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

[fallenvirtues]

GIVE IT TIME!!! The delay or the complete unresponsiveness when hitting a button is because its need tweaking...

 

The animations corresponding with the damage will/should not change, but the ability should start as sson as you hit the button and etc and I believe they will fix this...

 

I personally dont have many problems...I hit the button and it starts the attack..But I know a lot of you do for whatever reason and I do experience in PvP that sometimes I hit the button and it does nothing...Thats becuase its bugged...They can fix it...Give it a little time

[mutharex]

Well, the singularly most important part of a game is the 'fun to play' factor and it's there that while many might not mention responsiveness specifically, mostly because it's really hard to put your finger on the issue. They will say that they just didn't find the game enjoyable.

 

Though most games also had a horrifyingly poor Class design, so even if the game was ultra-responsive it would still be dull as hell to play. You'd think most game designers just put a bunch of abilities ideas on a dartboard and then put them randomly into classes.

 

I think it's really worth remembering that Bioware has no experience AT ALL with making good game mechanics. They've always made games that have had a good story and **** gameplay, and people always play their games anyhow, because the story is good enough to make up for it.

 

Odds of them fixing SWTORS gameplay are close to nil sadly.

 

I think WoW "fun to play" factor came more from the graphics and teh art design, plus the fact that to many players it was the very first MMO and it was, in many ways, a whole new world to discover.

 

PS

 

Slagging off the Developer of a game you say you like and want to 'save' rarely conveys that feeling that you really care....

[Zironic]

Well, even though I don't really experience this on my guardian, since I have yet to come across a non channeled ability that has an animation that lasts longer than the GCD, the only "fix" that I would be against is removing or clipping animations. And the channeled ones like master strike can be interrupted at any time by another ability.

 

You can disagree all you like or even bash me, but I find the combat animations to add incredible amounts of style and immersion to my character. The standard mmo philosophy of clipping animations or barely having any to begin with like wow always annoyed me.

 

So, if you can fix whatever it is that you guys seem to be experiencing WITHOUT borking the animations or clipping them up to death, than i'm all for it. But I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that people aren't actually enjoying the game in part because of the combat animations.

 

That is my opinion.

 

The thing about flair like the combat animations, are that the first maybe 1,000 times you see them, they're really neat. After that you're just frustrated that you never seem to get anything done when you want it done.

[myrmexaw]

Really?

 

 

Um....so you can't cast 35 abilities in a span of 1.5 seconds?

 

I will now spam buttons for 1.5 seconds.

 

dfsadfaerwgyrt4eahytr4

 

OK, 22 abilities in 1.5 seconds, unless my counting is wrong.

 

if it requires button to finish animation .... why do you also need a global cooldown for when abilities are over before 1.5 second penalizing you wether the ability require 1.5 second or not ?

[Zironic]

I think WoW "fun to play" factor came more from the graphics and teh art design, plus the fact that to many players it was the very first MMO and it was, in many ways, a whole new world to discover.

 

PS

 

Slagging off the Developer of a game you say you like and want to 'save' rarely conveys that feeling that you really care....

 

Eh, look. I've played every Bioware game they've released and I got ME3 on preorder, and I've done that because I find them rather enjoyable and I get hooked on completing their story. But we're all kidding ourselves if we say any of them had good gameplay.

 

Generally, WoW has always had rather poor to atrocious graphics and made up for it a lot by using an Art Design that is very forgiving to low polygon counts which made the overall impression decent, not necessarily good, but decent. WoW generally sells itself by being really easy to get into, doing its best to let people get right into the action and letting everyone get loot at a fairly quick pace.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Zironic

[Extinction]

Play a mauraud in pvp against a level 50 premades and tell me it's fine when what you are pressing isn't happening.

 

For me it is game breaking.

[Gohlar]

I spam more keys in TOR than I ever did in WoW.

 

Not at all what I'm talking about...

 

Just never mind. Some people get it, some don't. At the end of the day it's subjective anyways.

[VladVV]

I totally agree with the OP that this is a major problem with SWToR. Even though I did not give it much attention at first, it is now constantly bugging me to the point that I find melee combat on my lvl 35 assassin to be very fragmented and blocky .

 

I find this most visible with Thrash - after you activate it, there is an annoying 0.x second delay before you can activate any other ability, during which the character just sits there facing the enemy, instead of progressing fluidly to the next attack, let's say Saber Strike.

 

BioWare should really pay close attention to this problem and remedy it, since it's a notable impediment to the "heroic" combat they advertised for SWToR in the first place!

[joshbyrd]

OP,Thank you for proving that i am not crazy! Thank You for this post! I have chosen to begin my SWTOR experience is a Jedi Sage and i can tell you, this ability delay thing is ESPECIALLY hurtful to us healers! its very nerve wracking to be waiting on that heal to kick in and your party members health is ticking dangerously low! this is especially true on boss fights where if the tank or myself go down then thats that. i hope this very elegantly worded post of yours comes to the attention of the right people this issue needs fixing ASAP!

[Mirthadrond]

I haven't noticed any 'delay' that you mention. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying I haven't noticed and I've done both PVP and PVE content.

 

However, reading your finely written article, I can see how animation duration could potentially cause a problem, especially with PVP.

 

If such a thing does indeed exist; then I have confidence that BioWare WILL address the issue. Just like I'm certain that they make many different improvements to this game as time progresses. I doubt the game we are playing 'today' will be the same as the game we are playing 6 months from now, let alone 2 years from now.

 

There are certainly 'many' things that could use some improvement in this fine title, but as a whole, it's an awesome game, a great story, a beautiful environment and has a GREAT team working behind the scenes to make it even better.

[PerpetualGamer]

I support the OP

[Brikaras]

In with my support.

[Naroga]

I noticed this as well in PvP. I would hit my interrupt ability, but there would be a delay while my previous animation finished. This delay resulted in me missing several crucial interrupts. What use is there in an ability being off the global cooldown if you have to wait for an animation to finish?

[mutharex]

Eh, look. I've played every Bioware game they've released and I got ME3 on preorder, and I've done that because I find them rather enjoyable and I get hooked on completing their story. But we're all kidding ourselves if we say any of them had good gameplay.

 

Generally, WoW has always had rather poor to atrocious graphics and made up for it a lot by using an Art Design that is very forgiving to low polygon counts which made the overall impression decent, not necessarily good, but decent. WoW generally sells itself by being really easy to get into, doing its best to let people get right into the action and letting everyone get loot at a fairly quick pace.

 

I quite enjoyed the gameplay of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. You didn't? What's wrong with them? I thought they oversimplified ME2 a bit too much but I quite like the quasi-FPS feeling.

 

And about WoW graphics, Art Desing is what makes or breaks a game. WoW Art Design team is amazing, they really know how to turn low polygon count and low textures into something beautiful and gifted with personality. That's why a lot of games with better graphic engine but bad A.D. came out actually looking worse or meh

[Chiznak]

Please fix this. SWTOR is a pretty good game, but the ability delay is really frustrating.

[Twenynge]

Animation problems can cause more issues than just delays in activating skills; the scoundrel has an ability called 'dirty kick' whitch is a melee attack that stuns the enemy to allow the smuggler to escape. The imperial agent's version is called 'debilitate'. When the smuggler activates dirty kick, he is momentarily rooted for slighly less than one second, ostensibly to prevent it from looking like he is sliding on one foot whilst kicking. Debilitate does not have this issue and can be cast on the move. When you are trying to create distance, a difference like that means the empire's version of the skill is significantly more effective than the republic's, all becuase the design of the skill was driven by the animation, not the function.

 

Another example with respect to smuggler and imperial agent differences is that an agent can chain snipe and explosive probe so that they land at the same time, but the smuggler's animation for his version of explosive probe is painfully slow, necessitating another gcd for the skill to land.

 

I'm concerned because these animation issues seem endemic to the game design; the problem is far to big for Bioware to admit that the design philosophy is flawed, and that is assuming they actually understand that it is the inferior solution.

[Nazas]

Fix it!

[noermi]

I noticed this as well in PvP. I would hit my interrupt ability, but there would be a delay while my previous animation finished. This delay resulted in me missing several crucial interrupts. What use is there in an ability being off the global cooldown if you have to wait for an animation to finish?

 

I've witnessed this too many times. WTB a fix.

[Larlar]

Clearly it is.

 

WoW was designed for the lowest common denominator remember. I hope they don't do that here.

 

If that's what you want, hey cool. Some don't.

 

 

 

And Halo is the best FPS blah blah blah.

 

Popular != good.

 

I'm sorry to say but you are so consistently wrong that its getting tiresome.

 

'Popular' is not just good for an MMO. It is essential. Without 'popular', you have dead servers, empty game zones and most importantly no budget to continue serious development of the game. Without 'popular' in an MMO, eventually you die. Its a long slow death but its a death nonetheless. All the recent challengers to wow are shrinking and basically dying.

 

Your comment on WOW pvp is horribly misguided but I also suspect, deliberately flippant. What other game of this genre is so close to having PVP as an actual e-sport? None of them. They are all country miles away from it, and SWTOR is, at present further away than most. WOW pvp is highly skilled and if you had played arenas at any serious level, you would know this. The people who constantly deride WOW pvp are, in my experience, people who just don't do pvp for whatever reason. WOW pvp is dramatically superior to every other MMO on earth, despite its constant balancing issues, and the reason for this is very closely linked to the focus of this thread. The gameplay is exceptional and you are never of the impression that you are fighting against the game or its mechanics. You fight your opponents and the best players win 98% of the time.

 

I have played several warzones since I bought this game, and my reaction was basically /facepalm. Its the aspect of the game where the clunkiness of combat becomes most acute. The finer aspects of the game mechanics are seen through a magnifying lens in PVP, and what I, and many others have seen was very ugly indeed. Hopefully not permanently ugly, but ugly nonetheless.

 

We all benefit if Bioware get this right. Let me emphasise, I love this game. However, when I level cap, I cannot see myself continuing as the problems articulated through this thread and others make everything too difficult and unpleasant. Its just that as you level, you don't see the problem as much as questing is basically mindless and easy from a technical sense.

 

I am hoping that Bioware have their finest minds on this as we speak, and I hope that it gets fixed. If they nail it I will subscribe and play for a long time to come and I will be delighted to never have to return to Azeroth.

[DunsparrowSolo]

Animation problems can cause more issues than just delays in activating skills; the scoundrel has an ability called 'dirty kick' whitch is a melee attack that stuns the enemy to allow the smuggler to escape. The imperial agent's version is called 'debilitate'. When the smuggler activates dirty kick, he is momentarily rooted for slighly less than one second, ostensibly to prevent it from looking like he is sliding on one foot whilst kicking. Debilitate does not have this issue and can be cast on the move. When you are trying to create distance, a difference like that means the empire's version of the skill is significantly more effective than the republic's, all becuase the design of the skill was driven by the animation, not the function.

 

Another example with respect to smuggler and imperial agent differences is that an agent can chain snipe and explosive probe so that they land at the same time, but the smuggler's animation for his version of explosive probe is painfully slow, necessitating another gcd for the skill to land.

 

I'm concerned because these animation issues seem endemic to the game design; the problem is far to big for Bioware to admit that the design philosophy is flawed, and that is assuming they actually understand that it is the inferior solution.

 

We don't know if this problem is truly rooted deeply into the game's code or not, and we shouldn't make conclusions based on the assumption that they can't or won't fix it. It can be fixed, and we should simply make it clear that we want it to be fixed more than we want other things, such as new Ops, WZs or companions.

[Rendekar]

We still demand an answer !

[veevito]

The thing about flair like the combat animations, are that the first maybe 1,000 times you see them, they're really neat. After that you're just frustrated that you never seem to get anything done when you want it done.

 

I understand that is how you feel. I feel differently is all. Again, i've yet to have my characters not get something done when I want it. But, I don't jump all over the screen or hit my movement key the millisecond the mount cast bar is up.

 

Or maybe my bionic eye is on the fritz and i'm not discerning the 0.3 second delay. It's possible. And I hope they fix it then.

 

If there needs to be tweaking to make the full duration of the animation sync better with channel bars, cast bars or the GCD, then do it, by all means.

 

I would just hate to see the animations take a hit in whatever fixing process that may take place.

 

I guess that's all i'm saying.

[Esaias]

There is nothing wrong with the game. If we are not to label you as a troll, then why isn't this in the bug report area? Or somewhere else that is suited for this type of post?

[Spirodex]

I'm sorry to say but you are so consistently wrong that its getting tiresome.

 

'Popular' is not just good for an MMO. It is essential. Without 'popular', you have dead servers, empty game zones and most importantly no budget to continue serious development of the game. Without 'popular' in an MMO, eventually you die. Its a long slow death but its a death nonetheless. All the recent challengers to wow are shrinking and basically dying.

 

Your comment on WOW pvp is horribly misguided but I also suspect, deliberately flippant. What other game of this genre is so close to having PVP as an actual e-sport? None of them. They are all country miles away from it, and SWTOR is, at present further away than most. WOW pvp is highly skilled and if you had played arenas at any serious level, you would know this. The people who constantly deride WOW pvp are, in my experience, people who just don't do pvp for whatever reason. WOW pvp is dramatically superior to every other MMO on earth, despite its constant balancing issues, and the reason for this is very closely linked to the focus of this thread. The gameplay is exceptional and you are never of the impression that you are fighting against the game or its mechanics. You fight your opponents and the best players win 98% of the time.

 

I have played several warzones since I bought this game, and my reaction was basically /facepalm. Its the aspect of the game where the clunkiness of combat becomes most acute. The finer aspects of the game mechanics are seen through a magnifying lens in PVP, and what I, and many others have seen was very ugly indeed. Hopefully not permanently ugly, but ugly nonetheless.

 

We all benefit if Bioware get this right. Let me emphasise, I love this game. However, when I level cap, I cannot see myself continuing as the problems articulated through this thread and others make everything too difficult and unpleasant. Its just that as you level, you don't see the problem as much as questing is basically mindless and easy from a technical sense.

 

I am hoping that Bioware have their finest minds on this as we speak, and I hope that it gets fixed. If they nail it I will subscribe and play for a long time to come and I will be delighted to never have to return to Azeroth.

 

Good post, said the things I don't have the patience to.

[DunsparrowSolo]

We still demand an answer !

 

The sense of entitlement that your tone implies is somewhat disturbing. What kind of "answer" are you demanding? A CM or even a developer will not have the clout to make a decision on this. Neither can they say that they are "talking about it" or "thinking about it" because these phrases can create widespread misconceptions and false expectations.

 

Making demands and having an entitlement mentality are not going to get anything done. The Occupy movement has shown us this. Let's behave like rational, thinking adults.