The problem with putting a cast time on Ultimates

Emasculate · July 2019

The bottom line with this issue is that there are such a wide varieties of ultimate's in the game. I understand you want players to be able to see what is hitting them. However, the problem occurs when you have ultimate's that are just obscenely out scaling others. In the context of large scale player versus player, it is illegitimate to think that a player will be able to react to a large amount of players casting abilities on them. And applying a cast time to ultimate's such as Dawnbreaker only hinders certain players and makes the game play less fluid. And that is a big problem for me, when the game loses fluidity. This game has always been the most impressive combat out of any game I've ever played. So to lose something that really made this game fun for me, poses a problem. Now the Dawnbreaker cast time was just an example, but to understand the point of this thread will help greatly. ESO can not lose that fluidity that it came with. This is just one point in putting cast time's in ultimate's. The main issue is telegraphs, if I were to understand this view point on why you decided to apply these cast times; which is completely understandable. However the issue is there are other ultimate's that have no telegraphs in the game such as Ballista the Bow ultimate, Negate's also do not telegraph some times, and the list continues. This application is a targeted adjustment which I personally do not agree with. A more simple fix would be to adjust the animation properly (make it faster). There are numerous problems with cast time abilities and losing the ultimate, it even happens currently where you can cast an ability and be CC'd and your ultimate will just disappear. This problem will just occur more frequently with these new changes, getting locked up while you are trying to cast the ultimate is problematic, this implementation is just a breeding ground for more problems and again I will re-illustrate the point of less fluid game play. I love ESO I spent many hours of my life here with this awesome community, I report problems as much as I possibly can, but I would highly reconsider changes that completely change combat one of the best aspects of ESO.

Gilvoth · July 2019

as mentioned by the developers:

quote:
"We're continuing to monitor feedback surrounding everything on the PTS, and appreciate all of the threads, reports and conversations."
end quote:

with that inmind, id like to give my feedback.

having cast times on ultimates is the Absolute best change in the direction of canceling animation canceling and its the Best step forward in that direction ever presented in eso since beta 2013.
we see far too often players able to hit multiple times within 1 second multiple damage abilities and even instant death from what looks like 1 hit, when infact it was a series of damage abilities that we were not able to even be defend nor fought against.
that i hope will come to an end and a Great start in that direction is most definitely cast times on ultimates to help Stop that from happening.

here is a few examples of what i am reffering to from another forum poster that gives insight into this about what i am referring to:

LegacyDM wrote: »

Here we have HA-->Sub Assault --->DoS all in the same second

Here we have a Cutting Dive ---->Heavy Attack ----> Sub Assault all in the same second followed by a DoS one second later. Poor game play design and BS.

Here we have a lethal arrow ----> Draining Shot all in the same second.

Here's an interesting one. An Ambush ----> Lethal Arrow. In the same second. Now how did he get an ambush off with a skill that actually requires a 1s channel cast time all in the same second. Not sure.

Here we have Dizzying Swing ---->Reverse Slice --->Sub Assault all in the same second.

And my personal favorite. Two focused aims in the same second.

Emasculate · July 2019

You should not confuse animation cancelling with dot ticks from abilities, and also travel time of projectiles, what you are stating is these pictures are animation cancelling and they can not be observed by just posting screen shots, and also your statement is missing the entire point of the thread.

Emasculate · July 2019

An easy solution to Dawnbreaker being interrupted and losing your ultimate would be to apply immunity similar to other cast time ultimates (Soul Strike) where the caster is immune to interrupts, and crowd controlling effects. This would solve the problem of being CC'd and still have the telegraph viable for the animation.

Lucky28 · July 2019

Emasculate wrote: »

An easy solution to Dawnbreaker being interrupted and losing your ultimate would be to apply immunity similar to other cast time ultimates (Soul Strike) where the caster is immune to interrupts, and crowd controlling effects. This would solve the problem of being CC'd and still have the telegraph viable for the animation.

Still doesn't solve the primary problem of Lag. with any cast time ability when it's lagging you're stuck in the animation for an inordinate amount of time and it typically gets you killed in the stupidest way.

nah, long animations, cast times, until lag is fixed just don't.

Emasculate · July 2019

There's to many factors to account for when you say lag. And to many different potential suspects for the cause of lag, such as a bad computer on the consumers end, or poor connection due to ISP and these things you can not pin on ZOS. However I can agree with you but you can not just make blanket statements such as "fix lag".

DisgracefulMind · July 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

as mentioned by the developers:

quote:
"We're continuing to monitor feedback surrounding everything on the PTS, and appreciate all of the threads, reports and conversations."
end quote:

with that inmind, id like to give my feedback.

having cast times on ultimates is the Absolute best change in the direction of canceling animation canceling and its the Best step forward in that direction ever presented in eso since beta 2013.
we see far too often players able to hit multiple times within 1 second multiple damage abilities and even instant death from what looks like 1 hit, when infact it was a series of damage abilities that we were not able to even be defend nor fought against.
that i hope will come to an end and a Great start in that direction is most definitely cast times on ultimates to help Stop that from happening.

here is a few examples of what i am reffering to from another forum poster that gives insight into this about what i am referring to:

LegacyDM wrote: »

Here we have HA-->Sub Assault --->DoS all in the same second

Here we have a Cutting Dive ---->Heavy Attack ----> Sub Assault all in the same second followed by a DoS one second later. Poor game play design and BS.

Here we have a lethal arrow ----> Draining Shot all in the same second.

Here's an interesting one. An Ambush ----> Lethal Arrow. In the same second. Now how did he get an ambush off with a skill that actually requires a 1s channel cast time all in the same second. Not sure.

Here we have Dizzying Swing ---->Reverse Slice --->Sub Assault all in the same second.

And my personal favorite. Two focused aims in the same second.

This is a post that specifically outlines how people don't, and continue to not, understand how abilities work. So with skills that have a delay or projectile time after they're cast, you can hit other abilities and/or heavy/light attacks in-between. So, yes, if someone is using a combo, for example that cliffracer + sub + heavy, it just means they knew how to combo properly.

It's amazing how people still don't know how this works. And guess what? You don't even have to animation cancel most combos! Omgawd!

ScruffyWhiskers · July 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

as mentioned by the developers:

with that inmind, id like to give my feedback.

I'm pretty sure they understand your feelings on this. I don't think you have missed a thread on this topic.

Hashtag_ · July 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

as mentioned by the developers:

quote:
"We're continuing to monitor feedback surrounding everything on the PTS, and appreciate all of the threads, reports and conversations."
end quote:

with that inmind, id like to give my feedback.

having cast times on ultimates is the Absolute best change in the direction of canceling animation canceling and its the Best step forward in that direction ever presented in eso since beta 2013.
we see far too often players able to hit multiple times within 1 second multiple damage abilities and even instant death from what looks like 1 hit, when infact it was a series of damage abilities that we were not able to even be defend nor fought against.
that i hope will come to an end and a Great start in that direction is most definitely cast times on ultimates to help Stop that from happening.

here is a few examples of what i am reffering to from another forum poster that gives insight into this about what i am referring to:

LegacyDM wrote: »

Here we have HA-->Sub Assault --->DoS all in the same second

Here we have a Cutting Dive ---->Heavy Attack ----> Sub Assault all in the same second followed by a DoS one second later. Poor game play design and BS.

Here we have a lethal arrow ----> Draining Shot all in the same second.

Here's an interesting one. An Ambush ----> Lethal Arrow. In the same second. Now how did he get an ambush off with a skill that actually requires a 1s channel cast time all in the same second. Not sure.

Here we have Dizzying Swing ---->Reverse Slice --->Sub Assault all in the same second.

And my personal favorite. Two focused aims in the same second.

Once again you’re spreading false information.

redlink1979 · July 2019

Emasculate wrote: »

There's to many factors to account for when you say lag. And to many different potential suspects for the cause of lag, such as a bad computer on the consumers end, or poor connection due to ISP and these things you can not pin on ZOS. However I can agree with you but you can not just make blanket statements such as "fix lag".

Machines, ISPs and connections aren't the problem. You can live near the physical location of the server and still get lag, as already has been reported...

Hashtag_ · July 2019

With every cast time ability in this game it performs very poorly with regards to server performance. I don’t think now is the time to add this to the game for the sake of “counterplay” when there is already counterplay for these abilities.

Maybe once the servers are better and performance increases add them but this in the current state is only going to cause frustration across the player base.

You can say depends on user hardware or whatever excuse you want for lag and poor server performance but people with top of the line systems and amazing internet still can’t improve the performance of the game. It’s clear as day performance is server side or in between server side and routing to server due to Akamai

kalunte · July 2019

this 400ms delay (or 250ms to fit with other delay they introduced in previous patchs) should apply to all ultimates or none.

still, this fact being efficient or not will have to be tested on live in a "real situation" to see how it works.

Blinkin8r · July 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

as mentioned by the developers:

Here's an interesting one. An Ambush ----> Lethal Arrow. In the same second. Now how did he get an ambush off with a skill that actually requires a 1s channel cast time all in the same second. Not sure.

1: This post concerns "Cast times on ultimate abilities.
2: If you don't know how you can get hit with a snipe and an ambush at the same time you should reconsider gaming in general.
Hint: Snipe has a travel time

Glory · July 2019

Having tested on the PTS, my impressions are that it's harder/unable to animation cancel these abilities, and that I have to pay attention to my combos more.

Some of this is surely adjusting to the cast time. People are meme'ing about juking enemies with an ultimate cancel, but I've actually caught myself cancelling my ultimate when I notice they have major protection or some other defense up so I don't waste my ultimate.

I'm pretty neutral on the cast times for ultimates. I personally think it'd be better to do a standardization (some ultimates don't have this cast time?) or not do it at all.

That being said, I don't see this being as make-or-break as people are making it out to be. People will get used to it, and it'll become a feature of the skills. Just like how people have been forced to get used to animation cancelling (which most think is a good feature but other think is bad) or to various other changes that are good AND bad for raising/lowering the skill cap.

Emasculate · July 2019

Stop and still fighting is not fun, is the point I'm making. Fluidity is key, and trying to implement changes that creates more problems is less than ideal for a video game.

Syhae · July 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

as mentioned by the developers:

quote:
"We're continuing to monitor feedback surrounding everything on the PTS, and appreciate all of the threads, reports and conversations."
end quote:

with that inmind, id like to give my feedback.

having cast times on ultimates is the Absolute best change in the direction of canceling animation canceling and its the Best step forward in that direction ever presented in eso since beta 2013.
we see far too often players able to hit multiple times within 1 second multiple damage abilities and even instant death from what looks like 1 hit, when infact it was a series of damage abilities that we were not able to even be defend nor fought against.
that i hope will come to an end and a Great start in that direction is most definitely cast times on ultimates to help Stop that from happening.

The reason why this is the first step towards eliminating animation canceling from the game since beta is because it was a design they decided to keep and build their game around. Deciding to remove the only thing that really makes your game stand out 5 years down the line is not a smart idea.

MehrunesFlagon · July 2019

Kind of shocked I haven't this one yet.In the case of nightblade it destroys class identity.They are suppose to be a very fast paced class.Cast times do not bleong with such a class.