Constant, easily reproducible combat to neutral stance animation resets (with video example)

[Dungeoness Eloora]

I have been experiencing a bug that is quickly killing my desire to play several of my favorite ground-walking, close range playing characters. Without fail, on certain characters, when I initiate combat with a mob, this happens (short video, no sound):  Combat stance bugs to neutral stance

 

In that video clip, you can see that my character never even entered combat stance upon attacking enemies, and immediately after an attack animates (and sometimes that bugs out too) the character reverts back to neutral, out of combat stance. She's still both being using attacks and being attacked, therefore combat stance should still be engaged, but she's just standing there. Once this bug occurs, only relogging resets it, and even then, it can reappear in the first combat I enter.

 

For comparison, this is what your character should look like while in combat and not bugged (short video, no sound): Normal combat stance

Reaction animations to being hit play, and you remain in the wide-legged, slightly hunched combat stance after using attacks, and for a few seconds after combat ends.

 

This bug is not just visible to me and everyone else sees my character like normal. My SO can see the bug on his screen as well, and has also experienced it firsthand with his own characters. It is most easily reproduced by firing off attacks in quick succession, and moving while using skills.

 

Oddly, I encounter it most often with characters that have Electric Melee attacks. I have all but abandoned my Elec melee Stalker, and my /Elec Manip Blaster is quickly heading to the shelf if this bug persists. It may seem like a minor issue to some, but visual differentiation between in-combat and out of combat character animations exist for a reason. They are instantly recognizable cues for events happening during gameplay, and create a more meaningful experience for the player.

 

I'm begging that this issue be expedited to a GM, dev or whoever can get to the bottom of it. I'm willing to go more in-depth about the issue, upload diagnostic files, whatever it takes, PLEASE!

Edited June 14, 2022 by Dungeoness

[Number Six]

It's related to Build Up. Was working on some stance related stuff for page 6 and bumped into this during a debugging session. Did a deeper dive and fixed an issue internally that I'm pretty sure is responsible.

[Starhawk32]

I have been seeing this as well on multiple characters ATs.  Are you saying it is a fix in the works or that you have already put in the fix?

[Dungeoness Eloora]

On 3/6/2023 at 9:54 PM, Number Six said:

It's related to Build Up. Was working on some stance related stuff for page 6 and bumped into this during a debugging session. Did a deeper dive and fixed an issue internally that I'm pretty sure is responsible.

 

@Number Six Thank you for posting about this. I am very much looking forward to seeing if your proposed fix will correct the issue!

 

1 hour ago, Starhawk32 said:

I have been seeing this as well on multiple characters ATs.  Are you saying it is a fix in the works or that you have already put in the fix?

 

I assume "fixed an issue internally" means it hasn't been pushed to the live build yet, as I can still easily replicate still, particularly on my Elec melee Stalker.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Dungeoness

[SeraphimKensai]

15 minutes ago, Dungeoness said:

I assume "fixed an issue internally" means it hasn't been pushed to the live build yet, as I can still easily replicate still, particularly on my Elec melee Stalker.

Six stated while working on page 6, so unless a patch addressing the bug is pushed sooner than that, I would think it will be fixed when page 6 gets pushed.

 

That said I have no clue what I'm talking about, just trying to use deductive reasoning.

[Number Six]

That's correct; "fixed internally" means that it's fixed on our development branch, but it may take some time to make it into a release build.

 

At the very latest it'll be part of page 6. It MAY be backported as part of a bugfix update to page 5, but can't commit to any particular timeframe for that.

[Starhawk32]

FYI:  in patch notes for 3/14 it says this bug has been fixed but I am still seeing it

 

[Dungeoness Eloora]

1 hour ago, Starhawk32 said:

FYI:  in patch notes for 3/14 it says this bug has been fixed but I am still seeing it

 

 

What powersets, and how are you reproducing the issue still? I haven't noticed it anymore on my electric melee stalker, though I crashed for some reason before extensive testing.

[Starhawk32]

most things without weapons seem to be affected (I have a lot of alts)

One of each AT and each powersets

it all seems related to the Aim type powers if I run thru them really quick. 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Starhawk32

[Starhawk32]

if I hit the Aim type ability while it is on cooldown

[Starhawk32]

I have found my testing to be a bit flawed.  I was trying to reproduce it while not actually fighting. In this case it is horrible

It still can make a slight odd twitch when actually in combat for some ATs but is not game breaking.  I would say slightly annoying but mostly happens if you are hitting a few buttons after the recipient has already been defeated.

 

so imo, something that should be fixed but not as high a priority as it is not game breaking.  more of a slight twitch in the characters appearance.  like a little tick

 

it should be said I am a button masher so my experience may not be what most see 

[SwitchFade]

On 3/9/2023 at 10:55 AM, Number Six said:

That's correct; "fixed internally" means that it's fixed on our development branch, but it may take some time to make it into a release build.

 

At the very latest it'll be part of page 6. It MAY be backported as part of a bugfix update to page 5, but can't commit to any particular timeframe for that.

There's also a big that occurs regularly where BU and AS on a stalker will not play the animation, but the power fires. It happens regularly on MA stalkers and I have had it happen on Katana stalker. Hit BU, fire Assy strike... Stand there and no animation then power fires.

 

Maybe related?

[Solvernia]

On 6/14/2022 at 1:08 PM, Dungeoness said:

It may seem like a minor issue to some, but visual differentiation between in-combat and out of combat character animations exist for a reason. They are instantly recognizable cues for events happening during gameplay, and create a more meaningful experience for the player.

 

You know, I find the best way to visually distinguish between whether I am in combat or out of combat is to look around for the bad guys trying to hit me. If there are bad guys trying to hit me then I am in combat, if not then I am not. 

[Emprad]

On 3/29/2023 at 12:22 PM, Solvernia said:

 

You know, I find the best way to visually distinguish between whether I am in combat or out of combat is to look around for the bad guys trying to hit me. If there are bad guys trying to hit me then I am in combat, if not then I am not. 

 

 

If you want to see something just look.. Alright there captain obvious, i think the OP can figure that out for themselves, its much easier to see your character change stance then to constantly keep looking around to see if you have aggro. Like the OP said there is a reason the stance exists..

[Starhawk32]

On 3/27/2023 at 1:23 PM, SwitchFade said:

There's also a big that occurs regularly where BU and AS on a stalker will not play the animation, but the power fires. It happens regularly on MA stalkers and I have had it happen on Katana stalker. Hit BU, fire Assy strike... Stand there and no animation then power fires.

 

Maybe related?

Energy Melee AOE often doesn't launch animation

[ThunderCAP]

Oh finally you're linking BuildUP to cancelled animation issues.

All clicky buffs, including Hasten, Rage, BuildUP, Aim, Conserve and similar stamina/regen/damage ones, cancel animations for very long, possibly for the duration of the buff (most time they do, rarely they don't). I tried to report this several times in several different forms for a couple of years (while I tried to understand it further, so I wasn't as certain one year ago as I'm now instead, several characters/tests later).
There are some rare powers/attacks that are not affected by the bug, but the majority are.

It doesn't matter how or when you click them, if you use your mouse or an automatic macro or the green circle auto-spamming them, or if you're standing still or running or attacking, when those buffs activate you will have something like a 75% chance to stop getting animations (not sure about ranged, but I checked the melee ones with different chars and with friends too, the latter didn't notice till I made them notice they were playing without animations here and there... people nowaday concentrate far too much on big numbers and math and the skills-bar... it's one of the reasons I can find for this huge bug to get ignored for so long by the community).

This huge bug goes unnoticed for several reasons. First there are many peoples that concentrate more on damage numbers and skill-bar than actually watching the animation of the character, peoples who blindly click the attacks and watch the screen, the character movements, are fewer that you may think. My own friends noticed the bug only after i told them about it just cause of those reasons.
Another reason is that your character was entirely fine and animated till about level 30 (now 25 after the latest updates) cause BuildUP/Conserve powers are not available at low levels so it gets vastly ignored (most people keep creating new characters, which are well animated till then).

For testing reasons you may want to use a Super Strength tank and activate Rage all the time, you will see the majority of time you're creating air-explosion but not actually punching anything, it's like you make peoples explode with your mind. There are some attacks that are immune to this bug, for example in Super Strength while the old animations are always affected, the new ones are not (never, immune to the bug). The pool powers are affected too, some sets are more affected than others, but the majority of the attacks have the animation cancelled by BuildUP and similar, if you want to test it I suggest using Super Strength and putting the old animations or use a pool power attack or a mastery attack (you will see it shoots lasers/lightning etc. with no body animation).

Edited April 13, 2023 by ThunderCAP