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

[Kotodama]

Quoted for absolute emphasis... give this man a medal, beer... whatever he desires.

 

Give this man a medal for conducting himself unprofessionally and with poor grammar? Yeh okay.

 

Also I believe fixing this 'making' this game is redundant. This unjustified an awful laggy delay responsiveess SHOULDNT be there in the first place. It feels like lag if anything. Definately unsubbing if this isnt fix'd now.

[xukaiwen]

I have noticed this and found it annoying. But I've always thought the general style of MMO combat is kind of boring compared to Skyrim, Mass Effect, or real FPS games.

 

So I didn't have high expectations for excitement of combat in TOR. But fixing this wouldn't hurt.

Edited December 30, 2011 by xukaiwen

[Xcore]

Give this man a medal for conducting himself unprofessionally and with poor grammar? Yeh okay.

 

Also I believe fixing this 'making' this game is redundant. This unjustified an awful laggy delay responsiveess SHOULDNT be there in the first place. It feels like lag if anything. Definately unsubbing if this isnt fix'd now.

 

I don't understand a single thing you're trying to say with the exception that you are unsubbing unless this is fixed...

[Digitalpossum]

First of all, i did not take the time to read every post. I have no PVP or endgame content experience yet in this game, so what i am sayin may not all apply to this game. Though i highly doubt that. I do on the other hand have loads of MMO/Adventure/RPG experience as tank/dps but by far the most as HPS. Anyway here is my opinion and experience with the issue.

To the people who actually read my post: This is exactly the issue i had with healing, which also made me stop playin my SI healer at lvl 36 because to many times at a pull this laglike responsiveness made it impossible to keep a tank alive in a flashpoint at certain pulls.

 

In the end tanks need their responsiveness to grab aggro in time. To make sure DPS and HPS do not take useless damage. Which results in HPS not having to waste their mana/force. Which prevents your HPS going "out of mana" 50% into a fight.

 

DPS need their responsiveness to interrupt in time, so that again no useless damage falls on the party/raid. Which at the end of the line prevents the "out of mana" 50% into a fight.

 

HPS need their responsiveness to keep up with the burst damage that the party/raid members take. So that nobody (in my experience usually the tank) at the pull of a group of mobs (Damage tends to be high untill atleast 1 mob is dead) dies. Ontop of that if you have 0.5sec delay per heal that you cast, you are going to be forced to use the more expensive (mana/force costs) spells because you fall behind with heals vs incomming damage. Which ends up with healers not beeing able to manage their mana/force pool very good. So then you end up with a "out of mana" scream again at some point.

 

Every class their actions has a impact on the rest of the group. If their actions cannot be preformed in a timing that was inteded, a other player will suffer. When this happends because of a game mechanic its all the more frustrating.

 

Ontop of all this, if Bioware was totally clueless about this problem up untill the beta or launch then there is a chance that numbers balance (incomming damage vs outgoing heals vs outgoing damage vs healthpools vs manapools) is actually not balanced at all. And that can make the content extremely hard or even impossible to clear.

 

To Bioware: This issue should be your number 1 priority unless the gamecode makes certain hardware melt down. Also money or manpower should not be made an issue to fix this.

 

The waiting time to login, chat bugs, graphics bugs, loot bugs, quest line bugs, title bugs or maintanence times or any of the other complaints that i have seen on the forums will be forgotten and forgiven once you fixed them down the road (it took blizzard like 2 years to fix the loot bug? Nobody seems to remember... Just to name something).

 

But if this responsiveness issue is not fixed or atleast reduced, there will not be a "down the road" where u can fix these bugs simply because people refuse to play this game. To a point where the game becomes a excellent RPG with a very nice co-op mode. But that will not be enough to keep people subscribed for longer then 2 or three months at most. Simply because real competative play (Guild PVE progress, player vs player) is not possible. But competative play is for many one of the biggest if not the biggest reason to play any game online.

 

Fix this and: players will stick around, new players keep commin. The company can keep patching and adding stuff or improving it while making tons of money. And in 5 years people start to leave for a new MMO just to end up comparing it to SWTOR and tellin that other developer how much better SWTOR was and never had a single bug or problem.

 

I call that a win win situation for developer publisher and gamer. Go Bioware! Keep giving me the good stuff like you did in the past.

 

mains are healer and tank. your first point is DEAD on.

 

edit: this is the girlfriend, on the boyfriend's computer -- forgot i was doing this on his pc! he doesn't tank or heal, i do!!! anyway, after re-reading ... ok, ok, your first AND second points are DEAD on!

Edited December 30, 2011 by Digitalpossum

[Superpescado]

Posting in support of the OP.

 

I completely agree this is a core issue and should be priority #1 on the fix list.

 

One thing I don't understand is how this could have gotten through their QA and beta testing. I would think the people who took part in those stages would have MMO experience and would have spotted this immediately.

[Desdecardo]

Im having the same issue. Its not DoTs. Its all my skills. Well this only happens on my Imperial Agent. My Smuggler has no issues with this.

 

It gets really annoying when you are running a heroic or a flashpoint and your global cool down seems to be triggered twice after casting one direct target heal.

 

This also happens with the grenade on the Imperial Agent. Where the agent draws back to throw twice and then you have to click it again because the global cool down canceled the ability.

 

Im also getting direct heals cancelling in the middle of healing (even out of combat) and the casting bar turns read for a second and says for a half a second that it isnt ready.

[ShaggyShow]

Give this man a medal for conducting himself unprofessionally and with poor grammar? Yeh okay.

 

Yea +- 200 country's in the world and they all speak english as their mother language. All the people in the world follow writing classes and know how to buildup their way to long stories that they shake out of their sleeve.

 

How do they dare to not meet your standards!

[kottonmouth]

have any moderators posted on this yet? i want this game to be very casual/action oriented and this is 100% a must. no argument this needs to be addressed asap.

[ltprudii]

No, its not "real" choreographed combat. Its all pre-determined set amount of movements etc. I would be very surprised if that were the case, though animations in general play a large role.

 

Please do correct me if I am mistaken

 

Of course but i mean is that when you hit an ability it has to sync up targets last movements with the new information. AKA deflecting bolts from the front then going to deflect from the rear.

 

Takes a bit of time but i think once bugs get hashed out we should see that time dwindle. But as i said the delay is probably caused because of this since certain abilities that dont interact with other players or NPCs dont have this delay.

[Xcore]

Of course but i mean is that when you hit an ability it has to sync up targets last movements with the new information. AKA deflecting bolts from the front then going to deflect from the rear.

 

Takes a bit of time but i think once bugs get hashed out we should see that time dwindle. But as i said the delay is probably caused because of this since certain abilities that dont interact with other players or NPCs dont have this delay.

 

This has not been brought up at all in over 300+ pages as a possible issue, I don't think anyone seriously considered it and I don't believe this is it but at the same time crazier things have happened...

 

Thanks for the food for thought!

[Vexxation]

Yes it does feel a bit clunky - I thought I was going mad, or had keyboard issues, and I was somehow responsible for the slow responses. I set my queue up on abiliteis to 0.0 as this is an option but it still doesnt fire off the way I feel it SHOULD. Even if I spam the button I am almost counting in my head "1-1thousand, 2 1-thousand..." It feels very slow and not 'normal'. If I was was 'really' fighting enemies who wanted me dead I jsut wouldn't BE that slow.

I have played other mmos, this one is by far the slowest at ability response, and I really like the game btw - I think the graphics (except in Tatooine where the huge yellowy slice across the land of eye-bleeding error gives me a headache) and stories are amazing and I am totally prepared to wait until some of the inumerable bugs are fixed (WoW in vanilla, the first year was just a mess - a fun mess but a laggy bug ridden mess to be sure) but this is definitely one that needs attention first.

[Putok]

Bioware, I can almost promise you that if you get your combat nearly as crisp as wow's, this game will go far, and be a major success for a long time to come. I don't think it will be able to truly compete if you don't. It's a lot of fun, but when I was raiding tonight, I was thinking in the back of my head, "My assassin is not nearly as responsive as my rogue. It's like the difference between a perfectly responsive sports car, and a good mid-end sports sedan."

 

I'm willing to give you time to fix it, because I'm having a lot of fun, but I strongly recommend making this a top priority. You bring a lot of great things to the table with this game, and if you can rectify these relatively small (though serious) problems, you will have an absolutely world class MMO.

[ShaggyShow]

Of course but i mean is that when you hit an ability it has to sync up targets last movements with the new information. AKA deflecting bolts from the front then going to deflect from the rear.

 

Hmmm i find your thoughts very interesting tbh. If indeed the character first deflects bolts at the front and/or back and then starts the cast, then i could reduce my healers lack of responsiveness by just not wearing a lighsaber? I can actually live with the missing stats, i will manage. Aslong as it responds quicker to my commands i can prevent those silly deaths/wipes.

[kottonmouth]

Bioware, I can almost promise you that if you get your combat nearly as crisp as wow's, this game will go far, and be a major success for a long time to come. I don't think it will be able to truly compete if you don't. It's a lot of fun, but when I was raiding tonight, I was thinking in the back of my head, "My assassin is not nearly as responsive as my rogue. It's like the difference between a perfectly responsive sports car, and a good mid-end sports sedan."

 

I'm willing to give you time to fix it, because I'm having a lot of fun, but I strongly recommend making this a top priority. You bring a lot of great things to the table with this game, and if you can rectify these relatively small (though serious) problems, you will have an absolutely world class MMO.

 

cheers

[Isende]

hi there, this is digitalpossum's girlfriend (post on 159 on his acct by mistake). i wanted to make a couple of clear points, so that hopefully people will come back, with understanding, to the original plea xcore began with.

 

point the first: regardless of the comparisons to blizz's wow, this is NOT a cry for swtor to emulate wow, EXCEPT IN COMBAT FLOW. the reason for this, as relates to pvp, has been amply described and documented; let me add another point, and that's the point of view of an rper. for me to truly enjoy my gameplay, i MUST truly enjoy my character. this starts at the character creation tab (i've been known to roll the same toon a dozen times to get her "just right"), and extends into her story, her interaction with others ingame, AND her combat/healing. if ANY part of this is "icky," then the overall totality of the experience is flawed for me. i won't go back to wow simply because i'm too disgusted with what they did to a game i loved -- but hey, that's not the only option out there. when i consider my healing priest, and then my healing consular -- well, for casting in combat, the priest wins, hands down. forget everything else -- my ability to "feel" my character lives as much in her ability to keep people alive as it does in her ability to interact with others. key point here folks -- THIS IS AS IMPORTANT AS EVERY OTHER GREAT THING YOU DID IN THE GAME, AND IF IT'S NOT FIXED, IT WILL COST YOU MANY MANY SUBSCRIBERS. so forget and drop the vitriol that we just want a wow clone -- that ain't it. what we want is to be able to immerse ourselves in the brilliant potential that does exist with this game.

 

point the second: there IS a problem with ability casts and delay timers/animation. as digitalpossum indicated on page 150 of this thread, he and i checked this out with four different class combos (smuggler, warrior, consular/balance and consular/seer). we tested this across three computers, one of which has its specs spelled out on page 150. it's not only a huge motherbeast of a machine, it's a bloody hawt gaming computer. we were able to successfully recreate the ability delay issue on each class, on each computer; we were not able to make the delay NOT occur on his brand new shiny toy.

 

point the third: i've said this before because i feel it SO strongly. customer service is a big deal. responsiveness to your customer's requests is a big deal. sadly, xcore is correct -- this second thread, created from the first one which capped 1k responses, is well on its way to also being 1k responses, and it wasn't until (fuzzy logic applies here, due to the page 123/140 discrepency) page 123 of THIS second posting that the devs made any statement at all. when you consider that this is a problem that has existed throughout beta testing, and was steadfastly NOT addressed, you begin to see some of the customer service angst, on the part of the player community. i know, devs, you guys are so happy with what you built. i get that, i understand that -- yes, the potential ABSOLUTELY exists.

 

however.

 

that potential will never be realized if #1 you don't address your customers' issues in a more timely manner (nope, not saying fix it naow, saying acknowledge and address it) and if #2 you don't listen to the very people you asked to test your product.

 

i am sorry, bioware and ea -- your customers may very well be blown away with the story features, or even just the newness and fun-factor in being in STAR WARS. but we're still gamers. we still play the game with certain expectations. and those expectations ABSOLUTELY include seamless cast/ability flow, both for pvp, and for pure immersion reasons.

 

i honestly hope you do find a way to address and resolve this issue. i truly fear something new and possibly wonderful may be lost if you don't.

 

Edit: Corrected punctuation mistakes -- capitalizaton? What's that?

Edited December 30, 2011 by Isende

[Vialator]

of all the things they need to fix ASAP- its this- I am sick to death of it on my sith inquistor- so much so that its killing the mood to play this game any longer- I log out in frustration over it.

 

This WILL break the game and cause a mass of ppl to unsub- fix it please

[JonnyBigBoss]

Bioware, I can almost promise you that if you get your combat nearly as crisp as wow's, this game will go far, and be a major success for a long time to come. I don't think it will be able to truly compete if you don't. It's a lot of fun, but when I was raiding tonight, I was thinking in the back of my head, "My assassin is not nearly as responsive as my rogue. It's like the difference between a perfectly responsive sports car, and a good mid-end sports sedan."

 

I'm willing to give you time to fix it, because I'm having a lot of fun, but I strongly recommend making this a top priority. You bring a lot of great things to the table with this game, and if you can rectify these relatively small (though serious) problems, you will have an absolutely world class MMO.

 

^ This.

[AlkalineKitten]

Im having the same issue. Its not DoTs. Its all my skills. Well this only happens on my Imperial Agent. My Smuggler has no issues with this.

 

It gets really annoying when you are running a heroic or a flashpoint and your global cool down seems to be triggered twice after casting one direct target heal.

 

This also happens with the grenade on the Imperial Agent. Where the agent draws back to throw twice and then you have to click it again because the global cool down canceled the ability.

 

Im also getting direct heals cancelling in the middle of healing (even out of combat) and the casting bar turns read for a second and says for a half a second that it isnt ready.

 

Hey, man.

 

I just want to thank you for this, because that's precisely what I've noticed and said. I recently made the switch to Republic with friends, and my Smuggler seems smoother than the operative. To me, it seems backblast is more responsive than backstab, nut kick is quicker than debilitate, and the like. Grenade is the same on both, but it's the same animation.

[Terko_Koslah]

I don't know if this has been asked, but would it fix most of the problems if the animation and effect would be included in the cast time?

[Xcore]

hi there, this is digitalpossum's girlfriend (post on 159 on his acct by mistake). i wanted to make a couple of clear points, so that hopefully people will come back, with understanding, to the original plea xcore began with.

 

point the first: regardless of the comparisons to blizz's wow, this is NOT a cry for swtor to emulate wow, EXCEPT IN COMBAT FLOW. the reason for this, as relates to pvp, has been amply described and documented; let me add another point, and that's the point of view of an rper. for me to truly enjoy my gameplay, i MUST truly enjoy my character. this starts at the character creation tab (i've been known to roll the same toon a dozen times to get her "just right"), and extends into her story, her interaction with others ingame, AND her combat/healing. if ANY part of this is "icky," then the overall totality of the experience is flawed for me. i won't go back to wow simply because i'm too disgusted with what they did to a game i loved -- but hey, that's not the only option out there. when i consider my healing priest, and then my healing consular -- well, for casting in combat, the priest wins, hands down. forget everything else -- my ability to "feel" my character lives as much in her ability to keep people alive as it does in her ability to interact with others. key point here folks -- THIS IS AS IMPORTANT AS EVERY OTHER GREAT THING YOU DID IN THE GAME, AND IF IT'S NOT FIXED, IT WILL COST YOU MANY MANY SUBSCRIBERS. so forget and drop the vitriol that we just want a wow clone -- that ain't it. what we want is to be able to immerse ourselves in the brilliant potential that does exist with this game.

 

point the second: there IS a problem with ability casts and delay timers/animation. as digitalpossum indicated on page 150 of this thread, he and i checked this out with four different class combos (smuggler, warrior, consular/balance and consular/seer). we tested this across three computers, one of which has its specs spelled out on page 150. it's not only a huge motherbeast of a machine, it's a bloody hawt gaming computer. we were able to successfully recreate the ability delay issue on each class, on each computer; we were not able to make the delay NOT occur on his brand new shiny toy.

 

point the third: i've said this before because i feel it SO strongly. customer service is a big deal. responsiveness to your customer's requests is a big deal. sadly, xcore is correct -- this second thread, created from the first one which capped 1k responses, is well on its way to also being 1k responses, and it wasn't until (fuzzy logic applies here, due to the page 123/140 discrepency) page 123 of THIS second posting that the devs made any statement at all. when you consider that this is a problem that has existed throughout beta testing, and was steadfastly NOT addressed, you begin to see some of the customer service angst, on the part of the player community. i know, devs, you guys are so happy with what you built. i get that, i understand that -- yes, the potential ABSOLUTELY exists.

 

however.

 

that potential will never be realized if #1 you don't address your customers' issues in a more timely manner (nope, not saying fix it naow, saying acknowledge and address it) and if #2 you don't listen to the very people you asked to test your product.

 

i am sorry, bioware and ea -- your customers may very well be blown away with the story features, or even just the newness and fun-factor in being in STAR WARS. but we're still gamers. we still play the game with certain expectations. and those expectations ABSOLUTELY include seamless cast/ability flow, both for pvp, and for pure immersion reasons.

 

i honestly hope you do find a way to address and resolve this issue. i truly fear something new and possibly wonderful may be lost if you don't.

 

Edit: Corrected punctuation mistakes -- capitalizaton? What's that?

 

Thanks for this input, great post and I agree with every word.

[Froth]

I don't know if this has been asked, but would it fix most of the problems if the animation and effect would be included in the cast time?

 

yessir, that was my initial thinking also. Wrap the animation inside the cast time and make it a non-interruptible channeled spell. Wrap it so tight that they both end at the same time. VOILA, problem solved. I understand software development is more than a magic wand but this in theory seems like it would work.

[AlkalineKitten]

I don't know if this has been asked, but would it fix most of the problems if the animation and effect would be included in the cast time?

 

Not SO simple, but yeah, that's about where some of the discussion has fallen.

 

The issue is a 2 second cast has a three or more second animation. But it's not even perfectly paralleled...say, a Sorc can Lightning instantly it's not an animation. A Sage's Project? That takes animation.

[Tezkalol]

Well, i'm happy that someone made this thread since i work full time now & don't have enough free time to do it.

 

First, i want to say that i am an "old" MMO player, started in '99 & tried almost every big & not so big MMOs.

 

So, blizzard's recipe for success is this simple equation : GAMEPLAY > EVERYTHING.

 

gameplay > story

gameplay > background

gameplay > aesthetic

 

Simple exemple is consular's ability "Project". It takes at least 2 second for this "instant cast" to land because of the animation...

 

I'll get straight to the point, i'm playing this as a KOTOR, not a MMO, if this issue is not fixed before i'll hit 50, i'll probably quit this game.

[Terko_Koslah]

The project is a good example where you lose character control for a second. But that doesn't personally bother me.

 

What I am mostly concerned is the skills where the effect resolves a second or so after the cast bar.

That I think is misleading in a way to a player, because you can move and cancel the effect after the cast bar has resolved.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Terko_Koslah

[Xcore]

Well, i'm happy that someone made this thread since i work full time now & don't have enough free time to do it.

 

First, i want to say that i am an "old" MMO player, started in '99 & tried almost every big & not so big MMOs.

 

So, blizzard's recipe for success is this simple equation : GAMEPLAY > EVERYTHING.

 

gameplay > story

gameplay > background

gameplay > aesthetic

 

Simple exemple is consular's ability "Project". It takes at least 2 second for this "instant cast" to land because of the animation...

 

I'll get straight to the point, i'm playing this as a KOTOR, not a MMO, if this issue is not fixed before i'll hit 50, i'll probably quit this game.

 

I like you