Xcore
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Now THAT...is an entirely different thing than just an animation going off a bit late. That's stuff not going off in the proper order on the server. Somehow.
That needs fixed.
Engine Code is my fear...
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The knockback IS a CC: the target is disabled for a semi-predictable period of time: the time it's flying through the air, laying on the ground, and then getting back up it can't do anything. The only unpredictable element comes from the target possibly having to move back into the position it was blown out of before it can do anything.
And honestly it was more like a 0.2 second delay at max: whoever's controlling the smuggler was spam-clicking the grenade and it went off on only his second click after the GCD finished. It's actually very difficult to get the video to stop on a frame between the second and third click, because there's very little delay between them.
And because of the fact that the damage and debuff were applied at almost the same time the animation would've finished had it started instantly after the button-press was accepted AND basically simultaneous with when the animation actually started, it's actually impossible to say which of those two events is responsible for it being applied at that time.
You'd need a test where the two different times involved didn't line up in order to be able to determine if it was triggered by the animation (and thus delayed by the initial animation as you claim), or if it simply was applied when it would've been normally.
Additionally: the delay in activating the ability isn't caused by the charged burst animation: the charged burst animation is ALSO delayed by exactly the same amount of time.
0.2 delay is un-acceptable, almost the same time is un-acceptable... etc. Must be perfect, must be 100% sync'd, must be 100% instant (if its supposed to be) etc.
Otherwise the game will always feel "sluggish" and "Clunky" and never fulfill its potential in subscribers. Absolute, 100%, precision smooth gameplay is greater than any and every other aspect in a "combat" oriented game.
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The effect/damage went off about 1 second after the ability was activated: approximately the same amount of time it took the grenade animation to complete (including flight time!) once it started.
Meaning the damage and effect both popped up on the UI at almost the exact same time the grenade would've hit the target had the animation gone off the instant the button was pushed.
Additionally, the target was frozen in place even before it was hit by the grenade, implying that the full CC effect was applied starting at the same time it would've been if the grenade anim had started instantly.
In Short: The UI reflected exactly what would've happened if you had it the way you wanted it.
What are you talking about? the grenade has no CC effect, only a knockback... the target didn't get knocked back. Also, what I'm saying is, the delay is the fact that the player was not able to execute the grenade ability at all, until the blaster bolts animation finished.
There was a .5+ sec delay between the cast bar of previous ability and GCD concluding and the next ability triggering its effect/animation whatever you want to call it. The ability itself was delayed... all aspects of it.
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Is it necessary for players to rant such vile obscenities towards BW in order to get these fixes? Or is it possible that we could just calmly state our frustrations here on these forums? What do you all think?
What? What rant are you referring to?
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No that's the thing, see. the UI? The UI is fine. It instantly provides feedback and responses to the things you do.
The ANIMATIONS are sluggish. There's a difference.
In fact the UI's so responsive that you can use it to tell when something didn't work right!
In fact, it being so responsive is the only reason the subtle delays are even POSSIBLE to find.
I see what you mean, but it isn't just animations that are delayed or off its the abilities themselves. Case in point the Smuggler Grenade, the ability effect/damage, everything was off... including animation.
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Without hesitation, I would pick fluid controls over fluid animations.
It's not even a contest.
It doesn't require any focus for controls to feel sluggish. The time it takes for my character to change directions is noticeable. The wait for the crew skill window is noticeable. The ability delay is noticeable.
The game feels sluggish even when I'm hanging out in Imperial Fleet working on crafting.
Correct on each point.
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And the Lying Character Sheet, so that you needed a spreadsheet to figure out what your actual stats were. Real useable, indeed...
And from what I've seen, the BUG delays are on the order of 0.2 seconds or so, and the animation delays are a maximum of about 1 second.
Are you gonna sit here and try to tell me that having the character throw a grenade with the same hand he's presently shooting a blaster with, resulting in the bolts coming out of the barrel at a 90 degree angle because it's pointing straight up as the arm goes over the top, is better than it just waiting a second to play it smoothly... Or better yet, just SKIPPING the shooting, or having the grenade fly out of the character's unmoving right hand... that's better than holding it off for a second and playing it right?
Seriously, as I've said 6.7 million times (and will say 6.7 million more until the idea gets through), the UI is already providing full, correct, instant feedback, well more than enough to properly play the game with.
If you're focusing so hard that you're noticing delays of a 0.2 seconds, why the heck are you even *looking* at your character? And if you *are* looking at your character, why do you want them to make the animations look terrible?
I mean that, literally TERRIBLE.
World of Warcraft has one of the worst animation systems I have seen in any game since I got my NES in 1989. Seriously.
This entire thread is centered around the fact that the UI is not at all in sync and doing the job of provide the necessary feedback. Also, 0.2 sec delay in PvP is big, 1 sec delay is incredible to the point of cancel sub... for most.
Green: clearly WoW is unsuccessful and no-one should follow their model of delivering crisp, responsive combat? Clearly Warhammer Online did a great job with that, they even had collision detection, can't get more real than that!
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Nice to hear that, but can you guys do something about the actual performance of the client ? I have an i5-2500k with 8gb ram and Radeon 6970 and the game STILL stutters, especially in warzones where is basically non playable on high settings at 1920/1080. I imagine that my computer shouldnt have an issue, yet it has. For the record I am playing BF3 on ultra with very stable frame rates and no stutter at all.
Also I would like to hear the reason why the shadows of all static objects (basically whole world) are rendered in real time by the client and are not pre-rendered like in WoW on lowest shadow setting ? WoW has a reason indeed to render world shadows - since it has night/day cycle, you guys dont. I sincerely couldnt believe my eyes when I found out this gem, its a basic mistake that shouldnt ever go live.
One thing is sure, without serious (and mind you, quick) performance optimisations, Swtor will not live much. I want to believe that the dev team is aware of this and they are doing their best to fix the performance before its too late. The game has huge potential, its a pitty to not fix it.
Listen just because a Dev is posting in "a" thread of a "particular" topic doesn't mean to throw at them all your concerns... its chaos if everyone does this. Please stick to the OP of this topic...
P.S.: Hey Mr. Reid, I'd like more colour options for the slave bikini.... tyvm! <-- Concern!!1
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Noticeable but not meaningful or harmful.
Personally I find the absurdity of the character apparently violating the laws of physics in order to pantomime the mechanics a bit better extremely annoying and immersion breaking.
Let's be honest here, WoW is not perfect, and never has been. In fact in many ways it's gotten WORSE as they've obviously been pulling development resources out of it for other projects (It started becoming apparent in Wrath, but even pre-release it was pretty obvious it had been increased DRAMATICALLY for Cataclysm.) It's been better than any alternative by far, but it could still be much, much better.
There's a reason I was sick of it partway through Burning Crusade, and only managed to stick around through Wrath because of my friends. When Cataclysm was announced, it killed my desire to play the game anymore to the point that even my guild of 10 years wasn't enough inducement to stay.
Part of that reason was the growing emphasis being placed on making the game cater more to the hardcore ubergamer minority. It felt very much like everyone else was being ignored as the game was pushed more and more towards being designed almost exclusively for the very small portion of people at the very top, while the rest of us were left behind.
Changing the animations to work in such an unrealistic fashion would be a repetition of this, and would, if it happened right now, be the very first thing that would cause me to even remotely consider cancelling.
And let's not forget: WoW is a very old game. It's no longer innovative. It's actually on the DECLINE by Blizzard's own admission. Do we really want to emulate a game that's LOSING customers that closely? Could it maybe be that more and more people are getting tired of it, and that trying to copy it too closely will just result in people that are sick of WoW deciding that this looks too similar to be worth trying?
As long as the mechanics work properly, and the animations don't interfere with them, there's absolutely no reason to do it that way in the first place. Frankly, having animations that look realistic, that fire properly and look good, is going to be much more attractive to casual players (by far the majority), than the jerky, broken stutter-fest that you're advocating.
The only people who would appreciate it would be a small minority of people who think they're better than everyone else because they're 'hardcore'. Frankly, anyone 'hardcore' can do perfectly fine with the current system once the various bugs are knocked out of it. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or admitting that they're not nearly as skilled as they'd like you to think.
What's REALLY happening is that it's different, it's unfamiliar, and you don't like the change, simply because it IS a change. So you want it degraded so that it's more 'familiar'.
When you see the animation going off and the damage being dealt makes no difference to the combat itself, and does not affect the ability to have 'tightly tuned' encounters. The only exception is things which are critical cues that require a specific response...which can be designed in such a way that they layer on top of animations so seamlessly that they don't HAVE to delay them or be delayed by them. The bonus boss of Esseles is a good example: the very clear icon shown around his feet before he uses his point blank AOE is perfectly capable of being displayed regardless of whatever else he's doing.
I'd rather see the existing system refined than have it be thrown out to copy an ancient game that I stopped playing just a month shy of three years ago.
This is 2012, there's no reason for the animations to look that crappy. But then, we are talking about the company that once vastly overhauled a game's mechanics and didn't bother to update the character sheet to reflect the changes, causing it to display dramatically inaccurate information...
Your entire thesis here on WoW's flaws and imminent and continous decline are wrong and misguided by your personal opinion to favor realism in animation etc. I don't deny that WoW is in decline but for absolutely none of the reasons listed by you.
The GREEN part is the only section that most certainly is correct and I agree with. Having said that, Responsiveness is not something that needs to be ignored, it needs to be copied and refined if possible...
I don't care about the animations being realistic or not, if they can accomplish good animation realism and immersion thats great, and preferable. However NEVER should ANYTHING in a combat based game > Gameplay = Responsiveness/Avatar Connection.
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They have to be careful not to change to much with the combat animations etc, they can improve responsiveness without speeding up the actual abilities.
If they make more stuff hit instantly, faster, or have it's own GCD then you would be able to do far to much burst damage in pvp, you shouldn't be able to instagib other players even if you outnumber them. This is how blizzard broke wow's pvp.
Negative, this is completely wrong. It has nothing to do with speeding up animations or combat... also, Blizzard never broke WoW's PvP through increased burst.
Burst was only a bi-product of resilience... wait until everyone at 50 has expertise and you will come to know burst again.
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Thanks man
I have hope, somewhat renewed and I have a little project that perhaps will help showcase further and help Bioware understand/fix the issue further... we'll see.
Thanks again for the kind words!
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Posting to rate...
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I'm glad you had a chuckle but clearly you do not understand.
The instant cast should be able to go off the Istant the other cast is completed. That's the whole idea.
Cast finished, can start a new cast, if it's an insist cast it goes off Instantly after the last.
Get it now?
Flight time for the spell should be the only delay not some lame animation. It's nice the first few times to see the animation but it wears off.
The cast timer needs to be longer then the animation or the spells need to be able to clip the animation.
This is correct, instant means "instantly" begin, once GCD is completed as well as previous cast/channel is completed. Absolute Instant, .1 delay is too long and it is in fact noticeable in intense environments.
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The problem I always had with WoW's 'level of response' is that it was so mixed. Animations didn't play fluidly, and sometimes didn't even have all their components coordinated. Every time you seriously got going it was a crapshoot how badly broken up it was going to be.
Frankly, to my mind that's just another kind of 'unresponsiveness'. Having my character suddenly warp from one position into a completely different one to have the animations 'keep up' is incredibly immersion breaking to me.
My Mage's Fire blast in particular was bad about this: As an instant cast spell, it didn't have the wind-up time so many others did. So the hit effect would appear instantly, along with the damage, and the glowing hands. Problem was, a fair portion of the time the character's hands were still at her sides, or otherwise not aligned with the normal casting position. She'd then suddenly jump at what appeared to be nearly infinite velocity to the 'finished casting' pose about half a second after the cast.
It looked even worse than if the whole thing had just gone off a tiny bit late.
So I wholly disagree about the animations needing to be just as responsive as in WoW: The animations in WoW were terrible. They looked aweful because they were constantly being broken in an effort to 'keep up'.
We don't need that kind of 'responsiveness'. As long as the UI's accurate and responsive the rest is just fluff, and as fluff it not looking like crap is a high priority.
Not to mention I suspect that fixing the client sync issues will probably vastly improve the animation delays as well.
Don't yet to pick an argument please, at no point did I say Animations need to be as In WoW. SW:TOR animations themselves are superior and I agree on your point to WoWs.
However, the Character Responsiveness MUST meet or exceed WoWs. This is gameplay. Animations are irrelevant largely and I have never argued for or against them being similar to WoWs.
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This is where you're losing me. I agree that I want the combat system to be solid, but replicating WoW probably isn't even what they want to do. You need to have some respect for varying combat systems, not every MMO that's ever made is going to try to copy WoW's combat engine exactly, if it did then what would be the point in making more than 1 MMO?
Your militant disregard for a varied combat system is putting me off your entire argument, which is sad because when I first read it I thought it was reasonably well founded. If you want the game to be like WoW, play WoW.
If you want to play SW:TOR, you need to respect that the combat system is different, and it's more than likely never going to be the same as in WoW.
Yes I am militant because after 5 threads of...
1) I'm not having this problem...
2) It's your system/isp
3) 0.0 fixes It
4) Don't mash buttons
5) It's not WoW
I have zero patience for ignorance. Listen, I don't want this to be WoW, I don't want elves, I dont want LFD, I don't want Onyxia. However, I and every sane gamer wants responsiveness in character control. WoW has mastered this better than any MMO.
You are confusing my argument, I am not saying faster combat, lower GCD to 1sec etc. That'd WoW combat. I am saying I want more precise and refined responsiveness, at least on par with WoW as Its the market standard or better.
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I'm sorry but it's here that you're losing me. Unless I have some evidence that you're a programmer or game developer who knows what he's talking about, I'm going to have to say that the above just sounds like voodoo.
The problem is there but some abilities manifest it "faintly or not at all"????
"Even abilities that appear perfectly smooth suffer this issue, it's merely masked well"???
How the hell would you know these kinds of things without analytical tools that go well beyond YouTube?
Kudos to you for raising a point persistently enough so that some genuine problems have been flagged and are going to be fixed, but frankly some of the above sounds rather Kafkaesque.
Nothing I posted is contradictory or in fact wrong. This is not about a few simple problems or bugs that will be squashed or fixed. You have to realize that it is part of the core combat mechanics and general coding coupled with actual bugs (mostly In UI and sound).
You yourself are unable to see the multiple real causes for being blinded by the individual symptoms.
Once again, read the above points I outlined, they are all accurate. A statement such as "it happens sometimes" shows only lack of knowledge.
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Agreed, the only point of caution is, for those who have been following this thread who want the type of avatar control you get in WoW, they may be disappointed when the fix fixes only the problems outlined by Flebberflep above.
No! Get out of this thread...character responsiveness is character responsiveness. It needs to be perfect or as close as possible. If they don't reach or exceed WoWs level of response or illusion of response then its a failure, simple.
Get your uninformed, WoW hating self out of this thread. You are not contributing anything of value and merely confusing newcomers.
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I am afraid it is.
There are several issues that have been mixed up in your threads. I suspect there's a bit of an irony here in that you aren't necessarily talking about what some other people are talking about. I think that's why the initial polite BW response to your thread was "it's a complex problem", because in fact there's a fair bit of talking at cross-purposes in all your threads. You all think you're agreeing about the same thing but it's clear to an outside observer that not all the participants in the thread are talking about the same thing.
The long and the short of it is that some of you just have WoW-nostalgia and find the system feels "clunky" to you even when it's working properly; others actually do notice a genuine problem of delayed actions, animation stutters, etc., but that problem is in fact intermittent, i.e. it doesn't happen all the time (and it's not fps or lag related).
Firstly, you may be correct about possible cross talking. However, this is unavoidable when discussing such a hard to define issue or "feeling". This threads purpose was to define this "feeling" and raise awareness to it due to its extreme importance and lack of understanding which Is beyond belief.
Secondly, you have no idea "how" aware I am of each point that is being discussed. From Client/Server Communication through Client Delay simulating responsiveness all the way to UI Bugs and Animation/Sound Sync.
What you have to realize is that I have read "every single post" (well over 5,000+) on this subject and i am simply tired of people coming at the tail end with "incredibly" limited understanding attempting to convince.
What I "really" need you to understand Is that this is NOT intermittent. Yes, it is complex and yes there many different issues contributing to the feeling of disconnect from your Avatar... but stop believing that it is only at some places, peak times, some abilities, sometimes.
Read this carefully:
It is a complete Issue of the feeling of responsiveness, many single facets contribute to this. From client/server comm to sound sync and everything in between discussed for 5 threads.
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART:
1) It is not intermittent
2) Every single ability is affected, some display the delay/issue jarringly, some faintly, some not at all.
3) Even abilities that appear perfectly smooth suffer this issue, it is merely masked well.
4) Every single player suffers this Issue EXACTLY the same, only some perceive it better/worse, more/less.
5) It is 100% replicable
Stop trying to argue its intermittent, your not affected, its only in laggy places etc etc etc...
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/facepalm
It's not actually apparent on all characters at all times. The intermittent nature of the problem is part of the problem. I had no hint of it early on, but in the past few days roundabout lvl 30 my JK has been having real problems (on good latency).
So it's quite possible for someone not to experience it, especially as a casual gamer.
And there has been enough false positive whining on these forums for the responsiveness issue to probably seem like another whine - until one experiences it oneself.
I think also, the issue has been mixed in with people merely wishing for a different gameplay style (strict animation clipping) - i.e. nostalgia for WoW - and that has created some "noise" in the topic.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, SWTOR's gameplay style is a bit more, shall we say, leisurely, and more precious about looks. But also, yes, it's intermittently clunky, unresponsive, and obviously not quite WAI.
You are wrong, on every single point In the above post. It is a very easy issue to replicate at will, in fact each of the multitude of issues that culminate into the overall feeling of responsiveness is easily replicated.
Furthermore, IF YOU HAVE LEARNED ANYTHING - THIS IS NOT INTERMITTENT!
If it appears Intermittent, the issue is your lack of perception and understanding.
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Xcore, you da man.
You have brought something to the attention of the powers that be that I have always had a hard time explaining to the average joe. They kept mistaking my rants for "fps problems" or "internet lag", when in fact I usually play at 30-50ms on any game and just like everyone else am completely able to tell the difference between the lightning fast combat pace of WoW in comparison to this.
@Bioware:
What I feel is most important is that combat input has topmost priority above all animations and other considerations.
As far as I know WoW works it in a way that your own actions are first calculated on your client, send to the server and there they are counter checked against other people's/mob's combat inputs and you get the response afterwards.
That often led to situations that were slightly awkward: Healer sending off a heal successfully (on his client) and the person still dieing a split second later (because the server as the "supreme ruler of combat" decided that the heal was too late after all). That is just one of the more blatant examples to illustrate how I seem to remember having someone explain it to me.
However, SW:TOR seems to thoroughly check everything on the server and THEN sending input response along with action result back to my client.
To be clear, I have no way of knowing if my assumptions are correct, but what I want to stress is that the "WoW way" is the right one, even if it leads to awkward situations with contradicting events such as a successful heal still resulting in the tank dieing. Those things we are used to, those split second decisions made by the server don't happen nearly as often as me spamming abilities and them not going of smoothly/fast enough.
Also, I want to point out that these problems get ultimately worse in pvp, in my opinion. Now that I explained my point, I could even imagine that being due to combat information sent from both players, compared on the server, send back etc. A lot of waiting time for information to get passed around in an MMO combat situation.
Thanks, I agree with your post and just want to add, to give more weight and gravity to the sheer scale of this issues. Without fixing this, the foundation... The game cannot have meaningful PvE or PvP experiences. This is then ultimately the point of failure of an MMO...
All past, present and future content Is dependant on the fix and complete and absolute best and most precise feeling of Avatar response.
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I'd also like to say that more communication (open) in forms of updates and statements should be made in the coming times until this has been completely dealt with. A very large part of the forum going community would be put at ease as well as likely trust you (Bioware) enough to stay subscribed until said completion of this tremendous task.
Also, keep in mind that a very, very large part of the playerbase not visiting the forums will simply quit due to that feeling of "clunkieness" that they can't quite put their finger on. Spreading the word of awareness through official posts/documentation will certainly help keep the subscriber count up.
Keeping everyone updated on your progress, fix implementations, plans and simply thoughts would go a long way.
Thanks again, I simply encourage more communication, nothing bad will come of it.
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I posted my thoughts in the actual threadline but here again to emphasise.:
Well, thank you very much. The threadline has needed this. I am very pleased to read that response and my hopes have been renewed to a degree. I would like to point out however, that the post itself was very vague in terms of actual meaning/fix/severity (detail) etc.
So, while I am extremely happy that it "appears" to be taken serious and this reply certainly is uplifting. I would caution against cheering as though it has been dealt with.
I woild encourage further discussion, arguments, anything to keep this issue at the forefront of attention. Because the one thing that I have not forgotten or unlearned over the past 5 threads is that this very issue raised is the single most important aspect determining the future success or failure of SW:TOR.
Thanks for the update Quishari, you need to stop by more often.
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Hello!
We wanted to let you know that Emmanuel just posted an update to the Abilidy Delay issue here:
Well, thank you very much. The threadline has needed this. I am very pleased to read that response and my hopes have been renewed to a degree. I would like to point out however, that the post itself was very vague in terms of actual meaning/fix/severity (detail) etc.
So, while I am extremely happy that it "appears" to be taken serious and this reply certainly is uplifting. I would caution against cheering as though it has been dealt with.
I woild encourage further discussion, arguments, anything to keep this issue at the forefront of attention. Because the one thing that I have not forgotten or unlearned over the past 5 threads is that this very issue raised is the single most important aspect determining the future success or failure of SW:TOR.
Thanks for the update Quishari, you need to stop by more often.
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There isn't any one overarching 'delay'. There are a serious issues, ranging from abilities failing to work at all to castbar abilities stopping combat entirely for a few hundred milliseconds when the bar finishes to the ability action queue firing a few hundred milliseconds late and even abilities that are supposed to be off GCD sometimes respecting it anyway.
The animation delays appear to be largely cosmetic, but there ARE at least or 4 bugs that actually affect your ability to do things in combat, and maybe more (the thing with ravage firing the animation but not actually having the ability go off has been posted a few times, so ravage may be broken too. Master Strike, the JK counterpart, seems to work fine).
Yes, I'd just like to put a little emphasis on the Importance of the cosmetic issues. Visual feedback as well as sound has to be just as perfect as the actual mechanical aspects that are causing the more obvious bugs.
If the cosmetics are off or sound it aids incredibly to the feeling off jarring disconnect with your avatar. We're dealing here with technical/mechanical flaws in the coding AS WELL as cosmetic flaws in animation and sound sync, both contribute to responsiveness issues.
The key to success of the "illusion" of perfect response is attention to detail in all areas. SW:TOR shows the contrary, neglect of the attention to detail. I attribute this to an casual, inexperienced and naive developer team.
Absolutely neglecting this all important perfection of combat gameplay in favor of making sure that one can **** their pet that is dressed as a slave.
Ability Delay -- Character Responsiveness (This will make or break SW:TOR)
in General Discussion
Posted
You're the same little dude who came into Thread 1 saying "its all fine, there are no issues?" Are you the same guy who says "don't mash buttons, its not WoW, go back to WoW"? Are you the same guy who says "Set to 0.0, fixes everything"? Are you the same guy who says, "nothing is being fixed, they only said they're investigating"?
Are you that guy?
Get out...