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

[JonnyBigBoss]

Still an issue. I have 45 minutes left on my subscription. I guess I'll never see what it's like "fixed".

[JonnyBigBoss]

This is the last day of my play/forum time before my initial 30 day sub ends.

 

I won't be waiting this out, hoping for a fix. I used all that patient waiting time in WAR and it didn't get me a thing. It got worse.

 

Others have pointed out that this issue is serious and will take a long time to fix. Right now, the company is waiting to see if enough people can ignore it and stick with the game. If so, then they won't have to dedicate time to changing it.

 

I say good luck to them and all the best.

 

Nice to see that I'm not alone. I went through this exact same process with WAR. Speaking of which, this game reminds me a lot of WAR in terms of combat feeling a bit off and performance being less than great...

[Elkard]

Playing on a WiFi connection--when weather is fine and connection bars full, no problems. The action is smooth and fluid and everything works perfectly as buttons are pushed. No delay and yes I swap targets and hit actions seamlessly. Bad connection, duh, 1-2 second delay. But it's not due to the game itself. Exactly the same performance in WoW and every other game since SWG. There might be some issues, but I have played every class and every problem I have experienced--except the bars locking and not being able to select skills--have had to do with my internet connection. You see the exact same complaints and reasoning--if you can call it that--on the WoW boards all the time. What amazes me--not really--is that for three years people here said this would be epic etc., and it was on day two of early access when the whining started. The same whining and crying I saw on forums back in 2003 when people were complaining the game didn't have mounts. Well, we got them, and more...then, thanks to the whiners, we got the terrible CU (combat downgrade) that is all the MMO rage now. SW:Tor is fine. Maybe it's all the dingo's fault.

[Vallowen]

Playing on a WiFi connection--when weather is fine and connection bars full, no problems. The action is smooth and fluid and everything works perfectly as buttons are pushed. No delay and yes I swap targets and hit actions seamlessly. Bad connection, duh, 1-2 second delay. But it's not due to the game itself. Exactly the same performance in WoW and every other game since SWG. There might be some issues, but I have played every class and every problem I have experienced--except the bars locking and not being able to select skills--have had to do with my internet connection. You see the exact same complaints and reasoning--if you can call it that--on the WoW boards all the time. What amazes me--not really--is that for three years people here said this would be epic etc., and it was on day two of early access when the whining started. The same whining and crying I saw on forums back in 2003 when people were complaining the game didn't have mounts. Well, we got them, and more...then, thanks to the whiners, we got the terrible CU (combat downgrade) that is all the MMO rage now. SW:Tor is fine. Maybe it's all the dingo's fault.

 

step to the side and then IMMEDIATELY start casting a heal. only press it ONCE. i'm not talking about a .5sec gap between you releasing your strafe key and hitting the heal key, i'm talking about a .1sec or less gap. if the heal does not register and/or start casting, theres a problem.

 

click/press your mount button, as soon as the cast hits the end of the bar, start moving. does the mount despawn? yes.

 

stand completely still and spam a 1.5sec or greater no CD cast. something like a big heal. does the cast bar disappear in between casts? yes. the cast bar should be permanently up, and the INSTANT one cast finishes the next begins.

 

 

its not lag. its got nothing to do with connection

 

 

its so disappointing that they threw so much money at paying voice actors, and completely neglected the fundamental mechanic that the entire game, and all MMOs, is/are based on.

 

as other have said, its possible to work around it while questing or other casual play. but the minute you want to actually play some hardcore, competitive content it becomes a massive restriction.

 

 

 

i really hope they manage to fix this. the game shouldnt have been released in this state, as i believe they will lose many, many customers who are not prepared to wait around for a fix.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Vallowen

[thestackshow]

5+ years in development and Bioware never "noticed" how terribly responsive their game is.

 

Rushed untested game is rushed and untested.

[lethal_ghost]

All ways noticed this ability delay but now abilities are not even going off.like sprint I will have to press4 times before I get the buff force shroud force sprint all seen to suffer from it I don't spam I wait for gcd to finish. This is terrible like this.not sure if related to ability delay

[Inspire-]

Bought the game a bit two weeks ago and while the delay doesn't really bother me in PvE, it's a serious pain in the *** in warzones. I could do without most of the other stuff people are demanding for the game, but it's so unresponsive it's not even funny

 

That said, unsubbed and if it ever gets fixed, will resub again.

[Hawtubb]

so glad BW gave us a quicky response but seriously would like to see some action on this or more detailed information

[belleflop]

This will be my last entry on this issue as I won't be continuing to subscribe after my free days have expired .

 

I was asked to make a video where I didn't spam my keys, as in, didn't "double tap" or "spam" keys in rapid fashion. So I made a video doing just that, a video that has me single pressing each ability and having my character perform each ability then continuing on to the next. Even when doing this, some abilities failed. Enjoy!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Utw4UoKurk&context=C3d50270ADOEgsToPDskJYu1y-3uG_uWyCstMK7nMz

Edited January 18, 2012 by belleflop

[Motoeric]

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiix

 

 

 

 

this

[Hawtubb]

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiix

 

 

 

 

this

i agree with this post

[Rigo]

I agree with everything but irritates me is when you move at the castbar and it cancels the spell.

 

Like if you mount and start moving when the castbar is at the end. You'll be mounted then dismounted which is frustrating. Or if you cast a heal and move at the end of the cast it stops.

[Runealdo]

What's the status on this after patch 1.1? Wonder whether i should reinstall and give the game a third chance. Edited January 18, 2012 by Runealdo

[unkownhero]

Turn down your effects and the game runs smooth..if you say your abilities cast bar fails...wait for it to finish, this isn't WoW, cast bars mean something. Like iI said on most posts, the game has been out for just over a month. It's a given that it will need fixes. If you decide not to play after your sub. Does that bother anyone, no, because when your gone, if "your" issue was important it will be fixed for us who stay around

[Ragearo]

Definitely agree with the idea that if this is not fixed SW:TOR will bleed subs in a few months (If not sooner).

 

This issue is a very odd one I've found. Some PvE content I seem to have no ability delay, able to kite kill mobs with only 10m range abilities, stun when I hit my stuns. Some other PvE content, though, I'll end up using the CC break move or a stun that ends up being wasted. One thing this becomes very evident on is the ability Tumult, which requires an enemy to be stunned to use. The ability delay combined with slight general lag will cause the ability to not get used even though the target is showing the stunned animation. PvP is unplayable except for the one with the 3 turrets since the other two are so compact that lag, character responsiveness, and fps drop to near nothing.

 

As a side-note; character responsiveness is particularly frustrating for the AC I've chosen- Jedi Shadow. This is due to the fact that using one ability gives a buff that buffs the next one... so you can't quite spam abilities as they're not nearly as effective without the buffs. Perhaps some of the nay-sayers are just playing AC's that allow them to not notice/be bothered by the character responsiveness, but personally I find this issue beyond frustrating when it gets bad (I'd say bad is about a 0.4 or 0.5 delay).

 

 

EDIT:

Turn down your effects and the game runs smooth..if you say your abilities cast bar fails...wait for it to finish, this isn't WoW, cast bars mean something. Like iI said on most posts, the game has been out for just over a month. It's a given that it will need fixes. If you decide not to play after your sub. Does that bother anyone, no, because when your gone, if "your" issue was important it will be fixed for us who stay around

 

I'm sorry but this is simply not the case. I don't come from WoW myself so I can't attest to that but even Diablo 2 has better ability delay. Aside from intermittent FPS issues you're right, the game does run smoothly... It's just the connection to the server that is slow. Graphical effects have NO impact on server delay/lag

Edited January 18, 2012 by Ragearo

[ajjw]

Turn down your effects and the game runs smooth..if you say your abilities cast bar fails...wait for it to finish, this isn't WoW, cast bars mean something. Like iI said on most posts, the game has been out for just over a month. It's a given that it will need fixes. If you decide not to play after your sub. Does that bother anyone, no, because when your gone, if "your" issue was important it will be fixed for us who stay around

Oh god, I hope to god you're trolling with this one. I cannot even comprehend how you could have physically typed that sentence without cringing.

 

Cast bars mean something in this game? As compared to WoW? Right. So, in WoW, if I have a 1.5s cast Mount, or a 2.5s cast Heal, I'll get the speed boost of a Mount after 1.5s or my target will be immediately Healed after 2.5s.

 

Now let's look at this game, same scenario. After 1.5s casting my Mount, if I move I'm instantly dismounted, because the ACTUAL cast time of the Mount is more like 2s, not 1.5s, regardless of what the UI is telling you. Casting a 2.5s Heal, well, you expect your Tank to recover HP the moment your cast bar finishes, right? Nope. Your 2.5s Heal actually has a 2.7-2.9s cast time, again regardless of what the UI is telling you.

 

"This isn't WoW, cast bars mean something". ****, don't think I've read something that stupid in a long time.

[asbalana]

5+ years in development and Bioware never "noticed" how terribly responsive their game is.

 

Rushed untested game is rushed and untested.

 

My wife has a total of 5 days gaming experience. She noticed the ability delay and thought that there was something wrong with her because of her inexperience. After a day or two of playing in EGA, I saw the issues clearly and without doubt.

 

There have been any number of people who have said that they reported the issues in beta.

 

So I find it difficult to believe that BW could not have noticed the issues. That would imply that that no one in the company played the game and that they did not review beta testing feedback.

 

There is no question that the game was not ready for release and in the end was rushed to be released on 12/20. That is somewhat surprising, in a way, considering how long it was in developement.

 

I have to think that the issues were well know and not addressed by release date. The BW post in the dev tracker is about to fall off of the page and be lost, it does imply that these issues were unknown to BW until they were identified in the forum.

 

---------------------

 

"During the development of Star Wars: The Old Republic, we’ve been paying a lot of attention to the game’s responsiveness. As pointed out by some people on the Forum, a very responsive experience is one of the factors that separate the best MMOs from the others. This is something we are fully aware of and take extremely seriously.

 

Several of the issues brought forth by the community have already been dealt with and you should see the fixes integrated in coming patches, including those coming this month. Every lead mentioned on the forum is being investigated and I cannot stress enough how useful your feedback is – especially when coupled with the level of details found in some of the posts.

 

So I’d really like to thank the community for this very constructive feedback.

 

Thanks again and best regards,"

 

-----------------

 

In the end it does not matter. I think that it is real sad that a lot of people who like/love the game are being forced to leave because of combat performance. I hope that the issues are fixed soon so that the bleeding will stop and people will come back and that the game can experiencee a healty growth.

[Ryzerion]

Lol it seems like it got worse with my jedi sentinel after patch 1.1, master strike doesn't even work right no more.

[Patizor]

Turn down your effects and the game runs smooth.

 

Not for me it doesn't.

[Scaire]

I think the delay got infinitely worse with the patch when I thought they said there was going to be some kind of fix today?

 

On my operative or my assassin my vanish/evasion/cloak work about 10% of the time. It is getting stuck for 15+ seconds and is completely unusable.

[Runealdo]

This is sad to read, I had some hope they would try to fix this in 1.1 as that is the make or break patch for launch. :/

[LeonBraun]

Hoping this gets fixed soon...

[LeonBraun]

There is no question that the game was not ready for release and in the end was rushed to be released on 12/20. That is somewhat surprising, in a way, considering how long it was in developement.

 

Clearly it was released because of Christmas rush and no more... They likely thought the product was close enough and didn't want to wait a whole year longer in order to get the quick shopping bucks.

[ishtori]

logged back into wow the other day and it made me appreciate how spoiled blizz has actually made me. You kind of forget about how much control/responsiveness you get out of your characters in wow until you've played something like swtor and go back.

 

If they keep with the monk class not having an auto attack like swtor and then apply it to all the other classes...EA/BW will have just wasted several hundred million dollars

[Jedi_Wannabe]

I'm seeing no improvements to responsiveness with the 1.1 patch.

 

Riposte/Retaliation still fails to go off 50% of the time. Abilities with a cast time are still incorruptible by moving after the cast bar finishes. Instant abilities can be interrupted. Abilities being delayed in a lag like fashion in spite of having very low latency and high frame rates. etc.

 

On a positive note, I like that the camera doesn't snap back to the character facing when press a key to turn the camera. However I would prefer it if the character facing would simply snap back to the camera position when I press a turn, move or strafe key.