Don't pay too much attention to the rabid BW fanboys. This is solid info on a legit concern, so thanks for the heads up on refunds. If lacking high quality textures doesn't matter to you, more power to ya. Just please don't clutter up a helpful thread telling people that they shouldn't want something that they have every reason to want.

I love it, the thread has is on what it's 3rd run through the forums, and the only dev response is "Umm... we'll look at it?" Maybe bioware doesn't know about the thread because they can't find it. Because theres no search function.

While he did not state what BW's stance on the subject is, aparantly Steven Reid did say that the BW team is looking into this. "Hey! It has been discussed internally, and we'll talk about it publicly soon. It's not a simple issue so we don't want to issue a quick, off-the-cuff response." -Steven Reid Don't know which way they are going to go with it but I think its encouraging that they are aware and looking into it.

The delay is not something that affects an ability at the individual level. When one ability goes off it does so correctly. So you are correct in saying that when the ability fires everything is goes off as it should. What we are discussing is when one ability causes the next to delay starting. Please watch the 2 videos and get an idea of what is being discussed. Its like if your casted shot has a cast time of 2 seconds and an animation time of 1 second, in reality your casted shot prevents other abilities for 3 seconds instead of 2. Again the videos clearly illustrate this.

I appreciate the input. PvP at the casual level can be totally enjoyable and you are correct in saying that it boiling down to a single heal is unlikely. At the very competitive level it comes down to a single play all the time, so I would be wary of overgeneralizing. I disagree on the point of waiting for animations to finish adding a level of complexity, and very strongly disagree on that counting as actual depth. Again thanks for the input. I want to ask if this is an example of why people want to wait for animations to finish? To add vagueness to gameplay? Surely there is a better reason than making it difficult to theorycraft. If not than end-game progression and competitive PvP are in trouble lol.

personally I agree. I don't think looks should ever be more important than gameplay. I would much rather have the abilities go off when the tooltip and game rules say it should. I feel like it makes the player feel more connected. Apparently there are some who would prefer the other way, and I wanted to hear from that side as well.

There is a game mechanic in Swtor that is causing a bit of a disagreement. This post is to gauge opinion on the topic not complain about it. The issue is illustrated perfectly in another post http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=95738 I want to know what the Swtor community thinks of the relative importance of visual style and game mechanics. There is no wrong answer but which is more important to you as a player? In swtor the way abilities are used places the importance on animation, and game mechanics come second. If you use an ability with a cast time and follow it immediately with an instant cast, the second spell will not be instant. It must wait for the animation of the first spell to finish. Here is a video illustration. In another MMO (World of Warcraft) the opposite approach is taken. Game mechanics come first, and animation second. In this game if a casted ability is followed immediately by an instant one, they both seem to fire simultaneously. This follows the game's "rules" but it completely skips the first spell's animation. Here is a video illustration. This is exactly the same situation handled differently by different games. I've seen a lot of complaining about this topic asking BW to fix it, but I'm pretty sure that this is how Swtor is intended to work. So I ask you this. For enjoying a game is it more important to look good or feel good. Should combat look like it flows perfectly or feel like it does. Do we want to see all the animations at the expense of gameplay? or do we want gameplay that is perfect at the expense of the animations?

For the love of all that is holy just make the animations clip each other. If I use an ability with a cast time followed by an instant cast I don't need to see both animations. Just make the instant cast animation clip the casted one and have them both go off immediately. I think this is a case of the Devs wanting the animation the trump game mechanics, but game mechanics absolutely must take priority over animation. I really want to play this instead of WoW but not if it doesn't play well.