Fix animation and damage timings

[ptah]

Currently right now the game is very confusing for new players due to the animation timings of enemies and when damage actually goes out. Damage goes out when the enemies cast is finished BUT as it is right now the animation that the enemy does to cause said damage starts when the cast is finished. This creates a huge delay and a very weird feeling. Some say its lag in the game or that its broken, but it seems by design...which is weird since how much work the developers put into immersing people into the game, this definitely throws them out of it.

Example. Enemy does a overhead smash. Cast is 2 seconds. For 2 seconds the enemy is standing still doing nothing. After 2 seconds the enemy starts a 1-2 second animation where they raise their hands or weapon up and then smash it down. Before it smashes down, you are behind them completely avoiding the hit. But you notice you still took the damage as if you were right in front of him.

Another Example. In raids or trials you see the red lines on the ground, letting you know something is coming. A fire wall or something like that. So you start running to the clear area. You make it there without ever being touched by anything. You then die while standing with everyone else. Reason? Because even though you were not hit by anything on the screen, you were hit by an invisible wall of some sorts when the timer went off. Again...makes you feel like the game is lagging but as it is right now this is by some weird design.

Yes you can focus on just timer bars...but that is not immersive and it still feels weird to be dodging invisible stuff.

Solution: take inventory of all animation timers and how long they take. Then subtract that amount from the current cast time and make that the new start time of the animation. This makes it so that when the cast finishes the animation is at the point of finishing as well and give the illusion the enemy is actually hitting you and causing the damage. This saves you from the overhead calculations from adding in collision detection into the game which may cause delay and lag if not properly handled. Yes moving objects may not feel that right but you do have a players position at any given point of time and could make it so people get hit at different times depending on the zone they are in, but at the very least the above suggestion shouldnt cause much overhead and should keep things still running smooth till a more advanced version can be implemented. As a new player to the game it would really REALLY help.

[Stepjam]

I'm like 90% sure there are technical reasons behind why they don't do that considering it would obviously be better for the attack animation to go out with the effect.

We know that the engine they are working with is a mess due to being quickly repurposed from a completely different game style in the course of a year. I suspect the gap between the cast bar and the animation is a consequence of that, and if so, it probably isn't something that's easily fixable.

Though on the other hand, we do have some attacks where the animation lines up with the damage (the airstrikes in the last boss of copied factory comes to mind), so who knows. That might be a different situation.

[Arohk]

I agree, it's extremly confusing.
You run out of a telegraph and two seconds later you die 10 meters away from where to boss has attacked, just because you were still inside when the telegraph finished.
It looks and feels like there is a 1-2 second delay.
But not all attacks have that, they really should fix it.

This also results in this weird mechanic, that you can run INTO boss attacks the moment the telegraph is gone, visually you are standing inside the bosses attack but the hit detection has already happened.

[Zuklar]

I absolutely hate this too. I came here just to find others who hate it as well... My last group just repeated ad naseum: "just learn the attacks", "get good lol". But to me... It's so lame having an attacks cast finish... then the boss starts his animation and may not swing or explode until at least a solid 2 seconds after. It's so lame feeling.

Like... how hard would it be to make it so the boss starts his animation a second before the cast finishes so the animation and the damage dealt lines up?! WOULD THAT BE SO DIFFICULT?! The animation is all fluff anyway... Why not have it go off 80% through the cast bar? It would also be a great visual indicator of when you need to GTFO out of the orange AoE circle as you can see the boss winding up it's attack... Not... "oop! circle disappeared and I was still inside it! Time to die halfway across the room a few seconds from now!"

So friggin' lame!