Zone Flicker Fix Discussion | Forums

[JamaasK]

I'm making this post because from 5/11 Warrior's Den, the devs doesn't seem ready to fix the flicker bug in the next update.

Most of you already know about Zone Flicker or have heard about it being talked about amongst other players, or even the developers looking into the problem.

If you didn't know, the problem arises from the fact that two buttons need to be pressed to initiate a zone attack, and because none of us are perfect robots that can press two buttons simultaneously to the nanosecond consistently, the game gives us some leeway and allows us to quickly press one button and the other to initiate the zone attack.
This is where the Zone Flicker comes from, since the game gives us a bit of room for error, people are, either intentionally or not, pressing one button and the other, making the game think that we are throwing out a normal attack, then changing it to a zone attack.
If you use this bug while in a stance other than where your zone will come out, it will give the opponent a false indication, which essentially becomes a mind game, unless the opponent has amazing reaction time and has practiced playing against zone flickers.

Suggestion on how to fix the problem:
I think this is an easy problem to fix, just make one button initiate the zone attack. More specifically, make the feint button initiate the zone attack. There is literally zero conflicts this will have with other moves. Feint button does nothing unless throwing out a heavy attack or a zone attack, and you can't initiate zone attack while throwing a heavy attack anyways. As for feinting Zone attacks, there is no conflict either.

I'd love to hear your feedback on this or if you have your own idea, I'd love to see it.

[JamaasK]

Said this a zillion times.

Force-change stance to appropriate stance for the specific ZA before activating. Problem solved.

That won't work. The game thinks that you're throwing a normal heavy in any direction (which is the flicker bug) THEN it changes once you've inputted the light attack. So the game can't preemptively change your stance when you could've just thrown out a heavy attack.

[JamaasK]

They're the developers. They're the GODs of the game.

It works.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. They have zero way of knowing whether or not a heavy will go out or a zone will go out unless they make the simultaneous press window very tight. Tight to a point where it's less time than it takes for a move to show up as an indication in-game.
The possible solutions I can see are: Make indications more delayed so that false indications do not show up (bad solution), make zone attack simultaneous button pressing window virtually instant (might be hard for players), or make zone attack initiated by one button press.

[JamaasK]

Look, it's not hard to understand.

Whatever you input or feint or "tech" or bullshi* you attempt, a ZA command when accepted will simply cancel whatever action, light up the correct direction, and then puts the character in the required stance first, and then fires off the ZA.

The problem with flicker is that initially they give off a wrong direction, and at the same time immediately go into attack motion. By forcing a change to stance, the system COULD give off an initial signal, but will then give off the correct position, and the attack will be delayed until you switch stance to the correct position.

The devs made the system. They can fix it.

So it shows a false indication for a second, resets, and then zones? That doesn't seem like a good solution as it defeats the purpose of fast zone attacks. The behavior will be widely recognized and the zone attack for certain heroes will be telegraphed.

I don't feel that doesn't fix anything, all that does is delay the flicker bug. How do you feel that that's a better solution than a more reliable solution such as making the window tighter or just making ZA start from one button? Developers don't have a magic wand that they wave around to fix their problems, nor are they "GODS" of their own games, as you put it.

Also, I think the indication shows based on player inputs, not based on animation.

From the video I just made I now see what you're saying, for clarification for others just in case: it seems that when doing the flicker bug, the game actually compensates by cutting down the ZA animation for the lost time between inputting the heavy attack and inputting the light attack. This is the main problem with the flicker bug.This is a retroactive effect, it's not just ZA giving a false indication. The game acknowledges the lost time and then cuts the ZA animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIZErLqpuK4

The first step to mitigating flicker is fixing the ZA animation compensation, then the developers can try to fix the actual flicker whether that be through tighter input window, single button input, etc.

I still think Feint button for ZA is the best legitimate fix for the flicker bug. I'd love to see some opposing views for this, maybe there's a better option.

[JamaasK]

The point is giving off the attack indicator the moment the input is made, but having the actual attack come out only after a switch to the correct stance. That adds in an extra stance switch time on top of the base activation.

For example, when a Warden baits a Nob by showing top-stance, and then initiates the ZA, if the Nob player follows the WD stance into a top-guard, and then into a left-guard to stop the ZA, it takes around 20fps = 0.33s. The Warden ZA is a 30fps = 0.5s attack. That leaves 10fps = 0.17s for the Nob to react and shift guard to left to block the ZA. The problem is, human reflexes on average are around 200ms = 0.2s. It requires a faster reaction time than most average joes like you or me can do.

If a forced stance change is introduced, it will add the WD's base stance switch frame = 6fps = 0.1s before the ZA comes out. This increases the margin for reaction to 0.27s

That 6 frame difference equates to a 20% slower overall activation time for Warden's ZA (if ZA is activated outside of his right-guard stance), and a 59% more time to react for the Nobushi .


It works.

That seems like a reasonable addition in conjunction with the flicker fix.

But I fear the incorrect indication will still be a problem. Incredibly fast zones were barely manageable, leaving the "soft feint" esque mechanic in but making the zone a tad delayed won't entirely fix the problem.