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

[Flebberflep]

I think we should relax. Bioware saying they're investigating the problem is probably a sign that at least a small thing can be done to improve the situation, and in most cases the problems are caused by the combat system being broken in some way, which will inevitably be fixed. This isn't purely an engine problem, as has been stated by a number of people including Bioware themselves, who said it's a culmination of many problems that are causing this. The problems are ambiguous enough that it's very hard to pin down exactly what is going on, which is probably why Bioware hasn't talked about it in detail yet.

 

Have some patience, this is probably going to take a while.

[Gunryu]

Sad part is when I tried discussing this in guild what I got was 1 of 2 things....

 

"What's that?" or "I don't experience that" so my guess is this........Bioware is relying on people who either 1) Don't know what it is 2) Don't care

 

but there is a #3 which those of us who do care and will tell all our friends about it if it isn't fixed so not only is it a loss of 1 subscriber but potential subscribers as well, that is not good.

 

I think we should relax. Bioware saying they're investigating the problem is probably a sign that at least a small thing can be done to improve the situation, and in most cases the problems are caused by the combat system being broken in some way, which will inevitably be fixed[/Quote]

 

People can investigate things all they want but it doesn't mean anything can or will be done about it, and letting that go through beta doesn't make people feel all too hopeful.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Gunryu

[JediGnome]

I do agree character responsiveness needs a look, but I hate, hate, HATE it when people use WoW's animations as some sort of holy grail on animation interference. You know why WoW can do what it does? The animations are TERRIBLE. Characters use one or two animations for every attack. There is no way to tell what ability someone is using based purely on animation. My Warrior always does the same flippy spinny thing, unless he's doing a shield attack...then he uses the same shield animation.

 

If my choice is "have crappy WoW style animations that are re-used for every attack and keep a small minority of competitive PvP players happy" or "have unique, fun to watch, animations, but have to deal with a bit of animation interference and piss off the very tip top of competitive PvP players"...I am going to choose the second option every time.

[ChillBill]

This is a major issue, but there is some good news.

 

Bioware is aware of this, and they are looking into it. GZ even made a post about it in a previous incarnation of this very thread. (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=897912#edit897912)

 

When they get it fixed, and I'm sure they will, the game will be much better. Right now, I'm enjoying the story aspect and looking forward to seeing the abilities work better... Hoping it happens soon.

[belialle]

Surprising in a good way or a bad way?

 

There may be tears involved. That's all I'm gonna say.

[Xcore]

Xcore,

 

From your research do you think the character response and ability delay is something that can be fixed within the game or do you believe it could be a permanent problem?

 

For what its worth, i belive this issue to remain indefinitely. Very likely it will be addressed and tweaked, masked but it will never play as smooth as WoW. I don't belive this game will ever have a rich and complex PvE Scene. I dont see how tight tuning is possible under these conditions, no Kil'jaedan, Yogg Saron, Lich King, Ragnaros level hardmodes are possible.

 

To a large degree because I believe this to be part engine coding, part feature coding, part casual nature of devs and part inexperience of Bioware and naivity of EA.

[Tiron_Raptor]

I know what this thread really needs... it needs

redone only someone else stuns the guy at about the point where I took the screenshot for http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/6273/debunkify.jpg . After both abilities have been activated and had their resources pulled, but before the second anim starts.

 

In theory what should happen is that the animations get interrupted and replaced with the one for whatever CC he got hit with, preventing him from even getting to the grenade throw anim at all.

 

What would happen then? You already used both abilities: that's already been accepted by the server as evidenced by the cooldowns not resetting themselves and the resources being pulled. So that second Rakghoul? Still going to take the damage and get crowd controlled just the same. Probably won't go flying through the air, may just suddenly 'warp' backwards to where it would've landed.

 

It'd take some practice to pull off with the right timing, but it would be EXTREMELY informative if managed.

 

The funny part is, based on my playing so far, and the client-server sync problems being what they are, the smuggler might in fact go into the 'cc'd' anim for a second, then throw the grenade anyway, then go back to cc'd. I don't know how many times I've seen that exact thing happen with enemies I cryoban'd.

 

It would, however, illustrate one of my main points: the fact that you haven't started the animation doesn't mean the ability hasn't been used or the damage applied. Ofc, since it WOULD illustrate my main point, I'll bet nobody actually dares try to do it.

 

I'd do it myself, except I don't have the software or the hard drive space. God I need a new hard drive...

[Kirbyski]

I am a rather fiery , explosive guy when I get frustrated. Now I dont know what to rage about, I cant say "F$&KING LAG" because it isn't actually lag. Perhaps I will just growl for a long period of time raising and lowering the pitch until I feel better ?

[JediGnome]

So content that only the top 5-6% of WoW raiders (itself a minority group among broader WoW players) may or may not be possible in this engine.

 

I still go back to the fact that if we have to have WoW's two-animations-per-class-used-for-every-attack system to get "tight" gameplay like WoW at the very top level, I'll pass. If I see my Goblin do his spinny jump attack one more time, regardless of what ability I just used, I might scream.

 

I can see how players at the very tip top of PvE and PvP couldn't care less about the animations and want full fighting game style animation interruption and 1:1 input to action mechanics...but a huge percentage of us couldn't care less about that kind of stuff. Make the content interesting and the game fun to play, and most of us will be willing to deal with animation syncing (City of Heroes did just fine as a PvE game with hard animation syncing, where attacks were locked to animations).

 

I don't mind them looking at character responsiveness (it has it's issues), but if the "fix" is to make animation sequences WoW-style homogeneous, no thanks.

[Tiron_Raptor]

I am a rather fiery , explosive guy when I get frustrated. Now I dont know what to rage about, I cant say "F$&KING LAG" because it isn't actually lag. Perhaps I will just growl for a long period of time raising and lowering the pitch until I feel better ?

 

There's a whole series of issues with specific things that cause certain abilities or other parts of the combat system to not work quite right.

 

It's not any one overarching thing, though I think there are a couple more commonly noted than the others.

 

The bug with non-GCD abilities is just devastating, as is the healing ability simply ceasing to go off.

 

The bug with the ability action queue is irritating, especially for those people trying to be super precise(PvP superfreaks, I'm looking at you).

 

The client-server sync problems seem to be a fair bit worse than they really should be, but I can't begin to figure out what's causing it...

Edited January 5, 2012 by Tiron_Raptor

[Axxar]

I am a rather fiery , explosive guy when I get frustrated. Now I dont know what to rage about, I cant say "F$&KING LAG" because it isn't actually lag. Perhaps I will just growl for a long period of time raising and lowering the pitch until I feel better ?

No situation is ever above the old blame the lag routine.

[Xcore]

I know what this thread really needs... it needs

redone only someone else stuns the guy at about the point where I took the screenshot for http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/6273/debunkify.jpg . After both abilities have been activated and had their resources pulled, but before the second anim starts.

 

In theory what should happen is that the animations get interrupted and replaced with the one for whatever CC he got hit with, preventing him from even getting to the grenade throw anim at all.

 

What would happen then? You already used both abilities: that's already been accepted by the server as evidenced by the cooldowns not resetting themselves and the resources being pulled. So that second Rakghoul? Still going to take the damage and get crowd controlled just the same. Probably won't go flying through the air, may just suddenly 'warp' backwards to where it would've landed.

 

It'd take some practice to pull off with the right timing, but it would be EXTREMELY informative if managed.

 

The funny part is, based on my playing so far, and the client-server sync problems being what they are, the smuggler might in fact go into the 'cc'd' anim for a second, then throw the grenade anyway, then go back to cc'd. I don't know how many times I've seen that exact thing happen with enemies I cryoban'd.

 

It would, however, illustrate one of my main points: the fact that you haven't started the animation doesn't mean the ability hasn't been used or the damage applied. Ofc, since it WOULD illustrate my main point, I'll bet nobody actually dares try to do it.

 

I'd do it myself, except I don't have the software or the hard drive space. God I need a new hard drive...

 

Will please stop posting about Client/Server interaction? It is certainly a part of the picture but you miss 80% of the rest constably. I don't understand why you do this. It's rage inducing reading your replies because theyre long, well structured and almost completely besides the point.

 

It's as if you're writing awesome creationist "science books". Your posts confuse newcomers because you ignore so much, constantly droning on about client/server latency.

 

Do you realize that nobody is disputing the fact that the server registers certain events for which the animations delay? Why do you keep insisting on this small part of this great topic as if it were a revelation? There are many issues, here is one that has "nothing" to do with latency:

 

1) Trinkets CC (instant no GCD trigger)

2) Cover (instant no GCD trigger)

3) Knockback (instant GCD trigger)

 

The above should take no more than 1.5 sec max with keybinds. Yet its impossible to accomplish under 3-4 seconds. Listen, I like you, youre intelligent. I just want you to finally realize that this is a very complex set of issues that a part Client/Server Communication, part UI sync, part engine code, part feature code, part conscious combat design decisions and perhaps other minor parts.

[Tiron_Raptor]

No situation is ever above the old blame the lag routine.

 

Sure, blame it on your ISP.

 

Naaah. Most of it doesn't look to be lag. Even the client-server sync problems can't fully be explained by latency: they're too consistent, and explaining it with just network latency requires a fairly specific set of circumstances that shouldn't happen that reliably.

[Levartful]

hi. been playing wow for the past 6 years, 4 years of that have been pure pvp gaming. I was playing a rogue and a feral druid because I loved how fast the gameplay was. You can chain 3-4 abilities, if not more, in almost under a second. Shadowstep+Ambush almost instantly followed by a eviscerate not even .1 sec after cloack of shadow+sprint+vanish....trinket, anything. What your fingers do, the games does. In SWTOR, i have the time to press the button almost 20 times before it actually goes off....not all the time, sometimes the response is almost immediate, but the 1 second global cooldown after doing an ability, on almost all abilities, makes it seem a bit more slow paced combat. So yeah, add the ability delay+global cooldown...you get insane delays when your trying to place a couple abilities one after another. For example, I was fighting against 2 other players last evening on my sith sorcerer. I tried to electrocute one of them, and switch target to the other and whirlwind him. I had my shield up, so I shouldve been able to land those moves. When i threw electrocute at the first guy, I switched target to the next player during the 1 sec global cooldown to prepare for the whirlwind. When i clicked whirlwind...nothing happened for a couple seconds, then the casting bar appeared and the animation started...but the other player was already out of the stun by that time...so I cancelled casting and went for a shield, tried to survive a bit more and eventually died.

Also, eevrytime I try to activate my ability that frees you from stun (lets call it trinket cause i cant remember the name now) the response is always wayyy late...and an ability such as this, has to be triggered instantly, losing a sec in a stun is huge.

 

I wouldve had more chances of surviving if my abilities had triggered as I pressed them. Its not as unforgiving in 1v1 situations, where your not taking as much dmg, but I cant imagine playing warzones with this issue, it must be quite frustrating sometimes.

 

The rest of the game is amazing. Im still having fun, I will continue playing, but im a very competitive person, and when the game does not response to what im telling it to do...its frustrating enough to just log out. Please fix this, this should be class triple, double x 100 A bug priority . good luck to the team for this, and good job for the rest, i didnt have this much fun since the first time I played WoW.

[Noxxia]

@Xcore

 

Didn't mean to bail on our discussion, I had to go to bed as well. I was simply trying to look on the bright side of things because every post I was reading was overly negative. WoW had plenty of latency issues years after release, need I mention Ulduar, existing in the SECOND expansion. And by latency I mean the servers not properly handling game mechanics such as what you're talking about. I can't even begin to count the number of raid nights cancelled because the server died and the fights were unplayable.

 

During my experience playing WoW through the years I encountered many such issues that could be similar to problems here. In my view, Blizzard just handled them more gracefully. To me it looks just like the same thing as using an ability in WoW and nothing registering for a couple seconds which most people will attribute to internet lag. But because in SWTOR it locks you into the animation it seems different. My guess is it's just not handled as gracefully and is a similar problem since from what I've read most people encounter this problem when they're in "heavily" populated areas.

 

@Amplicon

 

I never said you were. I just said people. If you wrote 3000+ posts on all these accounts then touche to you. I will apologize for the "make an MMO yourself" comment, that was uncalled for when directing it towards you. I meant to direct it towards the negative nancy type that does nothing but ***** and moan. Please, if you read this, forgive me. I didn't mean it that way.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Noxxia

[Xcore]

So content that only the top 5-6% of WoW raiders (itself a minority group among broader WoW players) may or may not be possible in this engine.

 

I still go back to the fact that if we have to have WoW's two-animations-per-class-used-for-every-attack system to get "tight" gameplay like WoW at the very top level, I'll pass. If I see my Goblin do his spinny jump attack one more time, regardless of what ability I just used, I might scream.

 

I can see how players at the very tip top of PvE and PvP couldn't care less about the animations and want full fighting game style animation interruption and 1:1 input to action mechanics...but a huge percentage of us couldn't care less about that kind of stuff. Make the content interesting and the game fun to play, and most of us will be willing to deal with animation syncing (City of Heroes did just fine as a PvE game with hard animation syncing, where attacks were locked to animations).

 

I don't mind them looking at character responsiveness (it has it's issues), but if the "fix" is to make animation sequences WoW-style homogeneous, no thanks.

 

You miss the whole grand scheme of things. In this current system you simply cannot have rewarding, challenging, complex PvE encounters or complex PvP interaction.... why Is it difficult to understand that these are fundamentals. Gameplay/Avatar Response > All in an Action Combat Game.

[Khoranth]

For what its worth, i belive this issue to remain indefinitely. Very likely it will be addressed and tweaked, masked but it will never play as smooth as WoW. I don't belive this game will ever have a rich and complex PvE Scene. I dont see how tight tuning is possible under these conditions, no Kil'jaedan, Yogg Saron, Lich King, Ragnaros level hardmodes are possible.

 

To a large degree because I believe this to be part engine coding, part feature coding, part casual nature of devs and part inexperience of Bioware and naivity of EA.

 

I think they can fix it really easily, if they decide to move away from fast paced FPS control, and move to an animation controlled turn based game.

 

Right now, it feels like they put both in place, and they are conflicting with eachother and makes for a horrible feel.

 

Allow players to queue an ability during animations, AND SEE THE ABILITY queued, and whatever button is pressed last is what shows up in the queue window, then let abilities happen naturally as each animation ends.

 

Sure competitive PVP will be a big joke, but whatever, at least it will make for an enjoyable PVE experience.

 

I think it would be a courageous act to move away from WoWs FPS control combat system and try something different.

 

Whatever they do, it better be fast, the current system is a disaster.

[Khoranth]

You miss the whole grand scheme of things. In this current system you simply cannot have rewarding, challenging, complex PvE encounters or complex PvP interaction.... why Is it difficult to understand that these are fundamentals. Gameplay/Avatar Response > All in an Action Combat Game.

 

 

I think you can have complex PVE encounters without action FPS style controls, pvp not so much

[Xcore]

@Xcore

 

Didn't mean to bail on our discussion, I had to go to bed as well. I was simply trying to look on the bright side of things because every post I was reading was overly negative. WoW had plenty of latency issues years after release, need I mention Ulduar, existing in the SECOND expansion. And by latency I mean the servers not properly handling game mechanics such as what you're talking about. I can't even begin to count the number of raid nights cancelled because the server died and the fights were unplayable.

 

During my experience playing WoW through the years I encountered many such issues that could be similar to problems here. In my view, Blizzard just handled them more gracefully. To me it looks just like the same thing as using an ability in WoW and nothing registering for a couple seconds which most people will attribute to internet lag. But because in SWTOR it locks you into the animation it seems different. My guess is it's just not handled as gracefully and is a similar problem since from what I've read most people encounter this problem when they're in "heavily" populated areas.

 

@Amplicon

 

I never said you were. I just said people. If you wrote 3000+ posts on all these accounts then touche to you. I will apologize for the "make an MMO yourself" comment, that was uncalled for when directing it towards you. I meant to direct it towards the negative nancy type that does nothing but ***** and moan. Please, if you read this, forgive me. I didn't mean it that way.

 

It's ok, I agree on the incredible negativity but everyone has to understand that it is fostered and increased by lack of communication and only natural considering the issue at hand as well as length of thread.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree, WoW at no point had these issues. It had latency issues and lag, server side. Perhaps you'd be stuck casting frostbolt for about 8 seconds and then everything fast forwards lol. Sure, I remember Ulduar, I played in the top 100 U.S. at the time and I know the server lag you're referring to. However, it has nothing to do with this problem.

[Flebberflep]

I think they can fix it really easily, if they decide to move away from fast paced FPS control, and move to an animation controlled turn based game.

 

Right now, it feels like they put both in place, and they are conflicting with eachother and makes for a horrible feel.

 

Allow players to queue an ability during animations, AND SEE THE ABILITY queued, and whatever button is pressed last is what shows up in the queue window, then let abilities happen naturally as each animation ends.

 

Sure competitive PVP will be a big joke, but whatever, at least it will make for an enjoyable PVE experience.

 

I think it would be a courageous act to move away from WoWs FPS control combat system and try something different.

 

Whatever they do, it better be fast, the current system is a disaster.

 

Having ability queues would make the game more static. You wouldn't be playing the character, you'd just be telling him what to do for the next 5 seconds. This would mean that any gameplay that requires fast reactions would go out the window, and the disconnect between player and character would be even wider.

 

The game system fine as it is, it just needs tweaking and the problems with the GCD triggering without abilities etc. fixing.

[Xcore]

I think you can have complex PVE encounters without action FPS style controls, pvp not so much

 

I disagree, not in a multiplayer. This is based on what I perceive to be fun though so completely subjective. I agree with your general point though and why not PvP turn based? Scorched Earth was awesome...

[JediGnome]

Did you play WoW at release? Because it certainly had issues like this (not exactly like, but in the realm), and the encounters were not nearly as complex as they are now. The most advanced encounter in the game, pre-expansions, was Kal'thazud, and his mechanics are considered a joke by modern WoW raiders. Even the "hard" fights like Saphiron were just resistance checks. None of these complex mechanics were in the game yet.

 

It took WoW seven years of constant development and refinement to get where they are now. Seven years. Let me repeat that, seven years.

[noogi]

in wow the "hard fights" were in bc and not now. so no 7 years

[Cranberries]

Did you play WoW at release? Because it certainly had issues like this (not exactly like, but in the realm), and the encounters were not nearly as complex as they are now. The most advanced encounter in the game, pre-expansions, was Kal'thazud, and his mechanics are considered a joke by modern WoW raiders. Even the "hard" fights like Saphiron were just resistance checks. None of these complex mechanics were in the game yet.

 

It took WoW seven years of constant development and refinement to get where they are now. Seven years. Let me repeat that, seven years.

 

Point went over your head, eh?

 

... WoW didn't have ability delay at launch, infact it was constantly praised for the smoothness of it's combat.

[Tiron_Raptor]

Will please stop posting about Client/Server interaction? It is certainly a part of the picture but you miss 80% of the rest constably. I don't understand why you do this. It's rage inducing reading your replies because theyre long, well structured and almost completely besides the point.

 

It's as if you're writing awesome creationist "science books". Your posts confuse newcomers because you ignore so much, constantly droning on about client/server latency.

 

Do you realize that nobody is disputing the fact that the server registers certain events for which the animations delay? Why do you keep insisting on this small part of this great topic as if it were a revelation? There are many issues, here is one that has "nothing" to do with latency:

 

1) Trinkets CC (instant no GCD trigger)

2) Cover (instant no GCD trigger)

3) Knockback (instant GCD trigger)

 

The above should take no more than 1.5 sec max with keybinds. Yet its impossible to accomplish under 3-4 seconds. Listen, I like you, youre intelligent. I just want you to finally realize that this is a very complex set of issues that a part Client/Server Communication, part UI sync, part engine code, part feature code, part conscious combat design decisions and perhaps other minor parts.

 

I have said, repeatedly, that it is a complex, multifaceted issue. I have reiterated that the Bioware post pretty much flat out said that lumping these various issues together made it harder to find and fix them.

 

All I've been trying to say the entire time, is that most of the issues lumped in here have nothing to do with 'delay' or 'responsiveness', which is what the topic is ostensibly about.

 

I'm also trying to point out that several of the vids YOU linked exhibit no non-cosmetic responsiveness issues at ALL.

 

Because no matter what you say about "nobody is disputing the fact that the server registers certain events for which the animations delay?", the way you frame your responses and try to demonstrate your points indicate that you're relying on the client relaying the effects of things happening to determine when things 'worked', which indicates that you do not in fact understand at all.

 

Seriously. Try it. Try to find a way to deliberately screw up the way the client displays what you're trying to do. Interrupt it. Disconnect before it relays a response and have someone else monitor what happens. Find a no-cooldown instant with an animation longer than the GCD and just spam the crap out of it. Find some way to separate what actually happens from what appears to happen.

 

It'd eliminate a huge variable and make it quite clear what I'm trying to say: the client, for the sake of appearances, deliberately holds back from displaying information it already has, and that has in fact already been applied, until it would 'look right' for what happens.

 

There's already a number of videos demonstrating that if you push it off far enough that it can't do that and keep up, it stops doing it. Your smuggler video for example, where the grenade damage and debuff are applied almost immediately at the start of the animation, presumably because of the long animation in front of it. (I'd be very interested to time how long the grenades takes to travel to the target when the anim does start, and compare it to how long it takes between the resource pull and the damage appearing.) The kolto-injection IA video also demonstrates this: the animations get badly desynched and go to crap, but the ability keeps working (for a bit anyway).

 

If you do this, deliberately prevent the display from being able to keep up with the abilities, one of two things will happen:

 

If I'm right, the damage and effects will all end up being applied anyway, in the correct order, at something approximating the correct time (depending on how much the client can compensate and continue cosmetic-ing it. This is why pushing it really hard is important).

 

If You're right, once the display gets seriously jacked up, the abilities will start seriously malfunctioning as well. Things going in the wrong order, cooldowns not working properly, things getting skipped to no effect... all sorts of crazy effects that seriously mess up combat.

 

Either way, it'd be obvious.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Tiron_Raptor