Spellcasting and GCD Information

[Neb]

** Posting this in the Mechanic discussion forums as well, forgot there was a section for this.

No, this isn't a wall of text, if you can't read this, go back to remedial English. There will be no TL;DR version, I refuse to support degenerates. Suck it up and read it if you want to.

Since the NA Betas many posts have come up complaining about a perceived casting bug, this however is a false claim. There is no bugs with casting or animations, what you all are seeing is the effects of a dynamic combat staggering system. Unlike a general GCD system, Ala WoW, this game is not limited by a GCD System, the sooner you all get this the sooner this will all make much more sense.

The game limits you with Animations and residual animations, they are meant to be there, the reason this game has so many flashy animations is to provide a dynamic staggering of combat. This acts in some ways as a GCD but you cannot expect it to work exactly like every other GCD you've seen before. This is a different system, with different limitations and different adaptations required. You cannot expect this system to change to YOUR wants and needs, you have to adapt to it.

If you have noticed, chain spells have a very small "animation cooldown time" into which you can cast your next spell or move, other spells with 2/3 second long casts take up more animation space, ON PURPOSE, this is both during and after the casting of the spell. This isn't a bug, this isn't lag, it's a mechanic. It's a design decision to stagger combat in a dynamic way that isn't a set amount (like 1.5 sec)

I'll give some examples of this to give people a better idea of what is going on:

For Sorcerers I'll use the Flame Bolt Chain and Ice Chain for an example

When you cast Flame Bolt II(2sec) and follow it up with it's secondary chain Blaze(Instant), there will be almost no animation cooldown before Blaze is cast.
Now, if you cast Flame Bolt II(2sec) and follow it up with Ice Chain(2sec), you will notice a small ~.5 to ~.8 seconds of residual animations before Ice Chain is cast.

This is not something that they will change, at least not by release, it is a BASE mechanic, it's something the game has been designed around. If you want this to change, you're going to have to look into quite the distant future if you want a complete rework of the combat system, which is what changing would be.

Hope this helps some people understand what is going on with casting and the like, and before you all jump on a caster-hate bandwagon, melee classes are also staggered by animations as well.

[logandilts]

good post... after playing this past weekend i had thought maybe there was a glitch also... but alas i guess it's meant to be this way.

you're right... it's not going to change any time soon... so we might as well get used to it. we have to adapt to it, it's not going to adapt to us no matter how hard we try to make it...

but just because it is what it is and isn't going to change doesn't mean it is the best system... or even a good one... or even remotely average honestly... why did they choose this system? i see no reason why this system is any better or more intuitive than a traditional GCD system.... actually... it's much much worse.

being able to move while the cast bar is still going... but then being forced to stop moving for ~.5 secs AFTER the cast... just doesn't seem right to me? how can i move DURING casting but then be forced to stand still AFTER casting.... that just doesn't seem like an intelligent way to design a combat system..

we already have to risk getting our spell completely cancelled... not just set back but COMPLETELY CANCELLED... and now we have to stop AFTER casting to do some silly animation?? i understand melee probably have the same thing... but they don't have spells with a long cast time... that can be completely cancelled when taking damage.... i played my mage pretty exclusively this past weekend so i'm not 100% sure about how it is w/ melee but i'm pretty sure their animations did not force them to stand still for .5 secs like the casters are forced to... because that would be a killer to melee, that .5 secs is enough time for the enemy to get out of melee range... and i don't hear the melee classes crying foul like they should be if this is indeed the case.

another problem i have with this system is that it's not consistent at all... some of my instant cast spells are castable on the run... others bring me to a complete halt... why does 1 instant cast require me to plant my feet for .5 secs and another let me do it without breaking stride? how do they decide which moves get which treatment? it seems pretty arbitrary and unnecessarily complex to me... i wouldn't have as much of a problem with how they do it if they at least did it with some consistency.

also, it would be nice is there was some sort of button animation to show us when this residual animation is happening.... when the buttons light up like normal... i should be able to fricken cast my spell... when i finish a spell and hit the button for my next spell but it never fires because i hit it during the .5 sec animation... that's really frustrating and just leads to button spamming and worn out keyboards... why would anyone want this?

this is really unfair to casting classes... but i suppose NCsoft realizes this and is supposedly countering how retarted this system is with giving us better spells and such... but seriously, if you have to balance a game because of a basic mechanic that puts one side at a disadvantage... shouldn't you rethink that entire mechanic?

i said this in another post earlier today but i'll say it again... i don't have a problem with difficult games, i enjoy them very much actually... but the game shouldn't be difficult because of clumsy and unintuitive gameplay mechanics. you should have to fight mobs, bosses, and other players... you shouldn't have to fight the game mechanics themselves...

maybe there is something i'm missing here... i've only played 1 weekend of beta... if there is some good reason for this system that i'm missing... please inform me, i really hope there is something i'm missing because i want to like this game... but this one game mechanic may keep me from ever touching a casting class once the game goes live.

- one thing i can think of that might help is if they allowed us to cast on the move but then stand still for the .5 secs to actually deliver the spell... while the cast bar is moving we're allowed to move also, but then we stop at the end and deliver the blow... i'd be ok with that... but forcing us to stop.. then letting us move once the bar gets 2/3 full then forcing us to stop again just seems clunky, jerky, and downright annoying.

just my 2 cents... i'm glad someone brought this up though, i think it's one of the most important issues in the game right now and i'm really curious to hear how others feel about it.

[Cel]

The aftercast animation isn't a new thing with games either. Go try Guild Wars. All spells (since they don't have instants) have a 3/4 second after cast delay. PBAoE (point blank area of effect) spells have a 1.5 second aftercast delay. You can't move either. If you can move before the cast bar is finished, and you're still able to pull the cast off... that is because of lag. People abuse that in other games to chain cast.

I think the mechanic is quite interesting. Melee doesn't have to deal with this, unless they have 0s casting spells, but I haven't played one to a high enough level to comment on this (I think the assassin's 1 hit dodge has this issue). 0s casting spells have an aftercast delay, whereas actual Instant spells can be cast on the move. This is why rangers have to learn to jump shot, and maybe some mages will have to learn too. Yes, that's learning to cast a spell while jumping to remove the casting animation.

[2aimless]

Originally Posted by logandilts

- one thing i can think of that might help is if they allowed us to cast on the move but then stand still for the .5 secs to actually deliver the spell... while the cast bar is moving we're allowed to move also, but then we stop at the end and deliver the blow... i'd be ok with that... but forcing us to stop.. then letting us move once the bar gets 2/3 full then forcing us to stop again just seems clunky, jerky, and downright annoying.

This happens when you play in China or your internetz is fcked up.

Actually its very, very hard to move between casting bar and casting animation and when you want to use this to your advantage you have to jump. (You wont stop moving in air while you do the animation)

I often used this in Korea because of the dmg output and casting delay. It was my only chance to stand a pvp :/


But for example the ranger and the instant spells that force you to stand still. This can be solved by jumping in the right moment so you cast your spell in air and you are still moving.


I have to admit i enjoy those "engine bugs". It gives me the felling of fps back where you have to fully control how you play instead of just clicking a mousbutton. I really like the movement system in Aion. It's easy to learn but hard to master.

[logandilts]

hmm... we've been having this whole convo in another thread today but a few trolls degenerated it into a flame war... so i'll pick up where we left off right here...

anyway... i've come around a bit and see the usefulness of a system like this... i've just never been a big fan of games that encourage the use of exploits... and i really doubt NCsoft will let this system be exploited like it currently is indefinitely... because it causes huge balance issues... do we balance the game for those that play the game without exploiting and then give those exploiting the game a big advantage... or do we balance for those exploiting the game and then those who don't exploit are incredibly gimped...

it just doesn't seem like good game design to me... especially when there are already systems out there in other games that don't have these problems...

at the low lvls that most of us have played so far from the beta weekends... it's not a big issue... but later in the game, once we get into the abyss, this is going to be a huge deal and is going to cause a lot of problems especially in terms of game balance.

any other thoughts?

[2aimless]

HUGE BALANCE PROBLEMS. No actually not.
You can talk in same way about ppl with worse internet.
Nerf ppl with good ping!

This advantage is so small. You can't even use this in air.

The effect of just surprising someone is 100x bigger then be able move 1m sometimes.

[logandilts]

i dunno man... at a high skill lvl that .5 secs of being able to move instead of being stuck in one spot with your thumb up your *** can make a huge difference... especially once people get really good at doing it.

there's also more than 1 ability that you can use this exploit.. so lets say in one fight you use 4 skills that can be exploited in this way... that's 2 secs of movement that the average player won't have.... 2 seconds might seem small to some... but that's 2 seconds that you can get further away from the enemy... that's 2 seconds that you can use to cast a spell... and 1 spell is all it takes to determine a win or a loss...

i know it seems small at first... but with everything added up it can make a big difference... nowhere near as much difference as who sees who first... but a sizable difference none the less...

actually... it might make just as much difference as getting off the first spell... since you make up enough time/distance by using this exploit that you can get in an additional spell you wouldn't normally be able to... and getting the first strike is usually only 1 spell anyway if can react quickly... so this exploit can almost level the playing field.

i also realize this only affects ground battles, and mostly just against melee enemies... but it's still something that can make or break a fight.

ask any competitive gamer... 2 seconds is a TON of time.

[Neb]

2 seconds is definitley enough time to make or break a fight, everyone knows that, the thing is, as long as a bug is global, it won't be considered an imbalance, especially at the top because usually everyone is using it. I do agree that the moving while casting is a bit silly.. and just very unpleasant looking. Casting for 1.5 seconds, moving for .5, then finishing the casting and then not moving for .5 seconds is definitley going to look... strange. :P Hopefully NCWest will tweak the servers enough to stop that part. I really would not want to see it in game, but I have a feeling we'll be dealing with it for some time.

I am still fully on board with the residual animation stop. I like that idea, but yeah not going into all that again cause I already talked it to death. XD

[FenixStryk]

It's an interesting take on casting. Would you rather have a 2 second cast with a .5 aftercast delay, or a 2.5s cast with no delay? It essentially gives you less time to be interrupted but still keeps the casting time a certain length. It would be nice if it were more consistent, but it's not entirely unacceptable. A little clunky, perhaps, but not erroneous.

[Neb]

Originally Posted by FenixStryk

It would be nice if it were more consistent, but it's not entirely unacceptable. A little clunky, perhaps, but not erroneous.

It's not "inconsistent" every skill is different from another, but that skill will always have the same movement delay everytime you cast it. That's not really inconsistency, just a dynamic system.

[2aimless]

Without delay its rly less then 0.5 seconds. I tried it alot while kiting asmodian NPCs :S
Atm it fails 3/5 times. Meaning i have a disadvantage by doing this.

Instant skill users such as Rangers and Melees can take the other advantage of landing after a jump and using a skill at the same time. They won't trigger skill the skill animation. So you can use the next skill without waiting for the animation to end.

But melees don't have the chance to "fail" like casters do and loose the whole casting time. Worst case is just using the skill with animation :/

[Feriluce]

Originally Posted by logandilts

i dunno man... at a high skill lvl that .5 secs of being able to move instead of being stuck in one spot with your thumb up your *** can make a huge difference... especially once people get really good at doing it.

there's also more than 1 ability that you can use this exploit.. so lets say in one fight you use 4 skills that can be exploited in this way... that's 2 secs of movement that the average player won't have.... 2 seconds might seem small to some... but that's 2 seconds that you can get further away from the enemy... that's 2 seconds that you can use to cast a spell... and 1 spell is all it takes to determine a win or a loss...

i know it seems small at first... but with everything added up it can make a big difference... nowhere near as much difference as who sees who first... but a sizable difference none the less...

actually... it might make just as much difference as getting off the first spell... since you make up enough time/distance by using this exploit that you can get in an additional spell you wouldn't normally be able to... and getting the first strike is usually only 1 spell anyway if can react quickly... so this exploit can almost level the playing field.

i also realize this only affects ground battles, and mostly just against melee enemies... but it's still something that can make or break a fight.

ask any competitive gamer... 2 seconds is a TON of time.

Well, those are 2 seconds spread out over the entirety of a fight. If it matters or not depends very much on the situation.

[Neb]

Kind of let this thread fall by the wayside, have been fighting with AT&T lately, oh how fun!

The moving while casting really takes a lot of attention to pull off flawlessly 100% of the time, so I doubt in real pvp situations it will be used as much as we are thinking.

The chance of wasting the entire cast time usually will not be worth gaining a few feet of distance, and usually the pressure of combat will make the micromanagement probably a bit too much for most of the playerbase, including me xD, to handle.

I'm hoping to get into a bit of a more detailed discussion on how to use this system during combat and when to recognize and capitalize on it. The post in the general forum didn't end up going over well because it was mostly defending the system.. and not really discussing it and that really was not the point.

[blackprince]

BTW wad is GCD?

[Neb]

Originally Posted by blackprince

BTW wad is GCD?

Global Cooldown, it's a system that staggers combat by adding a set amount of time in between the use of skills. I.e. in WoW after every cast there is a set 1.5 seconds where you cannot cast.