From what I know animation canceling is not RIP but made more appealing looking, so that highend combat looks aesthetically pleasing.

Could be wrong though.

The rumors probably originated from the interview with Rich.Someone made a thread about it and it got people's hopes up for the removal of animation cancelling.
The thread is here. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/509515/rich-lambert-announced-a-new-combat-system/p1

Gina ended up posting this in the thread clarifying they were not in fact creating a whole new system. Instead on the PTS they were making the motions to go from casting a skill to blocking more fluid. Not removing animation cancelling itself, but making the whole thing look better.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that although this was a legitimate interview with Rich, some of the initial answers did not represent what was actually said. We reached out to the site to provide clarification, and they have since updated their article with responses that more accurately reflect what Rich had initially conveyed. To be clear, we are not currently planning to create a new combat system for ESO, and Spellcrafting isn’t currently on our future roadmap. As the most recent reply from the article states, our current priority is on game performance. Apologies for the confusion this caused.

Karmanorway wrote: »

Nah dont worry its just false rumors, otherwise my account would be up for sale to the highest bidder already ☺️

and I wouldn't say that publicly if I was going to sell an account.

Upside is my mouse buttons' lifespan gets an slight extension if that happens.

Always look on the bright side.

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

When they get rid of AC. The game will be taken more serious.

well said,
all truth.

Here we go with somebody stirring up the pot again. Hey man, lick that spoon while you're at it.

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

Siohwenoeht wrote: »

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

When they get rid of AC. The game will be taken more serious.

Yes, a serious case study on how to implode a MMO with 1 change. It will be referenced throughout the gaming world for years to come.

Ok, developers what this person is saying is that your combat is so bad, that a glitch is the only thing that makes your combat good. That shows just how skilled at game design you are.

Lol. I never said ANY part of the combat is bad. But remove ani-cancel and get stuck in animations while needing to block or dodge and see how frustrating the combat becomes /Smh

Gilvoth wrote: »

this patch has a change they made to block canceling, and it allows us to now see clearly the actual animations taking place when people attempt to block cancel.
i love this change and hope we see more of it.
it allows us a chance to react to the animations being canceled instead of watching instant flashes that are unable to even recognize what skill was cast.
with this new block changes taking place it is a step forward in the right direction to cancel animation canceling to the slightest degree, just enough to allow us a fair chance to see the actual animations taking place.
its a very welcomed change.

This is what we talk about when we say that this kind of change ruins ESO combat:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/509367/the-block-changes-should-be-reverted-combat-fluidity-has-been-severely-damaged#latest

We shall not cease from trying to kill skill-based combat and weaving. And the end of our patching will be to have the most effective attack be to spam 'space' for 5 minutes in every combat. And we shall know WoW-ESO for the first time.

Combat in ESO is really good; the problem is that in questing you melt everything with AoE spam and so you don´t need it. And in PvP you have lag etc to contend with. Which of course has little to do with animation cancelling.

This isn´t even a dead horse. It´s mincemeat by now.

Visual changes are fine. Personally I don´t quite see the virtue in it. By large people need to understand that you cannot react to insta-cast. The damage comes before the animation (often), and the animation is actually irrelevant. Get something like combat metrics and watch the live report window - the damage is applied (pretty much) instantly. (That´s how it´s worked so far anyway, I suppose they could make it so the damage is applied after 0.X seconds and you get a dodge/block window but I seriously doubt it´s a good idea).

EDIT: This is the entire idea behind ani cancel - the combat system is responsive and so you don´t have to wait an entire animation before you can use your next attack or skill. The only way it would be a "bug" or "toxic" would be if you could, say, use a cast time skill and then "hide" the animation and damage behind a block. Which you can´t. Some stuff was given a small delay IIRC, but in practice I don´t think it matters much.