The game is overall fun to play or at least definitely one to check. As for the latest expansion, I'd say it's overall positive with the exception of the Necromancer, who's not what I would expect a necromancer to be. Warlock doesn't have the same pull I suppose, but it's closer to what the ESO Necro actually is.
get rid of level scaling and I will consider playing
I kind of agree with this. I hate level scaling. I much prefer the prelevel scaling feel despite how linear it felt. You feel like you are achieving something. It was still worthwhile to explore the zones. As long as the zones are big enough, which to me they were, they were fun.
I still felt like when I was playing this was the best MMO currently, so I may try again with the Dragon expansion as the anchors and lack of danger in the world with level scaling was one of my biggest issues.
get rid of level scaling and I will consider playing
I kind of agree with this. I hate level scaling. I much prefer the prelevel scaling feel despite how linear it felt. You feel like you are achieving something. It was still worthwhile to explore the zones. As long as the zones are big enough, which to me they were, they were fun.
I still felt like when I was playing this was the best MMO currently, so I may try again with the Dragon expansion as the anchors and lack of danger in the world with level scaling was one of my biggest issues.
"Level scaling" isn't what a lot of people think it is; you get a boost early in your characters journey but from cp160 nothing: no scaling whatsoever. Now things do get easier but that is because you are "achieving" something.
And at some point ZoS knew that they couldn't simply add 10 levels so that the new zone was "harder". As a result they worked on mechanics. Consequently some things are hard. Some dungeons are very hard. Raids are mostly for later. Trials are what you make of them.
Does this mean its all hard - no. Does this mean there is no danger - no. You get a mix. And as you progress stuff will get easier because there is achievement.
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
The best feature is if I wait a year, I'll be able to buy Elsweyr cheaper without that "thing" they ostensibly call a Necromancer. I've played a necro in every game that's had one, from EQ to Age of Conan, and what ZOS has provided is NOT a necro. Might be able to scratch a semblance of a Death Knight or Warlock out of it, but that's about it.
At this point the Warden/Vamp is more of a Necro sounds like. He has the option of running around with that grey skinned bear which makes it look like an undead pet. Plus the same lines of dps, tank, and healing without the skulls and skeletons but with nature spirits. Decent evasion, drain, and stealth from vamp line.
Perhaps Necro should have been more like joining the psijic order and picking up an extra skill line. Still looking forward to testing it out on the 20th.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
Animation canceling was exactly why I stopped playing. I liked the game too, but you could not even get into some groups without using animation canceling and that is ridiculous as I still consider it cheating by any sense of the word. It is not a hard fix either, just inexcusable that they have let it go on so long.
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
Animation canceling was exactly why I stopped playing. I liked the game too, but you could not even get into some groups without using animation canceling and that is ridiculous as I still consider it cheating by any sense of the word. It is not a hard fix either, just inexcusable that they have let it go on so long.
Basic animation cancelling (LA weaving) is so simple and intuitive most players do it without even knowing they're doing it since when you're in a tough spot you instinctively do things faster and that's all it takes to do it. The more advanced versions (block, bash or bar-swap cancelling) take a bit more practice but they're not hard either.
What I find funny about the litany of animation cancelling complaints over the years is that it flies in the face of the equally numerous ESO is too easy complaints. So it's too easy and yet some people are excluded from groups because they lack the skill... weird contradiction that.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
Animation canceling was exactly why I stopped playing. I liked the game too, but you could not even get into some groups without using animation canceling and that is ridiculous as I still consider it cheating by any sense of the word. It is not a hard fix either, just inexcusable that they have let it go on so long.
Basic animation cancelling (LA weaving) is so simple and intuitive most players do it without even knowing they're doing it since when you're in a tough spot you instinctively do things faster and that's all it takes to do it. The more advanced versions (block, bash or bar-swap cancelling) take a bit more practice but they're not hard either.
What I find funny about the litany of animation cancelling complaints over the years is that it flies in the face of the equally numerous ESO is too easy complaints. So it's too easy and yet some people are excluded from groups because they lack the skill... weird contradiction that.
Never said it was that hard to do, just that it is not my style of play to abuse mechanics and when someone tries to tell me I have to do so in the group I will just not do it. Even veteran instances can be done without it, not sure why some people are so attached to it. I'd much rather play in a game where people are not making me change my style to suit their requirements.
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
Animation canceling was exactly why I stopped playing. I liked the game too, but you could not even get into some groups without using animation canceling and that is ridiculous as I still consider it cheating by any sense of the word. It is not a hard fix either, just inexcusable that they have let it go on so long.
Basic animation cancelling (LA weaving) is so simple and intuitive most players do it without even knowing they're doing it since when you're in a tough spot you instinctively do things faster and that's all it takes to do it. The more advanced versions (block, bash or bar-swap cancelling) take a bit more practice but they're not hard either.
What I find funny about the litany of animation cancelling complaints over the years is that it flies in the face of the equally numerous ESO is too easy complaints. So it's too easy and yet some people are excluded from groups because they lack the skill... weird contradiction that.
Never said it was that hard to do, just that it is not my style of play to abuse mechanics and when someone tries to tell me I have to do so in the group I will just not do it. Even veteran instances can be done without it, not sure why some people are so attached to it. I'd much rather play in a game where people are not making me change my style to suit their requirements.
It's not attachment it's a simple consequence of an action combat system with active block. To be able to block on demand you have to be able to cancel whatever else you were doing when you need to block or roll dodge or bash.
I can see someone not liking action combat but making animations uninterruptible would be a totally different type of game where they would have to go with the usual lower incoming damage kludge where your damage mitigation is all about what you're wearing instead of by actively doing something.
If there's an action combat game with active damage mitigation without animation cancelling I don't know of it.
To me it's a simple matter of working with the system as is... perfect or not.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
Animation canceling was exactly why I stopped playing. I liked the game too, but you could not even get into some groups without using animation canceling and that is ridiculous as I still consider it cheating by any sense of the word. It is not a hard fix either, just inexcusable that they have let it go on so long.
Basic animation cancelling (LA weaving) is so simple and intuitive most players do it without even knowing they're doing it since when you're in a tough spot you instinctively do things faster and that's all it takes to do it. The more advanced versions (block, bash or bar-swap cancelling) take a bit more practice but they're not hard either.
What I find funny about the litany of animation cancelling complaints over the years is that it flies in the face of the equally numerous ESO is too easy complaints. So it's too easy and yet some people are excluded from groups because they lack the skill... weird contradiction that.
Never said it was that hard to do, just that it is not my style of play to abuse mechanics and when someone tries to tell me I have to do so in the group I will just not do it. Even veteran instances can be done without it, not sure why some people are so attached to it. I'd much rather play in a game where people are not making me change my style to suit their requirements.
It's not attachment it's a simple consequence of an action combat system with active block. To be able to block on demand you have to be able to cancel whatever else you were doing when you need to block or roll dodge or bash.
I can see someone not liking action combat but making animations uninterruptible would be a totally different type of game where they would have to go with the usual lower incoming damage kludge where your damage mitigation is all about what you're wearing instead of by actively doing something.
If there's an action combat game with active damage mitigation without animation cancelling I don't know of it.
To me it's a simple matter of working with the system as is... perfect or not.
If not having animation cancelling did mean dps rate and so on went down significantly (not sure it would matter MMOs are all easy mode anyway), you could just decrease the HP of the mobs. A system where you choose a skill/power dependent on the situation would be better but not asking for a major overhaul here. Simply getting rid of something left over from the early days of gaming would be enough.
Animation canceling still in? still a broke game then. They took a bug and said...oh it was a feature. Gimme a damn break and gtfo. Yes I can do it, it isnt hard takes practice, but I still dont like it as it comes across 1) as a easy way out and 2) takes away immersion 3) leads to nerfing of items based on how well you can do this.
Animation canceling was exactly why I stopped playing. I liked the game too, but you could not even get into some groups without using animation canceling and that is ridiculous as I still consider it cheating by any sense of the word. It is not a hard fix either, just inexcusable that they have let it go on so long.
Basic animation cancelling (LA weaving) is so simple and intuitive most players do it without even knowing they're doing it since when you're in a tough spot you instinctively do things faster and that's all it takes to do it. The more advanced versions (block, bash or bar-swap cancelling) take a bit more practice but they're not hard either.
What I find funny about the litany of animation cancelling complaints over the years is that it flies in the face of the equally numerous ESO is too easy complaints. So it's too easy and yet some people are excluded from groups because they lack the skill... weird contradiction that.
Never said it was that hard to do, just that it is not my style of play to abuse mechanics and when someone tries to tell me I have to do so in the group I will just not do it. Even veteran instances can be done without it, not sure why some people are so attached to it. I'd much rather play in a game where people are not making me change my style to suit their requirements.
It's not attachment it's a simple consequence of an action combat system with active block. To be able to block on demand you have to be able to cancel whatever else you were doing when you need to block or roll dodge or bash.
I can see someone not liking action combat but making animations uninterruptible would be a totally different type of game where they would have to go with the usual lower incoming damage kludge where your damage mitigation is all about what you're wearing instead of by actively doing something.
If there's an action combat game with active damage mitigation without animation cancelling I don't know of it.
To me it's a simple matter of working with the system as is... perfect or not.
If not having animation cancelling did mean dps rate and so on went down significantly (not sure it would matter MMOs are all easy mode anyway), you could just decrease the HP of the mobs. A system where you choose a skill/power dependent on the situation would be better but not asking for a major overhaul here. Simply getting rid of something left over from the early days of gaming would be enough.
Of course it can be adjusted and done at a different slower rate locking in the animations just like a lot of other MMOs have done.
They opted for a fast and reactive game without the AOE taunts that eliminate the need for anyone but the tank to react to attacks. In ESO dungeons everyone can get attacked and if you've played any MMOs where the healer gets aggro and has to stop healing you'd know how quickly you can wipe when that happens.
In ESO healers can cope with that because you can animation cancel the heals to protect yourself and the heals still heal. If instead you prevented heals from counting if you cancel out of the healing animation the adjustments to combat you'd need to make would be massive and would probably end-up with the ubiquitous WOW aggro everything tank.
Like I said, a different game altogether. Sounds like a simple change but it would change a whole lot more than you think.
People taking advantage of the system to up their DPS with fake defensive reactions is a byproduct I'm quite happy to live with because the whole enchilada with limited taunt is a far more engaging system than the old-fashioned tank and spank from WOW and other older MMOs. Not to mention that the "taunt them all" mechanics are silly as fuck.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
what's the prob with canceling here? when i cancel my moves before they do their dmg, the dmg won't be done.
you can easily try that on flurry (dual wield), cancel before the finaly hit, no final hit. cancel after the first 2 hits, and that's it, 2 hits.
was way worse in aion for example.
That's only true for attacks that have multiple ticks. Flurry is one and the Templar's beam is another - anything channeled works that way. But any attack or heal that has just one hit - even if they're DOTs or HOTs - can be cancelled and still hit or heal for the full amount.
There is also a very brief amount of time at the beginning of all skill animations where you can cancel too early and it won't count... but my fingers are not that fast so it's not something I need to worry about.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Of course it can be adjusted and done at a different slower rate locking in the animations just like a lot of other MMOs have done.
They opted for a fast and reactive game without the AOE taunts that eliminate the need for anyone but the tank to react to attacks. In ESO dungeons everyone can get attacked and if you've played any MMOs where the healer gets aggro and has to stop healing you'd know how quickly you can wipe when that happens.
In ESO healers can cope with that because you can animation cancel the heals to protect yourself and the heals still heal. If instead you prevented heals from counting if you cancel out of the healing animation the adjustments to combat you'd need to make would be massive and would probably end-up with the ubiquitous WOW aggro everything tank.
Like I said, a different game altogether. Sounds like a simple change but it would change a whole lot more than you think.
People taking advantage of the system to up their DPS with fake defensive reactions is a byproduct I'm quite happy to live with because the whole enchilada with limited taunt is a far more engaging system than the old-fashioned tank and spank from WOW and other older MMOs. Not to mention that the "taunt them all" mechanics are silly as fuck.
I take your point that losing it might have a greater effect on the combat system than I thought, but it is so nineties, it is like bunny hopping in shooters, gaming needs to leave this sort of gameplay behind.
Of course it can be adjusted and done at a different slower rate locking in the animations just like a lot of other MMOs have done.
They opted for a fast and reactive game without the AOE taunts that eliminate the need for anyone but the tank to react to attacks. In ESO dungeons everyone can get attacked and if you've played any MMOs where the healer gets aggro and has to stop healing you'd know how quickly you can wipe when that happens.
In ESO healers can cope with that because you can animation cancel the heals to protect yourself and the heals still heal. If instead you prevented heals from counting if you cancel out of the healing animation the adjustments to combat you'd need to make would be massive and would probably end-up with the ubiquitous WOW aggro everything tank.
Like I said, a different game altogether. Sounds like a simple change but it would change a whole lot more than you think.
People taking advantage of the system to up their DPS with fake defensive reactions is a byproduct I'm quite happy to live with because the whole enchilada with limited taunt is a far more engaging system than the old-fashioned tank and spank from WOW and other older MMOs. Not to mention that the "taunt them all" mechanics are silly as fuck.
I take your point that losing it might have a greater effect on the combat system than I thought, but it is so nineties, it is like bunny hopping in shooters, gaming needs to leave this sort of gameplay behind.
You must have spent your nineties in a time warp or alternate universe. Those early MMOs were all about watching the bar go through the global cooldown for 1.5 seconds, then hit an ability and watch the 3 second animation while you were rooted in place. All this while watching the game do the basic weapon attack without any input from you - it just happened automatically the whole time you were in combat.
Action combat in MMOs is a relatively new thing and so is animation cancelling.
90s lol
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Of course it can be adjusted and done at a different slower rate locking in the animations just like a lot of other MMOs have done.
They opted for a fast and reactive game without the AOE taunts that eliminate the need for anyone but the tank to react to attacks. In ESO dungeons everyone can get attacked and if you've played any MMOs where the healer gets aggro and has to stop healing you'd know how quickly you can wipe when that happens.
In ESO healers can cope with that because you can animation cancel the heals to protect yourself and the heals still heal. If instead you prevented heals from counting if you cancel out of the healing animation the adjustments to combat you'd need to make would be massive and would probably end-up with the ubiquitous WOW aggro everything tank.
Like I said, a different game altogether. Sounds like a simple change but it would change a whole lot more than you think.
People taking advantage of the system to up their DPS with fake defensive reactions is a byproduct I'm quite happy to live with because the whole enchilada with limited taunt is a far more engaging system than the old-fashioned tank and spank from WOW and other older MMOs. Not to mention that the "taunt them all" mechanics are silly as fuck.
I take your point that losing it might have a greater effect on the combat system than I thought, but it is so nineties, it is like bunny hopping in shooters, gaming needs to leave this sort of gameplay behind.
You must have spent your nineties in a time warp or alternate universe. Those early MMOs were all about watching the bar go through the global cooldown for 1.5 seconds, then hit an ability and watch the 3 second animation while you were rooted in place. All this while watching the game do the basic weapon attack without any input from you - it just happened automatically the whole time you were in combat.
Action combat in MMOs is a relatively new thing and so is animation cancelling.
90s lol
I was not saying it was in MMOs in the 90's just that the concept was that old. Bunny hopping was and after a check the first animation cancelling was in 2000, so not far of. It started in action games but then MMO picked it up which to my mind was a bad move. I thought it was a bit lame in action games, no better in MMOs. I can see the issues you are talking about with rooted players and so on, but there has to be a better way to sort that out.
How you structure registery of damage and events would go a long way in mitigating animation canceling having value. If damage is largely calculated at completion of an animation, meaning if you cancel early you just don't do damage, that would already break a lot of the tendency to use it.
ESO just wasn't built initially for what they are doing with it unfortunately. The skills were originally designed to be the classic use skill then timer thing, and the game was pushed into becoming an action title due to early beta backlash. For what it is, it's one of the better versions, but there are still problems as a consequence of the game being a bit of a retrofit.
How you structure registery of damage and events would go a long way in mitigating animation canceling having value. If damage is largely calculated at completion of an animation, meaning if you cancel early you just don't do damage, that would already break a lot of the tendency to use it.
ESO just wasn't built initially for what they are doing with it unfortunately. The skills were originally designed to be the classic use skill then timer thing, and the game was pushed into becoming an action title due to early beta backlash. For what it is, it's one of the better versions, but there are still problems as a consequence of the game being a bit of a retrofit.
This game has always been about no cooldown, instant abilities while moving and that includes early alpha and betas. Resource consumption and regeneration has always been the determining factor instead of artificial programmed delays. It's obvious they always wanted a fast and fluid style of combat.
As to your simple solution, it would be a massive game changing one especially for healing since, as I said above, there is no AOE "taunt them all" cheesy mechanics in the game. Tanks in ESO have to taunt one at a time and use pulls and roots and other mechanics to try to gather as much as they can but there are always outliers that will attack other players including the healer. With your solution the healer would have to stop healing to deal with the mob(s) aggroed on him/her. With animation cancelling they can block and bash AND heal normally at the same time.
All this animation cancelling concern is frankly silly. If the game were balanced around animation cancelling that would be one thing and a bad one because it would force it on you. But it isn't balanced that way.
Full on cancelling just makes you OP'd and allows you to cheese content and kill bosses before they have time to do their trickier mechanics, but it is absolutely not required to complete anything. It is only "required" by the 1337 that want to compete for fastest clears of the hardest content by cheesing it with OP'd characters.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
How you structure registery of damage and events would go a long way in mitigating animation canceling having value. If damage is largely calculated at completion of an animation, meaning if you cancel early you just don't do damage, that would already break a lot of the tendency to use it.
ESO just wasn't built initially for what they are doing with it unfortunately. The skills were originally designed to be the classic use skill then timer thing, and the game was pushed into becoming an action title due to early beta backlash. For what it is, it's one of the better versions, but there are still problems as a consequence of the game being a bit of a retrofit.
This game has always been about no cooldown, instant abilities while moving and that includes early alpha and betas. Resource consumption and regeneration has always been the determining factor instead of artificial programmed delays. It's obvious they always wanted a fast and fluid style of combat.
As to your simple solution, it would be a massive game changing one especially for healing since, as I said above, there is no AOE "taunt them all" cheesy mechanics in the game. Tanks in ESO have to taunt one at a time and use pulls and roots and other mechanics to try to gather as much as they can but there are always outliers that will attack other players including the healer. With your solution the healer would have to stop healing to deal with the mob(s) aggroed on him/her. With animation cancelling they can block and bash AND heal normally at the same time.
All this animation cancelling concern is frankly silly. If the game were balanced around animation cancelling that would be one thing and a bad one because it would force it on you. But it isn't balanced that way.
Full on cancelling just makes you OP'd and allows you to cheese content and kill bosses before they have time to do their trickier mechanics, but it is absolutely not required to complete anything. It is only "required" by the 1337 that want to compete for fastest clears of the hardest content by cheesing it with OP'd characters.
As noted, the original private testing actually had tab-target combat akin to WoW. That's a major reason why the game had so much backlash pre-launch as it was a fundamentally different experience compared to the single player titles, Zenimax Online crunched to convert the combat system. It's why the 2012 E3 demo of it was received better because they showed off a new combat system publicly using the reticle method to distance from that initial kerfuffle.
Doen't help it was built on an engine that was not built with the new style of play in mind or supported at the time either.
And animation canceling may be a choice of the players to exploit, but that does not make it less impactful on a game that contains competitive and ranked play as a component of it.
You are also implying many changes that would be beyond the suggestion made. Short animations are still quick to trigger, such as the taunt's given one is a quick stab and another is a quick toss. You can still manage fast actions around integral or clutch abilities by simply having a short animation on them. Like one of the main heals for aoe is an instant cast any ways.
You summarized the problem yourself, with animation canceling they can do three things at once as if they had three sets of arms. Which doesn't sit naturally in general.
Comments
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
I kind of agree with this. I hate level scaling. I much prefer the prelevel scaling feel despite how linear it felt. You feel like you are achieving something. It was still worthwhile to explore the zones. As long as the zones are big enough, which to me they were, they were fun. I still felt like when I was playing this was the best MMO currently, so I may try again with the Dragon expansion as the anchors and lack of danger in the world with level scaling was one of my biggest issues.
There Is Always Hope!
"Level scaling" isn't what a lot of people think it is; you get a boost early in your characters journey but from cp160 nothing: no scaling whatsoever. Now things do get easier but that is because you are "achieving" something.
And at some point ZoS knew that they couldn't simply add 10 levels so that the new zone was "harder". As a result they worked on mechanics. Consequently some things are hard. Some dungeons are very hard. Raids are mostly for later. Trials are what you make of them.
Does this mean its all hard - no. Does this mean there is no danger - no. You get a mix. And as you progress stuff will get easier because there is achievement.
You know all games have animation cancelling yes?
At this point the Warden/Vamp is more of a Necro sounds like. He has the option of running around with that grey skinned bear which makes it look like an undead pet. Plus the same lines of dps, tank, and healing without the skulls and skeletons but with nature spirits. Decent evasion, drain, and stealth from vamp line.
Perhaps Necro should have been more like joining the psijic order and picking up an extra skill line. Still looking forward to testing it out on the 20th.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
What I find funny about the litany of animation cancelling complaints over the years is that it flies in the face of the equally numerous ESO is too easy complaints. So it's too easy and yet some people are excluded from groups because they lack the skill... weird contradiction that.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I can see someone not liking action combat but making animations uninterruptible would be a totally different type of game where they would have to go with the usual lower incoming damage kludge where your damage mitigation is all about what you're wearing instead of by actively doing something.
If there's an action combat game with active damage mitigation without animation cancelling I don't know of it.
To me it's a simple matter of working with the system as is... perfect or not.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
If not having animation cancelling did mean dps rate and so on went down significantly (not sure it would matter MMOs are all easy mode anyway), you could just decrease the HP of the mobs. A system where you choose a skill/power dependent on the situation would be better but not asking for a major overhaul here. Simply getting rid of something left over from the early days of gaming would be enough.
They opted for a fast and reactive game without the AOE taunts that eliminate the need for anyone but the tank to react to attacks. In ESO dungeons everyone can get attacked and if you've played any MMOs where the healer gets aggro and has to stop healing you'd know how quickly you can wipe when that happens.
In ESO healers can cope with that because you can animation cancel the heals to protect yourself and the heals still heal. If instead you prevented heals from counting if you cancel out of the healing animation the adjustments to combat you'd need to make would be massive and would probably end-up with the ubiquitous WOW aggro everything tank.
Like I said, a different game altogether. Sounds like a simple change but it would change a whole lot more than you think.
People taking advantage of the system to up their DPS with fake defensive reactions is a byproduct I'm quite happy to live with because the whole enchilada with limited taunt is a far more engaging system than the old-fashioned tank and spank from WOW and other older MMOs. Not to mention that the "taunt them all" mechanics are silly as fuck.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
when i cancel my moves before they do their dmg, the dmg won't be done.
you can easily try that on flurry (dual wield), cancel before the finaly hit, no final hit. cancel after the first 2 hits, and that's it, 2 hits.
was way worse in aion for example.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
There is also a very brief amount of time at the beginning of all skill animations where you can cancel too early and it won't count... but my fingers are not that fast so it's not something I need to worry about.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Action combat in MMOs is a relatively new thing and so is animation cancelling.
90s lol
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
ESO just wasn't built initially for what they are doing with it unfortunately. The skills were originally designed to be the classic use skill then timer thing, and the game was pushed into becoming an action title due to early beta backlash. For what it is, it's one of the better versions, but there are still problems as a consequence of the game being a bit of a retrofit.
As to your simple solution, it would be a massive game changing one especially for healing since, as I said above, there is no AOE "taunt them all" cheesy mechanics in the game. Tanks in ESO have to taunt one at a time and use pulls and roots and other mechanics to try to gather as much as they can but there are always outliers that will attack other players including the healer. With your solution the healer would have to stop healing to deal with the mob(s) aggroed on him/her. With animation cancelling they can block and bash AND heal normally at the same time.
All this animation cancelling concern is frankly silly. If the game were balanced around animation cancelling that would be one thing and a bad one because it would force it on you. But it isn't balanced that way.
Full on cancelling just makes you OP'd and allows you to cheese content and kill bosses before they have time to do their trickier mechanics, but it is absolutely not required to complete anything. It is only "required" by the 1337 that want to compete for fastest clears of the hardest content by cheesing it with OP'd characters.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Doen't help it was built on an engine that was not built with the new style of play in mind or supported at the time either.
And animation canceling may be a choice of the players to exploit, but that does not make it less impactful on a game that contains competitive and ranked play as a component of it.
You are also implying many changes that would be beyond the suggestion made. Short animations are still quick to trigger, such as the taunt's given one is a quick stab and another is a quick toss. You can still manage fast actions around integral or clutch abilities by simply having a short animation on them. Like one of the main heals for aoe is an instant cast any ways.
You summarized the problem yourself, with animation canceling they can do three things at once as if they had three sets of arms. Which doesn't sit naturally in general.