Fundamental Game Play Issues

[Byrth]

The Lock/unlock thread got me thinking about parts of FFXI's gameplay that we just accept and don't even think about anymore, but are actually really pretty horrible and affect almost everything we do.

Here is a brief list. Feel free to make more suggestions:
* Blinking/losing target after target gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.
** Blinking on your own and losing "locked on" status - If you blink while locked on to a monster, you lose the locked on status and have to re-lock it before you can do things like strafe around the monster. Seems like an outgrowth of the above problem. Why was this designed this way?
* Items being lost from the treasure pool due to inventory issues (One person lots more items than they have space for, everyone else passes, the extra items are lost) - It wouldn't be hard to have it stay in the pool, would it?
* Cure lock - Regardless of the "fix" all those years ago, this still exists. Why should I be frozen if I'm not doing anything?
* Animation locks - Job Abilities are "instant," so why can't we move during them? After the spell casting interruption period, why can't we run immediately? This is just clumsy. I can run around while hitting the monster, why can't I run around while Violent Flourishing the monster? The animation is basically just a hit either way.
** Raise Delay - This makes it hard to get up and out of AoE range after being raised. Could you eliminate it somehow?
* Post-Job Ability/Magic delays (the period of time after you use an ability or spell until you can act again). - They make the game feel clunky and seriously impede JA-heavy jobs. Why not shorten or eliminate them? Server to client latency isn't what it used to be. Being interrupted and unable to cast again is especially frustrating.
* Engage delay (the period following disengaging when you cannot re-engage). - This is a hold-over from an old glitch that let people attack faster by spamming engage/disengage with a high delay weapon. You appear to force people to wait their full weapon delay upon engaging now anyway, so why not eliminate it?
* Losing Items while Paralyzed - It is unclear why this was ever the case, and just makes Paralyze *that* much more annoying. I can understand if you want to cancel item usage upon Paralysis, but does it also have to cost us gil?
* Ranged Auto-Attack - Not having one decreases the value of Snapshot gear and hurts Ranged DDs relative to melee DDs. Why do we have to hit "Ranged Attack" every time we want to shoot instead of just engaging and firing away?
* Event Skipped - Some menus stop your buffs from counting down, so you don't want us to be able to hold monsters indefinitely while locked in CS. (Think Invincible w/Aegis -> Box) That said, there are some menus that do not stop buffs from counting down. Would you mind switching things like Abyssea Treasure Caskets to these?
* Losing Reraise Status upon DC - It's common to die if you are fighting something when you disconnect. Reraise is lost upon disconnecting, which means that this is an event-ender for things like Dynamis. Would it be possible to let reraise be preserved?
** Losing Cruor buffs upon DC - It is still unclear to me why you can store the exact Atma I'm using (out of a list of >100), but not the Cruor buffs I have active (out of a list of 5, when the answer is almost always "all of them"). Why hasn't this been added/changed in the last year?
* Unable to Search when dead, but ability to send tells and use your linkshell - I understand that you don't want people to be able to talk and shout when they're dead, but you caved to practicality when it came to tells. Mind also caving to practicality in letting us find someone to send a tell to?
** Unable to use UI controls while charmed - It makes sense that you can't say/shout, but could we at least look up in our chat log to see if anyone said something? I always have 1 minute pauses in conversations with people when I'm hit with Long-Armed Chariot's charm.
* Collision Detection - Okay, it makes the game more "realistic," but can't it be optional or something? Some zones get very crowded, or many monsters may be attacking you at once, and it's just difficult to forge your way through the crowd. Could we eliminate this or make it optional?
* Tractor re-zoning us - I know this was brought up in another thread and received and official "it would take us too much time to re-make it" response, but that doesn't mean it isn't a gameplay issue. This spell would be much more useful if it did not force you to zone because it could be used in things like Voidwatch and Abyssea without being subject to some of the above problems. Fix it please?

Again, please feel free to suggest more. If SE put off the 99 patch and just fixed this stuff in the next update, I would be entirely satisfied (but a little bitter that they didn't fix it almost a decade ago).

I realize that I've ignored all issues with the in-game macro system. Lets continue to ignore them, because the necessary changes are so painfully obvious that SE doesn't need us to tell them about it.

[Shiyo]

Never experienced any of these things.

[Greatguardian]

Then you have never used a Job Ability, or engaged a monster before. Kay.

I fully support this thread and would like to add that Post-Ability or Post-Interruption delay is also especially annoying. Having Utsusemi: Ichi interrupted generally means waiting another additional attack round because the game blocks you from attempting to cast any spells again for another 60-120 delay.

[Zatias]

The item lost issue is one of the points of great paranoia and anxiety to me. When I lot something or am going to, I check my inventory 4 or 5 times before I am sure I have enough space. Derp.

I always worry about my friends losing stuff like this as well; it's happened before. Herp.

Animation delay has killed some SCHs while trying to run and Manifestation sleep a group of mobs. Equip changes can sometimes remedy this but it's still annoying.

Engage delay wastes my DRK's aftermath, it's really an inconvenience.

Running late so can't type more. >;P

[Rearden]

* Blinking after gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.

k, gonna help you out here bro. See, probromo number 1 is you are swapping gear and it has been pretty readily proven that gear swapping = childish = not skilled = abyssea burned (lol)

If you had skill your job the right way in a PARTY maybe you would know this but you don't so you don't.

[Crocker]

Losing Items While Paralyzed, I think that should be fixed as well.

[Camiie]

Losing Items While Paralyzed, I think that should be fixed as well.

Yeah exactly. If I'm "paralyzed" how am I even able to pull the item from my inventory to use it? It should stay right where it is I would think.

[Puck]

k, gonna help you out here bro. See, probromo number 1 is you are swapping gear and it has been pretty readily proven that gear swapping = childish = not skilled = abyssea burned (lol)

If you had skill your job the right way in a PARTY maybe you would know this but you don't so you don't.

Spot on. You sound just like the genuine article. Let's not invoke its name though, or it will appear.

[Meyi]

* Blinking after gear swaps - The person you're targeting and their position are independent of the clothes they're wearing, so why is it programmed to break focus when someone gear swaps? This is annoying.

<stal>

* Items being lost from the treasure pool due to inventory issues (One person lots more items than they have space for, everyone else passes, the extra items are lost) - It wouldn't be hard to have it stay in the pool, would it? That's what happens when we're solo, so why not when we're in a party?

In case you haven't noticed, when you solo the items in the treasure pool only stay in the treasure pool for five minutes, just as if you had been in a party. That's five minutes to clean your inventory and make room for the item, or else it falls. There is no special extra time just because you're soloing.

They fixed the party treasure pool awhile ago actually. Before it would be if someone was full on inventory it would just fall to the ground. Now if someone is full on inventory, the item will find a different party member to fall to. There are only two reasons anything from party pool should fall to the ground: 1. Everyone except a specific person passed and said person who didn't pass was full, or 2. Everyone in the party is completely full when the item falls from pool.

You have five whole minutes to figure it all out.

* Cure lock - Regardless of the "fix" all those years ago, this still exists. Why should I be frozen if I'm not doing anything?

Yeah I think they made it worse actually. Cure lock sucks.

* Animation locks - Job Abilities are "instant," so why can't we move during them? After the spell casting interruption period, why can't we run immediately? This is just clumsy. I can run around while hitting the monster, why can't I run around while Violent Flourishing the monster? The animation is basically just a hit either way.

Coolest thing about DNC is that you can actually do multiple JA at once without waiting for the animation to finish. I always wished I could do this as other jobs or as mages with spells. Would be nice if the delay here was gone but it could be a programming issue.

* Post-Job Ability/Magic delays (the period of time after you use an ability or spell until you can act again). - They make the game feel clunky and seriously impede JA-heavy jobs. Why not shorten or eliminate them? Server to client latency isn't what it used to be. Being interrupted and unable to cast again is especially frustrating.
* Engage delay (the period following disengaging when you cannot re-engage). - This is a hold-over from an old glitch that let people attack faster by spamming engage/disengage with a high delay weapon. You appear to force people to wait their full weapon delay upon engaging now anyway, so why not eliminate it?

Yeah, see point I made above. -nod-

* Losing Items while Paralyzed - It is unclear why this was ever the case, and just makes Paralyze *that* much more annoying. I can understand if you want to cancel item usage upon Paralysis, but does it also have to cost us gil?

Yeah, I don't know why we have to lose the item. I can understand it not proccing, but losing it does indeed suck.

[Byrth]

<stal>

In case you haven't noticed, when you solo the items in the treasure pool only stay in the treasure pool for five minutes, just as if you had been in a party. That's five minutes to clean your inventory and make room for the item, or else it falls. There is no special extra time just because you're soloing.

They fixed the party treasure pool awhile ago actually. Before it would be if someone was full on inventory it would just fall to the ground. Now if someone is full on inventory, the item will find a different party member to fall to. There are only two reasons anything from party pool should fall to the ground: 1. Everyone except a specific person passed and said person who didn't pass was full, or 2. Everyone in the party is completely full when the item falls from pool.

You have five whole minutes to figure it all out.

The fact that we've generally accepted half-measures and behavioral adaptations to get around the bad gameplay issues is irrelevant when asking for them to be fixed. You could also say, "The solution to Paralyze eating your Remedies is to spam a stack of Remedies."

<stal> doesn't do anything for /follow, and drops aren't in the pool for 5 minutes if one guy lots and everyone else passes (they only fall to ground in that situation if they can't be held by the lotter).

Also, JA delay exists on all jobs. There's one second of "hard" delay (you can't use any other JA or spell) followed by one "soft" second of auto-attack block (you can use other JAs or spells, but you can't auto-attack). Using another JA during the soft second resets it back to the hard second, but is much more efficient than doing JA -> attack round -> JA (you stand to gain up to a second).