Titan issues that need addressing.

[Gyson]

There are often discussions concerning Titan and why people struggle with it. I wanted to post some pictures from a video showing issues which, I feel, contribute to the confusion and problems people have with being tagged by an event during a Titan battle.

Image 1: The Castbar



The castbar (located above Titan's health bar), not the visual telegraph aid on the ground, is king when it comes to determining when a spell has begun and completed its casting. The first issue here then should be obvious: the casting of "Weight of the Land" has begun, and yet our hero (center screen) is likely oblivious to this event because the visual telegraph has not yet been applied to the scene. In reality he needs to be moving already, he just doesn't know it yet unless he's actively monitoring Titan's castbar (and I believe very few people outside of tanks bother to do that). And even if he did start running, without the telegraph it's tricky to know where to safely run to.


Image 2: The Telegraph



We fast forward a few moments and the castbar has completely filled and vanished - at this point the casting of "Weight of the Land" has completed. And yet, the telegraph for it still remains on the ground, giving our hero the impression that the casting process is still ongoing. This is the "you're already screwed, you just don't know it yet" moment. This is the point where the server is determining whether or not our hero has cleared the AOE (and it's clear that he hasn't). What should be happening here is the game should be displaying Weight of the Land's explosion effect and damage numbers, not its telegraph.


Image 3: The Deception



Moments later our hero has cleared the telegraph and believes that he is "safe". In reality he is being deceived by the game - the telegraph lingers on the ground giving the appearance that the casting process is still underway, and while our hero has cleared the AOE we know from the prior image that he didn't clear it in time. Remember, the castbar is king, and the castbar was already gone in the prior image.


Image 4: The Lull



Why this moment of nothing (no telegraph, no explosion effect) even exists is anyone's guess. It's just giving our hero more time to move, more time to believe he's safely escaped (when in reality he hasn't). This period of nothing shouldn't exist - at this point we should be staring at the lingering remains of an explosion effect that should have started two images back.


Image 5: Better Late Than Never



The explosion effect finally begins, far later than it should have. Our hero is clearly out of the impact zone, but that doesn't matter because the game only cares about where the player was back in image 2, when the cast bar completed and he was still in the AOE.


Image 6: Reality Dawns



Finally, here the game delivers the bad news: much to his surprise, our hero didn't make it. In a moment the game will get around to depleting the remainder of his health bar and he'll fall over dead. This damage should have been applied back at image 2, but for some reason the game delays sending this information and ultimately confuses the player.


And all that, I feel, is a large part of the problem. Had the explosion and damage been applied back at image 2 where it needed to be, our hero would learn that they are not removing themselves from the AOE quickly enough. Instead, our hero believes they did everything correctly - they cleared the AOE before the damage was applied, before the explosion effect rendered, even before the telegraph vanished. In their minds there is nothing for them to improve on here, they are simply being screwed over by the game, lag, etc.

All of this needs to be tightened up - whether it's the castbar timer being lengthened to match the effects, or the effects displaying sooner to match the castbar... the important thing is that the castbar and telegraph need to start and stop at precisely the same moment, and the explosion effect and damage need to be applied immediately following the removal of the castbar and telegraph.. not moments later. And if that's not possible, then the developers need to lighten up on Titan, because it's not fair to demand perfect performance if the server itself can't deliver it. Until then, you're going to get players claiming they were out of the AOE. And, to be fair, they are not completely wrong about that based on what the game is showing them.

[Sove92]

There is nothing wrong with the fight, if by Titan HM/EX you don't know the castbar determines whether you get hit or not (few exceptions exist), it's just you, not the game.

[Chiramu]

There is nothing wrong with the fight, if by Titan HM/EX you don't know the castbar determines whether you get hit or not (few exceptions exist), it's just you, not the game.

I'm WHM on every primal fight(especially on Titan cause I find it hard to concentrate on DPS and dodging at the same time :/), I NEVER see his cast bars. I see the Weight of the Land underneath me, I move immediately. I am an Australian connecting to an JP server, I will always have lag and I can dodge every attack Titan does without even clicking on him >.>.

Learn to look at the screen OP.

[Elazu]

There is nothing wrong with the fight, if by Titan HM/EX you don't know the castbar determines whether you get hit or not (few exceptions exist), it's just you, not the game.

This right here. You don't need to watch the castbar at all, everything is perfectly dodgable by just looking at the telegraphs.

[Gyson]

This right here. You don't need to watch the castbar at all, everything is perfectly dodgable by just looking at the telegraphs.

..UNLESS people are either slightly slower than you or working with a slightly slower connection, in which case not having the first third of the castbar going to waste could certainly be helpful.

I mean, I have to believe that if the designers decided that the cast time on these abilities should be X seconds long then the idea is for players to have all X seconds available to them for movement, not "whatever Elazu can work with". Kind of a safe bet, no?

Edit: By the way, the person you're quoting/agreeing with is trying to make the point that the castbar is critical, where as you seem to be implying it can pretty much be ignored (as if the information it provides isn't crucial for a successful dodge).

[Zohnax]

..UNLESS people are either slightly slower than you or working with a slightly slower connection, in which case not having the first third of the castbar going to waste could certainly be helpful.

No. If people have slow connections or high latency problems due to connectivity problems with their ISPs, people need to get on their ISPs about that; not try to scapegoat the mechanics of the game. If I recall correctly, SE already did some tweaking back when the game was launched and in the months that followed. Couple with the fact that people should also be gaining more reactive skills, which you're going to learn through repetition, instead of just blaming the game for being too hard.

[Gyson]

..UNLESS people are either slightly slower than you or working with a slightly slower connection, in which case not having the first third of the castbar going to waste could certainly be helpful.

I mean, I have to believe that if the designers decided that the cast time on these abilities should be X seconds long then the idea is for players to have all X seconds available to them for movement, not "whatever Elazu can work with". Kind of a safe bet, no?

No. If people have slow connections or high latency problems due to connectivity problems with their ISPs, people need to get on their ISPs about that; not try to scapegoat the mechanics of the game. If I recall correctly, SE already did some tweaking back when the game was launched and in the months that followed. Couple with the fact that people should also be gaining more reactive skills, which you're going to learn through repetition, instead of just blaming the game for being too hard.

Who is blaming the game for being too hard? Did you see me, at any point, complain about the difficulty of the encounter? You can argue my points all you want, but please actually argue what I said rather than picking something random out of the air and arguing that instead.

And how are we trying to "scapegoat the mechanics of the game". Are you actually arguing that I am incorrect when I suggest that "..not having the first third of the castbar going to waste could certainly be helpful.."? You must be, because you followed that up with a resounding "No.". Perhaps you can explain precisely why?

This is a troll thread, right? Is this really a thread that ultimately amounts to "I don't understand the process of casting something and then the animation of that cast going off -- for both enemies and players alike"?

This has to be a joke thread, it has to...

No, in your case I think it may just be a reading comprehension issue on your end, since you've come to the wrong conclusion about a thread that explains itself fairly cleanly.

Might I suggest another stab at reading it?

[Elazu]

Edit: By the way, the person you're quoting/agreeing with is trying to make the point that the castbar is critical, where as you seem to be implying it can pretty much be ignored (as if the information it provides isn't crucial for a successful dodge).

Yes, he is correct in saying that the castbar pretty much determines if you get hit or not, I never said it didn't, just that there's no need to look at it when you have telegraphs that you can react to and still dodge the weights easily.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Its not the server in most cases, simply the route in which that person network traffic takes.

[Gyson]

Its not the server in most cases, simply the route in which that person network traffic takes.

Can you please explain why exactly you feel that would cause the issues shown above? How is the route of network traffic impacting the sync between the castbar and the telegraph, the length of the telegraph, and the delayed explosion effect? Because it shouldn't.

I feel like you just gave a generic Titan response without actually looking at what was written in the original post.

There is nothing wrong with the fight, if by Titan HM/EX you don't know the castbar determines whether you get hit or not (few exceptions exist), it's just you, not the game.

I don't think you're going to have much luck improving the average player's performance (who, by the way, don't visit the forums) with that advice. Tightening the fight up where necessary certainly would reach *everyone*, however. And that is something only the developers can do.