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

[ShadowMasterRP]

What is really shocking to me is that after vanguard, warhammer, AOC and this list goes on and on... That bioware would not realize that responsive controls is clearly a top priority.

 

It's a single player RPG with multiplayer/co-op features tacked on. What'd you expect?

 

Though the fact that the team behind WAR is responsible for SWTOR does make that a valid question in a way.

[Xcore]

Well, at Blizzard they're really different teams. The famous 'Ghostcrawler' isn't actually the lead developer or anything at WoW, rather he's the "Gameplay" designer. He and his team are basically dedicated to nothing else but making the Class mechanics/UI/Trade Skills etc as good as possible.

 

Meanwhile the Art and Content departments do their thing completely separately.

 

I do however suspect that Blizzard has a QA budget that would make most other developers green with envy and all their devs have a ton of experience with reactive/dynamic gameplay.

 

Don't get me wrong, Blizzard has a "Stupid" amount of Cash and Resources at their disposal "at this point in time" for QA or anything else. However, 7 years ago they most certainly did not have all this cash (they had a lot, but nothing like today) but yet they still managed to make the Responsiveness perfect...

 

Yes WoW had a horrible launch and was near unplayable, of course! Yes there were loot bugs (lol, staying kneeling for 1 hour). Sure, I fell through the world a few times to meet my untimely demise. Of course, a rogue with a grey dagger could one shot me.. (balance?)

 

BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERED

 

Because the "Responsiveness" was so acutely, accurately, immersively amazing. Everything else got fixed, over 6 months, 1 year... 2 years... who cares? No-one now remembers these things (nearly no-one), we all simply remember WoW for having "That certain, undefinable something" that makes it feel "not clunky".

 

And this is the point -- This "Certain undefinable something, not clunky feeling" is the entire reason that WoW can simply not be caught by any amount of money EA pumps into other features (VO, Animations etc.)

 

 

Its infuriating that companies with "millions upon millions" of dollars and such great ambitions that you can practically "see" the cash symbols in their eyes are so ignorant to what makes a great game great.

 

Unbelievable.

[Zironic]

Don't get me wrong, Blizzard has a "Stupid" amount of Cash and Resources at their disposal "at this point in time" for QA or anything else. However, 7 years ago they most certainly did not have all this cash (they had a lot, but nothing like today) but yet they still managed to make the Responsiveness perfect...

 

Well yeh, the responsiveness is really cheap. These two things are basically 99% of what makes WoW more responsive.

 

1) Effects take place EXACTLY at the end of their cast duration. Instant means instant, 2.5 sec means 2.5 sec etc

2) If you cancel the cast after the cast duration but before the animation/cast bar is done(This is inevitable due to latency), the effect is still applied since the cast was done serverside.

 

Really, it would bother me a lot less if all the 'instant, but not really lulz' abilities had listed cast times. However that still wouldn't solve the client/server sync problem that makes the abilities with actual cast times so wierd.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Zironic

[origosis]

This is one of those things that really does make or break a game.

 

Yeah, it might make things a little wonky here and there, and PVP will probably be affected a little, maybe a lot in certain situations..

 

But I have noticed the issue, but I did not realize it was an issue, so I was already working around it with how I used my rotation.

 

The way I see it... Once this is fixed I will have slightly higher DPS and stuff will die a little faster.

[Sech]

Don't get me wrong, Blizzard has a "Stupid" amount of Cash and Resources at their disposal "at this point in time" for QA or anything else. However, 7 years ago they most certainly did not have all this cash (they had a lot, but nothing like today) but yet they still managed to make the Responsiveness perfect...

 

Yes WoW had a horrible launch and was near unplayable, of course! Yes there were loot bugs (lol, staying kneeling for 1 hour). Sure, I fell through the world a few times to meet my untimely demise. Of course, a rogue with a grey dagger could one shot me.. (balance?)

 

BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERED

 

Because the "Responsiveness" was so acutely, accurately, immersively amazing. Everything else got fixed, over 6 months, 1 year... 2 years... who cares? No-one now remembers these things (nearly no-one), we all simply remember WoW for having "That certain, undefinable something" that makes it feel "not clunky".

 

And this is the point -- This "Certain undefinable something, not clunky feeling" is the entire reason that WoW can simply not be caught by any amount of money EA pumps into other features (VO, Animations etc.)

 

 

Its infuriating that companies with "millions upon millions" of dollars and such great ambitions that you can practically "see" the cash symbols in their eyes are so ignorant to what makes a great game great.

 

Unbelievable.

 

A lot of the developers do have a good idea of what makes games amazing.

It's the executives who have never played a game in their life that have no *********** idea and the sad truth in most companies ideas have to get "OK'D" by them and they set priorities.

And those rich mofos have no idea what's going on with much of anything.

 

Besides that I agree that this is the biggest issue with the game, it breaks PVP completely (basically every level 50 HATES pvp because of this) and it seems to only get worse as more people are on the screen at once.

 

I'm assuming this happens because the server is trying to perfectly sync up everyone doing their stupid little fancy moves and thus changing the times and GCD's of everyones game. That really seems the big issue, the fact that the game is allowed to take control from you so that it can compensate for all the stupid flipping around and ******** that doesn't matter if the game is unresponsive and feels like ****.

The truth is I don't care how cool I look if I can't pull cluctch **** in PVP in 2v1's 3v1's because my UI is so unresponsive and I have to hit an attack 50 times to get it to execute properly without my character pulling back their lightsabers 30 times like they are stuck in a terrible dance move.

 

It's just all really stupid.

 

I love the game and want it to succeed, I bought the CE and have told all my friends I'm going to be playing it.

I played WoW since release day and stuck with it for 5 years and I've wanted a new MMO to play for years, they've just all been TERRIBLE.

This has been the only one released that I felt could even hold a candle to WoW and reach it's success and reach the kind of community and competitiveness that I'm looking for.

 

The simple truth is, the more and more I play the game and the more I read the forums and find problems the less I think that's really true and I fear in 3-6 months we're all going to know that this game is going to end up stuck with 500k-1mil subs or less for 10 years and end up in mediocre MMO purgatory.

[Xcore]

Well yeh, the responsiveness is really cheap. These two things are basically 99% of what makes WoW more responsive.

 

1) Effects take place EXACTLY at the end of their cast duration. Instant means instant, 2.5 sec means 2.5 sec etc

2) If you cancel the cast after the cast duration but before the animation/cast bar is done(This is inevitable due to latency), the effect is still applied since the cast was done serverside.

 

Really, it would bother me a lot less if all the 'instant, but not really lulz' abilities had listed cast times.

 

I agree completely but may I ask Bioware, Trion, Turbine, Funcom, Mythic why this has been completely missed?

[Ryzerion]

I must disagree, in WoW classic, the combat system worked the same way, GCD was correctly showed, and the exact time it was ended you could fire a new ability and it was instantly fired upon the target, unless you had latency high, wich is logical, but it isnt something "WoW has developed in 7 years" as other people try to argument

 

This, every one keeps trying to defend this situation which various of things but it's rather annoying when people say EQ and WoW had the same big flaw when they didn't.

 

Which is why I'm skeptical, Rift also didn't have the issue from the start, I believe the devs for Warhammer knew the issue just like with SWTOR and correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I'll be amazed if they fix it [soon] since it's a multitude of issues leading to one issue and might have a slight chance of being unfixable, like we know they are aware but whether or not it's fixable is the question.

 

Oh and another situation is using overload in PVP and PVE(sometimes) it won't happen instantly.

[Jyhnx]

I'm glad other people have noticed this. As a competitive WoW pvper, the pvp in this game is pretty much unplayable as is, considering the more than viable aforementioned alternative.

 

Control responsiveness is honestly one of the most important aspects in gaming. Honestly, its the reason a company like Nintendo has remained in business so long. They have THE tightest control in all of gaming, and have since the 80s. None of the Mario ripoffs back in the day came CLOSE to the perfection of responsiveness that was Mario. When you pressed A, that action happened IMMEDIATELY. Not 4 seconds later. Not after a prolonged, realistic squatting-to-jumping animation. It happened as soon as you pressed the button. The movements were all precise. You had total control of your character. Same with Zelda, etc. This is why they became so popular and are still so fun to play to this day. It wasn't the storylines or even the characters, it was the fact that the games felt so good because they controlled flawlessly compared to everything else (before or even since tbh).

 

WoW is the MMO equivalent of Mario-esque control, and I've championed for years that the primary reason for that is the character responsiveness is soooooo tight. Every MMO since then has been so consumed with adding longer and more complex animations for the most mundane tasks, almost ignoring character responsiveness in the process. When I press the jump button, I need that action to happen immediately. Any delay AT ALL is unacceptable. SWTOR excels in a number of categories, but little of that matters if the controls aren't tight...which unfortunately they aren't.

 

I'll stick around til at least the end of the free month, and perhaps another month or two since I really do love the story and single player aspect of the game, but I'm gone after that if this issue isn't resolved. Unfortunately, I won't hold my breath that this issue will be fixed as it appears to be a foundational issue. And I refuse to get used to unresponsive controls in a game where pvp is my primary focus.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Jyhnx

[AERHAE]

Man having a great time leveling up a toon ! It's new and being new you get a lot of forgiveness.

 

27 days left until subscription starts and I really want to keep it up and running.

 

In fact I really want to get 2 other accounts for the family and cancel the 3 wow accounts I have.

 

The lack of toon response when I push the button is the only reason you are not getting 2 more game sales and 3 reoccuring monthly subscriptions.

 

Not only are you losing my personal pay to play on 3 subscriptions, I am also continuing to pay your only true competitor. Your story is better, I'm sure your raid content will be better, I'm sure your end game pvp will be better .

 

I want you to succeed! I want to stay here for 6 years leveling, raiding, pvping across the country with my family experiencing your incredible story.

 

I just won't be able to if my toon doesn't do what it is supposed to when I tell it to !

Again word of mouth is spreading how bad it is. Wow forums are saying don't bother to waste your money. GW2 are begging please don't be like swtor.

 

You need to get out in front of this and do serious damage control.

 

Side note you can do zero balance fixes until you get the button control fixed. Doing any balance changes will fail once interrupts and cc work when I want them to work.

 

Thankyou

I couldnt have said it better.

[Adano]

I had no idea this was an issue for other people. I just thought it was my system and I needed to upgrade. TY OP for bringing this up and pushing the issue to the forefront. While I will continue to play both SWTOR and WoW if this issue continues then I may not subscribe to SWTOR for the long run, even tho I really enjoy the game right now.

[Lionerd]

Yeah, it might make things a little wonky here and there, and PVP will probably be affected a little, maybe a lot in certain situations..

 

But I have noticed the issue, but I did not realize it was an issue, so I was already working around it with how I used my rotation.

 

The way I see it... Once this is fixed I will have slightly higher DPS and stuff will die a little faster.

 

Try to heal or try to do pvp .... you just cant avoid this ... i have casting bar that disappear, ista heal or shields that start 1-1.5 sec after i push button, or in wroste case they dont even fire up ...

 

i start to avoid pvp because i only get nervous.... this isnt just a matter of little dps this just breaking my gameplay....

 

If u are hitting only normal mob .. you dont notice this too much ... (if you dont switch target too often XD) but i dotn keep paying only for this

[Zironic]

I agree completely but may I ask Bioware, Trion, Turbine, Funcom, Mythic why this has been completely missed?

 

Quite a few of these developers, notably Bioware and Funcom are staffed by designers that are artists at heart, they want to make beautiful cinematic combat. However that is directly at odds with fast paced, responsive combat. No one will ever tell you that a Street Fighter tournament would make a good movie action scene, however neither does most action scenes make good games.

 

I'm a bit at a loss at why Trion, Turbine and Mythic would make that kind of choice though.

 

In most RPG's cinematic combat is the right choice, because the games tend to be turn based or semi-turn based. However once multiplayer enters the picture you're in a completely different ball game.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Zironic

[StormDragonlord]

Yeah, it might make things a little wonky here and there, and PVP will probably be affected a little, maybe a lot in certain situations..

 

But I have noticed the issue, but I did not realize it was an issue, so I was already working around it with how I used my rotation.

 

The way I see it... Once this is fixed I will have slightly higher DPS and stuff will die a little faster.

 

Most players who feel this can't "work around" this issue because..the issue is there! It's too glaringly obvious to even try and work around it, and IF you try and work around it, it will just be clunkier because you have to wait for the animations to go off and cast bars.

 

One of the worst things are the "instant(not really)") casts, I press the button and 1 second later is when they fire off. This is so obvious when you try to break CC in PvP with the Break Free ability. I get stunned by a Sorcerer and I press the button fast but it takes way longer, it just feels bad.

[sdream]

Don't get me wrong, Blizzard has a "Stupid" amount of Cash and Resources at their disposal "at this point in time" for QA or anything else. However, 7 years ago they most certainly did not have all this cash (they had a lot, but nothing like today) but yet they still managed to make the Responsiveness perfect...

 

See, I believe it is due to different design approach. They started development when memory of text only MUDs was fresh. In MUD, you type in a command or press a macro button, and you get action instantly, so in WoW you have the same design philosophy, when any sort of animation is secondary to what you get in combat log. So you may get actions registered in text before an animation finishes off.

 

BioWare just like number of other developers chose a different approach. They basically made their "choreographed" combat a priority, where animation comes first and everything is secondary (I guess that statement about what they found during early development cycle was bunch of PR fluff). I believe this is one of the main reasons why they don't even have a combat log.

[JediMasterShake]

WoW is the MMO equivalent of Mario-esque control, and I've championed for years that the primary reason for that is the character responsiveness is soooooo tight. Every MMO since then has been so consumed with adding longer and more complex animations for the most mundane tasks, almost ignoring character responsiveness in the process. When I press the jump button, I need that action to happen immediately. Any delay AT ALL is unacceptable. SWTOR excels in a number of categories, but little of that matters if the controls aren't tight...which unfortunately they aren't.

Quoting this paragraph in particular.

 

So true.

[Zironic]

See, I believe it is due to different design approach. They started development when memory of text only MUDs was fresh. In MUD, you type in a command or press a macro button, and you get action instantly, so in WoW you have the same design philosophy, when any sort of animation is secondary to what you get in combat log. So you may get actions registered in text before an animation finishes off.

 

BioWare just like number of other developers chose a different approach. They basically made their "choreographed" combat a priority, where animation comes first and everything is secondary (I guess that statement about what they found during early development cycle was bunch of PR fluff). I believe this is one of the main reasons why they don't even have a combat log.

 

I don't think they based it much on MUDs, as far as I'm aware Blizzard mostly designed WoW with a bunch of ex-EQ players that wanted to make a much much better game then EQ and a whole bunch of people that used to work on Diablo which is an action game.

[Xcore]

Quite a few of these developers, notably Bioware and Funcom are staffed by designers that are artists at heart, they want to make beautiful cinematic combat. However that is directly at odds with fast paced, responsive combat. No one will ever tell you that a Street Fighter tournament would make a good movie action scene, however neither does most action scenes make good games.

 

I'm a bit at a loss at why Trion, Turbine and Mythic would make that kind of choice though.

 

Truthfully and perhaps a little off-topic, Trion did the best job... Turbine was held back by the whole LotRO Universe, they really had to stick to the rules and perhaps overlooked it for focus on other aspects. Mythic was simply a scam, they used an old horrible engine and the problems there lie in the incompetence of the entire Team as well as coding (more specifically).

 

Bioware, you may be right... all emphasis on Story/VO/"Cinematic Combat" absolutely "no" clue of the reality of MMO Gaming. Inexperience perhaps...

[Khoranth]

Most players who feel this can't "work around" this issue because..the issue is there! It's too glaringly obvious to even try and work around it, and IF you try and work around it, it will just be clunkier because you have to wait for the animations to go off and cast bars.

 

One of the worst things are the "instant(not really)") casts, I press the button and 1 second later is when they fire off. This is so obvious when you try to break CC in PvP with the Break Free ability. I get stunned by a Sorcerer and I press the button fast but it takes way longer, it just feels bad.

 

Yeah as a sage, force wave is probably the most frustrating ability I have, with regards to how unresponsive this game is.

 

Waiting anywhere from 2-6 seconds ( depending on what i was doing before activating force wave) to see enemies knocked away is unnacceptable.

[bvalley]

Supporting the Issue. Please fix this asap.

[Larlar]

This, every one keeps trying to defend this situation which various of things but it's rather annoying when people say EQ and WoW had the same big flaw when they didn't.

 

Which is why I'm skeptical, Rift also didn't have the issue from the start, I believe the devs for Warhammer knew the issue just like with SWTOR and correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I'll be amazed if they fix it [soon] since it's a multitude of issues leading to one issue and might have a slight chance of being unfixable, like we know they are aware but whether or not it's fixable is the question.

 

Oh and another situation is using overload in PVP and PVE(sometimes) it won't happen instantly.

 

I disagree regarding Rift. It didn't have this *exact* issue but it lacked something in this area. I played the trial for a few days, and then wrote a review. Here is the relevant part that I linked in the last thread:

 

"...for me one of the big let-downs in this game is the same let-down that has afflicted almost every fantasy MMO I have tried in the last 5/6 years - apart from Warcaft. That let down is the feel of the game and the gameplay - that elusive quality that you feel as you take control of your character: the responsiveness of the UI; the speed at which actions are executed on-screen when you press a key; the fluency of your movements and the degree in which you feel totally in control of your character. I guess its the very first thing I look for in any new game, and so far, nothing comes close to Wow in this regard. When you execute an ability in wow, you know it, and when you get hit by something - you know it. Like Age of Conan, Aion and Warhammer, Rift just doesn't get this critical aspect of the game quite right. Things just feel a little clunky and ever so slightly less responsive than a character in wow does. This could well be a symptom of my less than stellar PC that I am using, but I don't think so. Even at the very lowest graphics settings, the gameplay just doesn't feel smooth or perfectly responsive. Considering all of the games mentioned are more modern than WOW by a significant margin that is a damning indictment of the developers of these new games. Ultimately it is my view that this is the primary reason these new games get steamrollered by wow, and continually fall by the wayside as WOW dwarfs their subscription numbers.

 

This is my main gripe and its the absolute clincher for me when deciding whether I was going to actually buy the full version. There was lots to like, but ultimately, I couldnt justify paying the money when the game just doesn't feel fluent and doesn't feel polished in the area that really really counts - the gameplay."

 

I liked a lot about Rift. I liked the Rifts, the random lore objects in the world, the talent tree system... but none of this stuff matters when the game 'feels' wrong or less than smooth in the combat/character response.

 

Most people don't even think about why this disconnect happens, unlike a lot of the nice people who have contributed to this thread and its predecessors, and the reality is that most people don't care. They just cancel their subscription. I am so eager for Bioware to head this off before the free time of most of the initial buyers ends. I want this game to work because we can all see how much fun it will be if character response and therefore combat is right.

[Garodan]

I completely agree.

 

Its frustrating on my sentinel for master strike to start with a delay, or, as the case usually is, it'll play out the animation without doing damage, rooting me in place.

 

There theres the cast times on smuggler being horrendous, often times taking 4+ seconds to launch a 2.5 second cast time.

 

 

This HAS to be improved if they want any chance of holding subscriptions. As it is now, the responsiveness is rather poor.

[Xcore]

I don't think they based it much on MUDs, as far as I'm aware Blizzard mostly designed WoW with a bunch of ex-EQ players that wanted to make a much much better game then EQ and a whole bunch of people that used to work on Diablo which is an action game.

 

This is very much true, Bioware or any other ambitious Developer needs to hire a few Top Tier players to help lead the finer points of development and raise flags along the way.

 

If I was to design an MMO and build an entire, ambitious MMO in this market. Besides getting the best coding team possible I would hire 5-10 Top Players who know what they're talking about.

 

Essentially this is what Blizzard did...

[lenonk]

OK, I can't quote my last post because I can't bloody well find it! We really need a working search feature or "View my posts".

 

Anyway, I had stated yesterday that I had been playing on a 4+ year old computer with an AMD dual core processor, 4 GB of RAM and an 8800GT OC with 512 MB of video RAM. Yesterday I received my new computer. Core i7 2600K, 8 GB of RAM and dual 6850s in Crossfire mode with a total of 2 GB of video RAM.

 

On my old computer, I had been seeing this issue, but since so many others had been having the same issue, I didn't attribute it to my hardware, primarily. Then lenonk pointed out that he had recently switched from an older laptop with an 8800GT to a newer laptop with, (I think he said) a 6950. He stated that the switch to the newer computer cleared the issue up for him and he speculated if the issue may not be solely game design, but also some hardware induced latency.

 

So, my girlfriend and I conducted a little experiment. Last night, as I was playing, the game did seem more responsive to me. So I thought perhaps lenonk had been right. However, this evening, my girlfriend logged on my machine and was able to duplicate the issue she's been experiencing on her laptop (which is newer than my old desktop) from the start.

 

So, our joint conclusion is this... The issue seems to stem from the game design, for certain abilities on certain classes. But, it is also likely that the lack of character responsiveness is exacerbated by hardware induced latency on older machines. New hardware helps in SOME cases, but definitely NOT all.

 

Just the observation of two experienced MMO players, on three different computers, trying four different classes/roles (a mix of melee tank & DPS, and caster heals & DPS).

 

This is the eventual conclusion I came to as well. It helped a LOT, but, for obvious reasons, didn't do anything about the "Charged Shot/Grenade" thing. That led me to the conclusion that we were dealing with multiple issues which has since been confirmed by the Devs.

 

So, I think one of the reasons we're seeing so much discord here is that how badly you are affected by this issue depends on several things:

 

1) What class you're playing

2) What type of content you're currently on

3) What skills you use most

4) Your play style

 

Some people claim they don't have the issue at all. They do. They just don't use the skills or play the classes that are most affected. For my Sorcerer, the issue went away completely with my new machine, but my Combat Medic, Sentinel, and Gunslinger are still heavily affected.

 

It's odd, some skills such as taunts appear to be affected the most, while an earlier post claimed that a Bounty Hunter could interrupt while in the middle of a Rocket Punch with no problem.

 

Well, at any rate, they'll get it fixed eventually.

 

Peace

[Shiyow]

If the combat gets more smoother with fixing the ability delay, i can't see why this game won't succeed. I think everybody in this thread wants this game to succeed because we all see the huge potential this game has if this gets fixed. Here is hoping for it!

[Khoranth]

I don't think they based it much on MUDs, as far as I'm aware Blizzard mostly designed WoW with a bunch of ex-EQ players that wanted to make a much much better game then EQ and a whole bunch of people that used to work on Diablo which is an action game.

 

Take it back 1 step and you have the correct response.

 

EQ was designed by MUD players. Then WoW was designed by EQ players.