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Character Responsiveness/Animation Cast Time NEEDS to be addressed!

Mookz

By Mookz
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Mookz

Mookz

Posted
Posted (edited)

We need a developer/CSR response, and not some automated "thanks for your concerns" deal. Post actual information that you are aware and post updates on how you are addressing this issue.

 

Keep this thread bumped until it is fixed.

 

Character Responsiveness and Animation Cast Times is going to kill this game, and it needs to be patched asap. I play a Sniper, so Sniper will be used as a model. ALL classes suffer from this, however. Do not bring up "oh Sniper QQ you do enough damage", that's not what this is about. This thread is about 2 mechanics of the game that are in serious need of fixing. I am all for class balancing, however these two issues are much bigger than class balancing at the moment.

 

For those of you who are unaware, the current model for using abilities is based on the animation of the ability, and not the actual cast time (cast bar). This is making some classes, maybe the biggest being Sniper who relies on long(er) casts for everything and is not mobile, unable to be played on a competitive level.

 

How To See First Hand How Bad Cast Animation Times Are

As soon as your mount's cast bar hits 100%, try moving. You will notice you INSTANTLY get dismounted, even though the cast was "finished". That is because your mount's animation wasn't finished, thus cancelling the cast completely. This false indication of cast time is seen across every single ability, EVEN INSTANT ABILITIES, in the game. Your cast bar does not correctly show how long the actual cast time of an ability is.

Read on for more details.

 

More details - redundancy incoming.

Some "instant casts" are actually 2+ seconds long due to the huge amount of animation involved in them, and the damage does not register until AFTER the animation. This is poor development and needs to be changed to where when the cast is finished, whether instant or has a cast time, the damage registers. If we proceed to cast something else afterwards, cancel the current animation and start the new one. I should not have to wait longer than my global cooldown on an instant ability to be able to cast my next ability.

 

Character Responsiveness also needs tuned. Currently there is delay, which is caused neither by FPS nor Latency, in our characters every movement. One big one is the Cover mechanic in PvP. When I hit my Cover keybind, it is not instant as it should be, which causes a delay in my action bar switches. If I hit Cover multiple times, sometimes the game will completely glitch out due to delayed response, and will think I am already in Cover when I am not, and prevent me from actually going in to cover for a good 10-15 seconds. Do you know how many core abilities I can use while out of cover? Almost none.

 

Other classes, like I said, hurt from this Character Responsiveness as well. I am not an expert on other classes, nor claim to know the magnitude of effect that it has on them, but I would assume any with any type of timing/regeneration/etc. DO suffer at least some at even a somewhat competitive level of play.

 

So again, these two problems equally need to be on the top of your to-do list as priority #1 in your next patch. The animation casting needs to go, seriously, I can not stress how awful this makes some classes gameplay. Character responsiveness the way it is should have never made it out of beta. Nearly everyone (minus the awful/inexperienced) in my guild notice this, as well as thousands of others.

 

 

Please respond.

Edited by Mookz
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Xavmobile

Xavmobile

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Posted (edited)

Not much to add. Trying to Shadow Strike (basically backstab) on my Shadow is hilarious. Whenever I find a window I can use it and press the button (well spam the button actually, since in PvP you have to do so while trying to hit abilities with positional requirements), my character throws her arm backwards then lowers it without hitting the target. Looks like some weird dance and without any damage done to either. Same with my "execute" move Spinning Strike. My opponent basically kills me before my character finishes helicoptering the blade above her head. Just what?

 

Also this issue affects both PvP AND PvE if some special people are keen on saying "This is a PvE game anyway". Abilities cancelling due to bad design will completely mess up rotations and, if this game is any challenging at all, wipe raids.

 

But yeah, this issue doesn't need any examples at all. Effects should occur at keypress, not at the end of an animation. There are zillions of threads on this issue already, however. I hope Bioware is actually listening, else my time on this game will be much shorter than I've initially planned.

 

Come on gusy, I don't want to play Pandabearland. :-(

Edited by Xavmobile
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FULONGAMER

FULONGAMER

Posted
Posted

To go with that, the Assassin's actual backstab absolutely CANNOT be used as a start to combat, from stealth, as the very act of triggering THE power starts an animation sequence that invariably results in the target, recognizing he's under threat, turning around, drawing his own weapon, and commencing to pound on me while the Game says "NOT BEHIND TARGET", when that was essentially the point of trying to backstab, from behind, from stealth, in the first place. I mean seriously, put unlit lightsaber to back of dude THEN ignite, how hard is that? (apparently impossible, when you FWASSSSH behind a person, then pose, and wait to be shot at.

 

I know there is an "Alacrity" rating in the game, supposedly tied to reducing "cast time" with some really sad ways to improve it, nominally, however the "baseline" response time for power activation is dialed off the charts of useless.

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Darkmagicxk

Darkmagicxk

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I have the same issue, I give an "as clear as possible" situation example, as well as layout the problem with different wording in this thread:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=968417#post968417

 

bump multiple threads for the clear attention this problem needs to recieve!

 

/signed

Edited by Darkmagicxk
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Legendberry

Legendberry

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Posted

completely agree, the FPS lagg in PVP is terrible compared to the rest of the beautiful game.

 

You've done a great job Bioware, just the Pvp for me is awful! I don't feel like i want to pvp after a horrid lagg ridden un-responsive hell called Warzone. I've been forced to quest because i cant do jack in a Warzone. The sooner the problem is fixed, the sooner i will love this game even more.

 

 

PLEASE please please fix asap.

 

+1 the post of course

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Ittan-momen

Ittan-momen

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I can verify this happens to me in every encounter, whether it pve or pvp. I notice it's particularly buggy with my Marauder because of dual wield. The animations for all the dual wield attacks are long and drawn out with the lightsabers and I always have him throwing the sabers up and then he doesn't attack.

 

This gimps me in pvp hard because it sets off my global cooldown and has happened as many as 5 times in a row. 5 abilities "cast" and not finished equals no dps and a dead warrior. I also notice ravage bugs out sometimes due to this, auto-cancelling upon start and sometimes it bugs out allowing me to use it multiple times in a row. Again, major bug here. I really hope this gets fixed soon because I'm tired of getting rolled in encounters because of extremely long, played out lightsaber swings causing my abilities to bug out.

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Ahlin

Ahlin

Posted
Posted

bump.

 

This is a gamebreaking issue that will definitely be the cause of me canceling my sub. Right now I can't outplay or outdo people in PVP because I have to stand in one spot an extra 1-3 seconds for every single skill I cast.

 

When I couldn't chain force lightning together so I didn't lose ticks I knew that the game was in trouble.

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Ossos

Ossos

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Posted (edited)

The execution of any special is determined by 3 things.

 

1. The GCD.

2. The CD of the respective special.

3. The animation time of the previously used special.

 

Example:

 

I encourage IAs and Gunslingers to try the following because cover is off the GCD: Throw a grenade and immediately press Cover. Chances are nothing happens (more often than not you will get an alert saying "That Skill is not ready yet"). This is due to the animation time of the grenade you just threw. The grenade MUST fly through the air AND detonate, and the animation must complete prior to taking Cover.

 

The thing that players MUST REALIZE that this "delay/responsiveness" is actually a part of the coded functionality of this game and it is VERY UNLIKELY that this will be fixed within the next few years, possibly ever.

 

 

TL: DR It's part of the code, get used to it.

Edited by Ossos
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Ossos

Ossos

Posted
Posted
they dont care.. sadly :(

 

QFT.

 

Remember just a few weeks ago (Launch) when they blamed the player base for the queues on High Population servers and never attributed anything to the fact that the guild placement system was stacking too many guilds on too few servers.

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boobaffet

boobaffet

Posted
Posted
We need a developer/CSR response, and not some automated "thanks for your concerns" deal. Post actual information that you are aware and post updates on how you are addressing this issue.

 

Keep this thread bumped until it is fixed.

 

Character Responsiveness and Animation Cast Times is going to kill this game, and it needs to be patched asap. I play a Sniper, so Sniper will be used as a model. ALL classes suffer from this, however. Do not bring up "oh Sniper QQ you do enough damage", that's not what this is about. This thread is about 2 mechanics of the game that are in serious need of fixing. I am all for class balancing, however these two issues are much bigger than class balancing at the moment.

 

For those of you who are unaware, the current model for using abilities is based on the animation of the ability, and not the actual cast time (cast bar). This is making some classes, maybe the biggest being Sniper who relies on long(er) casts for everything and is not mobile, unable to be played on a competitive level.

You are wrong

 

How To See First Hand How Bad Cast Animation Times Are

As soon as your mount's cast bar hits 100%, try moving. You will notice you INSTANTLY get dismounted, even though the cast was "finished". That is because your mount's animation wasn't finished, thus cancelling the cast completely. This false indication of cast time is seen across every single ability, EVEN INSTANT ABILITIES, in the game. Your cast bar does not correctly show how long the actual cast time of an ability is.

Read on for more details.

That issue is specific to the mount. From my experience you can move after any casted ability when the bar turn white (glow) at the end of the cast time. I have yet to see anyone with a prove that animation have priority over ability, aside from the mount one which is not even a combat ability.

 

More details - redundancy incoming.

Some "instant casts" are actually 2+ seconds long due to the huge amount of animation involved in them, and the damage does not register until AFTER the animation. This is poor development and needs to be changed to where when the cast is finished, whether instant or has a cast time, the damage registers. If we proceed to cast something else afterwards, cancel the current animation and start the new one. I should not have to wait longer than my global cooldown on an instant ability to be able to cast my next ability.

You can fire an ability every gcd (offgcd ability bug aside). It does not matter how long the animation is, the ability will start casting than the animation will follow ( see video).

 

 

 

Other classes, like I said, hurt from this Character Responsiveness as well. I am not an expert on other classes, nor claim to know the magnitude of effect that it has on them, but I would assume any with any type of timing/regeneration/etc. DO suffer at least some at even a somewhat competitive level of play.

 

So again, these two problems equally need to be on the top of your to-do list as priority #1 in your next patch. The animation casting needs to go, seriously, I can not stress how awful this makes some classes gameplay. Character responsiveness the way it is should have never made it out of beta. Nearly everyone (minus the awful/inexperienced) in my guild notice this, as well as thousands of others.

 

 

Please respond.

 

So i cutted what was specific to the sniper ( since they are getting a fix for their cover bug in 1.0.2).

Also i am having trouble understanding what you mean by character responsiveness.

If you mean that after you click an ability it takes 0.5-1sec to land on the target and damage him that is normal. You should still be able to fire 1 ability every gcd tho, no matter what.

 

( I have also yet to see any video that shows an ability not firing when it should, aside from the off gcd ability bug)

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Parali

Parali

Posted
Posted

Hello!

 

Georg Zoeller responded to a similar post in the Developer Tracker. Here's what he had to say:

 

This issue is under active investigation.

 

The complication is that there are actually a number of different issues with very different causes and potential resolutions lumped together in this thread.

 

All we can say for now is 'we are actively working on the topic of character responsiveness'.

 

We understand that this is a subject the community is very eager to hear more about. Thank you for your patience.

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