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.

[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.

[Arixtotle]

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.

That is literally just people learning to work around the problem not a fix for the problem.

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

Even if it's not the server SE is still to blame for the server locations which cause people routes to be so long. Didn't people figure out that it was due to packet loss?

[ValkyrieL]

U can move cast bar where u want....ALL should know by now that cast. Bar determines if hit or not, this is why I can move out and back inside WoL...while effect still on....I know I won't get hit....this applies to almost all fights and makes things actually "easiy" when stacking is needed/positionals.

[Priya]

Well, OP... I hope you're ready to be told that the disconnect between the castbar and the animation that's supposed to be indicative of that particular cast totally makes sense, because SE is infallible and the guy who decided to separate the two is a hero of the people.

[Arixtotle]

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.

It's fairly simple. The cast bar and the telegraph do not happen instantaneously in the code by logical reckoning. When the cast starts then it triggers the telegraph. This means that the servers send at least two bits of information to the players computer at slightly different times. The route that information takes, along with any packet loss along the way, contribute to the issue.

[Gyson]

It's fairly simple. The cast bar and the telegraph do not happen instantaneously in the code by logical reckoning. When the cast starts then it triggers the telegraph. This means that the servers send at least two bits of information to the players computer at slightly different times. The route that information takes, along with any packet loss along the way, contribute to the issue.

And that is where we disagree. In reality neither of us can confirm which is correct, but why do you think the server would send two bits of information (the trigger for the castbar and telegraph) separately to the player's client rather than as one single event? To do otherwise would be just asking for problems.

[Kaisha]

It's part of the game's fault with the battle engine's love of queue'd animations. They need to play the actual attack animation right before the castbar is finished so they actually 'hit' when the game snapshots your position to determine if you're in the AoE or not, rather than a whole second after the fact.