On Animation Canceling, Yes, Again

Sharee · February 2019

Jhalin wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

I can't help but feel that if we couldn't ani cancel, the same people moaning its a thing would be moaning that it wasn't.

Only if you removed it. If it wasnt there in the firstplace, people would think it is normal.

Look at Dark Souls. No animation cancelling there, and no torch-and-pitchfork mob demanding there should be.

I’d say being able to dodge without first returning to a resting position would qualify as “animation canceling”, and having played Bloodborne, those game definitely don’t require you wait through entire recovery animation sequences before they let you dodge.

Now you are twisting the definition of "animation cancelling" to suit your argument.

There is no such thing as landing a light attack, skill, and a bash all in a split second in dark souls, which is the essence of TESO animation cancelling.

Sharee · February 2019

commdt wrote: »

Guys. Animation cancelling do absolutely zero, nill, nothing. My friend tested it on his stam NB a year ago and he did absolutely same 51k parses with and totally without it.

Becauese yes, you can skip animation, but you cant skip global cooldown which is 1 second. Since all animations are below 1 second, you get nothing for skipping them. Just be done with this myth already

Light attacks have their own cooldown. Abilities have their own cooldown. Bashing has its own cooldown.

You can use all three at the same time, LA being cancelled by skill, and skill being cancelled by bash, and see a huge increase in your damage output compared to letting every animation finish.

mairwen85 · February 2019

@Sharee

but none of that happens in a single split second -- you have 1000 milliseconds to do all three. You fire the light attack first, then your skill, and optionally after the skill anim triggers (as skills start on button up/release), you can block/dodge/bash/bar swap to cancel it. None of that happens all at once, but in a sequence. Have you ever watched a second hand move on a clock, it's not as short a timescale as you think it is; plenty of time to press 3 different buttons.

However, no one block cancels every animation; in PvP there's a defensive motivation to block cancel a cast, but not for every scenario (I usually preventatively roll away as soon as I throw a skill that can be reflected, for example, or you might bash if close up). In PvE, there is a motivation to cancel in order to tighten a rotation, but every skill is overkill and can actually decrease dps as it throws off your rhythm. Most animations are a suitable length to use as visual GCD timers, but some are not. Those are the ones you place in your rotation on bar swap. Block cancelling a ground AoE (even if quick cast is enabled in game options) can nullify it, weaving too soon can also throw your rhythm off and delay a skill, or even cause the light attack to mis-fire. This isn't button mashing, but precision button pressing

Honestly, it's all about timing, and if you're (or anyone else) trying to do all three in a split second, that explains the complaint, it simply isn't possible.

Sharee wrote: »

mairwen85 wrote: »

I can't help but feel that if we couldn't ani cancel, the same people moaning its a thing would be moaning that it wasn't.

Only if you removed it. If it wasnt there in the firstplace, people would think it is normal.

Look at Dark Souls. No animation cancelling there, and no torch-and-pitchfork mob demanding there should be.

By your rationale, people shouldn't be complaining that it exists in that case, because its always been there, it's 'normal'.

Imagine you couldn't break free, dodge roll, block because you had to wait for your animation to return to the rest position. People might think it was a normal part of the combat mechanics, but they would be lobbying to have it changed/added.

Sharee · February 2019

mairwen85 wrote: »

@Sharee

but none of that happens in a single split second -- you have 1000 milliseconds to do all three. You fire the light attack first, then your skill, and optionally after the skill anim triggers (as skills start on button up/release), you can optionally block/dodge/bash/bar swap to cancel it. None of that happens all at once, but in a sequence. Have you ever watched a second hand move on a clock, it's not as short a timescale as you think it is; plenty of time to press 3 different buttons.

However, no one block cancels every animation; in PvP there's a defensive motivation to block cancel a cast, but not for every scenario (I usually preventatively roll away as soon as I throw a skill that can be reflected, for example, or you might bash if close up). In PvE, there is a motivation to cancel in order to tighten a rotation, but every skill is overkill and can actually decrease dps as it throws off your rhythm. Most animations are a suitable length to use as visual GCD timers, but some are not. Those are the ones you place in your rotation on bar swap. Block cancelling a ground AoE (even if quick cast is enabled in game options) can nullify it, weaving too soon can also throw your rhythm off and delay a skill, or even cause the light attack to mis-fire. This isn't button mashing, but precision button pressing

Honestly, it's all about timing, and if you're (or anyone else) trying to do all three in a split second, that explains the complaint, it simply isn't possible.

There is a 0.004 second delay between the light attack and the surprise attack. At this point, whether they happen at once or in a sequence is a purely academical debate. For all practical purposes, they happened at once.

And of course it is possible, as you can see.

commdt · February 2019

Sharee wrote: »

commdt wrote: »

Guys. Animation cancelling do absolutely zero, nill, nothing. My friend tested it on his stam NB a year ago and he did absolutely same 51k parses with and totally without it.

Becauese yes, you can skip animation, but you cant skip global cooldown which is 1 second. Since all animations are below 1 second, you get nothing for skipping them. Just be done with this myth already

Light attacks have their own cooldown. Abilities have their own cooldown. Bashing has its own cooldown.

You can use all three at the same time, LA being cancelled by skill, and skill being cancelled by bash, and see a huge increase in your damage output compared to letting every animation finish.

You are talking about weaving, when you cast skills immidiately after your LA. This is the thing, and is essential for good DPS. But after the skill is cast there is no point in cancelling its animation with block

mairwen85 · February 2019

The actions were requested upstream in a sequence, and occurred downstream in a sequence. No one pressed all 3 buttons at once, but timed the presses to be executed in sequence. The 0.004 between the first 2, and 0.130 between the 2nd and 3rd actions merely indicate that the player has a decent ping and possibly has light attack mapped closer to his skill buttons (or just has one hand permanently poised to press one).

With a bad ping (say 300ms) you could still execute all 3 within the same 1s window. That player in the screen cap has longer to wait before he can do the same again, a player who pressed the buttons slower would not. In both cases the same damage is dealt in the same second (the same cool down).

Edit

As someone who works in an office, I use a keyboard, I can blind type -- I type approx 80 wpm (words per minute), that's ~1.3 words per second; average word length in the English language is 5.1 letters; 5.1 x 1.3 = 6.63 key presses per second. 1000/6.63 = ~150ms time between presses -- keys are spread out across a wider scope than game controls. It is perfectly possible to have one hand poised above the skill button on the keyboard, and have the other hand perform mouse clicks in order to achieve 3 separate actions within 1 second.

Sharee · February 2019

commdt wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

commdt wrote: »

Guys. Animation cancelling do absolutely zero, nill, nothing. My friend tested it on his stam NB a year ago and he did absolutely same 51k parses with and totally without it.

Becauese yes, you can skip animation, but you cant skip global cooldown which is 1 second. Since all animations are below 1 second, you get nothing for skipping them. Just be done with this myth already

Light attacks have their own cooldown. Abilities have their own cooldown. Bashing has its own cooldown.

You can use all three at the same time, LA being cancelled by skill, and skill being cancelled by bash, and see a huge increase in your damage output compared to letting every animation finish.

You are talking about weaving, when you cast skills immidiately after your LA. This is the thing, and is essential for good DPS. But after the skill is cast there is no point in cancelling its animation with block

What you call weaving is in fact animation cancelling (light attack animation is being cancelled by activating a skill, and skill animation is being cancelled by activating a bash).

Raudgrani · February 2019

Leave animation canceling be. It raises the skill ceiling, and makes it more interesting trying to improve rotations etc.

People need to stop to call for "nerfs" of everything making others better than them. What kind of life are you used to?

"Ban healthy food, it makes people able to look more fit than me. Ban martial arts, people who know it can beat me! Ban cosmetics, it can make prettier girls than me even prettier! Ban gyms, it can make people stronger than me! Ban education, it can make people more successful than me! Ban gambling, it can make people wealthier than me!"

As for PVP, covering their moves by animation canceling - yes, that's the whole reason. Not a reason to remove it, but to keep it. That's part of the reason Samurai wore Hakama ("samurai pants"), to conceal their feet/leg, as to make it more difficult to expect their next move. it takes experience to predict what's coming next.

Trancestor · February 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

Bonusfeatures75 wrote: »

Why do you want to dumb the game down? Animation canceling adds another layer of skill, something most MMO’s are really missing. How about people get good and learn how to do it?

Yes, that would require the big scary E word- Effort

i can promise, and assure you that the amount of people who DO NOT know how to and cannot animation cancel is about 1% of ALL of eso community.
everyone animation cancels
we all do it.
it is even taught in the game by the devs.

what people are angry about is the over use of it when lagg and macros are involved that create and allow cheats to exist.
i have a list of people who do it regularly, i report them when i see them.
its allways the same thing, they hit people with 5 to 8 skills or light attacks in less then 1 second, its allways the same guys, i never see other people doing it.

in addition to that, i see those same guys at resources take out those guards on the flags instantly.
you see the guard fall and all you hear is one hit.
it's not "skill"

How have i never seen anything like that in the thousands of hours that i played? Bad players always accuse good players of macros when they get destroyed by them.

Sharee · February 2019

[nevermind]

barney2525 · February 2019

wow that was long.

Just my 2 cents. Your computer and the server are Not going to sit and analyze every action and skill used in a combat - and then determine "This was Routine - No canceling here " or "This was an emergency" so you can cancel here".

The technology would unionize and we would have a big mess on our hands.

Either the game has it, or it doesn't. And because this game has used animation canceling for so long, it should be considered an aspect of the mechanics, and therefore left as it is.

Sharee · February 2019

barney2525 wrote: »

wow that was long.

Just my 2 cents. Your computer and the server are Not going to sit and analyze every action and skill used in a combat - and then determine "This was Routine - No canceling here " or "This was an emergency" so you can cancel here".

I believe the idea was not that computer would analyze what is an emergency and what is not. Rather, it would simply make a cancelled attack do no damage, everytime. That makes both emergencies possible, and routing cancelling impossible(well, possible but no point doing it).

barney2525 · February 2019

Sabbathius wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

why do you expect this to happen now?

Because it would be an improvement, for reasons listed painstakingly above. You know what also has been in the game for years, and ZOS didn't make any attempts to change? Traits on gear being set in stone. Until we got CWC. And it changed. And now the game is better. Same principle.

Disagree.

Just because a situation warrants change does not mean All situations warrant change and that such change will improve the game.

Every situation Must be evaluated on its own merits, and No situation can be compared equally with other situations.

Traits on Gear has Nothing to do with animation canceling. Completely separate issues.

Should animation canceling be evaluated? Sure. But the end result of such evaluation does not mean it must change. And since it Has been evaluated in the past, I would not hold my breath waiting for change. Especially with the player support that can be seen here.

Sharee · February 2019

barney2525 wrote: »

And since it Has been evaluated in the past, I would not hold my breath waiting for change.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Just wanted to update everyone on where we are at with the animation prioritization efforts going on right now. At its core, the goal for the change was to make it clear which attacks players were using, while preserving the responsiveness of combat. We’ve made great strides towards this, but there are still a number of cases where things just don’t look or feel right (blocking as an example). As such, we’re going to be rolling back this change in next week's PTS patch (2.3.4) and will not be taking it to the Live megaservers.

We will continue to iterate on the system internally and will roll out the changes when they are ready.

Kulvar · February 2019

barney2525 wrote: »

wow that was long.

Just my 2 cents. Your computer and the server are Not going to sit and analyze every action and skill used in a combat - and then determine "This was Routine - No canceling here " or "This was an emergency" so you can cancel here".

The technology would unionize and we would have a big mess on our hands.

Either the game has it, or it doesn't. And because this game has used animation canceling for so long, it should be considered an aspect of the mechanics, and therefore left as it is.

The debate is : If you cancel an action animation, should it still deal damage or be cancelled too ?

D0PAMINE · February 2019

I've noticed animation canceling has gotten easier with some of the later patches. You're able to do it easier and smoother, even accidentally.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO · February 2019

I animation cancel just fine. I started doing it intuitively before I even realized it was a thing.

But I am GALLED by the idea of the actions my character taking not showing up on the screen.

I want to play a spell-slinging, sword-swinging character in my favorite universe of all time.

Kinda kills the vibe when neither the sword swings nor the spell slings, but the effect goes off anyway.

Tigerseye · February 2019

Sabbathius wrote: »

The mechanics of combat in this game are, frankly, embarrassing. It looks like you tried to fix it, failed, and instead enshrined it as a feature.

This.

...and until light attack weaving, animation cancelling and bashing (in its current, clunky form) are gone, I will continue to avoid serious content.

I "real" raided in WoW (including some Mythic - HC, at the time) - so, I'm not a bad player - but, I think combat and movement options, in this game, are a joke.

Dragneel1207 · February 2019

Ani cancelling is an interesting post.
I myself get 300+ ping and with occasional spikes to 999+ and in pvp and bg i die even before i press the button xD

Yah the problem with ani cancelling is its dependance on ping and ppl on higher ping never know what hit them before they die.
and this leads to frustration and doubting or accusing the other person for cheating.

and the other problem with it is the constant mashing of the buttons and due to fast combat system of the eso the buttom mashes increases. As mentioned by the OP many ppl cant press the buttons.
But only top guilds ask for ppl +50 dps and if u r a casual player u dont need that much to complete the content and enjoy the game.

So I have a suggestion for ppl who cant mash buttons or cant do animation cancelling due to other matters and want to top the leaderboards. JUST PLAY AS A TANK as I do. As a tank u dont need ani cancelling and no need to abuse keyboard and even with higher ping u can play and enjoy and a good tank gets a lot of respect than a dps.

In PVP u cant escape ani cancelling as u need to kill the guy fast and need to damage as much as possible in a short interval of contact with other player. For example consider a ranged and melee, here ranged gets the advantage and melee needs to cover the gap and attack and without ani cancelling u cant kill the ranged (built tanky and heals) and that makes the game broken.

Yah ani cancelling is a good concept until it becomes broken i.e.depends heavily on ping. If u want to have animation cancelling in eso just make it independent of ping and give all the ppl same freedom to use it. If it is not possible then just remove ani cancelling

It should depend on skill and not on ppl with good ping (like fps games)

Tigerseye · February 2019

Raudgrani wrote: »

Leave animation canceling be. It raises the skill ceiling, and makes it more interesting trying to improve rotations etc.

People need to stop to call for "nerfs" of everything making others better than them. What kind of life are you used to?

"Ban healthy food, it makes people able to look more fit than me. Ban martial arts, people who know it can beat me! Ban cosmetics, it can make prettier girls than me even prettier! Ban gyms, it can make people stronger than me! Ban education, it can make people more successful than me! Ban gambling, it can make people wealthier than me!"

As for PVP, covering their moves by animation canceling - yes, that's the whole reason. Not a reason to remove it, but to keep it. That's part of the reason Samurai wore Hakama ("samurai pants"), to conceal their feet/leg, as to make it more difficult to expect their next move. it takes experience to predict what's coming next.

No one is saying ban healthy food, martial arts, make-up, gymns, or education...

Gambling is a completely separate issue, because (unlike your other examples) it is not thought of as a positive, or neutral, thing for most people and by the way, statistically, it makes most people a lot poorer; not richer.

Unlike the issue at hand, none of those things happened by accident.

None were a result of incompetent design.

So, none of them are remotely relevant, here.

ABuster · February 2019

Reading OPs post is pure cringe

Seri · February 2019

Sharee wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

And since it Has been evaluated in the past, I would not hold my breath waiting for change.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Just wanted to update everyone on where we are at with the animation prioritization efforts going on right now. At its core, the goal for the change was to make it clear which attacks players were using, while preserving the responsiveness of combat. We’ve made great strides towards this, but there are still a number of cases where things just don’t look or feel right (blocking as an example). As such, we’re going to be rolling back this change in next week's PTS patch (2.3.4) and will not be taking it to the Live megaservers.

We will continue to iterate on the system internally and will roll out the changes when they are ready.

And they rolled out those changes in 2.4.x. They have no intention of removing the ability to move straight from a light/heavy attack to a skill - those changes were explicitly to clip the start of the skill animation instead of clipping the 'strike' of the light attack. That change basically explicitly nullifies any complaint about how the visual cue of a light/heavy attack would never display.

Dubhliam · February 2019

People that can't be bothered to put in the effort will always find something to blame for their lack of success.

This time it's animation cancelling.

Just proves the point of how little the said people actually know about ESO combat.

probabkyravi · February 2019

AC causes a lot of lag in Cyrodiil and in its current form is not at all role-play or realistic.

With current CP levels any PvE content released prior to 2018 is not hard to complete without AC.

Adjusted to be more in theme with sensical combat is all I want and it can cause nuts lag even 1v1.

Elwendryll · February 2019

To sum it up, not letting an animation totally run is bad, but using macro is fine in some cases, everyone uses macro anyway, including me. 99% of the playerbase knows how to cancel animation and do that regularly, but it's bad and not acceptable. The hardest content of this game should be designed around physically disabled people.

Well, *troll off*, as many people said, there is a global cooldown. Bashing is totally useless in a rotation, you can do it in a burst in pvp, but in pve it's straight up useless. So, the only thing you actually do is weaving light attacks, and swap cancel.

I'm convinced players using animation canceling are a minority. Keep in mind there are less than 1% of the playerbase that finished vMA or vet trials. I'm pretty sure there are some people out there using macros. But the thing is... They don't provide any advantage, they don't allow you to do anything that can't easily be done with some practice, because there are global cooldowns. Why use them in the first place? If you're not physically disabled.

And about being able to complete all content... It's a multiplayer game, not skyrim. You can't pause the game whenever you want. There is enough content in this game for years of entertainment even before touching anything that requires animation canceling to be completed. Some online games require a 0.1s reaction time on some mechanics, less than that would be absurd due to network limitations, ESO is very generous on the reaction time. There is content for everyone, asking for all the content to be available to the lower performing players is the same as depriving the most mechanically skilled players of the content they're looking for.

I don't even understand where the problem with animation canceling really is, it's only visual. You don't have to use it. And complaining about other people using it is the same as complaining their characters looks ugly. That's their choice. Anyway. I may be biased, I'm a stamsorc, I don't even see my character while I play (hurricane...).

An honest request would be to change the animations so they match the global cooldown, because that's just that, the animations don't follow the global cooldown, that's not the cooldown that doesn't follow the animations. Asking for a removal of animation canceling is just asking for the game to become slow paced and lower the ceiling.

mairwen85 · February 2019

Elwendryll wrote: »

An honest request would be to change the animations so they match the global cooldown, because that's just that, the animations don't follow the global cooldown, that's not the cooldown that doesn't follow the animations. Asking for a removal of animation canceling is just asking for the game to become slow paced and lower the ceiling.

This. I keep saying it myself -- make instant cast anims max .9s and animation cancelling for everything other than reactive usage becomes redundant. It is already a moot argument in many ways because it adds no real advantage anyway, but at least it will stop the false impression that it does. That is where this lobbying needs to be focused, not a demand to 'remove' it, but to ensure the visual cues (as many believe that is what the cast animation is) match the actual cool down ticker.

probabkyravi · February 2019

This was posted on an old AC thread, don't know if its real.

zaria · February 2019

Kulvar wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

wow that was long.

Just my 2 cents. Your computer and the server are Not going to sit and analyze every action and skill used in a combat - and then determine "This was Routine - No canceling here " or "This was an emergency" so you can cancel here".

The technology would unionize and we would have a big mess on our hands.

Either the game has it, or it doesn't. And because this game has used animation canceling for so long, it should be considered an aspect of the mechanics, and therefore left as it is.

The debate is : If you cancel an action animation, should it still deal damage or be cancelled too ?

if ability don't have cast time they will be cast even if you cancel with block, dodge or bash.
For an parse id does not matter as long as animation is not longer than GCD.

It will impact healing and other reactive skills like shields or ranged interrupts a lot.
For tanks is cases there dropping block for 0.8 seconds would be suicide.

In PvP all casts would be telegraphed and can be bashed, yes that would have some impact.

Tigerseye · February 2019

Dubhliam wrote: »

People that can't be bothered to put in the effort will always find something to blame for their lack of success.

This time it's animation cancelling.

Just proves the point of how little the said people actually know about ESO combat.

No.

I have always put in a lot of effort (normally, via trial and error) to become good at games, where I think they are even vaguely logical and well designed.

Even in this game, I try to be at least vaguely competent and stay alive as I do my world boss dailies etc..

But, I am not going to try to become "good" at playing a bodged up mistake of a game, on principle alone.

I don't want to get into bad habits, for a start.

KoultouraS · February 2019

We are playing a game, the servers of which would be a laughable meme to others, and saying that
the ones calling for AC/weaving removal , are the ones not investing enough time to familiarize themselves with
the procedure, is not only oversimplifying the situation
but projects the classic sterotypical "gitgud" agenta, the one only a unicellular organism can think of while failing in trying to access it logicaly.

I haven't had a dps test ever since this game's experience got to the point where no skill can be cast normally due to lag (no weaving / canceling included) , and while this was some months before wolfhunter DLC, I was having 38k with a templar back then with no buff given from another player.
(A guy told me that i could easily reach 46-48 buffed by another teamate, ... I don't care)
I hear today such a dps could be up to 55-66k.

So , maybe some of the players still think that AC is wrong --- I have mixed feelings about it btw--- but still succed in doing it.
I don't care what the final solution opted by ZOS would be, but Please spare us some dignity, and stop pretending that
animation canceling is solely a skill learned.

The ones living near the server , or having a ping low enough, register hits on a target 10 times smoother than me or any other lad, not living in Germany , Netherlands or wherever the hell those potatoes ZOS dares to call "servers" are located.
Take the Aussies for example, they cast a spell on Monday, and they would be glad to see it connecting on weekend.

Let ZOS do whatever they like , be it remove it, be it keep it, be it overhaul it, but stop
considering what is easy for you, that is easy for other, because others might not have the standards nor the
circumstances you live in.

P.S.
(As for how quickly one can cast One skill, or One LA, or One bash etc that would be ~0.100+ ms everything below that is probably a macro)