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

[FarVision]

I wish I could read through all 63 pages, but I came here because I was bored after quitting out of the game for the night

 

It helps me to think of this less of a twitch game, and more of a slower paced tactical planning game, where you are somewhat slowly watching the game/movie unfolding before me as I select which skills to kick off next.

 

You can add ability queue time in the Preferences, but if things are cancelling completely, I'm not sure that will help. It's like the skills are failing at the server. And on IceBreaker, we have maybe 500 people on. If it's a server lag issue with 500 people on it - this thing is done.

 

I don't notice it on my Inquisitor, because it runs a little slower, but on my Marauder I have a tougher time. The entire thing just feels very sluggish and non-responsive.

 

It's not enough to get me to back to WoW, but I played at release for three years, and the game-play was flawless.

 

If we had the 'cartoony' look and feel of WoW only with all Star Wars IP, it would be a mega hit.

[Uhuru]

I notice this delay a lot when playing on my Jedi Guardian.

 

As I am Defense specced, I usually do Leap -> Blade Storm, because my talents allow me to BS without spending focus.

 

However a lot of times I see that I press Blade Storm, my character does the animation to swing her lightsaber, but she stops halfway and does no damage, and Blade Storm is not on cooldown. This happens even when I pressed Blade Storm multiple times.

 

This also happens with multiple other abilities. I have to weave Sundering Strike and Strike to get Focus, but many times my Sundering Strike does the half-way animation and stops, and I have to press the same button at least 5-6 times to fire it off.

 

Very annoying.

 

I have the exact same problem on my Guardian and agree that it is very annoying.

 

With blade sweep I have also noticed that my character will stutter at the beginning, like he is entertaining the thought of not obeying a direct order! Then he goes ahead and performs the animation and all is well. Except the fact that it throws me off a rthym and rthym for a Jedi Knight is very important.

 

I do have faith that this will be fixed soon (in weeks not days). Per the Dev post we got this is a problem that has many contributing factors so the fix is complicated I am sure.

 

Also, +1 for not ranting! You explained the problem perfectly.

[Olzmo]

Regarding the initial delay, the client behaves as if server-side acknowledgement is required for every key press.

Exactly my conjectural thoughts.

 

In WoW, when allocating the talent points without the confirmation option (i.e. having to confirm the choices after allocating the points) it seems to behave this way. Clicking a talent icon doesn't seem to do anything until a server-side registration of the action, creating a brief moment between the mouse click and actually having the talent upgraded.

 

If the confirmation is required, just clicking the talent icon probably doesn't do anything server-side and removes the delay. The actual update, that is the server-side registration, happens after the choices are confirmed.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Olzmo

[Khoranth]

I wish I could read through all 63 pages, but I came here because I was bored after quitting out of the game for the night

 

It helps me to think of this less of a twitch game, and more of a slower paced tactical planning game, where you are somewhat slowly watching the game/movie unfolding before me as I select which skills to kick off next.

 

You can add ability queue time in the Preferences, but if things are cancelling completely, I'm not sure that will help. It's like the skills are failing at the server. And on IceBreaker, we have maybe 500 people on. If it's a server lag issue with 500 people on it - this thing is done.

 

I don't notice it on my Inquisitor, because it runs a little slower, but on my Marauder I have a tougher time. The entire thing just feels very sluggish and non-responsive.

 

It's not enough to get me to back to WoW, but I played at release for three years, and the game-play was flawless.

 

If we had the 'cartoony' look and feel of WoW only with all Star Wars IP, it would be a mega hit.

 

Yeah, this is seriously the issue. Bioware wants combat to be slow paced, and you watch animations and play off animations. Bioware needs to come out and make a statement one way or the other about this.

 

If they want a slow paced combat system, they need to remove the GCD, cast bars, off gcd abilities, these 3 things are conflicting with animations and ruining the game.

 

If they want a slow paced system, that's similar to neverwinter nights then great, they need to have some integrity and tell us so. Then they need to remove GCd and everything else that is conflicting with the slow paced turn based animation meta-game.

[Benadvanced]

annoying - yes

 

game breaking - no

[Arkimor]

annoying - yes

 

game breaking - no

 

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

[Naej]

Am I the only one that understand why BW are keeping their mouths shut on this issue?

 

Please give it time, they ARE working on it. It just isn't a simple issue.

 

Anyone quiting at this point is a fool.

[orion_eb]

I've been playing since the last closed beta and I've never experienced what so many people are describing. If anything I would say the responsiveness is the best since WoW and far better than any other modern MMO I've played in the last five years.

 

I do hate the global cooldown though and that should have gone into the discard feature pile.

[TheToony]

annoying - yes

 

game breaking - no

 

Why should I take in a DPS class that takes 5-7 seconds to fire off a single attack? That's called a sniper/gunslinger. Due to ability delay it takes like two seconds to get into cover and then two seconds to queue up an attack and then another two seconds for it to charge up....

 

I've also had several people die in groups because I wasn't psychic about their healing needs and the ability delay tacking on two seconds to my heal made it worthless. IMO Ability delay is a bigger issue than Illum exploits or anything else currently in game. This should be priority one for the devs.

 

 

But it will never get solved since it's likely an engine issue.

[TheToony]

Am I the only one that understand why BW are keeping their mouths shut on this issue?

 

Please give it time, they ARE working on it. It just isn't a simple issue.

 

Anyone quiting at this point is a fool.

 

Why wouldn't I quit? I can't play the class I want because of this bug. And I really doubt it will ever get fixed unless EA is willing to slap down another 300 mil to re-develop the game on a new engine.

[JamesKilton]

Am I the only one that understand why BW are keeping their mouths shut on this issue?

 

Please give it time, they ARE working on it. It just isn't a simple issue.

 

Anyone quiting at this point is a fool.

 

A fool? Really? Paying money for this inferior product is the foolish path. Bioware doesn't owe us anything, and they aren't getting a dime more of my money unless I see some serious rebuilds and changes in this game.

 

If Bioware was smart, they'd be VERY open and communicative about the issue. But the fact that the issue even exists in the first place is indicative of fundamental failures at the core of the team to care about this game's gameplay.

[Whatsalightsaver]

I do hate the global cooldown though and that should have gone into the discard feature pile.

 

The GCDs are painfully long, especially for an energy class like Consular/Inquisitor. My rogue's GCDs were never this long for a reason. Add in ability lag and you have a real debacle on your hands. The skill usage issue is really a one- two punch. On the positive side, we have a really fun questing system and forum signatures.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Whatsalightsaver

[MickGee]

Agreed. Trying to heal flashpoints is very frustrating because of the delays/unresponsiveness of my heals. It is not game breaking to me as I'm still lvl 25 but it will be in heroics and raids. I fully agree that out of everything that may need fixing this is the most important.

[SuperSair]

Why wouldn't I quit? I can't play the class I want because of this bug. And I really doubt it will ever get fixed unless EA is willing to slap down another 300 mil to re-develop the game on a new engine.

 

A disturbing thought.

 

If that is true, and it cannot be fixed, then I don't see myself or any other person devoting themselves to high level gameplay that is so crippled by something so basic.

 

But i see the way interrupts work and i keep hope that this can be changed.

[berothop]

it just keeps getting more and more frustrating .. I'm pretty sure now that they wont fix this .. its just impossible to pvp in this game. Totally unplayable after my subscription ends im out.

 

I hope GW2 turns out to be way better than this.. Im not going back to WoW..

[Pariah-]

You know, I thought it was me.

 

I remember being very good at PvP when I used to play WoW, waayyyy back before even the first expansion. Hotkeys were set up perfect, and I had control of the shadow priest I played like you wouldnt believe. Was routinely able to hit silences a split second before my opponent's cast bar resolved, and managed the cooldowns down to the nano (i.e. continuous toon action - NO DOWNTIME). And if the string of actions were instants, I'd do this moving in the direction I wanted to move, which was usually away from the opponent, with maybe a split second of pause if I needed to whip back to get LOS, and then resume running away. When kiting I wouldn't give away a foot of ground that wasn't a necessary concession.

 

I was thinking the other day just how bad I've gotten at MMOs. How sloppy my execution's gotten after, what, 5 years of being away. How much time I waste in inaction when switching targets or between certain abilities. Or how many times I attempted something and I thought I mistimed it, or didn't press the key hard enough, because the action never went through. I am constantly looking for confirmation that an action took place before I begin executing the next. To hit a silence (well, jolt) I stopped trying to attempt those unless I was ready really early in the opponents cast bar. But of course that kind of negates the purpose because you're just trading cooldowns if you do it that early. But that is what it takes to land it and I chalked it off to my reaction time or lag.

 

So it isnt me, it's the game. I can't believe how many people are here experiencing what I'm experiencing. Why has this gotten through beta testing? Why is this not absolute top priority right now? Add my voice to the chorus of complaints if it makes a lick of difference.

 

Pariah

Sword of Adjunta Pall

[Sasao]

If I had bought this game for 20 pounds I wouldn't of cared, but 44.99 for the worst pvp experience of my life, the free month play time is seemingly not enough to cultivate my interest to keep playing as time goes by.

 

As an competent arena/RBG WoW player, this game is unplayable, the only classes I haven't suffered with seems to be bounty hunter/ranged classes, because by the time my moves finally kick in the opponent isn't "too far away" for the attack to hit.

 

Sometimes on my marauder I can get stuck trying to ravage or revenge for a good 5 seconds, I've actually died to a sin and sorc (granted its a 2 on 1) while my characters animations flailed about wildly trying to complete a single move, failing to do so and then dying incompetently.

 

 

---

 

That said I had the best game of my life earlier. My marauders animations broke altogether, I was stuck in a static idle pose with only my feet moving as I moved. Every move hit flawlessly without the animations, I even interrupted someone it was fantastic.

[DeathHenk]

You know, I thought it was me.

 

I remember being very good at PvP when I used to play WoW, waayyyy back before even the first expansion. Hotkeys were set up perfect, and I had control of the shadow priest I played like you wouldnt believe. Was routinely able to hit silences a split second before my opponent's cast bar resolved, and managed the cooldowns down to the nano (i.e. continuous toon action - NO DOWNTIME). And if the string of actions were instants, I'd do this moving in the direction I wanted to move, which was usually away from the opponent, with maybe a split second of pause if I needed to whip back to get LOS, and then resume running away. When kiting I wouldn't give away a foot of ground that wasn't a necessary concession.

 

I was thinking the other day just how bad I've gotten at MMOs. How sloppy my execution's gotten after, what, 5 years of being away. How much time I waste in inaction when switching targets or between certain abilities. Or how many times I attempted something and I thought I mistimed it, or didn't press the key hard enough, because the action never went through. I am constantly looking for confirmation that an action took place before I begin executing the next. To hit a silence (well, jolt) I stopped trying to attempt those unless I was ready really early in the opponents cast bar. But of course that kind of negates the purpose because you're just trading cooldowns if you do it that early. But that is what it takes to land it and I chalked it off to my reaction time or lag.

 

So it isnt me, it's the game. I can't believe how many people are here experiencing what I'm experiencing. Why has this gotten through beta testing? Why is this not absolute top priority right now? Add my voice to the chorus of complaints if it makes a lick of difference.

 

Pariah

Sword of Adjunta Pall

 

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.

Edited January 4, 2012 by DeathHenk

[boba_dan]

I'm curious as this was brought up on the warrior forum and I wonder if its a related issue, or simply another issue compounding this one:

 

Several people have noticed a phenomenon when defense actions (parries, deflects) cause the GCD to reset. This can yield, on high defense characters faced with multiple attackers, to a situation where you literally get locked out of your abilities and land up jamming on a button for 3-5 seconds without any kind of response.

 

I'm not sure if this is the issue that causes all the 'responsiveness' problems for me, or if its this + the issue in the thread, or if they're really two sides of the same issue.

[DarthSick]

I think it's really weird that people have been complaining about this on the forums, because all of my irl friends and I have been talking about how responsive it Is and how we love the pvp. I even have a mediocre connection and I haven't noticed this unresponsiveness everyone is talking about.

But... I've noticed something different that might be related. Whenever I do something like cast a shock and then activate force lighting, the animation isn't cut off- it finishes before the force lighting animation starts. But- the damage caused by force lighting does start on time. So perhaps this is what everyone is sighting? Or am I confused. If there is a real problem that I'm not noticing/experiencing with the responsiveness, I hope Bw can fix it despite borrowing an engine. For some closure: I think the responsiveness in combat is very competitive with that of wow. And I've done my fair share of pve and pvp in both.

[Bob-ombaFett]

I think it's really weird that people have been complaining about this on the forums, because all of my irl friends and I have been talking about how responsive it Is and how we love the pvp. I even have a mediocre connection and I haven't noticed this unresponsiveness everyone is talking about.

But... I've noticed something different that might be related. Whenever I do something like cast a shock and then activate force lighting, the animation isn't cut off- it finishes before the force lighting animation starts. But- the damage caused by force lighting does start on time. So perhaps this is what everyone is sighting? Or am I confused. If there is a real problem that I'm not noticing/experiencing with the responsiveness, I hope Bw can fix it despite borrowing an engine. For some closure: I think the responsiveness in combat is very competitive with that of wow. And I've done my fair share of pve and pvp in both.

 

Commence the burninating...

[DarthSick]

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

[Daex]

I think it's really weird that people have been complaining about this on the forums, because all of my irl friends and I have been talking about how responsive it Is and how we love the pvp. I even have a mediocre connection and I haven't noticed this unresponsiveness everyone is talking about.

But... I've noticed something different that might be related. Whenever I do something like cast a shock and then activate force lighting, the animation isn't cut off- it finishes before the force lighting animation starts. But- the damage caused by force lighting does start on time. So perhaps this is what everyone is sighting? Or am I confused. If there is a real problem that I'm not noticing/experiencing with the responsiveness, I hope Bw can fix it despite borrowing an engine. For some closure: I think the responsiveness in combat is very competitive with that of wow. And I've done my fair share of pve and pvp in both.

 

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.

 

Like one time I will successfully interrupt even in the middle of my channeled cast, and other time it will be delayed for like 1 second and my target will pull of a nice heal.

 

I'm too lazy to search for you or whatever but I'm sure there are videos and stuff of this so it's clearly there. For example countless times I have finished off a mob or player with my Ravage (Channeled melee skill) and my char cannot be stopped from finishing the animation even if my target is already dead from first channeled tick. THIS issue cannot be helped. I cannot even move my char or jump in this scenario. I simply have to watch at my screen until animation is done on a target which is dead (and in pvp returned to graveyard already). So issues are there and for sake of this game, don't pretend they aren't.

[Nuara]

I think it's really weird that people have been complaining about this on the forums, because all of my irl friends and I have been talking about how responsive it Is and how we love the pvp. I even have a mediocre connection and I haven't noticed this unresponsiveness everyone is talking about.

But... I've noticed something different that might be related. Whenever I do something like cast a shock and then activate force lighting, the animation isn't cut off- it finishes before the force lighting animation starts. But- the damage caused by force lighting does start on time. So perhaps this is what everyone is sighting? Or am I confused. If there is a real problem that I'm not noticing/experiencing with the responsiveness, I hope Bw can fix it despite borrowing an engine. For some closure: I think the responsiveness in combat is very competitive with that of wow. And I've done my fair share of pve and pvp in both.

 

If this is the case its even worse as some people would have a HUGE advantages in PvP. Playing a healer is frustrating and stupid - having to kite and use LoS is pretty damn hard when you have to stand still for 2sec before ya start casting or you will get a "Cant do that while moving" halfway through your heal... jumping down from stuff make any attempt to heal impossible as ya have to wait even longer to avoid the error message. The game is unplayable and most of my guild already stopped their subscription and are planning on waiting a few months - and by then the MUCH more responsive and well-designed GW2 will be out - and I cba playing that psudo-mmo with its more or less gearless progression and instant lvl 50 in PvP...

[DarthSick]

If this is the case its even worse as some people would have a HUGE advantages in PvP. Playing a healer is frustrating and stupid - having to kite and use LoS is pretty damn hard when you have to stand still for 2sec before ya start casting or you will get a "Cant do that while moving" halfway through your heal... jumping down from stuff make any attempt to heal impossible as ya have to wait even longer to avoid the error message. The game is unplayable and most of my guild already stopped their subscription and are planning on waiting a few months - and by then the MUCH more responsive and well-designed GW2 will be out - and I cba playing that psudo-mmo with its more or less gearless progression and instant lvl 50 in PvP...

 

I've done corruption in pvp. And had a lot of fun. I honestly have never experienced this error message you're talking about. And if you really are so set on quitting the game and going to gw2 and experiencing a rehash of rift with no party system (I'm not opposed to that though) then why are you on the forum? You obviously care about the state of this game if you're reading! Or are you just here to troll... Something to chew on. And something else- the most famous pvp guild- dara mactire from wow- is loving Swtor. And while they aren't the very he's they are dedicated and serious and have proven themselves with extremely good ratings in wow.

Gearless progression? Guessing you are referring to all the orange set pieces. You have to work just as hard to get all of the augments for it! And there is plenty of other gear you can pick up and use too. And do yOu prefer brackets where there is always that twink owning because he's at the top of the bracket and geared and having long qs at some levels?! Dude. Stop hatin if you're gonna post on the forums where people are trying to just discuss the game with some suggestions for bw. Psudo mmo. LOL. What makes it not an mmo? "well it has semi linear storylines for each class" ha. So having other people all around you, tons of side quests, instances, pvp, turn based combat, chat window, guilds, currency, auction house, vendors, crafting, BLAH BLAH BLAH the list goes on. This is a real mmo in every sense of the word, and you also get to enjoy meaningful and motivating stories.