[ZOS] Rework or remove cancel casting

SilverWF · May 2017

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

Why the skill animations are exist in the game at all then?

TheQueenOfSass · May 2017

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Have you ever been at a tiny bit of health and your healer ani cancels BoL real quick to heal you to full? Yeah... I would rather keep it how it is. Besides they would have to change how block works and that's not gonna happen.

LiquidPony · May 2017

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Solariken wrote: »

Animation cancelling is a problem that ZOS has no idea how to fix. One thing they could do though is cut weapon and spell damage by 50% while holding block. This would at least remove the incentive to ani cancel using block while also bringing block-casting into balance, which is also a problem currently.

@Solariken there is no incentive to animation cancel using block today.

Block canceling is a thing of the past.

SilverWF · May 2017

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

TheQueenOfSass wrote: »

Have you ever been at a tiny bit of health and your healer ani cancels BoL real quick to heal you to full? Yeah... I would rather keep it how it is. Besides they would have to change how block works and that's not gonna happen.

Probably, you can't read, coz you completely ignored 1st post, poll options and my signature.

TheQueenOfSass · May 2017

All is fine, do not touch it at all

SilverWF wrote: »

TheQueenOfSass wrote: »

Have you ever been at a tiny bit of health and your healer ani cancels BoL real quick to heal you to full? Yeah... I would rather keep it how it is. Besides they would have to change how block works and that's not gonna happen.

Probably, you can't read, coz you completely ignored 1st post, poll options and my signature.

I can't see your signature on a mobile phone. I voted for do not change and stated my opinion. Don't make a forum post if you don't want to hear what other people think.

idk · May 2017

All is fine, do not touch it at all

SilverWF wrote: »

Why the skill animations are exist in the game at all then?

Each skill has a fixed time that is required to pass before the skill fires. Just because the animation travels longer than the skill requires isn't necessarily bad. In fact ranged dps would be greatly hindered if the animation had to fully complete.

You incorrectly state that skills are no instant yet many, if not most, skills are instant. However, even instant skills have an animation and even instant skills have a GCD tied to them.

Further, blocking is very much required in this game which is why blocking takes top priority. It would be very bad if I am stuck in my bitting jabs animation and could not block as a result. Would be very bad.

As long as enough time for the skill to fire has passed then it executes if block is used and frankly it should.

I don't use macros which is the basis for your complaint yet I animation cancel. Macros are not needed and will mess players up since one skill cannot fire and the player is stuck for a moment because they lack skill.

KingKush · May 2017

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

I am willing to bet that this was originally an unintended mechanic that ZOS could not figure out how to "fix", per say, so decided to jump on the whole "cant beat em join em" mentality and pass it off as an intended feature.

[Edit to remove inappropriate content]

flizomica · May 2017

All is fine, do not touch it at all

there's nothing a macro can do that a person cant do

pressing bar swap after a skill is not a hard mechanic

Solariken · May 2017

Remove possibility to block or swap panels until your character has stopped animation

LiquidPony wrote: »

Solariken wrote: »

Animation cancelling is a problem that ZOS has no idea how to fix. One thing they could do though is cut weapon and spell damage by 50% while holding block. This would at least remove the incentive to ani cancel using block while also bringing block-casting into balance, which is also a problem currently.

@Solariken there is no incentive to animation cancel using block today.

Block canceling is a thing of the past.

@LiquidPony head into Cyrodiil and fight a few magDk's, magplars, and stamblades and then come back here and report your findings.

SilverWF · May 2017

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

TheQueenOfSass wrote: »

I can't see your signature on a mobile phone. I voted for do not change and stated my opinion. Don't make a forum post if you don't want to hear what other people think.

Your example was about healer with cancel casting.
But did I said REMOVE it? Not, let it will be interruptable by everything (2nd option). And that healer would still be able to interrupt his casting.

Don't make a forum post if you can't read and understand.

Everyone who voted against changes are macrousers, who didn't want to loose their advantage from usual players.

SilverWF · May 2017

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

SilverWF wrote: »

Why the skill animations are exist in the game at all then?

Each skill has a fixed time that is required to pass before the skill fires. Just because the animation travels longer than the skill requires isn't necessarily bad. In fact ranged dps would be greatly hindered if the animation had to fully complete.

You incorrectly state that skills are no instant yet many, if not most, skills are instant. However, even instant skills have an animation and even instant skills have a GCD tied to them.

Further, blocking is very much required in this game which is why blocking takes top priority. It would be very bad if I am stuck in my bitting jabs animation and could not block as a result. Would be very bad.

As long as enough time for the skill to fire has passed then it executes if block is used and frankly it should.

I don't use macros which is the basis for your complaint yet I animation cancel. Macros are not needed and will mess players up since one skill cannot fire and the player is stuck for a moment because they lack skill.

Where did I said that skills are not insatnt? basically, you lie.

Also, why you against that skills would be interruptable by everything huh? Care to make another unneeded wall of text about that?

Avran_Sylt · May 2017

If you block prior to an ability reaching it's complete "fire" stage, it causes the ability to miss or deal no damage. Least that's how it should work.

Hrolfkel · August 2018

Remove possibility to block or swap panels until your character has stopped animation

What funny is AC was a bug that ZOS couldn't figure out how to fix so they decided to call it a mechanic

Ragnarock41 · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Ani cancelling doesn't allow you to chain 3 d.swings/snipes in 2 seconds. But lag does. So I'm pretty sure the issue lies within lag.

Not to say it creates an advantage, it doesn't. Most of the time d. swing is horribly bad in laggy situations, and I'm pretty sure most cast time abilities are just as bad.

DanteYoda · August 2018

Remove possibility to block or swap panels until your character has stopped animation

Yes remove these exploits like every other mmorpg has done.

If they allow one exploit why not allow them all

Aurielle · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Sigh. This again.

You do not need to use macros to cancel animations. Anyone who uses macros to cancel animations is at NO more of an advantage than those who don’t use macros.

Just practice, and you’ll get it. Animation cancelling is not difficult.

kylewwefan · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Asides from being used to get better DPS....I still want to keep it how it is.

Tanks block cast constantly; weaving skill and light attacks fast results in cancelling at times. I don’t want it slowed down any. I’m not even great at it, but it makes for better play.

Here’s a tip. Even if they did remove or fix it to how you see fit, some players will still be better than you and me.

OrphanHelgen · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Idle games is for mobile phones

mistermacintosh · August 2018

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

It's fine... but there should probably be a setting that just turns off casting animations. If you want pure performance than why incorporate actions into your rotation that aren't necessary? Just toggle animations off. Would be much more efficient...

And everyone that likes to look at their pretty animations can leave them on.

Implying that incorporating blocks and weapon swaps into your rotation to cancel animations is an indication of your skill is ridiculous. Just because that method works doesn't mean we should continue to do it forever (or that it makes any kind of [removed profanity] sense).

Ragnarock41 · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

Idle games is for mobile phones

ESO and mobile games have a lot in common when it comes to monetization and cash store, whats worse is that mmo players and mobile gamers have a lot in common aswell, they both like to collect and own useless, shiny, things.

SilverWF · August 2018

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

Aurielle wrote: »

Just practice, and you’ll get it. Animation cancelling is not difficult.

Nah, I have no plans on buying new mouse every month just to make another random set of symbols, usually called 'groupmember', happy.

That kind of game design is bad, every adult man with brain understand it.

Seri · August 2018

Aurielle wrote: »

Sigh. This again.

The good news is the necro gives you the chance to post in the thread this time around

SilverWF wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Just practice, and you’ll get it. Animation cancelling is not difficult.

Nah, I have no plans on buying new mouse every month just to make another random set of symbols, usually called 'groupmember', happy.

That kind of game design is bad, every adult man with brain understand it.

Why on earth would you need a new mouse every month? It's been nearly 18 months since your OP and I definitely haven't bought 18 mice. I did buy one mouse in that time but that's because the left-click died on the old one (4 years old, and left click has nothing to do with the block or barswap cancelling you talk about in the OP). As is is, the mechanics are pretty rarely used. Block cancel isn't worth it at all (if anything, slows you down), and a bar-swap cancel happens pretty infrequently. Both cancels do not bypass the GCD of skills.

Sparr0w · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

If you can't ani cancel then reactive combat will die.

Tanks would either have to perma block or allow a couple of seconds between each skill cast as they wouldn't be able to react to heavy attacks.

You wouldn't be able to roll dodge out of AoE's, or even sprint out of them.

Combat would die, literally. Medium armour & stam users would be dead as their main defense is dodging. The list goes on

SilverWF · August 2018

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

Sparr0w wrote: »

If you can't ani cancel then reactive combat will die.

In PVE nothing, literally nothing scary would happened
In PVP... well, with their 'perfect' netcode, it is dead already.

TequilaFire · August 2018

What is scary is threads rising from the dead!

KeiruNicrom · August 2018

I shall not vote because this is a debatable and complex issue to me. There was a time when ZOS considered removing animation canceling and nowadays they call it a mechanic. Personally i see the benefit to both and think that some skills should be, others shouldnt be, and some should be in specific ways. I wont use any skills in particular since i dont really use animation cancelling much and do not think it is necissary in most content, but allow me to explain how i would allow animation cancelling to be used based on casting type.

Channel skills as far as i am aware can be animation cancelled into, but not out of without cancelling the ability early. No real issue there since animation cancelling can be detremental to damage output or needed in order to react quickly during the cast.

Cast time skills should work the opposite way where you cannot animation cancel a previous skill into the animation of a cast time skill, but can animation cancel out of it once the cast has completed. A cast time brings to mind the idea of a long incantation or preperation via materials and/or setting up a ritual area, all of which in other formes of media can completely ruin the spell if even one part(including the begining) is out of sync or rushed. Thus i suggest cast time skills should follow similar logic by making it impossible to rush the casting animation at all.

Instant cast abilities would then be affected in a sort of middle ground and on a skill by skill basis. Being able to be animation cancelled at either the begining or end, but the mandatory central animation of the skill should be longer or shorter based on the strength/output of the skill itself. A single hit heavy hitting skill would have a longer time between animation cancelling possibility than a smaller damage or DoT skill. More bonuses to the skill means more mandatory animation time. Being able to adjust this time would also allow ZOS to balance ceratain skills in a more minute way than just a damage buff/nerf and they could also adjust how where the mandatory animation is(for instance using arbitrary numbers: 5 second skill has 1 sec cancel time-2sec mandatory time-2 sec cancel time. Zos could change this from 1-2-2 into 2-2-1 or even 2-1-2)

With skills done with we then have personal combat mechanics. Light attacks should work like instant cast skills. Heavy attacks like cast time skills. Roll dodge like channel skills. Block like heavy animation instant skills(think 1-3-1 using my previous example). And break free heavy ended instant (1-1-3)

Tl:dr this issue is more complicated than just yes or no and thus needs a more complicated answer.....though i may just be over thinking it

Aesthier · August 2018

Remove possibility to block or swap panels until your character has stopped animation

Royaji wrote: »

Vipstaakki wrote: »

templesus wrote: »

L2P issue here move along

How about you take your advice yourself and learn to play the game without the need to abuse an obvious bug? How about that? Or is ESO to hardcore for you?

IT'S NOT A BUG. ZOS said it themsleves. It doesn't matter what you think if developers explicitly stated that animation cancelling is not a bug. Don't like it? Feel free to choose any other game on the market but don't be disappointed once you find that pretty much all MMOs have some kinda of animation cancelling.

They also stated that it was not intentional and they have no way to remove it without effectively breaking core combat mechanics.

SilverWF · August 2018

Allow cancel cast animation by light or heavy attacks or another skill cast

Let's be honest, most (if not all) of 'insta' skills animations are dull and dumb - their speed must be increased drastically.

Kuramas9tails · August 2018

All is fine, do not touch it at all

Sounds like people are getting wrecked in PVP by animation cancels.

Didaco · August 2018

Danksta wrote: »

It's fine the way it is. No matter how fast you animation cancel it will not speed up the GCD on skills.

I don't think the OP is talking about GCD.
It's about the wind up animation. Take Volley as example, it's instant but it has quite the delay...
I think the OP wants something like waiting the arrow to actually leave the bow before attempting to block cancel or swap.

I'd be all for this, but it's way too late now. Not saying that the game wouldn't benefit from such a change, it's just that the player base is used to what the system is like now.

Plus, the average mmo player is not like the average action game player: for the first category, dps numbers are all that matters.
Such change would impact dps numbers...
Touch those and you'll see hell taking on earth.