0-400ms delay on spells is a joke

[svendl]

A few days ago delay on all CCs were a static 200ms, that felt really good, it allowed for all the "delay mechanics" which existed on retail to work, but at the same time did not feel clunky at all, was overall a very pleasant experience, kind of like the blackrock/AT of TBC.

After playing arena yesterday though I knew right away that something was way off, CCs had started to feel very clunky at times, and I was able to react to enemy kick/pummel on interruptbar before the actual spell interrupted me(apparently they added delay to the interrupts as well!!!)

I'm guessing you based this change off of a forum post a Blizzard developer made in 2014, a post in which he first states

I don't want to get too deep into the under-the-hood workings of WoW servers, but here's a super short version.

The fact that you decided to take a leap of faith and go ahead and try this based on this post alone, a post that titles itself as "a super short version", of a most likely much more complex sytem. Instead of using the very same system that has with Arena-Tournament proven to be good and something that players actually liked.

The 0-400ms "blizzlike" system has been tried before on other servers and in the end most top pvpers despised it. It just makes everything feel more clunky.

As I see it now to improve this, either:

• Revert to the static system

• Keep the batch system but lower it to 0-250 or 0-300ms(also remove it entirely for interrupts)

The downsides of lowering the batch timer is that it lowers the average delay that you will get on CCs, which diminishes the use of the "delay mechanics" that existed on retail quite a bit. Another downside of it is that having different delay everytime you CC someone will make you notice the delay much more. Which eventually can become annoying, compared to a static delay which is reliable and something you get used to. The upside of a lowered batch system would however be that it would feel less clunky, and that spells of different players would always resolve simultaneously.

In my opinion the batch system has more negatives to it than positives, even when lowering it.

[Obnoxious]

1. You talk about "leaps of faith" when you base all you say on a guess about the source used for a change;

2. If you have data contradicting something, i.e. proving the current implementation to be wrong (emphasis on "wrong," none in "disliked by PvPers"), post it in a bug report in the Bug Tracker.

[svendl]

1. You talk about "leaps of faith" when you base all you say on a guess about the source used for a change;

2. If you have data contradicting something, i.e. proving the current implementation to be wrong (emphasis on "wrong," none in "disliked by PvPers"), post it in a bug report in the Bug Tracker.

I'm just trying to have an open discussion.

[Obnoxious]

So, basically, a "please, don't do it in a way I have no proof against, because I/PvPers dislike it"? There's nothing to be discussed about that. We have always aimed for fidelity and catered to players seeking fidelity. It's clear on our policies about custom content, how little of it is ever implemented - to the point we refuse to include "auto-completes" in bugged quests - and how 99.99% of suggestions are rejected. Unless you can provide hard data evidencing that this isn't how it was on Burning Crusade retail, and all you have is disliking it, this is a moot point.

[svendl]

Edited the thread start a bit, should give more of an insight to the issue.

This is also nothing that is simply black & white, as in.. THIS is how it was, this is blizzlike... No, it's a complex mechanic of many unknown underlying mechanics that will never be fully known, which is why in my opinion it is up to debate on which system would be most desirable and what actually "feels" most blizzlike.

[Bigpwn]

Just want to make it clear that there is currently no delay on interrupts as there wasn't any on live either, it was only briefly present on the ptr. Furthermore spells would not resolve simultaneously before batching them whereas now they do.

[Peonstompergodx]

@Bigpwn You do realize that this should apply to damage spells, abilities & even friendly dispels & buffs too right? And it gets complicated when you have to think about which ones should be applied first etc. This also caused issues on another server where you could ambush, weapon swap to mace and do way more damage.

[idkmate]

So, basically, a "please, don't do it in a way I have no proof against, because I/PvPers dislike it"? There's nothing to be discussed about that. We have always aimed for fidelity and catered to players seeking fidelity. It's clear on our policies about custom content, how little of it is ever implemented - to the point we refuse to include "auto-completes" in bugged quests - and how 99.99% of suggestions are rejected. Unless you can provide hard data evidencing that this isn't how it was on Burning Crusade retail, and all you have is disliking it, this is a moot point.

There's actually plenty of evidence that the current implementation is not 100% blizzlike as this has already been extensively researched for other projects. Good to know the mods welcome open discussion on the forums though! A version of the batch system was in use during retail WOTLK as well, somehow that didn't end up on any of your WOTLK servers however.. So much for fidelity I guess.

[svendl]

Just want to make it clear that there is currently no delay on interrupts as there wasn't any on live either, it was only briefly present on the ptr. Furthermore spells would not resolve simultaneously before batching them whereas now they do.

That is true, and honestly the only benefit of such system.

As it stands now though, it does feel clunky. Especially when you come into intense arena situations when you want to interrupt casts with warstomp, stuns etc... Just to get completely screwed over by rng and have it be delayed by 400ms. You won't really notice the clunkiness if you just test it out in duels, but it is definitely noticable when two good teams face off in arena.

Personally I really like the delay that is in place on Blackrock, 150ms, but 200ms which was the case just a few days ago here is also good.

Honestly though, with the amount of tournaments that have been held on AT over the years with the absolute top pvpers in the world in them. Did anyone ever complain about someone else getting out of CC a few dozen milliseconds earlier than someone else? Even getting into a situation where you and someone else CC each other with a spell that has the exact same duration is rare, even more rare that you will actually be able to use that extremely small gap to gain any form of tangible advantage. The only time where I can see it being a minor problem would be in rogue vs rogue duels, but even then it would be rare.

[Obnoxious]

There's actually plenty of evidence that the current implementation is not 100% blizzlike as this has already been extensively researched for other projects.

Svendl says it's "Blizzlike" and tried on other servers, but "top PvPers" disliked it... so which is it? Better yet: provide this extensive research so it can be taken in consideration.

Good to know the mods welcome open discussion on the forums though!

The thread isn't deleted or locked, is it? The discussion is open, just moot and another dead horse when what's been presented is contradictions/non-issues like "it's Blizzlike but PvPers don't like it" and "there's extensive research somewhere."

[stefeman]

I agree.. as of today it kinda feels more sluggish and annoying than before.

[svendl]

Also a thing to note is that with a 0-400ms batch system, there will be many more scenarios with Warriors having spell reflect up when they are CCed, Shamans with grounding totem down while CCed, getting CCed behind pillars(if a spell hits you right before getting behind cover, but resolves 300-400ms later then that will lead to you being cced up to 3 yards behind cover, even more if you have a speed increase).

I just feel that such amount of delay simply doesn't belong in a competitive environment, at least not in 2017.

What I personally think would feel best is 150 or 175ms. My reasoning for this is that you don't want to be able to "feel" the delay, but at the same time you want there to be a delay there to allow for all the delay mechanics. I also think a gameplay with less rng and where you can not react to your enemy spells, but only anticipate them makes for better gameplay.

Staying near & below 200ms makes it so you don't feel the delay. Likely to do with human reaction time.
150/175ms delay & taking a little latency and server diff into account, makes the time for instant CCs to resolve after you have pressed them to around 200ms.

[aesorn]

Really funny all the admins talking all this blizzlike stuff when Warmane has x5-x11 rates and sells gear on the cash shop. Was that also blizzlike guys?

Eitherway if you don't know EXACTLY how a specific system worked back then why implement a "short-version" one? I read the article from the blizz dev from 2014 and if that's your "data" for your batch system and copy him word for word then that's just ridiculous. He himself said it's the short-version and what if his numbers were off a bit anyways.

If you don't have video evidence for something which I feel this couldn't even be proved 100% from a video anyways then don''t make a "short-version" of it because all of the delayed mechanics like two rogues sapping each other, simultaneous displacement effects, vanishing spells, ect all work fine on Blackrock and most of the TBC pvp servers ive played on anyways right now so why change something that isn't broken?

[Vulpix]

just wanted to throw my 2 cents. I played arena yesterday and thought it felt awful. Instantly noticed that something had changed. It felt like a certain other project which other people in this thread are talking about. That other project had a PvP event and the conclusion was that the implementation (kinda like it is here now) was just bad from a PvP perspective. A bit hard to reference that since the projects info is not available, though can probably be digged up. Maybe ask the PvP community how they feel about spell delay and how it should be implemented, pretty certain most of the pvp players do not like the spell delay mechanic. And we're talking PvP community because it affects the PvP community the most. What if everyone just dislikes it? What would it take to go against the "blizzlike" argument, because that argument seems to weigh differently depending on topic (cash shop, exp rates, faction balance? etc).

[Mercy]

Really funny all the admins talking all this blizzlike stuff when Warmane has x5-x11 rates and sells gear on the cash shop. Was that also blizzlike guys?

Hey, if you really want to go that route, do you plan on paying $50 for the game and $15 for the subscription before you can even log in? And then another $15 for every month you plan on playing? How about another $50 every two years to be allowed to keep playing current content?
No? Yes? How about everyone else?

We offer the service for free, if the user in question so chooses. Concessions must be made in order to maintain that.

We try to keep things as "blizzlike" as possible in some/most areas. But that doesn't mean there aren't any compromises that have been made that we deem either acceptable or necessary. But that doesn't mean we should allow people to take a kilometer from us when we're only offering a centimeter.

This discussion does not belong in this topic. In fact, it's rather pointless to discuss it at all. Anyone who has any business sense will understand the approach. Let it end here and get back to the topic. Please and thank you.