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Block mechanics... Is this really intended?

Ok, i generally understand how block mechanics work. There's a tell. Then the check for blocking the knock or hold comes slightly earlier than the check for the damage. I get it. I can play with decent success as is, so this isn't meant to be a complaint thread.

My question is why does it work this way? Why can't there be one check at the end if the tell like every player would naturally assume is the case upon logging in the first time?

It smells like an unintended bug that just never got fixed. The veteran players just adapted to while newer players just think "that's BS, I blocked that! Why use block if it doesn't work?"

I think fixing this bug/feature so the mechanics work the way people expect, along with adding a lot more tells so people can better take advantage of this mechanic, would make the game a lot more user friendly and fun.

From a business perpective, the tell/block mechanic itself is a differenciator against much of your competition. Most games don't have the tell/block mechanic and it is a good concept that adds to the combat expirience. It would be, good for the game to get this mechanic working well and use it more frequently as a selling point potential customers.
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  • roughbearmattachroughbearmattach Posts: 4,784 Arc User


    It smells like an unintended bug that just never got fixed. The veteran players just adapted to while newer players just think "that's BS, I blocked that! Why use block if it doesn't work?"



    I think fixing this bug/feature so the mechanics work the way people expect, along with adding a lot more tells so people can better take advantage of this mechanic, would make the game a lot more user friendly and fun.


    Blocks are powers, and have activation times.

    I must say, however, I have found myself explaining this to newer players many times. It always feels like I am apologizing, or explaining how to deal with a bug. The timing is a bit weird, and not quite what a new player would expect.
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    yeah, the way block checks work is more than a little counterintuitive.
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  • flyingfinnflyingfinn Posts: 8,408 Arc User
    If we only had Block Tutorial.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    As far as I can determine, it's a limitation of the game engine that is hard to resolve: the game has to figure out who it's going to affect with a power before actually affecting people (see the link in my sig).
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    I like this particular quirk. Then again I'm good at "feeling out" things ^_____^
  • kamokamikamokami Posts: 1,633 Arc User

    Why can't there be one check at the end if the tell like every player would naturally assume is the case upon logging in the first time?

    The veteran players just adapted to while newer players just think "that's BS, I blocked that! Why use block if it doesn't work?"

    I agree that it's worth addressing the issue. Changing the actual mechanic might be too much to handle though. But maybe instead of changing the mechanic the issue can be addressed differently.

    Maybe it'd be possible to just have different colored tells/wireframes for the checks for secondary effects - such as knocks, holds, etc....so that the early check is differentiated and if the newer player misses that then they understand what happened and can improve their timing instead of being bewildered.
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 766 Arc User
    This is also something that you can use to your advantage. It helps in keeping your dps up as much as possible. Especially if you have enough hp to just eat most of the aoes and survive. This is a -very- handy thing on dino. You can pretty much cancel, the knock, and hold, if you tap block right as it's going off, eat the dmg, and then activate your attack right when you tap the block. You'll be held, but the hold will break instantaneously, and you can continue attacking. Then pop something like resurgence, or some TA juice/whatever your heals are to mend back whatever dmg you ate from the aoe.​​
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  • chalupaoffurychalupaoffury Posts: 2,553 Arc User
    spinnytop said:

    I like this particular quirk. Then again I'm good at "feeling out" things ^_____^

    I'm in Montana, land of the "I send my packets via carrier pigeon" and I hate it. The tell sometimes pops up just a tad late, and not enough that I miss the actual hit, but sometimes it's late enough that I miss the check. My main beef with the mechanic is two fold.

    1: It's not very conducive to high level play if you have internet that isn't... Well, great. I have to pick and choose cosmic fights based on the block timing, because it's not a reflex thing. It's that the cues and check happen too quickly, when graphically they really don't seem to play out like they should.

    2: New player retention is kinda hard when such a basic mechanic has hidden checks or rules that need to be explained or felt out. New players won't see "there's a skill there you gotta learn", all they'll see is "block in the game is buggy, wtf" and it can be off putting.

    And I'm not even saying "they should lengthen the block times" because no, they're fine. But expectation vs reality is kinda important. If I'm blocking when the boom hits, I'm blocking. This is the kinda simple **** (that's probably hard to fix) which is pretty off-putting for a lot of people. You literally get your block as the very first thing, it should probably work as advertised.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User

    1: It's not very conducive to high level play if you have internet that isn't... Well, great.

    No form of block timing would be, since it's all resolved server side. It takes a lot of latency to really make blocking impossible, though -- a typical shtick attack is at least 2s charge time, and as long as you block during charge time you're good.

    2: New player retention is kinda hard when such a basic mechanic has hidden checks or rules that need to be explained or felt out. New players won't see "there's a skill there you gotta learn", all they'll see is "block in the game is buggy, wtf" and it can be off putting.

    No question it's confusing. It's not just blocking either, things like range and line of sight checks are also resolved significantly before the damage actually arrives. I have to assume it's something weird about how the game was coded, because it doesn't really make sense as deliberate difficulty, deliberate difficulty would be to just give blocks a non-zero activation time.
  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User

    1: It's not very conducive to high level play if you have internet that isn't... Well, great.

    No form of block timing would be, since it's all resolved server side. It takes a lot of latency to really make blocking impossible, though -- a typical shtick attack is at least 2s charge time, and as long as you block during charge time you're good.

    2: New player retention is kinda hard when such a basic mechanic has hidden checks or rules that need to be explained or felt out. New players won't see "there's a skill there you gotta learn", all they'll see is "block in the game is buggy, wtf" and it can be off putting.

    No question it's confusing. It's not just blocking either, things like range and line of sight checks are also resolved significantly before the damage actually arrives. I have to assume it's something weird about how the game was coded, because it doesn't really make sense as deliberate difficulty, deliberate difficulty would be to just give blocks a non-zero activation time.
    Honestly, this is a result of the game shifting its parameters from playing in the world to encounter many of the quirks to shifting to the alert system where people can power level a single character in a few hours being unable to figure out the mechanics and understand them. While there could have been more answer delivered long term, it just doesn't help when players are rarely brought into situations that they have to utilize their tools to understand the game, and despite many opinions to the contrary, there are many situations where the game actually encourages you to use said tools that players just end up skipping over now.
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  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User
    The current system is really bad for slow network connections... on my end if I try to perform any of the "advanced blocking techniques" that many vets claim to be easy to exploit, the server will not register that I even blocked. I have to hold the block button for atleast 1.5 seconds to even have my block register on the server. This often results in having late blocks even when I started blocking from the start of the attacks tell. Its extremely frustrating.
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  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User
    raighn said:

    The current system is really bad for slow network connections... on my end if I try to perform any of the "advanced blocking techniques" that many vets claim to be easy to exploit, the server will not register that I even blocked. I have to hold the block button for atleast 1.5 seconds to even have my block register on the server. This often results in having late blocks even when I started blocking from the start of the attacks tell. Its extremely frustrating.

    1.5 seconds is average, so I don't see how you aren't doing an advanced block technique there when you are doing the standard block time. No an advanced block technique is like being able to identify, for instance, if you are blocking before dinomom, for instance first foot goes down, you can actually let go of block right before her second foot goes down and you will avoid the hold. And many effects have delayed reaction by design, for instance Gravitar's explosive attacks. The AEs tend to have a delayed hit, and as a result you have to block them longer.
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  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User

    raighn said:

    The current system is really bad for slow network connections... on my end if I try to perform any of the "advanced blocking techniques" that many vets claim to be easy to exploit, the server will not register that I even blocked. I have to hold the block button for atleast 1.5 seconds to even have my block register on the server. This often results in having late blocks even when I started blocking from the start of the attacks tell. Its extremely frustrating.

    1.5 seconds is average, so I don't see how you aren't doing an advanced block technique there when you are doing the standard block time. No an advanced block technique is like being able to identify, for instance, if you are blocking before dinomom, for instance first foot goes down, you can actually let go of block right before her second foot goes down and you will avoid the hold. And many effects have delayed reaction by design, for instance Gravitar's explosive attacks. The AEs tend to have a delayed hit, and as a result you have to block them longer.
    If i try to release my block before the second foot to avoid the hold like you suggest, the server will not register my hold at all and i will not only take full damage but get held as well... it happens all the time, i hav no choice but to sit there and co ti ue to hold block through the entire attack and when the attack includes a hold i have to keep bloking for a few seconds after or still get held...
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  • Its possible to drop a block early to eat the damage while avoiding the hold, but its stupid. You will die. Maybe not every time, but it will happen and it is not the healer's fault.

    There is nothing to block during the DPS check so I would advise to just be smart, be a team player, survive between checks and save your massively awesome DPS for when it actually matters.
  • championshewolfchampionshewolf Posts: 4,375 Arc User

    Its possible to drop a block early to eat the damage while avoiding the hold, but its stupid. You will die. Maybe not every time, but it will happen and it is not the healer's fault.



    There is nothing to block during the DPS check so I would advise to just be smart, be a team player, survive between checks and save your massively awesome DPS for when it actually matters.

    The hold attack of dinomom does no damage.
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  • stergasterga Posts: 2,353 Arc User
    Even a few hundred ms of latency can have a lot of desync between server and client. Path of Exile did a major update to their predictive mode and it is freaking amazing how much better things got. Even then, playing on a 200ms + latency server for 40 minutes had plenty of very noticeable issues with desync. This is a game that is several years newer than CO and was updated with better coding / tech.

    1.5 seconds may be "plenty" of time, but just a few hundred ms of latency can still be a significant impact on game play. Anyone can see it for themselves in an action game with world wide server locations in less than an hour of playing.​​
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  • opalflameopalflame Posts: 207 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    Yeah slow internet can really screw up blocking. Most days I can block everything at cosmics just fine, but some days my connection is slower than usual and my blocks can get a little delayed. It's crazy how much a little extra lag can ruin everything. It makes me go from being able to tank anything, to dying over and over again.
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  • Re: The hold attack of dinomom does no damage.

    The post I meant to respond to specifically said they block the CC and eat the damage.
  • rtmartma Posts: 1,198 Arc User
    opalflame said:

    Yeah slow internet can really screw up blocking. Most days I can block everything at cosmics just fine, but some days my connection is slower than usual and my blocks can get a little delayed. It's crazy how much a little extra lag can ruin everything. It makes me go from being able to tank anything, to dying over and over again.

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  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User
    rtma said:

    opalflame said:

    Yeah slow internet can really screw up blocking. Most days I can block everything at cosmics just fine, but some days my connection is slower than usual and my blocks can get a little delayed. It's crazy how much a little extra lag can ruin everything. It makes me go from being able to tank anything, to dying over and over again.

    Try 400 Ping, it's divine. :dissapointed:
    or 2000... I frequently bounce between 300 and 2000... on most days I sit at around 600... DSL in the middle of nowhere sucks...
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    raighn said:

    or 2000... I frequently bounce between 300 and 2000... on most days I sit at around 600... DSL in the middle of nowhere sucks...

    Do you have packet loss or just lag? Not sure if CO uses TCP or UDP, if it uses UDP packet loss might make your commands just vanish (with TCP, they'll get resent, but might take a long time).
  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User

    raighn said:

    or 2000... I frequently bounce between 300 and 2000... on most days I sit at around 600... DSL in the middle of nowhere sucks...

    Do you have packet loss or just lag? Not sure if CO uses TCP or UDP, if it uses UDP packet loss might make your commands just vanish (with TCP, they'll get resent, but might take a long time).
    honestly not sure... haven't bothered to run anything to check... I just know my connection is terribad where I live...
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User

    1: It's not very conducive to high level play if you have internet that isn't... Well, great.

    Well, my internet is pure garbage.
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    I don't see how this can be considered a bug at all.

    There is no game where blocking consists on just holding down a key and all your problems dissapear. Or if there was, it died long ago for being so boring.

    Games either use a Block/Perfect Block mechanic (fighting games like Street Fighter), a stamina bar mechanic (like Elder Scroll franchise or MMO, or Dark Souls), or both (like TERA, where holding block drains your stamina, but timing a perfect block completely refills it or gives access to powerful comboes)

    CO falls in the first category with a variant: you can hold down block early till the end of the wireframe/tell and nullify all possible bad effects, or you can learn the timings and just avoid all harmful effects by tapping block at the right time.

    Yeah, newbies will have a hard time adjusting to it and they won't be able to make it the first time, but only through practice can you achieve this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGW7CwD5GM
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    also your internet speed may affect when it takes effect. so you think you blocked in time but by the time it gets to the server, you're too late
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  • It just occured to me that i probably titled this thread wrong. Block works fine...its the tells and damage checks that are messy.

    I agree there should be a learning curve for new players to learn and master the strategies and counter strategies of each opponent​. But i find it hard to believe that it was the designer's intent to have the damage check for eido geysers so far ahead of the eruption animation...or for the ape meteor's knockback check be so far ahead of the impact animation.
  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User

    It just occured to me that i probably titled this thread wrong. Block works fine...its the tells and damage checks that are messy.

    I agree there should be a learning curve for new players to learn and master the strategies and counter strategies of each opponent​. But i find it hard to believe that it was the designer's intent to have the damage check for eido geysers so far ahead of the eruption animation...or for the ape meteor's knockback check be so far ahead of the impact animation.

    Fairly certain that the bulk of the conversation and issues expressed have been rooted in the timing of the tells and checks...

    My issues stem from poor internet connection causing me to miss the first block check 90% of the time unless I was already blocking before the tell popped up or managed to hit block at the exact moment the tell popped up. Missing the start of the tell by even a fraction of a second tends to result in my block not registering until after the first check. With a lot of Knockback attacks from bosses this causes me to block their damage but still get sent flying across the room... a lot... I've died to Grond's knockback in TA several times due to a combination of this and his tell not being visible on my screen half the time... And if I even attempt to "tap block" like some vets then I will fail to even be considered blocking at all. This is especially frustrating on characters who utilize a lingering block advantage like Force Sheath, as I will often try to tap block to refresh or apply the linger and accomplish nothing. I'll see the linger pop up on my end for a moment, but the instant I move on to attack or anything it drops off instantly, unless I sit there and hold block for a bit.

    So even though my issue is caused by my internet connection, the root of the problem is still the timing of the checks... the first check almost always occurs before the server can register that I'm even blocking.
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  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    Blocks are powers, and have activation times.

    I must say, however, I have found myself explaining this to newer players many times. It always feels like I am apologizing, or explaining how to deal with a bug. The timing is a bit weird, and not quite what a new player would expect.
    Not every power needs to have an activation time though. For the sake of making the game feel more responsive and less clumsy, block powers should probably have instant activation times so the entire benefit can be used without weird delays and such.​​
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  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    gradii said:



    Lol comparing CO to a fighting game.​​

    1 out of the 4 examples I gave was a fighting game.

    But sure. That 1, just that 1 example disproves my whole argument.

    Ok.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User

    raighn said:

    or 2000... I frequently bounce between 300 and 2000... on most days I sit at around 600... DSL in the middle of nowhere sucks...

    Do you have packet loss or just lag? Not sure if CO uses TCP or UDP, if it uses UDP packet loss might make your commands just vanish (with TCP, they'll get resent, but might take a long time).
    Prob UDP, TCP takes too long, also it eats up a lot more bandwidth than UDP, thus making the game slower.
    opalflame said:

    Yeah slow internet can really screw up blocking. Most days I can block everything at cosmics just fine, but some days my connection is slower than usual and my blocks can get a little delayed. It's crazy how much a little extra lag can ruin everything. It makes me go from being able to tank anything, to dying over and over again.

    Or that weird random spike where things turn into a slide show for a little while then go back to normal.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    aesica said:


    Not every power needs to have an activation time though. For the sake of making the game feel more responsive and less clumsy, block powers should probably have instant activation times so the entire benefit can be used without weird delays and such.​​

    Well I'm not so sure about the activation thing. There are attacks in fights that I can completely block while tanking by just tapping block very quickly - in those instances, if blocks do have activation times, it must be very short and so is not much of a factor in people's ability to block. And by short I mean practically instant anyway.

    It just occured to me that i probably titled this thread wrong. Block works fine...its the tells and damage checks that are messy.

    Another way to look at it is that blocking is varied and that each attack requires some learning on the player's part to block perfectly. It would actually be a lot less interesting if blocking actually was literally just "hold the button while the shape is on the screen"... that kinda turns it into a shape learning program for young children. With all these quirks it makes the system more interesting and gives us a bit higher of a skill ceiling - the reason that this variety is okay is because it's consistent, you can in fact learn how to do it consistently.
  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Well I'm not so sure about the activation thing. There are attacks in fights that I can completely block while tanking by just tapping block very quickly - in those instances, if blocks do have activation times, it must be very short and so is not much of a factor in people's ability to block. And by short I mean practically instant anyway.
    I don't just mean the damage portion of the block, which thankfully does seem to be pretty much instant. I mean the blocking activation time or whatever it is that also reduces or negates harmful secondary effects like stuns, huge dots, etc) It seems to be more of a problem during periods of lag--either internet-related or client lag when too many people/effects are present.​​
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  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User
    aesica said:

    spinnytop said:

    Well I'm not so sure about the activation thing. There are attacks in fights that I can completely block while tanking by just tapping block very quickly - in those instances, if blocks do have activation times, it must be very short and so is not much of a factor in people's ability to block. And by short I mean practically instant anyway.

    I don't just mean the damage portion of the block, which thankfully does seem to be pretty much instant. I mean the blocking activation time or whatever it is that also reduces or negates harmful secondary effects like stuns, huge dots, etc) It seems to be more of a problem during periods of lag--either internet-related or client lag when too many people/effects are present.​​
    Just to point it out... In the powers menu Blocks are listed as Instant activation... HOWEVER, if you look at the tooltip in the Power Tray on the other hand, they are listed as 1sec activation... and I recall a dev a while back confirming that they do infact have an activation time, reason being something about the game's engine not being able to properly process instant activations so as a result everything that is listed as instant actually does have an activation time...
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  • so just make the activation time 0.1 seconds...not instant but close enough for even the worst of latency​​
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  • aesicaaesica Posts: 2,537 Arc User
    raighn wrote: »
    Just to point it out... In the powers menu Blocks are listed as Instant activation... HOWEVER, if you look at the tooltip in the Power Tray on the other hand, they are listed as 1sec activation... and I recall a dev a while back confirming that they do infact have an activation time, reason being something about the game's engine not being able to properly process instant activations so as a result everything that is listed as instant actually does have an activation time...
    1 second seems like an awfully long activation time for something like blocking. As the poster above me pointed out, it could be lowered to something a lot shorter to improve the feel of gameplay while still respecting any engine limitations.

    That said, I always figured that having activation times on everything was meant as a server stability measure since this game doesn't utilize global cooldowns. A true instant ability with no cooldown could theoretically be used to transmit thousands of activation requests per second, and I don't need to say why that's bad.​​
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  • magpieuk2014magpieuk2014 Posts: 1,268 Arc User
    Another way to look at it is that blocking is varied and that each attack requires some learning on the player's part to block perfectly. It would actually be a lot less interesting if blocking actually was literally just "hold the button while the shape is on the screen"... that kinda turns it into a shape learning program for young children. With all these quirks it makes the system more interesting and gives us a bit higher of a skill ceiling

    Nah. Learning to deal with proper variations in the gameplay is not the same as adapting to inconsistency in application. If you play cricket you expect to face bowlers who can vary the speed, bounce, direction and movement of the ball; but it's unreasonable to expect the batsman to cope with bowlers occasionally using a different ball or a bowling machine, or to play in the rain or snow (even if it would be a test of skill to do so).
  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User

    Spinnytop: Another way to look at it is that blocking is varied and that each attack requires some learning on the player's part to block perfectly. It would actually be a lot less interesting if blocking actually was literally just "hold the button while the shape is on the screen"... that kinda turns it into a shape learning program for young children. With all these quirks it makes the system more interesting and gives us a bit higher of a skill ceiling

    Nah. Learning to deal with proper variations in the gameplay is not the same as adapting to inconsistency in application. If you play cricket you expect to face bowlers who can vary the speed, bounce, direction and movement of the ball; but it's unreasonable to expect the batsman to cope with bowlers occasionally using a different ball or a bowling machine, or to play in the rain or snow (even if it would be a test of skill to do so).

    Indeed... The current behavior of the block system unnecessarily complicates things due to uncontrollable variables. It's not fun or engaging to hit block when you're supposed to only to find that you are still going to get launched across the map because the server didn't register you as blocking in time on account of slow internet, lag, packet loss, high latency, or a throttled connection somewhere along the way. That's just plain frustrating... especially when you are sitting there holding block for the entirety of the attack tell and animation and STILL take full damage and are affected by any additional effects.

    I know some uncontrollable variables will make blocking impossible regardless of what Cryptic does... but they can lessen the annoyance of them most of the time by reworking the block system to actually work the way people expect it to in the first place.
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  • cptmassive1cptmassive1 Posts: 120 Arc User
    I have internet service among the best in the world (ping=single digit) and yet have tells appear during or after effects, especially during ape. I'm also guessing I've died to dino green spikes sometimes when I have seen the graphic hit my toon and release block before the damage is applied.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited April 2017
    raighn said:

    Just to point it out... In the powers menu Blocks are listed as Instant activation... HOWEVER, if you look at the tooltip in the Power Tray on the other hand, they are listed as 1sec activation... and I recall a dev a while back confirming that they do infact have an activation time, reason being something about the game's engine not being able to properly process instant activations so as a result everything that is listed as instant actually does have an activation time...

    Blocking is essentially instant in CO (in fact, because it interrupts a current action, it's the fastest thing you can do). The problem is that the Cryptic engine has a significant delay between "decide whether target will be affected by an effect" and "actually apply effect to target", and you have to block before the decision is made to actually prevent the effect from being applied (see link in signature).
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    I dunno if it's that simple. For example: in one run of Gravitar rampage, I blocked one of her Booms. I took insignificant damage, so I know the game recognized that I had blocked, but I got knocked so hard I bounced off the containment dome.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited April 2017

    I dunno if it's that simple. For example: in one run of Gravitar rampage, I blocked one of her Booms. I took insignificant damage, so I know the game recognized that I had blocked, but I got knocked so hard I bounced off the containment dome.

    That's because whether or not you are knocked is not decided during effect resolution, it's decided during 'what effects are going to be applied to you' (damage resistance, however, is applied during effect resolution, though dodge checks seem to be resolved earlier).
  • raighnraighn Posts: 2,339 Arc User

    raighn said:

    Just to point it out... In the powers menu Blocks are listed as Instant activation... HOWEVER, if you look at the tooltip in the Power Tray on the other hand, they are listed as 1sec activation... and I recall a dev a while back confirming that they do infact have an activation time, reason being something about the game's engine not being able to properly process instant activations so as a result everything that is listed as instant actually does have an activation time...

    Blocking is essentially instant in CO (in fact, because it interrupts a current action, it's the fastest thing you can do). The problem is that the Cryptic engine has a significant delay between "decide whether target will be affected by an effect" and "actually apply effect to target", and you have to block before the decision is made to actually prevent the effect from being applied (see link in signature).
    I'm aware... and I've read the thread in your sig before... and as I've explained countless times, it doesn't matter. I can block before the decision is made and it will still apply the effects to me due to latency. That's the problem with the current system, the delay between the checks and application along with the actual activation time on blocks (as miniscule as the real activation time might possibly be) results in frequently missing checks if you have latency issues. Other games with block systems don't have this issue due to having their checks and applications done together.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    raighn said:

    Other games with block systems don't have this issue due to having their checks and applications done together.

    Untrue. For any game where blocking is resolved server side, latency will cause you to miss blocks that you think you made. The only difference for CO is that the point in time at which the latency matters is different.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User

    I dunno if it's that simple. For example: in one run of Gravitar rampage, I blocked one of her Booms. I took insignificant damage, so I know the game recognized that I had blocked, but I got knocked so hard I bounced off the containment dome.

    That's because whether or not you are knocked is not decided during effect resolution, it's decided during 'what effects are going to be applied to you' (damage resistance, however, is applied during effect resolution, though dodge checks seem to be resolved earlier).
    which is severely awkward since I can't actually see that. thus I generally have no idea if I blocked in time or not.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User

    I dunno if it's that simple. For example: in one run of Gravitar rampage, I blocked one of her Booms. I took insignificant damage, so I know the game recognized that I had blocked, but I got knocked so hard I bounced off the containment dome.

    That's because whether or not you are knocked is not decided during effect resolution, it's decided during 'what effects are going to be applied to you' (damage resistance, however, is applied during effect resolution, though dodge checks seem to be resolved earlier).
    which is severely awkward since I can't actually see that. thus I generally have no idea if I blocked in time or not.
    Oh sure. I'm not at all fond of the way CO handles timing. I was just commenting on the issues of activation time and latency. If you're going to complain, complain about the right things.
  • erile#2692 erile Posts: 70 Arc User

    I dunno if it's that simple. For example: in one run of Gravitar rampage, I blocked one of her Booms. I took insignificant damage, so I know the game recognized that I had blocked, but I got knocked so hard I bounced off the containment dome.

    That's because whether or not you are knocked is not decided during effect resolution, it's decided during 'what effects are going to be applied to you' (damage resistance, however, is applied during effect resolution, though dodge checks seem to be resolved earlier).
    which is severely awkward since I can't actually see that. thus I generally have no idea if I blocked in time or not.
    Oh sure. I'm not at all fond of the way CO handles timing. I was just commenting on the issues of activation time and latency. If you're going to complain, complain about the right things.
    Personally, I feel the game not indicating whether blocks are succeeding is a pretty good thing to complain about. ; )

    I would like to see proper indications of the block functionality. I gave up trying to get block to work because it only made situations worse (allowed enemy to close distance and didn't stop knock-downs or other status effects) and it never seemed to make a helpful difference in damage taken.
  • I'm sorry but in the real world, if I get hit by a bus, the check for me getting hurt and me getting knocked down are at the same time. There isn't an independent check to see if i was in the path of the bus with my hands up 1 second before impact to determine if i get knocked down. The world doesn't work like that so the game should not either. Are my hands up when the bus hits, yes or no? The checks should happen at the same time and they should try to align it with the animation as much as possible.

    How is this even an argument?
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