New Ability Bar Cooldown effect

[fleabaag]

I just wanted to show how horrible the new ability cool down system has become.

 

For pure non-clickers it is a nightmare. When doing this video I used the mouse for easier illustration and then it somehow works.

 

But if you are a competitive player, you don't want to spend your time fixating a few cool downs.

 

With this 2 minute clip I want to illustrate what a pain it currently is - it's a freaking laser show and doesn't support smooth gameplay at all.

 

Bioware - seriously, I could give you enough tips how to make it better - but just let your dev play the game using the mouse only to turn and target* and maybe he will understand.

 

 

Kriemhild, V65 Vanguard

 

* don't even get me started with the targeting system

 

Exactly! bingo.

Racking up and preemptively using certain abilities is a gamble

[Philnoob]

lol.... written warning or the sack for the dev who thought of this idea.

[drwolfman]

I am shocked over this outrage, I played last night and finally after 3 Pvp matches caught on to the GCD effect but I didn't notice a thing, in fact because I sometimes power smash my rotation jumping a head before my procs are up it screws me up, now I'm never accidentally hitting the wrong ability because if I do I have short GCD to prevent it, people need to get over it it really isn't that big of a deal...like at all

[da_krall]

Even though this thread got to 78 pages in a matter of hours, Bioware will not listen to you, they know better than you or at least that what they think as can be seen from the rest of the game.

 

How hard is it to make a usable GUI. If you are bioware it seems next to impossible.

[KidLee]

I think the changes are well done. People are over reacting abit.

[Tanyala]

For the non-believers, watch this vidoe over and over again and tell me this is how it suppose to be.

 

 

Oh, and just for increasing the fun - unbind all keybinds of your quickslot - good luck seeing what ability is out of range, since you are going to miss the little red thingy too.

 

I'm completely baffled how this has made it to the live system.

[fahima]

I think the changes are well done. People are over reacting abit.

 

I can say if this crap was in beta I would not have purchased this game. Hell at launch I would have asked for a refund.

Being told to get used to it after I paid my money is an insult.

[darthtoph]

Even though this thread got to 78 pages in a matter of hours, Bioware will not listen to you, they know better than you or at least that what they think as can be seen from the rest of the game.

 

How hard is it to make a usable GUI. If you are bioware it seems next to impossible.

 

Screw this, just received a GW2 beta press invite. Non-press aka open beta invites will go out in less than a month (March). CU BW.

Edited February 8, 2012 by darthtoph

[Trews]

+1 OP

 

Please revert this change Bioware. In my opinion, the previous cooldown effects were better.

[drwolfman]

Also they can't just snap there fingers and fix it, they are probably working on it now and will again schedule Downtime which all of Europe will again complain about because they do it during playing time for them, in the world as an MMO Dev there is no good only madness

[gaming_ogre]

First of all, this issue has nowhere near the record amount of responses, some other discussions where much larger.

Second of all people like us who post in the forum are a vast minority of the general player base.

 

As i sad in one of the previous posts on my server in a fleet packed with people no one had a problem with this to such an extent that they would quit, some said it was better, some said they will get used to it.

 

This forum has become very unreliable because in threads like this on every one person who has a legitimate problem with something you will see three trolls popping out, bashing Bioware, threatening to quit, saying how everything is horrible etc.

 

Sounds like you are trolling. First, these forums are relevant, otherwise why do people post and read them and why do developers post here. Second, you and many others give off the impression that nothing is wrong with the bars and that if someone doesn't agree with you they must be the minority and wrong. Seems you are the one wanting to manipulate opinion. Simply put, this change causes eye and head aches. This issue must be dealt with by removal of the offending colors. The only other option is to quit playing, which is what will happen for me after next week when my sub runs out. I simply will not pay/play a game that gives me headaches. I had no problem before with star wars and I play FPS games so I am not sensitive to motion. Those who like obnoxious stuff should wait for bioware to reliece* custom UI options, just like the rest of us waiting on it for more skill bars.

Maybe this is about play styles. I NEED the bars visible so I can see what i am doing. I have no memory for alt this and control that, just not possible for me. To many skills to do this with one toon and I have 8 toons, 3 of which were played daily until yesterdays patch. Way to many skills to keep track of. So yes I stare at the toolbar during a fight, just no choice for me. When you say keymapping are you using something other than a normal keyboard?

 

*wow, i stumped the spellchecker again

[Hyrune]

I find the rew UI hardly readable: when the skills are under the GCD everything seems greyed (and at best we should always be under the GCD in combat).

 

The only thing I see is flash between each GCD.

 

Conclusion: I mostly play by memory for my skill CDs and I avoid looking at the bottom at the screen

 

This is not right, please try another UI settings

Edited February 8, 2012 by Hyrune

[Thoffs]

This change doesn't bother me personally as I don't look at my hotbar that much. But obviously a lot of folks hate it.

 

Bioware needs to understand that they can't please all (or even most) people and that any UI changes need to have lots of customization buttons for adjusting the effects or disabling them entirely if they are not going to open up the UI to external modding. This does complicate things but it is the price they have to pay to keep control of the UI and also keep players happy.

[Vlacke]

I am shocked over this outrage, I played last night and finally after 3 Pvp matches caught on to the GCD effect but I didn't notice a thing, in fact because I sometimes power smash my rotation jumping a head before my procs are up it screws me up, now I'm never accidentally hitting the wrong ability because if I do I have short GCD to prevent it, people need to get over it it really isn't that big of a deal...like at all

 

The fact is that the majority either has no problem with this and are already used to the change or even like this new thing better, but the forum is filled with those who complain about everything on regular basis, things like this are perfect for them to vent and dramatize, and then they are backed up by resident trolls who increase the level of hysteria instantly.

[Xneco]

Even though this thread got to 78 pages in a matter of hours, Bioware will not listen to you, they know better than you or at least that what they think as can be seen from the rest of the game.

 

How hard is it to make a usable GUI. If you are bioware it seems next to impossible.

 

this is the 2nd thread btw... first cap out at 104 pages... so were up to 182, not include all the threads BioWare locked.

[Vlacke]

Maybe this is about play styles. I NEED the bars visible so I can see what i am doing. I have no memory for alt this and control that, just not possible for me. To many skills to do this with one toon and I have 8 toons, 3 of which were played daily until yesterdays patch. Way to many skills to keep track of. So yes I stare at the toolbar during a fight, just no choice for me. When you say keymapping are you using something other than a normal keyboard?

 

*wow, i stumped the spellchecker again

 

It is about play styles, that's why some people hate this immensely and some don't have problems with it.

 

That is exactly why i said before that Bioware should make an option to switch between the new style and the old style and everyone should be happy with that.

[Xneco]

The fact is that the majority either has no problem with this and are already used to the change or even like this new thing better, but the forum is filled with those who complain about everything on regular basis, things like this are perfect for them to vent and dramatize, and then they are backed up by resident trolls who increase the level of hysteria instantly.

 

I really doubt that the majority have no problem with the current implementation.... personally I find the change terrible and it is hard to keep track of what is/isn't available.

[Jorfar]

Personally, i love the new effect.

[TwitchingFiber]

At first I didn't think the new thing was too bad but the more I played the more I really don't like it.

 

It's too hard to tell what abilities are available, I think a great fix would just put how many seconds are left on that ability instead of a solid blue thing. Or just give us the option to go back.

[DuronXM]

Really? What is/isn't available is troubling to you? It must be something to do with my being color blind but I like these effects much better then the previous, it's actually easier for me to know what is available without even to have to look at the bars because they're so prominent!

[Banard]

While I appreciate the attempt to make it more obvious which spells were on cooldown, I feel the new effects are just making it harder to see which abilities are available. The flashing and washout effects obscure the visibility of the abilities, and the flashing occurs after it has come off cooldown (making it difficult to react quickly as you cannot quite tell if it is available or just part of the GCD flashing).

 

All that was needed was to add a dark blue or reddish tinge to the abilities which were on cooldown, as the old GCD effect was sufficient and didn't obscure vision.

 

Is anyone else not liking the new effect?

 

 

 

 

This change was horrible. It impacted my game play last night in a very negative way.

 

The amount of post on this forum regarding ability delay and they create a UI that makes the user appear the he has a ability delay. (Note i said APPEAR).

 

Old UI GCD:

 

Use ability...wait for GCD...use new ability...wait for GCD ..use new ability.

 

 

New UI GCD:

 

Use ability...wait for GCD...WAIT FOR SKILLS TO BE NOT GREYED OUT...use new ability...wait for GCD...WAIT FOR SKILLS TO BE NOT GREYED OUT.

 

 

(Note i can use the skills when they are greyed out...but the UI is not telling me that. Last night while doing K palace not once were my buttons not greyed out. The UI creates like half a sec delay in user reignition of when a skill)

 

 

 

How many people do you have playing on the PTR? And why wasn't there huge 1000+ post about this on there?

 

There is a very big disconnect between your PTR and going live. A lot of things are falling through the cracks and the way people are these days..the little things causes a huge up roar.

 

Please bioware, I am sick of this forums qq but I cannot get mad at it when you do not do enough testing on your own patches. If the PTR population is not high enough...HIRE MORE TESTERS. If not, go back to making awesome single player RPG.

 

Every patch there is something. Either a fix was not a fix, a fix caused more problems or a improvement (like this GCD one) is nothing but a hairless wookie.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Banard

[MJHoyle]

Reading this thread before I got on this morning, I thought there was a real issue. The only people this effects are clickers, or people who don't know their class.

 

You are supposed to be looking at the action, not your action bars...

 

You honestly have NO idea what you're talking about, do you? Jedi Guardian class for example has an ability that is only ready when it feels like it and having a certain amount of focus, and there's another ability that pops up when it feels like it. You have to be watching your bar for when it's available to use it.

 

Smuggler scrappers have an ability called Sucker Punch which is procc'd by Blaster Whip. There's also a talent which sometimes procs it, so knowing you got more than 1 punch every 6 seconds is really needed which is why it's helpful to look on the bars to see if it's up.

 

Looking at the bars is as vital as looking at the actions. Having them light up nice and clearly so you catch sight of them at the corner of your eye is really handy so you can focus more on the playfield and less at the bars. But this new GCD effect is so bright and puts everything on a GCD that you can't tell the difference between an ability that has lit up and an ability that is greyed out even when ready for use until the GCD effect wears off, wasting valuable seconds. On top of that the brightness and glossiness of the GCD effect is so flashy that after a couple of hours' of playing I'm suffering nausea, migraines, splitting headache, and eye twitching.

Edited February 8, 2012 by MJHoyle

[Grabsi]

I just wanted to show how horrible the new ability cool down system has become.

 

For pure non-clickers it is a nightmare. When doing this video I used the mouse for easier illustration and then it somehow works.

 

But if you are a competitive player, you don't want to spend your time fixating a few cool downs.

 

With this 2 minute clip I want to illustrate what a pain it currently is - it's a freaking laser show and doesn't support smooth gameplay at all.

 

Bioware - seriously, I could give you enough tips how to make it better - but just let your dev play the game using the mouse only to turn and target* and maybe he will understand.

 

 

Kriemhild, V65 Vanguard

 

* don't even get me started with the targeting system

 

THIS!!!!!!

 

Bioware please change back the way it used to be OR atleast give us an option to change it back in ingame properties!

[JacquieC]

I really doubt that the majority have no problem with the current implementation.... personally I find the change terrible and it is hard to keep track of what is/isn't available.

 

I'm not buying the "oh you are in the minority" responses either.

 

I'm not getting a headache nor going blind with the changes, but I can't see which abilities are available so to me that is a problem that needs a fix.

[BDutch]

Not to invalidate other complaints/opinions, but personally I probably would not have even noticed there was a change if I hadn't read the forums before I played.