An open petition / discussion about Animation Lock and FFXIV

[MegaMage]

As this is my first post to this forum I will not be nerd raging in this post. However, I have spent a few hours scouring the forums today and have seen this topic mentioned but never really addressed...

I would like to address it. I would like a Dev to address it as well.

I haven't seen anyone (please correct me if I have missed a post) on the Dev team bat an eye towards what most people consider a huge design flaw in this game. The pace of FFXI was in such a way that you were mostly "camping" things and thus animation lock wasn't such a problem (albeit still a problem).

This is not the case with FFXIV.
FFXIV is a game that is designed at this place in time to be a high paced action MMO and our characters need to be able to respond accordingly. All other MMOs in this same genre and pacing do not force the players to be stuck in one spot while they activate abilities. As the fight Ifrit has proven, we need to be able to be in control of our characters at a moments notice in order to survive. Currently, we have to be extra observant and try to guess when Ifrit will activate abilities in order to not die from animation lock. As many will agree, this is not an acceptable way to "challenge" your players. As any MMO in this same genre with similar pacing will tell you, the players should -never- be out of control of their characters unless some outside force (Like Sleep or Stun) has caused them to. We know that they have the capability to deal with animation lock because they already implemented a similar fix to the active/passive mode switching.

(I'm aware that the graphic engine is being redone in 2.0, but I have not seen a single Dev post about animation lock and whether or not it is being addressed in 2.0 or before. I and many players would like to know.)

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This is why I am starting an open petition among the players of FFXIV; to either address their position on animation lock (at the very least) or provide us some clarity on when/if this issue will be dealt with (and how it will be dealt with) as it will heavily affect many players decisions to continue playing FFXIV. --Especially after the end of the free period.

Please like this post or respond with "Name signed [date]." I will be adding names to the list as they come in from posts. Let's try to get the Devs attention on this issue.

Thank you all for reading.

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Petition Signed by:

Mega Mage [11/27/2011]
Liar Lips [11/27/2011]
Neptune Deepsea (Neptune) [11/27/2011]
Premium Virtue (viion) [11/27/2011]
Dragonhaven [11/27/2011]
Lionheart [11/27/2011]
Grover Eyeveen [11/28/2011]
Geumran Utym [11/28/2011]
BlaiseLallaise [11/28/2011]
MistyMew [11/28/2011]
captainpicard [11/28/2011]
Krausus Dracul [11/28/2011]
Sanlord [11/28/2011]
Rowyne [11/28/2011]
Vexerus [11/28/2011]

This list is truncated as the people who thumbed up this post should also be considered.

[MeowyWowie]

Animation lock is supposed to be removed after 2.0 afaik. No need for a petition.

[Neptune]

Actually I was thinking of making a thread about this but geared a little different. I think you have done a great job with your post.

If I may add:

FFXIV has some very relaxing, lush animations for casting spells and taking action, but the animations and cast times are so long that you can't get anything done in a battle. Going into a battle as a Conjurer, I have a grand approach do what I want to do, such as: debuff the enemy, then start nuking. Because the animations and cast times are so long, I never get beyond the stage of debuffing. Debuffs need to be instant cast and animations need to be much quicker so that I can actually get past the opening stage of battle to really start my main strategy. So please take this into account so that battles can be better realized.

Neptune Deepsea

[MegaMage]

Animation lock is supposed to be removed after 2.0 afaik. No need for a petition.

Can you please back this up with an official post?

[viion]

I fully support this, it drove me nuts in XI, thank all heaven for Ja0Wait lol. If only XIV had one.

[MeowyWowie]

Can you please back this up with an official post?

Yoshida interview with rpgsite.net

RPGSite: With the new server systems, will the major game breaking issues such as animation lock, server lag latency, positioning imprecision, and interface lag be greatly reduced?
Yoshida: Yes, all of these things will be fixed.

Source: http://pc.rpgsite.net/interviews/327...-naoki-yoshida

Edit: BTW, it only took me about 10 minutes to find this using the search feature >.>

[viion]

Yoshida interview with rpgsite.net



Source: http://pc.rpgsite.net/interviews/327...-naoki-yoshida

Edit: BTW, it only took me about 10 minutes to find this using the search feature >.>

While it is saying they will be fixed, it would still be nice to get more details specifically related.

It could even just be fixed in their eyes as "reduced". locking from say 2 seconds to 1 seconds is not fixed so clarification I think is needed.

[MegaMage]

Yoshida interview with rpgsite.net



Source: http://pc.rpgsite.net/interviews/327...-naoki-yoshida

Edit: BTW, it only took me about 10 minutes to find this using the search feature >.>

Great information! I must have glazed over it in my searching. However, this says "greatly reduced" and his answer is also incredibly vague. I would still like to have more information. Thank you for linking this, however.

I would like to see some detailed information from a Dev specifically on this forum and not from an interview.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

One things I've been wondering specifically is how they plan to address animation lock when the animations for things (I'm looking at you chaos thrust, simian thrash, etc) are so damn long.

It would be kind of a turn off if all the pretty animations were always canceled because I moved a little bit. If they dumb down the animations to make them shorter that wouldn't be good either because I've always felt the flashy over the top spell/action animations were part of what makes final fantasy.

I'm very curious how they plan to balance this. Like others have said, I think we need a bit more info than just "we're fixing it".

[MeowyWowie]

Well, Yoshi P said these would all be "fixed." I don't see why they would just greatly reduce animation lock. If they can reduce it, why not just get rid of it?

If a third-party bot can do it for FFXI, I'm positive SE can do it themselves for FFXIV.