[Kaon Under Siege]

I am happy about this, seems quite fun.

 

To the naysayers: We should be happy that Bioware has people working on new content as well as fixing the existing problems.

 

Ahh, so much good stuff.

[A quick update on Ability Delay]

Thanks. You guys are my homies.

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

Skill Queuing is not good, it impedes responsiveness unless it can be stopped by the mashing of a new ability.

 

You need to be able to react instantly to changes in environment within .5 seconds, no question about it.

 

I retract my statement. You are correct, in an ideal environment skill queuing is not needed at all.

 

On another note:

 

These devs really need to come out and do some damage control. They need to really touch on these major issues. They need to tell us that they understand what we're saying, and tell us what they plan to do about it. Truthfully, I am having fun with the game, but just like I have these forums open, I also have the EVE online forums open, because I am considering going back there instead. I know that no company is perfect, but when your forums are full of real criticisms, something needs to be done. I know that whenever I am interested in playing a new game, first thing I do is look at the general forum to see player consensus. I would bet money that many many people are coming in here, seeing all this negativity with no adequate response and running for the hills.

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

Button mashing should not be necessary, although in many games it is. When you're raiding and in a 2 or 3+ minute battle (not to mention the 10+ minute ones), you need to stay in cooldown at all times, make 100% of the time efficient. So, either a skill queuing system, or buttonmashing is needed. Skill queuing is sloppy in this game, but would be much better if the delays were fixed. Queuing + delays is very cumbersome.

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

Stopped reading after that statement. EQ1 did not fail...

 

I played EQ from vanilla through planes of power, raided hardcore for several years. The game was much slower paced, but there was none of this lag or ability delay. Timing was huge in EQ1. And the funny thing is, the game is still going after, what, 19 expansions? People are still subbing to it even though EQ2 is F2P.

 

If I could have anything in an MMO, it would be the experience I had in original EQ. Some of the experiences I had in that game were absolutely mind blowing, and nothing has ever come close since. Going to the plane of hate as a nekkid lvl54 rogue to get that damn book for my epic was one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had. Going on corpse runs after a wipe, and dragging 5 bodies back to the surface so we could regroup and try to kill the boss again. Oh boy. Nostalgia.

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

I just wanted to get a handle on the issues that are discussed here as we moved on quite quickly from pure ability 'delay' to discussing several issues that all clump together to make the characters feel unresponsive.

 

 

1. Client to server synchronisation (I cannot think of a better description ) - I believe this is the issue that causes general delay in spells/abilities be it mounting then moving only to find your mount dissapear or coming to a stop and finding you cannot cast untill you have stood still for 0.5 of a sec etc.

 

2. Animation priority - Having to wait for previous animations to complete before you are allowed to cast your next ability, animations not always clipping and interfering with rotations. Also animations are different between mirror classes, and effect when 'instant' abilities actually land.

 

3. Abilities off the GCD failing - I don't know if this is a seperate issue but abilities like Riposte sometimes will refuse to activate despite the ability becoming avalible and the player having resources to use it, somtimes act's like they are on the GCD after all. May tie in with 1 & 2.

 

Is this esentially the basic reasons why characters feel unresponsive? or is there more to it.

 

As far as i can see different classes will be effected differently by all of the above for example healers might struggle more with 1 than dps, or a dps smuggler may notice number 2 more than anything else.

 

I must say that even though I am your average player with an average reaction time i have noticed all of the above and believe characters won't feel responsive untill they are all looked at and fixed.

 

I never post in game forums but feel this is such a make or break issue for this game that i just had to, it'll only become more of an issue once the game moves from leveling mode into endgame mode.

 

Very good post and summation. Thanks for your hard work and dedication on this subject.

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

I have to admit this needs to be fixed first above all else.

 

It feels to me as if the NPC's actions have priority over mine.

 

I open fire on a group of NPC's, they react to my action then my action goes off. I noticed this back in beta playing a Bounty Hunter.

 

Now I'm playing my Jedi Guardian with Kira at my side I'll have an enemy almost killed and Kira will take the last blow because her actions seem to over right my own.

 

Hopefully BioWare can fix this before to long. Keep working on it please.

 

Yes, thank you for putting it into words.

 

1. I find a group of baddies

2. I take cover near them, they have not aggro'd me yet

3. I use an ability with a cast time

4. The second my button is pressed (my character is starting to 'aim) the mobs aggro

5. I take damage first/have my ability cancelled/countered despite "sneaking" up and attacking first.

 

Sorry to derail, but this is a big issue as well.

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

So you are suggesting There is not enough "power" for each server to run correctly when heavy populated?

 

How about warzones? how did warzones feel on the lower popualted server?

 

I'm just stating my experience. I did not have a chance to do any warzones or anything fun like that. I have only played a smuggler and agent each to lvl 9.

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

I installed TOR a couple days ago. I have a relatively high end PC, and was able to turn everything on max, and have almost no problems with FPS or this 'delay' you speak of. I was playing on a 'medium/standard' population server as a Smuggler.

 

But wait, what's this, some friends I find on FB already have a group going on another server, and they are Empire? So, I reroll as an Agent (same class, different name, abilities are same but animations are different).

 

As the Smuggler, I had no problems with the ability delay, but with the Agent it is very apparent with a lot of the abilities. Granted, I only made it to lvl 9 on each character, but it was a world of difference. My "Snipe" ability would finish the animation and deal the damage a full half second or so after the cast timer finished. Everything was very cumbersome and much more awkward to deal with.

 

I don't know if this is because I am playing on a more heavily populated server or something? Is it the difference between smuggler/agent? I did not make any changes whatsoever to my graphics settings or anything. I don't know.

 

Anyone played both smuggler and agent and noticed a difference?

 

Thanks guys,

I really do like the game and will keep playing

[The Sky is Not Falling]

I personally support the vast majority of what you have stated here. I think the game is quite fun, and I know that there are some talented people working hard to make it continue that way.

[Progression with one character]

I picked up the game last night. I must admit I was very frightful of all the negative stuff I have been reading, however I found that it has been fairly fun playing.

 

I started a smuggler, and I am about to ding 10. I did a ton of quests, and spent a good portion of the night playing with some random guy I met. I am excited to get my companion tonight and move further to other zones. I have some questions though, for those of you who have played more:

 

I am a very long time MMO player, and in every game so far I have chosen a 'main' and basically just played that character. I don't particularly like making alts, I prefer finding one class and really getting good and progressing as much as possible. I am seeing on the forums that some people are dinging 50 and automatically making new characters. I realize that the story is over for a particular class at lvl 50, although does everything else end as well? I know that with other MMO's it seems as though the game starts when you hit level cap, as that is where so much of the content is. Does this game have any of that type of thing? Or is that just going to be implemented in the future? Have the devs actually alluded to what is going to be done over the next three or four months as people start exhausting content?

 

I really want SWTOR to be a game that I can play for several years. I like developing a community/friends and putting a lot of work into a single character. It frightens me to think of hitting 50 and having no other options other than rerolling or quitting though.

 

Also: How populated are the servers you guys are playing on? I played for several hours last night, going from 1 to 9, and I only saw a handful of people. The population on my server is listed as standard or medium, it was a recommended server. Does the population grow once you get out of the newb zones? I play MMO's because I really like grouping and the social aspect of these games, and I hope that it becomes a larger portion of the game as time goes on.

 

Thanks everyone for reading, and have a wonderful day