NO troll intended. But anybody have an IDEA how they can fix ability delay?

[Izichial]

I don't have source for this and it was a long time ago so take it with a grain of salt, but it sounds fairly plausible. Everything is "as I recall".

 

WHO had very similar ability (and positioning (resulting in warping particularly on knockbacks and other sudden movements)) delay and there was some discussion on the topic in the early days of that game as well, and someone made a fairly detailed post a combination a few different things that play in.

 

1) How much the server trusts the client to correctly report movement and ability usage. The more (efficiency undoubtedly plays a role as well) often and to which precision things needs to be validated before it's accepted by the server (and thus communicated to all players) the less responsive the game will be.

 

According to the post, WoW trusts the client more than pretty much all other MMOs and that's one of the reasons it's the most responsive. The downside (and I got the impression the other developers were REALLY paranoid about this) is that it's way easier to make things like speedhacks and gold sellers flying dozens of lvl 1 characters at 1000% speed to Orgrimmar 100m up in the air then positioning them and dropping them spelling out gold selling websites' URLs with corpses... yeah.

 

In the case of abilities how far the client is trusted also plays a large role. Take a positional attack, if the server trusts the client to determine for itself whether it's eligible to use a positional attack on say, a moving target that turns (50% of PvP situations ^_^) you have a responsiveness orders of magnitude above another which needs to validate that it's both within range and in the correct position to use it (not to mention whether your character is able to use it (not stunned or similar), has the resources to use the ability etc).

 

Anyway, WoW instead built in checks (greatly refined over the years, probably) approaching it from the other end, where the servers periodically (I doubt anyone but a select few coders at Blizzard knows specifics about these things) checks whether movements are actually possible and disconnects / flags accounts for further investigation when characters are doing things they shouldn't be able to.

 

2) Frequency of client <-> server communication / updates. This one is as simple as it sounds. The more frequent updates the less delay and more accurate ability firing and less noticeable warping (because you'll much quicker (although we're talking fractions of seconds here) get the "right" position for things) for the cost of higher bandwidth used.

 

 

An illustrative if terribly insufficiently detailed theory is this: if you both have a client that isn't trusted (needs to validate things with servers) and a low (relatively speaking) frequency of client <-> server updates and you're trying to, say, use a positional attack; the server needs to validate communication from two clients and agree that their positions and states overlap in such a way that the positional attack is performed and in such a case this will simply not happen as quickly / often as it would in the case of a trusted client with higher frequency of client <-> server communication.

 

 

A cynic might note that a developer needs to spend less money to maintain a game that has built-in paranoia about it's clients (because less manual involvement in investigating and dealing with clients doing things they shouldn't because many things simply won't be possible or at least at all easy to do) and low bandwidth usage. Gaming is a surprisingly conservative industry.

 

 

I repeat, this is all an as-I-recall anecdote about something I read long ago. I greatly dislike unsourced claims and I wouldn't bother putting my name next to something like this if it wasn't the best explanation I've heard over several years and several MMOs with a casual interest in this specific matter as it has been bothering me in pretty much every other game but WoW.

 

Inb4: someone reads half a paragraph of my wall of text and replies "lol fanboy go back to WoW!!!!!!" because I had the gall the claim WoW got something right on TOR official forums.

[Airslash]

I've been looking into this a bit more with my guild, and we're not entirely convinced that it's a bug. If you look at the NPC's, they also "suffer" from this.

 

just thinking, but what if this was intended? It does make sense that you can't shoot your blaster or wave your lightsaber when you're busy dodging something.

So I'm curious what the intention from Bioware is?

[oflow]

That is because over 200,000 people do not understand how the internet works. Trust me on this one, I've been doing this a long time. Ability delay is NOT a bug, it is a fluctuation in ping time's between sending and receiving, and the small window of opportunity inside of the ability queue system. It's NOT fixable, it's HIDEABLE. Read my posts again, this time with a little less bias. Stop pretending that Bioware is bowing to your every whim and treat them like a multi million dollar corporation. They know the truth. Just because they tell the user base there is a problem doesn't mean there is. They're going to mask the problem, but it will still exist because its a ping issue, tied to the TCP protocol. Cannot be fixed, ever.

 

. You do not understand how these games work, nor do you understand how the internet works. When you have someone like me, sitting here telling you the ABSOLUTE TRUTH, instead of hiding behind corporate things like "we acknowledge theres a problem", you don't jump down my throat. You're supposed to take that knowledge and learn from it. Explore it. Stop denouncing it simply because you don't understand the terminology. I'm tired of trying to help you people.

 

lol. Saying BW just tells the community there is a problem but there isnt has got to be the worst thing I've ever read on this forum. Fanboi of the year award! Do you even listen to yourself talk?

 

The problem is this game is using a crappy engine. Instead of wasting all that money on a bunch of alien gibberish dialogue they should have actually developed their own engine.

 

It was laziness on their part and this game is just another mediocre game cashing in on the IP.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Qishari
quoted removed content

[supertouch]

the animations and waiting periods are intended. people are just stupid.

[mattdell]

I don't have source for this and it was a long time ago so take it with a grain of salt, but it sounds fairly plausible. Everything is "as I recall".

 

WHO had very similar ability (and positioning (resulting in warping particularly on knockbacks and other sudden movements)) delay and there was some discussion on the topic in the early days of that game as well, and someone made a fairly detailed post a combination a few different things that play in.

 

1) How much the server trusts the client to correctly report movement and ability usage. The more (efficiency undoubtedly plays a role as well) often and to which precision things needs to be validated before it's accepted by the server (and thus communicated to all players) the less responsive the game will be.

 

According to the post, WoW trusts the client more than pretty much all other MMOs and that's one of the reasons it's the most responsive. The downside (and I got the impression the other developers were REALLY paranoid about this) is that it's way easier to make things like speedhacks and gold sellers flying dozens of lvl 1 characters at 1000% speed to Orgrimmar 100m up in the air then positioning them and dropping them spelling out gold selling websites' URLs with corpses... yeah.

 

In the case of abilities how far the client is trusted also plays a large role. Take a positional attack, if the server trusts the client to determine for itself whether it's eligible to use a positional attack on say, a moving target that turns (50% of PvP situations ^_^) you have a responsiveness orders of magnitude above another which needs to validate that it's both within range and in the correct position to use it (not to mention whether your character is able to use it (not stunned or similar), has the resources to use the ability etc).

 

Anyway, WoW instead built in checks (greatly refined over the years, probably) approaching it from the other end, where the servers periodically (I doubt anyone but a select few coders at Blizzard knows specifics about these things) checks whether movements are actually possible and disconnects / flags accounts for further investigation when characters are doing things they shouldn't be able to.

 

2) Frequency of client <-> server communication / updates. This one is as simple as it sounds. The more frequent updates the less delay and more accurate ability firing and less noticeable warping (because you'll much quicker (although we're talking fractions of seconds here) get the "right" position for things) for the cost of higher bandwidth used.

 

 

An illustrative if terribly insufficiently detailed theory is this: if you both have a client that isn't trusted (needs to validate things with servers) and a low (relatively speaking) frequency of client <-> server updates and you're trying to, say, use a positional attack; the server needs to validate communication from two clients and agree that their positions and states overlap in such a way that the positional attack is performed and in such a case this will simply not happen as quickly / often as it would in the case of a trusted client with higher frequency of client <-> server communication.

 

 

A cynic might note that a developer needs to spend less money to maintain a game that has built-in paranoia about it's clients (because less manual involvement in investigating and dealing with clients doing things they shouldn't because many things simply won't be possible or at least at all easy to do) and low bandwidth usage. Gaming is a surprisingly conservative industry.

 

 

I repeat, this is all an as-I-recall anecdote about something I read long ago. I greatly dislike unsourced claims and I wouldn't bother putting my name next to something like this if it wasn't the best explanation I've heard over several years and several MMOs with a casual interest in this specific matter as it has been bothering me in pretty much every other game but WoW.

 

Inb4: someone reads half a paragraph of my wall of text and replies "lol fanboy go back to WoW!!!!!!" because I had the gall the claim WoW got something right on TOR official forums.

 

Thank you. Finally, someone that gets it. I'm tired of the unwashed masses following each other around like sheep waiting for some miracle fix to a problem that doesn't exist in the manner they think it does. Its quite saddening to see how many people can't think for themselves.

[Jeedaix]

lol. Saying BW just tells the community there is a problem but there isnt has got to be the worst thing I've ever read on this forum. Fanboi of the year award! Do you even listen to yourself talk?

 

The problem is this game is using a crappy engine. Instead of wasting all that money on a bunch of alien gibberish dialogue they should have actually developed their own engine.

 

It was laziness on their part and this game is just another mediocre game cashing in on the IP.

 

 

So sayeth oflow..... Bioware Exec: Did you see that guy oflow in the forums? Bioware Employee: Yeah...We should sell all stock options and get outta here! Bioware Exec: Get my portfolio dang it!!!! SELL SELL SELL Pandas>>>>Jedi Knight anyway

[Hairless]

I don't give a crap how they fix it.

I will pay for one month of sub. If it's not fixed by then, back to WoW for me.

[lunabaguna]

the animations and waiting periods are intended. people are just stupid.

 

^this

[Lvispriestly]

That is because over 200,000 people do not understand how the internet works. Trust me on this one, I've been doing this a long time. Ability delay is NOT a bug, it is a fluctuation in ping time's between sending and receiving, and the small window of opportunity inside of the ability queue system. It's NOT fixable, it's HIDEABLE. Read my posts again, this time with a little less bias. Stop pretending that Bioware is bowing to your every whim and treat them like a multi million dollar corporation. They know the truth. Just because they tell the user base there is a problem doesn't mean there is. They're going to mask the problem, but it will still exist because its a ping issue, tied to the TCP protocol. Cannot be fixed, ever.

 

You do not understand how these games work, nor do you understand how the internet works. When you have someone like me, sitting here telling you the ABSOLUTE TRUTH, instead of hiding behind corporate things like "we acknowledge theres a problem", you don't jump down my throat. You're supposed to take that knowledge and learn from it. Explore it. Stop denouncing it simply because you don't understand the terminology. I'm tired of trying to help you people. I can put it all into numbers for you if you'd like, but it would be pages long. Why bother though, right? You're going to denounce this information as if I'm a witch in Salem.

 

BTW, the fireball in WoW reference is factual. It is THE technology that Blizzard implemented to get around all sorts of game delay. They developed it specifically for this issue, in house. Go test it if you still play. Open your combat log, watch the fireball hit you(in the log), and observe that your health bar hasn't moved. Now, kindly shut up with your spreading of misinformation. I seek to inform the masses, not dumb them down like some posters in here.

 

In WoW, the client delays what it shows you until the server has given the OK. In SW:ToR, this is not the case. That is your elusive "ability delay".

 

 

 

divided opinions to your posts. interesting nonetheless.

 

so lets say what you are telling us is correct (probably is/is not, whatever),

 

the only way to go is to 'hide' it. therefore the actualy gameplay after 'fixed' will be the same except that we will be made feeling all combats are more responsive.

 

am i understanding this correctly? please share your thought. thx.

 

 

 

 

and i am wondering if this was such a known issue. lesson learnt from wow and such.

why wouldnt they hide it at the release as we can see here some players already stop playing due to this. id say its not a good business move if there was one.

Edited January 7, 2012 by Qishari
quoted removed content

[lunabaguna]

I dont really blame wow, they were catering for the last 8 years to a lot of people who suck at playing video games, and they catered to people who suck at playing video games. Once people actually have to think about what move to use next, and correctly respond to cooldowns, GCDs and strategic use of dynamic rotations, they get upset and angry. This really isnt a game where .5 seconds will make or break a game, like wow was.

[WarTornPanda]

Believe me or not, doesn't really matter to me. I pride myself on being a truth teller, even at the expense of others feelings. You really need proof? You think I conjured up that very eloquent explanation straight from my butt? Do I strike you as the type of person to troll with great intelligence? Please. I really wish you could review peoples posting history, that way you could review mine and realize that I'm a knowledgable person with great aspirations for this game, and I understand deeply how they work.

 

You are so ignorant and arrogant. It's amazing...

[joerumble]

 

1) How much the server trusts the client to correctly report movement and ability usage. The more (efficiency undoubtedly plays a role as well) often and to which precision things needs to be validated before it's accepted by the server (and thus communicated to all players) the less responsive the game will be.

 

According to the post, WoW trusts the client more than pretty much all other MMOs and that's one of the reasons it's the most responsive. The downside (and I got the impression the other developers were REALLY paranoid about this) is that it's way easier to make things like speedhacks and gold sellers flying dozens of lvl 1 characters at 1000% speed to Orgrimmar 100m up in the air then positioning them and dropping them spelling out gold selling websites' URLs with corpses... yeah.

 

In the case of abilities how far the client is trusted also plays a large role. Take a positional attack, if the server trusts the client to determine for itself whether it's eligible to use a positional attack on say, a moving target that turns (50% of PvP situations ^_^) you have a responsiveness orders of magnitude above another which needs to validate that it's both within range and in the correct position to use it (not to mention whether your character is able to use it (not stunned or similar), has the resources to use the ability etc).

 

Anyway, WoW instead built in checks (greatly refined over the years, probably) approaching it from the other end, where the servers periodically (I doubt anyone but a select few coders at Blizzard knows specifics about these things) checks whether movements are actually possible and disconnects / flags accounts for further investigation when characters are doing things they shouldn't be able to.

 

2) Frequency of client <-> server communication / updates. This one is as simple as it sounds. The more frequent updates the less delay and more accurate ability firing and less noticeable warping (because you'll much quicker (although we're talking fractions of seconds here) get the "right" position for things) for the cost of higher bandwidth used.

 

 

An illustrative if terribly insufficiently detailed theory is this: if you both have a client that isn't trusted (needs to validate things with servers) and a low (relatively speaking) frequency of client <-> server updates and you're trying to, say, use a positional attack; the server needs to validate communication from two clients and agree that their positions and states overlap in such a way that the positional attack is performed and in such a case this will simply not happen as quickly / often as it would in the case of a trusted client with higher frequency of client <-> server communication.

 

 

A cynic might note that a developer needs to spend less money to maintain a game that has built-in paranoia about it's clients (because less manual involvement in investigating and dealing with clients doing things they shouldn't because many things simply won't be possible or at least at all easy to do) and low bandwidth usage. Gaming is a surprisingly conservative industry..

 

This is exactly what it is. The feedback and conditionals built into the engine (Flytext, Position requirements, procs, execute range etc) happens at the end of the GCD instead of on keypress which produces a very sluggish feel to the gameplay, even if you play very nicely with the ability queue. It's much worse in Warzones than strict PvE because of the reasons described in the quotes.

 

This is certainly one of those things that, if/when finally fixed, people who didn't notice it before will go "Oh ****, yeah it's much better".

 

 

PS When you get higher level and you're a more caster-style class, try playing with some of the alacrity trinkets. It's incredibly obvious the engine does not handle the increased haste well.

Edited January 6, 2012 by joerumble

[Zebular]

Here is Dev acknowledgment of this ability issue:

This issue is under active investigation.

 

The complication is that there are actually a number of different issues with very different causes and potential resolutions lumped together in this thread.

 

All we can say for now is 'we are actively working on the topic of character responsiveness'.

 

Georg "Observer" Zoeller

Principal Lead Combat Designer

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=897912#edit897912

 

/end debate

Edited January 6, 2012 by Zebular

[lunabaguna]

A lot of people dont quite realize either that WoW didnt build their engine from the ground up, they modified the WC3 engine to suit wow, which is why it was SO BUGGY at release, like massively horribly buggy and sluggish. And guess what, building the WC3 engine took about 5 -6 years. Hero isnt a horrible engine, its doing a lot better than the WC3 engine did for WoW, theyre just still refining it. If they had built their engine this game wouldnt have arrived til 2015 at the earliest.

[lovelymuffins]

I really dont understand how people can defend this ability delay.

[supertouch]

bioware didn't acknowledge a flaw in their engine. they acknowledged the problem customers have with the game's intended design. this means their attention to cinematic detail will deteriorate and we'll see nothing but clipped animations and abilities being spammed.

[Kayden]

It's the hero engine, so yes, the entire game would essentially have to be reworked if it is indeed a problem with the engine.

 

 

Why Bioware chose this terrible engine, I don't know, but I suspect it had something to do with taking a cheap shortcut.

 

And your reasoning for calling the Hero engine terrible is?

[Xavmobile]

I really dont understand how people can defend this ability delay.

 

Welcome to the club.

[TClinesma]

no one cares!

[Larlar]

I don't know. I really don't.

 

I actually think there are a combination of things that make PVP in this game basically awful. Its not just this delay, its the ridiculously bad FPS in warzones, and the clunky way some abilities work in combination with their animation, the camera auto resetting when you move forward etc.

 

If you have pvped in Warcraft for any length of time, I honestly don't know how you could come to this game and actually enjoy the PVP. It just suffers from the same ill that plagued those other half baked MMOs over the past few years. It just feels like a zergy, jerky, half arsed mess and it feels as though there is basically no skill involved whatsoever.

 

Its so frustrating as I love the PVE aspect of this game (well the levelling/questing) but they really need to sit down and do a lot of work on how to amend PVP so its not basically a total write off. As it is at present, its just not even worth playing. Its just ... awful.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Larlar

[JetBlackx]

Here is Dev acknowledgment of this ability issue:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=897912#edit897912

 

/end debate

 

Actively working on fixing it, it says not. Hrrm?

[AlexRose]

Actively working on fixing it, it says not. Hrrm?

 

Oh no no. The debate goes on until fixed ...

[Merouk]

1. Allowing animations to be interrupted will help but won't fix all the problems. Certain animations actually add a delay at the BEGINNING of an instant-cast ability (for example, Jedi Knight's Force Sweep - it is INSTANT, but your animation shows you first jumping up and then delivering the AoE damage when you land, and you can be interrupted - which, btw, Mr. "It's the Internets" how do you explain lag interrupting an INSTANT ability). They have to redo the Force Sweep animation to deliver the damage instantly - perhaps we don't need to jump but can just extend our arms or something instantly.

 

2. If the NPC's have the same issues then the whole thing is not unfair, but animations aren't described in any of the skill descriptions or any of the website databases out there; how the hell are we supposed to pick a class that's good at PvP or PvE without knowing all this information beforehand? Out of the 3 tank classes, one has several "instant" abilities that are interruptible and not instant due to animations. Would you pick that class any more if you knew that? No.

 

So, they have to REDO all the animations to exactly match the intended duration of the ability - instants should have instant animations, chaneled 3 seconds should have 3 second animations, and everything should be clipped - the animation should immediately stop if you press a new ability, and the new ability should start.

 

It's a lot of work they have to do, which is why I'm not expecting them to fix it. They'll have to lose subscriptions over it, first.

[Xcore]

That is because over 200,000 people do not understand how the internet works. Trust me on this one, I've been doing this a long time. Ability delay is NOT a bug, it is a fluctuation in ping time's between sending and receiving, and the small window of opportunity inside of the ability queue system. It's NOT fixable, it's HIDEABLE. Read my posts again, this time with a little less bias. Stop pretending that Bioware is bowing to your every whim and treat them like a multi million dollar corporation. They know the truth. Just because they tell the user base there is a problem doesn't mean there is. They're going to mask the problem, but it will still exist because its a ping issue, tied to the TCP protocol. Cannot be fixed, ever.

 

You do not understand how these games work, nor do you understand how the internet works. When you have someone like me, sitting here telling you the ABSOLUTE TRUTH, instead of hiding behind corporate things like "we acknowledge theres a problem", you don't jump down my throat. You're supposed to take that knowledge and learn from it. Explore it. Stop denouncing it simply because you don't understand the terminology. I'm tired of trying to help you people. I can put it all into numbers for you if you'd like, but it would be pages long. Why bother though, right? You're going to denounce this information as if I'm a witch in Salem.

 

BTW, the fireball in WoW reference is factual. It is THE technology that Blizzard implemented to get around all sorts of game delay. They developed it specifically for this issue, in house. Go test it if you still play. Open your combat log, watch the fireball hit you(in the log), and observe that your health bar hasn't moved. Now, kindly shut up with your spreading of misinformation. I seek to inform the masses, not dumb them down like some posters in here.

 

In WoW, the client delays what it shows you until the server has given the OK. In SW:ToR, this is not the case. That is your elusive "ability delay".

 

You are correct in everything you say in regards to the Client Server communication. However, you must understand that is only part of the problem that causes the feeling of unresponsive gameplay. It is furthered by Animation Prioritization that can be found in the Smuggler Grenade video etc as well as ability and animation bugs such as Riposte AND lastly UI and GCD (aswell as sound) sync being unpolished and simply bad.

 

Last point of contention is that WoW launched with the illusion of client/server delay, it was not fixed later... I remember the fix in Beta 2 of WoW.

 

 

Posted on phone, apologies for mistakes...

Edited January 7, 2012 by Qishari
quoted removed content

[Harower]

I can't believe the amount of up themselves(The sort that say crap like "ummm excuse me I have done IT since before you where born) people posting stuff like the following.

 

"THE INTERNET IS THE INTERNET YOU CAN'T CHANGE HOW IT WORKS WAAAAAAA"

 

Honestly, no one give two ***** about the way it works. No one cares about HT cores in I7. No one wants to debate the smart asses who will fight you forever about the technicalities. There are places for those kind of people and it isn't here. I myself love a good debate about matters of interest. Interlacing, combat log packet compression etc etc

 

I have run two IT business's for 8 years. People who claim to know how it all works should as well know about how these sort of issues affect the average community. Makes me believe most of the technology minded people in here base there knowledge off Google. The average customer doesn't want to understand how his slow internet feels fast until it reaches bandwidth cap as opposed to ping response, packet overhead and throughput. They honestly don't care.

 

What this whole thing is about, people notice it, they feel it, they complain about it and they don't like it. Those are the points that are important. They matter to the customer and to the company untill they all get resolved. How they get fixed, masked, hidden is beyond irrelevant. All that matters is it stops bothering those who feel it is affecting them.

 

The people who this is affecting don't care what we have to say, so go debate cuda cores or something in another thread.

 

EDIT: My case and point, see the guy below's reply.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Harower