Meerkat

A standard rush down combo ( it's been a while, forgot the term gattling combo ) doesn't really use animation cancelling, it uses frame buffering ( inputting the next move before the current move is complete so the move comes out as soon as possible ). There's no conditioning or special requirement, you just do it naturally because you input faster than what happens in the game. Plus... I'm not even 100% sure if Guilty Gear did reduce some of the cooldown animation for moves in these combos. This is a game. We can solve many issues with better mechanics without resorting to gimmicks that don't even work well depending on latency or performance. I have gone through all of these concepts. My argument isn't that animation cancelling is the end all, be all, because certainly, footsies and yomi is more important, but it differentiates players when it shouldn't. We shouldn't be competing over player input consistency, we should concentrate on those human elements like, again, footsies and yomi. Leave input consistency to bots and macros. Again, where we end and how we get there will be different, but that's okay, because we're all different, but we should all start, as much as possible, from the same starting point. This is a game; we can control and isolate so many external obstacles to improve competition. Animation cancelling, being impacted by latency and performance, doesn't create that environment. Do you get what I'm saying here? Again, as I said earlier, sometimes, I get so competitive, that I actually really appreciate the fact that consoles, with locked hardware, entirely eliminate hardware advantages. Right now, I have an amazing PC, and sometimes, I wonder how much of my success can be attributed to my system outperforming their system. Just knowing some of my opposition aren't locking 120 FPS makes my victories feel cheaper. Which is why I'm calling is stupid. It categorically makes certain players worse just because they aren't as close to the server, in a game where you can't pick your server for better ping like in FPS games. For those same players, it makes certain classes non-competitive. And again, there's no decision making process behind animation cancelling. You just do it, yet tons of players act as if animation cancelling should be a fundamental for a good gamer, when again, what's important should be mental agility, not input consistency. But thanks for the reply. You had some good examples.

Cutting your losses? First reasonable decision you've made. k, bai bai~

Claims not to see bots. Obvious troll post.

Of all the arguments I made, you picked the most inconsequential one to try to argue. Why?

Just like how they do it in fighting games! By design! As you take damage in a combo, you gain passive damage resistance. The more damage you take, the greater resistance you gain, until you only take 1% damage from incoming hits. The passive damage resistance expires on its own after maybe a second of you no longer taking damage. Since it's based on damage and not hits, you gain the same reduction from 100 damage over four hits as 100 damage over one hit. This system applies the same mechanic to all classes, makes infinite strings near impossible and is easy to tweak. Before you scream, "that's retarded and will never work," that's how it's worked in fighting games for DECADES; games with actual, real, competitive pedigree. And I'm not advocating for this system, I'm just describing how it works and proving that it does work.

You know nothing, Jon Snow. In RTS, as you micro, you are constantly making decisions. I'm going to take your own examples, and prove to you how wrong you are. How do I split the marines? Where do those split marines go? How many marines in each squad? When do I split? Everything is a decision. And that invites counterplay. Does your opponent go all in with all banelings? Does he try to bait you with other units? Does he anticipate and have some banelings burrowed adjacent so you split into his banelings? When does he build banelings? It all fits into beautiful a web of decisions! In a MOBA, when do you kill the minions? Now, near the enemy tower? Or do you let them move deeper into friendly territory? Do you keep farming minions or do you split to another lane for a gank? This leads to counterplay! Aggressive recon via wards and communication! Anticipating an enemy gank and countering! Timing your own gank! Again, all a beautiful web of decisions! Don't you see it?! The glory of well designed systems? It's all tied together into the bigger game! Everything is purposeful and intertwined! Blade & Soul animation cancelling does none of those things. You just do it. It has no deep gameplay purpose, nor does it make combat deeper. There's no counterplay. It's not a piece in the bigger puzzle. It's *cricket*ing masturbation. In Blade & Soul, you animation cancel because the alternative is sucking, and that's not a real alternative. Can I animation cancel now? No? -> You might be CC'd or dead. Yes? -> Animation cancel.

The entire topic went right over your head. You didn't even hear the whoosh as it went over your head, you were so far. Okay, we're gonna buddy system on this one. I'm going to break down everything into a numbered list so you can tell me at which number your eyes start glazing over and things stop making sense. 1. There are many ways to increase DPS. For example, making the numbers actually bigger. 2. If we make the numbers bigger, DPS goes up. This would be an intended change. 3. Animation cancelling was not intended to be in the game. It was an accident that instead of being aborted, was kept, and now has developed severe developmental disabilities. 4. Intended mechanics are better than non-intended mechanics. 5. This non-intended mechanic is especially egregious as it is effected by performance and latency. Therefore, it is bad. Coincidentally, that is the definition of "egregious." 6. The non-intended mechanic is so "egregious" it puts certain players and classes at disadvantages through no fault of the player or the base class design. 7. We can design better systems. Intentional systems. 8. Better systems will not categorically put certain players and classes at disadvantages just because, which will level out the playing field. 9. A level playing field improves accessibility which ultimately makes for a healthier competitive scene. Kicker: Right now, there isn't really a big, heavy combat class. Think Zangief from Street Fighter. Not as fast, but very tanky and if he connects, hits like a truck. Destroyers, from the description, were probably originally intended to be that kind of class. Destroyers aren't, because with animation cancelling, they're just another fast attack class, which means, aside from ranged classes, all the classes in Blade & Soul are kinda fast attack classes. So if Destroyers were changed to actually be a Zangief-type class, Blade & Soul would see increased playstyle variety by the introduction of a class with a fundamentally different playstyle more focused on playing conservatively and tanking, biding your time, trying to force your opponent into a mistake and punishing either via trapping or just pure rushdown. So if NCSoft added a potion that costs 20 NCoins, and in exchanged, increased damage output by 5% for an hour, that would also be adding something useful to the game! That potion would add DPS! It's useful! Therefore we should keep it! You still have no idea what you're talking about. Let me describe to you how animation cancelling works in fighting games: The last move in one string is very damaging, but has a long recovery animation, in which your opponent can regain control of his character. You animation cancel the recovery animation, allowing you to initiate a second string before your opponent can regain control of his character, extending the combo for more damage. To balance this ability, you have to expend a portion of your super meter, so you have to decide: Do I want to extend the combo now or save up for a super later? Keep in mind supers often have a lot of various utilities like abundant invincibility frames. A particular move is very damaging, but again has a long recovery animation. If your opponent blocks, the block animation is long enough that he can't easily punish you. If your opponent techs out ( perfect parry, etc. ), he can punish you hard. When you see your opponent tech out, you animation cancel so you can react to his punish. Again, this expends a portion of your super meter so you don't always have this ability available, and if you repeatedly make the same mistake, you're still going to get *cricket*ed. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SYSTEMS. Blade & Soul, you animation cancel because there is no reason not to. I thought these were different people, but they were the same. Wow, I definitely know who I don't want on my debate team.

Ah, gaming notebooks. This year is going to be the year guys. The year when they're finally decent. I know I said that in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 aaannnnnnddddd 2015, but this year, it's gonna be different. Animation cancelling was an accident. In StarCraft, every action is the consequence of a decision. In Blade & Soul, animation cancelling is filler. There are zero consequences for performing animation cancelling, but consequences for not performing animation cancelling. There's no decision there, it's just what you do just because. It's grease. It's lard. It tastes good, but it's shit. Anybody with two neurons to rub together should be able to reach that same conclusion. Wow... what does it feel like to be so wrong?

I've said it multiple times: a combination of issuing warnings and banning players who buy gold, with GMs performing moderate fieldwork is the way to go. Find a bot, track transactions. They'll lead you to the players buying the gold, handlers or other bots, all of which should be banned.

As I've stated earlier, this is more of a thought exercise, and I have no real expectations of this issue being taken seriously by NCSoft. They've never really given a shit about non-KR players, neither have they any particular talent for making games. In fact, reading the responses, I've realized I'm pretty much the only person juxtaposing to other games, or really just breaking down the game mechanics. It's almost as if a lot of people here only really have experience with mmopergers. I guess I was hoping to see some better counter-arguments? I haven't. It's kinda disappointing. 1. Animation cancelling, being essentially derivative of frame buffering, doesn't require that much additional skill. It's kind of a rhythm-based, mechanical element that really isn't necessary. Consistently performing rapid input shouldn't make you the better gamer, your ability to strategise and adapt should. 2. Animation cancelling isn't a new mechanic ( neither is tech chase ) by any means. Kiddies in here thinking Blade & Soul is some kinda special snowflake... Blade & Soul isn't. Animation cancelling has been around for decades and has been implemented in superior ways in games with actual competitive pedigree. In these games, animation cancelling is a technique you must actively decide to use because of the high associated cost ( up to 50% of super bar ). In Blade & Soul, whenever you can animation cancel, you should. There is never a time you shouldn't. Why would you not want to get in two extra attacks in the same time window? It's the default action. 3. Animation cancelling is impacted by way too many circumstances entirely out of the player's control like performance and latency. This gimps certain players for reasons entirely separate from player ability, and furthermore gimps certain classes when all classes should at least be viable. 4. Competitive gaming should strive to start players off from an equal playing field, as much as possible. It's why we divide fighters into weight categories and why F1 racing cars even have to use the same tires. Where we each end up will be different, and how we get there will be different, and that's okay. However, at the minimum, we should at least start from similar positions.

H'okay. So here's my Lyn. Jus' chillin'. "Daym, that is a sweet Lyn," you might say. WRONG. What's up with Lyn foreheads yo?

I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie World. Life is plastic, It's fantastic. I like to ride my horse, *cricket* intercourse.

About a week ago, I wanted to find out more about gems, so I google searched "Blade & Soul gem guide" or something. #1 result: Bladeandsouldojo or whatev. #2 result: Gold seller website. #3 result: Gold seller website. #4 or #5 result: Some cosplay blog wtf? So as per my normal operation, I just opened the top three in background tabs to read up without paying attention to the URL. Got suspicious when I saw a second inline advertisement for "FAST BLADE & SOUL GOLD" or whatevs. GG me I guess. Hoping Gameguard doesn't actively capture browser activity / check history like VAC. But man. The gold sellers actually offer real resources as opposed to NCSoft. GG NCSoft.

Why aren't there any classy two piece suits for female characters? I love the sophisticated, business look on women. It's sexy.

I get what you're saying. I've explained aggressor advantage as a combination of lag compensation and client side hit detection more times than I care to count. That's not my point. My question is whether mechanical difficulty is conducive toward a good game. Let's define what I mean by mechanical difficulty. Aspects of the game not directly related to how you defeat your opponent, but how you physically, in the real world, perform actions. Accuracy and consistency of input is mechanical. We are human beings, we make errors. Because of that, a bot will always defeat a human in a purely mechanical game. The bot will never make a mistake. But we're not bots, we're humans. Certain types of competitions are purely mechanical, shooting for example. But whenever we can, when we compete, it should be a competition of our human qualities, not which one of us can be the better bot. Our ability to strategise and adapt. Our ability to think and imagine. An example: Counterstrike: Global Offensive. If bots were forced to play by the same rules as human players, e.g. unable to see through smoke, walls, etc., humans could beat bots. With good strategy and use of smokes and flashbangs, we can flank, one shot the bots and win. Dirty Bomb, however... Dirty Bomb places such a huge emphasis on individual player mechanical skill, on precision and tracking, a human player will be hard pressed to defeat a bot, even in ideal circumstances. The mechanical difficulty is why I love Dirty Bomb, but is Dirty Bomb the better game? It hurts me to say this because Dirty Bomb is my favourite FPS game, and I hate Counterstrike... but Dirty Bomb maybe isn't the better game. Counterstrike is definitely the more human game. Counterstrike is streamlined; they've done everything possible to level out the playing field and create an environment where thinking humans compete against other thinking humans because Counterstrike is more about strategy and tactics and less raw talent. That's a hallmark of a good game. Isolating out as many outside factors as possible so competition can be pure, so that as many of us as possible can compete in a fair manner. Player versus Player. Have you heard of the game Divekick? That's a beautiful game. Your entire moveset is move forward and backward, jump and kick ( from a jump ). It condenses everything great about fighting games: footsies, baiting, trapping, into a pure form with no accessibility barriers. You can't make an error in execution; as a result, everyone can play and compete in the same mindset as professional players. Divekick is genius. Blade & Soul's animation cancelling mechanic throws all of this out the window. This is the best response so far, spoken from a man, not a tool.