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

[twogirlsoneup]

This is not WoW. Good and responsive gameplay ruins the community!

 

Combat logs and dungeon queues also ruin the community.

[Sagothan]

Combat logs and dungeon queues also ruin the community.

 

Dungeon finder may be a choice, not to include them, has valid reasons, even though, I believe they should be added, however animation delay and combat logs are not.

[Caibz]

OP thanks for taking the time to research and write this thread. You hit the nail on the head with every point you made. This post should be emailed to the design team of every company thinking of heading into the MMO market. Character respOnsiveness as the absolute main priority in gameplay or the game will fail, simple as. People want to feel like the are doing something in the game, they want to hit those spells, hit those interrupts, fake-cast etc. none of which is possiblE without a responsive avatar. Anything less and the game is not worth playing.

[SunwindIon]

what was the last word they said on this, didn't they claim to have partially fixed it in the latest patch (didn't)?

[Dumpiduke]

See this right here is where your whole argument falls down hard on its face. You're all like, "oh but anyone who doesn't notice it isn't playing the margins enough for it to be an issue, yadayadayada". Well balls to you, sirs. I can not (sadly) be called an inexperienced or casual MMO player by any stretch of the imagination - and I have no "ability delay", zero, none at all. I press an instant and bam it goes off, start channeling or casting something and bam it starts, when I press the button and not shortly afterwards.

 

If you can't aknowledge the fact that it might be something only some of you are experiencing, due to oh I don't kow, server lag maybe, then it's sort of easy to dismiss the whole thing as "things don't feel exactly like they do in wow, ergo its broken".

 

All you're doing is proving my point even more. I've played a responsive game (WoW), I know what it looks and feels like. The reason that game is so successful is because it's got something for everyone with sealed tight controls, including the competitive gaming market. If TOR wants to truly compete in this market, it needs to emulate the king of the genre. I have no doubts about it.

 

Trust me, you are having the same 'delay' that everyone is talking about-- it just may not bother you for whatever reason (i.e. never played WoW, don't PvP, aren't truly competitive.) I know what you're saying, my abilities fire off when I push the button too, but using a 2.5 second ability, followed by an instant, followed by an off GCD instant ability should take 2.5 seconds. Guess what? It doesn't. Try it and tell me that you don't have any delay.

[Paitum]

After a recent patch (1.1?) I started noticing an ability "delay" at the END of my Snipes. See this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ABq8m3WCs

[Sagothan]

It's even worse with operative's abilities of "Kolto Injection" and "Kolto Infusion".

[Axiabelis]

After a recent patch (1.1?) I started noticing an ability "delay" at the END of my Snipes. See this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ABq8m3WCs

 

Perfecte example of what this threat is all about.

[Asnine]

what was the last word they said on this, didn't they claim to have partially fixed it in the latest patch (didn't)?

 

 

No, they just said they were looking into it and then unstickied this thread a few days before the patch came out.

[Sagothan]

No, they just said they were looking into it and then unstickied this thread a few days before the patch came out.

 

What a great way to deal with it... lol.

[Nemmar]

After a recent patch (1.1?) I started noticing an ability "delay" at the END of my Snipes. See this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ABq8m3WCs

 

I noticed that after the patch my ability delay got reset to 0.5.

 

You might want to check that and set it back to 0.0.

[Larlar]

People need to understand that character responsiveness and control is the foundation upon which everything in WOW is built.

 

Everything would suck without it - every aspect of PVP and PVE. But Blizzard got it oh so right, so they have been able to make countless errors in all other aspects, and peope will whine, but they still keep paying and playing. The gameplay is everything. Its just fun on its own. Hundreds of people used to just war with each other on my old server before they even implemented a PVP system or rewards... because it was just fun.

 

I have a suggestion. For every MMO project under way or in the pipeline, they should employ a 'screamer'. This person's job is, for one hour every morning seven days a week, to take the twenty most important people on the project into a conference room and just scream "GAMEPLAY!!!!!" into their faces for that hour. Maybe then they will get the message. I will quite happily volunteer for this specific role, and will bring lots of tools and implements that will help me get my message across.

[Dumpiduke]

People need to understand that character responsiveness and control is the foundation upon which everything in WOW is built.

 

BINGO. How this slipped past Bioware is beyond me. Yah, TOR's combat may look pretty, but it feels like I'm banging a rock against my keyboard.

[Connor_Mack]

Something went really bad with 1.1 on my end. The manageable delays increased to game-stopping frustration for me after this patch. Even when I slow down, don't spam buttons and wait I will see the animation, have rage consumed/heat generated, have the cooldown animation start on my bars and see zero effect on the target.

 

PvP is unplayable, FP's are frustrating, leaving me with PvE which still feels anything but smooth.

 

I'm having bad flashbacks to EVE's nullsec lag fests.

[enrimm]

I noticed that after the patch my ability delay got reset to 0.5.

 

You might want to check that and set it back to 0.0.

This isn't an issue with the ability queue.

[Rasstavad]

First day of the patch things seemed better. Yesterday things seemed worse than ever.... I spent the hour I was on crafting... and even that bugged out on me. rofl

[happyhappyjoy]

I actually thought that the weird ability lag I would get while healing with my scoundrel went away after the last patch. Before I would see like .5 second delay after completing underworld medicine before the numbers would appear above the person I was healing - during that time I could not cast another ability.

 

Now I can chain cast it pretty well. The game is still in general an unresponsive mess but it looks like they can improve it.

 

For those of you that don't think this is a big deal or aren't experiencing it - I think you just don't get it. Lord of the Rings Online would've been huge if it had a responsive combat system, but it's combat was extremely unresponsive. Rift actually had combat that was almost as responsive as WoW and that's why a game with no real IP behind it has done so well ... well that and they launched really well and innovated with a lot of their systems.

[Spootybeaver]

@OP, Thanks for the thread! I noticed this problem but i could never put my finger on it. I like this game about a million times more than WOW, but SWTOR has felt "clunky" sense the beginning. The ability delay is obvious when mounting. Its less obvious in solo combat, but its noticeable. PvP is painful, this ability delay has impacted just about every Warzone I have played in some way. It has not made Warzones "unplayable" but I cannot even comprehend how one would pull off competitive PvP gameplay as of right now.

I know that the devs mentioned some sort of ranking system for PvP (which I am eagerly awaiting ) but ranking seems pointless until they ability delay is dealt with. I know plenty of avid PvP players are concerned about ability delay, and they should be!

 

Thanks again for the constructive OP!

[MariusZane]

This is realy the biggest issue i have with this game by far, the worst is playing Juggernaut/Guardian, it is Complete, Utter, Frustration.

 

First of it makes it completely impossible to play with any other companion than Doc, because if noone is healing my i am pretty much dead or close to dead against a strong enemy before i can hit of 4-5 abilities.

AS A TANK!

I have noticed that the most usual/worst appeareance of this delay is after my initial 3 abilities.

As i do the same "opening" on 99% of the fights i can pinpoint it pretty well.

 

I always start of with a Lightsaber Throw at Target 1, Force Leap at target 2, and Force Scream(sorry forgot the Knight name, but as this problem is exactly the same on the Juggernaut..well) on impact. This is where the problem starts 99% of the time. My forth ability is usualy either Guardian Strike/Slash or Sundering Strike.

But neither of these will activate for about 4-15 seconds, at times no ability at all will activate. The animation will run about halfway and end, and nothing happens. Before you know it your down 50-60% of your health(if you dont have Doc with you) and its about time to run for your life or pay another repair bill.

 

The funniest delay is on Master Strike, where i can play out the animation (and loading bar) 3-5 times without the actual ability triggering. 5x4sec = 20seconds. 20 seconds where i deal no damage at all. 20 seconds where i deal no damage at all against an elite enemy is pretty much suicide. Not to mention with any companion other than Doc.

Because you cannot play with any companion other than Doc without having to play russian roulette EVERY fight on whether you will come out alive or dead. Its NOT fun. And makes the other companions feel completely useless. Or like a button in the interface you press to get some crafting materials. Might aswell remove them and put some fancy button design on it instead.

This is realy ruining my experience. I hardly ever play my Guardian(wich is my main, and the one i like the most of all classes) or Juggernaut because of it. Stuck leveling alts for the moment. Once that is done however i will most likely just leave for something else if this issue isnt fixed.

And its sad because i realy like this game.

 

And thanks to the OP for the awesome post, and for understanding the problem that the uninformed think is "Lag."

 

And it is NOT latency and NOT fps lag.

[sabresandiego]

Ability Stutter, Ability Lag, etc... are the biggest problems with this game.

[Volacious]

Since there's been very little comment by the devs on this, I'm going to make some assumptions about what is happening. Maybe it will help, maybe it won't.

 

It seems to me the animations have their own positioning/movement checks that are independent of the abilities own positioning/movement checks.

 

Ability lag/delay etc. appear to be symptoms of mismatches between the two sets of checks.

 

IE Mounting:

The Ability has a cast time during which you cannot move or it cancels

The animation has it's own "animation time" with a second check against movement that cancels if movement is detected. And when I say cancels, it cancels not only the animation, but the ability itself.

 

Not only is the second check redundant (WoW for example allows the mount animation to happen while moving) but it isn't apparent to the user. Lots of players assume they can move during the animation and end up cancelling the entire ability.

 

 

The same principles are happening with combat animations.

 

Take any "instant" cast ability that has a 1 second animation.

The ability has a positional check that decides if it can/can't be used (target must be in front, must be in range, must be visible).

 

The animation has it's own checks, along with a set of triggers for other animations that happen somewhere in the middle or towards the end of the animation.

 

So halfway through an "instant" ability the animation tries to trigger an effect on the target of the animation (ie blaster shooting animation triggers sparks animation on the target).

 

What seems to be happening, is when the animation tries to trigger further animations or runs it's own positional checks a half second after the ability ran its own checks, positions have changed. The target is no longer in range, or in front (this happens very often in warzones btw, especially with lag) and the animation runs into an error.

 

Now instead of just cancelling the animation and letting the skill go off (what players expect from WoW etc), instead SWTOR cancels the whole ability and rewinds the animation.

 

(however some very long animations like master strike don't rewind - they cancel the ability and continue the animation to the end - I can only assume this is because rewinding a very long animation would look funny)

 

I think this system is a result of the primary goal of "fluid" combat animations. It works great in ideal conditions, but with lots of movement and a little lag it goes to hell.

 

That's my two credits anyway, do with it what you will.

 

 

PS one of the reasons I think this is the cases is that often after I get stuck in an animation or have ability "delay/lag" crop up, there is "warp" where suddenly everything's positioning moves slightly and I can cast as usual. So during that time my system thinks things are in one place and the server thinks they're in another. If animations are tied into positioning at all I could see how this would cause the symptoms we are all experiencing.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Volacious

[Nepumuk]

Did patch 1.1. make this worse or was it always that way?

 

The patch did reset/change a lot of options it seems, including the ability queue length. So I had to set it back to one second. The long queue is quite handy for me, when chaining a channeled spell to an instant or normal cast, in order to avoid interrupting the channel by accident.

 

It feels that since the patch more often then not, when activating a spell less than a second before finishing another cast or the global cooldown, the spell will not be cast at all right after the current cast finishes. Tested with the Sage's 2.5s heal.

 

It would be nice if BioWare could give some info about what players should expect on the matter if some changes are included in a patch. "Made some improvements" probably does more harm than good.

[Sagothan]

Seriously, it has to be changed, with the way it is, it's just annoying.

[SWGBum]

This is why I canceled my subscription. Half the time on my jugg abilities don't even fire, it just wastes a GCD and nothing happens. The stuttering is awful too, but abilities not working at all is a deal breaker.

[AmanteSC]

People need to understand that character responsiveness and control is the foundation upon which everything in WOW is built.

Indeed. A lot of people don't get this, but it doesn't matter if you notice it consciously or not. The bottom line is, your brain notices. Because of how the brain naturally processes incoming stimuli, it inherently dislikes when there is a lack of smoothness or consistency. This can be especially crippling in the area of TV, movies, and video games.

 

Bioware's unsticking of the topic and complete lack of replies since 1.1 are not reassuring. The issue has not been fixed; in some ways it's worse than ever. I understand they have a lot on their plate right now, but this is the #1 issue that will make or break the game in the months to come. I get the feeling that they're out of their depth and playing damage control: fix the most obvious and simple issues on the surface, sweep the rest under the rug and hope no one notices.

 

When I read the following patch note, I got a sinking feeling that this was part of their strategy to pretend the problem doesn't exist: "The cooldown indicator on hotbars no longer causes all ability icons to appear grayed out (unusable). Now, when an ability is on cooldown, it will not be grayed out if its activation conditions (like resource costs or range) are met."

 

Bioware: many of us are reasonable, and can wait a certain measure of time for this issue to be fixed, but not for long if you continue to remain completely silent on the subject. If you wish to keep large amounts of your customers from leaving your game, communicate with us and let us know you're listening. Otherwise you can expect to lose a bunch of subs in next month, with more and more to come if this issue isn't fixed.

Edited January 20, 2012 by AmanteSC