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

[fallenvirtues]

Bioware is already using GCD system similar to WoW. Why not make combat as fluid as WoW too? Why have the GCD in place otherwise? Just lock me out of all my abilities until the animation is done instead, if you they plan on keeping it as is because right now the GCD is near pointless.

 

right...so if they adjusted the animations to finish as the GCD does, that would fix the issue no???

[Tadshackles]

Does nobody remember vanilla WoW and FAR more importantly early TBC... OMG what a mess! It was literally unplayable for many people for whole patches!

 

WoW has one major advantage over every other game... It has 7+ years of fixing fark-ups under its belt to make it look now like a beautiful thing...

 

Comparing this to WoW is like comparing a 13 year old middle school basketball phenom to Kobe Bryant, of course the kid isn't polished on that level yet but geez let the coaches train him a bit and we'll see.

 

WoW has had 7 years and something like 50+ content patches (not just major raid content patches) to tweak a little here and little there to get it just right. Im now flashing back to the AQ gate opening and worse yet the quest grind to get there... UGH...

 

Give them at least one major content patch before you all start screaming LOLHAMMER 2.0!!!!

 

This game in one week has already destroyed all other MMOs EVER, including WoW. Compare this to patch 1.01 WoW not 4.3 is all im saying.

[irishdrunk]

This is the worst thing in the game for me right now, (well besides op/smuggler 100%-0 with Biochem...)

[Rahi]

Problem is, as already mentioned, that not everybody is able to recognize the flaw.

It seems some are more sensitive than others.

 

It is like playing Guitar Hero on different TVs. There were setups, where I couldn't play because of the latency. But some of my friends didn't have problems at all.

 

But the people claiming, that the engine feels fine are bumping the thread at least.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Rahi

[kalibri]

Comparing this to WoW is like comparing a 13 year old middle school basketball phenom to Kobe Bryant, of course the kid isn't polished on that level yet but geez let the coaches train him a bit and we'll see.

 

WoW has had 7 years and something like 50+ content patches (not just major raid content patches) to tweak a little here and little there to get it just right. Im now flashing back to the AQ gate opening and worse yet the quest grind to get there... UGH...

 

Give them at least one major content patch before you all start screaming LOLHAMMER 2.0!!!!

 

Competition is happening now, under current conditions. You don't compare cars made this year with cars made 7 years ago. Simple no ?

 

This game in one week has already destroyed all other MMOs EVER, including WoW. Compare this to patch 1.01 WoW not 4.3 is all im saying.

 

Hardly destroyed anything yet. Rift is still better than SWTOR currently tbh, compare UIs and smoothness.

[MaceTowani]

When melee attack me and stun me, i start pressing my force wave button so as soon as the stun ends, i knocke them away.

 

Maybe you can decipher the tiny debuff icons, but i cannot, the debuff icons are tiny and all mesh together, and i cannot tell what is a stun or when it leaves, so I have only one option, press my forcewave hotkey so it will go off as soon as the stun on me wears off.

 

And why should pressing an ability more then once completely ruin the response time and cause massive lag? what kind of monkeys did they have writing the code for combat?

 

Or what is more likely,it really feels like the just copied the warhammer combat code and lumped it into the game.

 

BioWare is the type of company that hates exploited bugs and would do its best to prevent them. Which is why they have stopped Spamming and Bunny Hopping from entering PvP and ruining other people's experiences.

[Khoranth]

Does nobody remember vanilla WoW and FAR more importantly early TBC... OMG what a mess! It was literally unplayable for many people for whole patches!

 

WoW has one major advantage over every other game... It has 7+ years of fixing fark-ups under its belt to make it look now like a beautiful thing...

 

Comparing this to WoW is like comparing a 13 year old middle school basketball phenom to Kobe Bryant, of course the kid isn't polished on that level yet but geez let the coaches train him a bit and we'll see.

 

WoW has had 7 years and something like 50+ content patches (not just major raid content patches) to tweak a little here and little there to get it just right. Im now flashing back to the AQ gate opening and worse yet the quest grind to get there... UGH...

 

Give them at least one major content patch before you all start screaming LOLHAMMER 2.0!!!!

 

This game in one week has already destroyed all other MMOs EVER, including WoW. Compare this to patch 1.01 WoW not 4.3 is all im saying.

 

I played ancient EQ and never dealt with unresponsive combat like SWTOR has. So stop comparing swtor to WoW, all good video games have responsive combat.

 

If ancient EQ had responsive control, no excuse for any new game nowadays not too as well.

 

I am beginning to think bioware just copied warhammer combat code to save money, since swtor unresponsive combat feels exactly the same as warhammer.

[Darth_Eclipses]

Ok. So long as you accept that:

 

"Not like Wow =/= broken"

 

 

ps. if I'm having no problem firing off attack after attack with literally no delay between whatsoever, then how comes I'm the "unaware" one, and the fumblers are somehow 'on to something?'

 

 

DISCLAIMER: the above post refers only to the BH Merc, as it's the only class I've played

 

 

 

There have already been quotes in this thread by BH Mercs experiencing this issue...so...awesome for you?

 

There are also videos in the OP of undeniable evidence that this combat system right now is broken.

 

Have you ever capped a point in the WZ, or at least thought you did because the CT finished - but was interrupted anyway? That is a concurrent problem with this whole animation system. Mount ct finish, so you start moving but get dis-mounted anyway?

 

It.

Is.

Broken.

 

If you aren't experiencing this - great, awesome. There are many of us at high level play (hard mode fps and ops), or competitive play (PvP) that are experiencing it and it is debilitating.

 

Mashing buttons or not is wholly irrelevant to a game's gameplay or at least it should be. Telling your customers not to press a keybind twice, or else it'll break your combat system, when they really need that ability to go off at that exact time in the heat of whatever they're doing is just fail no matter which way you try and cut it.

[HoneyBoy]

Does nobody remember vanilla WoW and FAR more importantly early TBC... OMG what a mess! It was literally unplayable for many people for whole patches!

 

WoW has one major advantage over every other game... It has 7+ years of fixing fark-ups under its belt to make it look now like a beautiful thing...

 

Comparing this to WoW is like comparing a 13 year old middle school basketball phenom to Kobe Bryant, of course the kid isn't polished on that level yet but geez let the coaches train him a bit and we'll see.

 

WoW has had 7 years and something like 50+ content patches (not just major raid content patches) to tweak a little here and little there to get it just right. Im now flashing back to the AQ gate opening and worse yet the quest grind to get there... UGH...

 

Give them at least one major content patch before you all start screaming LOLHAMMER 2.0!!!!

 

This game in one week has already destroyed all other MMOs EVER, including WoW. Compare this to patch 1.01 WoW not 4.3 is all im saying.

 

I'm pretty sure WoW's combat system was always fluid. Your argument is pretty irrelevent to the point on hand but if you're going to argue for the sake of comparing WoW to SWTOR then right now WoW 1.0 is not on the market, it's 4.3. In the business world you compete with whatever the relevent competition is at the time, not with what competition that existed years ago.

 

I think a majority of people here complaining about this problem, do in fact enjoy this game quite a bit and the reason their arguments seem so passionate are simply because they want this fixed or maybe to have Bioware address the issue. I know I do.

[Shellshock]

Definatly needs a fix.

 

I can get by quite happily casual solo PVE but when you speed things up and start chaining abilities together it becomes obvious.

 

If you were sitting watching someone play this game you would think wow, nice animations and the fights look cinematic. But when your sitting there playing it at a reasonable pace it just doesn't feel right at all.

 

I must admit I don't get how button mashing should cause this if there wasn't an issue in the first place.

If the ability is avalible and the GCD clear it should fire and activate the GCD, no amount of button mashing should then interfere. Thats assuming it's on the GCD mind you.

 

It's like there is a second GCD tied to animations that you cannot see.

[AkAseo]

Does nobody remember vanilla WoW and FAR more importantly early TBC... OMG what a mess! It was literally unplayable for many people for whole patches!

 

WoW has one major advantage over every other game... It has 7+ years of fixing fark-ups under its belt to make it look now like a beautiful thing...

 

Comparing this to WoW is like comparing a 13 year old middle school basketball phenom to Kobe Bryant, of course the kid isn't polished on that level yet but geez let the coaches train him a bit and we'll see.

 

WoW has had 7 years and something like 50+ content patches (not just major raid content patches) to tweak a little here and little there to get it just right. Im now flashing back to the AQ gate opening and worse yet the quest grind to get there... UGH...

 

Give them at least one major content patch before you all start screaming LOLHAMMER 2.0!!!!

 

This game in one week has already destroyed all other MMOs EVER, including WoW. Compare this to patch 1.01 WoW not 4.3 is all im saying.

 

NONSENSE I sum up your argument like this..

 

Jaguars new car is not as good as BMW's new car but it's miles better than the one BMW released 7 years ago so you should buy it.

 

U mad?

[Feskitt]

Read my post again, then point out where I'm being unreasonable. Is my post so HARD to understand ? Rocket science ? I left math out, for the sake of people who feel uncomfortable with numbers.

 

You arguments are completely invalid in PVP. While questing ? sure, no problem I can choose when to attack, but in PVP ? Do you hear yourself ?

Yeah, but so what?

 

Or is this that intentional misinterpretation that some like to do, pretending that when I refer to combinations and 'queuing' attacks, that I'm somehow doing it like KOTOR where you queue up numerous attacks then sit back and watch? (which you obviously can't do in TOR anyhow)

 

 

I've already PvP'ed. I killed a lot more than I died, and that was the first 2 matches and I had no clue where stuff was. Hell I died twice due to that fire shooting up.

 

The queuing I'm referring to, in lieu of button mashing and so-called instant "responsive" button hits, can be done in just 1-2 move combos.

 

This doesn't have to be 5 move chains I'm talking about. Obviously. Thus, it's still viable for PvP.

 

 

[Khoranth]

BioWare is the type of company that hates exploited bugs and would do its best to prevent them. Which is why they have stopped Spamming and Bunny Hopping from entering PvP and ruining other people's experiences.

 

So in PVP pressing a button more then once, to activate it as fast as possible coming out of a CC is exploiting?

 

OK, i'll stop debating with you now. We obviously live in different universes.

[Paganini]

Pagely reminder this is not intentional

 

Actually:

 

 

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110916

 

Mark How, Principal Lead Animator at BioWare : " A key aspect we learned early in development was that players do not enjoy having character control taken away from them because of an action or animation. "

[Feskitt]

You didn't read the OP, did you?

 

Meh, read it days ago. Along with a lot of other posts.

 

 

I'm guessing there are probably a dozen different descriptions of what the supposed problems are. Even those claiming a problem don't even know what the hell it is in half their posts.

 

 

(though like I've said numerous times, the cool-downs don't always sync w/ the animations, and that should be fixed, but I only noticed that by looking for it; since I go largely by animation, it's not a big issue for me)

 

 

[Nissin]

Spam tracer missile on a target and report back here you can even hear the spell start to cast then it stutters and starts again once first animation finishes.

[HoneyBoy]

BioWare is the type of company that hates exploited bugs and would do its best to prevent them. Which is why they have stopped Spamming and Bunny Hopping from entering PvP and ruining other people's experiences.

 

How can you "spam" when there's a GLOBAL COOLDOWN on all abilities? If things actually functioned right in adherence to the GCD then combat would be more fluid and there would be no spam.

 

I can tell you what is ruining my PVP experiences though:

 

Trying to cap a gun in Alderaan Civil War but having it fail because the cast bar said it was finished yet the animation was still ongoing as I moved away.

[Shakari]

Ok.... so mashing buttons is half of what's jacking up you people's animations/attacks... and instead of just stopping it and keying effectively, you're gonna keep on mashing and keep on complaining that it's "not working right?"

 

 

Do you drop a glass of water, then complain that the floor is wet?

 

 

It seems to be coming more and more apparent: much of this has nothing to do with anything being broken per se; it has everything to do with a lot of people just not liking this system.

 

 

 

 

Personally I'm tending to agree here very much. SWTOR is not WOW and I play a sith jugganaut, Merc, Sniper and just starting a sith assassin or scorcerer and I can say I have not noticed any issues with lack of responsiveness within how this game is intended to work. I pvp daily and same goes for that to.

 

I think ppl are to used to WoW and expect this game to be the same or "it should" be the same. Well no it should not, I have seen the vids of what ppl are supposedly saying is the issue and its not a bug its how the game works. It had a small delay between action and casting and its not "action" delay its an action "Que" a big difference.

 

SWG used a long action que by default, you could que 4 abilities or more in the order you wanted them to go off. SWTOR does not have such a long que but the principle is similar.

 

With this system you CANNOT mash buttons its counter productive and you end up doing more harm than good, thats what WoW encourages and supports its not the best system at all but its what a lot of ppl are used to.

 

What SWTOR requires is a little more awareness and thought behind what buttons you press but results can be more effective if you do.

 

You can even lower or raise this delay in the preferences to suite.

 

It does take a little getting used to if you have not seen it before or have only played WoW or simmilar style interfaced games.

 

Personally I am used to it and quite like it, I have no lag and no graphics delay either but at the end of the day, its not a bug. Its a feature, one you may not like but its still not a bug

 

There could be issues with the server side and how it responds to commands especially since a lot of prerelease servers are FULL but if it is thats a seperate issue entirely.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Shakari

[Llenyd]

Maybe other classes are having problems, but I've not had it on the Merc. I have noticed the cooldown and animations aren't always ending the exact same time for certain moves, and that should be tweaked and fixed... though it makes no difference to me, as I go 90% by animation anyhow.

 

This states that you ARE having the same problems but you're just working around it by waiting for the animation to finish. It's one thing to say that you are fine working around the problem; it's something else entirely to deny the problem exists.

[MaceTowani]

So in PVP pressing a button more then once, to activate it as fast as possible coming out of a CC is exploiting?

 

OK, i'll stop debating with you now. We obviously live in different universes.

 

Do you know what spamming is or do I have to explain it to you?

 

Spamming is bad.

 

Chaining Attacks Properly (you know, when the animation is actually finished and you're not trying to rapidly press the button over and over like a kid on ADD) is good.

[fallenvirtues]

Let me try to explain better.

 

Basically if they made the animations like 0.1 second shorter then the cast of a given ability that would be great.

 

BUT... it will make it hard for BW to balance things later on. everyone time they want to change a castime on any spell they would have to completely redo the animation or it would look weird. Imagine a 3 second cast getting nerfed to a 5 second cast. 3 seconds of animation and then 2 seconds of doing nothing. This i could live with but the real problem comes when they shorten the cast time. Same ability gets buffed from having 3 seconds castime to having 1 second casttime. That would result in 1 second castime and STILL 3 seconds of uninterruptible animation. So basically the "buff" would do absolutely nothing.

 

The game does not allow cutting animations short which is basically half the problem of theis entire thread. Allowing cutting animation off might not be the solution but it would greatly improve my personal game experience and its the easiest fix i can come to think of.

 

Right..no one is saying adjust cast times...Im suggesting to adjust animations so they finish when they should if you are having a problem with the animation till going after the attack finished

 

Keep all casting times the same, but adjust animations by speeding them or reducing the front end of the attack...The UI not responding is a completely different issue for those experiencing it...thats a bug issue in the UI

[Paganini]

Do you know what spamming is or do I have to explain it to you?

 

Spamming is bad.

 

Chaining Attacks Properly (you know, when the animation is actually finished and you're not trying to rapidly press the button over and over like a kid on ADD) is good.

 

What's the difference?

 

I shouldn't be allowed to press my buttons rapidly? You actually think that is a game design choice?

Edited December 28, 2011 by Paganini

[Feskitt]

Mashing buttons should have no adverse effect whatsoever if the system was perfect because it would look like this:

 

In a perfect setup, I imagine it would ignore all input til near the end. Though I'm sure that would also draw ire.

 

 

What it's gonna come down to is, the only way the wow-fans will be happy is, animations are largely removed and most everything is just click=damage.

 

 

 

[AkAseo]

press the button over and over like a kid on ADD) is good.

 

Kids aren't ON ADD they HAVE ADD it's a condition not a drug.

[MaceTowani]

How can you "spam" when there's a GLOBAL COOLDOWN on all abilities? If things actually functioned right in adherence to the GCD then combat would be more fluid and there would be no spam.

 

I can tell you what is ruining my PVP experiences though:

 

Trying to cap a gun in Alderaan Civil War but having it fail because the cast bar said it was finished yet the animation was still ongoing as I moved away.

 

This is BW's way of solving it by going with a different mechanic altogether. Instead of complaining on the forums for hours on end, just take the advice of someone who DOESN'T have your problem.

 

Don't button mash.

 

Do your attack ONLY AFTER the animation to ensure a smooth transition.

 

Know that your attacks CAN get interrupted if you cast them while getting pummeled.