Not Getting All Three Ticks of Full Auto?

[ScytheEleven]

Hey guys, I rolled a Commando and am lvl 42 at the moment.

 

I noticed a few levels back that I was only get two (2) ticks of Full Auto against enemies. Thought it was weird, but it really started bothering me after awhile. So I turned on my logs, ran up to some gold/silver enemies, and sure enough...only getting two ticks instead of three.

 

Please note that NONE of my shots are being resisted/missed...that is NOT showing up in my log. All it shows is two ticks of Full Auto. I am not cancelling out the channel either. Sometimes I get the full three ticks, but most times, it's two.

 

Am I missing something?

 

ALSO, my Grav Round has a delay as to when it's damage is applied. I'll fire it off, watch it hit the target, then about a second later the damage and armor reduction is applied. My ping/connection is great, zero lag. I have no other problems with casting abilities on my sniper.

Edited May 23, 2013 by ScytheEleven

[Sylvane]

Make sure you let the full auto cast finish otherwise you will clip off the last shot because it fires as it ends. Grav has a bit of a delay built in due to travel time as well, which is why demo round got slowed down because it used to be faster than grav flight time wise.

[Furiel]

This is an issue that occurs mostly solo now since 2.0 it seems. They changed the pushback talent in 2.0 so it give 5% less pushback defense, which now means that there are times that if you take damage while you are doing FA that the pushback will be enough to clip off the third tick. It should be pretty much a non-issue in FPs and Ops because of course you shouldn't be tanking, but when solo it's annoying.

[ScytheEleven]

Thank you both for your responses!

 

I am letting the channel for Full Auto finishes all the way, so it appears that the pushback is the issue.

 

I know that pushback affects your channel of Grav Round/Charged Bolts...didn't think that it would "reduce" the channel on Full Auto and make it miss a tick...that really sucks (and is stupidly annoying).

[Redcorn]

It happens all the time to me. If COF procs and I press the key I have a long delay and see one or two ticks. Now if it procs and I click another cast then come back it gives all ticks.

[GeckoOBac]

It most often isn't a pushback issue, unfortunately. There was another thread around here... But to recap, it may (sometimes) be a pushback issue, but there is a long standing bug with similar channels (most famously, master strike/ravage), where the last hit doesn't register at all with the server, likely due to network lag or server load.

As Master Strike is immune to pushback and interrupts, we can be sure that it's not incoming damage that breaks it.

 

This didn't happen (noticeably) with full auto before 2.0, probably because the last hit is not exactly at the end of the channel and so was less likely to get clipped by whatever phenomenon this is. The increased server load after the expansion (you may have noticed an increase in the "false activation" effect too) and the pushback reduction likely compounded to bring the issue to relevance for full auto as well.

 

Unfortunately, the master strike bug has been there for a LONG time and I suspect it's pretty much tied to some hard coded engine workings, so I suspect we won't see a fix anytime soon.

[Lowyjowylof]

For me, I lose the last tick all the time in Warped to the Core. I never noticed it much before 2.0 and other quests but now it's quite frequent.

 

Master Strike and Project are supposed to be uninteruptable but they most certainly are because of KBs and stuns. And it's not like you can recast because they're on a CD, which is important for MS because it's a long CD that can't be reset.

[GeckoOBac]

Master Strike and Project are supposed to be uninteruptable but they most certainly are because of KBs and stuns.

 

This is irrelevant, as the issue has been noted even on the dummies.

[Llama-Eight]

Grav has a bit of a delay built in due to travel time as well, which is why demo round got slowed down because it used to be faster than grav flight time wise.

 

Grav Round was slowed down to match the timings on the Merc equivalent Tracer Round & then, as you say, Demo Round was slowed down to make sure it'll benefit from the damage buff from a Grav Round fired immediately prior.

[GeckoOBac]

Grav has a bit of a delay built in due to travel time as well, which is why demo round got slowed down because it used to be faster than grav flight time wise.

Grav Round was slowed down to match the timings on the Merc equivalent Tracer Round & then, as you say, Demo Round was slowed down to make sure it'll benefit from the damage buff from a Grav Round fired immediately prior.

 

Both statements are somewhat incorrect.

 

Grav Round does have a bit of delay, but was never slower than demo round. The problem stems from the fact that the projectile actually fires at the END of Grav Round, since it's a casted ability. Demo round OTOH will fire IMMEDIATELY and, with proper chaining, they'll basically go off at the same time.

Distance from the target and delays in processing on the server side may cause grav round to hit after demo round: it's a typical "race condition".

 

To avoid this issue, which became prevalent now that only ONE stack of grav round is ever needed, in 2.0 they used this cheap (VERY cheap) trick to bypass the timing issues on the server altogether: they INCREASED (and not reduced as stated above) the speed of the Grav Round projectile (source: http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.0-rothc/rise-hutt-cartel-and-scum-and-villainy, "The Gravity Vortex applied by Grav Round now lasts 45 seconds. In addition, the Gravity Vortex effect now reduces armor by 20% and no longer stacks. Furthermore, this ability now fires a faster-moving projectile."), while reducing demo round speed to ridiculous levels.

 

Bit OT here but it was a very silly and very cheap maneuver that bypasses the REAL problem behind the whole system, while failing to address a number of similar situations (HIB not firing due to the debuff not being applied on the target AND the first tick of full auto or any instant skill not getting the armor reduction on the target).

This also causes OTHER issues: typical cases are node capping in pvp, where demo round is not a reliable interrupt anymore, and similar situations in PVE (one example for all: firing off a Demo round in the operator X fight only to have the shields go up before the round hits for the killing blow)

Edited June 20, 2013 by GeckoOBac

[Bleeters]

and similar situations in PVE (one example for all: firing off a Demo round in the operator X fight only to have the shields go up before the round hits

This happens to be all the damn time on Golden Fury. It's infuriating.

[Llama-Eight]

To avoid this issue, which became prevalent now that only ONE stack of grav round is ever needed, in 2.0 they used this cheap (VERY cheap) trick to bypass the timing issues on the server altogether: they INCREASED (and not reduced as stated above) the speed of the Grav Round projectile (source: http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.0-rothc/rise-hutt-cartel-and-scum-and-villainy, "The Gravity Vortex applied by Grav Round now lasts 45 seconds. In addition, the Gravity Vortex effect now reduces armor by 20% and no longer stacks. Furthermore, this ability now fires a faster-moving projectile."), while reducing demo round speed to ridiculous levels.

 

That's good to know, I must have missed the increase to grav round speed. Quite why they couldn't have increased the speed of Tracer Lock instead (compared to the original instant-hit grav round & slow tracer round) & met somewhere in the middle I don't know.

[GeckoOBac]

That's good to know, I must have missed the increase to grav round speed. Quite why they couldn't have increased the speed of Tracer Lock instead (compared to the original instant-hit grav round & slow tracer round) & met somewhere in the middle I don't know.

 

Because the engine appears to be heavily tied to animations (due to the synching of hits with deflects and dodges) and due to this (and probably other issues), the game suffers from a lot of timing issues. The symptons are many: the missing last ticks of full auto/master strike, unfired skills, false skill activations, edge effects at the end of combat (like combat ending before the hit that actually kills the target strikes), you name it.

 

That's why I said the fix was CHEAP. Fixing the REAL issue behind this would require a major overhaul of (likely) the game engine (not to be confused with the graphic engine). And while the positive effects would be countless, the fact that it will require a lot of work makes it quite unlikely we'll see something like that if not in the VERY long run.

Now that the game is profitable again we can at least HOPE for a real fix, but until then this is the kind of fix we can expect.

[Llama-Eight]

Because the engine appears to be heavily tied to animations (due to the synching of hits with deflects and dodges) and due to this (and probably other issues), the game suffers from a lot of timing issues. The symptons are many: the missing last ticks of full auto/master strike, unfired skills, false skill activations, edge effects at the end of combat (like combat ending before the hit that actually kills the target strikes), you name it.

 

That's why I said the fix was CHEAP. Fixing the REAL issue behind this would require a major overhaul of (likely) the game engine (not to be confused with the graphic engine). And while the positive effects would be countless, the fact that it will require a lot of work makes it quite unlikely we'll see something like that if not in the VERY long run.

Now that the game is profitable again we can at least HOPE for a real fix, but until then this is the kind of fix we can expect.

Yeah, if a proper fix of the issue entails a re-write of the combat/game engine, I expect that would be a very lengthy (& therefore expensive & time consuming) process. IMO, we're very unlikely to see that this side of a sequel.