Delayed attack and Animation bug

[Krisee]

Hey!
Thank you for the thread and research. I'll go a bit into detail about what's going on and about 2 things that will change about this in the future.

About blocking
First of all let's lay down what a perfect block is, it's a last second block, that reduces the stun you get and increases your opponent's stun slightly, but by nature is obviously a bit more risky to perform. Additionally there are also heavy attacks, from your opponent, which are attacks that were held and not released instantly on their ready, those attacks deal more damage and stun.

But back to the topic. For a perfect block to work, your weapon needs to be exactly at or just about to reach the physical blocking location, so the end of the blocking animation (keep that in mind).
With our new logical blocking system, that was introduced a while back, we reduced the block delay. In practice this means, even if your weapon is not at the physical blocking location yet, the logical system might decide that your block was successful. So being able to block might not necessarily mean that your weapon has to be exactly physically in the position to do so.

Now you might notice that those systems collide here. Before we introduced the system, the earliest you could block was a “perfect block” and after that time window, everything would be a normal block. Now with the logical blocking system, we extended the period you are able to block, so you can block earlier. But those blocks don't count as perfect blocks, even though visually and timing wise they look very similar.

Obviously, just like your video shows, this leads to some confusion, since practically your input is the same, but by the fraction of a second, you sometimes perform those “early blocks” instead of “perfect blocks” resulting in an extended stun period.

We will work on a way to resolve this. Probably we will just count all early blocks as perfect blocks in the future, and “teleport” the defenders weapon to the physical perfect block position.

About spears
So with spears we have 2 bugs currently that are causing these weird behaviours. Both bugs are purely visual.

1. The first one is a very old one, that we will hopefully get around fixing soon. It's actually not spear related, but about thrust attacks (but obviously this affects spears more than other weapons). After a successful thrust, usually you will get an attacker stun, where you are not able to ready your weapon instantly again, but are free to block, we are all used to it by now. Sadly atm we allow players to go into an attack ready early than they are supposed to. But since the stun is still active, we don't allow them to attack. This makes it seem like you are stuck in your ready animation and throws off your timings. Thanks for @Aprikosenmann for reporting it, check this gif that visualizes it.
2. The second thing is that, after you switch from a weapon to your spear and instantly attack, you end up with this sped up attack animation like shown in your video. It seems like it's playing a wrong animation there which is causing this problem, we are looking into fixing it.

I am pretty sure this covers all the problems brought up. Thanks for the reports again!

No problem man. Thanks a lot Nin3.
Looking forward to the patch

 

[NIN3]

Ahh! Thanks a bunch! I hope you will get around to fix it soon, next patch? It shouldnt be a thing that reoccur once its fixed, better fix it sooner than later IMO. Nice to read in depth dev posts like this, thanks

Its not something we can easily hotfix. I wouldnt expect it too soon sorry.

No problem man. Thanks a lot Nin3.
Looking forward to the patch

Sure, thank you for the research! Also to @Chao Persik

 

[Krisee]

Its not something we can easily hotfix. I wouldnt expect it too soon sorry.


Sure, thank you for the research! Also to @Chao Persik

We are going to research 1 more thing tomorrow on this problem, if we get any results I will tag you in a post in this thread.

 

[[OSOD] Imperator]

Leave it to Nin3 to give hope to the community

 

[Aprikosenmann]

We will work on a way to resolve this. Probably we will just count all early blocks as perfect blocks

One could say this straight up punishes quick block reaction time.

But since the stun is still active, we don't allow them to attack. This makes it seem like you are stuck in your ready animation and throws off your timings.

Hmmm this sounds like the problem is consistent but as far as I remember the delay duration is pretty random and sometimes it lasts till forever (it cancels the attack after a few seconds). After getting kick slashed there was a similar problem, im not sure if its still in the game.

The question is: Why can we ready an attack during attacker stun after stabbing but not ready during attacker stun after swinging.
And why is there even an attacker stun after hitting, attacker stuns were usually only applied when getting blocked?

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

One could say this straight up punishes quick block reaction time.

Not really, the logical block system was introduced to make up for quick block reactions times not being registered by the game, this would just bring that system in line with current game mechanics. It's a further buff to quick blocking.

 

[FearSpear]

and “teleport” the defenders weapon to the physical perfect block position.

Yes this doesn't sound like it will backfire at all

 

[NIN3]

One could say this straight up punishes quick block reaction time.

Quite the opposite right? Perfect blocks work just like before, its just that there is a new kind of block before them (so when you are reacting slower). I do agree that it shouldn't punish you though as there is nearly no difference. But in theory it punishes slow reaction times atm.

Yes this doesn't sound like it will backfire at all

Not sure what you are on about?

 

[FearSpear]

Not sure what you are on about?

Kind of like the time you guys tried to fix campaign perks in singleplayer which caused the sound of doom and by extension widespread hearing damage through the multiplayer community. If you guys try to make swords teleport it's bound to cause explosions in our GPUs which will instead shower people in white-hot shrapnel. I personally can't wait for the forum posts complaining about how they suffered permanent nerve damage from their in-home shrapnel explosions and then in the same sentence asking when the "Bomb of Doom" update will be patched.

 

[Horatius]

Kind of like the time you guys tried to fix campaign perks in singleplayer which caused the sound of doom and by extension widespread hearing damage through the multiplayer community. If you guys try to make swords teleport it's bound to cause explosions in our GPUs which will instead shower people in white-hot shrapnel. I personally can't wait for the forum posts complaining about how they suffered permanent nerve damage from their in-home shrapnel explosions and then in the same sentence asking when the "Bomb of Doom" update will be patched.

XDDDDD LMFAO SO TRUE UR FUNNY

 

[Einarcf]

I mean, you guys want them to stop developing? There is not really a lot of other options...

 

[Horked]

Stop developing one of the greatest franchises in history of gaming?

Nuts.

 

[Silvernj]

Kind of like the time you guys tried to fix campaign perks in singleplayer which caused the sound of doom and by extension widespread hearing damage through the multiplayer community. If you guys try to make swords teleport it's bound to cause explosions in our GPUs which will instead shower people in white-hot shrapnel. I personally can't wait for the forum posts complaining about how they suffered permanent nerve damage from their in-home shrapnel explosions and then in the same sentence asking when the "Bomb of Doom" update will be patched.

Being toxic to the only dev who's still interacting with the community and saying **** that makes absolutely no sense

 

[FearSpear]

Being toxic to the only dev who's still interacting with the community and saying **** that makes absolutely no sense

Nothing that I said or implied is untrue, this game already has had glitches which have put immense power strain on GPU's in the past. Or would you prefer another 5-10 examples of where a small balance change to the code has created massive negative externalities in other unrelated mechanics?

 

[Silvernj]

Nothing that I said or implied is untrue, this game already has had glitches which have put immense power strain on GPU's in the past. Or would you prefer another 5-10 examples of where a small balance change to the code has created massive negative externalities in other unrelated mechanics?

You just talking nonsense. Everybody knows TW makes bad patches but it doesn't mean they should not do more patches.

 

[FearSpear]

You just talking nonsense.

Nothing that I said or implied is untrue, this game already has had glitches which have put immense power strain on GPU's in the past. Or would you prefer another 5-10 examples of where a small balance change to the code has created massive negative externalities in other unrelated mechanics?

 

[Chao Persik]

Sorry for the late reply. It took a while to test all situations and be confident in my speech. I read everything you wrote and agree with almost everything 100%. But there is a certain detail, a very important detail, due to which this topic was originally created. Unfortunately, we ourselves did not fully understand what the problem was, and could only guess, so our words and the essence of the video were not entirely accurate. It turned out that in all the videos we were showing delay because of using preclick after block, without explaining the reason why this was happening.

Therefore, let’s proceed to the essence of the problem:
​

Citing NIN3:

“Obviously, just like your video shows, this leads to some confusion, since practically your input is the same, but by the fraction of a second, you sometimes perform those “early blocks” instead of “perfect blocks” resulting in an extended stun period”

Actually, the problem is not in early blocks and not in attacker stun, but in bug you get if you click attack a bit before block, instantly after block or simultaneously with block (preclick attack). As for stun after blocking enemy hit, it should look like prolonged block animation, from which you can’t switch to attack immediately because of this stun. And this particular bug makes your character stand idle, so I guess it doesn’t have anything in common with stuns at all.
All the moments in the video with sign “bugged animation” were recorded performing the following list of actions: normal block/perfect block/early block + PRECLICK.​

What is “preclick”?
​

To begin with, we will introduce such a concept as a “perfect attack” - this is mechanically the earliest attack you can perform after a block in the game, taking into account stun received from an enemy strike. But sometimes due to such problems as ping, package loss and other things small delay happens and it becomes impossible to make a perfect attack by clicking LMB even at the exact timing. I think you have already understood what “preclick” is - it is pressing the attack button right before the moment for perfect attack – the attack input entered in the exact timing with block, or a bit later. The preclick attack will start mechanically only after several milliseconds, but because I entered input in advance, the attack will start automatically in the exactly same timing of perfect attack.

I will repeat myself so there are no questions left: What actions do I perform with my mouse: block (RMB) / holding block+attack (LMB) (almost simultaneously) = preclick.
What's actually happens in game: block - delay because of stun from enemy strike - perfect attack.
Before the last patch this system (preclick) was working perfectly – it didn’t matter which weapon I blocked with and which weapon I was hit with. Of course, there was a difference because of stun – perfect attack started later or sooner depending on that, but it didn’t have any effect on the preclick.
At the moment after the new patch stuns take effect directly on preclick. The same goes for spear animation in video, including APRISOKENMANN GIF. He also uses preclick, it’s a bit different problem which existed even before this patch, but the essence of the problem is the same.

Usage of preclick right now causes delay +visual bug:​

1. You block enemy strike (doesn’t matter if it was normal block, early block or perfect block)​
2. Right in the moment of your weapons (or enemy weapon and your shield) colliding you press LMB in order to perform preclick.​
3. You pressed LMB and are expecting to start attack animation, but (several options):​

• your character is just standing idle, and then suddenly after like 0,5ms (this time can vary, sometimes it’s longer, sometimes shorter (0.1 ms - 0.5 ms)) he starts attack that you have pressed way earlier. From player’s perspective it looks like your attack input disappeared, and then after some delay your character starts swinging on his own, without any command and sometimes (when 0.1 ms delay happens) much faster than regular attack animation, as if it was sped up.​

Check GIF for bugged animation with delay (0.5ms)
Check GIF for bugged animation with delay (0.1ms)

• after your LMB click no attack happens, game just ignores it and you stand idle.

Check GIF

You should understand that this problem appears not because of stun, as in video you can see similar weapons, which should cause similar consistent stuns in terms of time, if that was the case.

REMINDER: all of these actions (except 0.1ms gif) are performed with just 2 clicks – 1 click for block and simultaneous 1 for attack (preclick)
BUT – preclick is also possible with holding regular block if you manage to click LMB right before enemy weapon collides with your, and it can still bug out. Check GIF

NIN3, citing your reply:

“Sadly atm we allow players to go into an attack ready early than they are supposed to. But since the stun is still active, we don't allow them to attack”

In my personal opinion: why don't you make the impact of the stun the same as it was some patches ago with two-handed weapons? Stun extended the ANIMATION OF HOLDING THE BLOCK, which showed perfectly that I was "stunned". Therefore, I could not perform preclick - animation of preparing the weapon didn’t start, because there was an animation of holding the block. There were no visual problems and delays. Now because of visual glitches I can only guess if my preclick is working or I’m in "stun". Are you sure that "stun" should affect preclick rather than block animation?

To sum it up. Delay together with bugged animation happens because of performing preclick. Delay varies from 0.1ms to 0.5ms depending on normal/perfect/early block and amount of time between pressing block and preclick. But this delay is always present. I doubt deeply that it can be called “stun”.
Reasons for that:​

1. Delay can be fixed clicking LMB more times. Check GIF
2. If instead of preclick you perform normal/perfect attack, there’s no 0,5ms delay+weird animation (or, as you call it, stun). Check GIF
3. If it really happens because of stun, why does it cause weird animation?

Thank you for the attention
@NIN3, please contact us in case you need further explanations and evidence, we can show these bugs to you in game including your direct participation in tests.
ChaoPersik Discord: ChaoPersik#4505​

Special thanks to:
Artemeis
Krisee​

 

[Adderall]

How long are stuns after swinging before you can block? In the duel server since the first balance update there seems to be a stun after swinging (for 1H too which was never the case before) and it's very inconsistent. I used to always preclick before reading this thread but I've stopped doing it after it and I'm not sure this is all not just caused by server performance/package loss/fps stuttering?

The reason why I think so is that regardless on whether I hit the enemy block or if my swing misses entirely the stun can last very irregular times and entirely independent from the enemy. It's not a big issue but it's still pretty odd because this issue did not exist before.

 

[Krisee]

;-;

 

[Shemaforash]

This is frustrating