Guild Wars 2

Im getting a bit tired of the ability delay.

Hitting with Axe=at least .5 secs of delay.

Shooting with rifle gives the same thing.

Great Sword, yet again ability delay.

I have a 100% completion. I dont have any ability delay on my lvl 21 thief. Whats up arenanet?

I feel this on riposte. When I activate riposte it doesn’t go off immediately and will usually take a second until I actually raise my sword. This has caused me to miss rather important attacks that must be blocked. I always chalked the delay up to lag, however. If this really is a programmed delay, it needs to be fixed.

delay? might wanna change wording to be more accurate, unless you’ve ogot bad latency.

My latency has always been extremely low, and I see this happening as well. I have unconsciously learned to just deal with it, but it makes timing dodges and blockskittennear impossible when an enemy is at very close range.

My wording is precise, there is ability delay. Why do besserwissers always comment.

I have been a fps gamer for ~15 years at a high lvl. I notice when my dpc differs. Please dont talk about my wording.

Its just so frustrating. Just tried out the bolas btw (not really related). Miss about 50% of them, for no aparent reason. Poor coding.

I think it’s just that a lot of attacks have -barely- enough cast time to get in the way. So you have to wait for your last autoattack to finish, and then start the cast, and then let the attack fire, and by that time the target’s dodged or moved to your side or you had to dodge and broke the whole chain somewhere. It’s especially bad with blocks because half the time you just get whacked in the face while your last autoattack continues, and then raise your shield/sword afterwards and sit there like a lump.

It’s improved a lot since the betas, that’s for sure. Not sure if that was optimization on their part or a targeted change though.

Your FPS gamer experience is irrelevant to this conversation. It also has no impact on your ability to appropriately convey your concerns through words on a forum.

Are you talking about the time between hitting the button and the swing? Or the time between hitting the button and the cast bar appearing? Many generic swinging abilities, autos and such, have swing times, especially for larger weapons. That’s an intentional game mechanic. Otherwise, it’s probably just lag.

Some projectiles could probably use AI/collision improvements, but those will come with time. For Bolas, I don’t believe its range is very long, so it’s possible that since it’s a projectile, if you throw it while someone is running away and you’re close to max range, the person will move out of its range before it gets there, resulting in a miss. I don’t think it travels terribly fast as far as projectiles go, so it might be worth testing the exact cases that it misses most often.

Also, WvWvW incorporates large amounts of lag, so if you’re using it there, I wouldn’t expect many results. I’ve landing Earthshakers on top of people while they are running away and it doesn’t hit. I’m not sure what they can do about lag with as many people as I see in WvW, so I’ve just started working on compensating for it.

EDIT – As far as ability queues getting in the way, I’ve been really trying lately to only use an ability when I mean it. That means no spamming auto-attacks, but clicking when the next one is ready, and not before. It can be rough coming from a raiding background in games like WoW where I spammed like the kittenens, but it does help.

My fps gamer experience is very relevant. There are no other games where every little ounce of performance or the lack thereof is as important and hence will make most playing at a high level more sensitive than most.

For once I just wish someone could just say ‘Ok I dont have it/cant feel it/whatever but apparently you have it and you seem to know what you talk about.’ But I guess people cant relate when they themselves cant do something.

Thanks for time you spend speculating, I understand you are trying to make sense of my experience. I have already taken into consideration all those factors and more. Repeatedly in fact. I dont come here and point out issues lightly, although admitedly it was a bit on the brief side.

So lets start again. I have ability delay. Arenanet, please fix.

The problem is that you’re operating under the assumption that because you’ve played FPS games for X years, we should take your word as truth. However, just assuming that people should believe and respect what you say on account of who you are is a mistake that will lead to everyone’s frustration.

In that sense, your FPS experience is irrelevant. I don’t believe you because you played FPS games for 15 years. I’ve been playing all manner of games for ~25 years, since telling my parents what to do in Mario while sitting on their laps. In no way does that give me auto-credibility.

Of course being a twitch gamer can make you more sensitive to delays. However, if you were a scientist, and came to the scientific with numerical claims, would they accept the fact that you’ve been performing science for ~15 years as proof of your claims? No, unless they’re the world’s worst scientists.

Conditioned.2467:

I have ability delay. Arenanet, please fix.

And there-in lies the rub. If someone says “My computer is slow, please fix it”, what do you do? You get more information first. What is slow? What did you do recently? Is it ever not slow? These are all facts everyone needs to even begin to help you.

To be honest, I’d love to hear more about the tests. Where were they performed? Under what conditions? What exactly is the nature of the delay you’re referencing? I’d go recreate it if I could to try to let you know if it’s just you or if I experience it as well, but I have no idea what you’re doing, and I generally try to just accept an amount of lag in MMOs.

So help me help you, and I’ll try. Otherwise, I’ll leave you to your thread.

5sec of delay on axe better be hyperbole otherwise that is some lag and your gamer credentials are in question again.

That said, I do not notice a long delay usually, but I do get spikes from time to time where my animations and combat log are in disagreement on when skill are executing. That is the only time I see anything close to 5 seconds (1-2 seconds at most) delay from button push to visual cue.

EDIT: I just put my glasses on and saw .5 sec… that is completely normal. its the swing timer. I believe its intentional for class and weapon balancing.

Really? I actually notice the delay on my thief as well as the warrior. hit deathblossom, half a second later, oh there we go now we’re twirling.

For the past couple days it’s been even worse than usual. like I’ll be running, let go of my run key, hit the ability key, and my character just keep on running.

I thought it was my internet connection at first, but getting 20mb up, 20mb down, 30ish ping, 2ms jitter, 0 packet loss to the northwestern speedtest servers.

Either something’s up with server performance or a patch broke something.

With regards to riposte, I’ll hit the button, the icon immediately goes on cooldown (Its not a lag issue at this point), but I don’t actually raise my sword and start blocking until about a second later.

Ive noticed this on a warrior as well, compared to say a thief. Ive also noticed it on certain abilities when your polymorphed into the the animals at the God Armour DE in cursed shore.

Similar to the Mesmer Greatsword 2 button animation that was fixed.

I also understand what the OP means by being able tell the difference between latency/lag/game issues. Mind you most of us are gamers here so it’s pretty much an equal playing field for the nonkitten among us.

@Cub : Can you try to explain what the difference is? At this point, I’m unconvinced it’s anything other than the animation being processed server-side combined with the short swing timer intentionally built into the game. No one has yet to even try to explain the delay, though it has to be at a precise, tangible point in the process that can be replicated in testing.

GW2 has “Skill queue” Where if you’re in a middle of an animation or attack it will wait for it to fully finish until you do your next skill. What also happens is that if you’re stunned for any amount of seconds and you click a skill while stunned you will come out of stun using that skill right away often causing you to misuse a vital skill.

Conditioned.2467:

My fps gamer experience is very relevant. There are no other games where every little ounce of performance or the lack thereof is as important and hence will make most playing at a high level more sensitive than most.

For once I just wish someone could just say ‘Ok I dont have it/cant feel it/whatever but apparently you have it and you seem to know what you talk about.’ But I guess people cant relate when they themselves cant do something.

Thanks for time you spend speculating, I understand you are trying to make sense of my experience. I have already taken into consideration all those factors and more. Repeatedly in fact. I dont come here and point out issues lightly, although admitedly it was a bit on the brief side.

So lets start again. I have ability delay. Arenanet, please fix.

Hello.

You say you play(ed?) at a high level in fps games, yet you dont show any sign of a high level player.
Having said that, i cant deny nor can i (or would) speak your skill down, since i dont know you.
If you are able to play on a competitive level in FPS (and i really do hope you do not speak about CoD…) you should be able to adapt quite quickly to things like ability lag.
Having played several shooters myself, among other games, not always at the top of the top but way above the average player i can say for myself – i did see the lag you mention (warrior is not the only profession that has it) and i just learned to deal with it.

As someone somewhere sometime ago said “adapt or die trying”

Best regards
GHCScorpion

Someone else confirms the lag he mentions, and still there is no attempt at trying to explain when it is occurring.

I’m beginning to think this is a conspiracy.

Block/parry abilities have a slight delay before they are fully active.

Working as intended.

Several types of autoattacks also have delays.

Working as intended.

The majority of attacks in this game have an actual animation that needs to be completed (or part of which needs to be completed) before damage is actually applied.

This allows for interrupting the ability and forces the player to actually learn the timing of their class.

This also allows for additional optimization such as using instant abilities during the animation of other abilities (e.g. using “FOR GREAT JUSTICE!” while casting the Rifle Burst ability).

Working as intended.

Sidenote: Axe does not have a 0.5 delay on the first or second swing of 1. The third part has a 0.5-ish delay as the player winds up the triple chop. There’s also a castbar to highlight the animation and channel.

You mean animation delay, and its intentional.

As others have mentioned, it is animation delay, it can be very noticeable on hammer, which is, I think, the slowest warrior weapon. Try using the #2 or #5 hammer skills while in the middle of an auto attack swing and you’ll notice your character takes some time to stop the current attack animation and start the other one. And then try using them right after an auto attack swing finishes. You’ll be able to notice the big difference.

This looks like the swtor forums a month after launch.

There is such a noticeable delay on all classes. It is definitely not intended and has nothing to do with animations. There is a noticeable delay between key press and ability execution.

The noticeable delay I experience between key press and ability execution changes depending on how much is going on on the screen. This leads me to believe the animation trigger is server-side instead of client-side, and the delay is caused by latency.

If you think your connection to a speedtest mainframe represents your connection to the Guild Wars 2 server you’re playing on, think again. If you don’t think it’s a latency issue, I’d be happy to hear your explanation as to why.

I too get this very annoying bug from time to time, and this isn’t the only thread about it. It doesn’t at all look like an animation delay or a connection issue.

One of them is below, for those who for some reason need to be convinced and demand further explanation:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Skill-activation-doesn-t-seem-to-work-every-time-especially-in-WvW-Lag-or-bug/first#post245412

So, OP, I hear you.

Thats an interesting link feels similar to that, it’s deffinately accentuated when your morphed at the boss for god armour in cursed shores if you other peeps want to test that will give you a good example, having to mash the key to get it to cast. Moa Bird and Croc Morph were the worst.

It’s alot less on warrior but it’s similar. One thing that is interesting to note is the animations for those morphed states ARE buggy, maybe a connection?

I notice the delay on some of the skills including healing skills. This is, what I believe to be, induction time that is not displayed as an induction.

There are various types of skills and they should all display correctly but do not.

• Inductions skills should display a cast bar and are not interrupted by moving.

• Channeled skills should display a cast bar and are interrupted by moving.

• Instant skills should not display a cast bar and should go off the instant the button is pressed.

For example:

Pressing the heal skill is an induction but does not display that it is casting.

Pressing 3 with the Hammer is a Channeled skill and stop channeling when you move.

Pressing a shout utility goes off instantly no matter what state you are in.

You’re trying to fit your definitions on GW2’s mechanics.

While the characteristics you listed are fine, it has nothing to do with the actual effect happening at various points in time, whether towards the beginning of the induction, for example, or towards the end.

That aside: yes there is some ability lag in laggy situations, but it is uncommon. For general gameplay, there is no ability lag.

All weapons have different ability delays.

Kravick.4906:

I feel this on riposte. When I activate riposte it doesn’t go off immediately and will usually take a second until I actually raise my sword. This has caused me to miss rather important attacks that must be blocked. I always chalked the delay up to lag, however. If this really is a programmed delay, it needs to be fixed.

Undecided on the rest of the complaints, but this is a significant & mechanic-breaking design IMO. There should be an option for defensive abilities like this to cancel the existing cast, or perhaps a global cancel-cast option.

It is absurd that something as reactive as a parry ability is put in an ability queue…

It’s like we are asking to schedule an appointment with our enemy for a counterattack. Stupid.

Qbert reminded me of a thing I might go suggest. I know queueing is useful, especially in rotations for laggy-situations, but I would like the option to cancel any cast with a custom button press (not Escape or using a dodge) or with another ability. If I’m in the middle of BackBreaker, I want to be able to cancel it and use a normal swing. It would trigger a normal 3 second cooldown for being canceled mid swing, but it wouldn’t be wasted. It would also add to mind games.

If it were a checkbox in the interface, that would be fine. I’d just prefer to have more control over when my abilities are used and when I can cancel them.

There should be an option for defensive abilities like this to cancel the existing cast, or perhaps a global cancel-cast option.

All actions can be cancelled by a “high-priority” action. From what I can tell, high priority actions include all abilities with CCs, heal slot abilities, and many utility abilities.

It may be simpler, and lower cooldown abilities can be cancelled by higher cooldown abilities, but I’m dubious about that. I seem to recall that it really had to do with CC abilities.

You cannot cancel a “special” attack with an autoattack, but you can cancel any generic random attack with a “special-er” attack.

Generally, the logic seems to be that “if you press your 30-second cooldown CC button, you should be sure of it because the engine will accept it and interrupt whatever you’re doing; conversely you cannot interrupt your 30-second cooldown special ability via normal means (non-dodge)”.

It is absurd that something as reactive as a parry ability is put in an ability queue…

It will cancel your autoattack, and should cancel many other attacks, but the main point is that the current QQ about parry/block abilities is not any “ability queue” (which is probably not what people are being frustrated about).

It’s that the parry/block abilities literally have the character moving their weapon into the parry position for about 0.3-0.5 seconds before they are actually able to parry. People can’t accept that they need to plan ahead for parries, and that parries are not intended to be 0.05 second reflex blocks. Working as intended? Maybe not, but probably.

Man, if GW2 has ability lag, hop on to the SWTOR train and experience the ultimate lag, unplayable disconnecting gameplay.

seithan so its ok that gw2 has ability delay just cause swtor has it? By that logic its ok that gw2 has every bug in every game ever made. I would probably claim I would disagree with that. Besides I know swtor had ability delay in the start but they fixed it.

When there is some server lag (usually in giant WvW mobs or zerg PvE events) there can be ability delay.

But it sounds like what you are referring to is the attack animation. The attack animation is essentially the attack speed of your weapon. Chance are you don’t notice it on thief as much because all the thief weapons hit much faster than warrior, especially dagger.

Reach.1374:

There is such a noticeable delay on all classes. It is definitely not intended and has nothing to do with animations. There is a noticeable delay between key press and ability execution.

Exactly. For those who have not noticed it already, try this.
(Lags aside please, as we all know what lag is. Thankyou.)

First test:
Press Skill 1, of any class or race, you will notice it will blink once or twice before your toon start doing anything everytime.

Second test: (Only if you played other mmorpgs. For me i took WoW or RIFT as an example.)
Press Skill 1, of any class or race, my toon instanly react to it without any delay everytime.

Its like hitting letter A on your keyboard and A immediately appear.
But for this game its like i’m typing with an old typewriter instead of my computer.
Its true.

I’m sure Arenanet is aware of this. And i hope they will fix this a.s.a.p.
An Action Mmorpg with Ability Delay? Not Good.

That indicates the skill is casting.

Try it with an instant cast skill. There is no blinking.

All the classes that I’ve played thus far have ability delays, with different abilities having different delays. Yes it’d be nice for every spell and ability to be insta-cast, but that’s not how Anet have decided to design and code it.

For example, try using dagger #2 as Necromancer. This is a very close range health leech skill which is cast with an excruciatingly long ‘HADOUKEN!’ animation which is almost always interrupted because the mob you’re casting it on is right in your face.

The class I’ve played which suffers most is the Elementalist, as it’s such a busy class to play, constantly switching attunements whilst kiting about and trying to use abilities with very long cast times. If you happen to time things just a little bit off and move just before the spell is cast, its fails to cast and goes into a short cool-down.

I’ve personally found the Warrior’s cast timings easiest to manage, most are very quick indeed and the slower ones (e.g. Kill Shot, Brutal Shot) aren’t a problem as they’re done at range.

I’m still trying to understand why melee abilities have a cast time in the first place. Does my character needs to think about it to swing an axe? Melee combat is fast paced and inherently more dangerous than ranged combat. I can see having minimal cast times as a ranged caster, but as a melee combatant?!? They already go out of their way to make sure not to make warriors durable enough for sustained melee fighting…the least they can do is to let our abilities work when we click them..not seconds later.

Most of the delays I’ve been experiencing have been cast time delays and some lag. I’m ok with the animation delays on abilities…that should be there for interruption purposes.

Its not like putting delays on melee abilities will stop botting…any coder worth being a coder will know how to insert pause delays. Please take off the cast times on melee abilities Anet. It irritates me to no end to have a cast time on signet of rage. I mean really….you want me to stop doing everything else to wait for my buff to be applied..in the middle of melee combat?!?

ODB.6891:

I’m still trying to understand why melee abilities have a cast time in the first place. Does my character needs to think about it to swing an axe? Melee combat is fast paced and inherently more dangerous than ranged combat. I can see having minimal cast times as a ranged caster, but as a melee combatant?!? They already go out of their way to make sure not to make warriors durable enough for sustained melee fighting…the least they can do is to let our abilities work when we click them..not seconds later.

Exactly!
Rush and Leap too. Melees need to fart first before they do those actions.
Or trying to tell the target to be ready cause we gonna rush or leap at you lol!

Pirate.4631:

That indicates the skill is casting.

Try it with an instant cast skill. There is no blinking.

No blinking yes but still its delayed. Not instant.
Try these for Mesmers : Phase Retreat or Decoy
Instant skills with no casting time but still there is delay. Do it couple of times you’ll noticed it.
Still feel like playing with an old typewriter where other mmos instant skills are instant.
This is not comparing. It is just to prove my point.
If you played RIFT, try click the squirrel skill as a mage. Its instant and its cast instantly!
Zero delay.

Thats what i meant. Dont get me wrong, im trying to make this game better not promoting other mmos. I left those mmos cause im in love with GW2 Graphics and Gameplay but these delays are kinda disappointing

Yep, I been feeling this problem as well, specially with off hand sword animations, problem with this is I feel like I didn’t exactly performed the command when I did and thus I end up pressing the key extra times, which in chars like a thief means initiative wasted. However this is not as bad as RIFT so I can deal with for now. But is really bad with high end reaction gameplay players.