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

[IronclawFTW]

FIX IT!

Soooo annoying having to see my animations finish before I can do the next spell, even though they are already ready for use and no GCD is in effect.

 

 

...

Edited December 27, 2011 by IronclawFTW

[ferast]

the most annoying thing about talking about this impossibly important topic is all the people who think you're talking about FPS or latency, which is totally not the case. there's no good word in the common vocabulary for a game's -responsiveness.- World of Warcraft got popular because it had the responsiveness of a single-player game. even with pings in the hundreds and marginal framerates, your character still instantly responded (or appeared to, which is all that matters for the vast majority of a big MMO playerbase) to inputs.

 

no game since has had that feel of fluency, and SWTOR is no exception. it's better than most, but it's still no Warcraft, in that respect. a button's pushed and the character responds, but there's a sense of sluggishness and disconnect between those two actions that would be the death of any single-player game, and which makes PvP and probably highly-mobile raid encounters feel very strange and non-action-y; it certainly makes tanking in flashpoints feel very odd. I'm used to the instantaneousness of a quick retarget-taunt-retarget-resume, but SWTOR's gummier technology doesn't really give that feel.

 

part of it's that the game uses strangely-timed or multi-part animations for so many things. When I press Thunderclap, the pound and the numberpop are instant, but when I press Smash, I do a spinning jump and -then- get my numbers; when I press Backstab, the shank and the number come faster than I could notice any delay, but when I press Assassinbackstab, I rear back and -then- do my impalement, creating a disconnect between action and result. this isn't necessarily a bad thing if people are really digging the animations, but in the long run it's probably not got the same staying power as really crisp responsiveness.

 

I really dig this game and want it to get the mass market attention Warcraft has. it's indicative of how much I like some of what they're doing that I'm playing it at all, given that my usual standard for an MMO is how flicker-smooth it feels to play, which kept me tied to the Warcraft plow for many years. but these are real concerns going forwards, and they WILL affect the opinions of scads of players, both the intensely hardcore (serious PvPers will probably never play a game that plays like this) and the casual 'grandparent' demographic (the instant gratification and sense of excitement that comes of a genuinely smooth game is missing). a lot of them will never be able to wrap words around what it is that frustrates or bores them about combat in the game, but this is what it will be.

 

so yeah. that.

Edited December 27, 2011 by ferast

[BrigOrion]

I haven't had any of these problems at all.

[Mishmashmoo]

very valid concerns

[Seteleechete]

I think it's fine as is. They obviously did it for aesthetic reasons. I agree it feels kinda clunky at times, but it looks better and is more realistic (as realistic as it gets in a Star Wars-game).

 

Concerning PvP; everyone is on the same playing field. Just deal with it. Instant-casts still has the advantage of being able to be used while moving.

 

evry1 is not on the same playing field some classes suffer more then others

[BrigOrion]

the most annoying thing about talking about this impossibly important topic is all the people who think you're talking about FPS or latency, which is totally not the case. there's no good word in the common vocabulary for a game's -responsiveness.- World of Warcraft got popular because it had the responsiveness of a single-player game.

 

No, WoW got popular because any kid could play it on his mom's hand-me-down computer.

[blohh]

^ what he said, fix it or im out

[Hawkules]

I have to agree, I was trying to put my finger on what was wrong (as I haven't played WoW in years). It's especially a problem with instant heals after casting a timed heal.

[lilletante]

If you gonna whine, whine about what's important.

 

/bump

[mobywv]

This is really a problem with the gunslinger glass. I can't tell you how many times I've been slamming the cover button and nothing happens. I feel like the guy on Jeopardy slamming his response buzzer and still always getting beat out.

[Graveworns]

Agree one hundred percent. This phantom lag after spells are cast are crucial to the players enjoyment of the game. This strongly affects gameplay from a healer perspective as well since mobs don't have the same issue. To those who say to stop ************ and simply wait, THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING YOU CAN DO, the developers NEED to know that people find this game breaking or they will NOT fix it. They NEED to be able to justify the cost expense of fixing this, as it is most likely built into the code or game engine, and this needs to be fixed NOW before new content is released since it wont be able to be fixed later due to all the additional content they make that they base on the current engine. 150 pages is good, but this needs to stay current as possible, while I haven't had much experience with this company from its customer service, so far they are doing everything wrong. They need to address grievances in the most public way as possible, that means dev posts on the forums. fixing tickets and phone service is fine, but without public displays from dev's people don't THINK they are going to be dressed. Please give us a post on this Bioware.

[mutharex]

So you not whining about this:

 

Combat Bug Fixes

 

Fixed a bug that could cause the global cooldown to display incorrectly in the UI.

 

?

 

Or is it another problem?

[ferast]

No, WoW got popular because any kid could play it on his mom's hand-me-down computer.

 

you can play almost all MMOs on ancient-*** computers. Warcraft's compatability was impressive, but there are and were plenty of games like that. a game you can run that you don't want to play (see: most MMOs to most people) isn't a multimillion-unit mover.

[Pizzill]

I am a healer and this issue is annoying. I have noticed that sometimes when I cast my big heal it gets stuck and doesn't even go off because of this issue. Alot of dps just run around smashing saber strike and my heal that says it goes off in 2.45 seconds and doesnt really take effect until 2.95 or 3.15 or doesnt even go off at all and my character is stuck in the casting position and dps pump out 2.3k per second. This is a issue that is making or breaking my choice to stay here.

[asbalana]

A poor engine is a poor engine, and lack of responsiveness is a lot worse than clipping animations.

 

Also it's not a minor problem, Wow is a joy to play even if I don't care for the game that much precisely because of the crisp responsiveness of everything. TOR is an awesome game that I (and judging by the rest of the posts in this thread many many others) want to play but are being hindered by an abysmal games engine.

 

I agree with the OP. I love the game and want to play for a long time. So far at level 23 (JC) this has been annoying but has not changed my opinion that this is a great game. I can see the issue taking a toll as I continue to progress and face more demanding fights. I have died a few times in fights with elites because casts did not fire or were delayed a fraction of a second.

 

As far as the comment quoted above, I thought that I had read that BW rewrote the game engine to their specs. It is hard to imagine that they wrote in such a flaw or that it is not fixable. That would be a major fail / error. To each their own and to me WOW s-u-c-k-s big time in that it is a simplistic bore and no fun, but the combat is indeed very good and very smooth and responsive.

 

Edit - I also think that a comment from BW is recommended. It is just not good to ignore or be silent on issues that are of a concern to their customer base.

Edited December 27, 2011 by asbalana

[Wuushu]

Agree with OP 100%

[Omnimalus]

Heppuli's point is actually very pertinent. I think the reason a lot of abilities are labelled "instant" maybe misleading to new players that are still used to the World of warcraft paradigm that "INSTANT CAST" means three things:

 

1. Ability is cast instantly.

2. Ability is COMPLETED instantly (completely different to cast instantly. An example would be a delayed Damage move such as the bounty hunter's explosive dart. The ability is only completed (and indeed, useful) after it has detonated several seconds later

3. Thirdly, and most importantly, that "Instant Cast" abilities have no missile speed. I've not played WoW in a good while, but I remember for a while abilities like Death Coil (both DK and warlock incarnations) would not affect their targets until the missile has hit their opponents. I think this was patched due to imbalance (other classes abilities had no missile time and therefore imbalanced for the game)

 

HOWEVER if all abilities have a missile time, ghost cast time etc, there is absolutely no imbalance as every class is affected instantly. to be perfectly honest, it's a stylistic choice to have animations for instant casts as long as gameplay isn't affected. For example, I refer to the OP's original post with the mage using ice lance after Frost Bolt, and I will include timers to illustrate.

 

In comparison I will show a bounty hunter using tracer missile then electro dart. I do not have a video yet (I will do after patch is up.) but here is essentially the timings of the attacks.

 

MAGE SITUATION

 

FROSBOLT (GCD finishes during cast)

ICE LANCE(Deals damage instantly, animation irrelevant (the boar dies before the missile has even hit, not cinematic at all, but VERY VERY SMOOTH, which is enjoyable, I freely admit.

 

Following the Lance, we have a GCD in which our character CANNOT DO ANYTHING (and looks like a plank bunny hopping till their next instant cast, whilst the rogue spasmodically "Smoothly" attacks the mage in the *** whilst it's attack animations reset 4 times within 2 seconds.

 

BOUNTY HUNTER SITUATION

 

TRACER MISSILE (GCD finishes during cast)

ELECTRO BOLT (uses an animation, does not apply instantly, but applies WITHIN THE GCD)

 

Following the ELECTRO BOLT, we do whatever we like. We are not behind the mage whatsoever in terms of actions, as the mage is still limited by his GCD after his Ice lance. the OP and several people can argue that this is unresponsive, but if (as Heppuli wisely points out) everyone is affected by the same constraints, there is no issue, as we still have the GCD in place for EVERYONE. Abilities off the GCD still instantly activate and show their animations instantly, but the rest of the instant casts still have their animations and missile times.

 

It may be difficult for WoWcomers to accept that in this game "instant cast" just means "uninterruptable and activates within or before a GCD cycle". However, during interrupt situations I find that the interrupt effect applies before the animation. As it should, considering if you had a 2 second animation on your interrupt vs a 1.5sec heal, your interrupt becomes useless. However I have consistently found this is not the case, and everyone is interrupting each others moves at precisely the right time. I am interrupting others when I need to, and people are interrupting me. Any other unresponsiveness is just ghost unresponsiveness and as far as I'm concerned is a stylistic use of the GCD. (in wow the only thing you can do in the GCD is autoattack. There is no Autoattack in this game, so they are filling the void with the animations.)

[Tanaboon]

I'm going to keep bumping this thread until bioware cannot ignore this. THEY WILL FAIL if they don't fix this.

[Hokonoso]

good read, really hope they change this. not every ability has this lag, but it's sad that there are simply some abilities i wont use in pvp due to them getting me killed... so so lame!

[DigitalDreamz]

Being patched as of 1.01. UI and activation or global cooldown timers were off sync. They're being patched so it should be fine now.

 

The millisecond a skill is done you're good to go!

 

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1.0.1/12272011

[Heppuli]

Ah, after reading more posts I see now that the problem you are talking about is in fact about animations preventing new casts even when the earlier cast time is completed. Now, in theory, couldn't this be solved by halving the animation times in some skills that have this problem?

 

OR is it possible for the player to move after the skills heals/deals the damage, and by doing this cancelling the animation? I recall that for example in hon (Heroes of Newerth) 'cancelling animations' is very important when playing top games, as it allows you to cast your skills faster.

 

Some marauders have said in this topic that when running after a player in pvp he is unable to use skills because of 'too far away/not close to the target'. I can say with a 50% probability that this is because of your CONNECTION to the game. As a melee player in WoW, I've had this problem many times, and it's simply because I was either a tad too far from the target (melee range is 1 yards?), or because I had higher than average ms. This problem is very usual for melee characters, and has been in every MMO I've played.

[Crysicko]

/signed and agreed.

 

For now its acceptable.... its still early in the game.

But if this doesn't get fixed it will break the game and it will slowly die just as all the other "best mmo so far" games.

[ajjw]

I don't really understand why you guys are getting so worked up for this. In my opinion, it's great you can't start another action before the animation is over, because it just looks plain stupid when they 'clip'. Also, when this problem is universal in the game, everyone has it, and no one has an advantage. So in theory, it doesn't make you a worse player, because ALL skills behave the same way.

WRONG. Not all classes / specs have skills whose animations extend their cast times / the GCD if they're instant. In other words, some classes feel these ALOT more than others, it is NOT a universal handicap.

 

Some classes have most if not all of their animations shorter than their casts.

 

Some classes have a few animations 0.1-0.2s longer than their casts - Even this short delay is very easily noticeable and gamebreaking.

 

Some classes (like JK/SW) have multiple instant casts whose animations extend the GCD by 0.3-0.5s. That is simply unacceptable. The worse thing here is that if your character PARRIES, you'll be STUCK in the parry animation for ~1.2s, unable to cast a clutch defensive CD if needed. Good luck explaining to your Raid that "Yeah I know I was supposed to CD the boss' Smash but I was CC'ed by my own parry".

 

Seriously, this is NOT a universally equal "handicap". Some classes / specs feel it a WHOLE lot worse than others.

[DigitalDreamz]

I'm going to keep bumping this thread until bioware cannot ignore this. THEY WILL FAIL if they don't fix this.

 

How about you STOP bumping this thread and actually read the patch notes?

 

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1.0.1/12272011

 

 

Combat Bug Fixes

•Fixed a bug that could cause the global cooldown to display incorrectly in the UI.

 

 

It's been mentioned AT LEAST a dozen times in the last few pages already.

[Seteleechete]

This is really a problem with the gunslinger glass. I can't tell you how many times I've been slamming the cover button and nothing happens. I feel like the guy on Jeopardy slamming his response buzzer and still always getting beat out.

 

finally ik i am not alone i am considerign switching class because of this