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

[Cincar]

Do you dance?

 

You know those situations in 1v1 fights, my abilities don't fire and enemy's abilities don't fire either. We just strafe left-right or around each other for 2-3 seconds but not hitting each other. At first I was like "damn my abilities lag I'm toasted but why he is not finishing me". Then ofc I realized his abilities lag as well.

 

Dunno if there is an established term for those situations so I call em dancing.

[Hexxo]

When I summon my mount, I wait for the cast bar to complete, sometimes I even see the image of the speeder appear. Then I immediately start moving forward, and the cast gets cancelled and the mount disappears. I have to cast all over again.

 

If this happens with combat abilities in the same way (and I have no reason to think it would be different), it would be less noticeable, but more of a problem.

[Isgarot]

It's interesting so many ppl here accept the cheap wow animations for the sake of fast ability spamming. When I started to play TOR I was surprised how good the animations of the characters were ... I paid attention to what was my character doing and based on that I fired my abilities.

 

A lot of players seem to depend solely on what the UI tells them, not on what the character is doing ... I hope I won't see ability cut offs in future MMOs I play. It's one of the reasons spectating WoW matches is so fun you want to shoot yourself ... watch the UI, disregard the avatars.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZRUHN2ABzc

 

no word ..... like the istant cast that took like 1.5 sec to fire .... what i have to watch to this, or that the heal dont fire. i have to wait 5 sec to fire an heal ??

Edited January 16, 2012 by Isgarot

[diantoscr]

It's interesting so many ppl here accept the cheap wow animations for the sake of fast ability spamming. When I started to play TOR I was surprised how good the animations of the characters were ... I paid attention to what was my character doing and based on that I fired my abilities.

 

A lot of players seem to depend solely on what the UI tells them, not on what the character is doing ... I hope I won't see ability cut offs in future MMOs I play. It's one of the reasons spectating WoW matches is so fun you want to shoot yourself ... watch the UI, disregard the avatars.

 

 

pretty animations are all fine and dandy...

 

but not when an instant attack has a 2+ second animation that makes you wait until that animation is done before you can use another ability...essentially lengthening the global cooldown

[tomhjen]

Started a Sentinel, stopped playing at 12, sometimes i can sit here clicking my hotkeys and nothing for ages, same problem on my shadow with spinning strike... bad BW..bad

[Edryk]

The other night I ran a HM Ilum on my tank and got so frustrated with how often I'd hit a button and NOTHING would happen except activating the global cooldown that I haven't logged on that toon since. It was 30-50% of the time I'd hit my main threat ability nothing happened.

 

Then in PvP you can use instants, but if you get knocked back or stunned during the animation, your ability cooldown activates without the ability even being used. Some abilities do their effect before the animation, some after. It's so inconsistent and arbitrary to the point of being a guessing game. Rolling the dice is fine for resists/misses etc, but rolling the dice against the chance that your abilities may or may not even try to work is infuriating.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Edryk

[myrmexaw]

It's interesting so many ppl here accept the cheap wow animations for the sake of fast ability spamming. When I started to play TOR I was surprised how good the animations of the characters were ... I paid attention to what was my character doing and based on that I fired my abilities.

 

A lot of players seem to depend solely on what the UI tells them, not on what the character is doing ... I hope I won't see ability cut offs in future MMOs I play. It's one of the reasons spectating WoW matches is so fun you want to shoot yourself ... watch the UI, disregard the avatars.

 

when you play a game for the first 10 hour you feel like the animation are really great ... after playing it for 50 hour you start seeing the animation are in fact all messed up .. after 100 hour you just figure the game is total crap because the animation does not even match the keybind input.

[Abadus]

Actually 5 seconds into beta i mentioned to my friend how clunky the UI felt and abilities didn't seem to work right on click.

 

Now after being 50 I am just super annoyed by it. Used to it a bit I guess but it still sucks. Sooo noticable when you are planting the bomb on the doors or mounting on your speeder. You can move 5 feet then unmount. That or it will double cast it. I have noticed in PVP it seems sometimes that instant abilities will fire the GCD but the ability itself will not fire off.

[Xelosu]

To Devs:

 

I know extremely fast and easy way to get rid of this problem.

Extend the global cooldown to 3 seconds and problem solved.

 

Everyone have same GC so sake of competitive play is met.

Actually this would be even more fair, cause it will no longer be the case of:

"I have better skills cause I have better computer/connection or can spam button faster".

People would have to actually think what ability they want to use.

[Marmerus]

To Devs:

 

I know extremely fast and easy way to get rid of this problem.

Extend the global cooldown to 3 seconds and problem solved.

 

Everyone have same GC so sake of competitive play is met.

Actually this would be even more fair, cause it will no longer be the case of:

"I have better skills cause I have better computer/connection or can spam button faster".

People would have to actually think what ability they want to use.

Long global cooldowns and cooldowns in general is a bad thing. People tend to get annoyed at the loss of control of your character.

[asbalana]

/bump

[CanSolo]

This game's combat has no flow what-so-ever because of the GCDs and the silly ability delay bug or whatever the **** it is.

At least for the melee classes, didn't play a range char over level 20 so can't really talk about that.

All in all...not fun.

Edited January 16, 2012 by CanSolo

[JDSH]

Didn't see anything in the new patch notes. I was hoping for some improvments.

[decampo]

When I summon my mount, I wait for the cast bar to complete, sometimes I even see the image of the speeder appear. Then I immediately start moving forward, and the cast gets cancelled and the mount disappears. I have to cast all over again.

 

If this happens with combat abilities in the same way (and I have no reason to think it would be different), it would be less noticeable, but more of a problem.

 

I agree completely with this. I cannot explain how frustrating I find this - it drives me crazy! I noticed this in one of the developer videos when demoing Tatooine and assumed it would be fixed for launch. It's so worrying to think that issues like these plagued the beta for so long yet the problems still persists.

 

Quite intrigued to see if the combat will be rectified after tomorrow's patch. If I was a betting man I'd say probably not!

Edited January 16, 2012 by decampo

[Godsfear]

Didn't see anything in the new patch notes. I was hoping for some improvments.

 

They can't fix it.

 

I'll bet 25$ via paypal that in 6 months the problem is still there mostly. They may be able to tone it down but don't expect it to go away entirely.

 

IF they could have gotten rid of such a fundamental flaw they would have done so already.

 

They're just going to keep shut up about it and hope they can string as many of you along as possible for as long as possible.

 

I played WARhammer for 1.5 years. I know how this goes (though at least WAR's abilities actually fire off.)

[starbust]

Wow was trying to add my response but I find this thread has been moved was it 6 times? As it has exceeded to 1000 post limit making it over 6000K response. Maybe if we reach 1million they might rework the animation + ability delay problem.

 

So playing a dps operative this problem is a huge negative for my class, dpsing using only instanst spells which fire off every 1.5seconds and having the game hang up on trying to fire off your most important spell 'backstab' I have had it fail 4 times or even 5 times in a row standing dirrectly behind a boss which does not move (while yelling to myself OMG WORK OMG WORK OMG WORK!!!!). We wiped with a melee heavy raid and its all down to this issue I could have used at least 10 more spells in that amount of times the ability delay happened not to just me but other memebers of the raid 1% wipe with 19000 hp left not once but twice!

 

Multi dotting stuff in this game with this ability delay is a huge let down, tab spamming getting my dart up on mobs or in pvp I find myself waiting so freaking long the sound it makes also seems to lag behind.

 

 

It was said before and I will say it again, wow lasted as long as it did not by beening the best balanced game in pvp/pve, not by giving the best end game content. It lasted as long as it did from offering smooth animation with no dely on chain casting or spamming spells, making it fun.

 

A month has passed swtor if you want people to resub to your game offer a fast solution to this huge problem and do it today!

Edited January 16, 2012 by starbust

[Vylentqt]

Started a Sentinel, stopped playing at 12, sometimes i can sit here clicking my hotkeys and nothing for ages, same problem on my shadow with spinning strike... bad BW..bad

 

Having this Delay with the Sniper class is very very annoying as well.

[Rendekar]

They can't fix it.

 

I'll bet 25$ via paypal that in 6 months the problem is still there mostly. They may be able to tone it down but don't expect it to go away entirely.

 

IF they could have gotten rid of such a fundamental flaw they would have done so already.

 

They're just going to keep shut up about it and hope they can string as many of you along as possible for as long as possible.

 

I played WARhammer for 1.5 years. I know how this goes (though at least WAR's abilities actually fire off.)

 

This. They cannot fix it. If they could, they would have done so already after all these months of beta. I will probably not subscribe until this is fixed but again probably it will never happen. I am still having hard time to believe how mindless even major developers can be when it comes to mmos. I bet there are no competitve raiders or pvpers in the development team of Swtor. Sadly, this is just another Warhammer Online with its current status.

[oflow]

There's so much false with your post I shouldn't even bother acknowledging it.

 

 

WoW has NEVER had an ability delay bug and saying it did is a complete lie. WoW's interface worked reliably out the door, which is one of the reasons it garnered 12.5 million subscribers. Bioware couldn't accomplish in 2011 what Blizzard did in 2004.

 

 

I am not a fanboi but WoW has had the ability delay bug on multiple seperate occasions, the last time was on the 4.1 patch release:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416210406

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416116412?page=7#121

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2592852738

 

 

Also WAR and Rift have also had this problem.

 

The difference is that they (Blizzard) actually have an open API so they work with modders that help them find the bugs and fix them relatively quickly.

 

People dont seem to understand part of the reason WoW runs so smoothly was because they actually had mods in beta and actually work with modders to fix bugs. Why TOR didnt do this is beyond me, especially when their UI basically feels like it was designed by someone that never played an MMO before.

 

The ability delay issue with TOR is most likely a client-server sync error. From the hi-res texture thread some ppl that know code speculate that theres character model copy protection files that make the client take an extra step when talking to the server which is probably whats causing it to get out of sync, which is also why its worse in pvp than pve since in pvp the client is having to wait on multiple responses from multiple clients to render the other players around you.

Edited January 16, 2012 by oflow

[Senatsu]

Lovely to see that this issue is getting some attention. Stay strong!

[Xcore]

The more I think about it, coupled with lack of communication from Bioware, I feel rather exhausted about this issue. I mean, what is really the point? It's not like I'm getting paid to fight for this game's success or fixing...

 

Having played WoW a bit over the past days in order to record some footage for my video on this topic, I really don't know why I just don't go back to it and forget about this Warhammer 2...

[Tinkersw]

This. They cannot fix it. If they could, they would have done so already after all these months of beta. I will probably not subscribe until this is fixed but again probably it will never happen. I am still having hard time to believe how mindless even major developers can be when it comes to mmos. I bet there are no competitve raiders or pvpers in the development team of Swtor. Sadly, this is just another Warhammer Online with its current status.

 

 

I unsubed like 2 weeks ago.

I am with you .... I can't understand how any competitive gamer/developer

would have allowed this crap of combat. Just blows my mind.

Bioware is failing miserably with the #1 part of any mmo game, combat.

#2 community, after many requests for server forums its's a NO.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=173672

 

Unbelievable!

[myrmexaw]

I am not a fanboi but WoW has had the ability delay bug on multiple seperate occasions, the last time was on the 4.1 patch release:

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416210406

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416116412?page=7#121

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2592852738

 

 

Also WAR and Rift have also had this problem.

 

The difference is that they (Blizzard) actually have an open API so they work with modders that help them find the bugs and fix them relatively quickly.

 

People dont seem to understand part of the reason WoW runs so smoothly was because they actually had mods in beta and actually work with modders to fix bugs. Why TOR didnt do this is beyond me, especially when their UI basically feels like it was designed by someone that never played an MMO before.

 

The ability delay issue with TOR is most likely a client-server sync error. From the hi-res texture thread some ppl that know code speculate that theres character model copy protection files that make the client take an extra step when talking to the server which is probably whats causing it to get out of sync, which is also why its worse in pvp than pve since in pvp the client is having to wait on multiple responses from multiple clients to render the other players around you.

 

 

not that i want to defend blizzard but these example are post patch glitch ... what we're talking about is built upon the very core of the game as in it has been like this since the early alpha phase ... With no patch whatsoever fixing it in over a year. We're not talking a couple of line of code glitching the engine but more than likely the engine glitching the whole code for swtor due to a unknown bottleneck that i am sure even bioware is unaware of it's location.

 

As some have said the same problem is within warhammer and to an extant i guess we could even add lotro to this list because it also suffer from glitchy desynching altough a lot less preminent.

[Tinkersw]

The more I think about it, coupled with lack of communication from Bioware, I feel rather exhausted about this issue. I mean, what is really the point? It's not like I'm getting paid to fight for this game's success or fixing...

 

Having played WoW a bit over the past days in order to record some footage for my video on this topic, I really don't know why I just don't go back to it and forget about this Warhammer 2...

 

I had not played WoW for about a year (after Cata came out)

but resubed 2 weeks ago.

I decided to make a fresh toon, to see all the changes made in Azeroth.

I am actually surprised how much I am getting back into it, how long will

this last, I don't know. I do hope until GW2 gets here.

Xcore you have put so much time into trying to help Bioware on

the #1 part of this fail game, however bud I think your correct in stating,

"what is the point". This is just a fail game with horrid customer service.

However I believe this thread has been seen by so many developers they

would be crazy to ever put out any crap like this in future games.

Good Job.

I hope to find alot of you in GW2 my character names always have Tinker

or Sugar in them. If you see me I will get my heal off on you!

[agosi]

I have begun to notice this issue more and more frequently lately, often I have to press a skill 1-2 even 3 times before it registers that I have even pressed it. By the time I have done that of course, the boss has already got his skill off and the interrupt is on cooldown having misfired.

 

I have also noticed this happening with Med Packs as well, they go on cool-down but no heal has been applied to my character., its like its lagging out when I cast it during combat. Yet other occasions it will work perfectly first time.

 

Also when using Force Stasis after its cast, bosses continue to attack, continue to fire, continue to engage in any other abilities, as if force stasis is not registering properly.

 

Finally in combat, monsters often will lag out and not die, even though they have no health, or they are unattackable, or continually reset during an attack, this was most prevalent on Tatooine, and Balmorra. Before anyone says, "must be you", I send whispers to nearby other players and they get the same problem as well, creatures are unattackable for them too, or glitched and reset.

 

I do not know if this is a combination of lag or ability delay issues, or simply both, but it is more obvious on some abilities to me than others, I do wish they would fix it...

 

While not related, Additionally I am also seeing Archeology spawns inside walls, or in the floor and un-clickable... npcs more and more frequently attacking inside walls as well, I cannot target them as they are literally firing inside a mountain. I have only see this so far on Balmorra....

Edited January 16, 2012 by agosi