Reaction Time and Telegraphs

How long do you need (in either fractions of a second, or frames) to feel comfortable with a 'tell' for a boss or enemy attack that only animates on the right side of the boss itself?

How long do you need from a text alert in combat log or ground template visual?

To keep it simple, assume that whatever your character needs to do starts 'instantly'. As soon as you press whatever. Don't take ping into account at all, imagine you were playing somehow 'on the server itself'.

Came up in a different thread and I'm wondering about it.

Glad to discuss the more complex parts later, but for the first post, this is probably best?

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Noaani

The answer to all of these are related to how long the prevention and/or remedy to the action takes.

For example, if I have an ability that makes my group immune to AoEs for 5 seconds, but has a 2 second cast timer, then I obviously need more than 2 seconds. If I am unable to cancel casts once started, I would need longer still.

If preventing an ability requires communication with another player, then that adds more time.

If we are talking about just player reaction time and are assuming the tell on the mob will take in to consideration mechanical/class based restrictions such as casting time, and will also take in to consideration need for communication and such, the answer to me is 0.7 seconds.

This is based on a half second player reaction, and up to 200ms latency (I know a few people that play MMO's with almost this latency at times).

It is worth noting that this is also assuming no interruptions via PvP. I've yet to participate in an encounter that requires this kind of reaction and also has PvP in a manner where players can interrupt. I am unsure what this would require other than not tying fail conditions to such reactions.

Percimes

In addition to what Noaani said, I think the cost of failure should also be taken in consideration to some degree. The more severe the consequences, the longer the signaling should be. It's both for it to feel fair as well as for, hmm, theatrics..?

A low damaging attack can be quick and thus hard to react too, but if a dragon is about to breath fire upon many players in an AoE in front of it, it should be more telegraphed.

Azherae

Percimes wrote: »

In addition to what Noaani said, I think the cost of failure should also be taken in consideration to some degree. The more severe the consequences, the longer the signaling should be. It's both for it to feel fair as well as for, hmm, theatrics..?

A low damaging attack can be quick and thus hard to react too, but if a dragon is about to breath fire upon many players in an AoE in front of it, it should be more telegraphed.

Thanks for expanding, since people can respond to this one separately too.

Did you have a 'value' for me, though?

Ruerik

It really depends, for something like a telegraph of "get out of me or take damage" 1-2s. These things are just minor annoyances and we just need enough time to see that we should stop what we are doing and leave.

For raidwide aoes that we are meant to mitigate, then its like noaani said, give appropriate time for whatever the prevention spells is.

For boss mechanics, In general we should have to watch the boss and see animations or something that say "Dont stand here anymore", and we react to that. A telegraph (if any) should be just 0.1s at the very end of the animation showing us where the danger zone was, so we can learn for next time that a particular animation means dont stand here anymore.

Same thing with like, exploding objects a boss throws in the ground. We will look at it and be like, oh thats a bomb, ill move away from it. And the telegraph is just 0.1s before it explodes so in the future we have a good sense of what the range of the boomboom is.

Azherae

Taerrik wrote: »

It really depends, for something like a telegraph of "get out of me or take damage" 1-2s. These things are just minor annoyances and we just need enough time to see that we should stop what we are doing and leave.

For raidwide aoes that we are meant to mitigate, then its like noaani said, give appropriate time for whatever the prevention spells is.

For boss mechanics, In general we should have to watch the boss and see animations or something that say "Dont stand here anymore", and we react to that. A telegraph (if any) should be just 0.1s at the very end of the animation showing us where the danger zone was, so we can learn for next time that a particular animation means dont stand here anymore.

Same thing with like, exploding objects a boss throws in the ground. We will look at it and be like, oh thats a bomb, ill move away from it. And the telegraph is just 0.1s before it explodes so in the future we have a good sense of what the range of the boomboom is.

This is also helpful, as it basically brings up and addresses all the things I was going to use as 'additional or expanded topic'.

MMOs basically benefit massively from the 'Telegraph of attack starting/charging' and 'an appropriate time to do the positional or final reaction part', as said above.

So anyone else answering, if you don't mind adding this to your answer-set too, it's appreciated.

"How long do you need the final part of the telegraph to be, if you got a good 1-2 seconds warning that the attack itself was coming?"

Please assume that the mob will turn to face its target at the moment of the attack, and you can even assume that the turn, plus... idk, some glow on its right hand, is the final tell.

Thank you @Taerrik

Percimes

I'll try to scale a few values depending on the expected reactions/counters.

If the expected counter is a 1 key activation skill: about 0,5s (could be even a bit faster if part of a repeated chain since it's more about anticipating the beat or tempo of the pattern in that case).

If the counter require the character to move (including dodge): ~0,7s

If the character need to be move out of an large AoE, it depends of the size, and it could be anywhere from 1.5 to 3s. At this point, I'd say it's more about the % of players that can get out in time (to avoid overwhelming the supports already out of the zone with required heals) than an individual thing. If there is a marker clearly indicating where the effect will be the reaction time can be shorter than if players have to guess.

Ludullu

Whatever the delay between the Balteus' rocket ding and the rocket's release is, I guess. I feel like that'd be a comfortable delay for me. I still failed to pay attention to it every time, but imo that comes with practice and ~20 attempts is definitely not enough practice for me (cause my skill is low).

But that's a comfortable delay imo, however long it is.

Azherae wrote: »

"How long do you need the final part of the telegraph to be, if you got a good 1-2 seconds warning that the attack itself was coming?"

I guess this would be the "rocket air time" in my example? So, however long that is

Ludullu

To redirect this here

Azherae wrote: »

It's complicated, but remember that I'm not usually talking about what I want or enjoy, moreso 'what I expect and have been told other people enjoy'.

I personally believe you can make it with the text in a specific way, but the other thread I just made is the better place to discuss that. Though we're trying to reach 200 pages, like Ashes, we cannot rush it, we must strive for quality.

I'm a super slow reader, so having a text-based telegraph would fuck me over completely. Or at least it would in the type of combat speed I'm imagining (or would prefer).

It kinda ties back to AC again, cause recency bias is too strong. I simply can't imagine having text telegraphs at AC's speeds. Especially if they were not in the middle of the screen and didn't take up 1/3-1/2 of it. But in that case I would feel like it's more of an obstruction than a telegraph, cause it would cover up any movements by the target. I guess some super easy mechanics of "dodge to the right if you see this text" could work like that because they don't require a direct visual of the attacker, but then the depth would kinda go out the window (at least in that case).

So I dunno.

CROW3

Are you thinking about a UI element as a reaction to a boss mechanic, or the boss doing something to telegraph that mechanic?

Azherae

CROW3 wrote: »

Are you thinking about a UI element as a reaction to a boss mechanic, or the boss doing something to telegraph that mechanic?

Right arm glows or moves in a specific way (assuming it has a right arm).

Boss is about double character size.

This is just an example, so modify in whatever way makes it easier to answer. Hope it helps.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Whatever the delay between the Balteus' rocket ding and the rocket's release is, I guess. I feel like that'd be a comfortable delay for me. I still failed to pay attention to it every time, but imo that comes with practice and ~20 attempts is definitely not enough practice for me (cause my skill is low).

But that's a comfortable delay imo, however long it is.

Azherae wrote: »

"How long do you need the final part of the telegraph to be, if you got a good 1-2 seconds warning that the attack itself was coming?"

I guess this would be the "rocket air time" in my example? So, however long that is

For clarity here, since you refer to the missiles as 'rockets' in your play video, do you mean 'the many seeking' or 'the left hand grenade/howitzer blast'?

Cause reacting to the latter is pretty tight, but the former is variable by distance.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Cause reacting to the latter is pretty tight, but the former is variable by distance.

The singular one, that has a ding before it goes off. I could mentally register it, but to react to it would require a better physical shape and a bit more practice. I even say several times "I gotta pay more attention to that sound" in the video

The overall soundscape in that fight is real messy though, and there's a similar sound in the music too, so it's even more difficult to pay attention purely to that specific sound all while moving/shooting/reacting to everything else.

And that rocket's flight time is also variable (though maybe there's a range where he usually uses it, which a tracker would obviously point out

), so the second part of my comment addresses that.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Cause reacting to the latter is pretty tight, but the former is variable by distance.

The singular one, that has a ding before it goes off. I could mentally register it, but to react to it would require a better physical shape and a bit more practice. I even say several times "I gotta pay more attention to that sound" in the video

The overall soundscape in that fight is real messy though, and there's a similar sound in the music too, so it's even more difficult to pay attention purely to that specific sound all while moving/shooting/reacting to everything else.

And that rocket's flight time is also variable (though maybe there's a range where he usually uses it, which a tracker would obviously point out ), so the second part of my comment addresses that.

Thanks, that is variable by flight time, but the time from when most people can 'recognize the audio queue' to 'time they can usefully prepare to dodge it is 20-34 frames.

If you were playing with sound off (or when the sound is confused with something else) then there's an animation visible if you were not entirely under it, which has only a 13f reaction window, which I'm told is only even possible if you were expecting and watching for it, for most people.

So I'll assume you meant the 'sound cue-> impact' which is half second.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

So I'll assume you meant the 'sound cue-> impact' which is half second.

Yeah, I mostly paid attention to the sound and the time to dodge would be somewhere between the release and the impact.

0.5s seems like a decent time to react to smth that's you're looking out for. Or at least it felt fair in that fight, I just knew that my skill was not up to par.

Nuub

I have given this subject a bit of thought as well and would like to add my $0.02.

Human reaction times are ~.3 sec.

As @Noaani and others have mentioned, the answer is range of time that is the sum of ones reaction time, connection latency, display latency, and input lag. Its going to be different for everyone and the devs will use mean values to approximate reaction time and adjust the difficulty of a reaction based on those numbers. Other factors such as needing to move distance as your reaction will be factored into AoE, while spells that have an immediate effect and should be interrupted may have their cast times adjusted.

Ability rotation is also closely linked to reaction time. In WoW (where most of my mmo experience comes from) there is a "action queue" of .3. If you activate a second action within .3 sec before the gcd end, the spell will be queued and executed immediately after your current ability. That leaves .7 seconds to make decisions. This timing makes WoW feel fast paced and responsive to me. I think its pretty important to mention now that wow having macros that allow a player to execute multiple non-gcd actions at once, or to change target, or anything that one would use macros for, vastly simplifies the rotations thus reducing the time needed, and AoC will not have macros. We will need to actually push the button to buff your next hit, every time you want to use it and that adds a LOT time.

Its also worth noting that triggering an ability on button down or on button release (they way WoW does it) will also add a tenth or so.

As @NiKr mentioned, reading takes more time than say, an icon, or a sound, and this varies WILDLY among players. Being able to customize how alerts are delivered would have a perceptible effect on reaction time, and combat awareness.

Here are some related links:
https://humanbenchmark.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_chronometry
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/CABN.8.4.509

Nerror

Oh man, so many factors at play for me here. I tend to react better to audio cues, as long as they are distinct, whereas I am more likely to miss visual cues unless they are really obvious. I dunno, a proper audio cue and all I have to do is push a button or two to counter or move out of the way? 500ms or so to execute. Assuming I am not animation locked.

If it's right before bedtime and I am tired and it's a non-obvious visual cue, I would like an email notice sent an hour in advance, then a follow-up text message as a reminder a minute before the attack happens, and then maybe a 10 second window for me to react in.

Ruerik

Guild Wars 1 (yes, a elderly mans game from way back then), every single skill had an audio queue, in the chaos of pvp there was no real reliable way to watch and track skill use of several targets, but you could hear what you were paying attention for and react to it that way.

I do agree about audio queues being a lot easier to pick up, because you process them no matter what your looking at.

Azherae

Taerrik wrote: »

Guild Wars 1 (yes, a elderly mans game from way back then), every single skill had an audio queue, in the chaos of pvp there was no real reliable way to watch and track skill use of several targets, but you could hear what you were paying attention for and react to it that way.

I do agree about audio queues being a lot easier to pick up, because you process them no matter what your looking at.

Yeah there's at least 2f difference between audio and visual for many people, and routing for audio->response in a hectic situation is another 2f I think, since the brain processes unique audio cues (frequency + duration) a bit faster than unique visuals.

In my experience with MMOs OTHER than GW, though, you don't get this, probably because people often play with sound off or in situations where the soundscape is not reliable. I figure Korean games also do this very differently due to their usual design ethos.

And, for anyone reading, all this is the reason I gave such specific notes in the first post. So while we're at it, I'll bring up the part no one has touched on quite yet.

Different people tend to have a different 'automatic strafe' or dodge direction. That is, most of us dodge either left or right 'all of the time' when under pressure. Those who dodge to their right, are slightly slower to react to animations that are initiated on the right side of an enemy 2x their size, whereas those who dodge to the left can react about 1.5f faster on average in my data.

This doesn't always mean anything, depending on the hitbox design of the game, since attacks can be built so that 'dodging them to the left' when they are 'right handed attacks' means the hitbox reaches the character the same 1f faster, making it even.

But it's still a factor, so I added it, just in case people had the instinctive mental recollection of this, from their gaming.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

probably because people often play with sound off or in situations where the soundscape is not reliable.

Btw, this is a nice point to give some feedback. If Intrepid are planning any sound-based indicators/telegraphs - please have them as a separate audio slider in the settings, if it's possible. I dunno if any other game does this, but I feel like it would not only make the players' experience better, but would also give Intrepid a much broader pve design space.

Music and sfx are cool and all, and I'm sure that people who work on those give their all to the game, but after playing the game for 12h straight it becomes kinda difficult to hear the same character shouts or the same skill sfx (I'm looking at you, earpiercing soulshot sound) or the same damn melody for the thousand's time that day.

One of my core memories from L2 was playing on a pvp server, back when I still played with full in-game sound. I pvped non-stop for 8h and then went to bed. And I could literally hear the game's sfx and spellcasting chants for probably good 20 minutes before I managed to finally fall asleep. This was one of the reasons why I stopped playing with in-game sound

Azherae wrote: »

But it's still a factor, so I added it, just in case people had the instinctive mental recollection of this, from their gaming.

I think I usually dodge to the left, no matter the incoming attack's source. Well, unless dodging left kills me every single time for 30 attempts and then I notice that fact and try to dodge to the right more

Dizz1

To me it depends on how complex the attacks, or say the amount of informations behind the attacks.

Like danmaku(bullet hell game? as I googled I don't know what you call this type of game in english.) or shokengoroshi(attack or trap etc that designed to kill player when encounter them at the first time.) for relative extreme examples. Some players can react to it instinctly, some react to it with very fast thinking. But I guess most of players are relay on endless practices and prepare works.

I used to play GW2 with 1xx~2xx ms ping maybe higher I didn't always check my ping. Feel ok to play pve, but pvp I need to predict more few moves or seconds then others and usually 70% I will lose.

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