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

[Greyspectre]

If I had to venture a guess I would say it probably has to do with the server/client relationship. One of the main places I notice it is with movement. I will have my mount summoned start moving then fall off of it because I was apparently moving during the cast. The opposite will happen with abilities occasionally where I stop moving hit the button and it says "you can't do that while moving". My latency is 62..no worse then any other mmo I have played.

[DeathHenk]

Another attempt to explain how WoW animations work:

 

In wow there is instant casts with animations and that are on the gcd. Can you explain the difference?

 

Heres my attempt to explain instant cast animations to you. I have a diagram for you and a movie where stacking and character clipping is shown. It just shows how perfect Blizzard has made WoW gameplay and feel.

 

To start off, there is no instant without GCD, except for a number of exceptions. Lets keep these aside just to keep things clear. Those without or with a modified GCD are there, because it fits in the system. See Overpower of warrior rotation, I won't go into this because it goes too deep.

 

Casting and animation relate to each other the following way:

 

Lets take [url="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=2136"]Fireblast[/url] as our sample spell and Undead Mage as our race/class.



[b]Time-----------Start-------------------------------Target hit[/b]
Fireblast >>>>   Press key                                         Damage registered
Animation  >>>  Right hand starts from backwards      Right hand is[i] moved*[/i] forward
                        /middle position                                finishing the animation

 

The important things to note:

 

1. Moving* is not actually moving. There are actually alot of skipped frames in the animation allowing space of client side lag to be undone as animation has to keep up to the speed damage is registered. One might say the animation is jumping from point to the other.

On a sidenote, lots of fighting games use this technique to free up space for fluid animation sequences and to show the player clear boundaries between abilities.

2. The moving happens as fast as the damage is registered.

3. If there is any animation going on that prevents from doing this animation to show smoothly and fancy(like moving), the Fireblast animation is clipped. To indicate you are still casting Fireblast your hands glow fire.

 

Ok, I hope that should bring you closer to what I mean. But heres the movie that gives you a clear image of how spells are dealt in WoW. This mage is legend for all old school mages in WoW(hihi) and generally the movie community that was born at that time.

 

Sorrow Hill:

ps. movie has rock music. turn off sound if you dislike.

 

I chose this movie because there is alot of cast+instant spell sequences: Scorch (cast)+Fireblast (instant) and Presence of Mind (instant) + Fireball (cast) + Fireblast (instant).

 

Things to look at:

1. Look at how Fireblast animation is clipped after a Scorch or a previous spell like fireball is cast.

2. Look at how his character walks and runs while he is casting.

3. See 2 but now when he finishes casting and moves.

4. See 2 but now when he starts casting and follows up with a spell.

 

What animations mean for melee classes can be seen in the next movie but is notably more difficult to see for the non-WoW players. These dudes use GCD to the max. So watch carefully. Six Silent Shadows: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=106597

 

All of these things you looked at have one thing in common:

They are fluidly connected one after the other and he isn't slowed down between any of these steps by animation or any form of delays.

 

ps. I'm not asking TOR to become WoW clone. I'm hoping BioWare can learn from the concepts of clipping and stacking WoW has used to allow fluid gameplay.

Edited January 4, 2012 by DeathHenk

[Pariah-]

I'm with you bro. I sometimes get the feeling people who haven't played WoW don't know how an mmorpg feels like when you have absolute total control of every ability in your pocket.

 

Waiting in this game to pop jolt is unpredictable. While in WoW you easily have the choice when you are going to interrupt, heck casters even answered this by introducing 'fake casting'. How are you gonna do that in TOR where cancelling casts is only going to give you extra GCD to the ALREADY extra response delay. Other games that got big pvp scene is guild wars. Interrupting spells really meant you had a real good awareness and knowledge of other classes. Timing was crucial and thankfully the interrupt skill was immediate and reacted instantly has you used your skill. These players developed skills that come forth out of passion for the game. However...we cannot build a passion for a game that uses a flawed system and gives you a misshaped feeling of character control like TOR.

 

As shown on first post, some abilities across a variety of classes have spells that go beyond the GCD will it because of the buggy responsiveness or animation.

 

 

Interesting, maybe I'll give the new one a shot when it comes out. The sluggish controls are getting frustrating. Add to that the fact that it's very hard to tell what's going on in combat because of poor visual cues (and no combat log), and you have to question whether you're really PVPing or just executing an attack string, repositioning, and then finding a new target and doing it again. It's fun and you do have to know when to flee and when to fight, when to stun and when to break one, but other than that there are very few strategic options to employ. And even if there were, the UI doesn't give you enough awareness to know when you would want to employ them anyhow.

[Renrag]

I notice this "character responsiveness" problem all the time too. I personally thought it was my slow computers. The computers I play on have pretty weak video cards. I get anywhere from 5-fps to 15-fps while playing, at times it gets even as low as 0.6-fps. It gets painfully slow at times, and that is why I thought the 'delay' was just my computers.

 

One place I really notice it is when I try to jump onto or over things. It feels like I have to press the space bar to jump about a half second before I actually want to jump. Its kinda disheartening to hear that a LOT of other people are experiencing this too. I was hoping that after I upgraded my video card next week that things would get a lot better. Maybe not... QQ

[wizzles]

Never played an MMO other than this one, but the lack of character responsiveness is very frustrating. At first I thought the problem might have lied with my mediocre computer and poor internet, but this thread has made me think otherwise. So much of this game is dependent on timing, whether it's stopping an opponent's ability charge-up, or healing a teammate before their health depletes, and many other things. That half-second delay between selecting a move and actually using it is very noticeable and frustrating. Hopefully Bioware fixes this soon.

[Hiro-Protagonist]

It's game breaking for anything competitive or challenging (PvP or PvE), to a LOT of people.

 

Agreed. However, we should be patient. TOR is still a great game. I, for one, will continue to give my support with the understanding that they will continue to improve the performance of this game. I am NOT one of the unsubbers in month 1.

 

The irony is that I remember people back in the summer of '11 who were begging BW to release this game. They claimed that they would look past the warts and give them time to fix it if they would only release it. I wonder where these people are now?

[Evtrai]

Agreed. However, we should be patient. TOR is still a great game. I, for one, will continue to give my support with the understanding that they will continue to improve the performance of this game. I am NOT one of the unsubbers in month 1.

 

The irony is that I remember people back in the summer of '11 who were begging BW to release this game. They claimed that they would look past the warts and give them time to fix it if they would only release it. I wonder where these people are now?

 

Indeed lol

[Pariah-]

Agreed. However, we should be patient. TOR is still a great game. I, for one, will continue to give my support with the understanding that they will continue to improve the performance of this game. I am NOT one of the unsubbers in month 1.

 

The irony is that I remember people back in the summer of '11 who were begging BW to release this game. They claimed that they would look past the warts and give them time to fix it if they would only release it. I wonder where these people are now?

 

 

[Terko_Koslah]

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out, but in WoW-instant there is no animation before the effect. The character just jumps in to the cast position without an animation.

 

The difference to ToR is that there is animation before the effect, the character picks up a device etc. and then uses it. So it is not an instant in the same way as in WoW.

 

Also I am quite sure there are some melee abilities in WoW that have pre-effect animation, but because of auto-attack they don't feel so delayed as in ToR.

 

I support making the gap between player pushing a button and the beginning of an animation to be made as tiny as possible, but I do not support cutting pre-effect animations.

[LightLight]

To be honest, I thought it was my computer that was causing this delay. I lowered my graphics, changed Aero to Classic and a bunch of other things. I think that this should be priority number one.

 

/signed

Edited January 4, 2012 by LightLight

[Hiro-Protagonist]

I honestly think it's really weird that you haven't noticed anything about responsiveness. From my personal experience, some issues are not there ALWAYS, so that might be the reason.

 

I've noticed that too. The responsiveness seems to come and go. I remember in beta when it was really bad, but the next build was a huge improvement. They claimed that they moved a lot of the animations from the client to the server side which really improved responsiveness. I am hoping that some of the problem is due to overloaded servers (i.e. problems after turning the servers to "11").

 

I think we have all found busy spots in certain areas where performance really takes a dive. There is obvious room for optimization if they can find the right screws to turn. I am very willing to chill for a couple of months to see if things improve. I strongly suspect that they will. If nothing else, the Dr.'s do not want to see this MMO fail. They are fully invested. I say give them time.

[Tiron_Raptor]

I've not noticed any kind of delay myself, during the beta weekends or in the 3 weeks I've been playing live. Everything seems to work perfectly and fluidly, going off exactly as expected.

 

I do feel the need to point out some things here: first off, 0.2 seconds is 200 milliseconds, a marginal but not altogether uncommon ping time.

 

Second: As of the last time I played WoW, coming up on three years ago now, you could also do the 'mount dismount' thing if you moved too soon after the the timer appeared to finish. This IS a latency issue: the server controls everything (except movement on WoW, which is why there were teleport hacks etc) and determines everything. What your client sees means nothing: it merely sends a REQUEST to the server, which then tells it the result. If the client waits until the server responds to render, however, it looks really delayed and aweful. The normal solution is to have the client anticipate: display what it thinks should happen according to the state it's aware of. This is merely cosmetic. What happens with the mounting problem, is that your client was ahead of the server, and you managed to move so precisely at the apparent end of the timer that the server didn't think it was done, and your client did. So the client shows you mounting, and then dismounting when the server comes back with 'you're not mounted, the movement cancelled it!' This is not a solvable problem while still showing an accurate progress bar: the client's state is going to be a fraction of a second off from the server's, it's physically impossible for it not to be. The only 'solution' would be to not have the client render you mounting until the server informs it that you've succeeded...in which case there would be a noticeable hang between the progress bar reaching the end and you being observed to mount.

 

Third: SWtOR features a CONFIGURABLE 'ability action queue window', in the control options. This specifies the length of the period where you can attempt to activate an ability before it comes off cooldown and have it fire anyway. It can be set from 1.0 seconds to 0 seconds at intervals of 0.25, and defaults to 0.5. When used properly, this allows you to chain abilities perfectly without any problems with latency or human reaction time, because they will go off automatically the instant they're off cooldown.

 

The fact that the default time on it seems to be exactly the same as the length of the 'delay' most people are specifying leads me to wonder if they're not confusing this very helpful feature with a bug of some kind, and thinking that they can actually use their abilities 0.5 seconds before they're actually allowed to per the rules. In which case setting it to 0 should be...instructive for the people complaining. On the other hand, setting it to 0 could also interact with the latency in a way that causes abilities to be regularly aborted because you hit it slightly before the server thinks you're allowed to use it...

Edited January 4, 2012 by Tiron_Raptor

[Infrasound]

This is game breaking as it feels like there is a UI delay of up to 250ms at times and this is not acceptable.

 

I'm PVP focussed, and its CLEARLY obvious on a Sith Sorc when shielding people, the shield and buff on the person doesn't appear until at least 200ms after you've pressed the key.

 

Nothing to do with server pop or latency as its in a pvp shard.

 

De-Torque

Edited January 4, 2012 by Infrasound

[Daex]

Nothing to do with server pop or latency as its in a pvp shard.

 

Technically there could be something with it. For example many instances of a single warzone running at the same time might cause latency but it depends on their server architecture.

[JediMasterShake]

As of the last time I played WoW, coming up on three years ago now, you could also do the 'mount dismount' thing if you moved too soon after the the timer appeared to finish.

 

This is 100% false.

 

In WoW the cast bar on your screen corresponds to the spell firing or not - exactly, and without exception.

 

If your cast bar has reached 100% and you move forward, you will mount up.

[Majesm]

I really really want this game to succeed , Really hope they sort this issue out as fast as possible as it a game breaker for me im afriad ....

[Infrasound]

Technically there could be something with it. For example many instances of a single warzone running at the same time might cause latency but it depends on their server architecture.

 

Latency affects client server updates, not the client playing an animation for the button you've pressed.

 

PVP lag is clearly evident with people teleporting all over the place back and forth on a 30ms connection. the code needs to be worked on.

[DarthMurdek]

I experience this problem quite often because my main is an agent sniper. I can't even count how many times my snipe skill charges up twice before it shoots the first time. This is okay on bosses because it catches up after a couple shots but when I'm grouping against mobs that I can one shot there normally all dead before I can shoot and in pvp enemies get an extra two seconds to stun me and use nukes before I start taking them down.

[Daex]

Latency affects client server updates, not the client playing an animation for the button you've pressed.

 

PVP lag is clearly evident with people teleporting all over the place back and forth on a 30ms connection. the code needs to be worked on.

 

Are you just purposely trying to undermine very simple point. As I said, in case their server architecture was vulnerable to that, multiple instances of same warzones could possibly degrade performance which would cause what you call server to "reply" slower which would represent itself as latency on a client side.

 

Lol.

[Tiron_Raptor]

This is 100% false.

 

In WoW the cast bar on your screen corresponds to the spell firing or not - exactly, and without exception.

 

If your cast bar has reached 100% and you move forward, you will mount up.

 

Not true: I distinctly remember being dismounted off my black war tiger on more than a few occasions in just this very fashion.

 

The problem here is that you're confusing the spell animation with the spell EFFECT. The former is a purely cosmetic effect rendered by your client to look good, with no actual meaning and without any effect on what actually happens. The SERVER determines what actually occurs, and overrides any cosmetic guesses the client has made in the meantime.

 

Part of the reason WoW LOOKED so smooth is that they took the cosmetic effect one further: they set it up so that the client would delay showing damage until the spell effect appeared to hit the target. If you successfully cast a fireball at a target, the damage was determined and sent back immediately, but the client would 'hold back' on relaying the damage until the fireball appeared to hit the target, to help disguise the latency.

 

You can actually observe this in action: there's a maximum timeout on how long it will hold back the damage. If you fly away from a ranged caster firing spells at you with an epic flight mount, you can actually outrun most spell effects. You can literally fly circles around them, and never ever be hit if you do it right. But you WILL take the damage eventually anyway, usually well out of attack range from the target and many seconds after the spell was cast at you. Even though the spell's 'bolt' is still following you around. If you then slow down and let the bolts catch up, they will all hit you, and your character will play the 'argh I'm hit animation', but no additional damage will be done.

 

An additional manifestation of this sometimes occurs when you are killed by a ranged spell: upon occasion, you'll die before the spell hits you, and it will then proceed to hit your corpse.

 

Wow has the same exact problems and limitations of latency of other games, they just hide it exceptionally well, fooling people into thinking it's smooth and perfect.

 

Ever chased someone while playing a melee class, and been told you were out of range even though they appeared to be just barely in front of you? Ever been chased by a melee class, and been taking hits from them even though you appeared to be a great distance away? Both of these are latency effects.

 

Edit: A further manifestation. You hit an ability that appears to be off cooldown. Your GCD starts on all abilities, then stops a fraction of a second later as they all clear early. Your client thought you got the ability off successfully. The server told it otherwise, for whatever reason.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Tiron_Raptor

[Daex]

The former is a purely cosmetic effect rendered by your client to look good, with no actual meaning and without any effect on what actually happens. The SERVER determines what actually occurs, and overrides any cosmetic guesses the client has made in the meantime.

 

Not a case in this game. Countless time I have been stuck in channel animation on a dead target while my "target" realistically is already ressurected and running out of safe zone, and I'm watching at my screen(real life time) waiting for animation to finish.

[Tiron_Raptor]

Not a case in this game. Countless time I have been stuck in channel animation on a dead target while my "target" realistically is already ressurected and running out of safe zone, and I'm watching at my screen(real life time) waiting for animation to finish.

 

...Funny thing, all my channeled abilities break perfectly if I move or do anything at all, by accident or otherwise. I've never once been locked in place by a channeled ability, and I've got two that don't even REQUIRE a target!

 

That could be a specific bug with that ability in particular, rather than a general problem.

 

It could also be in part because they have the server controlling movement: World of Warcraft foolishly allowed the client to determine the movement, which led to large numbers of various sorts of movement hacks and exploits. This was in fact one of the things that got model editing disabled on WoW, because some punk figured out that if you, say, change the 'crate' model to a large one you could climb up, like the black gate, you could then climb up the black gate that only appeared on your client to reach inaccessible areas. Because the server took your client's word for it when your client told it you were hanging in mid-air.

 

Gold farmers with various sorts of speed and teleport hacks were a semi-regular problem from vanilla at least through feb of 2009 when I stopped playing.

[Byker]

The worst manifectation of this problem for me is when trying to interupt. This is a very time critical skill. You have to wait for your target to start casting and because interupt doesnt cancel any cast you are aleady channeling you then have to move to cancel anything your already doing and hit the interupt button. Any delay and you miss the interupt. In later game and flashpoins this is a game killer.

[Tiron_Raptor]

The worst manifectation of this problem for me is when trying to interupt. This is a very time critical skill. You have to wait for your target to start casting and because interupt doesnt cancel any cast you are aleady channeling you then have to move to cancel anything your already doing and hit the interupt button. Any delay and you miss the interupt. In later game and flashpoins this is a game killer.

 

...I have had no difficulties with riot strike failing to cancel pulse cannon.

[Daex]

That could be a specific bug with that ability in particular, rather than a general problem.

 

Idk its happening with Ravage ability for me(Juggernaut), exclusively on death blows on 1st or 2nd channeled tick.

 

EDIT: Possibly when other people finish of the target while I'm channeling, now when I think about it.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Daex