Clunky gameplay - shift key issues

To respond to the OP: I've just tested what you're talking about. You're right -- if I hold shift and attack for a while, release shift and leave the mouse button down, my character will run a bit, attack, run a bit more, attack again. He will keep doing this until I lift my finger from the mouse button.

I have to say, I've never, ever encountered this before because I always release the mouse button after shift-clicking.

Whether that's instinct or common sense, I do not know.

I would guess the majority of ARPG players do the same thing, which is why this isn't a more documented issue.

I can't really speak about the Shift issues, because I barely use that key, I just spam the buttons and move around a lot.

But about the recovery of attacks - yes, it is kind of long-ish. Nothing wrong with that in some instances - like after some strong skills, that are likely to disable group of enemies for a while, and much wrong with it in instances where you're supposed to use hit and run tactics, like with the throwing knives skill for the shadow. That skill has too long recovery time, which leads to me always dying when I use it against a group. And it is an AoE skill, so it's meant to be used in a group.

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The point is that the gameplay is a bit clunky, unresponsive and feels a bit off. Don't get me wrong, I do like the game and what it brings. However I can easily see how a combatsystem without the same flow as other titles can easily be a gamebreaker for many.

Have you tried reducing resolution and turning down/off the AA/anistropic and post processing.
I found gameplay much more responsive when I actually put performance ahead of pretty. As a general rule, which most seem to be unaware of, when there are issues with responsiveness and explicit timing, you probably want to turn the visuals down a bit.

It's just like alot of people I know play borderlands with all the extra rendering stuff, at 1600x900. They have tearing left and right, and blame the game for framerate and control issues.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

To respond to the OP: I've just tested what you're talking about. You're right -- if I hold shift and attack for a while, release shift and leave the mouse button down, my character will run a bit, attack, run a bit more, attack again. He will keep doing this until I lift my finger from the mouse button.

I have to say, I've never, ever encountered this before because I always release the mouse button after shift-clicking.

Whether that's instinct or common sense, I do not know.

I would guess the majority of ARPG players do the same thing, which is why this isn't a more documented issue.

If you watch the GGG playthrough on youtube you can clearly hear them being very much click-frenzy players. Maybe that's why they never encountered it and felt the need to do anything about it. If you go nuts on mouse1 even while using shift you are more likely to not notice it.



RobotPanda.
I just feel the need to emphasise that, just let the players move earlier after an attack while keeping the delay from the used skill to when next skill/attack can be used, Is what I'm talking about.
I think you got it but just incase a reader scims this thread. Its not that we would want instaskills. :/



Oh and on a side note you can do a search of "shift key" to get a bunch of threads about shift and how it works ingame now. There is a lot of valid remarks there.

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LaughingSeraphim wrote:

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The point is that the gameplay is a bit clunky, unresponsive and feels a bit off. Don't get me wrong, I do like the game and what it brings. However I can easily see how a combatsystem without the same flow as other titles can easily be a gamebreaker for many.

Have you tried reducing resolution and turning down/off the AA/anistropic and post processing.
I found gameplay much more responsive when I actually put performance ahead of pretty. As a general rule, which most seem to be unaware of, when there are issues with responsiveness and explicit timing, you probably want to turn the visuals down a bit.

It's just like alot of people I know play borderlands with all the extra rendering stuff, at 1600x900. They have tearing left and right, and blame the game for framerate and control issues.

I run on max with vsync on to keep framerates down for the most part*. Otherwise my gfxcard starts to get so hot it turns on the fan at 100% wich is noisy.
Either way it has nothing to do with renderingtimes. Or if it has the code must be really silly. ;)

If you have "turn down to increase responsiveness" as a rule you might wanna start with vsync. Thats the main culprit due to framebuffert stuff.


*Tend to turn of shadows in some parts due to the immense performance drop. Alira's camp and so on.

I have this problem about every 3 minutes. Its annoying and does need to be fixed. I also tend to hold my mouse button down to move rather than click everywhere.

It would be nice to get any info from the Dev's on this.
Are they going to do anything about what's basically a gamebreaker for many and for others just very annoying?

Personally I would not go open beta with something that most likely will destroy the "first impression" for lots of players.
But then again gamecompanies do lots of crazy stuff. :/ (ME ending anyone?)

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Dalkordigo wrote:

It would be nice to get any info from the Dev's on this.
Are they going to do anything about what's basically a gamebreaker for many and for others just very annoying?

Personally I would not go open beta with something that most likely will destroy the "first impression" for lots of players.
But then again gamecompanies do lots of crazy stuff. :/ (ME ending anyone?)

The dev's are pretty hard at work on 9.10 at the moment, I see no reason to doubt that it would be fixed.

However as other players have said, you just need to shift - click - release.

Wholeheartedly agree on this matter. The shift-command issue can be quite maddening. And let me add my voice to the statement of the OP regarding 'clunky gameplay' in general. I always thought the very pace of the combat here in PoE, movement and commands - everything, really, felt a little slow and clunky. It's like taking a big step back to Diablo 1 in terms of in-combat gameplay.

Now, while D1 is one of my favourite games of all time, and I would normally praise anything reminiscent of it blindly (such as PoE - and believe me, I praise PoE without the slightest of hestitation), I must admit I've been playing quite a bit of you-know-what as of late, and it's made me realize just how clunky and dated - static, as opposed to dynamic, the action in PoE, much like in Diablo I, feels. The general flow in combat could most definitely be improved upon.

And I think Dalkordigo hits this spot on in his post. First of all, fixing the somewhat unresponsive shift-command would go a long way. And what immediately came to mind, like mentioned in the OP, was changing how long you are locked in place by attack animations. Now, attack/casting speed itself is fine, but as is, it feels like you're glued to the ground as soon as you hit a skill/spell/attack button.

Just mentioning that this is something that-certain-game does very well - even if you do a dead stop when using abilities, the flow of the combat feels very dynamic and well-polished.

But then, Blizzard is a multi-billionaire company, with a large team working on the whole polishing part. But I'd love to see if you chaps at GGG could do something about the feel and pacing of combat. Undoubtedly the most promising indie team I ever saw!

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Wittgenstein wrote:

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Dalkordigo wrote:

It would be nice to get any info from the Dev's on this.
Are they going to do anything about what's basically a gamebreaker for many and for others just very annoying?

Personally I would not go open beta with something that most likely will destroy the "first impression" for lots of players.
But then again gamecompanies do lots of crazy stuff. :/ (ME ending anyone?)

The dev's are pretty hard at work on 9.10 at the moment, I see no reason to doubt that it would be fixed.

However as other players have said, you just need to shift - click - release.

Well the reason is that this has been known for at least half a year. Not a single word from GGG about it.
With the OB closing in you might think they would atleast address it in a thread like this or with any luck in talks about comming patches.
0.9.10 Seems to have nothing in it regarding this.


And as others players have said (and probably lots just didn't bother but just left) is that instead of a simple intuitive function on shift it is just about the opposite today.
As it is today you have to learn how to play around the limitations of shift-attacking. Actually I tend to just simply not use it at all even thou it would be better and easier if it worked properly.
Basicly today you can modify an attack with shift to be directional, after which you have to reset all your input by releasing all buttons and start over.
This breaks the flow and I would go as far as to completely break the game for high apm* players.
If you don't see it that way is one thing but I won't just rely on it to be fixed without trying to at least call attention to it.


*apm : action per minute, dota style games have this thing where higher apm = more skilled players. Also games like Starcraft 2 have som insane apm from some skilled players. As is today PoE is nowhere near their pace. For those players it would be like going from a Zonda to a fiat 500.
It's a development in games from the days of D1/D2.