Note to all Guardians

[Stuartrt]

No problem Earl

 

I just hope Bio do something about this as rotations are so fundamental for tanks

 

I can live with it to an extent in PVE but I'd be more worried about going into a group for a Flashpoint or Operation wondering if I can hold aggro if I cannot trust being able to fire off the correct rotations etc

[babelfisk]

ha! I knew i was not crazy! Edited January 16, 2012 by babelfisk

[HammeredWalnut]

I am so glad I read this thread. I have noticed this animation lag ever since lvl 15 or so and it has been really annoying. Delayed GCD's because of animation has been killing me in both PVP/PVE. I really hope they fix this soon.

[Kahrain]

I am so glad I read this thread. I have noticed this animation lag ever since lvl 15 or so and it has been really annoying. Delayed GCD's because of animation has been killing me in both PVP/PVE. I really hope they fix this soon.

 

I'm glad I read it too. I was wondering why my abilities weren't working. It's a VERY bad thing when I push the big "SAVEMESAVEMESAVEME" button and nothing happens. (or the "TAUNTTAUNTTAUNTDONTKILLMAHPARTY!" button.)

[Dee-Jay]

an easy fix would be to get rid of GCD completely, because it's useless for one and adopt the eq2 style of hotkeys and timer. Each ability has its own cast and recast timer and the queue system that they use is awesome. If you use an ability and you're CC'd or in the middle of another spell/animation it stay lit up til it can be cast, if not you can click it again to remove it from the queue. GCD has been a fail in every game that tried it. You lose too much control of your combat by slack brought on by the GCD. Even in our current issue of defense stopping from attacking its only compounded by the fact that the GCD has to go through a full cycle each time our attacks are interrupted by a defensive maneuver.

 

If they used eq2 button control having the defense animation go off and then the attack go off during the next fraction of a second would be cool actually. Just need to make sure that you're never stuck in an queue forever cause you're always deflecting

 

Interesting thought there.

 

I always took the CD for granted since I assumed it exited for good reason. It probably helps with server communication or something.

 

But then I never thought much about auto-attack either and that's obviously not necessary either.

 

With a game like SWTOr, that priorities animations over responsiveness, abandoning the GCD might actually be a good idea.

[inrsx]

This certainly explains why guardian gameplay feels unresponsive. As a tank I've been stacking defense rating as much as possible since the other defensive stats don't seem to be quite as useful.

[newport]

We SHOULD be stacking defense rating, this bug just needs to be fixed

[inrsx]

We SHOULD be stacking defense rating, this bug just needs to be fixed

 

Yes I agree, but until it is fixed this delay makes it difficult in using abilities to maintain threat or perform key interrupts.

[Zocat]

That actually explains a lot. Noticed this as well. Really annoying.

[Frostbird]

This sounds absolutely obnoxious and I hope it's fixed.

 

Just make the parry animation not play if another ability is being used, but the deflection still occurs. May look silly, but will fix this easily.

[Kaellis]

Posting to show my support for attention to be paid to this issue, by the players and devs. It is insanely frustrating spamming a button and spending time getting beat on while you can not activate an ability to do anything about it.

[Psychosis_Valenz]

Hmmmm you'd think a professional software company would have realized placing animation priority over functional use of abilities would break the character class.

 

Twitch based combat, which is what any MMO really is has to have some form of time dilation in order for the game to run smoothly. Command Que's come FIRST, animations SECOND.

 

Honestly, what is so hard to grasp about this fundamental foundation of MMORPG programming?

 

Issues like this are what need to be addressed, before you even consider releasing new content into the game. Seriosuly not even a month into launch and you are already dropping new "more than likely broken" content into the live servers. I like content, but I also like being able to use my class as intended first. The new content can wait until you have a platform that can run it correctly. Which reminds me.... When are you going to fix the content you have already put into the game. So many quests, flashpoints etc are riddled with game breaking bugs. Resetting them is not a viable fix. We shouldn't ever have to reset a quest because you are too damn lazy or cheap to put a team together to go in and fix this stuff. Take your content team, and focus them on fixing the current stuff first.

[Pwentt]

Noticed this issue, hadn't tied it to the parry animation though. I'll keep an eye out for it now. Thanks for the heads up and I hope there is a fix coming down the pipes soon for it.

[Altuslumen]

@OP thanks for posting this, it explains a lot. I had been noticing this but thought I was just seeing things since I would never had guessed that animations trump all else in this game.

 

Hopefully this gets fixed soon. The animations are nice, but I'll never take animations/graphics over functionality/responsiveness.

[Sharee]

That makes sense. My guardian certainly suffers from this a lot more than other classes, now i know why. Thanks.

[Seran]

I have this problem but did not realize that it was due to parry or defense. I am at 45% defense and I do a lot of parry etc... what I see more often is the mouse click will not allow you to click abilities. I can't really describe how or why but during certain times of a battle I can't mouse click my abilities. I realize I should be using key binds more often but I haven't had the time to set them up. This often creates problems and I do notice a lot of issues with just hitting the keys to start the ability but my character is stuck in a

"dance" move of sorts where he starts the animation but stops and the ability never fires.

[Rokkimies]

This problem really really pisses me off. If you watch me stream you can hear me scream and swear at it. I HATE having to mash kick 4000 times to get my interrupt off before the spell completes, praying that I don't miss it. I HATE having to spam my blade storm just to get my blade barrier up. It happens with EVERY attack I have. Master Strike is the worst one, since the game feels compelled to go through with the animation even though I'm not doing any damage. I have to wait 3 seconds, then try it again. They need to fix this ASAP.

 

Well, this actually has something good on it. I think it's because of this parry/deflect fuss, but I've been able to do 3 master strikes in a row before it going on CD at best. It bugs out every 1min or so and makes me able to do 2 master strikes in a row. I'd rather be able to use my abilities though.

 

This issue has been actually discussed in ability delay thread somewhat, but I don't think guardian specific point of view has been pointed out.

[Hbound]

Well, this actually has something good on it. I think it's because of this parry/deflect fuss, but I've been able to do 3 master strikes in a row before it going on CD at best. It bugs out every 1min or so and makes me able to do 2 master strikes in a row. I'd rather be able to use my abilities though.

 

This issue has been actually discussed in ability delay thread somewhat, but I don't think guardian specific point of view has been pointed out.

 

Are you sure your multiple Master Strikes are actually dealing damage?

 

Master Strike is the biggest culprit of this "bug." Often, the animation and channeling will start, and lock you into it for 3 seconds, but it deals no damage and doesn't go on cooldown. This is the worst of all the spells it can happen to because it puts your character out of commission for a full 3 seconds.

 

I had no idea that this problem was because of parrying/deflecting during the animation. Makes sense now why it has gotten worse as my Guardian has leveled. Hopefully it also makes it easier for Bioware to fix since it is tied to a specific instance.

[GarfieldJL]

Yeah, if we're going to have the deflection animation, at least give a chance for an automatic deflecting weapons fire back at the attacker so the interruption is worth something.

[Atamasama]

When I use Blade Storm, my character very clearly lifts his lightsaber, lowers it, lifts it again, pauses to consider the ramifications of his actions, then finally executes the ability. Is this because of the parry delay?

Nobody answered this question, but no, this is a completely unrelated bug. This can happen even out of combat. It's a kind of a "stutter" where the animation "skips" at the beginning before completing. There are numerous examples on Youtube, see here for one example. Notice that the player is using Force Sweep without any enemies nearby.

 

The bug that people are talking about is when you're trying to do an ability but it doesn't happen at all because your character is deflecting an attack instead.

 

I'm sitting at around 16% Defense myself (I was stacking Absorption for awhile) and don't think I ever noticed the bug, I wonder how high your Defense has to be before it's a problem? I literally don't remember it ever happening to me. You'd think that even with a low Defense, I'm still parrying every now and then, and it should still be a problem even if a rare one.

[KraeVull]

Devs, please kindly reply regarding this issue. Thanks.

[Kolbenito]

Seems to be a general issue in this game with mid-animation ability lag. At times it seems as though nothing fires while an animation is playing still, other times not. OP has the most detailed examples of this I have read so far.

[Brutem]

Hi fellow Jedi Guardians

 

This could explain a lot of button bashing and seemingly unresponsive controls. Has anyone here experienced this as a Guardian? I'm only level 22 so I probably dont have a high enough defence rating for it to notice right now?

 

My force sweep looks like i am no longer a Zabrak but i am now a rabbit... hop, hop, hop, hop and then sweep.

 

Though i am not sure defense plays a roll in that, i have rolled another JK to play around with, does it at low levels without any defense gear.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Brutem

[VeggieX]

Maybe thats why when I through on my tank gear and respec to tank a few HM with the guild I couldnt hold aggro for crap.

[Brutem]

So i spent a few minutes doing some tests (notice i said a few minutes, not extensive testing, so take my findings wiht a grain of salt). I do agree that defense does have a part in the lag however from what i can tell its basically any movement.

 

1st test out of 20 tests with force leap in, followed by force sweep, i experienced the stuttering effect only 2 out of 20.

 

2nd test out of 20, used force leap in, while turning my character with the right mouse button whille using force sweep, experienced the stuttering effect of force sweep 20 of 20.

 

3rd test out of 20, used force leap in, used both mouse buttons to move slightly while using force leap, experienced the stuttering effect 20 of 20

 

 

These tests were done at low level and without any defense gear and the skills would stutter only once before activating. On my high level with decent defense, i experience the stuttering effect 3-4 times before activating, so i assume this means that defense does play a role in making it worse.

 

 

So went and started to do the tests on my main, and noticed an increase. With a repeat of the 1st test 7 out of 20 experienced the stuttering effect, so went from 10% to 35% by adding defense gear. I was actually seeing the animation hop-hop-parry-cast on 3 of those.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Brutem