I tend to let animations play out when doing stuff solo - unless it starts to get really hard! Its an option.
Animation cancelling however is a design decision - its not bad programming. Think of it as a setting the GCD (global cooldown) to zero.
And its a discussion that exists in many games - the gcd is to long, its to short, some powers have finished but you can't cast, all the spells are the same there is no varirty. Over the years I think all shades of opinion have been expressed. Especially when you factor lag in with gcd!
ESO has opted for a particular path. And it does not mean that someone can spam ad infinitum since there is a resource limitation.
Would I prefer it done differently? To be honest I just don't think about it. It is what it is. And for all the negatives there are positives. The discussion about the problems with SWTOR's gcd for example went on and on - just one example, as I said its a recurrent theme.
I don't think it's quote so clear.
Generally, games only allow animation cancelling to allow defensive maneuvers (i.e. blocking overriding a backswing in Vermintide 2). That's an intentional tactical option: you lose the benefit of the swing to allow yourself to block. Allowing attacks to continue despite having cancelled said attack seems more like an oversight.
Add in latency, and things only get worse.
Either way, it's not game-breaking, though it is a pet peeve of mine.
There have been so many discussions about global cooldown over the last 2 decades that - whilst possible - I find it unlikely.
The basic discussions go as follows:
Bottomline 1: some people don't like AC.
To avoid AC totally you have to have a GCD equal to the longest power/spell animation. If some abilities have a cast / animation time less than the GCD you end up with people twiddling their thumbs. Cast an instant say then if the GCD is 3 secs you get a forum full of combat is slow and sluggish threads. There are posters in ESO threads who have stated they will not play games which don't have GCD. Bottomline 2: some people want "fast" combat.
Reduce the GCD to less than the max animation time creates a half-way house. This can upset both camps depending how far it is slanted towards one side or the other. And you get lots of threads about the best spell rotations and how if you do this that triggers the GCD etc.
Make all the animations short and snappy, make sure you have no instant cast spells = discussions about how a games animations suck. Bottomline 3: some people want "flashy" non-dull games.
Now you can keep the "pretty graphics" crowd happy by keeping the animations but reducing cast times. Another "mixed" solution. However as GCD is invariably client side and games always have lag this can be a real mess. Usually you get bugs as well. And you end up upsetting not just camps 1, 2 and 3. Something usually gives! This has been discussed at length.
Throw in PvP - another vocal group, the potential for extra lag - since you have more net traffic - and lets not forget hacks .......
I just don't see how the developers - some at least come from games that generated threads and threads about this stuff - could be oblivious to it. Hence: design decision imo probably knowing that no single solution would make everyone happy.
Would e.g. 1.5s - or whatever - have been better? No idea. There would have been threads!
So I just play the game. Its a lot going for it and I agree with you its not game-breaking.
No it isn't game-breaking but it does create an overly large gap between the DPS floor and ceiling. And that gap -- and the many things that lead to it -- is something that developers are always trying to address and minimize.
The ESO devs are not only continuously involved in a cycle of nerfing over-performing abilities and buffing under-performers, they do other, not quite as readily apparent, things to try to minimize the disparity. For example, an intended side effect of the large resource regen nerf that came with Morrowind was forcing heavy attack use as the go-to way to regen resources.
Heavy attacks are trickier to animation cancel since if you cancel too quickly it becomes a "medium" attack and you don't get the resource regen. And the channeled lightning and resto HAs can't be animation canceled at all.
Before that change with resource pools and regen as over the top plentiful as they were, animation canceling with LA weaving was all everyone did for max DPS. The need to mix in a sufficient number of HAs slowed that down significantly.
What I think would be a good compromise in ESO is an official, in-game, macro system similar to what Rift has. It's not like there aren't a lot of PC users already using unofficial macros with their gaming KBs and mice.
I don't use macros myself but only really because I play a whole bunch of different characters of different classes and roles and I can't be bothered to do all the programming for all of them. Besides, I don't do trials on a regular basis so I don't need all that extra DPS. On the rare occasions when I do need it, my old fingers are still fast enough to animation cancel through my rotation in a pinch.
But curiosity did get the better of me a year or so ago and I created a simple macro that I bound to one of my mouse keys to bar swap on my sorc, cast surge and bar swap back just to see how to do it and the timing (in milliseconds) required to pull it off with my typical 120ms latency: it was actually very simple to do and worked great.
It wouldn't be much of a stretch to program LA/ability/block instead of just ability into any of my mouse buttons and tweak the timing... or go even further and program a whole rotation at the press of a button.
It is against the TOS to macro of course but thanks to animation canceling and different players' twitch reflex, it's also a frequently violated TOS section in platforms where you can do that.
Anyway... mea culpa for sidetracking this thread into an animation cancelling discussion
"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
It may be the start of the marketing campaign for the next chapter rather than DLC... Meaning something more meaty (and more $$ for Bethesda, as you can not buy chapters with crowns).
Stop complaining, it also means more content for you.. would you rather this be an MMO where you’re forced to subscribe?
I feel like the combat is what is holding this mmo back from being at the top of my list.They need to rework the combat and that would get me to come back. It feels very awkward and clunky. Would love a smoother and more fluid rotation.
I keep reading this but after an extensive one month play through I would have to disagree with your opinion. Now, maybe you're not used to blocking, exploiting the mob there soon after. Maybe you don't like rolling away because it requires a little extra or maybe it's just the camera just bothers you like most folk but the combat is far from clunky. Sure, sure, it's nothing like FF14's combat but the mechanics are indeed present for both where sometimes you step/roll put of a giant RED zone only to find yourself into another premeditated red zone. Yes, it is true everyone has their own style of combat that that prefer whether it be the two games I've mentioned or even grand daddy wow where you kinda just stand and step out of stuff.
All in all the combat is not for all but you can't deny the sheer amount of content this game has released for it's players. Not many games can say the same. Not many.
I tend to let animations play out when doing stuff solo - unless it starts to get really hard! Its an option.
Animation cancelling however is a design decision - its not bad programming. Think of it as a setting the GCD (global cooldown) to zero.
And its a discussion that exists in many games - the gcd is to long, its to short, some powers have finished but you can't cast, all the spells are the same there is no varirty. Over the years I think all shades of opinion have been expressed. Especially when you factor lag in with gcd!
ESO has opted for a particular path. And it does not mean that someone can spam ad infinitum since there is a resource limitation.
Would I prefer it done differently? To be honest I just don't think about it. It is what it is. And for all the negatives there are positives. The discussion about the problems with SWTOR's gcd for example went on and on - just one example, as I said its a recurrent theme.
I don't think it's quote so clear.
Generally, games only allow animation cancelling to allow defensive maneuvers (i.e. blocking overriding a backswing in Vermintide 2). That's an intentional tactical option: you lose the benefit of the swing to allow yourself to block. Allowing attacks to continue despite having cancelled said attack seems more like an oversight.
Add in latency, and things only get worse.
Either way, it's not game-breaking, though it is a pet peeve of mine.
There have been so many discussions about global cooldown over the last 2 decades that - whilst possible - I find it unlikely.
The basic discussions go as follows:
Bottomline 1: some people don't like AC.
To avoid AC totally you have to have a GCD equal to the longest power/spell animation. If some abilities have a cast / animation time less than the GCD you end up with people twiddling their thumbs. Cast an instant say then if the GCD is 3 secs you get a forum full of combat is slow and sluggish threads. There are posters in ESO threads who have stated they will not play games which don't have GCD. Bottomline 2: some people want "fast" combat.
Reduce the GCD to less than the max animation time creates a half-way house. This can upset both camps depending how far it is slanted towards one side or the other. And you get lots of threads about the best spell rotations and how if you do this that triggers the GCD etc.
Make all the animations short and snappy, make sure you have no instant cast spells = discussions about how a games animations suck. Bottomline 3: some people want "flashy" non-dull games.
Now you can keep the "pretty graphics" crowd happy by keeping the animations but reducing cast times. Another "mixed" solution. However as GCD is invariably client side and games always have lag this can be a real mess. Usually you get bugs as well. And you end up upsetting not just camps 1, 2 and 3. Something usually gives! This has been discussed at length.
Throw in PvP - another vocal group, the potential for extra lag - since you have more net traffic - and lets not forget hacks .......
I just don't see how the developers - some at least come from games that generated threads and threads about this stuff - could be oblivious to it. Hence: design decision imo probably knowing that no single solution would make everyone happy.
Would e.g. 1.5s - or whatever - have been better? No idea. There would have been threads!
So I just play the game. Its a lot going for it and I agree with you its not game-breaking.
Or they could have the spell trigger after the animation completes. You cancel the spell, you don't get the effect.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
Twitch stream in about 8 minutes if you're interested:
"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
Twitch stream in about 8 minutes if you're interested:
It's a good thing it's a very slow day at work. And that a storm "of some sort" is coming.
site is up.
I've never gotten the idea of stream chat, it's just a bunch of crap flying by.
Yeah. I just max the screen so I don't see it
"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
Comments
The ESO devs are not only continuously involved in a cycle of nerfing over-performing abilities and buffing under-performers, they do other, not quite as readily apparent, things to try to minimize the disparity. For example, an intended side effect of the large resource regen nerf that came with Morrowind was forcing heavy attack use as the go-to way to regen resources.
Heavy attacks are trickier to animation cancel since if you cancel too quickly it becomes a "medium" attack and you don't get the resource regen. And the channeled lightning and resto HAs can't be animation canceled at all.
Before that change with resource pools and regen as over the top plentiful as they were, animation canceling with LA weaving was all everyone did for max DPS. The need to mix in a sufficient number of HAs slowed that down significantly.
What I think would be a good compromise in ESO is an official, in-game, macro system similar to what Rift has. It's not like there aren't a lot of PC users already using unofficial macros with their gaming KBs and mice.
I don't use macros myself but only really because I play a whole bunch of different characters of different classes and roles and I can't be bothered to do all the programming for all of them. Besides, I don't do trials on a regular basis so I don't need all that extra DPS. On the rare occasions when I do need it, my old fingers are still fast enough to animation cancel through my rotation in a pinch.
But curiosity did get the better of me a year or so ago and I created a simple macro that I bound to one of my mouse keys to bar swap on my sorc, cast surge and bar swap back just to see how to do it and the timing (in milliseconds) required to pull it off with my typical 120ms latency: it was actually very simple to do and worked great.
It wouldn't be much of a stretch to program LA/ability/block instead of just ability into any of my mouse buttons and tweak the timing... or go even further and program a whole rotation at the press of a button.
It is against the TOS to macro of course but thanks to animation canceling and different players' twitch reflex, it's also a frequently violated TOS section in platforms where you can do that.
Anyway... mea culpa for sidetracking this thread into an animation cancelling discussion
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Stop complaining, it also means more content for you.. would you rather this be an MMO where you’re forced to subscribe?
but then who truly knows their thinking apart from... well a dev
I keep reading this but after an extensive one month play through I would have to disagree with your opinion. Now, maybe you're not used to blocking, exploiting the mob there soon after. Maybe you don't like rolling away because it requires a little extra or maybe it's just the camera just bothers you like most folk but the combat is far from clunky. Sure, sure, it's nothing like FF14's combat but the mechanics are indeed present for both where sometimes you step/roll put of a giant RED zone only to find yourself into another premeditated red zone. Yes, it is true everyone has their own style of combat that that prefer whether it be the two games I've mentioned or even grand daddy wow where you kinda just stand and step out of stuff.
All in all the combat is not for all but you can't deny the sheer amount of content this game has released for it's players. Not many games can say the same. Not many.
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
site is up.
I've never gotten the idea of stream chat, it's just a bunch of crap flying by.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED