Has anyone called dibs on his stuff yet?

"The majority is all for it!"
That is the majority who post about it on the forums, which usually is not a good sample of the player base.

If we're being honest, the majority doesn't even know animation cancelling is a thing, let alone do content where it is at all useful to them. The majority are the casual players doing quests and not bothering about their individual performance.

"It has little effect on DPS!"
Well, if it doesn't, why is keeping it in the game so damn important to you? The act itself isn't enjoyable. So it must be the result... so the result must have some relevance, eh?

Just because you or somebody else doesn't find enjoyment out of it, doesn't mean other people don't either. I don't like questing. I find it drop dead boring, with zero reward for the hundreds, if not thousands of hours of questing content in the game. In the same token, I'm not going around claiming questing isn't enjoyable and should be removed from the game. Opinions.

I enjoy animation cancelling. I find it not only improves the skill cap, giving the something the player can work on that isn't just their build, but it also helps make combat faster paced, and in general more fluid. It also directly ties into the quick pace of combat in ESO, by enabling action combos (note action, not skill) that take place within a single GCD. That's why it is so damn enjoyable to me.

"It's easy!"
Stealing is easy. Just grab something, don't pay for it, done. Doesn't make it okay. In fact, the easy route often isn't the right one.

Unlike stealing, this isn't a problem of morals and the concept of right and wrong. This is simply a problem of players not willing to or otherwise (unfortunately) being unable to utilise mechanics that have been in the game since inception.

If you are unable to perform animation cancelling for some reason or another, I am sincerely sorry that this game has mechanics that are unavailable to you, but the game shouldn't build itself around such an extreme minority. 70-80% of the game can be done without animation cancelling, maybe stick to that portion of the game. Or, if you want to dip your feet into the more challenging content, maybe use a heavy attack build.

If you elect to play without animation cancelling, that is fine, that is 100% your choice. But you have to understand that by choosing to ignore mechanics, you cannot just demand that the game removes said mechanics, especially if they in no way impact your gameplay.

"It's not a bannable offense!"
But it should be - or better yet, be solved on a mechanical basis. The mechanic wasn't intended in the development phase. Else, they wouldn't have included the skippable animations in the first place.
ZOS has, apparently for a lack of ideas to fix it, embraced animation cancelling, especially "weaving". But "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" style solutions most of the time are just a lazy excuse, and that's the case here. Again, the easy route often isn't the right one.
ZOS can set the rules - it's their game. But that doesn't say that we, the players, have to agree with them. Just as people are allowed to vent about class balance, people are allowed to challenge their view on animation cancelling.

Yes, it was absolutely intended in the development phase. The core philosophy Zenimax has been running with ever since inception is that combat should be active and reactive. That is why there are so little combat systems that are on "autopilot", such as basic/light attacks, blocking, dodging. Unlike other MMO's, you have to actively perform these actions.

And in order to do so, combat must be responsive by design. You must be able to block an incoming attack, roll out of a hostile area, heavy attack on demand to recover resources when needed, then follow that heavy attack up with the skill you needed to cast. To facilitate this sort of gameplay, Zenimax implemented a priority system, where certain actions (light attack, heavy attack, skill casts, block, dodge, bar swap) take precedence over others, and when necessary can even cancel other abilities. This is the foundation of animation cancelling, you're using a higher priority action to cut excess animation off of a lower priority action.

Without the priority system, you honestly wouldn't be able to block 90% of incoming attacks, as you'd be stuck in the tail end of this game's rather long animations. Which I will give you that, the animations don't line up with this design philosophy, though the class reps brought this up to Zenimax a little while ago, so we may see the animation system receive an overhaul to better facilitate animation cancelling.

"It's not required to access all content!"
Yeah, well then it wouldn't be a big loss to remove it then, would it? And why do the behaviour and success in the game correlate so much? Just coincidence?

What was meant was that animation cancelling is not required for all content. As I said, 70-80% of the game can be played just fine without animation cancelling, as that part of the game has been designed around the casual player who doesn't even know what animation cancelling is. In most of the other 20-30%, animation cancelling can be of a benefit, and in maybe 1% of that 20-30%, it is a requirement. And even that's pushing it, I'd say.

"Bad players don't deserve to see some content!"
1.) This point counters the aforementioned one.
2.) The point is not a valid one. If you see animation cancelling (including "weaving") as a "good" behaviour, then those who don't use it are "bad" players. But it doesn't help at all to explain why the behaviour is to be seen as "good" in the first place.

Again, you're applying the notion of morality to something that is no where near it. Animation cancelling is not some deep troubling question that ruins the mind's perception of morality, it is a simple game mechanic. Animation cancelling is not "good" or "bad". You either use it or you don't. It's that simple.

Even still, yes, I absolutely believe there should be some content squarely aimed at "good" players. This is an MMO. People spend thousands of hours in these sort of games, perfecting their character(s). What use is all that time and progression if the most you can do is kill some quest boss?

If you're here for the casual experience, then you can easily stick to the 90%+ content that is available to more casual players (all overland content, normal dungeons, normal trials, vet dungeons if that's your thing). The other 10% or less isn't going to make or break the game for you.

"Your problems come from a lack of (equipment/skill/ping/class choice/...)!"
That may even be true, but is, again, not a valid point, but an attempt to misdirect. To give an example* we probably can all understand: If a club banned people of a certain skin colour, we wouldn't see it as a valid defense to say that people with that skin colour couldn't afford their prices anyhow, would we? Even if not a single patron of said skin colour would later visit the place, it's just wrong to ban them, no matter if they're actually going to come or not.
The same applies here. Even if a particular player can improve DPS (or whatever) by other means, that doesn't justify the use of animation cancelling by other players. It only adds an unfair advantage to the already existing fair advantage. The latter should be enough.

First, let me just try to interpret your bar point. You're saying a bar is blanket banning people who show certain traits or behaviours, and justifies that by saying they couldn't meet the requirement for that bar, and you're arguing that they are in the wrong here for making that assumption -- if I'm wrong, correct me.

Okay, so the core argument of this point is that we (the end game community) are assuming that somebody who doesn't animation cancel cannot perform in end game content. That is a fair argument, and you are right, we (the end game community) are assuming that.

However, that is a fair assumption to make when you look at who the game is increasingly catering towards: casuals. (Not saying that's a bad thing, by the way.) It is fair to assume that because somebody isn't using a mechanic intended for and used by "good" players, they cannot perform in end game content. Not because they aren't animation cancelling, but because they simply don't understand the game enough to perform in end game content.

They don't know how to build a strong character, they don't know how to create and execute a rotation, they don't know how to decide which sets they should run, they don't know how to decide which weapons they should run, they don't know what stats are important to their role, they don't know combat at the intimate level required for end game content, in general, they just don't know the game enough to perform in end game content. Them not using a mechanic that is intended for and used by end game players is just indicative of how ignorant they are to the game's core mechanics and features. (Again, not a bad thing, just stating the truth.)

Now, that isn't to say that if somebody doesn't animation cancel, they don't know the game well enough, and hence cannot reach the 30-35k DPS mark for vet hard mode trials. Players can and absolutely have hit that mark without animation cancelling, and that fact has been proven in many threads. But these players are less than 0.1% of the population that doesn't use animation cancelling. With the other 99.9%, this assumption is still fair.

Your last point. All I have to say is: it's an unfair advantage to simply better yourself in content that your opponent wouldn't ever play?

*Trigger warning: It's an example. I'm not saying that animation cancelling players are racist, that this behaviour is morally equal to racism or that racism is not important.

[/quote]

Then why say it at all? Lol.