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

[usblues]

My Knight isn't super high level so I can't comment on every ability. But for me at least, Riposte and Blade Storm appear to work properly since the last patch.

 

Force Sweep still has issues with the animation fairly consistently however.

[SWGBum]

Me too, especially notorious abilities for delays are

 

Blade Storm - My character will lift his blade ready to strike, but it takes about ~2 seconds for the ability to actually deal damage. This isn;t always the case, but quite often.

 

Force Sweep - Force Sweep is the worst when it comes to ability delay. It will regularly trigger the GCD without the ability going off itself. Worst of all though, when hit by an instant knockback the ability will go on cooldown without actually dealing any damage. Really annoying.

 

Same thing with me, these two are the worst.

I think a lot of the problem we have now it from network latency and lag spikes though.

[Nepumuk]

Failure to display the castbar is also part of the problem of this topic, right?

 

When spamming heals on my Sage, it still very often happens that no cast bar is shown even though the character does the animation and I think the heal is applied. Affected skills: Deliverance, Healing Trance, Salvation.

 

FPS is usually around 80-100, Latency 40-60ms, Ability queue set to max (1.0s).

[asbalana]

I'm a little surprised to see this thread on the first page again. I had concluded that some of the issues under the ability delay heading were fixed enough to make combat (at least in pve) tolerable and that BW was just waiting for people to get so worn down that those concerned about ability delay just go away because they just gave up. I have wondered if some of the problems were just not fixable without a redo of the entire game system.

 

I have found that I can now chain cast (with one exception) and actually build a rythim on my Smuggler and if I hit a button the casts actually happen and start without a delay long enough to be overtly perceptable.

 

For some reason, I find myself much more aware of the varied mobs health during a fight on my smuggler than on my JC or SI. What I see is that a percentage (about 15%) of my spells go through the animation and hit at the right time and yet no damage is taken by the mob (no change at all in mob HP). Same thing and I will see the mobs healt bar drop a second or two after the shot hits. I (same percentage of time) will cast a shot and get the error message that the mob is dead and for a second or two watch it continue to fight with Curso or continue to hit me and then drop a second or two later. At least once ever time I play, I will kill a mob and watch it drop, have no dots on me, and I will die a second or two later before I can jump out of cover and start a heal or be unable to heal because the system still thinks that I am in combat. This is not a smuggler issue because if I watch on other classes it is still there.

 

I have decided that pretty much what we have is what we have and there will be no improvement or great combat in swtor. Kind of (although unsaid) take it or leave it at this point. My wife and I are enjoying the game as it is and will play it for a while. I am not sure when, but we may move over to WOW when we feel the need for smooth gameplay and combat and we will watch for new mmos and hope that one will get the gameplay and combat right and then move to it. I think that the story line, voice overs, art, etc. of swtor is wonderful, but after everything is said an mmo is combat at it's core and if a game does not get that right it is just a shadow of what it could have been.

[skotish]

I have 5 days left on my sub no more from me I will come back if they ever get round to sorting this issue this only happens in pvp for me and its killing my fun

[sabresandiego]

The biggest problem in the game right now is phantom global cooldowns. Often times, especially in hectic pvp, the global cooldown will trigger and no ability will be used. I believe that this is related to using abilities which are off the global cooldown immediately prior.

[Dantragk]

The problem is that they will probably never fix this due to the fact the it's coded into the game with their 1.5s GCD and the animations that they put into place. You can't stop something you've already started which is another issue.

[GreymaneAlpha]

The problem is that they will probably never fix this due to the fact the it's coded into the game with their 1.5s GCD and the animations that they put into place. You can't stop something you've already started which is another issue.

 

Which will also forever make alacrity a useless stat.

 

Still, there are plenty of things they "could" fix (like animations for Force Wave, for example), but probably won't.

[Cyndelx]

Yep. I unsubbed already and today is my first time playing in like a week and a half. It felt like they helped it a little before but now it seems like it is worse. Issues like this break the game, but they feel like wasting the time nerfing surge and other things before actually fixing real issues. So much of the pvp qq would probably be non issues if the ability lag and resolve issues were fixed but bioware seems to have no clue.

[nakayo]

The biggest problem in the game right now is phantom global cooldowns. Often times, especially in hectic pvp, the global cooldown will trigger and no ability will be used. I believe that this is related to using abilities which are off the global cooldown immediately prior.

 

It seems like the more you mash your buttons the worse the phantom cooldown situation gets which is mildly annoying since if it wasn't there in the first place we wouldn't be mashing trying to get our characters to do what they should do. kinda unfortunate that they stopped addressing something that still isn't fixed.

[skotish]

Yep. I unsubbed already and today is my first time playing in like a week and a half. It felt like they helped it a little before but now it seems like it is worse. Issues like this break the game, but they feel like wasting the time nerfing surge and other things before actually fixing real issues. So much of the pvp qq would probably be non issues if the ability lag and resolve issues were fixed but bioware seems to have no clue.

 

I had to aswell will come back in a few months to see where the game is on this issue:(

Edited February 15, 2012 by skotish

[usblues]

So after much playing I can safely say this regarding Jedi Knight delay:

 

Riposte, previously the worst offender, has yet to give me a single animation stutter.

 

Blade Storm will occasionally stutter but nothing like it used to do. I'd have to say it stutters around 5%-10% of the time where as it used to stutter on almost every use.

 

Force Sweap stutters just as much as it used to stutter. No improvement.

 

Overhead Slash stutters anywhere from 33%-40% of the time I use it.

 

Master Strike (not a stutter) still occasionally runs the animation while not dealing damage or blows the cooldown without dealing damage.

 

I'm sure there are others, possibly other spec abilities, that have problems. But these are the ones that come to mind.

 

At first after 1.1.2 I thought that these things were fixed since Riposte seems to be, but apparently they are not.

 

I once again cannot stand to play my Jedi Knight. It is easily the most frusterating and stressful (both mentally and physically) class to play. The Focus resource requires so much button pressing to begin with that when abilities fail to activate it really takes it's toll on you. My arms and joints are killing me.

 

Guess I'll play a different class. It's sad to see the iconic class that the game is built around be so broken.

[Nepumuk]

It has probably been reported before, but even after patch 1.1.3a it seems stuns are still prone to be delayed even in high fps (60+) and low latency (50-) PvE situations.

 

I had it happen multiple times, when trying to stun a mob while it was trying to activate a skill. I click the stun at least half a second before the activation bar of the mob would be full. Yet there is a small delay, the mob gets to activate the ability and my stun is applied right after and not before.

 

This renders the stun pretty useless and only serves as wasting a global cooldown. As the Powertech version does not even do damage.

 

Class: Powertech, Level 16-17

Ability: Electro Dart

[skotish]

So after much playing I can safely say this regarding Jedi Knight delay:

 

Riposte, previously the worst offender, has yet to give me a single animation stutter.

 

Blade Storm will occasionally stutter but nothing like it used to do. I'd have to say it stutters around 5%-10% of the time where as it used to stutter on almost every use.

 

Force Sweap stutters just as much as it used to stutter. No improvement.

 

Overhead Slash stutters anywhere from 33%-40% of the time I use it.

 

Master Strike (not a stutter) still occasionally runs the animation while not dealing damage or blows the cooldown without dealing damage.

 

I'm sure there are others, possibly other spec abilities, that have problems. But these are the ones that come to mind.

 

At first after 1.1.2 I thought that these things were fixed since Riposte seems to be, but apparently they are not.

 

I once again cannot stand to play my Jedi Knight. It is easily the most frusterating and stressful (both mentally and physically) class to play. The Focus resource requires so much button pressing to begin with that when abilities fail to activate it really takes it's toll on you. My arms and joints are killing me.

l

Guess I'll play a different class. It's sad to see the iconic class that the game is built around be so broken.

lol i have the same issues on my marauder my hand is totaly wreaked trying to force the animations to go off even though they wont

[Shuriko]

Since problems still exists I dont wish to see this topic die.

 

Devs need to check and improve this issue abit more imo.

[skotish]

Since problems still exists I dont wish to see this topic die.

 

Devs need to check and improve this issue abit more imo.

 

I agree i still have issues with my marauder

[Metalmac]

I would just like to have the same speed abilities as my MIRROR class the Operative.

 

Many abilites the Operative have a quick and fast with little delay.

 

But on my Scrapper in a 1 vs 1 duel the Operative is just always going to win as the ANIMATIONS on Scrapper just take to long.

i.e. Shotgun takes 2 times longer to do the same damage as Backstab in PVP or PVE.

 

This just ruins the Scrapper for playing against my mirror class as it gives the win to them.

[Naethion]

Since the Improvement, I have has no stutter on my Jk or SW. I love it! now if only I had better FPS

[hennels]

Yea, seen some improvement on my JK. Still have a few issues with Blade Storm.

Tapping it will make my animation stutter each time a keypress for that action happens, which I can live with.

[Cuddlezz]

when i read these kind of posts i feel as if you want to be able to cast the same spell 10 times at once or something, stop tunneling and spamming your keys and you might not have this problem

[AdamLKvist]

The improvement was amazing RIGHT after patch but has graudually reverted into **** again. Force Sweep on my sentinel is so delayed and stuttered.

 

Almost feels like these problems occur when their caches fills up or whatever. Please fix

Edited February 23, 2012 by AdamLKvist

[skotish]

when i read these kind of posts i feel as if you want to be able to cast the same spell 10 times at once or something, stop tunneling and spamming your keys and you might not have this problem

 

How about you staying out the thread instead of belittling the ppl that do have the issues with the l2p nonsense go to the start of the thread and educate yourself on the issue plz

[Hyrune]

So after much playing I can safely say this regarding Jedi Knight delay:

 

Riposte, previously the worst offender, has yet to give me a single animation stutter.

 

Blade Storm will occasionally stutter but nothing like it used to do. I'd have to say it stutters around 5%-10% of the time where as it used to stutter on almost every use.

 

Force Sweap stutters just as much as it used to stutter. No improvement.

 

Overhead Slash stutters anywhere from 33%-40% of the time I use it.

 

Master Strike (not a stutter) still occasionally runs the animation while not dealing damage or blows the cooldown without dealing damage.

 

I'm sure there are others, possibly other spec abilities, that have problems. But these are the ones that come to mind.

 

At first after 1.1.2 I thought that these things were fixed since Riposte seems to be, but apparently they are not.

 

I once again cannot stand to play my Jedi Knight. It is easily the most frusterating and stressful (both mentally and physically) class to play. The Focus resource requires so much button pressing to begin with that when abilities fail to activate it really takes it's toll on you. My arms and joints are killing me.

 

Guess I'll play a different class. It's sad to see the iconic class that the game is built around be so broken.

 

Same here

 

As a Vigilance gardian player, it's really annoying.

I add:

* often when I charge my target and try to strike, nothing trigger because of LOS (and I have the +1sec root talent). The target is then relocated 5 m away, or not

* often vs marauder/OP/assassin I push 2 or 3 times the charge button with no action at all; 1 sec later the target vanish. I suppose the vanish was already in effect by not displayed.

* big issue with dispatch, that seems usable but is not

* last but not least I see more and more enemies "stuck" in a place and "shaking" in the air. I can do nothing at this time but waiting the game to replace them somewhere after up to 10sec

 

25ms ping, core i7 computed with lots of triple channel RAM but slow SATA2 7200 HD

 

All in all, my Jedi Knight is almost unplayable in PvP

I do my best but I'm still seriously crippled by this and it is in fact very frustrating. Sometime 1 abilty out of 3 will not fire in a whole complexe WZ fight.

I've a lot more fun on range classes (they have responsivness issue too but the exact place of the target is less critical)

Edited February 24, 2012 by Hyrune

[Figmentus]

The 50 min video posted by the OP has some good examples of ability delay, warping, and ability failure. I would like to see a reporter for a gaming site or magazine compile a montage of ability delay problems. Then sit down with a dev and go over what is happening. I would like to see the look on the devs face as he is shown the videos.

 

I can understand someone not wanting to own up to inadequacies but the evidence is irrefutable. I, as a player would like Bioware to explain why and what is being done.

 

I suspect the reason for lack of specificity is because the explanation would reveal fundamental flaws that cause systemic problems throughout the game.

 

Bioware is not required to provide this insight, their design process and protocols are their intellectual property. Private matters stay private. They are not under any obligation to tell the players anything.

 

But, if they want to keep getting my money, they better start fessing up, acknowledge mistakes, and put forth plans for rectification.

 

Mistakes can be forgiven if effort is made to correct. Just going along like everything is hunky-dorie and sticking your fingers in your ears screaming "la la la I'm can't hear you la la la" will only cause more pain. They need to rip the band-aid off already...

Edited February 24, 2012 by Figmentus

[Daeborn]

I have been playing since beta and I still have yet to experience anything other than cooldowns. I think some of you guys are drunk or high when playing.