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

[Spirodex]

If you are a WoW player, and have played WoW with any amount of skill, competitiveness, you cannot help but cringe when in a Warzone in SW:TOR. It feels unresponsive, frustrating... as if something is wrong with you! but there is nothing you can do about it!

 

This.

 

I'm really enjoying the game, flashpoints and questing, crafting w/e. Yet PvP (and I suppose higher level PvE) just feels lacking because of this problem. It's really one of those basics that needs to be spot on, I don't see why it isn't the top priority for Bioware right now.

 

I mean it isn't like MMOs have a great history of being e-sports, and I'm not saying SW:TOR needs to be one, but tight responsiveness is essential to competitive play in any aspect of the game.

 

It irritates me that the space combat mini game is more responsive. >.<

[Xcore]

Its called a sync error. I'm not a coder but its something to do with server side latency.

 

I believe the issue has to do with abilities in this game not completing until after the animations goes off. In other games when you use abilities they actually fire and hit the target before you see the animation, which is why in say WoW for instance if you fly past a mob and they shoot a spell at you the spell bolt or whatever will follow you forever until you stop and let it hit you. You already took the damage before you saw the animation.

 

This and resolve are what makes ToR's pvp a lot different than WoW's too, since you cant really spam stuff you have to wait for the animation to finish even on instants. Even your instants can be interrupted in this game by knockback for example if you are pushed before the animation completes which kinda changes the dynamics of pvp dramatically.

 

The problem that I have noticed is that it has something to do with mainly abilities that are off the GCD. Often times abilities off the GCD wont fire if the button is clicked twice before the animation completes (even though the ability is supposed to be instant), it will make the character do some kind of wierd 'double clutch', use your resources (ammo, focus whatever), reset the GCD but nothing actually happens.

 

Just playing around with this I also find for some reason it happens less when you use keybinds than when you use clicks, which is why I think some people say they never have the problem, they are probably using keybinds. So it may also have something to do with how the action bars/UI accept input too.

 

This issue and the raid frames not working correctly are really my only two beefs with SWTOR. I complain a lot about both but really these are the only 'major' problems with the game. I can wait on minor bug fixes, add-on support, I dont think they need a LFD tool, etc a lot fo the stuff ppl complain about is trivial.

 

But having raid frames not showing health correctly and abilities that misfire is kinda game breaking for some people, especially people that like to pvp.

 

Its also possible that the sync error could be whats causing the raid frame health bars to not show accurate info too.

 

Great response, enjoyed reading it! Well worded

[oflow]

I have never played that class. I have played inquisitor, trooper and BH. I notice it on all of them (especially the BH).

 

 

It happens on all the classes.

[Xcore]

xcore

 

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but the reason why some people don't see this ability delay is because from what I can tell the problem is mostly just with the operative/smuggler. Ive played the other classes and since beta the operative class has had this problem. Its the animations that do it for the most part its very bad when it comes to healing. Sadly I have sent in many reports on this problem throughout beta and never heard of them wanting to fix it I hope they will.

 

Hey yea, its more pronounced in certain classes due to their nature in abilities but definitely not confined to those classes as any Healer or Sage/Sorcerer will tell you.

 

Its not that simple sadly

[Nurvus]

I completely agree that character feel is the #1 factor in a game's enjoyment and no amount of content or graphic quality will compensate for any lacking in this department.

[dekey]

Agree with OP that this is extremely damaging to the game play, it currently feels alot like the warhammer combat meaning you could not be sure that what you were pressing would actually happen.

 

I play as a sniper, currently in the mid 30's and I must say that this issue has caused me a great deal of problems.

 

For me it is most noticeable when opening up with my initial rotation;

 

As going into cover for me means I can snipe instantly within the next x seconds, i can open with a 2.5 sec cast time, instant snipe, instant follow-through. Technically the only one here that should be governed by more than the GCD is the opening Ambush (2.5sec cast). However I frequently face 2 problems.

 

1; Entering cover then immediately initiating Ambush cast causes my cast to fail after roughly 0.5>1 sec asif another GCD is finishing in the background after my actual GCD has ended (potentially something related to reactive buffs after entering cover, though that is pure speculation)

 

2; Instant casting snipe and follow-through after Ambush often causes one of the 2 abilities to fail however still go onto cool down (the ability completes yet doesn't actually do anything but go on CD) again as if when the 1st GCD ends, there is something in the background forcing a further delay.

 

Possible unrelated but is everyone also experiencing the "death rush" effect at low health; if you are extremely close to death, nothing fires off and just refreshes GCDs and failed casts, then spikes and you die? It's as if your death has already resolved before your client catches up with it.

 

Cheers

[FatherJeffrey]

I've been saying this from day one yet get flamed constantly by blinded fanbois.

 

Also ROFL at people saying "update PC, I'm fine". It's so embarrassing I would delete my account.

[gurugeorge]

There's nothing magic about the network code, it's just that different developers have different priorities.

 

For Blizzard the number one priority is always Gameplay, overriding any other concern. Gameplay comes before Graphics, Lore, Realism or any other concern.

 

For Bioware it seems like 'realistic' animations are a higher concern then gameplay.

 

Really? Hmm, you seem to know what you're talking about and I'm curious, let's break it down a bit:-

 

The way I see it (the way I think it should be lol) a "realistic" animation lasts as long as it lasts, you want to be able to hit a key for the next action WHILE the animation is running, and then the character IMMEDIATELY does the next thing. Lack of responsiveness comes in when the character doesnt immediately do the next thing after it's previous animation stopped.

 

So for responsiveness, it doesn't matter how long the animations are for realism's sake, it matters EITHER that you are able to hit a sequence of keys with some small queue (say 2 keypresses?), and the character immediately performs those actions smoothly one after the other (with the actual "hit" taking place at the appropriate time for the attack type, given the type of gameplay it represents), OR that there be some consistent type of animation interruption that can break the animation and immediately replace it with a new one and a new attack.

 

Are you saying that WoW's attacks/animations are all of the latter, "breakable" type? And that this is always preferable for gameplay, and that it's never good to have animations that must finish before the next attack can take place?

Edited December 26, 2011 by gurugeorge

[Sokolovs]

If you are a WoW player, and have played WoW with any amount of skill, competitiveness, you cannot help but cringe when in a Warzone in SW:TOR. It feels unresponsive, frustrating... as if something is wrong with you! but there is nothing you can do about it!

 

You hit the nail on the head, this is exactly what I've been saying. I only did one 'battleground' with my warrior Marauder, and I don't foresee this game ever having a skill oriented, competitive PvP like WoW. So people will be less inclined to PvP and those who do will have outrageous queue times. Its to much "point and click". In WoW you can have significantly worse gear, be lower level, and still be able to beat someone just because you play smarter(more skilled).

 

I personally need the competition, its stimulating, like playing a sport. That's why I'm mostly a FPS gamer. To me its like comparing a CoDMW3 to CS:S.

SW: TOR (MW3), anyone can go in and be good in a day or two of playing, it's really more about just learning the basic controls. The games are fun but really a 'mindless, no real point' game. You level, enjoy the story, then uninstall. Or in MW3's case, beat single player, then just play multiplayer until bored, uninstall, CoD matches require no real talent/skill.

WoW (CS:S) there's so much competition, you have to concentrate and have quick reactions/reflex's. Even the strategic challenge in WoW PvE is stimulating, it takes more skill than 'point at this target, push this button over and over until dead'.

 

SW: TOR is a nice, casual game that should have a single player mode so people don't have to pay monthly, because it wasn't done up right to be a MMO. It lacks crucial MMO qualities. People will buy it, level to 50, get bored because of nothing to do and move on to the next thing, this game will absolutely never last, this time next year TOR will be a thing of the past. Which is a shame, but these game developers really need to work on their R&D. They need to communicate with serious gamers personally so they know it takes to make a great game. Instead they wing it, thinking they are doing something great but its not practical and turns out to be a waste. I honestly think hyping this game up the way they did, comparing it to WoW, saying its better than WoW, talking about how great the end game content is, brought them this quick mass amount of players. Then for it to not live up to the hype, it really hurt BioWares reputation and I think it will really show in their future releases.

[lethal_ghost]

Possible unrelated but is everyone also experiencing the "death rush" effect at low health; if you are extremely close to death, nothing fires off and just refreshes GCDs and failed casts, then spikes and you die? It's as if your death has already resolved before your client catches up with it.

 

Cheers

 

yup i get this its like all damage is calculated at end of gcd not when animation happen, so when the gcd finishes it deals you the damage u have taken and you just drop

Edited December 26, 2011 by lethal_ghost

[Siem]

Unfortunately, I think the direction the developers wanted to go with the game is a realistic, animation oriented combat that focuses more on looks and "realism" than responsiveness and accurate timing.

 

I can live with it to level and enjoy the story, but once that wears off, what is there left? In the heat of battle, you're focusing on your abilities and cooldowns, not how cool your guy looks as he's casting Mortar Volley.

[Nurvus]

@Dekey

About the Death Rush I can say that it seems to be the way this game works.

 

Think about it, at least as a melee character, you have the Basic Attack that costs no resource perform a special random "finish him" animation when the game knows it will kill the opponent.

 

That means before you see the animation, the game already knows the result.

That is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons for the unresponsiveness of this game.

 

The way the game is coded, it seems like you press a key, and alot of checks are made back and forth between the client and server before you get the permission to perform one animation or the other.

[Odenbil]

Great post OP, i went back and read your early review and it was a great read also. I just posted a "hate" post, right before i read yours (stupid stupid stupid - palm to forehead) but oh well it made me feel better, lol. I agree with you 100%, I HATE WOW, but i agree it has a smooth as butta' reaction! That is one of the only things i did like about that game, it wasnt the graphics, lol!

 

Great post, looking forward to reading more, until my sub runs out, then i will forget about this game...

[dekey]

Regards to animations, I found this video linked in another thread on this issue. Quite clear that they are causing delays.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQmhYjkUqOU

 

If you watch the above, you will see that the GCD triggers when the ability is cast whilst the CD on the ability doesn't commence until the animation ends, despite the ability being instant.

 

Not ideal that's for sure.

[seik]

Completely agree with OP. There is no way this game will captivate the competitive PvP croud with this issue in place. Implementing a single warzone and having this issue addressed is more important than releasing a new WZ every patch and not acknowledging it at all. There are examples of the same ability between factions (inquisitor/sage) with different animation times (lightning faster than object collition). Works in paper, not so much in practice.

[Solar]

 

But this is the same with just about EVERY MMO I've ever played - except WoW, Guild Wars, City of Heroes and LOTRO/DDO. Those games all have similarly CONSISTENT avatar responsiveness, in descending order (most especially, consistent respnsiveness when things get busy).

 

I say this to balance out your singling this factor out as a primary cause of WoW's success. Some of the multitude of other MMOs with less character responsiveness (WAR, Rift, AoC, EQ2, DCUO, Champions Online, Aion, etc., etc., etc.) are still more successful than 2 of those on my high responsiveness list (CoH and DDO), so that can't be the whole story.

 

However, lack of character responsiveness may be part of the reason why games like (e.g.) WAR or DCUO aren't as successful as they could or should be given their many other charms.

 

The problem may just be the extreme difficulty of making these types of games, not anything specific to do with BioWare or the Hero engine being especially bad, as such. e.g. I believe the network code for WoW was written by the same team who went on to form Arenanet and make GW. I gather the guy who created the CoH engine is a bit of a genius of sorts in his own right. Turbine seem to be a particularly meticulous dev crew. Maybe those people just had a bit of an "edge" in certain areas that make for better character responsiveness, and I think it probably is in the area of network code.

 

To sum up, in perspective, what BioWare have done in terms of character responsiveness is about on a par with most MMOs, just not extra specially good (like WoW, GW, CoH and LOTRO/DDO).

 

Interesting post and perspective.

 

When I’ve played these games I usually adjust to their design standards as opposed to demanding that they adjust to what I might be used to from some other game.

 

@ OP:

 

That being said what exactly is World of Warcraft’s official ‘response time’ and how are you sure that, whatever said response time is , said response time actually has the ability to override the massively huge variety of keyboards and mouse combinations utilized by millions of players across the world??

 

That would obviously be quite the hat trick to pull off.

 

In attempting to research your point in lieu of someone citing what actual official World of Warcraft ‘response time’ is and how said ‘response time’ can over ride every keyboard and mouse combination manufactured that may be in use; the only thing I’ve seen about this topic are with regard to “addons” or hacks that can decrease response times such as:

 

Cast time Analysis

 

Addon Cast 0.4 seconds faster

 

But I’m really interested in an answer to my first question; from someone in support of this topic.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Solar

[lethal_ghost]

@Dekey

About the Death Rush I can say that it seems to be the way this game works.

 

Think about it, at least as a melee character, you have the Basic Attack that costs no resource perform a special random "finish him" animation when the game knows it will kill the opponent.

 

That means before you see the animation, the game already knows the result.

That is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons for the unresponsiveness of this game.

 

The way the game is coded, it seems like you press a key, and alot of checks are made back and forth between the client and server before you get the permission to perform one animation or the other.

 

id say that ur attack damage is added up the dealt to then dealt to the player taking the damage at the end of the gcd. This would fit with the problems as well and explain the sudden spike in damage at the end of gcd and causing you to just to seem to drop dead when on low health

Edited December 26, 2011 by lethal_ghost

[Xcore]

Really? Hmm, you seem to know what you're talking about and I'm curious, let's break it down a bit:-

 

The way I see it (the way I think it should be lol) a "realistic" animation lasts as long as it lasts, you want to be able to hit a key for the next action WHILE the animation is running, and then the character IMMEDIATELY does the next thing. Lack of responsiveness comes in when the character doesnt immediately do the next thing after it's previous animation stopped.

 

So for responsiveness, it doesn't matter how long the animations are for realism's sake, it matters EITHER that you are able to hit a sequence of keys with some small queue (say 2 keypresses?), and the character immediately performs those actions smoothly one after the other (with the actual "hit" taking place at the appropriate time for the attack type, given the type of gameplay it represents), OR that there be some consistent type of animation interruption that can break the animation and immediately replace it with a new one and a new attack.

 

Are you saying that WoW's attacks/animations are all of the latter, "breakable" type? And that this is always preferable for gameplay, and that it's never good to have animations that must finish before the next attack can take place?

 

Essentially "yes" that is part of it. It is not the whole story though, for example when running a tight rotation on my smuggler and basically chaining many abilities tightly together, many times an ability's cooldown will trigger without animation or effect of the ability because, I guess I was too fast and just messed the system up.

 

However yes, in WoW the ability animation interrupts and changes to whatever you're pressing right at the moment. Which I believe leads to better connection with your Avatar, which in turn I believe is "much" more important than Animations (in PvP, lets not even talk about it).

 

 

Again, this is only "part" of the issue and I do believe netcoding as well as "when the damage hits you" mechanically is part of it too... its a very complex situation.

[fsuvball]

Thanks for writing this up. I too have very high hopes for this game and would LOVE to see it succeed. You are 100% right in your argument and in my opinion you presented it very well. As of right now it feels like "muscling" around your toon to get them to do what you want compared to the fluidity of WoW. Lord knows I have no interest in going back to that game but it's hard not to admit that they got a lot of things right over the years. I also agree {while I don't have quite as broad an MMO background as you} that this issue is probably the #1 reason other games with great potential fell to the side. In fact, this is exactly why I stepped away from Warhammer. Like you, I'm not complaining or threatening to leave. I like the game and truly hope it does well. But you hit the nail on the head by saying that all the content in the world won't make up for a sense of disconnection with your avatar. Lets hope it's something that can and will be tweaked in the somewhat near future and while we wait we can explore all the work that was put into the story lines.

 

p.s. Happy Holidays!

[dekey]

@Dekey

About the Death Rush I can say that it seems to be the way this game works.

 

Think about it, at least as a melee character, you have the Basic Attack that costs no resource perform a special random "finish him" animation when the game knows it will kill the opponent.

 

That means before you see the animation, the game already knows the result.

That is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons for the unresponsiveness of this game.

 

If it was an "execution" scenario I would understand, but its literally any sort of attacks. Even generic blaster fire, i become completely locked down, key presses trigger GCDs but nothing fires off.

 

Against champs it basically means you are fighting them with 90% hp as, if their next hit would kill you, you wont be able to prevent it from happening.

[-COBRA-]

BUMP!! this crap ability delay make me wants to log on wow, its extremely annoying!!! Wz are unplayalbe bcz of this stupid lag, so much that everybody complain in chat, is the n.1 u devs need to fix tomorrow. Bump it all the day so bw cans ee this tomorrow then they get to office

[Nanotech]

Judging by these forums, people just want SWTOR to turn into WoW with lightsabers. If it isn't "I want my combat just like WoW," it's "I need a looking for dungeon system, just like WoW" or "This game needs arenas, just like WoW" or "I should be able to switch my role, just like WoW" or "I don't want to have to deal with a story, just like WoW." I haven't seen a single thread with so-called "positive feedback" that wasn't somehow lobbying to turn this game into WoW.

 

I'll just come back after the free month when the people who actually want to play SWTOR are still here. Then maybe we can get down to brass tacks.

[Spirodex]

Judging by these forums, people just want SWTOR to turn into WoW with lightsabers. If it isn't "I want my combat just like WoW," it's "I need a looking for dungeon system, just like WoW" or "This game needs arenas, just like WoW" or "I should be able to switch my role, just like WoW" or "I don't want to have to deal with a story, just like WoW." I haven't seen a single thread with so-called "positive feedback" that wasn't somehow lobbying to turn this game into WoW.

 

I'll just come back after the free month when the people who actually want to play SWTOR are still here. Then maybe we can get down to brass tacks.

 

You're obviously a bad. YOU WANT A GAME THAT WORKS!?! GO BACK TO WOW CAREBEAR!

[Zironic]

Judging by these forums, people just want SWTOR to turn into WoW with lightsabers. If it isn't "I want my combat just like WoW," it's "I need a looking for dungeon system, just like WoW" or "This game needs arenas, just like WoW" or "I should be able to switch my role, just like WoW" or "I don't want to have to deal with a story, just like WoW." I haven't seen a single thread with so-called "positive feedback" that wasn't somehow lobbying to turn this game into WoW.

 

I'll just come back after the free month when the people who actually want to play SWTOR are still here. Then maybe we can get down to brass tacks.

 

Here's the thing. World of Warcraft has the best gameplay on the market, Blizzards are the kings of gameplay.

 

Now people want a new game, however they want this new game to be just as fun as WoW, when they see that the new game has worse gameplay then WoW has, they request that the developers improve things.

 

This doesn't mean that they want the new game to be WoW, obviously if they want to play WoW, WoW is right there waiting for them. However they want similar quality of gameplay.

[_benp_]

Bump for dev attention to this issue.