Cast time on ultimates; worries about the future of ESO

zyk · September 2019

I don't mean to insult anyone by asking this, so please excuse me if I do. Does anyone actually prefer the cast times on ultimates? If so, why?

After a break of a few months, I started leveling an alt recently and I absolutely hate this change. I find it awkward, uninuitive and jarring. It disrupts the flow of combat for me.

I am very worried about the direction of the game. ESO's combat mechanics were fantastic. I think that if ZOS had a different focus, they could have been the basis of an amazing PVP game. Like, one of the best ever.

But I feel with the changes ZOS has made over the past couple of years, nothing is sacred to them and they are willing to change anything and everything, even if it's foundational. They backed off their attempt to add a cast time to shields, but went through with it on ults. Is the GCD going to be changed next? Are we going to see a 2 second GCD to appeal to a wider range of players?

Hashtag_ · September 2019

No they’re dog crap

Starlock · September 2019

Makes no difference to me one way or another, but I do think they should have them as a general rule.

Thanatos_inside · September 2019

In lag ult time takes 5 sec. ZOS wanted less laggs and they added more... Such irony

J2JMC · September 2019

You cannot in good faith try to argue that requiring a skill's animation to complete before the effect takes place is less intuitive than a skill's effect happening despite the animation being cancelled. That just doesn't make sense. Calling it clunky is a fair criticism. But no new player is going to intuitively think they can cancel a skill and have the damage still go through.

xeNNNNN · September 2019

Thanatos_inside wrote: »

In lag ult time takes 5 sec. ZOS wanted less laggs and they added more... Such irony

Pretty much this, if it was a game that had no issue with lag in their main PvP areas I'd have no problem but in an already lag infested game where PvP is almost unplayable at peak times in cyro (on EU) cast times are a horrible joke. Nothing like seeing your ult go off AFTER you die when you pressed it 5-6 seconds before. At least it went off as you died before at the very least now its just...yeah....

Potato_Salad · September 2019

Everybody hates the cast times and streamers + content creators fight to get rid of them.

This forum is delusional enough to find some snowflakes who will defend them and majority of great players are banned so dont look for a good answer here.

D0PAMINE · September 2019

I don't like cast times on anything personally. Just my opinion.

zyk · September 2019

J2JMC wrote: »

You cannot in good faith try to argue that requiring a skill's animation to complete before the effect takes place is less intuitive than a skill's effect happening despite the animation being cancelled. That just doesn't make sense. Calling it clunky is a fair criticism. But no new player is going to intuitively think they can cancel a skill and have the damage still go through.

What we call animation cancelling is actually the application of an animation priority system.

Almost every game features animation priority for at least movement. I think most people intuitively expect an animation priority system without realizing it. No one would want to play a game that would require your character to complete each footstep before changing direction.

ESO was designed to have fast-paced combat with subsecond GCDs and instant defenses like blocking and roll dodging. An animation priority system is *essential* for those things to work.

The real problem people have with ESO, IMO, isn't that it has an animation priority system. It's actually a combination of two factors. The extremely short GCDs that are measured in (hundreds of) milliseconds and the fact that pretty much everything is designed to ignore the GCD of light and heavy attacks.

Whether those are good or bad things is purely personal opinion. But this is a 5 year old game with an established playerbase. The time to change the system was while it was in beta. It's not fair to the players who enjoy it to change it now.

Further, there are a lot of misconceptions about animation cancelling. It does not allow for GCDs to be bypassed. That is, cancelling the animation of an ability doesn't make the GCD shorter.

But really, how is having a cast time for ultimates improving the game for anyone?

Gilvoth · September 2019

theres hundreds of threads about this topic, please use the search function and read those threads instead of makinmg new ones on the subject and youll realize why people Love the cast times on ultimtes. some dont like it and some do.

zyk · September 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

theres hundreds of threads about this topic, please use the search function and read those threads instead of makinmg new ones on the subject and youll realize why people Love the cast times on ultimtes. some dont like it and some do.

My post isn't only about that. I have read other threads, but they didn't really answer my question about what people actually prefer. I know many players think ESO combat is too fast, but what I am asking is how is it practically benefiting anyone?

As far as I can tell, highly skilled players are still crushing slower and less skilled players in PVP -- as they should -- and I can't see any benefit to PVE at all.

It seems that the only benefit is theoretical based on the misconception that GCDs can be bypassed through animation cancelling.

I don't think it has really fixed a problem for anyone at a practical level because the real problem is that ESO was designed to have fast paced combat compared to other MMOs which is what lead to me to post. I'm worried about what ZOS may next do to slow down the game.