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

[Avantasia]

Also fix the bug which prevent any abilities from being used for several second after canceling a channeling or an animation with another ability ( more frequently with off gcd skill )

 

Having to go through 3 pulse cannon animations (which have a cooldown so it should be impossible ) in a row before doing any actual damage is really annoying.

 

I put in a bug report for this issue a few days ago and was told the issue had been passed onto the relevant people in development. Fingers crossed they have a nice stack of bug reports for it and can fix it a.s.a.p ...

 

Sorry but you have no idea what we are talking about, do you ?

 

You have to laugh because otherwise certain people's oblivious, obtuse nature will make your head explode.

[Stormag]

stop with the hardware connection excuses: WITH THE SAME PC OTHER MMORPGS WORKS FINE

[navotjr]

Good post. I agree and understand what you are saying. It is difficult as the gameplay especially when things are tight in pvp, or pve when there is missing feedback.

 

Not only is there an issue with the timing mechanics. Combine that with a difficult UI and lack of feedback from spells that didnt go off etc....it feels choppy at times and feel lack of control.

[Zironic]

im running 2 x OC 6850's and i still have this problem, What gpu's should i get to run this game, it dosent even have AA as an option in the GPX come on

 

Yah, I have 120 FPS and a 100mbit line which is giving me <65 ms latency, I'm sure the problem is that we all need to get 200+ FPS and I should relocate my computer to their datacenter for <10ms latency!1!11oneone!1

[Nolifeking]

Yes, clearly i'm a fanboy because I called the OP out for making a ridiculous assertion. Project onto someone else, please.

 

The only ridiculous assertion is the one you are making.

 

This issue is not so apparent outside warzones, but in PvP it starts to show its ugly head. It feels the same as Warhammer did, so much so i am starting to believe Bioware copied a lot of Mythics netcode. I cant say for certain what causes it in ToR, but in Warhammer it was the way client-server determine if all the conditions for skill to go off are met (los, range, etc). In wow client starts performing the action before server checks the conditions, in Warhammer it was the other way around resulting in "delay" before your client starts executing the skill on your screen.

[baznasty]

stop with the hardware connection excuses: WITH THE SAME PC OTHER MMORPGS WORKS FINE

 

I honestly believe that all people that say "check your hardware or ISP cause mine is working fine" don't realize that this is occuring because they are not the type that require tight controlls and responsive abilites.

 

That's ok. Not everyone requires this type of polish because PvP and operations are really the only places where this will be detrimental. You can quest and even run flashpoints without it being critical. You cannot have fun in PvP or operations with this type of system.

 

So, again, if you don't see the problem, then to you it isn't. It is there however and the people who notice it are extremely bothered by it.

[Sarcomot]

You have a delay because you are lagging or because of low frame rates... I do not have any delay at all. Not the devs fault either... just upgrade your GPU.

 

 

No, that's not the issue. I think the issue is the animations they chose to use in the game.

 

To get an idea of what we are talking about, I want you do to something very simple with your character.

 

Stand still. Press space bar.

 

Did you notice that it took about a quarter second for you to leave the ground? It's not lag, it's because your character took time to bend his knees before jumping, thereby creating a delay between pressing the space bar and the actual jump occurring. That delay between pressing a hotkey and the action being carried out is what people are talking about.

 

This is not a frame rate or lag issue.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Sarcomot

[Rendekar]

It is really sad to see some people objecting the OP in this thread. Come on guys. If you are clueless about mmos, you do not really need to say anything just to defend the current state of the game. Everyone in this thread wants to enjoy the game but this shouldn't stop them from pointing the faults of the fundamental game mechanics.

 

There is nothing to discuss here. Combat system is broken and not working as fluent as the industry standard which is WoW (hate it as much as you can, I hate it too for different reasons but it doesn't change the facts). I guess what Bioware failed to realize is that combat system is the most important part of an mmo for almost all players. Sure, there will be ppl staying after the initial hype but those will be just casual SW fans and bioware fanboys.

 

You should have made a working game first then you should have polished it with tons of story, SW music, VO and stuff. Bioware chose the opposite route. They made super stories and VO but failed bad with the non-responsive combat system. I hope it's fixable but I highly doubt so.

 

P.S : Sorry to give this example but see what Blizzard is doing with Project Titan. They say that they cannot announce anything because the game is surely playable but still just an empty shell. This is the way to go for having good gameplay mechanics I guess.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Rendekar

[baznasty]

No, that's not the issue. I think the issue is the animations they chose to use in the game.

 

To get an idea of what we are talking about, I want you do to something very simple with your character.

 

Stand still. Press space bar.

 

Did you notice that it took about half a second for you to leave the ground? It's not lag, it's because your character took time to bend his knees before jumping, thereby creating a delay between pressing the space bar and the actual jump occurring. That delay between pressing a hotkey and the action being carried out is what people are talking about.

 

This is not a frame rate or lag issue.

 

Exactly the issue. What has happened is the developers are too in-love and bound to their animations. This makes the game look better when you are watching someone play, and makes it feel terrible for those who are actually playing it. So, fun factor = 0; eye-candy=1.

[DemonCowz]

I agree this is a serious problem, mostly in warzones... raid frames that work wouldn't hurt for us healers either -.-

[Zironic]

No, that's not the issue. I think the issue is the animations they chose to use in the game.

 

To get an idea of what we are talking about, I want you do to something very simple with your character.

 

Stand still. Press space bar.

 

Did you notice that it took about a quarter second for you to leave the ground? It's not lag, it's because your character took time to bend his knees before jumping, thereby creating a delay between pressing the space bar and the actual jump occurring. That delay between pressing a hotkey and the action being carried out is what people are talking about.

 

This is not a frame rate or lag issue.

 

Yeh, there's a whole lot of style over substance in the combat engine. Which is fine for a singleplayer game, not so much in an MMO.

[Bellog]

Exactly the issue. What has happened is the developers are too in-love and bound to their animations. This makes the game look better when you are watching someone play, and makes it feel terrible for those who are actually playing it. So, fun factor = 0; eye-candy=1.

 

Wrong.

 

It's not the animation; they are fine. They fluidly go into one another most of the time and if they don't you still see them activate.

 

It's the client to server lag. Aka "Character Responsiveness".. It's not you, your connection, or your framerate. It's the fact that when you push the button it's only THEN that the client runs the formula to dictate whether you can use it THEN sends it to the server. When something comes off cooldown it should check this already. The only thing I can see as viable for on-check when-used is Line of Sight/Distance. This should not take more then a fraction of a mili-second to do but for some reason it hasn't been done.

 

Please don't rant about things you don't understand.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Bellog

[Nanotech]

The only ridiculous assertion is the one you are making.

 

This issue is not so apparent outside warzones, but in PvP it starts to show its ugly head. It feels the same as Warhammer did, so much so i am starting to believe Bioware copied a lot of Mythics netcode. I cant say for certain what causes it in ToR, but in Warhammer it was the way client-server determine if all the conditions for skill to go off are met (los, range, etc). In wow client starts performing the action before server checks the conditions, in Warhammer it was the other way around resulting in "delay" before your client starts executing the skill on your screen.

 

You kids make me laugh, seriously.

 

Clearly the only one making ridiculous assertions here is the OP. That much is irrefutable. I'd love to see some hard proof that his specific complaint will lead to the downfall of this game. Not just your opinion or anecdotal "evidence" based on a few forum whiners. Then, you can tell me that i'm being ridiculous. Until the, **** and unsub.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Nanotech

[Larlar]

Here is my agreement.

 

I'm one of those that rarely ever posts in a forums because of trolling. I never voice my opinion because half of the time it's not game-breaking or all that important.

 

I want this game to succeed. I love it, I really do. But I know just like everyone else here that once I get to 50 and want to PvP until I'm braindead that I'm going to unsub because of the feeling that my character isn't my character but instead my commands are being scrutinized by an operator before my character is allowed to use it.

 

I'm quitting this game after 2 months if I don't see a fix. I hate this ********

 

I love you BioWare.. I love your games, all of your games. I'm drooling over the story and graphics and how fun it is to be a goody goody sith warrior.. Or a super evil Jedi Knight..

 

But they are irrelevant if I can't enjoy gameplay.

 

Much love and dissapointment,

Christopher Guilford.

 

Excellent post. Im totally with you 100%.

 

I am bloody desperate for this game to be as good as it can be. If they get this specific aspect of the game right, I will never ever play WOW again and I want that more than anything at this point.

[Zironic]

Wrong.

 

It's not the animation; they are fine. They fluidly go into one another most of the time and if they don't you still see them activate.

 

It's the client to server lag. Aka "Character Responsiveness".. It's not you, your connection, or your framerate. It's the fact that when you push the button it's only THEN that the client runs the formula to dictate whether you can use it THEN sends it to the server. When someone comes off cooldown it should check this already. The only thing I can see as viable for on-check when-used is Line of Sight/Distance. This should not take more then a fraction of a mili-second to do but for some reason it hasn't been done.

 

Please don't rant about things you don't understand.

 

Actually it's both.

 

The game BOTH has the issue that there are a number of very long animations, and the effect of the ability is not applied until the end of the animation.

 

The game ALSO has issues with the client/server ability checks.

[baznasty]

Wrong.

 

It's not the animation; they are fine. They fluidly go into one another most of the time and if they don't you still see them activate.

 

It's the client to server lag. Aka "Character Responsiveness".. It's not you, your connection, or your framerate. It's the fact that when you push the button it's only THEN that the client runs the formula to dictate whether you can use it THEN sends it to the server. When something comes off cooldown it should check this already. The only thing I can see as viable for on-check when-used is Line of Sight/Distance. This should not take more then a fraction of a mili-second to do but for some reason it hasn't been done.

 

Please don't rant about things you don't understand.

 

When you are strafing left, and then you immediately straf right, your character performs a "turn around animation". It makes the move from left strafe to right strafe look better but it in-turn makes the actual animation feel disconnected. That is because the developers chose to enter in a turn around animation at the start. Server response is not the issue there. Same for the jumping animation that was stated earlier. Its because their is a start animation for about .1 seconds that the character bends his knees and begins his jump. Again, that's animation.

 

But again, I choose to not argue about what "causes" the issue. I take solace in knowing that you and I agree there is a problem. So, agree to disagree on the reason for the problem

Edited December 26, 2011 by baznasty

[Snowred]

The ability cd is longer than other MMO's and while I can see this may be a problem in PVP and despite the fact it felt really weird to me during beta... I actually like it.. not the usual sit and mash button one and combined with the need to manage your resource and the lack of macro's it requires thought and action.

[Sarcomot]

[deleted] 54321 Edited December 26, 2011 by Sarcomot

[Anadri]

Nice post. I don't know that auto-attack would make a big difference on a caster class though, because they are rarely going to be in a melee situation.

[Rendekar]

You kids make me laugh, seriously.

 

Clearly the only one making ridiculous assertions here is the OP. That much is irrefutable. I'd love to see some hard proof that his specific complaint will lead to the downfall of this game. Not just your opinion or anecdotal "evidence" based on a few forum whiners. Then, you can tell me that i'm being ridiculous. Until the, **** and unsub.

 

I will come back and remind you about the OP's complaints 3 months later If they are not fixed. Ah but I guess you will already be shouting at Bioware for the server merges in these forums. This is how mmos die and you will learn about it. We have been through all these many times before with all major mmo launches. This one is no different.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Rendekar

[baznasty]

You kids make me laugh, seriously.

 

Clearly the only one making ridiculous assertions here is the OP. That much is irrefutable. I'd love to see some hard proof that his specific complaint will lead to the downfall of this game. Not just your opinion or anecdotal "evidence" based on a few forum whiners. Then, you can tell me that i'm being ridiculous. Until the, **** and unsub.

 

First, why call people kids because they are aware and are hindered by a gameplay issue. It is there for all, it's not machine specific or ISP specific. If you don't see it or you aren't bothered by it, great for you! But that doesn't make it irrelevant.

 

Also, the PvP community (which I can tell by your posts that you clearly aren't a part of, which is 100% fine) cannot continue to pay monthly subs if this remains an issue. It makes the game not fun, and although I have no written and documented evidence that a game being "not fun" will cause people to leave it, I would suspect this to be true.

 

Again, please, enjoy this game. If it's not an issue to you, count your blessings and enjoy the great story and other aspects. But, to deny that the issue is a contrived story of WoW fanboys, is to be obtuse. Just read the posts in this thread. The majority (and that is a fact) in this thread are posting that they experience this issue. So, again, please let us explain to the developers something that is clearly important to us.

Edited December 26, 2011 by baznasty

[Bellog]

No, clearly the only one making ridiculous assertions here is the OP. That much is irrefutable. I'd love to see some hard proof that his specific complaint will lead to the downfall of this game. Not just your opinion or anecdotal proof based on a few forum whiners. Then you can tell me that i'm being ridiculous.

 

I swear, I made the most ambiguous post in this thread and you haters are attacking it for no reason.

 

Shut up.

 

You're being attacked because you're assuming they meant the entire game is going to be a complete failure. We all love this game and I've been a long-time BioWare fan as well as starwars but I also know from experience(both gaming and programming) that the delay they have between you pushing a skill and it actually happening(with gcd over with ofc) is going to kill a massive portion of subscriptions that are here for the awesome game. Something new from what they did play.

 

You can live in your delusional world where everything is fine and dandy with the game and nothing can make it die for it is "The new King" but in reality it's bugged to ****.

 

People fall through the world

FPS issues across multiple setups

Taxi's dropping players randomly

Resources being on the minimap but unclickable

Reactive skills not always properly activating

Castbar skills working only half the time if used quickly after another skill

Castbar skills cancelling themselves for no apparent reason(no LoS message nothing)

Cover/crouch not working half the time if you're standing on an object

Sage/Sorcerer "bubble" effect going away if used while another one is still active.

Green bars/waves/screen glitches in the environment

The Memory Leak

Warzone LAG (Not this issue, but it has tremendous lag in general)

Stealth talents not always effecting stealth level(harder to detect)

 

And yet with these bugs and tens or hundreds more floating around out there; These People. These People Right Here. Are going to leave because despite being in a world of bullshaz bugs and glitches; only want their character to atleast respond to what we are telling it to do WHEN we tell it to do it. Not have to call 911 dispatcher and have them verify the *********** command we press before they let the character use it!

 

Now

 

Shut... Up.

[Nanotech]

I will come back and remind you about the OP's complaints 3 months later If they are not fixed. Ah but I guess you will already be shouting for the server merges in these forums. This is how mmos die and you will learn about it. We have been through all these many times before with all major mmo launches. This one is no different.

 

Been there. Done that. Doesn't change a ridiculous assertion into a predetermined fact.

[Nanotech]

Shut up.

 

Stopped right there. You are clearly a baby and therefore not worth my time.

[BladedEdge]

Is this confirmed to be true for every ability in the game? I am certainly seeing a clearly noticable delay on most of my abilities (activating a mount for example) but The Quell (interupt) my BH has seems to be working the moment I hit the button, before even the animation for the move or anything has taken effect. This certainly isn't the case for any of the other abilities/attacks I've got that are also instant in nature though...

 

Just my observations from playing. Hopefully the fix it so all my instant abilities work like my interrupt seems to. It certainly makes for a better playing experience!