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

[Xenofell]

Listen to yourself. If you clip the animations to the next one as soon as you press the button it will look like crap and be choppy (as it does in wow) THEN you'll complain that its choppy.

 

There's no pleasing you folk.

 

You have no clue.

 

Do you know what the global cooldown exists for? Allow me to educate you: the GCD exists to pace the flow of combat. The GCD, in tandem with ability cooldowns, is used by this game's combat system to determine how often a player can attack. It is debatable whether this system is effective or not, but that's irrelevant to this discussion. Very popular AAA titles use this system, namely World of Warcraft.

 

Allow me to educate you on another system, which, if I recall correctly, was actually used in Guild Wars: animation timing, in tandem with ability cooldowns. As above these two things are used to control the pace of combat and determine how often a player can attack. Again, it is debatable whether it actually works or not, but it is irrelevant.

 

Now before I go on, let us take a look at SWTOR combat. We shouldn't beat about the bush here so I'll be frank -- pretty much every single element is taken directly from WoW. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I love SWTOR, but it is simply a fact that needs to be acknowledged. If there's anything we can say that WoW did right with its combat system, it would be the fluidity and responsiveness that a GCD-combat system naturally brings to the table, so naturally SWTOR should try to emulate that above all else, right?

 

What does SWTOR use? Well, it uses a GCD. But it also uses animations, AND it uses ability cooldowns. The GCD does nothing in deference for an animation system that is, right now, broken. Ultimately this means that the GCD is completely redundant and serves no purpose, because half of the time the player will be unable to act whilst waiting for an animation to finish. Combining both systems is an incredibly poor way to deal with the GCD problem and it shows clearly in this thread, because it results in combat that many people consider clunky and unresponsive.

 

The only way to possibly resolve this issue is to allow animations to be broken midway through when another ability is activated. It may look silly, it may not, but it is the only way to salvage SWTOR's combat system. This is a fact and if you're not capable of comprehend it, well I envy you for your ignorance and pity you at the same time, but it doesn't change the matter whatsoever.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Xenofell

[Cranberries]

Why would you want alacrity anyways?

 

For example: my bounty hunter gets 5 heat decay per second below 40 heat. Alacrity doesnt increase that. So i can shave off a few fractions of a second to build close to 40 heat, yay, now i can spam my free shot while i wait for it to decay. So i just squeezed in a few extra no-cost free shots over a 5 minute fight. Thats hundreds of damage points bro!

 

Pick better stats, problem solved.

 

Set bonuses.

 

Healing set has alacrity on it.

[hoilandms]

This is very simple.

 

2.5 spell cast

3.0 seconds of animation

0.5 seconds of doing nothing

 

Very frustrating.

 

 

However, what is more frustrating is the lack of acknowledgement and/or response from BioWare.

 

 

BioWare is an amazing game company that I highly respect. They still to this day have created the most wonderful RPG ever made: Baldur's Gate II. Nothing comes close to BGII's story, nothing.

 

 

I am totally amazed by their lack of participation in this community and this matter. I am baffled by it. I thought BioWare was better than this, I thought they cared like any other gaming company cares. I am beginning to wonder if what is happening is one of two things...

 

1) They know the problem exists, working to fix it, but don't really have an answer yet because it is technically challenging.

 

or

 

2) They know the problem exists, but they are being told (EA) not to worry about it and players will adapt.

 

 

I am really hoping it is #1.

 

BioWare, please, restore some sanity and hope. We love your game and we want it to succeed.

[swtorDIBAT]

This issue exists, 100%.

 

 

Bioware needs to speed up animations that overhang past the GCD, and for channeling ones have them sync a bit tighter with damage dealt/effects of the ability.

 

Second thing they need to fix is the ability for skills off of the GCD to kill any animation currently in progress to trigger, without waiting on that or the GCD.

 

People keep talking about working as intended, and I assure you interrupts and things like Riposte/Retaliation were not meant to be sat on, waiting to use them. So that argument is absolutely awful.

 

I love everything else about the game.

[Elog]

Uh if it was a hard lesson learned then why did they repeat the mistake? swtor unresponsive combat is litterally the exact same issue that warhammer had.

 

If they did learn a lesson, they must have forgotten it before releasing swtor.

 

Because it is darn hard to get right. That is why WoW is so alone with having it right.

 

SWtoR is good for being newly released - the question is how hard they can optimize it.

 

If you think that you are alone in the world appreciating responsiveness in a game and that developers do not know the value of it you are not very smart.

[Khoranth]

It is unfair to other players because instead of it being about strategy, it's about who has the best internet connection/button mashing talents.

 

But in a situation like this, your attempts would be interrupted or prolonged. It's just a game mechanic.

 

 

 

I see no problem with you getting off a Force Wave UNLESS you're attacker immediately pummels you and interrupt your cast time and stunts your animation. But that is a rare case unless you're getting teamed or you're up against a good player.

 

You do realize mashing buttons normally helps people with slower connections right?

 

And to point 2, you are still dodging the question, how do i even know when stun wears off, i have 2 melee beating on me, and i want force wave ( instant btw) to go off immediately, as soon as the CC stun wears off.

 

Without a large debuff icon with an easy to see timer, it is not possible to know exactly when the stun wears off, pressing the button more then once is the only option.

[Devolution]

hey all, i am a casual MMO player but i have been playing blizzard games for over 15 years, and played most MMO the last 7 years.

You can't deny that blizz makes "responsive" games. they follow the Street Fighter philosophy of character control. That said even SF2 and follow up Capcom games have animation lag/delay that is put in place. The mechanics of the game play were put in for various reasons, some made sense some didn't, but for the most part the developers knew what they were doing. So for TOR, You really think BioWare is not aware of this "issue" that have been raised?

 

what i would like to see though is some examples of "bad" game mechanics in TOR. i read in a post where 1 spell you threw a light sabre and had to wait for it to return to do something, that to me makes sense. there should be some CD, even if you cancel, you can't just cut animation and allow another spell to be insta cast. In SF2, can you do a dragon punch and press cancel to do kick?

 

again i haven't had time to fully explore this game, and probably won't, so for us noobs can we please have specific examples of what is truly wrong with the combat system?

 

Since you won't check the OP, I'll link it here:

 

 

Both 0:08 and 0:13 are examples of bad game mechanics.

[Paganini]

Because it is darn hard to get right. That is why WoW is so alone with having it right.

 

SWtoR is good for being newly released - the question is how hard they can optimize it.

 

If you think that you are alone in the world appreciating responsiveness in a game and that developers do not know the value of it you are not very smart.

 

WoW is not the only MMO with responsive combat.

[bvalley]

OP is dead on. The ability delay and/or character response in this game is completely unacceptable. I will continue to support however many threads are created on this issue until they either fix or ackknowledge the issue. I have been following this thread for the past 48 hours, and have read every single post. I still can't believe not one of them is an official response from BW.

 

I also can't believe all the biodrones that have come out of there closets since this thread has been recreated. You have to be absolutely oblivious to what is going on around you in this game to not see or understand what the issue is. I suppose you could also be one of those people that do wrath dps in cata end game content, and are just to horrible at video games to even grasp what proper response or controls are suppose to feel like...

[Xenofell]

I also can't believe all the biodrones that have come out of there closets since this thread has been recreated. You have to be absolutely oblivious to what is going on around you in this game to not see or understand what the issue is. I suppose you could also be one of those people that do wrath dps in cata end game content, and are just to horrible at video games to even grasp what proper response or controls are suppose to feel like...

 

Agreed with this entirely. The amount of people that venture into this thread to preach "nothing is wrong" is frankly pathetic, but hey, forum trolls you know? Nothing we can really do about them, plus free publicity for the actual problem every time somebody replies.

[Khoranth]

Because it is darn hard to get right. That is why WoW is so alone with having it right.

 

SWtoR is good for being newly released - the question is how hard they can optimize it.

 

If you think that you are alone in the world appreciating responsiveness in a game and that developers do not know the value of it you are not very smart.

 

ancient EQ had it right a decade ago, basically the 1st MMORPG of its kind. WoW is not alone at all, I could care less about WoW.

 

So if the first MMORPG got combat responsiveness down, why can't anyone?

[AkAseo]

To be fair on those defending the issue I think it@s more a case of misunderstanding *** we are actually talking about they keep coming out with things like adapt your playstyle it isn't wow the combat is different you have to chain abilities together blah blah blah.

 

YES WE KNOW THAT..

 

Now listen to what WE are saying, the GCD and the Castbar do not match the Animations making combat feel slightly off and giving an unresponsive "Feel" to the game.

[JRTMP]

I agree with the OP about how WOW had an amazing feel and responsiveness to combat. I could not play most other MMOS because I did not enjoy the feeling of combat.

 

I will say that I have not noticed it in this game. Can you guys provide some example of the 2.5 second casts and .5 animation. I must be blind or it has not affected my gameplay.

 

I have played most classes to level 10.

[Xzenorath]

Since you won't check the OP, I'll link it here:

 

 

Both 0:08 and 0:13 are examples of bad game mechanics.

 

No it's not, go back to it. Look JUST before 0:13. He uses the skill next to it then MASHES the next one, as soon as the previous GCD finished, then it fires off.

 

You're confusing things. The only reason why you noticed is because the entire interface doesn't spin in a GCD animation like WOW does.

[sdream]

what i would like to see though is some examples of "bad" game mechanics in TOR. i read in a post where 1 spell you threw a light sabre and had to wait for it to return to do something, that to me makes sense. there should be some CD, even if you cancel, you can't just cut animation and allow another spell to be insta cast. In SF2, can you do a dragon punch and press cancel to do kick?

 

Sure, it sounds logical but if it's an instant cast, it has to return to you within 1.5 seconds of GCD (not 2 seconds, not eve 1.75), so you can use another ability. If it doesn't, well, we got a problem, when people start pulling their hair out. This isn't Street Fighter or FPS, animation shouldn't get in the way.

[Elog]

WoW is not the only MMO with responsive combat.

 

No - but it has the best followed by WAR if you do not count the Asian MMOs where they push almost everything to the client (it is one way of 'solving' it) and hence make you wide open for botting/hacking.

[Skybrah]

It's not clunky, it's how the combat works. It's slower and well done. Sure it has hiccups here and there right now with some skills not firing off properly, but for the most part the combat doesn't feel chaotic, frantic button mashing like WOW does.

 

I don't understand why you guys want to go back to button mashing and spinning for 80% of your abilities like WOW. Seriously, have you played a dwarf warrior? Sunder armor, MS, HS, Cleave, EVERYTHING makes your dwarf spin around. It looks retarded, clunky and it sucks. You guys keep saying you don't want to go back but everything you're praising goes back to the horrible graphics and fights in WOW. **** the animations, just make the numbers appears when I button mash.

 

Zzzzz...

 

The sad part is I know this will be fixed eventually, yet some of you are threatening to leave a couple days after the game came out. Unbelievable

 

I can actually fight with my JK and not bother staring at the GCD on my entire bars as I button mash like I had to on my warrior, blows my mind that some of you want to go back to that. Hit 1, animation gets done, hit 2. I don't know why anyone would ever wanna go back to mash 1, mash 2 while the GCD spins on your entire bar, mash 3, rinse repeat. It's horrid, looked like *** and it wasn't fun. The combat as it is right now is great and it LOOKS 600 million times better than WOW's combat ever did. Whatever delay is causing you to have these fits right now WILL be fixed. Every single MMO I've ever played fixed it.

 

This times 10. I have been crabbing about the delay/lag too, but after reading this, I won't be anymore. It's true, the last thing I want to do is button mash. These graphics are so awesome, and I love watching my Dual Sabered Shadow Jedi deflect shots. It freaking looks great.

 

There is lag, which I am sure will get fixed, but this game has only been out a week and a few days. Jeez.

[Elog]

ancient EQ had it right a decade ago, basically the 1st MMORPG of its kind. WoW is not alone at all, I could care less about WoW.

 

So if the first MMORPG got combat responsiveness down, why can't anyone?

 

EQ1 was not responsive until late in its life cycle. See any pattern?

[Devolution]

No it's not, go back to it. Look JUST before 0:13. He uses the skill next to it then MASHES the next one, as soon as the previous GCD finished, then it fires off.

 

You're confusing things. The only reason why you noticed is because the entire interface doesn't spin in a GCD animation like WOW does.

 

Riposte:

http://www.torhead.com/ability/2Zt5kfR

 

Riposte does not respect the global cooldown, by that logic it should be able to be used during a global cooldown, yes?

[MaceTowani]

You do realize mashing buttons normally helps people with slower connections right?

 

And to point 2, you are still dodging the question, how do i even know when stun wears off, i have 2 melee beating on me, and i want force wave ( instant btw) to go off immediately, as soon as the CC stun wears off.

 

Without a large debuff icon with an easy to see timer, it is not possible to know exactly when the stun wears off, pressing the button more then once is the only option.

 

No, so many commands flooding the game will only cause you to lag even more, and if you have a faulty connection compounded with a temporary unresponsive game due to receiving too many commands at once, you are only hurting yourself.

 

I disagree, I don't even need the icon nor have I even paid it much attention. All I've done is wait for either my enemy to make the slightest movement which signals the stun is wearing off or close to wearing off, or I instinctively know due to the fact that all CC moves have the same amount of stun time, which is generally about 3-5 secs unless explicitly stated otherwise. Either way, I mash spacebar and jump back after a few seconds to create space and use Force Wave for good measure.

 

Either way, for me, it is more instinct and picking up on little subtle things. It just takes some time and getting used to.

[DiottFei]

I find it odd that some of us are having this issue and some say they are not. Those of you who keep yelling stop button mashing. Sorry I don't button mash. I heal as needed with the skills I need to keep people alive. I've been a healer of some sort for over 10 years in the MMO field.

 

Those of you that are saying yeah we have this problem but it's working like they want it too. Are you serious? First of all I don't think any of you are Bioware employees. So I don't think you have any idea what "they" intend.

 

To those that say they aren't having this problem at all...I wonder why that is. Could it be hardware related? Those that do not have this problem have beastly pc's? I myself and a pretty beast pc but three years old. I have two nvidia 8800 GTS's 512 R SLI.

 

I just bought a GTX560 1G R and I'm going to see if this improves the ability delay. I will post back here as the card comes today.

[Elgreezy]

Thank you to the OP for putting this into words, it's something I've been considering posting about for a while now but haven't been able to accurately sum up the issue.

 

One of the MOST important things any MMO company needs to learn from WoW is how fluid their character movements are. I've never come across another MMO (AoC/Rift/Aion/etc) that came close and it's one of the only things that REALLY annoys me in this game, especially in pvp.

[Lusiferz]

OP is dead on. The ability delay and/or character response in this game is completely unacceptable. I will continue to support however many threads are created on this issue until they either fix or ackknowledge the issue. I have been following this thread for the past 48 hours, and have read every single post. I still can't believe not one of them is an official response from BW.

 

I also can't believe all the biodrones that have come out of there closets since this thread has been recreated. You have to be absolutely oblivious to what is going on around you in this game to not see or understand what the issue is. I suppose you could also be one of those people that do wrath dps in cata end game content, and are just to horrible at video games to even grasp what proper response or controls are suppose to feel like...

 

No they are elite players.One of those is always in the top 5 at healing at random bg's and the other one can press his abilities one by one wen the gcd and animation is off.

 

Please come back wen you will have their skills.

[Xzenorath]

Riposte:

http://www.torhead.com/ability/2Zt5kfR

 

Riposte does not respect the global cooldown, by that logic it should be able to be used during a global cooldown, yes?

 

Then either one of two things happened;

 

1) He had a lag spike

2) It bugged.

 

Either way, it'll be fixed. The game JUST came out.

[Paganini]

No, so many commands flooding the game will only cause you to lag even more, and if you have a faulty connection compounded with a temporary unresponsive game due to receiving too many commands at once, you are only hurting yourself.

 

I disagree, I don't even need the icon nor have I even paid it much attention. All I've done is wait for either my enemy to make the slightest movement which signals the stun is wearing off or close to wearing off, or I instinctively know due to the fact that all CC moves have the same amount of stun time, which is generally about 3-5 secs unless explicitly stated otherwise. Either way, I mash spacebar and jump back after a few seconds to create space and use Force Wave for good measure.

 

Either way, for me, it is more instinct and picking up on little subtle things. It just takes some time and getting used to.

 

LOL.

 

So now pressing buttons quickly is eating up my bandwidth? You guys are too much.