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

[Unseenhands]

Iresist, you're right that is a solution, but it still seems like closing one eye to get a good look at something - you can do it, but you're not using your full faculties.

 

Also, for procs and such, there's no "Power Auras" on the screen itself. So I am only watching my character, I'll miss certain opportunities. (Unless there's an indicator within animations that I'm missing...that'd actually be kinda cool...)

 

It's also just kind of silly - watch the animations, but then the cast bar that's part of the ui doesn't mean anything, nor does the lit up abilities on our castbars. Those are just as much a part of the game as the animations, shouldn't they be all lined up?

[Faillrissian]

Maybe it has something to do with wow being a much simpler game. To me it just feels like general lag serverside. I sometimes spam a cc abillity while being on very low hp to save myself - just to discover that i cant because appereantly im allready dead.

The lag allso seems to be excessive in texture heavy inverioments. I might try to run the game on really low settings to see if there is a difference.

In pvp the "lag" simply makes the game feels buggy - makes it very difficult to land a simple ~2 sec cast.

In wow there is a instant respons when the target pillar/los/range a cast, where in TOR its really dificult to determine what really happened when your cast fluked.

When a target is LOS`ing your casts, the cast should cancel instantly like it does in wow - instead of keep casting and then first fluke in the end.

The small lag makes pillars extreemely annoying for anyone with a cast time imo.

[Lord_Indomitus]

Agree with OP.

 

What's the point of a gcd if i can't use the next ability till the previous animation is done? I was wondering why i had to keep slamming interrupt button 3-4 times b4 it would actually go off. How r u suppose to interrupt a 2 sec cast that way? Same thing with ANY reactional ability. Ridiculous.

I think you're off with the whole interruption case. Have you noticed how the opponent's ability gets interrupted (when you press the interruption ability) BEFORE the interruption ability's animation? At least this is happening with my Sorcerer, where interrupting has a very distinct and clear animation (lightning shock, what else hehe). I am 100% sure of that, interruption happens immediately, even if the animation is "Qed". Anyway, this is what happens with my Sorcerer, who has out of GCD interrupt, do all classes have that? No idea.

[BrownWalrus]

True enough about that. But the responsiveness of the character is not a problem. People are just too used to watching the ability bar instead of watching what they should be watching (the game).

 

Oh man, i am so glad that i am not alone.

 

I pretty much agree with everything you are saying and i know for a FACT that everyone here has to be experiencing these problems as well, but they are either not experienced in MMOs in general and most likely cannot even tell what the issue is.

 

Enemies taking damage before the animations go through, enemies flying back before pulse detonator even goes off, enemies DYING before my bullets even get to them. It's ridiculous. This really should have been Bioware's #1 priority BY FAR. I cannot believe that they would let the game release and not take care of that..especially considering how much money went into making this game.

 

I really, really, REALLY hope they fix this because i will not be subscribed for much longer if they don't. I love this game and it feels like a breath of fresh air in the sea of cookie cutter, story (NOT) driven mmos, but i just can't get over this delay/unresponsiveness. It's truly killing it for me.

[Jahl]

In all honesty I had only noticed this on a couple of abilities with my Jedi Knight, however. Tonight I logged my Sith Warrior on, and the delay on skills was horrendous, to the point of being unplayable.

[Kerbs]

To me it feels as if the Client is acting before the server response

[Scelerant]

I think you people are too used to your WoW and other like games. You need to get used to watching the ANIMATIONS and not the cooldowns! This game is anything but sluggish if you are actually watching your CHARACTER and not your abilities.

 

Memorize your key bindings for your abilities and watch the GAME and not your ability BAR.

 

1) Then the game won't "feel" sluggish because you are watching the wrong thing.

 

2) Makes the game FAR better by actually watching what you are playing instead of a bar.

 

That does nothing to solve the problems related to not being able to use abilities when you need to. If I see a healer with 0.7 seconds left on their casting bar, I want to be able to hit that interrupt now, since its off global, not when my 2.5 second animation ends. When I see that boss turn red or scream "I'm going to take your head off" I want to be able to pop my defensive CD. If my companion is about to be killed I want to be able to hit that stun to prevent it.

 

Watching animations is fine, if I have a grace period of 1.5 seconds on every cast I need to interrupt and every boss gives me a 3 second warning for "Don't do anything now so that you can interrupt/pop a def CD in a global and a half"

[Lord_Indomitus]

To me it feels as if the Client is acting before the server response

It does. Not sure if this is the case for all occasions, but it does on most. I can tell you that much.

 

About the guy saying that we are too used to WoW, etc, bla bla and that we need to watch our screen... I am watching my screen man and I see all kin of glitches + my channeled ability get canceled TOO often, which is annoying, as I lose half a GCD or more and I have to re-cast it all the freaking time.

 

Finally, if you own a decent car but one which you think that needs improving on certaina spects, someone saying "don't compare with BMW, compare with Fiat and be happy" helps with nothing imo.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Lord_Indomitus

[Azerin]

First off, I want to thank the OP for constructively putting together what *MANY* of us have experienced and have been concerned about. This is indeed a major issue and although not immediately game-breaking, it will severely damage the success of SWTOR if left unfixed.

 

The only thing that I would add to this, and this may have already been mentioned (please excuse me for not reading 140+ pages), is that for me the issue has been the most noticeable with target deaths and target switching.

 

The cases I'm speaking of are ones where the target dies before the ability animation of whatever skill you last used on that target finishes, and thus you are unable to switch targets because you are "locked" into the animation completing itself. Like others have said, other MMO's like WoW have set the standard where an animation should be cut off immediately based on either user input (ie. hitting a new ability, jumping) or target status change (ie. target is now dead).

 

But other than that, this game has been a blast and a breath of fresh air for millions of us, and I hope BW not only keeps up the good work but also addresses core issues such as this. Thanks again OP for intelligently bringing to light a serious issue.

[badchx]

OP: Nice post. All true.

And this is why I've paused my subscription...

But if it get fixed, I'll be right back.

[TripleOG]

Good post but a few things are just absurd.

 

 

 

This is just a lie. Its not even an opinion it so incorrect.

 

 

 

Second this is... the ability delay is not the only part of character responsiveness. The movement of my characters is superb. When im jumping around trying to get the datacrons it feels great.There is no sluggishness or delay.

 

 

Third is... I do not get 0.5 seconds of delay on my abilities. I feel bad for anyone who does. Maybe .1 or .2.

 

Fourth is... it will not kill the game. sounds like some fox news sensationalizing. The delay of my abilities isnt much concern for me and is sometimes 100% eliminated when using the queue. I set my queue to 1 second and always push while its activating. That said I can see how it is a huge problem for other classes and in pvp. It definitely needs to be fixed and sure be a priority.

 

I just want to address the fact that you wont think it will not kill the game. Generally speaking, I think the majority of the players who will subscribe to this game for years, are the players looking to play endgame PvP and PvE. If the healer can heal you in a war zone or when you cant even clear the first raid because of an animation delay handicapping your healers, how do you expect players to continue playing?

[TheJmoney]

Good post but a few things are just absurd.

 

 

 

This is just a lie. Its not even an opinion it so incorrect.

 

 

 

Second this is... the ability delay is not the only part of character responsiveness. The movement of my characters is superb. When im jumping around trying to get the datacrons it feels great.There is no sluggishness or delay.

 

 

Third is... I do not get 0.5 seconds of delay on my abilities. I feel bad for anyone who does. Maybe .1 or .2.

 

Fourth is... it will not kill the game. sounds like some fox news sensationalizing. The delay of my abilities isnt much concern for me and is sometimes 100% eliminated when using the queue. I set my queue to 1 second and always push while its activating. That said I can see how it is a huge problem for other classes and in pvp. It definitely needs to be fixed and sure be a priority.

 

 

1. Possibly not, but the reason WoW's combat is so fluid and likeable, is because of the responsiveness. You press a button, the character responds. You FEEL like the character. When I setup Mortar Volley, and it doesn't start casting until 1/2 way through the channel and continues casting past the channel ending... I do not feel like I am my character.

 

2. Jumping is not fluid in this game at all. I actually have gone for datacrons and have had trouble with jumping in multiple situations. The datacron on Taris? Jumping onto the pipe? GG

 

3. Good for you, for the most of us, it is not the case.

 

4. It WILL kill the game. Once people get over the hype and the OH AHs of the VOs and the whole Star Wars thing, people will realize the combat system is flawed. I noticed this in beta, and made bug reports about it. I'm sticking with the game for now, because it has the chance to be fixed. How can the game have end game raiding? How does Nightmare mode work if your tank is being SPAMMED with attacks taking away 1/4-1/2 his hp, and you're suffering from .5 seconds extra delay from this obvious bug? They added 3 difficulties of raiding to attract a wide audience of players. If playing anything other than EZ mode raiding is impossible because of simple combat fluidness, the people who joined the game for that aspect will leave. And believe me, it's probably a lot more people than you think.

Edited December 27, 2011 by TheJmoney

[Filios]

Good things take time. Character responsiveness will improve. Its unfair to compare little things like this to other well established MMO's right now because they have been around forever. Give it time, things will improve.

[TheJmoney]

Good things take time. Character responsiveness will improve. Its unfair to compare little things like this to other well established MMO's right now because they have been around forever. Give it time, things will improve.

 

WoW's responsiveness was NEVER this bad, NEVER. Sure, maybe other things in the game may have been flawed, but character response was not.

[Lord_Indomitus]

Good things take time. Character responsiveness will improve. Its unfair to compare little things like this to other well established MMO's right now because they have been around forever. Give it time, things will improve.

Sadly, I don't think that character responsiveness is one of those things you can improve over time. I hope I am wrong.

 

WoW's responsiveness was NEVER this bad, NEVER. Sure, maybe other things in the game may have been flawed, but character response was not.

WAR, AoC,Rift, Swtor, all these MMOs don't have the responsiveness of WoW. That's not a random occurrence and this is why I am gloom concerning the future and responsiveness (aka thinking that it will not be improved, because it's something hard to do and if they could had done so, they would have already done so).

 

GW2 advertises that they will have the responsiveness of WoW. It's an industry standard no other game can meet atm and we're almost in 2012. SWTOR is really a good game, even without being able to meet this standard, still, that's not completely fine and it will hurt the game in the long run.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Lord_Indomitus

[gandonAD]

needs fix. badly.

[Faillrissian]

 

 

The cases I'm speaking of are ones where the target dies before the ability animation of whatever skill you last used on that target finishes, and thus you are unable to switch targets because you are "locked" into the animation completing itself. Like others have said, other MMO's like WoW have set the standard where an animation should be cut off immediately based on either user input (ie. hitting a new ability, jumping) or target status change (ie. target is now dead).

 

Try playing pvp with a heavy casttime based class. LOS is a huge issue because you often just keep casting on a target who just stepped behind a pillar with the cast fluking in the end. In Wow you get instant response when someone LOS your cast.

[Littlescuba]

keep posting more examples hopefully we can get this all worked out so the game is all smooth and good ;D

[CharagonIGN]

This may not kill the game, but it is certainly one of the big issues that will keep it in the "amateur hour" category of MMOs.

[Toxxulian]

They'll fix the mount issue (probably some terrible bandaid fix that locks your character form moving until the animation is done), but other than that I highly doubt they are going to go back to each of the animations and tweak them to align with the cast bar. Considering they would have to do that with EVERY class, and EVERY race / gender combo that is so much work it just isn't feasible. Edited December 27, 2011 by Toxxulian

[TripleOG]

Good things take time. Character responsiveness will improve. Its unfair to compare little things like this to other well established MMO's right now because they have been around forever. Give it time, things will improve.

 

Sadly, character responsiveness is not a "little thing" as you would assume, not sure if you are new to the genre, but this is a very serious issue. Some would even say game breaking. However, I hope its gets fixed fast because i'm rapidly approaching level cap and I don't know what I will do in-game if it is not fixed.

 

Just to be clear, no one hear is is hating on SWTOR. We are simply trying to save a game that has sooo much potential.

[Picoom]

Unfortunately I wholeheartedly concur.

[StormDragonlord]

Nearing 150 pages and not a peep from the devs. I think they just can't fix it and will keep quiet to see how much they can milk money before people realize they're never gonna fix this.

 

@the guy who said it takes time. I've never played an MMO that launched with this problem, and if there is one out there, I highly doubt it can be fixed, it seems to me that it's from the engine itself and they build the animations and skills around this. If this is true though, it will suck because I love this game but I can't see myself raiding or PvPing with this sucky combat delay+character responsiveness.

Edited December 27, 2011 by StormDragonlord

[Herpiederp]

I absolutely, 100% agree. This is a subtlety that only experienced players will see, and it's agony to deal with.

 

This is the exact reason why I played Warhammer for a week and then deleted it, and why I played Lord of the Rings for a few days and then deleted it, and played Rift for a couple weeks and then deleted it; because the responsiveness was broken, which made the game irritating and less fun, and therefore "unplayable."

 

The thing that makes WoW so amazing is the sheer control and speed at which you can play and make decisions. You can juggle abilities in PvE and PvP as if you are literally there yourself and the moment-to-moment decisions are nearly instant.

 

The ability to cast something long, instantly realize that I need to cancel it and interrupt something or put up a shield, and actually DO that next thing is almost as fast in-game as it is on my fingers. The 0.5 second delay is very, very noticeable in PvP here.

 

I agree: if this is not fixed, the novelty of this game will wear off in a week or two, and then we will do what we have done with all previous MMOs, with the exception of WoW: leave.

 

And believe me, BW, if you lose people at this point, they don't come back. It's a fact.

[stargie]

I end up bashing my keyboard now because i basically do not know when my sorcerer start casting certain spells. Can't trust animation or GCD atm. Interrupting is beyond imposibility.

 

It looks like that time needed for casting is connected with gcd, animation and framerate.

If my fps drop a bit my character response slower. Also noticed a bug that if i bash my keyboard, my sorcerer cast once but animation is played twice and that means i dmg mob with 1 spell but i have to wait for 6+ sec to cast another spell.