Animation Cancelling; A Discussion

Starlock · February 2019

There are a lot of mechanics that are not well-explained in game. Animation cancelling is not unique in this regard. What does X value of recovery actually mean? What does X value of critical chance actually mean, percentage-wise? How about resistance? The game doesn't even make it obvious what attacks are 'damage over time' and what attacks are 'channeled' and so on and so forth. The interactions of CP and set bonuses with one's abilities grow even more mysterious.

In short, the problem with in-game resources explaining mechanics goes well beyond animation canceling. It would make sense to address all of it, not just some of it.

LiquidPony · February 2019

Can we not?

mairwen85 · February 2019

...

exeeter702 · February 2019

Vildebill wrote: »

Because it was unintended from the beginning, not a feature, stuff never shared the same cooldown and hence we have this. Now it's just incorporated.

Wrong.

Jhalin · February 2019

Let this cursed topic die.

We already know animation canceling is endorsed, in-game and out. It’s absolutely necessary for combat to function. Animations of instant cast abilities are superfluous anyway, as damage is calculated and applied as soon as you press the button.

If you cant pull 25k dps, that isn’t the fault of animation canceling. That’s just you not wanting to practice and put effort into improving. People run vet trials with high ping, people who have full time jobs run vet trials, simple weaving will bring your dps up and it involves no cancelation of ability animations if you are really so opposed.

Wifeaggro13 · February 2019

Rikumaru wrote: »

Can we actually stop doing this, it's getting a little insane. The majority voted they liked and wanted to keep animation cancelling and provided great reasoning as to why, the only counterpoint that I saw that made any sense was elderly / disabled players being unable to use such mechanics easily.

As for ZOS adding ingame tutorials or tips, they added a tip on a loading screen telling you how to LA weave (apparently). This is pretty much the only thing you need to learn to be competitive, everything else is just for a very slight advantage.

Also as for learning VMA, do you not think that was great to slowly progress and complete a challenge? Do you really just want to plough through content without learning things? If you can't figure out ways to improve ingame then using the internet is a completely valid and fine way of figuring out tips and tricks to help improve your performance. I remember having to do this for past games where I would be stuck on certain missions for hours, and I would either need to lookup on gamefaqs or figure it out ingame (the latter preferred).

i dont think people voted its good overwhelmingly many think it would screw combat up to remove it now. its part of the game now and to remove it would break more things then it fixed. what is really killing combat on a dynamic level was all content being DPS centric and lacking real mechanics to encourage or need other roles or builds other then the meta in end game activities. DPs being the focal point makes it harder then the other roles to achieve end game performance. being that you really only need 1 tank and maybe 2 healers in trials, and dungeons for the most part can be done with 4 dps if you excell at dps and have a good grasp of mechanics on the bosses. the community should move on to what the real issue is. the lack of group dynamics and a half finished alternate advancement system. Animation canceling is not fixable at this point the other issues are.

exeeter702 · February 2019

Honestly at this point, wheeler needs to just put together some very informative egnine side demonstration power points and have a dedicated eso live stream exclusivley with him shutting down on these misinformed uneducated naysayers about exactly why canceling the recovery animations of skills has no consequence on player performance whatsoever and why weaving light attacks is a core aspect of combat and how it has been this way since day 1.

He needs to break down how the GCD works, how targeting works, how instsnt cast abilities are registered and calculated server side, how projectiles in eso are actuallu NOT literal ballistics but in truth are animations that play out after the server calculates distance and trajectory speed to the target and determins how long a player has to react to said projectile. He needs to explain why animations need to be as long a they are and how animation canceling is simply a product of the various factors that allow esos combat system to remain active and provide agency to players.

No, your steel tornado is not registering faster when you block cancel it

No your dawnbreaker is not smacking the target faster when you block cancel it

No, your wall of elements is not starting its damage ticks faster when you block cancel it

Its not a *** bug.
Its not a god damn exploit
It does not net you 40k bonus dps
It was not an accident

And it sure as ***, by virtue of the very game that eso was desgined to be, cannot be "removed" because there is nothing to remove in the first place.

There is nothing to fix and there is nothing to teach. If a player realizes they need to block or roll dodge out of the way from an aoe, and they just so happened to have recently finished using a skill and the GCD is not up yet, congratulations, you just animation canceled! Game tells you to hit a light attack before every skill? Congratulations, you now know what weaving is, get to it. Trying to cast an instant cast ability RiGHT away after just using one but for some reason your character just wont throw it out? Congratulations, you have just discovered the GCD!. Are you physically incapable of pressing 2 buttons every second? Congratulations! Find a new game to play!