We didn't complain about the ability delay issues in The Old Republic when we reviewed the game because, in the grand sceme of things, we didn't really see it as a huge problem. Sure, we noticed a slight delay when casting abilities, but our enemies had to deal with the same exact issues, so it wasn't like we ever felt like it was unfair or "broken" as some complained.
Regardless, it was another small annoyance that we're happy to hear that BioWare is officially addressing, and planning to fix it in an upcoming update. Upcoming as in, like, it might already be out by the time you read this sentence. Or this one. Or maybe this one. Definitely this one.
In a post on the game's official forum, Georg "Observer" Zoeller, principal lead combat designer, listed the changes that would be rolling out very shortly. They include:
- As mentioned in my blog a few days ago, there are some additional fixes currently on our public test server as part of patch 1.1.1, which will roll out as soon as we're satisfied with that patch.
- We've heard your mixed feedback regarding the new cooldown animation that was part of patch 1.1, and we have improvements to the readability of that UI coming down the pipe.
- We're looking into improving the accuracy of cast bars. Their behavior should already be significantly improved with today's patch, but we believe there is still room to improve.
- We're also working on improvements to the responsiveness of individual ability animations, including faction specific timing differences and issues where shortening an ability activation time does not properly shorten it's animation.
BioWare was originally going to wait until the next major patch to put in the combat fixes, but decided they were finished enough (and major enough) to justify sending them live sooner than that.
Will it fix the issues some have been complaining about? We're guessing yes, but if the patch does its job you may not notice anything different at all.
