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With the new animation reworks, would you like ZOS to remove animation cancelling?

NoireJin the Witchking
NoireJin the Witchking
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Was browsing the MMO subreddit it seems a lot of people hate the idea of animation cancelling and is the sole reason they dont play the game. I was surprised as i am so used to weaving but the more i think of it the more i think it might add to the "weight" of the combat if animation canceling/weaving was somehow looked at. What is the general consensus here?
Edited by NoireJin the Witchking on January 18, 2026 4:17AM

With the new animation reworks, would you like ZOS to remove animation cancelling? 137 votes

Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
32%
MuizerRexyCativaylo.krumoveb17_ESOAlpCloudtraderCave_CanemSheridanSilverBridesilky_softMrCray78NightwiishCerboltGiantFruitFlyldzlcs065Vonnegut2506ceruuleanTyrobagAlexanderDeLargeelocinsereRoztlin45 45 votes
No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
59%
Sythen88411SluggyflizomicaAvalonRangerTandorkargen27erdbeerheldxylenaDestaiValgar0rValarMorghulis1896KatahdinAylishfizl101Elric_665DestroyerPewnackReactWikter_BravomeekmikoGabrielzavadski 81 votes
It does not bother me.
8%
iyxSmokedpyrotechAliyavanaJohnRingowolfie1.0.spartaxoxobmnobleOsUfiDimorphosflaxeggCooperharley 11 votes
  • NoireJin the Witchking
    NoireJin the Witchking
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    Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
    i voted wrong btw, i would fall under it does not bother me
    Edited by NoireJin the Witchking on January 18, 2026 5:18PM
  • richo262
    richo262
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    It is a core component of combat now. If they remove animation cancelling they would need to totally revamp the entire combat system under the hood beyond just its animations. I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of removing animation cancelling if they reworked the whole system to something better. That would be a big undertaking and would result in the game feeling quite different, so they'd have to do it right.

    Furthermore, to simply remove animation cancelling as it is, it would probably result in classes that don't need to rely on light attacks as much, such as the Arcanist, becoming the only viable class for end game content.
    Edited by richo262 on January 18, 2026 4:28AM
  • React
    React
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Would instantly kill the game for those of us that are invested in endgame PVP/PVM. AC adds to the skill ceiling, which has already been brought down tremendously over the past 5 years.
    Edited by React on January 18, 2026 5:12AM
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  • ArchangelIsraphel
    ArchangelIsraphel
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Honestly, it would just be down right annoying to not have it.
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  • Munkfist
    Munkfist
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    It's one of the big reasons I play ESO over anything else. The combat is vastly more quickly paced, especially with the lack of cooldowns and weaving. I would definitely move on if such drastic changes happened.
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  • Desiato
    Desiato
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    The term is incredibly misunderstood by many players who believe it is somehow nefarious, but they can't explain how -- except obviously something called animation cancelling can't be good!!

    Many others use their grievance as a form of coping because they don't perform as well compared to other players as they like.

    Here's the ridiculous part: The issue doesn't actually exist.

    "Animation cancelling" does not improve performance. What dictates how quickly players can execute abilities are the various cooldowns. That's it. Executing abilities on cooldown while weaving will result in some animations being clipped, but the clipping is the consequence of performing well, not the other way around.

    Every player is constantly passively cancelling animations as part of fluid motion regardless of how well they are playing.

    Furthermore there are already lower-apm play styles, sets and mythic items for players who don't prefer weaving. No one has to play a 1 second gcd light attack weave play style if they don't want to.

    Edited by Desiato on January 18, 2026 7:42AM
    spending a year dead for tax reasons
  • Soarora
    Soarora
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    If it's the sole reason they don't play the game then they can just not do it. The option is there.
    [PC/NA] Dungeoneer (Tank/DPS), Retired Trialist, and amateur Battlegrounder (DPS) with a passion for The Elder Scrolls lore.
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  • Kappachi
    Kappachi
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    animation cancelling is part of the uniqueness of ESO. makes it feel like a fps almost and fuels the action combat feel.
  • Radiate77
    Radiate77
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Combat would need to speed up drastically if animation canceling was removed, I would say half of a second for each skill GCD.

    Problem is, that would make the combat look incredibly weird, so I just don’t see that trade-off ever happening.
  • Yudo
    Yudo
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    The weaving makes ESO fun and core part of the game.
    Besides, they need to make ESO 2.0 if you want to remove weaving due to massive mechanical shift and rebalance:

    Just to name a few:
    • Ulti gen
    • Glyph, poison, trait procs.
    • La specific skills
    • Proc sets
    • Resource returns

    If you cannot weave, LA will no longer exist because casting a skill is always better than LA.
    Even if you remove LA, animation cancel is possible with dodging and blocking too. Do you want to eliminate those as well?

    It just isn't happening, and it should not either.
    Edited by Yudo on January 18, 2026 11:03AM
  • tomfant
    tomfant
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    No need to destroy combat for everyone. If you wanna enjoy every animation in its full glory you are free to do so. Just go slow enough with light attacks, skill casts, bar swap, block, roll dodge, etc...

    Especially the latter two can be life savers. Imagine a heavy hit incoming but you can't react because the animation of that skill you just cast didn't complete yet. Nobody wants that.
  • soelslaev
    soelslaev
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    tomfant wrote: »
    Imagine a heavy hit incoming but you can't react because the animation of that skill you just cast didn't complete yet. Nobody wants that.

    False. Lots of people enjoyed playing Virtua Fighter and Soulcalibur.
  • xylena
    xylena
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Maybe the "yes" votes should try to live in the physical world without stopping or changing any of their movements once they begin. Begin turning your steering wheel to change lanes before you see the car in your blind spot? Haha too bad, can't change your movement, you crash now. /s
    PC/NA || Cyro/BGs || solo/smallscale || retired until Dagon brings a new dawn of PvP
  • Major_Mangle
    Major_Mangle
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    The best part about animation cancelling is that you don´t have to do it if you don´t want to. So it´s fine as it is.
    Ps4 EU 2016-2020
    PC/EU: 2020 -
  • Tandor
    Tandor
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    I never believe half of the "This minor irritant is why they left the game" claims. Chances are they didn't much like the game in the first place.
  • SkaiFaith
    SkaiFaith
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    Mmmh, maybe would have been better as private poll on this matter.
    A: "We, as humans, should respect and take care of each other like in a Co-op, not a PvP 🌸"
    B: "Many words. Words bad. Won't read. ⚔️"
  • Nightwiish
    Nightwiish
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    Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
    Absolutely get rid of it. It's a dumb mechanic and hurts overall population of the game more than it helps. Majority of players who are casual don't like the concept. It is outdated, looks janky af, and completely pointless.
    @loki220
    Nighwtiish - Stam DK
  • SilverBride
    SilverBride
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    Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
    Cancelling an animation should cancel the skill effect, too.
    PCNA
  • DestroyerPewnack
    DestroyerPewnack
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    They made heavy attack/one bar builds viable, introduced a mythic that shifts the majority of your damage to your abilities at the expense of your light attacks to make weaving forgiving, and the strongest class(es) in the game have channeled abilities so that you don't have to weave as much. How much more does the game have to be dumbed down until it's enough?
  • Soarora
    Soarora
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Cancelling an animation should cancel the skill effect, too.

    For the most part, it does. Block-cancelling channeled abilities is something people often do. Since it’s worded as animation cancelling / weaving, I assume OP means the light attack animation, which if I recall correctly, the second half of the animation is what gets cancelled.
    They made heavy attack/one bar builds viable, introduced a mythic that shifts the majority of your damage to your abilities at the expense of your light attacks to make weaving forgiving, and the strongest class(es) in the game have channeled abilities so that you don't have to weave as much. How much more does the game have to be dumbed down until it's enough?

    Not to mention that Relequen is multiple years out of meta at this point and ZOS has already decreased the power of light attacks both by making Empower only affect heavy attacks and by decreasing light attack damage.
    Edited by Soarora on January 18, 2026 5:35PM
    [PC/NA] Dungeoneer (Tank/DPS), Retired Trialist, and amateur Battlegrounder (DPS) with a passion for The Elder Scrolls lore.
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  • Dimorphos
    Dimorphos
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    It does not bother me.
    As long as it is smooth as silk the LA weaving is quite ok. So improving this is the key to happiness.

    Combat needs to be immersive to stay enjoyable and making it feel too clunky with restrictions or too long animations would make me quit the game TBH.

    Maybe changing LA and HA to be even more as tools to recover resources stamina/magicka rather than being main spam to do damage would be something I would suggest. So pressing any skill would have an inbuilt animation cancelling and we would work with global cooldowns which are then the same for everyone. This global cooldown should be on bar with the current way of animation cancelling. This might bring players closer together less dependent of your internet connection.

    Skills not firing/game not responding to every key press/mouse press is a known problem that they are working on to fix and if they manage to do this, I think most of us will be pleased.
  • meekmiko
    meekmiko
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Leave light attack weaving alone. :)

    If you don't want to do the light attack weave or don't like to light attack weave then don't do it. It's really as easy as that.
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  • StihlReign
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    It was a mistake. ZOS doesn't fix mistakes. The players suffer with them for years, even coming around to defending them and eventually proclaiming them features. Meanwhile the initial posts about the mistakes are incredible.
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  • Soarora
    Soarora
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    StihlReign wrote: »
    It was a mistake. ZOS doesn't fix mistakes. The players suffer with them for years, even coming around to defending them and eventually proclaiming them features. Meanwhile the initial posts about the mistakes are incredible.

    Ever hear of happy accidents? Just gotta paint it into a happy little tree.
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  • SilverBride
    SilverBride
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    Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
    Soarora wrote: »
    Cancelling an animation should cancel the skill effect, too.

    For the most part, it does. Block-cancelling channeled abilities is something people often do. Since it’s worded as animation cancelling / weaving, I assume OP means the light attack animation, which if I recall correctly, the second half of the animation is what gets cancelled.

    Let me rephrase that. Cancelling an animation should cancel any damage the skill would have given.
    Edited by SilverBride on January 18, 2026 6:11PM
    PCNA
  • AlexanderDeLarge
    AlexanderDeLarge
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    Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
    I would just like to point out that this is an extremely biased place to conduct this poll. The vast majority of players not playing the game hate weaving/animation cancels.

    Do they run the risk of losing their existing playerbase by overhauling the combat experience similar to what happened with Star Wars Galaxies? Sure, however, there's examples to the contrary too. Look at the way Digital Extremes responded to helicoptering and implemented the parkour system that exponentially increased the speed of their game. Imagine where that game would be if you had a bunch of people saying "don't touch it!" and the devs actually listened.

    Also quite frankly, I doubt this is the hill most of the community would die on. I get that some of you prefer the way it is now, but would you honestly quit without it?
  • Radiate77
    Radiate77
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    Skill expression is huge in any game, what would they add to replace Animation Canceling?

    How would that skill expression be preserved?
  • Morvan
    Morvan
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    No, keep animation cancelling/weaving
    The gameplay would be extremely stale and boring without weaving, they should in fact reinforce it with weaving animations for when you do it right. We're talking about one of the few aspects that make ESO's combat unique.

    Understand, this is an MMORPG, learning curve and skill gap are important for the health of the game, without unique features to be learned, your game just turn into another generic MMO on the market, I believe a huge majority of the endgame playerbase are only there because they like how combat feels, removing weaving would hurt that community a lot, without an endgame community your MMO will just wither away over time.

    Weaving is part of ESO, the only problem is how poorly communicated it is, ZOS should reinforce these mechanics to ensure new players are taught from the moment they interact with the tutorial.
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  • spartaxoxo
    spartaxoxo
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    It does not bother me.
    I think they have done a good job of bridging the gap between playstyles. It sounds like they want to continue that and offer a little more variety in slower playstyles in the future. So I very much doubt most people still leave over it.

    Since light attack weaving is still a form of skill expression in this game, I don't see a reason to delete it. But I also wouldn't care if they replaced it with something that also requires a higher degree of skill.

    Skill should be rewarded in this game, after all. There needs to be room for players to grow and for that growth to be rewarded.

    This game has lucked into weaving to offer that. And I don't see any issue with that at this point.
    Edited by spartaxoxo on January 18, 2026 10:06PM
  • silky_soft
    silky_soft
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    Yes, get rid of Animation cancelling/weaving
    I'd like a parallel system where all skills to be projectile or cast without target and animation locked. I can already shoot a light attack or a heavy attack into nothingness and if a target goes infront of my spam it's automatically locked on. Why cant I do the same with skills. I'd take the full animation as a trade off be able to wind up a melee attack before dropping in or running around a corner.

    Pretty biased with my high ping since the current system favors low ping with it's current who can get most server messages in the shortest frame.
    This recent update has made me sad. Sad for the game. Sad for the community. Sad to pay whatever it is now. I want the previous eso back.
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