Focused Feedback: Redraw Revamp

[Captain Fabulous]

I think this implementation is a definite improvement over what we have now. I will do more testing to see if I can find some oddball cases but so far it looks good.

[ZemX]

On 4/6/2023 at 12:58 PM, dinosaur_nerd said:

Weapon sets are generally weaker, AND having to draw weapons before being able to attack is a cripping effect, even if it only happens once.

 

Weapon redraw does not detract from performance, provided you queue your next attack immediately after the first one that caused the redraw animation to play. The first attack's actual attack animation will be cut short in that case to compensate the time.  The second attack in the chain will begin at the same time it would have regardless of whether there was weapon redraw or not.

 

It has always been an aesthetic issue only.  Unless this new implementation changes that.  Guess that's something to check.

[Arbegla]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

 

Weapon redraw does not detract from performance, provided you queue your next attack immediately after the first one that caused the redraw animation to play. The first attack's actual attack animation will be cut short in that case to compensate the time.  The second attack in the chain will begin at the same time it would have regardless of whether there was weapon redraw or not.

 

It has always been an aesthetic issue only.  Unless this new implementation changes that.  Guess that's something to check.

 

Weapon redraw does detract from performance if you're cycling non-weapon attacks in between weapon attacks. The redraw can slow things down a lot.

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Just dropping by for a quick update:

The No Redraw themes were a big hack that constantly broke sequencers and introduced many animation bugs, it was also not a viable solution for many weapon-based sets.

 

This new system is an engine change that comes with its own technical limitations. It was attempted to make the new system entirely skip redraw if within a fight, its something I personally really advocated for, but at the end of the day turned out to not be possible.

 

[Insert spaghetti code/house of cards/Jenga tower references here]

Thanks for the update, much appreciated. I'll wait for the final version to decide.

[Luminara]

9 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

Weapon redraw does detract from performance if you're cycling non-weapon attacks in between weapon attacks.

 

Nope.

 

 

[Number Six]

12 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

Weapon redraw does detract from performance if you're cycling non-weapon attacks in between weapon attacks. The redraw can slow things down a lot.

 

It used to. But it's been broken on Homecoming for at least a year now (whenever the rooting changes went in). It wasn't until recently that this was measured and confirmed. That change did not take redraw into account and always allows the next power in a chain to be activated based on the non-redraw timings.

 

There are a few technical details that can sometimes still cause a minor delay (on the order of 0.1-0.2 seconds), but in general the performance gap between redraw and no-redraw cases is effectively nil.

[ScarySai]

It would delay certain timing-sensitive operations though, such as firing a glue arrow and then blasting off with a weapon before things are able to scatter out of your cones.

[Signalrunner]

23 hours ago, Number Six said:

 

It used to. But it's been broken on Homecoming for at least a year now (whenever the rooting changes went in). It wasn't until recently that this was measured and confirmed. That change did not take redraw into account and always allows the next power in a chain to be activated based on the non-redraw timings.

 

There are a few technical details that can sometimes still cause a minor delay (on the order of 0.1-0.2 seconds), but in general the performance gap between redraw and no-redraw cases is effectively nil.

 

The performance gap is not effectively nil. Redraw drags down my mission clear times by a noticeable degree, because those 0.2 seconds simply add up. It may not affect melee ATs as severely, where they only have to redraw when using an infrequent armor click or power pool.

 

But have you tried say, an Archery blaster with redraw on while cycling in melee attacks from the secondary? I have. Weaving those attacks in cause constant redraw. If you redraw 100 times in a longer mission, you will effectively have had stood there doing nothing for 20 seconds.

[Luminara]

Well, I decided to check the existing redraw system and how it works myself.  No-one's laid down a basic comparison test to determine how the new one will work, and since I can't download the test server data (my phone plan has a 15GB/month limit), this is how I'm contributing.

 

Archery/Energy/Ninja sentinel, attack chain Stunning Shot (1.188 seconds Arcanatime)/Cross Punch (1.848 seconds Arcanatime)/Blazing Arrow (1.98 seconds Arcanatime)/Sting of the Wasp (1.32 seconds Arcanatime)/repeat.  Archery and Ninja Tools set to Original in the costume editor, not No Redraw.  This was on Everlasting.

 

Expected animation time total after 10 cycles: (1.188+1.848+1.98+1.32)*10=63.36 seconds.

 

 

By stopwatch, I recorded 63.99 seconds, but I didn't press stop until the circling ring around Sting of the Wasp disappeared on the 40th attack, and I know I was slow to react.  Regardless, if there was any redraw time added, it was less than 0.64 second over 40 attacks.  If it had been higher, the timestamps would show it.

 

There's a baseline.  Everyone interested in testing the new redraw system, go attack a Rikti target dummy X times with hit rolls and timestamps, on both the live server of your choice, and on the test server.  /screenshotui 1, PrtSc, post.

 

Easy peasy dirty sleazy.  Get on it.

[ScarySai]

We're supposed to test things here?

[@Ghost]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

By stopwatch, I recorded 63.99 seconds, but I didn't press stop until the circling ring around Sting of the Wasp disappeared on the 40th attack, and I know I was slow to react.

By my own stopwatch on Brainstorm, I ran the same chain and got 64.72 twice (I forgot to turn the timestamps on the first time, oops) and did the same -- I timed it by pressing it just as I hit the first stunning shot, and stopped after the circle disappeared off SotW.

 

The animation clipping was very noticeable where it did redraw: the first Stunning Shot into Cross Punch, and then SotW into Stunning Shot. But afterwards the chain proceeded like it would with no redraw options on live.

 

 

edit: I remembered I had OBS installed, so I tried one more time with a recording for anyone who wants to meticulously time it. Stopwatched claimed 64.22 this go.

 

https://streamable.com/3dukvz

Edited April 11, 2023 by @Ghost

[Acroyear]

So does this mean if I have an Archery/Energy Manipulation Blaster, and in a combat the character uses the longbow, then punches someone with one of the Energy Manipulation powers (say Total Focus), does the longbow still stay in his hand? If not, does it magically appear with no redraw if he were to next fire a arrow blast shot?

 

What about my Assault Rifle/Trick Arrow Corruptor? If in his first battle he fires a trick arrow, he draws the longbow, but then later in the same battle he draws his assault rifle, does the longbow still stay in his hand at the same time as the assault rifle? Or does it instead work that If after he switches back to firing a trick arrow after firing the assault rifle, his longbow immediately and magically appears in his hand and his assault rifle disappears? Will each weapon, the bow and the rifle, continue to magically appear in his hands with each power attack for the respective sets, with no redraw option at all?

 

If this would be the case, then I would absolutely be 100% against this forced No Redraw update. Leave the option for the player to choose Redraw or No Redraw on their characters. Don't force a change for magically appearing weapons. It breaks the immersion of the game, and I would never want to play the above characters ever again if my options to enjoy them as envisioned were removed.

[Captain Powerhouse]

27 minutes ago, Acroyear said:

Will each weapon, the bow and the rifle, continue to magically appear in his hands with each power attack for the respective sets, with no redraw option at all?

 

You can always force the weapon to re-draw by double tapping Esc within 5s. This will clear the "remembered" weapons and force the weapons to draw once more. You can think of double-esc as a "sheath" command.

[Signalrunner]

7 hours ago, Luminara said:

Well, I decided to check the existing redraw system and how it works myself.  No-one's laid down a basic comparison test to determine how the new one will work, and since I can't download the test server data (my phone plan has a 15GB/month limit), this is how I'm contributing.

 

Archery/Energy/Ninja sentinel, attack chain Stunning Shot (1.188 seconds Arcanatime)/Cross Punch (1.848 seconds Arcanatime)/Blazing Arrow (1.98 seconds Arcanatime)/Sting of the Wasp (1.32 seconds Arcanatime)/repeat.  Archery and Ninja Tools set to Original in the costume editor, not No Redraw.  This was on Everlasting.

 

Expected animation time total after 10 cycles: (1.188+1.848+1.98+1.32)*10=63.36 seconds.

 

 

By stopwatch, I recorded 63.99 seconds, but I didn't press stop until the circling ring around Sting of the Wasp disappeared on the 40th attack, and I know I was slow to react.  Regardless, if there was any redraw time added, it was less than 0.64 second over 40 attacks.  If it had been higher, the timestamps would show it.

 

There's a baseline.  Everyone interested in testing the new redraw system, go attack a Rikti target dummy X times with hit rolls and timestamps, on both the live server of your choice, and on the test server.  /screenshotui 1, PrtSc, post.

 

Easy peasy dirty sleazy.  Get on it.

 

Thanks for the breakdown.

 

Reading this and testing Archery a bit more made me realize I was conflating the few sets that still have forced root time on redraw like Staff Fighting (don't remember if there are more, Spines might be one) with those that don't, like Archery. Staff has the 0.1-0.2s delay that I believe Six was talking about. I recorded 2.29s on Precise Strike-Assassin's Staff vs. 3.14s on Redraw-Precise Strike-Assassin's Staff. I'll have to re-test with a longer attack chain.

 

For my archery tests, it was an Archery/Ninja blaster on Trapdoor test with a 41 second difference between redraw on and redraw off. admittedly, very small sample size of just two comparison runs because I was focusing on testing something else.

 

@Number Six I misinterpreted your statement and mistakenly took it to mean you perceived a 0.2s difference to be effectively nil. Apologies, I didn't have a clear head responding to that.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Signalrunner

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Signalrunner said:

Reading this and testing Archery a bit more made me realize I was conflating the few sets that still have forced root time on redraw like Staff Fighting (don't remember if there are more, Spines might be one) with those that don't, like Archery. Staff has the 0.1-0.2s delay that I believe Six was talking about. I recorded 2.29s on Precise Strike-Assassin's Staff vs. 3.14s on Redraw-Precise Strike-Assassin's Staff. I'll have to re-test with a longer attack chain.

 

My main is Staff, so I can test that, too.  Attack chain: Guarded Spin (1.98s Arcanatime)/Boxing (1.32s Arcanatime)/Serpent's Reach (1.98s Arcanatime)/Holy Shotgun Shells (2.112s Arcanatime).  The temp power was necessary, this character has no other non-Staff attacks (Brawl would have kept the staff drawn).  Holy Shotgun Shells has a base recharge time of 8s, which, with my 118.75% global +Recharge, was reduced to 3.18s, allowing it to fit within the attack chain without pauses.  It also added another weapon to the chain, and since it's a temp power, there was no way to turn off redraw, so it expanded the redraw test.

 

Total animation time for 10 uses of chain: 73.92s.

 

 

According to the timestamps, the elapsed time was 06:16:27-06:17:40, 73 seconds as recorded by the game.  Adding the animation time for Holy Shotgun Shells to that, the total would be ~75.112.  I didn't use a stopwatch for this test because I've already identified my own response time as a failure point, but this gives us enough information to work with.  For example, we can extrapolate that redraw is not adding 0.1-0.2 second to every weapon attack, because if that were the case, the elapsed time would have been 3-6s longer ( (3*0.1 or 0.2)*10 ).  My test shows a maximum deviation of 1.192s, not 4.192-7.192s.  This also verifies that not having a No Redraw theme for Staff is not, in fact, impacting its performance.  And that temp powers which draw a weapon don't seem to impose a massive penalty, either.

 

Every test I've conducted shows that redraw is ignorable in the current state of the game.  Redraw with No Redraw sets, redraw on sets without No Redraw, redraw on temp powers, there's no difference and no significant animation time added that can't be attributed to the player's response times.

 

5 hours ago, Signalrunner said:

For my archery tests, it was an Archery/Ninja blaster on Trapdoor test with a 41 second difference between redraw on and redraw off.

 

As it happens, my first couple of tests on my Archery/Energy/Ninja sentinel were with the No Redraw theme, because I forgot to reset to Original.  Here's the screenshot I almost attached to my previous post, before I realized my mistake.

 

 

The timed result of my test with No Redraw was nearly identical to the test with Original, close enough for user error to account for any difference.  If you arrived at a 41 second difference, some data would be useful in discerning what caused that.  Screenshots with timestamped hit rolls, videos, something.  There's a discrepancy that needs to be identified.

[Number Six]

16 hours ago, Signalrunner said:

The performance gap is not effectively nil. Redraw drags down my mission clear times by a noticeable degree, because those 0.2 seconds simply add up. It may not affect melee ATs as severely, where they only have to redraw when using an infrequent armor click or power pool.

 

But have you tried say, an Archery blaster with redraw on while cycling in melee attacks from the secondary? I have. Weaving those attacks in cause constant redraw. If you redraw 100 times in a longer mission, you will effectively have had stood there doing nothing for 20 seconds.

 

It's not every attack adding 0.2 seconds. It's something that happened occasionally but not often when I tested it, and may very well be the result of network latency or some other factor interfering with the tests. It definitely won't add 20 seconds to a 100-power attack chain, even if redraw happened for every attack. From a code perspective there's no difference between the redraw case and no-redraw case as far as when the next power activation can happen.

[Number Six]

That said, maybe I should explain a little what the goal is here. There are two opposing design principles: Performance, and Aesthetics. Both are important to COH.

 

NOTE: For the purposes of this discussion, I'm discounting the effects of the redraw timing bug, since it's something that may be fixed at some point in the future.

 

From a performance perspective, no-redraw is the clear winner. There's a reason so many people default to selecting the No Redraw themes, to the point where a longstanding bug such as the above went unnoticed for over a year simply because virtually no one uses the original themes.

 

However, from an Aesthetics perspective, it's not desirable to completely eliminate weapon draw from the game. Cool factor is a very important part of COH and we don't want to see the game devolve into nothing but characters standing there and numbers appearing over their heads -- it's not a text MUD. Weapon draw is a nice looking animation, especially when combined with the new back/hip weapon options. Weapons suddenly appearing in your hand breaks immersion.

 

The ultimate goal is to find something in the middle that while players on both extremes may not be happy with, is a compromise that the majority can live with and be reasonably satisfied.

 

---

 

The first attempt at reconciling these two principles was the No Redraw power themes. However, there are a lot of problems with these:

• As @Captain Powerhouse mentioned, they are a bit of a hack and cause all sorts of sequencer (animation) bugs that are difficult to track down.
• They're a huge headache to maintain because of the complexity of the animation sequencers.
• They break the cardinal rule of power customization themes -- aesthetics should never affect performance. Players shouldn't feel pressured to sacrifice the looks and cool factor of their character for the sake of getting better numbers.
• Along with the above, it becomes a noob trap. If you don't go change your powers to No Redraw, you're hurting your performance, perhaps without even realizing it. That's bad game design.
• The existence of No Redraw themes makes it harder to add alternate animations or effects for weapon sets, since every additional option added has to be doubled to make a No Redraw version of it. In practice, it's much more than double the work due to the complexity of the sequencers. With the status quo it's unlikely that new weapon sets or alternate animations ever get added.

So make no mistake, whatever we decide, No Redraw themes need to go away. They simply are more trouble than they're worth.

 

---

 

The next shot at addressing this was some extremely clever sequencer magic that @Captain Powerhouse came up with for the Katana revamp. At first we thought this was the best of both worlds -- we wanted weapon draw to happen outside of combat, but to not interrupt the flow once you were in an attack chain. Weapons magically appearing is a lot less noticeable when you're in the middle of a bunch of attacks. However, once we started trying to apply this to other sets some clear issues arose with Redraw 2.0:

• It went a little too far; in practice you would almost never see a draw animation unless you stood still and tried to activate a power without a target.
• It solved some of the complexity issue, but not all of it, so work on weapon sets would probably still get deprioritized a bit.
• It involved making draw animations instantly interruptible and because the sequencers are shared, it also affected NPCs. Due to how the AI works, this meant they would never draw their weapons and would always instantly summon them. This not only affected the timing of mob alpha strikes (even with the redraw bug; it ends up shortening the timing of the second attack in a chain), but combined with the first item it effectively removed weapon draw from the game entirely. This was considered a showstopper.

 

---

 

The implementation being tested now instead adds logic into the engine to remember recent stances -- internally weapons are stances just like energy melee fists or even the generic combat stance -- and instantly switch back to them if needed again. It has the distinct advantage that it doesn't need manual adjustment of all the weapon powers or complex changes to the fairly brittle sequencers. Even things like Arachnos claws or patron mace mastery that often get missed just work with it automatically since it's a system-wide change.

 

It's not perfect - if you have multiple weapons you do have to draw each one separately before they are remembered (though I have some ideas that may be able to address this) - but the goal is a compromise that works without being an undue burden, even if the timing bug is eventually fixed.

 

Note that I think it got missed in the patch notes, but if you want to brandish a weapon for RP purposes you can press Escape twice to put away all weapons and reset the state. This is planned to be added to a separate command so it can be bound separately from the hardcoded untargeting/unqueuing logic built into Escape.

[Parabola]

10 minutes ago, Number Six said:

That said, maybe I should explain a little what the goal is here. There are two opposing design principles: Performance, and Aesthetics. Both are important to COH.

 

NOTE: For the purposes of this discussion, I'm discounting the effects of the redraw timing bug, since it's something that may be fixed at some point in the future.

 

From a performance perspective, no-redraw is the clear winner. There's a reason so many people default to selecting the No Redraw themes, to the point where a longstanding bug such as the above went unnoticed for over a year simply because virtually no one uses the original themes.

 

However, from an Aesthetics perspective, it's not desirable to completely eliminate weapon draw from the game. Cool factor is a very important part of COH and we don't want to see the game devolve into nothing but characters standing there and numbers appearing over their heads -- it's not a text MUD. Weapon draw is a nice looking animation, especially when combined with the new back/hip weapon options. Weapons suddenly appearing in your hand breaks immersion.

 

The ultimate goal is to find something in the middle that while players on both extremes may not be happy with, is a compromise that the majority can live with and be reasonably satisfied.

 

---

 

The first attempt at reconciling these two principles was the No Redraw power themes. However, there are a lot of problems with these:

• As @Captain Powerhouse mentioned, they are a bit of a hack and cause all sorts of sequencer (animation) bugs that are difficult to track down.
• They're a huge headache to maintain because of the complexity of the animation sequencers.
• They break the cardinal rule of power customization themes -- aesthetics should never affect performance. Players shouldn't feel pressured to sacrifice the looks and cool factor of their character for the sake of getting better numbers.
• Along with the above, it becomes a noob trap. If you don't go change your powers to No Redraw, you're hurting your performance, perhaps without even realizing it. That's bad game design.
• The existence of No Redraw themes makes it harder to add alternate animations or effects for weapon sets, since every additional option added has to be doubled to make a No Redraw version of it. In practice, it's much more than double the work due to the complexity of the sequencers. With the status quo it's unlikely that new weapon sets or alternate animations ever get added.

So make no mistake, whatever we decide, No Redraw themes need to go away. They simply are more trouble than they're worth.

 

---

 

The next shot at addressing this was some extremely clever sequencer magic that @Captain Powerhouse came up with for the Katana revamp. At first we thought this was the best of both worlds -- we wanted weapon draw to happen outside of combat, but to not interrupt the flow once you were in an attack chain. Weapons magically appearing is a lot less noticeable when you're in the middle of a bunch of attacks. However, once we started trying to apply this to other sets some clear issues arose with Redraw 2.0:

• It went a little too far; in practice you would almost never see a draw animation unless you stood still and tried to activate a power without a target.
• It solved some of the complexity issue, but not all of it, so work on weapon sets would probably still get deprioritized a bit.
• It involved making draw animations instantly interruptible and because the sequencers are shared, it also affected NPCs. Due to how the AI works, this meant they would never draw their weapons and would always instantly summon them. This not only affected the timing of mob alpha strikes (even with the redraw bug; it ends up shortening the timing of the second attack in a chain), but combined with the first item it effectively removed weapon draw from the game entirely. This was considered a showstopper.

 

---

 

The implementation being tested now instead adds logic into the engine to remember recent stances -- internally weapons are stances just like energy melee fists or even the generic combat stance -- and instantly switch back to them if needed again. It has the distinct advantage that it doesn't need manual adjustment of all the weapon powers or complex changes to the fairly brittle sequencers. Even things like Arachnos claws or patron mace mastery that often get missed just work with it automatically since it's a system-wide change.

 

It's not perfect - if you have multiple weapons you do have to draw each one separately before they are remembered (though I have some ideas that may be able to address this) - but the goal is a compromise that works without being an undue burden, even if the timing bug is eventually fixed.

 

Note that I think it got missed in the patch notes, but if you want to brandish a weapon for RP purposes you can press Escape twice to put away all weapons and reset the state. This is planned to be added to a separate command so it can be bound separately from the hardcoded untargeting/unqueuing logic built into Escape.

I've said this before but this is exactly the kind of commentary I think should be released when changes first hit beta. Yes, there are now going to be arguments about the commentary rather than the changes themselves, but having some context for the changes is just so useful. Thanks for taking the time.

[Signalrunner]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

My main is Staff, so I can test that, too.  Attack chain: Guarded Spin (1.98s Arcanatime)/Boxing (1.32s Arcanatime)/Serpent's Reach (1.98s Arcanatime)/Holy Shotgun Shells (2.112s Arcanatime).  The temp power was necessary, this character has no other non-Staff attacks (Brawl would have kept the staff drawn).  Holy Shotgun Shells has a base recharge time of 8s, which, with my 118.75% global +Recharge, was reduced to 3.18s, allowing it to fit within the attack chain without pauses.  It also added another weapon to the chain, and since it's a temp power, there was no way to turn off redraw, so it expanded the redraw test.

 

Total animation time for 10 uses of chain: 73.92s.

 

 

According to the timestamps, the elapsed time was 06:16:27-06:17:40, 73 seconds as recorded by the game.  Adding the animation time for Holy Shotgun Shells to that, the total would be ~75.112.  I didn't use a stopwatch for this test because I've already identified my own response time as a failure point, but this gives us enough information to work with.  For example, we can extrapolate that redraw is not adding 0.1-0.2 second to every weapon attack, because if that were the case, the elapsed time would have been 3-6s longer ( (3*0.1 or 0.2)*10 ).  My test shows a maximum deviation of 1.192s, not 4.192-7.192s.  This also verifies that not having a No Redraw theme for Staff is not, in fact, impacting its performance.  And that temp powers which draw a weapon don't seem to impose a massive penalty, either.

 

Every test I've conducted shows that redraw is ignorable in the current state of the game.  Redraw with No Redraw sets, redraw on sets without No Redraw, redraw on temp powers, there's no difference and no significant animation time added that can't be attributed to the player's response times.

 

 

As it happens, my first couple of tests on my Archery/Energy/Ninja sentinel were with the No Redraw theme, because I forgot to reset to Original.  Here's the screenshot I almost attached to my previous post, before I realized my mistake.

 

 

The timed result of my test with No Redraw was nearly identical to the test with Original, close enough for user error to account for any difference.  If you arrived at a 41 second difference, some data would be useful in discerning what caused that.  Screenshots with timestamped hit rolls, videos, something.  There's a discrepancy that needs to be identified.

 

Alright, I'm convinced redraw doesn't matter for the most part.

 

The one thing I'm still confident that is dragging down live server Staff right now is the root time. On most other sets you can still move/chase/reposition towards a target when a redraw is triggered on a target out of range. With Staff, you have to wait for the root time to play out. Redraw revamp is a welcome improvement here from my testing.

 

I have videos of the Archery trapdoor runs but the sample size is too small and I can't generate anymore because the Archery/Ninja Blaster I used only exists on Brainstorm. I'm cool discarding the 41s difference as data. If I had to point at something for my archery results it'd be behind the keyboard performance variation + inconsistent visual feedback from redraw on affecting me (e.g. I may have waited for redraw based on visual cues when I didn't need to).

 

 

[Dispari]

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

However, from an Aesthetics perspective, it's not desirable to completely eliminate weapon draw from the game. Cool factor is a very important part of COH and we don't want to see the game devolve into nothing but characters standing there and numbers appearing over their heads -- it's not a text MUD. Weapon draw is a nice looking animation, especially when combined with the new back/hip weapon options. Weapons suddenly appearing in your hand breaks immersion.

Does the new system actually accomplish this goal, or should we expect more changes to the redraw system down the road if this is the goal? This sounds more like you're advocating for the original system where you draw a weapon every single time, considering the new one still causes weapons to appear in your hand in the vast majority of cases.

[Number Six]

22 minutes ago, Dispari said:

This sounds more like you're advocating for the original system where you draw a weapon every single time, considering the new one still causes weapons to appear in your hand in the vast majority of cases.

 

The intent is to have a middle ground and to not redraw once in combat:

 

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

we wanted weapon draw to happen outside of combat, but to not interrupt the flow once you were in an attack chain. Weapons magically appearing is a lot less noticeable when you're in the middle of a bunch of attacks.

 

[Dispari]

Fair enough.

[Number Six]

You replied before I finished my edit to answer it more thoroughly, so I'll just post here:

 

 

Quote

Does the new system actually accomplish this goal

 

If it's working correctly, you should draw your weapon(s) once at the start of a mission, or if you are idle long enough to go into a non-combat ready state. The reason for having the reset trigger on the ready animation is simultaneously for convenience, so an active player won't have a lot of redraw to deal with, and also for immersion purposes and trying to make the behavior seem intuitive.

 

So long as the character is in the combat stance, and have prepared their weapon once, they're considered ready to go and can switch back to it at a moment's notice, whatever the hammerspace justification is for juggling a gun and a sword and whatever else somehow. But if they visibly relax and let their guard down, then a redraw is needed to get back into combat readiness.

[ChzBoi]

....my minor 2 cents........made a AR/TA Corr on Brain.......a long time dream to make one, but the redraw was crazy.......just played a bit - all works good enough for me now!
You all rock!

[Acroyear]

23 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

You can always force the weapon to re-draw by double tapping Esc within 5s. This will clear the "remembered" weapons and force the weapons to draw once more. You can think of double-esc as a "sheath" command.

 

Thank you for that information. I suppose that is something to work with, but I don't honestly see me double-clicking the ESC button in the middle of my attack chain with my AR/TA Corruptor while trying to stay alive in a battle.

I guess I'm confused on why all the effort went into making weapons sheathed (which is wonderful), only to make weapons drawn about 80% less (a guestimate) with a No Redraw update to the game. It seems counter-intuitive. Once sheathed weapons came out, I made a Archery/Ninja Training Blaster character so he could have his sword on his back. Seeing him draw it in the middle of combat is awesome. But with the new No Redraw change, the sword will just magically appear in his hands during the combat, disappearing from his back, and then reappearing on his back once he uses his bow, which will also just magically appear in his hands as well.  That just really breaks the immersion of the game.

I can appreciate the difficulty the Devs have in trying to please all players. Some want No Redraw for faster attacks, while others are just fine with Redraw, as it's not all about being optimal for their characters. Maybe instead of having No Redraw, the answer should have been to give weapon-using power sets a boost in some other way to compensate against the slightly faster non-weapon using sets. At this point, if No Redraw goes live, it actually restricts player options and removes the choice to play the characters how the player envisions them. For me, magically appearing weapons is just a hard pass, which means retiring quite a few of my characters.