Delays are gone!

[Daeth]

try turning aa off

 

Has nothing to do with AA, since I do warzones in max settings and Ilum in low settings, and had the issue in both areas.

 

The controls are just locking up. Force lightning starts the animation but does nothing, all instant casts just do nothing. Change targets and smash the escape key a few times and it becomes responsive again, but wastes 10-15 seconds which I dont have in PvP.

 

Like I said, never had an issue before 1.1. After 1.1 my instant casts were a 50/50 gamble. After this latest patch my interface is now locking up. Its going downhill.

[acheros]

So, i seem to still be fully affected by everything, delay, mounts, everything. Cant wait for the full fix.

[Raiffe]

As you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

 

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

 

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

 

• As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
   
  
• We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
   
  
• We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
   
  
• We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.
  

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

 

Regards

 

Georg

 

Georg that's great news and thank you for the update!

 

I'd like to ask, is there any talk in the office about the latency/lag people suffer on Ilum? Obviously there's a known issue as you've instituted a cap on the amount of players. Even with this cap there's still a latency experience for everyone I know, uncluding myself and another that have top end computers and extremely good/reliable ISPs

 

Each time there's a system status message there's a slight pause or skip, it gets worse as more people are around. This has included the notices that so-and-so is near an objective. I won't debate the usefulness of those player alert messages, I'll leave that for another time, just the mechanic seems to be impacting player experience.

 

As Ilum is end game pvp, and there's incentives to have many players there, are you looking at improving the experience there? Up to and including upping the player cap?

 

Thank you,

[Darth_Haderach]

There was a very major improvement for me after today's patch. They definitely delayed me buying a new CPU, though I am not sure AMD approve.

[Boovi]

Awww yeaaaah! This makes me excited in my pants.

[Sefius]

I noticed its or morning when I tanked a heroic and had nO delays in casting my abilities. Enjoying this game 10x more now that I can group again.

[Samborino]

and here people thought i was impossible....THE HERO ENGINE IS A SINGLE THREADED ENGINE AND IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO FIX!!!!!!

 

The original hero engine from years ago was single threaded (and it very well may sitll be) but bioware brought in tons of engineers and pretty much made their own engine with the foundations of the hero engine.

 

Anyways im really glad to hear that its been fixed, cant wait to try it out.

[acheros]

The original hero engine from years ago was single threaded (and it very well may sitll be) but bioware brought in tons of engineers and pretty much made their own engine with the foundations of the hero engine.

 

Anyways im really glad to hear that its been fixed, cant wait to try it out.

 

Most developers can twist and bend an engine to do whatever they please..

[AidanLightwalker]

Thanks BW!!!! I never doubted you. Can't wait to see even more optimizations in the future.

[Aluminio]

As you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

 

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

 

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

 

• As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
   
  
• We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
   
  
• We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
   
  
• We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.
  

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

 

Regards

 

Georg

 

Thanks for the fix and the progress on it.

 

Now please please please if you can fix the problem with the control key + holding the right mouse button (it makes the cursor to apear not leting you move your character) plus the key at the left of the "1" key not being able to be binded on the non USA keyboards and the TAB targeting not being so good as it should be, i as many others will love you forever and ever!

[Ragebropakage]

Very good job on this Bioware.

[TheHeadCapper]

I noticed its or morning when I tanked a heroic and had nO delays in casting my abilities. Enjoying this game 10x more now that I can group again.

 

Happy happy, JOY JOY!!

[Vaegaknight]

I guess all of those "there is no ability delay" people should post a big "THANK YOU!" and apology to the Xcore personaly and to all other "forum whiners" and "quitters" because we force BW (even with voting by our money) to bring you not only perfect story telling, but also a close to perfect gameplay asap, and not hiding a real problem under the next 6 monthes of polishing game code.

 

You didn't force Bioware to do crap. I bet it was the massive amount of ingame complaints that did it. The people you're talking about are a teeny, tiny fraction of the game.

 

You think far too highly of yourself.

[Furiant]

One of the main things that makes the game feel sluggish and unresponsive is the character movement, specifically jumping. When I press the jump key there is a short delay while my character kneels slightly in preparation to leap. I know that this is more like real life, but in a video game it feels very clunky.

 

Running jumps are affected by this too. It makes it quite difficult to time precision jumps, and there are a lot of situations where those are required. It's frustrating to have to try and tell your character to do something simple over and over - something that should be effortless and intuitive.

 

The overall feel of movement and gameplay would be significantly improved if you just made jumps occur instantaneously upon key press.

 

 

Additionally, please give us an option to disable camera snapping - for those of us who don't like it, it will never become natural. On a related note, when my character automatically turns - say, to harvest a node that is to their side - the avatar is left facing that direction. When I initiate movement again, there is this wonky pivot effect that I must correct.

 

Optimizing skill latency is great. But these other little things that are more fundamental to the movement system also have a large impact on perceived performance; it's worth spending some time polishing them.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Furiant

[Soulaufein]

You didn't force Bioware to do crap. I bet it was the massive amount of ingame complaints that did it. The people you're talking about are a teeny, tiny fraction of the game.

 

You think far too highly of yourself.

 

Wrong. This issue went massively viral over the internet. It still stands as the largest thread in the history of Launch forums, created huge forum threads in, say MMORPG.com, WoW and even Rift.

 

Created news articles all over the place, was a theme in tens of blogs.

 

If YOU think that in-game information was what prompted the "red alert" at Bioware and put those people to work fast and furious on this, you should be attending kindergarden all over again m8, sorry to say.

 

This is a product that is starting up, and these 3 months are vital to the future of SW:TOR. The eyes are turned on Bioware, and the proportion/viral effect that thread had was massive and could - and surely has - harmed sales. Almost as bad as the historical Ilum fiasco, or you think it was in-game messaging the "fixed it"? Go tell that to the drops on EA stock the day the patch launched. Ingame information, right. If this was a product already consolidated and proven in the market, that would be a whole different conversation. But in SW:ToR's have no doubt the forum'ers pressure HAD its influence.

 

In game information: none sees, none knows, none cares.

 

I think some people still havent realized the sheer power of todays "socialized" Internet...

Edited January 25, 2012 by Soulaufein

[Kleinone]

Just wanted to say thank you bioware. This one issue was my major, major problem with the game, and the only thing making me really consider leaving. This fix was a major improvement to ability delay and my fps in warzones.

Your continued commitment to recognizing and fixing problems in the game engine goes a long way to making me feel comfortable and confident in your commitment to your product. Keep it up!

[Vlacke]

Excellent news, great work Bioware, keep it up.

[Gehoornde]

I guess all of those naysayers who quit becuase they couldnt fix the delay bug will come back in droves now.. I wish bioware could force them all to write an appology to get back into the forums.. there were far to many people ranting about the delay without giving them a chance to fix it.

 

Uh no, BW should write an apology to every single person that canceled because of the delay thing.

[boomxi]

As you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

 

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

 

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

 

• As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
   
  
• We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
   
  
• We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
   
  
• We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.
  

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

 

Regards

 

Georg

 

You didn't fix anything. Trooper or Scoundrel still massive delays when trying to chain skills in pvp. And if anything you've introduced a new bug where game is running at 28ms all the while people are constantly in wrong places after being CCd so it is impossible to pull off any attacks required while standing behind.

[JediDejay]

Great news that Bioware is starting to do their homework. Hope they keep polishing the game.

[Aldoman]

This was a deal breaker for me. This issue has obviously not been fixed in the latest patch. I have deleted my characters and removed my recurring subscription info. The only positive feedback that I can give is that I wish I was refunded the purchase price of the game.

[Starglide]

As you guys have noticed (and probably read in the patch notes), one major part of our series of ability delay improvements was patched onto the live servers with the maintenance last night (patch 1.1.0b). We decided that the improvements seen with this fix were significant enough for us to roll this patch out as quickly as possible instead of waiting for the next scheduled patch.

 

Your feedback from the servers so far indicates that this change has had dramatic, positive impact on combat gameplay.

 

That said, we're not done improving combat responsiveness!

 

• As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
   
  
• We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
   
  
• We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
   
  
• We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.
  

Again, thank you for your constructive feedback on this issue, it has been vital to us in identifying and resolving this situation.

 

Regards

 

Georg

 

I don't know why you are posting here after all the hard work we put in over at: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=227621

 

But I encourage you to take a look at this I posted:

 

It is currently possible when engaging your next ability that the que system in TOR is broken. Towards the end of a channel in WoW, if you cast your next ability towards the end (so it ques), the next ability will go off at the exact second the channel is complete. We have already covered that this is a perfect display of fluidity lacking in TOR, but lets look at the que system for a moment. Notice how the next ability goes off upon the end of the channel. Currently, in TOR, if you cast an ability while you are channeling, not matter if it is close to the end or not--it cancels the channel. It does not correctly que so that when the channel is complete, the next ability executes. This means that even the que system, although apparently adjustable *rolls eyes, is extraordinarily broken as it does not exist.

 

This is another location where fluidity is lacking since the que system purely functions off of the GCD and not off of abilities. This is where it seems as not only is the animation > application results in lack of fluidity, but BioWare also failed to keep some type of rotation in mind when linking the que system with animations and the GCD. It seems as if the very departments in which create these separate aspects that constitute the entire propriety failed to communicate with each other. It is ironic as these issues persist because of the communication that is occurring between these actions--or lackthereof.

 

WoW's system also has an input lag option in which you can toggle for users with lower end PCs. This displays somewhat how the system works as it removes input lag from your UI completely and lets it occur client side but the overall action still calculated via server side. If you toggle this option, no matter how bad the PC, when you press an ability you will see it light up immediately because it is reacting to input client side, tricking you into thinking it has been executed, showing the animation immediately and the numbers, but then reacting on the server a bit later. This gives the feeling of control even on the worst of PCs. But this is just to express the difference in 'feeling' is resulted in the way the client is communicating with everything else.

 

Currently, no matter how good the PC (I know since I play on a amazing gaming rig), the lack of control starts at the very core--the time the key is pressed. There is a small delay, because for whatever reason, the key input's first execution is not occurring client side which results in the que system not occurring client side and the GCD not occurring client side. Add all these hairline delays up and you have something that becomes clunky. Opposition would be the input being client side (instant), GCD beginning client side (instant), queing your next ability (client side) but then calculating all these on the server and internet speed being a result of how fast you SEE the numbers (absolute completion of executed abilities). When you have everything occurring on the server, even the simplest of inputs will have some sort of delay. Add animation being priority and you have one of the worst designed combat system for feeling of control (which is what an MMO is all about).

 

There are simply too many priorities over input at the moment. Obviously what I stated above is hypothesis as someone but Blizzard developers knows exactly how their system works, but I would bet it is something like that. Currently in TOR there are simply too many priorities over the users actual actions. Let me give another example:

 

If you miss in WoW, you basically don't know you do unless you see the text from the combat log or the numbers floating above the mobs head. Why? Because whatever you execute after the GCD is up goes through, including animations. Currently, if you miss a channel with TOR, such as ravage for a Sith Warrior, even if the GCD is up after 1.5 seconds, you still have to wait for the animation that would be on a 3 second channel to complete. This causes a 1.5 second delay before your next ability because the priority system in TOR is Animation > Application. The game literally does NOT know you casted another ability because the que system is basing when it should cast on when the previous animation completes. Not when the GCD ends on the client. This is why when you do not miss, it cancels the channel. Because after the GCD, the que is canceling the actual ability because it is functioning on the animation. You started a new animation therefore it decides to cancel the last. It is not subject to the application of said ability or channel.

 

Another example is when you cast an instant ability. Notice how when you cast an instant ability you have to be either standing still sometimes, or wait for the animation to complete from your last ability. Lets use Ravage again as a reference. You start to cast Ravage which is a 3 second channel, but as soon as you do you notice you're low and want to pop an instant defensive ability like Saber Ward. The GCD isn't quite complete, but you should be able to pop this ability as it is not on GCD to save your butt.... wrong. You will hit the ability but it will not go off because the system is confused as it is waiting for the Ravage animation to complete totally disregarding the application priority and proving that animations are more important to the system. It even seems as if the game becomes confused when you are using basic moving keys like WSAD because it is evident standing still will help execute said ability.

 

There are a million example where this system fails in more aspects than one. Doing simple tasks like mounting becomes a tedious unresponsive experience and completely tarnishes the much needed feeling of control necessary to the genre as a whole; proven by lack of extreme success from any other MMO besides WoW--the most responsive MMO to date.

 

It breaks down like this: it seems as if BioWare tried to fit the animation within the GCD as opposed to the action of the user's ability.

 

That being said, the issues is slightly better (maybe 30%), but the overall delay still exists. You are not out of the woods yet and in order to achieve full responsiveness, there needs to be something done to the animation priority. Please make application > animation as opposed to the way it is now. Also, allowing things to function client side before mathematically executing server side will greatly increase the illusion of control.

 

I cannot stress this enough. The delay is not fixed, nowhere near it and I think I speak for a lot of us when I say, PLEASE BE SPECIFIC as to the changes that will be made and how soon they are rolling out.

 

Also, if you want this to achieve complete success, PLEASE LET US TRANSFER OUR CHARACTERS OR CREATE HIGH LEVEL CHARACTERS ON THE PTR. The reaosn why WoW is so successful is because it takes what high end guilds and competitive players are saying very seriously. I am a PTR freak. Please LET ME HELP.

[fangysativa]

Awesome!

The abilities I'm currently having a notable problem on my Juggernaut are Retaliation & Interrupting abilities/spells

Using a multicore i7 processor as a note.

I hope after the additional fixes in 1.1.1 are implemented, it will be great.

 

Thank you BioWare, you really won me over this one with the effort.

Keep up the good work!

[KodiackTech]

I'm glad this is being so diligently worked on. Keep up the good work, Bioware. The MMO market needs some more tough competitors!

[PanikSpreder]

Good stuff, was pleased to login yesterday and see that it actually have improved. Not quite there yet, but it was certainly a step in the right direction. Keep at it BioWare!