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

[Halacs]

baznasty, your video was simplistically perfect. Now it's just a matter of getting the others to understand (that want to understand, not the trolls obviously). So you're good on your end.

 

Explaining it a different way though, like you're doing, doesn't hurt though!

 

I'll break dance naked through Beverly Hills if Bioware promises to fix this.

 

Some don't seem to want to understand. If you compare this game to anything else they stop listening.

 

I want this game to succeed.

[shuffell]

Great OP,

 

I fully agree, animations and GCDs should match up.

 

Hopefully there working on it.

[Tinkersw]

Some don't seem to want to understand. If you compare this game to anything else they stop listening.

 

I want this game to succeed.

 

Agree!

[CharagonIGN]

I beleive it to be completely an animation problem. They have priotized the animation over the ability.

If that's true, then everybody at BioWare needs to go back to Game Design 101.

[Halacs]

I beleive it to be completely an animation problem. They have priotized the animation over the ability. If they could make it possible to clip the animation when the next ability goes off, I think it would solve alot of the problems.

 

I'm no expert but what you're saying sounds good.

[Rafkin]

i have two abilities that ignore the global cooldown, however, they will not go off until the previous abilities animation is done. This makes abilties that ignkre the gcd pointless

[duckybro]

I think some of you are misunderstanding the point of my video.

 

The point of this is to show you when a move is done casting you should be able to cast the next thing. Now, 2 instant cast moves shouldn't be able to immediately be cast on top of each because the GCD governs this.

 

But, when a move is longer than the GCD the move's end should signify a point when you can IMMEDIATELY cast another move....period.

 

I could have just as easily displayed this by being at a target dummy and casting frostbolts back to back to back with 0 downtime in between.

 

this is exactly the point. thank you for making this video

[Gorgewall]

Im explaining it again. There is nothing wrong with having a different system than WoW.

But when the GCD ends, you should be able to do your next move. And if that is an instant cast, it is so.

Nobody here talked about when the enemy is affected by your ability.

This is solely about your move, its animations and the corresponding UI response being somehow out of sync.

 

Right. But I haven't experienced any issue where I haven't been able to use an ability due to a conflicting animation, despite GCD being up. Every time the GCD enables me to use another ability, I can fire it off. But those abilities don't necessarily impact instantly, either--Grav Round is on a 1.5s cast time, and almost instantly impacts, but Demolition Round is an instant ability that has some travel time. I can fire off Demolition Round even as the blue laser from Grav Round is still in the air, but Demo Round isn't doing anything until it impacts its target.

 

The one exception is using High Impact Bolt after using Grav Round, if the target hasn't been afflicted by Grav Round's status effect (which enables the use of HIB) yet. But that's because, as of the time I press HIB, Grav Round hasn't "hit" and applied its debuff yet. Grav Round -> HIB might not work, but Grav Round -> Grav Round -> HIB does just fine.

 

If there are abilities that aren't syncing up properly, sure, fix those, but that's more an error with individual abilities and not a failing of the system as a whole, the latter of which is the point that most of the people in the thread seem to be making. "It's not like WoW where everything occurs .1 seconds after you press the button (or sooner) regardless of animation, so it must be wrong" is a bunch of crap.

[mattjgibson]

Completely agree and /signed.

 

This is what I always try to explain to people what WoW does the best. Fluidity of character movements based on what you're telling your avatar to do. WoW does it second to none.

 

SWTOR is very good (by far second best), but still not even in the same league as WoW.

[Master-Blaster]

I think some of you are misunderstanding the point of my video.

 

The point of this is to show you when a move is done casting you should be able to cast the next thing. Now, 2 instant cast moves shouldn't be able to immediately be cast on top of each because the GCD governs this.

 

But, when a move is longer than the GCD the move's end should signify a point when you can IMMEDIATELY cast another move....period.

 

I could have just as easily displayed this by being at a target dummy and casting frostbolts back to back to back with 0 downtime in between.

 

You have nailed it exactly. Wow allows you to skip an animation so the ability can go off. This is all SW:TOR needs to make it amazing. I can live with the other bugs till they can get them fixed.

[Spetsnazos]

But I actually don't think bioware can do anything about it at this point. Its a bit too late for that since the problem is actually at the implementation of the code (not a lag or fps issue etc) The whole game is based on it. As a computer engineer, I think you shouldn't keep your hopes up about bioware doing something about this. I've never seen a game which actually did something about this issue (And its way too common)

 

this sadly.

[Arkimor]

Some don't seem to want to understand. If you compare this game to anything else they stop listening.

 

I want this game to succeed.

 

Yup, I agree on both points.

[Hiramas]

Right. But I haven't experienced any issue where I haven't been able to use an ability due to a conflicting animation, despite GCD being up. Every time the GCD enables me to use another ability, I can fire it off. But those abilities don't necessarily impact instantly, either--Grav Round is on a 1.5s cast time, and almost instantly impacts, but Demolition Round is an instant ability that has some travel time. I can fire off Demolition Round even as the blue laser from Grav Round is still in the air, but Demo Round isn't doing anything until it impacts its target.

 

The one exception is using High Impact Bolt after using Grav Round, if the target hasn't been afflicted by Grav Round's status effect (which enables the use of HIB) yet. But that's because, as of the time I press HIB, Grav Round hasn't "hit" and applied its debuff yet. Grav Round -> HIB might not work, but Grav Round -> Grav Round -> HIB does just fine.

 

If there are abilities that aren't syncing up properly, sure, fix those, but that's more an error with individual abilities and not a failing of the system as a whole, the latter of which is the point that most of the people in the thread seem to be making. "It's not like WoW where everything occurs .1 seconds after you press the button (or sooner) regardless of animation, so it must be wrong" is a bunch of crap.

 

I see your point better now. Thanks for explaining.

We have a lot of very fast posts here and some people don't understand what the other means.

What you explained is perfectly ok and if you do not experience the problem that is good for you.

Simply imagine your Grav Round has hit the target, the HIB button lights up, you push the button and your does not execute the ability, because a (hypothetical, i don't know the it) animation is still in progress. You couldn't use your HIB, the debuff to your target is gone so you can't use the HIB again (or there is a cool down on it). That is the situation many people have to deal with. In some cases there are additionally serious animation bugs.

I hope, after you explained it to me, my explanation helps you to understand.

 

edit: cutting of animations would hurt SWTOR badly. Just synchronize the GCD and CDs with the animations, thats all that needs to be done in most cases.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Hiramas

[Spetsnazos]

I think some of you are misunderstanding the point of my video.

 

The point of this is to show you when a move is done casting you should be able to cast the next thing. Now, 2 instant cast moves shouldn't be able to immediately be cast on top of each because the GCD governs this.

 

But, when a move is longer than the GCD the move's end should signify a point when you can IMMEDIATELY cast another move....period.

 

I could have just as easily displayed this by being at a target dummy and casting frostbolts back to back to back with 0 downtime in between.

 

this video explained it pretty well if you've never played WoW.

[decampo]

I have to agree completely with the OP. Without doubt one of the best posts I've read on these forums.

 

I can live with the game like this for now but long term there's no way I could continue playing.

[shuffell]

this sadly.

 

Couldn't they just make the GCDs match the proper animation.

 

I know its not the the fix that we would like however it would improve the situation.

Edited December 27, 2011 by shuffell

[samdbtto]

Gonna post a video as soon as its done uploading. It will be a simple 1.5 sec cast followed by instant cast on my Smuggler (scoundrel). Same as the wow video posted but with the difference in fluidity.

[baznasty]

Gonna post a video as soon as its done uploading. It will be a simple 1.5 sec cast followed by instant cast on my Smuggler (scoundrel). Same as the wow video posted but with the difference in fluidity.

 

If you post it I will then link it on my video and you can do the same. I should have made a new video and linked it, but I didn't want to wait another 1 hour to upload it.

[branclem]

100% agree with this thread. I have been absolutely loving this game so far, but these combat responsiveness issues are by far the biggest issue to me. Everything else that is not a glaring, easy-to-fix bug should take a back seat to this IMO.

[duckybro]

Right. But I haven't experienced any issue where I haven't been able to use an ability due to a conflicting animation, despite GCD being up. Every time the GCD enables me to use another ability, I can fire it off. But those abilities don't necessarily impact instantly, either--Grav Round is on a 1.5s cast time, and almost instantly impacts, but Demolition Round is an instant ability that has some travel time. I can fire off Demolition Round even as the blue laser from Grav Round is still in the air, but Demo Round isn't doing anything until it impacts its target.

 

The one exception is using High Impact Bolt after using Grav Round, if the target hasn't been afflicted by Grav Round's status effect (which enables the use of HIB) yet. But that's because, as of the time I press HIB, Grav Round hasn't "hit" and applied its debuff yet. Grav Round -> HIB might not work, but Grav Round -> Grav Round -> HIB does just fine.

 

If there are abilities that aren't syncing up properly, sure, fix those, but that's more an error with individual abilities and not a failing of the system as a whole, the latter of which is the point that most of the people in the thread seem to be making. "It's not like WoW where everything occurs .1 seconds after you press the button (or sooner) regardless of animation, so it must be wrong" is a bunch of crap.

 

Obviously your entitled to your own opinion, but for the vast majority of people the .3-.5 second delay between certain abilities is truly game breaking. In intensive pvp and pve situations even a .2 second delay can easily be the determining factor between success and failure.

[BlayZin]

I agree with the thread.

I'm not a WoW Fanboy but WoW has got the best Gameplay of all MMOs.

 

I want that SW will be that fluent. I really like this game

[Arzalch]

Shame the devs don't reply on this one... either they don;t care or they don;t know how to fix it

[Layden]

Shame the devs don't reply on this one... either they don;t care or they don;t know how to fix it

 

Or it literally is a conscious design feature, where animations trump cast times.

[Seismax]

I get the impression all of the people saying there's nothing wrong are either playing the wrong classes or just don't use some of their skills.

 

If your class has an interrupt of any sort, or something like Jedi Guardian's Riposte then you'll immediately know something is wrong.

 

Interrupts (Force Kick at least) are off the GCD and can be cast anytime, it'll cancel your channel but you can cast it... except when you can't.

 

This is a glaring problem, the game has unpredictable times when an ability that SHOULD WORK simply doesn't. If you're saying that's a feature and working as intended, I call BS, it isn't design that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

[Calsium]

I urge for BioWare to fix this. It's so annoying.