Unresponsive movement / activation will hurt this game IMO

I am a fan of ARPGs and as such I play any i can. There is an issue with PoE that I hope the developers are aware of and not simply dismissing, and that is the click movement and animations.

I find myself clicking the ground where I want my hero to move an average of probably 5-6 times before my character begins to move.

For example, using bow as it's easiest to explain: You are standing and shooting at a closing mob. In D3 or TL for example, when the mob closes you click away and your char turns and runs. In PoE, I find myself click, click again, click again, taking damage WTF! Oh, now I'm moving, too late.

In PoE, I find I have to break attack a shot or even two earlier than i would in any other ARPG I ever played simply because it takes so long to get going. Long animations? Sluggish input? I don't know but it is frustrating as hell and kills and enjoyment as I'm killing my mouse.

Why can't I re-bind space bar as "force attack" instead of shift? WTH? Did I miss it? Required.

Anyway, I don't know if it is just because I've come back to PoE after a long break playing other ARPGs, but it is incredibly noticeable in comparison.

I don't know if it's just animations need to end earlier if you click to move, or what really. I do know the feel of it is unacceptably slow and unresponsive. It just feels "off".

Otherwise, the game is coming along great since I last played. I hope they will address this when feasible.

I'm sorry, let me clarify. I'm holding my mouse shooting a bow, when the mob gets to close, i'm immediately clicking the ground like "gogogo", in the time my character takes to finish attacking and start booking away, I've clicked several times.

I don't mean there is some technical problem like it just isn't responding to clicks or anything. Just the transition from attacking to moving.

Thanks for the reply.

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Chris wrote:

Our UI programmer is working on shift being rebindable.

I understand there are concerns about movement and combat that will be addressed. Thanks very much for the feedback - we will make it awesome.

"

Die_Scream wrote:

I find myself clicking the ground where I want my hero to move an average of probably 5-6 times before my character begins to move.

This is not true. If your character is not currently doing anything, when you click, the client immediately starts moving down the path to the place you clicked. There is no delay at all. It doesn't wait for the server for confirmation. It doesn't wait for the character to finish turning.

I totally agree that movement is not responsive when you are in the middle of doing other actions or if you hold down the mouse button (as opposed to clicking). These will be fixed!

Chris, the problem the OP has is the recovery time of skills. For most it is way too much. It's the slow animation after a hit all characters perform to get to their normal stance, that cannot be interrupted. For some skills, like most melee, that is fine, but for example the knives skill for the shadow is absolutely useless because of that recovery. P:

I feel like this should be attenuated on a per-skill basis perhaps.

Swinging a two-handed sword, if half-way through you decide to turn tail and run... you can't just do that instantly. You must at the very least bend your desire to physics and momentum.

With a bow it's slightly different, in that you should be able to decide before you fire, not to fire, and then the recovery has almost no momentum, so you could run quickly. Additionally with a bow, even during fire you can decide to run, but your accuracy should fall to nearly zero and if you didn't get a full draw, your damage should be less if you do hit something.

Many skills could be balanced with recovery time as a consideration, but I'm not sure if I agree that skills should be able to be cancelled as some might want.

That said, there is the 'fun factor' to consider... it might be the case that it's simply more fun to allow the action to cancel and to run. That is up to the designer.

This does make me wonder if animation durations are also programmed on the server, such that if a second command is sent (through a hacked animation sequence) the timer negates it. I assume this is so, because of the way melee attacks progress and have been talked about before, but am not entirely sure.

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zeto wrote:

This does make me wonder if animation durations are also programmed on the server, such that if a second command is sent (through a hacked animation sequence) the timer negates it. I assume this is so, because of the way melee attacks progress and have been talked about before, but am not entirely sure.

It just feels like I am stuck finishing an animation for too long, as in the time I am waiting I am frustratedly clicking and thinking "Move dammit!" This doesn't happen in other similar games I've played.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. I could be wrong about the animation part, but there is a definite feel of not getting to move when transitioning from attack to move, which results in death.

As I said, i adjusted by stopping attack earlier than felt "right" to move earlier.

Also, Chris mentioned they are being fixed so I guess I'll wait and see what they do. Thanks all.

"

Chris wrote:

Our UI programmer is working on shift being rebindable.

I understand there are concerns about movement and combat that will be addressed. Thanks very much for the feedback - we will make it awesome.

This is not true. If your character is not currently doing anything, when you click, the client immediately starts moving down the path to the place you clicked. There is no delay at all. It doesn't wait for the server for confirmation. It doesn't wait for the character to finish turning.

I totally agree that movement is not responsive when you are in the middle of doing other actions or if you hold down the mouse button (as opposed to clicking). These will be fixed!

Yeepee.. awesome.. especially the rebindable shift.

"

Chris wrote:

Our UI programmer is working on shift being rebindable.

I understand there are concerns about movement and combat that will be addressed. Thanks very much for the feedback - we will make it awesome.

"

Die_Scream wrote:

I find myself clicking the ground where I want my hero to move an average of probably 5-6 times before my character begins to move.

This is not true. If your character is not currently doing anything, when you click, the client immediately starts moving down the path to the place you clicked. There is no delay at all. It doesn't wait for the server for confirmation. It doesn't wait for the character to finish turning.

I totally agree that movement is not responsive when you are in the middle of doing other actions or if you hold down the mouse button (as opposed to clicking). These will be fixed!

Basically what the OP wants is for auto-attacks to work like in League of Legends. There are two main differences. One is that you can move to instantly cancel any basic attack, and two, the attack animation is shorter than the time between attacks, which allows you time to move in-between attacks.

As it is, the attack animation and time between attacks are one in the same, and you've expressed extreme aversion to implementing any kind of cooldown mechanic.

"

Strill wrote:

and you've expressed extreme aversion to implementing any kind of cooldown mechanic.

Ambiguity in this statement.

You are talking about a global cooldown, which can (and should) be completely transparent to the user.

Devs have expressed extreme aversion to placing cooldowns on abilities. Ability cooldowns take a significant balancing effort.

Pretty different things here, just wanted to disambiguate.

I've found especially Sweep has this problem, where the animation itself is almost a second long.

That means you're stuck in melee for a very long time, and what's worse, the mobs get to interrupt the ability, without you having any kind of control...

I wouldn't know how to fix that, the partial circle of the Sweep is obviously intentional, but come Ruthless I found that it was practically worthless as an ability, because you can't stand still for that long.
Should be noted Sweep is a 2h ability, and I use an axe, not a staff, i.e. no block.