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

[Maduece]

Combat is not fluid and it makes me feel like my hand,eye coordination is all jacked up with this delay.

[Xcore]

Good post,but have you guys tried 0.0 delay? It fixes alot of the combat problems,and makes combat feel more natural.

 

The issue is mostly (if not completely) the execution of the ability not the queuing of it. This has nothing to do with it sadly...

[StormDragonlord]

Good post,but have you guys tried 0.0 delay? It fixes alot of the combat problems,and makes combat feel more natural.

 

I tried it, and since 0.0 means you sometimes have to mash the buttons it still feels very clunky and sluggish :/ I really honestly, humbly beg them to fix this. I love this game so much.. but.. this is too game-breaking =( I might just get to 50 to finish this amazing story then just cancel :/

[Nightrode]

Good post,but have you guys tried 0.0 delay? It fixes alot of the combat problems,and makes combat feel more natural.

 

It somewhat fixes it but not nearly well enough.

[Adalace]

EDIT: After turning my ability queue time to zero, I've been having a seemingly much more responsive time in combat. I have to say I haven't noticed any major problems since turning queuing off. I would highly recommend that anybody having trouble with responsiveness try disabling ability queuing as a first troubleshooting step to see if it helps.

Granted, for high-end cut-throat players a well tuned ability queue time may be important in order to squeeze out those last percentage points of efficacy, so this is not an ideal solution even if it does solve the problem for some people.

 

Original post (see edit above):

Delay in ability response is critically important. I have opted not to continue playing an MMO before almost entirely for this reason alone (Vanguard was the game - combat was quite clunky and did not flow).

 

I've noticed unacceptable delays when I use abilities in this game, but it is much better than it was in Vanguard. I am willing to stick with this game for one month after my free period to see if the bumps are smoothed out.

 

I expect smooth responsive combat during which I receive near-instant feedback when I use an ability. I hate when there's a split second delay after I use an ability but before I receive any feedback, during which I second-guess whether I successfully used the ability and must decide whether to reuse the ability or continue waiting for the game to let me know it's doing what I tried to tell it to do.

 

Despite the rough spots, I have been largely enjoying this game so far.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Adalace

[MacPJ]

Point Blank: Agreed. Bioware, if this game mechanic isn't fixed in the first quarter of release, you can count on at least one less subscription, mine.

[TechnoVikingG]

This thread speaks truth..The lack of smoothness is really getting to me lately.

[Aronoel]

Thank you for explaining this problem. I still really love this game but the timing of the abilities feels disorienting and confusing to me. I would like to see it improved.

 

One question, does anyone know how we know that this isn't a latency or FPS problem?

[Leilei]

Weird... Ive never had a problem of riposte not working. Ive never tried it during master strike though o.o

 

I mean... It doesnt animate usually but the damage comes out!

 

And for the smuggler ive never had my powers not work. Its proly cuz i played cox so long x.x i have my queue time set to 1 second and i just queue up my next skill halfway through the gcd and everything seems to flow nicely as long as i keep my char in the right position.

 

I get what you all are trying to say but i guess its my used-ness to it from playin cox an eve that makes me feel it as unresponsive o.o

 

The fact that i was playing snes castlevania games before swtor came out prolly doesnt help o.o

[martskre]

Thank you for explaining this problem. I still really love this game but the timing of the abilities feels disorienting and confusing to me. I would like to see it improved.

 

One question, does anyone know how we know that this isn't a latency or FPS problem?

 

Basically when my FPS is constantly over 50 and my latency is stable at 30-40ms, there's something else going on.

 

Easily noticeable when you're trying to keep a group healed up on a bad pull. Aggro everywhere, everyone is taking damage, you're trying to switch targets and heal everyone up but you keep getting your casts interrupted because there is "something" getting in the way of your casting.

Edited December 26, 2011 by martskre

[lolsz]

Yea,i know.We just have to hope they can actually fix the combat.

[Ezzem]

For anyone coming to pvp here and has a WoW background will find themselves underwhelmed.

 

Using the "pvp trinket" ability as an example. When you decide to use your "trinket" it needs to be snappy and instant, you dont want to stand there waiting for the delay to break you out, its TOO LATE, and u think that ud would rather have saved it for later. But the same thing happens again.

 

Interrupting is one of the most vital and core things in PvP, and it just wont work here.

 

Players want to play as fast as the game lets you.

But the problem here is that swtor lets you play faster than it can handle.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Ezzem

[Nightrode]

Thank you for explaining this problem. I still really love this game but the timing of the abilities feels disorienting and confusing to me. I would like to see it improved.

 

One question, does anyone know how we know that this isn't a latency or FPS problem?

 

It has affected everybody since the game has been out. This issue has been present even when I started the beta months ago. The game is also telling me I'm getting 30-40 ms and 30-40 fps.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Nightrode

[Hawtubb]

I 100% agree with this post. I have stopped pvping at this point due to this issue.

[TipsyDrow]

/deffinately signed in 100% agreement.

I have never played WOW, but I do play DDO and the one thing DDO does right is combat. It's smooth and it's fast. The combat animations in this game take entirly to long, even the ones that have no (wind up) before the pitch. I really really dislike my abilities taking 5 seconds to cast. That said, I love the game, Bioware did everything else dead on to addict me quickly. the story, the worlds the charcaters, the feleing that your dran in and ARE the hero. That's all fanatstic, but frankly bioware your combat is subpar. Fix it please. oh...and one more thing...not being able to heal while moving....bad idea bioware, just bad.....combat should be fluid. I should be able to move about the battlefield keeping my team alive, but it's to much of a pain to move start the hour long proccess of your silly animation for casting a heal to have my target move out of range.....make casters able to cast on the move. that is all.

Edited December 26, 2011 by TipsyDrow

[lolsz]

They have to address,this combat issue,then the game only reading 1 core out of 6 on i7s,and quad/duo cores,then the way the game "world" feels,so it doesn't feel empty,possibly remove alot of the phasing.I hope,they get their act in gear,because if this isn't fixed by end of first month,problems will come up.Also,if you look back,and exclude mass effect 2,combat has always been lackluster in alot of the games,Dragon age/kotor etc.Just a thought.Story carried those titles,to great lengths,and they were amazing games,but for MMO,the combat has to be responsive for competitive raiding/endgame/pvp and overrall quality of the product. Edited December 26, 2011 by lolsz

[Sipsu]

Yeah,

 

I think SWTOR is really responsive in many ways and the feedback you get in combat is pretty good. But it can be tweaked, for example, there's still problems when you spam skills a lot. They're better than things were in beta but still some problems.

 

If you're for example spamhealing sometimes your castbar just disappears but you still cast. Sometimes when spamming you get a full castbar but don't seem to be sending out a heal. Doesn't happen super often, but sometimes.

 

Other than this I haven't had any problems with character response.

[Leilei]

Well the simplest solution to this is to make animations be more front loaded with a wind down animation instead of the current back loaded animation where the effect of whatever you do takes place in the last few centiseconds of the gcd

 

It will give the feel you guys are looking for.

 

Example - back blast will take the first second taking out the scatter gun and aiming it at the enemy then go BOOM damage right before the gcd ends.

 

Solution would be make it draw and shoot near instantly the moment you click the buttom and for the rest of the animation time (gcd period) make the smuggle blow on the barrel and be all kewl n stuff.

 

The combination of all those back loaded animations and effects make the timing feel weird for people who arent used to it.

 

The side effect of doing it this way is that itll give quite a weird feeling for people who watch it. Controls nice n responsive but the watcher will prolly go "*** is that guy a ninja?"

 

Current system is perfect. For people watching. Not so much for people controlling it that arent used to that system since there will be an underlying " if i press x, y will happen after z seconds." not like something from wow that goes "iif i press x, y will happen"

 

Edit : most effects in swtor happen at 2/3*or 1/2 of the gcd. So if you had 500 lat in wow, youll be right at home here.

 

 

Edit:

Corrected it to be 2/3. This would mean that for wow players, playing swtor is like playing wow with 500ish latency since most of their instacast are actually insta animated.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Leilei

[Feskitt]

 

Hmmm... I'm a lvl 47 BH Merc.

 

 

So folks are saying that the animation is taking too long, that when you hit a key, it should instantly fire off (or start charging) whatever attack that key is bound to?

 

 

How would you have realistic animations under that scenario? People in the SW universe aren't that spastic. 'Cept maybe Han, shooting Greedo!

 

(also, if it effects all classes, isn't it 'balanced' in that regard?)

 

 

 

 

[lethal_ghost]

Well the simplest solution to this is to make animations be more front loaded with a wind down animation instead of the current back loaded animation where the effect of whatever you do takes place in the last few centiseconds of the gcd

 

It will give the feel you guys are looking for.

 

Example - back blast will take the first second taking out the scatter gun and aiming it at the enemy then go BOOM damage right before the gcd ends.

 

Solution would be make it draw and shoot near instantly the moment you click the buttom and for the rest of the animation time (gcd period) make the smuggle blow on the barrel and be all kewl n stuff.

 

The combination of all those back loaded animations and effects make the timing feel weird for people who arent used to it.

 

The side effect of doing it this way is that itll give quite a weird feeling for people who watch it. Controls nice n responsive but the watcher will prolly go "*** is that guy a ninja?"

 

Current system is perfect. For people watching. Not so much for people controlling it that arent used to that system since there will be an underlying " if i press x, y will happen after z seconds." not like something from wow that goes "iif i press x, y will happen"

 

this may be part of the problem, when you click something i expect it to do it. For example on a boss both low health next hits gunna win so i hit an attack a second after i die and my attack never landed on the boss. This leaves you like what the . just happened there my attack just failed to work, when actually the damage is not done untill the end of the animation. So basicly the commands we are putting in are miles in front of whats happening with the person on the screen

Edited December 26, 2011 by lethal_ghost

[lolsz]

this may be part of the problem, when you click something i expect it to do it. For example on a boss both low health next hits gunna win so i hit an attack a second after i die and my attack never landed on the boss. This leaves you like *** just happened there my attack just failed to work, when actually the damage is not done untill the end of the animation. So basicly the commands we are putting in are miles in front of whats happening with the person on the screen

 

I noticed this,when i was running flashpoints,it bugged me like no other.

[Ezzem]

Well the simplest solution to this is to make animations be more front loaded with a wind down animation instead of the current back loaded animation where the effect of whatever you do takes place in the last few centiseconds of the gcd

 

It will give the feel you guys are looking for.

 

Example - back blast will take the first second taking out the scatter gun and aiming it at the enemy then go BOOM damage right before the gcd ends.

 

Solution would be make it draw and shoot near instantly the moment you click the buttom and for the rest of the animation time (gcd period) make the smuggle blow on the barrel and be all kewl n stuff.

 

The combination of all those back loaded animations and effects make the timing feel weird for people who arent used to it.

 

The side effect of doing it this way is that itll give quite a weird feeling for people who watch it. Controls nice n responsive but the watcher will prolly go "*** is that guy a ninja?"

 

Current system is perfect. For people watching. Not so much for people controlling it that arent used to that system since there will be an underlying " if i press x, y will happen after z seconds." not like something from wow that goes "iif i press x, y will happen"

 

Edit : most effects in swtor happen at 2/3*or 1/2 of the gcd. So if you had 500 lat in wow, youll be right at home here.

 

 

Edit:

Corrected it to be 2/3. This would mean that for wow players, playing swtor is like playing wow with 500ish latency since most of their instacast are actually insta animated.

 

Good post and youre probably right in some degree, but you really do need things to happen when u press a button, u cannot wait for an animation before you do stuff, not if they want people to pvp atleast. I know it the same situation for everyone, but it creates funky gameplay and it feel slike your playing in the past kinda.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Ezzem

[Anelitt]

Thank you for writing down what is by far the biggest problem in ToR.

 

The "feeling" of combat is BY FAR the most important aspect of any game, this should take priority over all other issues.

 

Its funny how the OP hast to write 877 disclaimers so people wont bash and flame him hardcore for daring to mentioning this game isn't 100% perfect in every aspect.

 

What about helping people that try to bring attention to these issues so the game can become better instead of artificially trying to make everyone shut up and pretend there are no game breaking issues?

[soso]

this will clearly be worked out over time. the delay is there and the casting can be a bit buggy. does anyone remember SWG? lol, "you cannot knockdown recovery while knocked down!"

[Leilei]

Well based on the descriptions of how everyone described the problem im quite positive that that IS the problem.

 

I had the same problem when i went to city of heroes from wow but i got used to it and im not having a problem with it here in swtor. We can make it work like that in swtor but the devs should be wiing to redo ALL the animations or at least the effect timings. If they just change te effect timings then the game would look really bad to passerbys and the animations and effects would be horridly out of sync.

 

Fixing it to look good and have fps like response would be great but that would be a HUGE undertaking.

 

Maybe for things like consumables the delay could be removed. But the rest will NEED their animations redone.

 

Dont expec the combat feel to change is what i say and get used to effects happening after 0.5 or more secs for instacasts?

Edited December 26, 2011 by Leilei