Cast time on ultimate's is garbage

eso_lags · August 2019

Definitely one of the worst choices zos has ever made. You really should start thinking of the bigger picture with the changes you make. When scalebreaker hit console today I got on and was reminded of how disgusting these cast times feel. While playing around with dawnbreaker I started thinking, why would you do this when you literally cannot fix performance issues? This is going to be awful in the laggy mess that is pvp. Its already hard enough to get my dawnbreaker to work when the game is lagging, like it normally does..

I've played dswing builds for years now, as awful as it is in lag. I know how bad cast times are when the game is lagging. You have done nothing for ultimate's except give them the same effect that dswing has in pvp, a much longer cast time than intend. And whats the reason?

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

Hmmm.. So for the entire life of this game you've been wrong about ultimate's right? They've always been "too strong" but you've now just realized it.. Well its good to see you guys admitting that you're wrong about things but sadly you're apparently wrong twice because ultimate's were fine how they were.

I know tons of people posted about this but i dont care. Im not here to argue about it.. Just to add another negative reaction to the list. Its a bad change and there is no reason for it. You have yet again hurt small scale/solo pvpers more than anyone. And for what? The small amount of people who choose to not get better and get bursted sort of quickly by an ultimate? But everyone's a tank so does that even happen? I dont get it, I dont know who really benefits.. You've also hurt anyone who deals with the horrible performance of this game as well, so thanks for that too.

Good players will adapt to this change and still be fine, and bad players will still die quickly. The only thing you've accomplished is making combat more clunky. For no reason. And thats sad because the combat is the best thing this game has to offer. GG.

xylena_lazarow · August 2019

Scalebreaker took a huge dump on melee with these idiotic cast times and nerfing melee bleeds in PvP, while buffing zero risk zero effort ranged DoT abilities (and buffing Snipe for some reason too). Weak players are still getting wrecked by animation cancelling, except now they have no chance of even landing their own Ultimates. The damage application of Onslaught occurs about a half second after your weapon visually strikes the enemy.

Adding cast times to melee Ultimates is the worst change this game has seen since the CP system replaced soft caps.

Kagukan · August 2019

Cast times on any skills is garbage. It takes away from the feel of smooth combat. Add in lag and a 1 second cast time becomes a character stuck in a clunky animation for 3 or more seconds.

Rikumaru · August 2019

"Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much."

I hope ZOS realise you can't cast more than 1 ability (barring flying blade morph) in a GCD. And if they are talking about weaving light attacks, DoTs, delayed attacks such as shulks, enchants or bash; you can still do all of the above with a cast time. The cast time on ultimates literally makes zero sense and feels awful to play with. And it seems the vast majority of players agree that cast times suck too.

Jeremy · August 2019

Rikumaru wrote: »

"Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much."

I hope ZOS realise you can't cast more than 1 ability (barring flying blade morph) in a GCD. And if they are talking about weaving light attacks, DoTs, delayed attacks such as shulks, enchants or bash; you can still do all of the above with a cast time. The cast time on ultimates literally makes zero sense and feels awful to play with. And it seems the vast majority of players agree that cast times suck too.

Going to side with what ever ZoS employee made that quote.

Cast times on ultimate abilities were necessary. It was extremely chessy and stupid to have people just dump all their ultimate abilities on you for instant death kills. So I disagree with the OP about this - as well as that poll.

PvP generally has improved quite a bit since the update. It's still deadly. But there is less instant death and counter play actually exists now - where as before it was just death with no way to avoid it.

ebix_ · August 2019

pvp is all about fast thinking and predicting your opponents movement , seems they wanted to make it easier for newer players to avoid deadly combos but the thing is if you know how their combo works and read their movements it will be easy to avoid it and for the new players which don't know this well, they will take full combo damage with or without cast time on ults ..
IMO this change so far only made exp players angry without any helpful impact .
cast times and dot meta were biggest mistakes so far ..

Heatnix90 · August 2019

Funny thing is, you can bypass the so called "counter-play" of cast times by baiting someone into wasting their resources dodging fakeouts and then dumping on them when they're low on stamina and can't break free. I've done it already, so new players are still susceptible to getting dumpstered by seasoned vets.

And, as I mentioned in another thread already, but the so-called "uninterruptible" cast times are in fact, interruptible and cc-able. I've lost track of how many times I've eaten a stun while in the middle of a Soul Siphon cast to save either myself or my teammates. Tell me, where's the counterplay in that?

Proof, in case someone comes in here saying otherwise

eso_lags · August 2019

Rikumaru wrote: »

"Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much."

I hope ZOS realise you can't cast more than 1 ability (barring flying blade morph) in a GCD. And if they are talking about weaving light attacks, DoTs, delayed attacks such as shulks, enchants or bash; you can still do all of the above with a cast time. The cast time on ultimates literally makes zero sense and feels awful to play with. And it seems the vast majority of players agree that cast times suck too.

I either missed or forgot about this poll but its always been clear that they do not listen to the community. They expect us to test the game for them but they disregard the opinion of the people who play every single day and test the game every single update. Its shameful.

This change is awful. I did test it on the PTS but now that I've pvpd for a few hours its even more clear. And other abilities feel kind of clunky too but Im still trying it out. But zos really needs to think it over when they make changes that such a large part of the community dont want. There is a reason for it and from what ive experienced in the last 4 years I cannot say there is a reason for adding cast times.

eso_lags · August 2019

Jeremy wrote: »

Rikumaru wrote: »

"Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much."

I hope ZOS realise you can't cast more than 1 ability (barring flying blade morph) in a GCD. And if they are talking about weaving light attacks, DoTs, delayed attacks such as shulks, enchants or bash; you can still do all of the above with a cast time. The cast time on ultimates literally makes zero sense and feels awful to play with. And it seems the vast majority of players agree that cast times suck too.

Going to side with what ever ZoS employee made that quote.

Cast times on ultimate abilities were necessary. It was extremely chessy and stupid to have people just dump all their ultimate abilities on you for instant death kills. So I disagree with the OP about this - as well as that poll.

PvP generally has improved quite a bit since the update. It's still deadly. But there is less instant death and counter play actually exists now - where as before it was just death with no way to avoid it.

I disagree. The damage is worse in pvp. Im fighting people who I was fighting last night (as the update came out on console today) and it seems like they now hit twice as hard. Its unreal.

But to the point about ult dumping. This change will not stop that. All this change does is make it harder for players who want to utilize the great combat of this game to play strategically, quickly, and precisely. That is LITERALLY all its done.

If you cant survive one person hitting you with their ult then its your build. I survive getting ult dumped by multiple ultis on a daily basis. In medium. Its just about your reaction and what you do, its not about a 400ms cast time. The only thing I could begin to understand is someone ganking you with the 2h ult or something, since they stun you with a dswing and then insta kill you with the 2h ult (for most builds anyway).

But adding this cast time is not going to stop a group of people from ult dumping you. Its just going to make it take longer, feel more clunky, and hurt the player who is outnumbered or trying to play strategically since it will take them longer to react. This is an awful change.

Jeremy · August 2019

eso_lags wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Rikumaru wrote: »

"Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much."

I hope ZOS realise you can't cast more than 1 ability (barring flying blade morph) in a GCD. And if they are talking about weaving light attacks, DoTs, delayed attacks such as shulks, enchants or bash; you can still do all of the above with a cast time. The cast time on ultimates literally makes zero sense and feels awful to play with. And it seems the vast majority of players agree that cast times suck too.

Going to side with what ever ZoS employee made that quote.

Cast times on ultimate abilities were necessary. It was extremely chessy and stupid to have people just dump all their ultimate abilities on you for instant death kills. So I disagree with the OP about this - as well as that poll.

PvP generally has improved quite a bit since the update. It's still deadly. But there is less instant death and counter play actually exists now - where as before it was just death with no way to avoid it.

I disagree. The damage is worse in pvp. Im fighting people who I was fighting last night (as the update came out on console today) and it seems like they now hit twice as hard. Its unreal.

But to the point about ult dumping. This change will not stop that. All this change does is make it harder for players who want to utilize the great combat of this game to play strategically, quickly, and precisely. That is LITERALLY all its done.

If you cant survive one person hitting you with their ult then its your build. I survive getting ult dumped by multiple ultis on a daily basis. In medium. Its just about your reaction and what you do, its not about a 400ms cast time. The only thing I could begin to understand is someone ganking you with the 2h ult or something, since they stun you with a dswing and then insta kill you with the 2h ult (for most builds anyway).

But adding this cast time is not going to stop a group of people from ult dumping you. Its just going to make it take longer, feel more clunky, and hurt the player who is outnumbered or trying to play strategically since it will take them longer to react. This is an awful change.

But this change has stopped that - along with some of the other changes. I haven't had a cheesy instant death in battlegrounds since the update. So we'll have to agree to disagree about this.

There is also nothing strategic or great about instantly slaughtering someone with some lame ultimate dump. That's dumb combat, not great combat. Players are going to have to deal with players who can actually fight back now. And that is a good thing.

eso_lags · August 2019

Jeremy wrote: »

eso_lags wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Rikumaru wrote: »

"Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much."

I hope ZOS realise you can't cast more than 1 ability (barring flying blade morph) in a GCD. And if they are talking about weaving light attacks, DoTs, delayed attacks such as shulks, enchants or bash; you can still do all of the above with a cast time. The cast time on ultimates literally makes zero sense and feels awful to play with. And it seems the vast majority of players agree that cast times suck too.

Going to side with what ever ZoS employee made that quote.

Cast times on ultimate abilities were necessary. It was extremely chessy and stupid to have people just dump all their ultimate abilities on you for instant death kills. So I disagree with the OP about this - as well as that poll.

PvP generally has improved quite a bit since the update. It's still deadly. But there is less instant death and counter play actually exists now - where as before it was just death with no way to avoid it.

I disagree. The damage is worse in pvp. Im fighting people who I was fighting last night (as the update came out on console today) and it seems like they now hit twice as hard. Its unreal.

But to the point about ult dumping. This change will not stop that. All this change does is make it harder for players who want to utilize the great combat of this game to play strategically, quickly, and precisely. That is LITERALLY all its done.

If you cant survive one person hitting you with their ult then its your build. I survive getting ult dumped by multiple ultis on a daily basis. In medium. Its just about your reaction and what you do, its not about a 400ms cast time. The only thing I could begin to understand is someone ganking you with the 2h ult or something, since they stun you with a dswing and then insta kill you with the 2h ult (for most builds anyway).

But adding this cast time is not going to stop a group of people from ult dumping you. Its just going to make it take longer, feel more clunky, and hurt the player who is outnumbered or trying to play strategically since it will take them longer to react. This is an awful change.

But this change has stopped that - along with some of the other changes. I haven't had a cheesy instant death in battlegrounds since the update. So we'll have to agree to disagree about this.

There is also nothing strategic or great about instantly slaughtering someone with some lame ultimate dump. That's just dumb. Players are going to have to deal with players who can actually fight back now. And that is a good thing.

There is no reason that you should instantly die to one person dropping an ultimate. It should not happen and if it does it is a problem with your build. Many people survive getting hit with multiple ults at once every day.

When 3 people run up to you and ult dump you, what is the difference between this update and last update? 400ms? Its still going to hit you. Unless you dodge it which you could have done with no cast time.. Its all about reaction. Unless you mean someone hitting you out of stealth? Maybe combod with someone else? But that can still happen.

And the strategic part, at least for me, is reacting faster than other people and using the correct skills or combo to kill them in a certain situation. Especially multiple people when you're outnumbered. Being fast and precise matters, this makes everything slower and more clunky.

I must be missing something here, because as im typing this im trying to think how you could be getting insta killed JUST by an ultimate. Or are you referring to multiple? Or a combo? Idk..

master_vanargand · August 2019

I might have agreed if all ultimates had a cast time.
But why did you add cast time to only some ultimates?
This is very unfair.

brandonv516 · August 2019

Ultimates like Soul Harvest and Soul Tether don't feel ultimate anymore - I imagine DBoS feels like that too.

You cast it and expect this visceral blow to take place, but the delay just ruins the coolness factor. It's very unsatisfying.

jainiadral · August 2019

Cast times in PvE feel like death by a thousand tiny ant bites. The irritation builds and builds each time you try to use the skill until you eventually want to log off and never return. Then you temporarily forget once you manage to unlock Meteor...until it's time to level the next alt. I'm not looking forward to that, btw

I mean "counterplay" isn't even an issue in PvE. A bogus argument for a bogus nerf for 90% of the game's content.

ZOS needs to balance things separately. Badly.

Wayshuba · August 2019

This whole patch is a disaster. ZoS didn't listen at all and now BGs are a complete cluster.

Cast times on Ultimates when you have constant lag in Cyrodil. Not really thought out.

Abilities, like Eclipse, that have NO counters. (I will also touch on how Eclipse was meant to make people back off - are you kidding me? That is what PvP is about but you introduce a skill counter to what PvP gameplay is about!)

The complete over-abundance of Dizzying Swing spam now in PvP.

The over-abundance of CCs now in PvP. It is over the top stupid right now. NBs coming out of cloak - fear - and back into cloak. Yeah, that was really needed. It is just outright annoying.

The stupid boost to Soul Trap that now has it in every single build in the game - whether stamina or magicka.

The over the top boost to Entropy.

The overabundance and absurd amount of DoTs now in the game. Few are using burst outside dizzying swing and most are just doting and blocking. Real fun. What genius thought this was a good idea?

Sorry, prior to this patch I have never, ever complained about balance changes. That is a fact of life in MMOs. But ZoS basically threw everything this game was about to the wind with this patch and homogenized all the classes (why don't we just get rid of them at this point).

Royalthought · August 2019

The update made it easier for zergs to stack DoTs and kill solo players.

The update made it more difficult for solo players to quickly kill individuals in a zerg.

Heatnix90 · August 2019

Wayshuba wrote: »

The complete over-abundance of Dizzying Swing spam now in PvP.

I see no problem with this. Glory to the Uppercut overlords and down with the proc set metas.

godchucknzilla · August 2019

After trying out the cast times I have to agree this is the single worst Scalebreaker change.

Smitch_59 · August 2019

I hate cast times.

Naftal · August 2019

I wouldn't mind a delay in the ultis, but the casting time locks me out of doing any actions, especially bar swapping, which feels super bad. I really hate dps parsing in pve with stamblade now.

Gilvoth · August 2019

you dont like the changes, but ...
personally i DO like this new patch and its changes, is for the better and makes the game more enjoyable for me.
right now the community is split on this new patch.
50% like it, 50% dont like it

Jayman1000 · August 2019

It gets much worse if you have some lag because you now cant change bar because then it wont get cast, so you have to sit through the lag until it casts. When it was actually instant you could cast it and change bar, even with lag it would still be cast, just after the lag was done.This ult cast time + wonderful eso lag that we have come to know and love is not the best combo.

eso_lags · August 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

you dont like the changes, but ...
personally i DO like this new patch and its changes, is for the better and makes the game more enjoyable for me.
right now the community is split on this new patch.
50% like it, 50% dont like it

I think thats a severe exaggeration. At least with the cast times.

Obviously it depends on what you do. As a solo/small scale pvp player this update is awful for me. The cast times are one thing, they make combat slower and clunky, but the damage is another. Today Im struggling to fight people Ive been killing with ease over the last couple nights.. Same people now, all of a sudden, hit like trucks. Goodbye medium.

Heatnix90 · August 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

you dont like the changes, but ...
personally i DO like this new patch and its changes, is for the better and makes the game more enjoyable for me.
right now the community is split on this new patch.
50% like it, 50% dont like it

There you go again pulling numbers out of thin air. Scroll up a bit and you'll see that out of a sample size on the forum, more than 80% of people were against cast times on ults.

One of the biggest draws of ESO's combat system is how fluid and fast-paced it is when everything works as intended. Nearly everyone who is against cast times agrees that slowing down combat is not a good direction to take the game.

Furthermore, ZOS' reasoning that there was "no counterplay" to combos is exactly what's wrong with today's developers. They're willing to dumb down gameplay and make it as forgiving as possible, all in the name of raking in money from casuals. It's a poisonous trend that ends up hurting games in the long run. Putting effort into learning the intricacies of a game should be rewarded, not looked down upon.

This is all on ZOS' end, because they provide little to no information about core gameplay mechanics in any way, shape, or form. Their tutorials are bare-bones as can be, and don't provide adequate information for newer players to succeed. This leads to said players getting frustrated, and rushing to the forums calling out for nerfs or the removal of core mechanics like weaving.

HEBREWHAMMERRR · August 2019

Absolutely terrible change. Further narrowing the skill gap between players who 1vX by not being able to ani cancel an ulti like wtf. The mindless dot spamming is bad enough.

eso_lags · August 2019

Heatnix90 wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

you dont like the changes, but ...
personally i DO like this new patch and its changes, is for the better and makes the game more enjoyable for me.
right now the community is split on this new patch.
50% like it, 50% dont like it

There you go again pulling numbers out of thin air. Scroll up a bit and you'll see that out of a sample size on the forum, more than 80% of people were against cast times on ults.

One of the biggest draws of ESO's combat system is how fluid and fast-paced it is when everything works as intended. Nearly everyone who is against cast times agrees that slowing down combat is not a good direction to take the game.

Furthermore, ZOS' reasoning that there was "no counterplay" to combos is exactly what's wrong with today's developers. They're willing to dumb down gameplay and make it as forgiving as possible, all in the name of raking in money from casuals. It's a poisonous trend that ends up hurting games in the long run. Putting effort into learning the intricacies of a game should be rewarded, not looked down upon.

This is all on ZOS' end, because they provide little to no information about core gameplay mechanics in any way, shape, or form. Their tutorials are bare-bones as can be, and don't provide adequate information for newer players to succeed. This leads to said players getting frustrated, and rushing to the forums calling out for nerfs or the removal of core mechanics like weaving.

Everyone gets a trophy. Thats what they want because they want to appeal to the majority because of $$. They dont want to encourage people to get better at the game. They want people to hit that ceiling, where they can just get by, and then stop trying to get better. They dont understand that many people want to have a challenge and get better. And those that dont can still get by just fine, theres no reason to dumb things down more than they have since the earlier days. And plus it seems that the majority dislike this change anyway, so they've failed again.

Eso is a numbers game. The more players will ALWAYS have the advantage (except when someone bombs them with VD). Why does it seem like zos is always trying to make it harder for people who play with smaller numbers? Thats what I dont get. Its something I have always wondered about this game, at least over the last couple years..

Having more people is already a HUGE advantage. There is absolutely no in game advantage to fighting outnumbered.. None. But they just keep making the advantage bigger and bigger when its not needed. Slowly killing small scale and making it so newer people wont even get the chance to experience something like solo..

And the most baffling part to me is that, from what I gather, damage is much higher this update. So they are getting people killed faster. Im not sure what the point was.

Mr_Walker · August 2019

Heatnix90 wrote: »

I've lost track of how many times I've eaten a stun while in the middle of a Soul Siphon cast to save either myself or my teammates.

Shocked beyond words any CC immunity in the game is stuffed.

Mr_Walker · August 2019

Heatnix90 wrote: »

Wayshuba wrote: »

The complete over-abundance of Dizzying Swing spam now in PvP.

I see no problem with this. Glory to the Uppercut overlords and down with the proc set metas.

Try landing a dswing with aussie lag.

BattleAxe · August 2019

Smooth combat I think people don’t quite comprehend what that means because animation canceling actually takes away from smooth combat sure it feels cool when 3-5 skills go off in 1 go. Has anyone actually realized animation canceling is the biggest cause for lag and performance issues in this game?

brandonv516 · August 2019

BattleAxe wrote: »

Smooth combat I think people don’t quite comprehend what that means because animation canceling actually takes away from smooth combat sure it feels cool when 3-5 skills go off in 1 go. Has anyone actually realized animation canceling is the biggest cause for lag and performance issues in this game?

Well clearly removing it from a few ultimates hasn't improved performance one bit. Dare we try to add a cast time to every skill and see how "good" the game will play? I think you'll put your foot in your mouth.

BattleAxe · August 2019

brandonv516 wrote: »

BattleAxe wrote: »

Smooth combat I think people don’t quite comprehend what that means because animation canceling actually takes away from smooth combat sure it feels cool when 3-5 skills go off in 1 go. Has anyone actually realized animation canceling is the biggest cause for lag and performance issues in this game?

Well clearly removing it from a few ultimates hasn't improved performance one bit. Dare we try to add a cast time to every skill and see how "good" the game will play? I think you'll put your foot in your mouth.

Clearly you have never been involved in game programming