Game Mechanics! Smooth Gameplay

sunnynight

Games such as League of Legends have put so much work and effort into making sure that players experience smooth, comfortable, and natural gameplay mechanics.

PWI on the other hand if very, very, very (did I say very?) awkward, especially in pvp situations where the mechanics can make all the difference of whether you win or lose that 1v1, or even group pvp.

Most of the problems I highlight here are concerned with glitchy/buggy/awkward behaviour when trying to interrupt movement to cast a skill.
I will give some pvp examples as a cleric

PROBLEM: walking and casting or "kite casting" causes stutter steps and skills that never cast, ruining the kite
While kiting away from a blademaster or any other class that wants to squish me, if I want to cast a skill as I am running, I can press the skill button while holding w/a/s/d movement keys and what will happen are one of four things.
1. The skill will cast with a delay, my character will continue to move for a short time before stopping to cast the skill.
2. After the brief delay, my character will "rubber band" (we all know the rubber band issue) backwards to where it was at the time I actually hit the skill key, moving me closer to the enemy I was kiting away from.
3. While kiting away or chasing using holy path, this "brief delay" and rubber band affect that returns you backwards to where you clicked the skill before actually casting, is now a 15 meter rubber band for say a one second delay! This ruins the chase, and puts you well out of max range, especially when chasing someone who's on their last hitpoint! It also ruins kiting.
4. The skill will not cast at all.
5. I can mash the skill button (keyboard, I don't know how this works for clicking) several times and my character will VERY awkwardly continue walking with a pause in its walking (stutter step) for every time I press the key for my skill, the skill in this case will only SOMETIMES actually cast. This is extremely frustrating and ruins the kiting completely, getting me caught and stuck unprepared in a stun lock of my enemy or something similar.

Some context
Currently to get around this issue, I have to literally stop moving and stand still for at least 0.5 seconds before pressing my skill key or I hit the above issues, in some cases the skill STILL won't cast. This completely ruins my pvp kiting, combos, kill setups, everything... I get caught, blademaster/sin/whatever stun locks or crowd controls me, their cooldowns reset, I'm blowing defenses, I'm back to square one, any threat or pressure I applied during that fight is lost completely.

Additionally these same issues occur while chasing someone and trying to cast simultaneously from max range. Players experience a horrible stutter step where the character steps towards the enemy, briefly is inside max range and is about to cast, but then the enemy character exits max range (but is running at an angle, not directly away from the player) this results in the character getting stuck in stutter step over and over as they continuously catch up (because the enemy is not running directly away), stop to cast, and then fall back out of range. SO ANNOYING especially when that enemy is on their last hitpoint and gets away!

This max range stutter step issue above is also a MAJOR issue for any class that casts heals or buffs on ally players! Making it impossible to keep up with the ally because of the stutter step and never get a heal off or the buff. So frustrating especially as a cleric. This game's mechanics are SO BAD.

SUGGESTION:
Make it so that pressing or clicking a skill key takes priority over movement, stops the character's movement, and make the skill channel/cast immediately! Don't rubber band a player to the position that they clicked the skill! Leave them where they are on their screen and cast the skill from that position! Perhaps for the chasing from max range stutter step scenario, add some leniency or slack or forgiveness to the way the max range mechanic works.

This brings me to the ultimate rubber band issue which will probably be never fixed, it has been around so long, I hope no explanation is needed...

PROBLEM: Death through Absolute Domain, Ironguard Powder, Power Sutra Orb, any invincibility.
Sometimes an invincibility skill will cast and you can see the golden aura animation around your character but you can still receive damage and die in the first split second. NO I'm not referring to damage over time affects or magical shackle that go through the invincibility!
SUGGESTION: obviously, fix this...

That's all for now, I'm sure I'll have more.
Please fix these quality of life issues that make it so awkward, unnatural, and unsmooth to play this game! So very much appreciated if you do by everyone!

dblazen

The problems you are describing are more related to latency issues, there's little to be fixed about that.

Also, you can't compare an MMORPG to a MOBA.
PWI needs an upgrade on the engine it uses, which CN said they would do, but so far never did.​​

sunnynight

I realized some of those "rubber banding" affects are related to latency issues by simple deduction. But there must be something that can be done at least to make these issues more forgiving. I think the walking and casting stutter step issue within range must be such a simple fix. Just give priority to the casting.

sunnynight

The fact that stormbringers can walk and cast at the same time fixes most of these issues, they have an unfair advantage.

There is no background story or precedent that stormbringers can do it and the rest can't. I think for the sake of eliminating the awkward gameplay experience, they should give all casters this ability.

sunnynight

Also if they can make walking and casting work for stormbringers, they can probably use the same technique to allow other classes to perhaps walk say just one step while casting, this would make SUCH a huge difference.

The way this would work is that the channelling/casting can begin WHLE walking but whatever step your character is taking will be its last until the skill has completed.

sunnynight

This also avoids awkward walking/casting animations with using the whole stormbringer solution because only one step is allowed to be taken.