I hear animation canceling is RIP

Juhasow · January 2020

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

i dont really understand why people want to keep this bug in the game - i do understand that people want to have an active, engaging and fun combat system in the game that rewards skill - but why not fix and replace animation cancelling into something that is not a bug but an intended feature and achieves the same purpose?

Like ?

Shantu · January 2020

jcm2606 wrote: »

JamieAubrey wrote: »

GOOD

Hopefully I wont die to the same skill 5x in a second

Literally impossible thanks to the GCD, but okay.

Shantu · January 2020

Aside from the fact that it isn't going away, I've always thought it a bit odd to add animation into content...and then design other content to remove it. If we're so taken with removing it to achieve the highest possible DSP, what good is the animation in the first place?

Conduit0 · January 2020

MaleAmazon wrote: »

"We shall not cease from trying to kill skill-based combat"

This is what it is really all about, the elimination of skill and effort as determining factors in success.

MaleAmazon · January 2020

I've always thought it a bit odd to add animation into content...and then design other content to remove it. If we're so taken with removing it to achieve the highest possible DSP, what good is the animation in the first place?

Well it´s done in many other games, like Starcraft 2, Age of Empires 3, etc...

I mean basically it comes down to this: The devs want their game to look good. So they have an animation that looks good and goes with the skill. Now, mechanically however, the damage needs to be checked at some point. So the game checks if the skill hits, and unless the recipient is dodging or blocking *at the time* the skill goes through, damage applied, done. You could have the damage be checked at the end of the animation, but then all animations would need to be of the same length pretty much. And a good looking animation can take over a second - which is enough time to react, and you wouldn´t hit anything with single-target. One solution would be to have extremely fast animations, which would make the game look like Elder Benny Hill Online - which come to think of it would be great

Also it is usually people who don´t understand ani cancel that are the loudest. Say you light attack weave. You fire off a light attack and then a skill. Really it´s only the light attack animation that´s cut short and it doesn´t look *that* weird. You get the full sound, too, so that isn´t cut out in the middle. And there might well be no virtue to cutting off the skill animation with block / bash / barswap since block stops regen, so usually you see the whole skill animation. LA+skill+bash is pretty much the most (unless you use ulti) you can squeeze in there though so I´d expect it for top-top-top notch PvP.

You also have the issue of responsiveness. The great thing about ESO is that when you dodge (I have it rebound to one key) you dodge *immediately*. Same with block. If you´ve played vMA or other tough content, you´ll know that it is sometimes essential to be able to perform defensive action on very, very short notice. At that time it is quite convenient that you are not 'locked' into a soul assault / radiant destruction /any other animation.

The alternative would be to either disallow this responsiveness, meaning you´d click block since there´s a giant fireball coming at you, but your character wouldn´t block but happily twirl a crossbow, do a magical rope-pull or whatever he or she now does. This would make for horrific combat. Or you ani cancel but don´t get the benefit (this has been suggested by forum idiots - I call them idiots since I haven´t finished my morning coffee. Once I have I´ll call them 'new players'.) Problem with this is that the result would be spamming of the shortest animation attack. Longer animations would probably not be worth it, at least not in PvP.

Really the current system is quite fine. I do think there could be more clear visual cues, but the ESO system is better than a lot of people think. I´ve played far too many games in my days and ESO combat is actually one of the very best I´ve seen. It is fast paced and responsive while looking good. It is just too bad this is mostly unnecessary since the PvE game is too easy.

Iccotak · January 2020

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

i dont really understand why people want to keep this bug in the game - i do understand that people want to have an active, engaging and fun combat system in the game that rewards skill - but why not fix and replace animation cancelling into something that is not a bug but an intended feature and achieves the same purpose?

That's what animation cancelling is

Paramedicus · January 2020

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I mean basically it comes down to this: The devs want their game to look good. So they have an animation that looks good and goes with the skill. Now, mechanically however, the damage needs to be checked at some point. So the game checks if the skill hits, and unless the recipient is dodging or blocking *at the time* the skill goes through, damage applied, done. You could have the damage be checked at the end of the animation, but then all animations would need to be of the same length pretty much. And a good looking animation can take over a second - which is enough time to react, and you wouldn´t hit anything with single-target. One solution would be to have extremely fast animations, which would make the game look like Elder Benny Hill Online - which come to think of it would be great

(...)

The alternative would be to either disallow this responsiveness, meaning you´d click block since there´s a giant fireball coming at you, but your character wouldn´t block but happily twirl a crossbow, do a magical rope-pull or whatever he or she now does. This would make for horrific combat. Or you ani cancel but don´t get the benefit (this has been suggested by forum idiots - I call them idiots since I haven´t finished my morning coffee. Once I have I´ll call them 'new players'.) Problem with this is that the result would be spamming of the shortest animation attack. Longer animations would probably not be worth it, at least not in PvP.

Actually, they could fix it pretty easly.

atm casting skills and damage registering are instant, so:

1) you cast skill
2) game checks if recipient can by hit (in target, not dodging etc.)
-> if yes then:
3) game registers damage on recipient.

There is no delay between these steps.

And it could look like this (introducing delay between hit checking and damage registering):

1) you cast skill
2) game checks if recipient can by hit (in target, not dodging etc.)
-> if yes then:
3) game waits for duration of skill animation and checks if skill is being canceled (by your block, your LA, your dodge)
-> if no then:
4) game registers damage on recipient.

To put it more clearly: using skill/block etc. would cancel not only animation, but also effects of skill you used. There would be no need to speed up animations (no benny hill effect) and you wouldn't experience any lag or much clunkiness in combat (because game would check if target can be hit instantly). The difference would be just when damage is being registered (i.e. 0.5s later for animation). This would fix stacking over 9000 hits in 1 second and would still let you react instantly on need (do i need to block now? OK, i'm blocking, but at expense of skill that was being casted).

There would be no incentive in using attacks with shortest animations only, but skills would have to be optimized by devs properly (longer animation = stronger skill). This would give more realistic feeling (i.e. if you are boxing irl, you know that your left jab won't be effective as cross or uppercut, but it is safer because quicker. Sometimes you will risk using longer punch tho, because it 'deals more damage').

This would be big change to combat tho, because now you would have to think which button you want to press more carefully. Combat would be bit slower, with less button smashing, but still dynamic and responsive (but more like real life, because we can't bend time and space irl (?)). This would also require lot of testing, because maybe not everything should cancel (i.e.maybe just blocks and dodges, or maybe skills used on LAs too?).

anyway, it s perfectly do-able, and would fix this silly mechanic with damage stacking we have now.

MaleAmazon · January 2020

1) you cast skill
2) game checks if recipient can by hit (in target, not dodging etc.)
-> if yes then:
3) game waits for duration of skill animation and checks if skill is being canceled (by your block, your LA, your dodge)
-> if no then:
4) game registers damage on recipient.

Well, that´s exactly what I wrote actually

and I´ll reiterate that in my experience this only results in shorter animation, "safer" skills being used. What you describe in terms of wind-up is what the heavy attack does (well, ok, it also restores resources which is weird but works well in-game.)

IIRC they did add a slight delay to ultis, I haven´t bothered to check what actual effect it has in-game.

And trust me what you describe wouldn´t "solve" anything. If anything it would make server lag have an even bigger impact on the game which nobody wants.

Stacking of hits has absolutely zero to do with ani cancel, that´s lag and server syncing. Don´t ask me exactly how it works - I´m a doctor, not a programmer! but it´s not ani cancel. The global cool-down applies - what you can squeeze in there is light attack + skill + bash/block/barswap. And some special skills like flying blade which bypass the GCD (but do so intentionally), and I am unsure about ultis since I´ve read stuff that might not be accurate (anyway they can´t be spammed). Period.

You cannot pack 10 skills into one second unless there is an exploit that reliably desyncs the GAME. Not animation cancelling.

Varana · January 2020

What this essentially boils down to is adding a cast time to each and every skill.

I'm not sure this will go over well with the audience.

eklhaftb16_ESO · January 2020

Conduit0 wrote: »

JamieAubrey wrote: »

GOOD

Hopefully I wont die to the same skill 5x in a second

Well then you should be perfectly happy since it is literally impossible to use more than one skill in a given second already even with animation canceling.

Just yesterday in Cyrodill while doing a quest on my crafting mule who doesn't carry impenetrable armor: I was hit by two visible attacks from the opponent before I died, but there were like five different attacks in my death log. I was standing still and watching, and it went literally like this: first hit, second hit, death; and then my death log was full of attacks that didn't "happen" at all.
So there's obviously something weird going on. Even in silly 70s kung-fu movies, one swing usually means one hit, not three.

Paramedicus · January 2020

MaleAmazon wrote: »

1) you cast skill
2) game checks if recipient can by hit (in target, not dodging etc.)
-> if yes then:
3) game waits for duration of skill animation and checks if skill is being canceled (by your block, your LA, your dodge)
-> if no then:
4) game registers damage on recipient.

Well, that´s exactly what I wrote actually and I´ll reiterate that in my experience this only results in shorter animation, "safer" skills being used. What you describe in terms of wind-up is what the heavy attack does (well, ok, it also restores resources which is weird but works well in-game.)

I edited my last post, to clarify more on this issue, i ll 'quote' myself below:

There would be no incentive in using attacks with shortest animations only, but skills would have to be optimized by devs properly (longer animation = stronger skill). This would give more realistic feeling (i.e. if you are boxing irl, you know that your left jab won't be effective as cross or uppercut, but it is safer because quicker. Sometimes you will risk using longer punch tho, because it 'deals more damage').

MaleAmazon wrote: »

And trust me what you describe wouldn´t "solve" anything. If anything it would make server lag have an even bigger impact on the game which nobody wants.

OK, but we are not talking about server lag. You can use this argument any time in any discussion. If were talking about -let's say- adding new class to game on how it should look and play like, you could be against it, because this would add more skill diveristy in game and potentially increasing load on servers. But if we want to go there: i could say that it would fix lag, because game would have more time to do calculations (thx to delay introduced). Since we don't know how it would affect performance, talking about it seems bit pointles to me tho.

MaleAmazon wrote: »

Stacking of hits has absolutely zero to do with ani cancel, that´s lag and server syncing. Don´t ask me exactly how it works - I´m a doctor, not a programmer! but it´s not ani cancel. The global cool-down applies - what you can squeeze in there is light attack + skill + bash/block/barswap. And some special skills like flying blade which bypass the GCD (but do so intentionally), and I am unsure about ultis since I´ve read stuff that might not be accurate (anyway they can´t be spammed). Period.

You cannot pack 10 skills into one second unless there is an exploit that reliably desyncs the GAME. Not animation cancelling.

Stacking damage wouldn't be possible anymore, because your activites would cancel each other. Now they don't and that's why you can stack damage (by stacking i mean by exploit but also by weaving). My proposition could potentialy fix sync exploit, because game wouldn't have to do so many calculations on same time to fit skills it in GCD window. Why? Becuse your activity i.e pressing block just after using ability, would let game 'forget' about that ability being ever used, and care about applying block properly.

Varana wrote: »

What this essentially boils down to is adding a cast time to each and every skill.

I'm not sure this will go over well with the audience.

Yes, you can say that, but additional fixes would have to be introduced (like longer animation = stronger skill etc; or making some skills animations longer/shorter to balance stuff out).
I know that some people who spent tons of time learning weaving wouldn't be too happy (people generally arent happy when loosing anything) but at least combat would more intuitive and less buggy - and you still would need your reflexes and game-knowledge to play it good. Pro-play0rs would still have lotta space to improve and shine (i.e how fast to use block after pressing ability button, so used ability won't be canceled). So it wouldn't make combat easy and dull, just bit different.

ESO combat is counter-intuitive and buggy. If you play, lets say, FPS game, you know that even if sniper rifle is the strongest weapon, it's gonna be less reliable on short distances (becuase of slow shoting speed or 'cast time' if we want to stick with ESO terms. If you pick weapon with 'fast cast time' like SMG or shotgun, then you know it is safer to use it on closer distances but not so good at long range. There is intuitive logic present in that combat system. What logic stands behind ESO system? Smash 'em buttons? Git gut in PVE by learning one trick only (weaving)? In PVP lag your oponent to death?

Kalante · January 2020

All I can say is regardless of animation canceling or not I will still ROFL at the combat team. Their gear is set to nerf. How about you guys nerf blocking and healing? I don't know if you've noticed but pvp is currently PLEAGUED by it. Instead you guys keep nerfing damage MORE AND MORE AND MORE.

Conduit0 · January 2020

Paramedicus wrote: »

Stacking damage wouldn't be possible anymore, because your activites would cancel each other.

Stacking damage is already impossible because you can not violate the global cooldown. You're attempting to invent a problem in order to push your solution.

eklhaftb16_ESO wrote: »

Just yesterday in Cyrodill while doing a quest on my crafting mule who doesn't carry impenetrable armor: I was hit by two visible attacks from the opponent before I died, but there were like five different attacks in my death log. I was standing still and watching, and it went literally like this: first hit, second hit, death; and then my death log was full of attacks that didn't "happen" at all.
So there's obviously something weird going on. Even in silly 70s kung-fu movies, one swing usually means one hit, not three.

Maybe you should learn how to actually read a death recap because there are plenty of effects that can trigger on a single attack that will all show up in the recap. A weapon glyph/poison going off, proccing a status effect, an armor proc going off, an ability that deals upfront damage and a dot will show up as two effects instead of one, I could go on.

Paramedicus · January 2020

Conduit0 wrote: »

Paramedicus wrote: »

Stacking damage wouldn't be possible anymore, because your activites would cancel each other.

Stacking damage is already impossible because you can not violate the global cooldown. You're attempting to invent a problem in order to push your solution.

Stacking damage is possible, because you can weave LA/HA with abilites. I'm not talking about stacking damage from using abilites only.

Kalante wrote: »

All I can say is regardless of animation canceling or not I will still ROFL at the combat team. Their gear is set to nerf. How about you guys nerf blocking and healing? I don't know if you've noticed but pvp is currently PLEAGUED by it. Instead you guys keep nerfing damage MORE AND MORE AND MORE.

Dunno if you are talking about what i wrote, but my proposition would affect all abilites, not just damage.

TheFM · January 2020

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.

Totally agree. AC has been a plague on this game for a while, they could speed up animations to reward cancellation, as long as you can see what's happening it's ok, how else are you supposed to react?

TheFM · January 2020

Sorbin wrote: »

I'm 100% out if animation cancelling goes. The ability to be fluid and weave your own combos together is what makes this game stand out. If I wanted sluggish combat I'd play FFXIV.

Weaving =\= ani cancelling

TheFM · January 2020

Conduit0 wrote: »

MaleAmazon wrote: »

"We shall not cease from trying to kill skill-based combat"

This is what it is really all about, the elimination of skill and effort as determining factors in success.

So in reactive gameplay explain to me how one reacts to something they cannot see?

I'll wait

Ermiq · January 2020

LOL.
As usual, some people think that the removal of mindless LA weaving routine will dumb the combat system down. Others think that the removal will somehow remove the ability to swiftly barswap/block. Others think that the totally ping depending combat is fine in a MMORPG.
ZOS, I know, you'll do it right. Don't listen to the crowd, they just don't understand what they're talking about.

TheFM · January 2020

Ermiq wrote: »

LOL.
As usual, some people think that the removal of mindless routine LA weaving will dump the combat system down. Others think that the removal will remove the ability to swiftly barswap/block. Others think that totally ping depending combat is fine in MMORPG.
ZOS, I know, you'll do it right. Don't listen to the crowd, they just don't understand what they're talking about.

Except we aren't talking about weaving. Ani cancelling is not weaving

MajBludd · January 2020

Ani cancel is not going anywhere and no spellcrafting either according to Gina.
Have a good day

rager82b14_ESO · January 2020

MajBludd wrote: »

Ani cancel is not going anywhere and no spellcrafting either according to Gina.
Have a good day

They said that before and was wrong, and they are wrong now.

It will go away one day.

ForzaRammer · January 2020

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

i dont really understand why people want to keep this bug in the game - i do understand that people want to have an active, engaging and fun combat system in the game that rewards skill - but why not fix and replace animation cancelling into something that is not a bug but an intended feature and achieves the same purpose?

Because it is a feature not a bug. Do you not realize it is a standard feature in moba?
What exactly is wrong with zos design combat just like the most popular game at the time?
If you don't like this modern age standard feature, you can try those turn based garbo korean stuff.

ForzaRammer · January 2020

rager82b14_ESO wrote: »

MajBludd wrote: »

Ani cancel is not going anywhere and no spellcrafting either according to Gina.
Have a good day

They said that before and was wrong, and they are wrong now.

It will go away one day.

In your dreams maybe, that require them to rewrite way too much code

Brandathorbel · January 2020

Those that keep saying it was intended. Sorry you are wrong. They specifically said it wasn't but being it was none a regular thing people did they decided to ignore and make it part of the game.
I would like to see it go but I have noticed necro and many of their new spammables do t seem to play as well with cancelling compared to others

ku5h · January 2020

JamieAubrey wrote: »

GOOD

Hopefully I wont die to the same skill 5x in a second

1000+pc and still thinking you can fire off more then one skill per second.

idk · January 2020

Paramedicus wrote: »

MaleAmazon wrote: »

I mean basically it comes down to this: The devs want their game to look good. So they have an animation that looks good and goes with the skill. Now, mechanically however, the damage needs to be checked at some point. So the game checks if the skill hits, and unless the recipient is dodging or blocking *at the time* the skill goes through, damage applied, done. You could have the damage be checked at the end of the animation, but then all animations would need to be of the same length pretty much. And a good looking animation can take over a second - which is enough time to react, and you wouldn´t hit anything with single-target. One solution would be to have extremely fast animations, which would make the game look like Elder Benny Hill Online - which come to think of it would be great

(...)

The alternative would be to either disallow this responsiveness, meaning you´d click block since there´s a giant fireball coming at you, but your character wouldn´t block but happily twirl a crossbow, do a magical rope-pull or whatever he or she now does. This would make for horrific combat. Or you ani cancel but don´t get the benefit (this has been suggested by forum idiots - I call them idiots since I haven´t finished my morning coffee. Once I have I´ll call them 'new players'.) Problem with this is that the result would be spamming of the shortest animation attack. Longer animations would probably not be worth it, at least not in PvP.

Actually, they could fix it pretty easly.

atm casting skills and damage registering are instant, so:

1) you cast skill
2) game checks if recipient can by hit (in target, not dodging etc.)
-> if yes then:
3) game registers damage on recipient.

There is no delay between these steps.

And it could look like this (introducing delay between hit checking and damage registering):

1) you cast skill
2) game checks if recipient can by hit (in target, not dodging etc.)
-> if yes then:
3) game waits for duration of skill animation and checks if skill is being canceled (by your block, your LA, your dodge)
-> if no then:
4) game registers damage on recipient.

To put it more clearly: using skill/block etc. would cancel not only animation, but also effects of skill you used. There would be no need to speed up animations (no benny hill effect) and you wouldn't experience any lag or much clunkiness in combat (because game would check if target can be hit instantly). The difference would be just when damage is being registered (i.e. 0.5s later for animation). This would fix stacking over 9000 hits in 1 second and would still let you react instantly on need (do i need to block now? OK, i'm blocking, but at expense of skill that was being casted).

There would be no incentive in using attacks with shortest animations only, but skills would have to be optimized by devs properly (longer animation = stronger skill). This would give more realistic feeling (i.e. if you are boxing irl, you know that your left jab won't be effective as cross or uppercut, but it is safer because quicker. Sometimes you will risk using longer punch tho, because it 'deals more damage').

This would be big change to combat tho, because now you would have to think which button you want to press more carefully. Combat would be bit slower, with less button smashing, but still dynamic and responsive (but more like real life, because we can't bend time and space irl (?)). This would also require lot of testing, because maybe not everything should cancel (i.e.maybe just blocks and dodges, or maybe skills used on LAs too?).

anyway, it s perfectly do-able, and would fix this silly mechanic with damage stacking we have now.

The game already has a check on the use of each skill. There is a GCD tied to each skill that must pass for the skill to do damage.

In other words, what you say happens is wrong. It misses that important element and as such paints a false picture. It also means what you say it could be is irrelevant as there is already the check/control in the current system and no reason to consider the suggestion. Especially since it is based on a false premise.

Gilvoth · January 2020

there is nothing wrong with light attack canceling, thats not what we are discussing.
we are talking about canceling ALL skills to the point that we are not able to see any animations AT ALL.
light attack animation canceling is fine and works great.
we need the ability to have counterplay.
no one likes dying instantly when we had no idea we were even in a fight.

woe · January 2020

People don't read the wording of posts and then it becomes a giant game of telephone where every single thing is getting nerfed and did you hear??? THEY'RE DELETING ALL SORCS NOW TOO!!!!

nejcn001 · January 2020

TheFM wrote: »

Sorbin wrote: »

I'm 100% out if animation cancelling goes. The ability to be fluid and weave your own combos together is what makes this game stand out. If I wanted sluggish combat I'd play FFXIV.

Weaving =\= ani cancelling

You cancel animation of light attack?

idk · January 2020

deflorate wrote: »

People don't read the wording of posts and then it becomes a giant game of telephone where every single thing is getting nerfed and did you hear??? THEY'RE DELETING ALL SORCS NOW TOO!!!!

Yep.

Unfortunately the OP of the\at thread never updated the OP when the article was edited, and the noted it in a later post, to reflect the correct information. As such it has clearly spread false information. Sad but some seem to not care. Still always entertaining to see comments trying to suggest AC is a bug or broken aspect of the game.