[Ability Delay -- Character Responsiveness (This will make or break SW:TOR)]

A lot of players seem to depend solely on what the UI tells them, not on what the character is doing

 

Yes. UI and character animations give contradicting information. That's why it feels unresponsive. At least that's one reason for clunkiness. If UI telss me it's okay to execute a new skill now, it should be so. And same goes for animations. What is the point having all these nice cast bars, cooldowns and global cooldowns if you aren't supposed to trust them?

[Ability Delay -- Character Responsiveness (This will make or break SW:TOR)]

That still does not justify the fact we cannot stack ability. Even so, abilities cast repeatedly one after the other does not go fluidly has it should go. There are brief pauses between each cast. If the pauses are meant to be part of the animation then this responsiveness problem we are talking about here would be solved simply by editing the animations. Whats more of a problem is the delay in the START of the animation which you cannot explain by your theory. But as stated in the first post it has to do with the system or a mix of other factors(see the quote from BioWare first post).

 

All true. My proposition was only in the case if they didn't want to clip animations. And to wonder cast bars and GCD. I prefer clipping for a _good_ solution.

[Ability Delay -- Character Responsiveness (This will make or break SW:TOR)]

There is not one single shred of me that thinks the combat system is working exactly as intended...I think the mechanics themselves are fine and what BW wanted, but obviously they are way out of sync for a **** ton of people and/or the response is horrible when nothing happens at all if you hit a button (sometimes)

 

Fix the damn sync and make sure when i hit a button it works...what work BW has to do to make it happen? Not a single damn clue....But get err done

 

I think this "out of sync" is the problem. Or part of it. Game gives contradicting information with cast bars and GCD. 2,5 sec cast is not 2,5 sec cast, instants are not instants. There are hidden cast times in animations. That's why the game feels clunky. You think you can do something because cast bar is gone, but you still can't cast because the previous animation is still running.

 

Why there even are cast bars and GCD, when animations rule the game? Why didn't they make the cast bar showing the 4,7 sec actual cast (or 3,3 or 5,2 or whatever...) and lock those action bars totally during animations? That would have been clearer and the game wouldn't lie to you and make you believe you actually can hit another skill now. Wouldn't be balanced of course, but it isn't balanced now either.

[Ability Delay -- Character Responsiveness (This will make or break SW:TOR)]

Supporting. I don't usually post on forums, and I rarely complain. But this is a real issue. Bugs can and will be fixed, and I don't really give them too much attention. This responsiveness thingy is just bad design. And when people say "give it some time, wow had 7 years to do it". But WoW was _responsive_ from the beta as I recall. Yes, they have made it even better after that and polished it near perfection. And I mean responsiveness now, to remind you.

 

I can enjoy SWTOR while I am questing, so generally when I'm in no hurry and have plenty of time to do my things. But then in PvP (or in a tight spot in flashpoints) it's a whole different story. I try to do things with "a gut feeling" or with the information I get from cast bars. It just doesn't work. I have to play really slow to be sure everything goes off properly. For instance when I shoot some skill and after that I want to use my basic lazor-pewpew-attack. If I push the basic attack button too fast after casting the first skill, blaster shots won't go off at all. I get wrong or contradicting information!

 

And that's because cast bars and animations don't match. Real cast time is cast bar + animation. And oddly this isn't the case with every skill/spell combinations. For example Force lightning starts doing damage, even if the previous animation is still running. But this (thank you for providing this)

is just stupid.