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

[D_K_night]

try doing a pvp warzone and compare the response difference between star wars and wow. one of the best comparisons i've ever seen anyone mention, is the elemental shaman. When elemental overload procs, notice that your skills don't get locked out and those procs are not locked by character animation restrictions. The experience feels smooth, frantic, and satisfying.

whereas here in star wars, when i fire off an instant(which has any kind of extended animation sequence), the game feels slow. Also they need to fix that channeling bar bug. There are many times where i'm healing a flashpoint and the channeling bar fails to display. This makes me wonder...OK...am I actually still casting? That needs to be fixed.

[Glorious Leader]

try doing a pvp warzone and compare the response difference between star wars and wow. one of the best comparisons i've ever seen anyone mention, is the elemental shaman. When elemental overload procs, notice that your skills don't get locked out and those procs are not locked by character animation restrictions. The experience feels smooth, frantic, and satisfying.

whereas here in star wars, when i fire off an instant(which has any kind of extended animation sequence), the game feels slow. Also they need to fix that channeling bar bug. There are many times where i'm healing a flashpoint and the channeling bar fails to display. This makes me wonder...OK...am I actually still casting? That needs to be fixed.

I did notice the second one. Force lightening channels and I'm not sure if the ticks of the first second of channel are going off or not.

[D_K_night]

I did notice the second one. Force lightening channels and I'm not sure if the ticks of the first second of channel are going off or not.

that's right. due to this, it's also hard to tell if, when you're getting hit, if those ticks of force lightning are being subtracted. it wouldn't surprise me really, as wow was similar in the sense that, if you channeled drain life or mind flay and you were taking hits, that you'd lose ticks. so it's reasonable to assume the same here.

the nice animation needs to take a backseat to immediate game response and feedback.

[Glorious Leader]

that's right. due to this, it's also hard to tell if, when you're getting hit, if those ticks of force lightning are being subtracted. it wouldn't surprise me really, as wow was similar in the sense that, if you channeled drain life or mind flay and you were taking hits, that you'd lose ticks. so it's reasonable to assume the same here.

the nice animation needs to take a backseat to immediate game response and feedback.

which leads me to suspect theyll just let the abilties interuppt the animation instead of waiting for it to finish. I wonder what it will look like. TOR doesn't have the same asthetic as wow does, it looks kinda silly on my hunter but thats okay because wow is a bit silly in and of itself. I'm not so sure it will look swell on TOR but its hard to speculate.

[Surge]

which leads me to suspect theyll just let the abilties interuppt the animation instead of waiting for it to finish. I wonder what it will look like. TOR doesn't have the same asthetic as wow does, it looks kinda silly on my hunter but thats okay because wow is a bit silly in and of itself. I'm not so sure it will look swell on TOR but its hard to speculate.

I agree that some of the animations may present problems or look a bit silly when interrupted....

HOWEVER...

I'll take performance over animations any day. I have no problem seeing an occasional silly, interrupted animation while playing with a smooth, responsive control set. I can wait a lot longer for them to fix an animation than I can for them to fix a clunky control set.

And hasn't this thread given exceptional insight into human psychology? It really plays into how people form beliefs, then bend their perceptions of reality to support those belief sets regardless of evidence to the contrary. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there were still deniers of the ability lag even AFTER the devs have acknowledged the problem. This has the potential to rival religion.

[Deleted]

you do realise most of the people playing wouldnt care if it was turn based right ?

I'm sorry, but you have no clue about that.

[Heaterz 88]

Ive seen that the movement in SWTOR is on par with WoW, it actually feels like im touching the ground and im super pleased with that, most other mmo's can't even seem to get that right. But yes the combat system, ability queuing system, i donno what its called, is not right. it makes the game feel clunky and it will fail because of this. I try to have some sort of rotation and chain queue abilities together, it doesnt work out most of the time. the animation starts to not keep up with what im doing, or sometimes the ability wont keep up with the animation. Its a mess.

I'm concerned because ToR has seemed to make a pretty legit mmo here. like i stated before, the movement feels REAL good. just on par with WoW imo. but something has to be done about this combat ability issue.

At least for me, this will make or break it. It doesn't matter if you love or hate WoW. The feel of the game and how tight the ability system is, is half the reason the game has survived. ToR has part of it down, the feel of the movement, that it feels like your really walking on solid ground and that you are really interacting and belong in that environment. But the combat needs to be fixed before this game fails. As a raider in WoW i'm not even concerned about the end game raiding content in ToR yet. I can wait. First thing first, fix the combat, make it and the animation responsive and tight, and you will have yourselves a pro mmo.

[Beazy]

It's worth noting that WoW didn't finally fix this problem for itself until patch 2.3 (when they also put in latency compensation for the first time), so in mid-TBC, thus anyone expecting it to be 100% fixed in the next 30 days is probably being extremely unrealistic and needs to adjust their expectations accordingly. It should be fixed, and ASAP, but it's unlikely 30 days is in the "possible" range unless it's an extremely simple to resolve bug.

Nope, im sorry, your 100% wrong. Coming from somone who started playing wow the second the servers went up in nov 04. Aside from Loot lag, the combat response has ALWAYS been tight and responsive, its the #1 reason I chose WoW over everquest 2. To say that wow had combat lag well into BC is pure horse shit, and proves you didnt play the game in vanilla, and if you did, you clearly needed a new internet provider.

[brb2009]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...03;5955​

Thread 2 -- Page 109 -- Poster: Reedful (Professional Gaming Experience)

His Proven Credentials: http://www.arenajunkies.com/user/174129-threatslol/

WC3 Tournament Player
WoW Tournament Player
CS:S Tournament Player

Attended regionals and most MLG events from 2008-2010

Xcore: On a personal note, I value input like this a lot as this is someone with a very high understand of the intricacies of "Competitive Combat Design". I realize that the view may be a little "Hardcore" but nonetheless it is invaluable and coming from an individual that is perceiving the "Gameworld" at a higher level.

"Speaking from a professional gamer's standpoint, the game is simply unplayable. It is barely possible to outplay your opponents with a 2 second median reaction time. Olympic is .4, I'd settle for .8. It is hilarious how they were bragging about taking subscriptions away from World of Warcraft when anything in this game after the single player parts might as well have been made in 2003... by Blizzard, and then discarded so their game would actually be successful.

I can interrupt my own instant casts. There's at least a 1 second delay on every single one of my abilities(even instants not on the global) with a professional gaming computer and 3 MS. I live right down the road. You should hire me, throw away the Hero Engine and maybe we can fix your issues.

--

Say I'm CC'd by the door in Voidstar and I want to trinket to interrupt the cap - here we have a perfect example of how you've ripped off World of Warcraft almost to the letter with everything from the battleground style in this, "Warzone," to "Tenacity" AND it's cooldown, et al, holy moly.

So anyway, here I am playing a WoW clone, stunned by the door. I trinket(I am not going to call it Tenacity because it is a blatant rip off of World of Warcraft and it hasn't established a real name for itself.) Nothing happens. Nothing happens for almost an entire global. I am spamming Concussion Charge. At this point I have only casted Tenacity, which does not use my global and I have waited for 1.5 seconds. Finally, the game registers that I have casted my PvP trinket, takes the cooldown 2 seconds late, frees me from my CC and allows my Concussion Charge spam to activate the ability except I get knocked back, the UI tells me my instant cast ability was interrupted and my Resolve bar has already decayed to 75%.

There is no saying, "hehehe don't spam your abilities." There is no saying, "well I still like the game anyway!" There is no saying, "well if everyone has the same lag, it's balanced!""

[Deleted]

Well, he / she 's right.

Everything feels like tarpitted.
Fluid as Honey.
Rapid as Glue.

But they never intended to make it a PVP title.
Afaik they wanted us to play a narrated book.

Well atleast I feel like I played one, but after I'm done reading it ( hit 50 ) and not interested in reading the underlined text ( Hard Flashpoints ) I can grab another book...

[Brimstone]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...03;5955​

I can interrupt my own instant casts. There's at least a 1 second delay on every single one of my abilities(even instants not on the global) with a professional gaming computer and 3 MS.

And of course since he is a "professional" game player (can't help but laugh here) his input is completely credible, there would never be a possible agenda there... never ...yeah right... if you want to bash something at least try to make your claim look believable.

[Deleted]

In regards to the Op that it will make or break the game?

Im not too sure, the majority of players wont care or even notice to be honest. but yes for me it is incredibly annoying, and makes pvp on my Sentinel or shadow utter treacle.

It certainly is gamebreaking to any hardcore player thats for sure but i dont think they are remotely the target audience at all at all,

My main concern is how it was not tackled in the beta, the beta was like jammers with people for a long time playing round the clock as well as tons more during the beta weekends? wasnt it? It was glaringly obvious to me from the first zone and more so from the first bit of pvp

[Jira]

And of course since he is a "professional" game player (can't help but laugh here) his input is completely credible, there would never be a possible agenda there... never ...yeah right... if you want to bash something at least try to make your claim look believable.

Yeah, 1 second delay on every ability? Maybe that's just me, but I believe that even "not professional" gamers would notice that.
On a sidenote, I have yet to manage to cancel my own Shock (instant ability).

[Brimstone]

Yeah, 1 second delay on every ability? Maybe that's just me, but I believe that even "not professional" gamers would notice that.
On a sidenote, I have yet to manage to cancel my own Shock (instant ability).

yep it's a complete exaggeration and makes him lose all credibility in his claim.

---------- Post added 2012-01-05 at 03:15 PM ----------

In regards to the Op that it will make or break the game?

Im not too sure, the majority of players wont care or even notice to be honest. but yes for me it is incredibly annoying, and makes pvp on my Sentinel or shadow utter treacle.

It certainly is gamebreaking to any hardcore player thats for sure but i dont think they are remotely the target audience at all at all,

My main concern is how it was not tackled in the beta, the beta was like jammers with people for a long time playing round the clock as well as tons more during the beta weekends? wasnt it? It was glaringly obvious to me from the first zone and more so from the first bit of pvp

It is indeed weird that this went through the whole beta period as it is noticeable. However at least for me it happens only SOMETIMES and on just a few abilities.

It is annoying as being used raiding semi-hardcore for 7 years in WoW I was aiming at max dps, chaining my abilities and adapting to gcd.

I don't think it is game-breaking at this point and I am adapting, but I am starting operations next week and then I will see how it affects actually competitive gameplay (at least in pve)

[fairlycrazy23]

I'm not by any means a professional or hard core gamer but I do notice the long delays for 'instant' abilities and several other little annoyances and these make PVP almost unplayable for some, myself included.

The 'lag' and other problems with combat don't seem to have much effect on PVE but may on 'hard' content and I will be interested to here more about those encounters.

[Northy]

Ive seen that the movement in SWTOR is on par with WoW, it actually feels like im touching the ground and im super pleased with that, most other mmo's can't even seem to get that right. But yes the combat system, ability queuing system, i donno what its called, is not right. it makes the game feel clunky and it will fail because of this. I try to have some sort of rotation and chain queue abilities together, it doesnt work out most of the time. the animation starts to not keep up with what im doing, or sometimes the ability wont keep up with the animation. Its a mess.

I'm concerned because ToR has seemed to make a pretty legit mmo here. like i stated before, the movement feels REAL good. just on par with WoW imo. but something has to be done about this combat ability issue.

At least for me, this will make or break it. It doesn't matter if you love or hate WoW. The feel of the game and how tight the ability system is, is half the reason the game has survived. ToR has part of it down, the feel of the movement, that it feels like your really walking on solid ground and that you are really interacting and belong in that environment. But the combat needs to be fixed before this game fails. As a raider in WoW i'm not even concerned about the end game raiding content in ToR yet. I can wait. First thing first, fix the combat, make it and the animation responsive and tight, and you will have yourselves a pro mmo.

Exactly, it's impossible to have a rotation or play in PvP because abilities bug out, or simply refuse to execute. I may have to take a break until the "combat/ability lag" issue is fixed.

[MistyMountainHopper]

I have nothing really to add to the subject, but did notice one thing after a few weeks of playing.

The issue at hand is most pronounced in the healing classes, but especially the Imperial Agent - Operative healer (and I'm guessing the Republic mirror too)

My main heal (Kolto Injection) is meant to be a 2.5 second cast heal, but is often the source of frustrating bottle necking as I wait for the dart to fire. It's even worse when trying to cast a quick heal, activate an energy regen ability (which is meant to be off the GCD I think) and then try to get in another heal ASAP. When a tank first charges into a group of mobs, there is always moments of heal spam to try and catch up to his quickly falling health. If one of my abilities hangs or doesn't activate, I will either lose the tank or have to burn energy to make up for the health gap I've created. And on an Op healer, burning energy usually means a temporary save only.

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

The problem is definitely there- I'm sure a lot more people are experiencing it, but they're facerollers that can't notice these kinds of things.

It doesn't really make the game unplayable right now, since 99% of the game is levelling to 50 and experiencing the story. However, now that I've hit 50, I have no desire to attempt hard modes. I'm assuming the 'optimizations' mentioned for the future patch notes for this month will fix this problem.

[jeepguy16]

The only thing I can relate to are the odd animations and the timing of when the ability actually casts.
I can say that playing my Smuggler Scoundrel, the animation vs timing for back blast is kind of annoying but in the opposite way most are saying. Back blast does the damage as soon as you hit the button, but then you are sitting there watching your character do the animation before you can use another spell. That is annoying. I am not sure what the solution is exactly, as I love the animation, and wouldn't want to see the damg moved to the end exactly....but....it's a bit off.
As someone else mentioned, Master Strike can be annoying as well, but it does it's damg over the length of the spell and is a channeled spell instead. Still, very annoying in pvp. I really don't like the idea of any channeled ability for a melee class....

[Niyari]

Nope, im sorry, your 100% wrong. Coming from somone who started playing wow the second the servers went up in nov 04. Aside from Loot lag, the combat response has ALWAYS been tight and responsive, its the #1 reason I chose WoW over everquest 2. To say that wow had combat lag well into BC is pure horse shit, and proves you didnt play the game in vanilla, and if you did, you clearly needed a new internet provider.

Yup, same here. I see a bunch of people on the swtor forums talking about how WoW was messed up at the beginning, but that's just not true. Other than stuff like loot lag and random quest bugs here and there, the majority of the problems stemmed from the servers not being able to handle the ridiculous amount of people.

I really hope this lag gets fixed though, it was the very first thing I noticed when I got out and started killing stuff on my Agent. I managed to put up with it leveling to 50, but screw doing any sort of pvp or raiding with that bs. Rather stick a spoon up my ____.