

I have a strong suspicion that most people arguing against the addon consider pure 1v1 situations. 'Sweet summer children':)

DDuke wrote: »

@Dorrino

I think it can be summed up like this: you believe cast times & channel animations (including heavy attacks I suppose) should take precedence over the stealth mechanic, where as other people in the thread (myself included) think that it should be the other way around.

Yep. Because i do see the need for the channels to be noticeable (drawback, that justifies their power) and don't see a compelling reason why they should not.

DDuke wrote: »

The thing is, the way these were designed for the base game is that channel animations do not break stealth.

We both agreed above that if something was in the game for any amount of time that cannot serve as a justification for its existing.

DDuke wrote: »

That is why I consider using cast time abilities from stealth, invisibility or out of camera angle as clever use of game mechanics & good positioning rather than something sinister or unfair.

Above. And if there indeed was a clever use of game mechanics, something that was more skillful than not using stealth, we might have a discussion here. But currently it's the most easily accessible way to circumvent the intended design, that anybody with any skill level can perform to the efficiency that should not be provided for such a low effort. My addon changes this ratio back to a skillful play. For instance, if the channels are undetectable - this provide for an unskillful play of snipe into ambush, if they are detectable - than a skillful play of charging snipe to force a dodge than canceling it in the mid and charging again provides a way to juke the opponent and still perform a burst combo.

The later is much harder to do, but the result fully relies on the skill difference of both the attacker and the defender.

I still fail to see, how undetectable burst can have any relation to a skillful play.

DDuke wrote: »

But you have a different opinion.
Now, I'd like to know if that personal opinion is backed by any game balance concerns - because that's the only thing that really matters in the end.

From what I've heard, bow snipers or dark flare magplars aren't exactly the meta builds on console (maybe a console player can clarify this), which leads me to believe the game is just fine even when people can utilize stealth/positioning for clever combos.

Balance doesn't imply that all the specs are equally effective. Balance provides for similar effort-to-effectiveness ratio.

A question, what do you think is easier to perform double snipe from stealth or ambush -> fear-> la +sa + bash -> *enemy dodges* -> *timing another la + sa + bash right after the dodge?

The end damage is the same. Which of the two has much higher skill requirement with the same obtainable result?

As i see it, you propose for both of them to be equally effective, which in my mind is a blatant promotion of unskillful combat.

DDuke wrote: »

If you think landing a cast time combo that actually kills people is easy and requires no skill, then I suggest you go try that. Not as easy as you'd think.

With my addon on the targets it's not easy at all and requires a good personal skill. Without it's as easy as it can get.

DDuke wrote: »

Not only do you need good positioning & situational awareness, you also need perfect timing, perfect build & a squishy enough opponent.

Just like any other spec that doesn't exploit stealth for hiding the channels. This sounds like gankers suddenly start to require more skill than less:)