Follow up on broken block cancelling

zDan · March 2020

I just want to highlight my buddy lobo's video where he's talking about block cancel
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC3o-CS678&t=311s

ZOS Wrote:
Overall, the core block behaviors are untouched between mechanics and cost.
Activating block while animating an ability or attack will now blend the animation more fluidly instead of completely obfuscating the attack. The core mechanics to block cancelling remain untouched, but now display more of the previous attack’s animation before your character animates the block.

Now I could be wrong here but when I try to block cancel a skill like vigor for instance, it simply doesn't work. The full animation plays out making it feel super clunky in combat.

I honestly can't tell if this is a bug or not because some skills like rally, shuffle, race against time, all can be block cancelled extremely smoothly in comparison. I would just like to know from anyone at ZOS whether or not this is intended as it's very confusing having some skills you're able to block cancel and some you can't! Overall this change really messes with the muscle memory of people that would animation cancel and is completely removing the skill gap between good and bad players.

I'd just love to know from anyone at ZOS whether it's simply a bug with some skills or if this is the road this games combat is heading down... @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BillE @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_AntonioP

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

Like I said in a similar post by another, Put a lighthouse level light on this. Couldn't agree more. It's one thing to say it "displays" more animations...but it's more like INSISTS to display it and punishes you via a slight delay if you try to force it by activating that next skill. Plenty of commentary on this everywhere but the jist is this was a sly way to end block canceling.

mav1234 · March 2020

I am wondering if Zenimax doesn't want us to 'block cancel' into faster skill use. It almost seems that they want 'block cancelling' to be a survival tool only, e.g. cancelling an animation to block to be able to block an attack. I'm not particularly happy about that since I am having to unlearn a lot of muscle memory... and it doesn't seem to apply universally the same to all skills.

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

mav1234 wrote: »

I am wondering if Zenimax doesn't want us to 'block cancel' into faster skill use. It almost seems that they want 'block cancelling' to be a survival tool only, e.g. cancelling an animation to block to be able to block an attack. I'm not particularly happy about that since I am having to unlearn a lot of muscle memory... and it doesn't seem to apply universally the same to all skills.

Even that remnant damage mitigation from block cancel is too delayed-on a reliable basis. And with forced animations, reactive game play is again whats been ruined and why so many have moved on. Getting rid of this in my mind heightened the "tank meta" and zerg play since it keeps many from 1vx. Being able to fast pace activate buffs and reactive attacks helped players at least offset the growing tank trend to some degree. Now with forced gameplay at a pace, many will go further into tank builds to adjust for passive mitigation since they can't actively address it via skills like before. It also will further encourage zergs and groups to absorb these classes. Not to say group play and so forth is bad. But it does FURTHER bottleneck game play and builds and "dumb down" overall combat. It went from a unique MMO with enjoyable combat (mostly when it worked and minimal lag) to now one step from turn based boring typical MMO adventure play. Plenty to do still in ESO and it isnt dead. Just...less fun and overall...less. Which is sad for us that have been around so many years and invested so much...only to see them unappreciatively ignore our pleas and warnings.

zDan · March 2020

I have also now just noticed that you can block cancel elude but not shuffle??? Surely this is a bug

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

zDan wrote: »

I have also now just noticed that you can block cancel elude but not shuffle??? Surely this is a bug

I wouldn't be surprised if its more like an oversight they'll aim to fix. I've ani canceled as second nature for years now and no skill cancels for me anymore. Barswap cancel, does still work for a single skill (any skill). And everyone I run with (Xbox) reports similarly that no skill cancels at all anymore. So the few i've seen post they can still cancel X but not Y are probably the outliers and soon even that wont work:/ Given the nerfs, cost increases ect over the years i'm pretty sure this latest change is their ultimate goal and drastically slowing down combat overall.

zDan · March 2020

TheRealCherokeee3 wrote: »

i'm pretty sure this latest change is their ultimate goal and drastically slowing down combat overall.

which is silly since this game is vastly appreciated for its fast and fluid combat, thats what draws me in

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

zDan wrote: »

TheRealCherokeee3 wrote: »

i'm pretty sure this latest change is their ultimate goal and drastically slowing down combat overall.

which is silly since this game is vastly appreciated for its fast and fluid combat, thats what draws me in

Yep!! agreed me too....and consequently drew away many after the change.

mav1234 · March 2020

zDan wrote: »

TheRealCherokeee3 wrote: »

i'm pretty sure this latest change is their ultimate goal and drastically slowing down combat overall.

which is silly since this game is vastly appreciated for its fast and fluid combat, thats what draws me in

same here, but the other end is that animation cancelling leads to a higher skill cap and to some extent, wasted resources spent on animations (by zos). frankly combat feels terrible allowing animations to finish. and I think that the direction they are going, it really feels like they want to get rid of animation cancelling. of course they don't actually tell us what they intend, so it is speculation on my part.

if they really want to prevent animation cancelling maybe they need to speed animations up substantially?

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

mav1234 wrote: »

zDan wrote: »

TheRealCherokeee3 wrote: »

i'm pretty sure this latest change is their ultimate goal and drastically slowing down combat overall.

which is silly since this game is vastly appreciated for its fast and fluid combat, thats what draws me in

same here, but the other end is that animation cancelling leads to a higher skill cap and to some extent, wasted resources spent on animations (by zos). frankly combat feels terrible allowing animations to finish. and I think that the direction they are going, it really feels like they want to get rid of animation cancelling. of course they don't actually tell us what they intend, so it is speculation on my part.

if they really want to prevent animation cancelling maybe they need to speed animations up substantially?

I guess. But one could say it's even worse a waste of resources to have TONS of sets in this game yet most people only use a fraction of them because of effectiveness. Or a waste to have so many skills yet only use a fraction of those due to nerfs and poor class design. And a large portion of the population would still use animation based gameplay to casually overland and RP and farm. The jist is having options. To ani cancel or not was our choice. Now, as with so many nerfs and degradation of gameplay, we've lost our option. And ani cancel was one of the few ways we could address the unbalancing issues. Now we're even more hemmed in and relegated to fall in line and loose the unique control we once had. As i've said elsewhere, not unplayable...just dull now, typical, and more encouraging to the zerg and homogeneous gameplay

Kadoin · March 2020

zDan wrote: »

I have also now just noticed that you can block cancel elude but not shuffle??? Surely this is a bug

Shuffle has a secondary effect and elude does not. The behavior between delays is consistent across all skills and morphs that have secondary effects vs. those that don't. You can't cancel or get the damaging effect of a skill until the server applies the secondary effect it seems.

This leads to situations like a bash that doesn't do anything, jabs that don't damage (because burning light), super delay in ferocious leap v. take flight, etc. - it looks like ZOS is simply ignoring that issue or maybe that is what they intend; either way it means you should slot no such skills on the live server or you are putting yourself at a massive disadvantage vs. those that are not slotting such skills and the game feels like it's "sticky" and your input simply is ignored when using any such skill or attempting to cancel them.

zDan · March 2020

Kadoin wrote: »

Shuffle has a secondary effect and elude does not. The behavior between delays is consistent across all skills and morphs that have secondary effects vs. those that don't. You can't cancel or get the damaging effect of a skill until the server applies th

Funny you should say that. I've just been told off a buddy of mine that shuffle can be block cancelled on his stamplar but not on his stamdk or stamsorc. So it is not consistent at all and seems to be completely random.

Edit: it seems that he was using elude on the stamplar, but I've yet to test a lot of different skills. I just want a straight answer from ZOS as the change seems really absurd.