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

[nodefortytwo]

I originally posted in thread 1 saying that changing my ability queue setting to 0 fixed the issue for me. Turns out that seemed to be the case for my sith warrior but recently I have been playing as a combat medic and I can say for a fact the issue is much much worse with this char. Numerous times during flashpoints my healing was stalled due to a animation waiting to finish or a GCD locking out for a couple of seconds.

 

Animation clipping may look stupid but its better than this.

 

Still love the game btw, but this is a real problem when I get to end game cotent

[VainEldritch]

I have noted this activation "stuttering" on my Sith Juggernaut. It occurs with several attacks - in fact it can strike an ability it seems. This far I have noted it on Force Scream, Retaliate, Assaults, Viscious Slash and Sunder.

 

I have a ping of 65 ms and 70 fps.

 

There also seems to be some server lag when one kills a mob. Example: Vette will shoot a mob I am fighting and it dies... however it does not actually fall dead for a few seconds during which time I am still attacking but my character just freezes until death animation plays.

 

There is definately something flakey going on between player input and animations. And I don't think this is just the result of ability "spamming" as I have experimented extensivvely with waiting beyond completion of the GCD and it can still happen.

[Spynde]

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.

[Bakarn]

I've -finally- pinned it down after a hell of a lot of testing and I can consistantly make it happen with any ability where the effect is even slightly delayed along with ANY ability cast immediately after. The main four are Force Sweep, Blade Storm, Riposte and Force Push.

 

Suggests to me it's something they can deal with. I could have found this out a hell of a lot earlier if people had actually answered my damn question. Also seems to be related to travel time.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Bakarn

[JDSH]

Again, posting my support.

 

I am frustrated with this game between this and the companion autocast and the character/ability delay/response

 

Ya ill ***** and moan but I will give them the chance to fix the issues. I gave Rift up until SWTOR launch. SWTOR has until the the next MMO to fix before I jump ship. I imagine its the same for many others.

[VainEldritch]

I've -finally- pinned it down after a hell of a lot of testing and I can consistantly make it happen with any ability where the effect is even slightly delayed along with ANY ability cast immediately after. The main four are Force Sweep, Blade Storm, Riposte and Force Push.

 

Suggests to me it's something they can deal with. I could have found this out a hell of a lot earlier if people had actually answered my damn question.

 

So you are postualting that we need to wait beyond the GCD? I did experiment with this idea yesterday.

 

I estimate I allowed around 2 seconds between abilities (until the GCD has finished, then I push the button - so I guess about two seonds) and I still had the problem. Assuming a half-second reaction time on my part even with mylatency of 70 ms I was still well outside the end of the GCD when activating the next ability and the problem remained.

Edited January 3, 2012 by VainEldritch

[benchpress]

IA's break free ability doesn't fire consistently. I see it blink when I click the button, but nothing happens, need to click again.

[MargulisAZ]

Looked at the patch notes for this week on the test server, tons of the huge issues aren't addressed - I see this problem being around for a long time before it gets resolved.

[Krystaf]

This is the best thread I've read so far and I fully support it!

 

I've played mmo's for 10 years and SWTOR has the worst ability cast/reaction I've ever seen. And I'm comparing it to games as old as Anarchy Online.

 

Fix this please, the gameplay is horrible atm.

[MichaelKage]

On a side note anyone observed the 1-2 seconds delay from when you tell your companion to attack to when the companion actually starts to attack ?

 

Note: the enemy's attacked aggro at the same moment you issue your commands not when the companion starts attacking or when ( depending on companion ) his first ability lands

Edited January 3, 2012 by MichaelKage

[Vektrat]

I found this issue EXTREMELY annoying, especially in PvP.

 

I triple checked before making a post (making sure I'm not under silence/stun, ability queue, connection, FPS...), then stumbled upon this long-*** multithread.

 

There's something obviously wrong with char responsiveness (very noticeable, at least, with a Jedi Shadow, Infiltration).

 

Sadly as the previous poster said, this doesn't look like the typical bug that will get hotfixed soon and will stay around for a long time.

 

WoW's ability system was flawed at the start, but due to delay between the client-server, it was improved later to a system that allows the client to feel zero latency, but that's another story as well.

 

This is GAMEBREAKING, and I remember AoC had a similar issue with skill durations, cooldowns, and animations not fitting.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Vektrat

[meshade]

Lag would be bearable if it wasn't for the failed animations - by that I mean that I press the button and my warrior start the animation but doesn't finish it and nothing happens. So I press it again and he still onyl begins the animation without finishing it.

 

It is super annoying when fighting elite enemies and doing pvp and the abilities it occurs with are:

 

For juggernaut - retaliation, crushing blow, force scream, vicious slash.

[Kamiosoup]

Thing is, this is a pretty ancient engine and I don't think it's simply a patchable job.

 

Worrying

[Amplicon]

I fully support this thread.

But I am verry afraid it is the engine itself and not something BW can fix easilly.

Given the response a while back from a BW ticket they are going to route of "you shall not spam". I can seen their point, though I dont hold that vieuw myslef.

Here's hoping they het a fix on this.

[Flotsam]

Has anyone having the issue turned off the ability to queue your key presses?

 

Also has everyone turned off "Fire ability on Key release" ?

 

 

I was having the issue and set my queue ability to 0, and have my abilties activate on key presses instead of key release. I don't have the issue at all.

[VainEldritch]

Has anyone having the issue turned off the ability to queue your key presses?

 

Also has everyone turned off "Fire ability on Key release" ?

 

 

I was having the issue and set my queue ability to 0, and have my abilties activate on key presses instead of key release. I don't have the issue at all.

 

Setting the queue to zero makes it worse for me. it gets better as I increase the window and I have therefore left the window at 1.0.

[Zebular]

I agree, I am getting annoyed how abilities do not fire off when I press the button (even though it is set to). There is about a 1 second delay from when I use an ability until it will fire off - no matter what my latency or fps is - there is always a delay that never changes.

 

This make me end up spamming one ability, which then sometimes gets placed as a queued ability and fires off a couple times, unintentionally.

 

This needs fixed and should be of high priority.

 

If I set the queue rate any less than 1 second, I rarely can even get an ability off when I want.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Zebular

[Xontier]

Setting the queue to zero makes it worse for me. it gets better as I increase the window and I have therefore left the window at 1.0.

 

Same.

 

Also, (sorry for not reading every single post if this has been answered yet) has anyone noticed if the delay has any correlation to the number of people on the server? while I haven't kept a close eye on when this happens to me, I have noticed that on weekends it seems especially bad (Jung Ma server, easily hits the Queue stages).

 

I'll try to be more perceptive of this in the future, I admit I've grown a bit accustomed to it, and see if the delay seems to happen during my server's peak times.

[Saden]

I completely agree with all the points, I Love this game, but I feel you can lose tons of subscribers, please let your bosses know people of Bioware, this will either make them a ton of money if they rectify the situation or lose them a lot if they don't take this seriously

[Kraivenn]

Has anyone having the issue turned off the ability to queue your key presses?

 

Also has everyone turned off "Fire ability on Key release" ?

 

 

I was having the issue and set my queue ability to 0, and have my abilties activate on key presses instead of key release. I don't have the issue at all.

 

Then you are not aware of the problem itself

 

Look the videos in the first post of WoW and try to do that kind of things here, you will see the lack of responsiveness on the game (you click and the spell isnt fired at all, or it takes 0,2 or 0,3 secs to cast, and it is supposed to be instant)

 

It doesnt matter the options you put the game at, it simply doesnt go smooth

 

Hope it gets fixed in a near future

[AlexRose]

Has anyone having the issue turned off the ability to queue your key presses?

 

Also has everyone turned off "Fire ability on Key release" ?

 

 

I was having the issue and set my queue ability to 0, and have my abilties activate on key presses instead of key release. I don't have the issue at all.

 

I think you dont have a clue what we are talking about in this thread.

 

Yes, you still have this issue and afaik "Use Quickslots On Key Press" is the default setting and again has nothing to do with this problem.

[DLWhite]

Glad to see posts about the issue. The control responses are horrible for me and I experience lots of spiking. Having listened to the constant "its your computer/connection" advice, I was looking forward to improvement on the shiny new computer I got for Christmas. I was dissapointed.

 

Im a huge fan of what they are trying to do with this game, but huge problems like this must be actioned ASAP.

[Mindslyde]

I have cancelled my sub because of this rubbish. I may come back in a few months, but I doubt it.

 

I hope for the sake of those who choose to play this buggy game that they fix some of this stuff for you.

[RazgrizTwo]

that was the point.

 

LOL which is why i never use sarcasm on the interwebs. I can never seem to tell....but its probably just me

 

Does anyone know how many subscribers the game has now? Itll be interesting to see where that number goes when the hardcore MMOers jump ship in a few months. While they need to fix this issue to make the game not look like a failure since it was advertised as amazing (aka compete with WoW), they might have enough casuals/Star Wars fans to still cut profit without fixing the issue....

[allocater]

I made a Paintbrush Diagram to visualize the issue