Melee while casting?

[ManaKing]

Any chance RDM could be upgraded so that we could continue to auto attack while casting under composure? No WSs or JAs, just auto attacks?

Casting can be interrupted as normal, you just don't waste auto attacks while waiting for your failed spells to go through their entire cast cycle.

[Doombringer]

this has been suggested and shot down a LOT. i still say it's a good idea, but i think at some point it came straight from se that no, it was never gonna happen. like.. COULDN'T happen. something to do with the nuts and bolts of the game.

[cidbahamut]

Why must all improvements fall under the umbrella of "while using Composure"? It's ridiculous I tell you. We don't need to tie every modification to the job to Composure. If we do that we may as well make all the changes independent of Composure because it will simply turn into a great big "Make Red Mage function properly" button.

</rant>

More on topic, I'm going to echo Doom's sentiment. That sort of change would require delving into the core code of the combat engine and SE is extremely reluctant to do that. Even if they wanted to, I'd wager they don't have sufficient staff on hand that's familiar enough with that part of the code to untangle all the spaghetti code involved.

[Greatguardian]

The only people who would know how to do this were probably fired or shelved to other projects years ago.

[saevel]

this has been suggested and shot down a LOT. i still say it's a good idea, but i think at some point it came straight from se that no, it was never gonna happen. like.. COULDN'T happen. something to do with the nuts and bolts of the game.

Pretty much this. You can only have one action *active* server side, its like this for many online games. The most you can hope for is more fast cast and spells with less ridiculous casting times.

[Seriha]

I don't think making it happen is so much the difficulty, but more the side effect of whacking a mob in MND gear or whatever wouldn't be terribly productive without some kind of active stat conversion.

[Greatguardian]

No, it's pretty much a matter of making it happen. Obviously, hits in MND gear would also suck. But it's pretty impossible to do with the current combat engine regardless.

[Seriha]

Something in code says to stop melee timer when you JA or cast (or maybe more simply, it's a default delay addition and the timer truly is counting down all the time). Implement check to maintain countdown (or eliminate that addition) if user possesses Combat Caster trait. Timer hits 0 while spell is being cast, attack is executed with whatever stats are determined, swing delay is reset as relative to current haste/weapon delay and the CC check is run again. Spell ends, timer is still ticking away, next attack round goes off and things are basically as normal until another spell is cast.

I know "spaghetti code" is right up there with the "PS2 limitations" lingo of why things could never happen in FFXI, but let's not pretend a couple conditional code checks are an impossibility.

[Greatguardian]

The game's combat engine simply won't allow you to be in the process of 2 actions at the same time, of any type, ever. It is not built for it. Monsters can't do it either.

Spaghetti code is not the excuse. Engine limitations are.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Parrying/evading/guarding/blocking while attacking can be done, as can spell casting while parrying/evading/guarding/blocking, thats even the point of shield mastery, so just saying it cant be done due to the engine is dumb, people say a lot cant be done due to engine, but look at the proc system, they told us it would be "too costly to list who triggered a stagger" and yet they did 2 updates after. There is always a way even if you need to make an exception to the rule, by treating the effect as something else. Such as classifying auto-attacks as a DOT effect during spell casts. Hell even not getting the TP per strike but allowing for the damage to be done would do wonders.

[ManaKing]

Parrying/evading/guarding/blocking while attacking can be done, as can spell casting while parrying/evading/guarding/blocking, thats even the point of shield mastery, so just saying it cant be done due to the engine is dumb, people say a lot cant be done due to engine, but look at the proc system, they told us it would be "too costly to list who triggered a stagger" and yet they did 2 updates after. There is always a way even if you need to make an exception to the rule, by treating the effect as something else. Such as classifying auto-attacks as a DOT effect during spell casts. Hell even not getting the TP per strike but allowing for the damage to be done would do wonders.

Good points actually. Several things do happen at the same time and I'll point out that you can be attacked by multiple enemies at the same time without the game exploding (aka skill defensive skills on a pile of mandies). So I would point out that the possibility of the engine allowing something to happen at the same time doesn't sound like a real limitation and more like negativity and pessimism.

Even if you just got an additional attack after you casted a spell, it would be an improvement. Obviously, some people would spam low MP moves to create DPS, but you could just put a minimum limit on the amount of MP that must be used on a spell for you to gain an additional attack. Or you only get additional attacks from specific schools of magic or magic types, like enfeebling or black magic.

Get creative. All this nay-saying is getting boring.

[Neisan_Quetz]

None of those are considered attacks. Countering as well, unless SE makes a mage only counter beyond orcish's ~10%?

[Crimson_Slasher]

Still stands that an exception function can be made. Not to mention few people outside square-enix have the game's engine code, so anyone using it as an excuse to say why it couldnt be done, care to provide your proof? Has the information been publicly disclosed? Perhaps you came across it via a 3rd party website/tool? If none of those is the case, then it is simply an assumption and can not be taken simply as true.

Also to be clear, while i find this handy in theory, i dont think it would be implimented, but it does get tiresome seeing the same "know it all players" on any game forums talking like they have the devs whispering in their ear and have been granted authority to disclose the information and furthermore educate(LECTURE) players on the game and how it should(Must?) be played. Thats not directed at anyone persay, it happens on lots of game forums, but its a sentiment im sure isnt exclusive to me.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I'm against it because knowing SE they'll probably end up give it to monsters as well, and that's the last thing I need to see.

[Greatguardian]

The player isn't parrying/countering/evading/guarding... the Monster's attack actions are being parried, countered, evaded, or guarded. Do you notice the subtle difference there?

The monster is the one acting, Not the player.

There is no exception being made. Players can only perform one action at a time.

This "Computers are magic and can do anything the programmer tells them to do" junk is annoying. It's not about being creative. It's about understanding what is and what isn't a basic constriction of a game's development. There are some things that can be changed, and some things that can't.

This is one of the latter.

[Ordoric]

place all ur concerns in the drk forum lol

[saevel]

Good ideas but your not understanding how a persistent world server works (technical name for an MMO). It's a huge database processing tens to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. Your actions are nothing but transactions. There is a heartbeat timer that governs time, basically your attacks are just scheduled events taking place during a routine heartbeat. Things like parry / guard are just responses to the event of a monster hitting you, their not their own scheduled events. The way FFXI seems to work is they only allow one player event to be scheduled at any point in time. Now it ~can~ be made, with significant modification, so that multiple events per actor are scheduled and processed. I figure they did it this way for performance reasons.

Try not to think of the game as a pretty picture of you doing stuff but as the server processing ten thousand+ events per second and that everything you do is just an event the server process's.

[ManaKing]

None of those are considered attacks. Countering as well, unless SE makes a mage only counter beyond orcish's ~10%?

Yeah but if you have a system that can take multiple sources of damage at the same time and even have reactions for all of them, then you have a system that can output multiple sources of damage as well, so long as it is coded to do so.

I understand we can't do 2 things at once right now offensively as a player. But multiple things can be done to us at once, so it is very difficult for me to believe that it is impossible or even very difficult. I don't see any actual evidence that says it can't be done. Only that it hasn't been done up till now.

In reality, I would settle for having the programming allow your next attack to go through after a spell cast. If you don't think that can be programmed, you don't know much about programming.

[Greatguardian]

Each "Object" can only perform one action at a time.

Players can perform one action.

Monsters can perform one action.

Who these actions are performed on is irrelevant. If multiple monsters couldn't attack a player, then multiple players couldn't attack a monster.

Each action is run with respect to the Object that generated it. Each monster is able to perform their own action, one at a time, on any other Object.

Your player character does not react when guarding a monster's attack.

The monster attacks, and is met with your player's guard skill activation. That's their action, and that's how it's processed. Your character doesn't actually act at all.

I don't know how to make this any clearer for you, but it almost seems like you are intentionally failing to grasp the concept because it conflicts with what you want.

PS: Being able to throw some code into lolPython does not a programmer make. FFXI is and always will be constricted to the built-in limitations of the game's core combat engine. It was designed in such a way that no object, player or otherwise, could perform more than one action at a time - for very good reason from a development/troubleshooting standpoint.

This is not something that the Developers could change even if they wanted to. It is not something they could throw money or manpower at short of building a brand new game (hi FFXIV). That is the reality of this.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Like i said, i understand limitations in an engine, but the fact we see constant exceptions, made to classify as something other than a regular action, prove it can be done, spike spells and additional effects (enspells, en-doom on monsters) are examples of these, and ignoring them is just plain stupid. As ive stated, the player doesnt technically perform another action when spikes/enspells are triggered, they are added atop, with the scripted attack event triggering them, but like a counter, or like a parry/guard/evade/block, there can simply be a check to see if the character is in range, in attack mode during a spell cast, and if it checks as yes, then it could perform some damage. Sure its complicated, time consuming, and expensive to impliment something like this, but so was retaliation, the code can be made, but dont mistake me, i am not persay for this, nor am i saying it will be done, But it can be done.

Over the years in ffxi lots of people blame ps2 limitations, the engine, and the community of this digital dinosaur of a game, but guess what? theyre still adding content, and they are still adding new monsters, gimicks, and more. I remember when people just like you great guardian came on to the messageboards proclaiming "they cant fit any more onto the ps2 harddrive, we wont have any more expansions" after wotg, and look, we got "A Crystaline Prophecy," "A Moogle Kupode'tat," "A Shantotto Ascension," and "Visions, Scars, and Heros of Abyssea." The game didnt start melting Ps2s, and the servers were adjusted, as was the game's code in ways we cant imagine. Yet here again, someone is here lecturing us with no proof, and just talking in a condesending manner. Sure i cant prove that this can be implimented, but ive offered FAR more examples of how it can be done than you have of how it cant be done. So frankly, either provide the official documentation as provided from SE, or a Third Party Source, or admit you are making educated, but not officially stated assumptions.

We know mine are assumed, lets hear about yours.

[Economizer]

Stuff like spikes spells and additional effects activating are not the same. If anything is close to remotely proving Saevel wrong, it would be that you can swap gear while casting, but I'm not sure that is really all that damning to his statements.

Moving from that, I think that more abilities like Occult Acumen would be more likely then melee while casting. I suppose the question is, why don't Red Mages have it, and why isn't there a variant for Ninjitsu, Blue Magic, Divine Magic?

[Shadowsong]

Like i said, i understand limitations in an engine, but the fact we see constant exceptions, made to classify as something other than a regular action, prove it can be done, spike spells and additional effects (enspells, en-doom on monsters) are examples of these, and ignoring them is just plain stupid. As ive stated, the player doesnt technically perform another action when spikes/enspells are triggered, they are added atop, with the scripted attack event triggering them, but like a counter, or like a parry/guard/evade/block, there can simply be a check to see if the character is in range, in attack mode during a spell cast, and if it checks as yes, then it could perform some damage. Sure its complicated, time consuming, and expensive to impliment something like this, but so was retaliation, the code can be made, but dont mistake me, i am not persay for this, nor am i saying it will be done, But it can be done.

You are really not getting it? Everything you just said is STILL not even related to this discussion. Nothing has ever been "added" to this mechanic of one action / one target, ever. Retaliation has the same code as counter, and both are not "actions", they are responses to actions Monster-side.

Ever notice how when you cast a spell, or activate a ranged attack, or hit engage/disengage, how sometimes you character waits a second to actually do it? Like someone said earlier, the game works in "heartbeats". As you tell your character to "change modes" (casting + auto-attacking + WS + Ranged Attack + whatever) the game waits until it can change your character to that mode before it actually does it.
You wouldn't be able to add auto-attacking to any other action, because it is itself an action. Everything else described in this thread as proof of the opposite are all responses to actions, not actions, and there is no way to ghetto-code auto-attacking in the same way parry/evade/counter works

[ManaKing]

Each "Object" can only perform one action at a time.

Players can perform one action.

Monsters can perform one action.

Who these actions are performed on is irrelevant. If multiple monsters couldn't attack a player, then multiple players couldn't attack a monster.

Each action is run with respect to the Object that generated it. Each monster is able to perform their own action, one at a time, on any other Object.

Your player character does not react when guarding a monster's attack.

The monster attacks, and is met with your player's guard skill activation. That's their action, and that's how it's processed. Your character doesn't actually act at all.

I don't know how to make this any clearer for you, but it almost seems like you are intentionally failing to grasp the concept because it conflicts with what you want.

PS: Being able to throw some code into lolPython does not a programmer make. FFXI is and always will be constricted to the built-in limitations of the game's core combat engine. It was designed in such a way that no object, player or otherwise, could perform more than one action at a time - for very good reason from a development/troubleshooting standpoint.

This is not something that the Developers could change even if they wanted to. It is not something they could throw money or manpower at short of building a brand new game (hi FFXIV). That is the reality of this.

You continue to speak with conviction instead of facts that can actually disagree with how programming actually works. At this point I have to assume that you have nothing but pessimism for a self-prophesied grim future for this game, but it's just you sitting in a dark corner not willing to come out of your own preconceptions. Coding is not as set in stone as you make it sound and you are just straight wrong on this.

Could FFXI be written on such bad code that it can't be altered at all without the entire game locking up and ceasing to function? I guess that could technically be a possibility, but it't not realistic at all. SE has been making games for years, this one for over a decade. Your lack of faith in your developers is only matched by your conviction that this game can't be improved at this point. There don't need to be any miracles to continue improving this game. Just some intelligent men and women who are willing to toil over code for several months at a time.

[Shadowsong]

Could FFXI be written on such bad code that it can't be altered at all without the entire game locking up and ceasing to function?

*Yes*

How many PS2 coded games have the ability to evolve in the way you want it to? (note: this is not me saying "ps2 limitations" before anyone says that -_-)
GG (and my) lack of faith in the developers!? We have both played the game the better part of a decade, almost longer than I've been with my wife. Please, we know these people better than our families.

ITT:
An Average OF Thread-
Person 1- Tells everyone their awesome idea
Person 2-5- Tells OP they are a visionary and god's gift to FFXI
Person 6 (usually GG or Karbunkle)- Explains why idea is either A) Not physically possible or B) Brings about other problems / wouldnt solve original problem
Person 7-3456347853694- Complain about how person 6 is elitist, antisocial, and retarded (among more graphic terms)

End Result - FFXI's IQ level goes down another peg (have we hit rock bottom yet? Probably not, though with 900 RDM and SMN melee threads, we have to be pretty close)

[Seriha]

The only thing the user end would have to handle with this is processing the log and animation data, making even the slightest implication the PS2 is a factor null. Ever start using a spell or JA and attack at the same time? Last time I did it, my PC didn't explode. I saw the sparkles and heard the sound effects of the spell, then quite suddenly went into the swing animation. Was it the prettiest of game happenings? Not really. However, it's not like the game isn't equipped to handle animation overflow.

Either way, I crudely broke down the process earlier. Flow Charts are something programmers should be familiar with, and with that a concept of how code is interpreted in an order designated by the programmers. Is it true no one object can do more than a single thing at the same time? Sure. Does it mean that can never change? Nope. After all, if things in this game never changed, we'd still have the old two-hander formula, no new spells/abilities, AGI's relation to TP feed, and so on.

Overall, this isn't a new idea. I called it Combat Caster because it's been a name for the ability tossed around in past discussion. It's something I imagine only RDM, PLD, DRK, and BLU jobs would have. Could mobs get it? Sure. End of the world? Hardly. If you want to get ants in your pissy anal about when the attack occurs, I doubt people would mind it being executed exactly at the conclusion of the spell's casting, either. Know what something like that reminds me of? Zanshin, an ability that triggers an attack after a condition is met. Replace "missed attack" with "cast spell" and... well, profit.

[saevel]

Casting a spell works like this,

Client sends command to server, server process's command and records event start, sends client confirmation of event start. Client starts the animation. Server also records event completion pending at a certain time. Clock goes on. Eventually the heartbeat will hit the prerecorded event time and the pending event will execute. In this case the actual spell calculation will be made and results computed / applied to persistent world. Server will send the client an event notification that the event completed successfully and what it's results were (damage / status messages, pretty graphics, or failure). Even attack rounds are like this although their invisible to the client, when you initiate an attack round the server records the action and when the action complete time is hit (your delay) then it'll process the event and send you the message that you just swung your sword. Certain client initiated actions can interrupt this timer, most noticeably are job abilities which the server then places approx 60 delay units worth of wait into your future pending event.

Client initiates attack round -> record start
Client initiates provoke -> process provoke -> insert wait
Server process's attack round

In the case of auto-attack that just means the server will automatically create a new event starting your next attack round following your previous attack rounds finish.

Theoretically there is nothing stopping the server from having multiple initiates and event completions intermixed.

Client start attack round -> process event start
Client start spell cast -> process event start
Complete attack round -> process attack round
Complete spell -> process spell event

It would seem that SE's server is programmed in such a way that an actor (any object capable of independently processed events) can only have one pending action. This limits what the programmers can do but saves memory space and guarantees a responsive server. Having multiple pending actions would create a much larger processing load as each action would have to be calculated during every heartbeat. When we're talking less then 32 players, this isn't an issue, but as the number of players and AI controlled monsters goes up, so does the amount of required memory and processing power. It's a cost decision done by them, kinda archaic by today's standards though.

Also things like evades / guards / parry's and other reaction events are not generated by the client, their in response to an event generated by another actor (the monster) and are thus calculated during that monsters action.

What may seem an easy solution to a player can often be very complex from the servers point of view. Having multiple events pending for a single actor isn't impossible, it's not even really that hard, BUT the server's event engine needs to be programmed for it. This wouldn't be a small programing effort, it's not just changing a few action scripts, recompiling the module then restarting the server.

In short, SE's not going to do it just for RDM, maybe for BLU WAR or SAM, but not RDM.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I understand server limitations, but just like you keep saying, counter doesnt count as an attack, and while it may not be auto-attacks, something can be implemented via a trait that would grant something else, a counter can go off during a spell cast, as can a shield block, why cant something else that looks like an auto-attack and functions similar (granting tp and inflicting damage?) All youve said is it cant be an attack. But heck what if it was a spell that functioned more similar to a refresh/regen/regain with ticbased damage/tp generation, independant of spell casting, but unable to function during regular melee and ws?

Not to mention you commenting about people slinging insults, then insulting someone who dissagrees with you. One person's hopeful idealistic comment is no more damaging than a condesending comment. If one lowers the populace's inteligence levels, then so does the other.

Id rather hear positive, creative, and unrealistic ideas than someone sauntering in, dropping their pants, and taking a figurative dump all over the idea in the middle of the forum. I wanna hear more new, inventive ideas, not more naysaying. If its not to be implemented, let the devs/mods/reps say it to us.

Sorry for the rant, and sorry for the frustration, but its getting tiresome to see the "Dynamic duo" of buzzkill coming in and smothering all creative thought like some sort of neo-gestapo. "NO, YOU ARE WRONG TO PUBLICLY SAY THIS AND CONTINUING TO DO THIS WILL RESULT IN EXECUTION OF YOUR CREDABILITY!"

Yes im being overly dramatic, and i hope some get a chuckle out of it. Once again, i dont know im persay for melee while casting, but i am entirely confident with my programing knowledge to say it is a potential option to be implimented, even if done in a cobbled together manner. Im just one red mage tired of my own peers and their inability to co-exist and grant eachother respect. Admittedly im no saint, but we cant even separate our discussions without someone coming in and telling us how its morally wrong to want to do/have something on rdm. I almost wish they would split the job in half at this point into a Red Knight and Red Wizard.

[saevel]

Stuff like spikes spells and additional effects activating are not the same. If anything is close to remotely proving Saevel wrong, it would be that you can swap gear while casting, but I'm not sure that is really all that damning to his statements.

Moving from that, I think that more abilities like Occult Acumen would be more likely then melee while casting. I suppose the question is, why don't Red Mages have it, and why isn't there a variant for Ninjitsu, Blue Magic, Divine Magic?


Again people are thinking what you see on your client is what's happening, it's not. Your animation has ZERO to do with whats going on server side, only how your client process's actions. Casting a spell is at least two actions, the start and the stop, as is your auto-attacking (although attack round starts are invisibly processed by the server). Only thing your client controls is movement, and even that is sometimes controlled by the server.

[Greatguardian]

Saevel is pretty much spot on, the only issue I see is in the motivation for why they would do this.

To be sure, limiting each actor/Object to one pending action greatly reduces potential server load, but it also reduces the propensity towards abuse of the system. If anyone remembers extremely old-day FFXI, there were plenty of issues regarding item duplication and combat system abuse that spawned from more relaxed action delays and action rules (We could NEVER do more than one thing at once, but we were able to do things more closely together).

People were able to check their delivery boxes multiple times in rapid succession and duplicate whatever items were being sent to them. Trades > Disconnects were used to duplicate items, and even the old Disengage/Engage trick worked back then.

The combat engine limits players to one action at a time for both practical and preventative reasons. And no, I don't need access to FFXI's server source code to know that. What, do you think Astronomers go and put the sun on a scale to figure out how much it weighs? "Hurr Durr you don't have the code in front of you so you can't make experimentally sound assertions based on experience with other game code bases" is like saying that the sun could be made of cheese because we haven't been there and tasted it.

Mana seems to be talking about "Coding" in a vaccuum. Sure, I could go write some random pseudo-code to emulate FFXI's combat system and then add in a few lines that would make it work this way. But that's not how large-scale server-client processed MMOs work. Games run on engines. Engines determine what can and can't be done. This is not a matter of PS2 limitations, this is a matter of "The Engine was designed to do this. It can't do that. We would need a new engine and a completely new combat code base in order to account for that."

Why a new combat base? Because once certain, immutable rules are put into place, they are assumed when writing any other piece of code. All good programmers are lazy. If there is an innate limitation placed on the combat engine that prevents actors/objects from performing more than one action simultaneously, then programmers will not need to account for multiple simultaneous actions in any subsequent code. They can safely assume that everything will work one action at a time, because any multiple action commands are already tossed out by the server.

This means that removing that assumption will essentially break any code that was written with the assumption in mind. This would affect not only player characters, but monsters as well. Hell, monsters in particular. At least players have TP limitations. Monsters with regain/infini-TP could theoretically use an infinite number of TP moves simultaneously if they were to suddenly replace FFXI's engine.

Honestly, I don't really give a damn if I seem like I'm stifling creativity. When you ask for the impossible, someone is going to have to step in and tell you it's impossible at some point lest you all cream yourselves in some self-appreciating circle-jerk of ignorance and bliss only to rage and moan that much harder when SE either never responds to such a blatantly impossible request or tells you that they won't/can't do it.

I'd rather tell you up front that you shouldn't get your hopes up than have to deal with the river of tears that will ensue if this thread were to continue and be either ignored or answered (it's a lose-lose).

If you want to be creative? Fine. Just don't waste your infinite creative juices on ideas that will never, ever see the light of day in this game. You're better off coming up with shit that will actually work.

[Crimson_Slasher]

While that response was much more agreeable, not everyone wants to be reminded santa isnt real. Final "Fantasy" is a fantasy realm, so as far as im concerned. While im sure devs would be unlikely to support this even if it were easy to do, i say, dare to dream big.

Temper possibly came from these boards (i recall someone mentioning a spell to double-attack back before temper made it into the game) and i think promoting, not restricting these creative ideas will get more potential ideas that are worth implementing into the hands of the ones that have the power to introduce them.

Im a pro melee player, but i also like my magey functions on rdm so while a bit favorable to melee, im not totally biast. Id like this, but at the same time id settle for an Occult accumen or some sorta trait/spell that makes spellcasting more favorable while not tieing us to any one playstyle.

Again while auto attacking cant occur persay, there are other ways to get the effects that would be granted, all im trying to say.

[ManaKing]

*Yes*

How many PS2 coded games have the ability to evolve in the way you want it to? (note: this is not me saying "ps2 limitations" before anyone says that -_-)
GG (and my) lack of faith in the developers!? We have both played the game the better part of a decade, almost longer than I've been with my wife. Please, we know these people better than our families.

ITT:
An Average OF Thread-
Person 1- Tells everyone their awesome idea
Person 2-5- Tells OP they are a visionary and god's gift to FFXI
Person 6 (usually GG or Karbunkle)- Explains why idea is either A) Not physically possible or B) Brings about other problems / wouldnt solve original problem
Person 7-3456347853694- Complain about how person 6 is elitist, antisocial, and retarded (among more graphic terms)

End Result - FFXI's IQ level goes down another peg (have we hit rock bottom yet? Probably not, though with 900 RDM and SMN melee threads, we have to be pretty close)

It wonderful that you have forum posting down to a science, unfortunately we aren't talking about computer science, because then it would be relevant. If you don't think that SE can change code, then keep believing that, but why post in these threads at all? If you are so sure of yourself that nothing can be changed then why not let the other people on the forums just continue on their merry way knowing that you are clearly right?

Sounds like you enjoy I told you so's and possibly being a little bit elitist. You also write a self fulfilling prophecy as well as GG so I'll give you credit. It's a nice trap, but what does it actually accomplish for yourself and others?

[ManaKing]

The only thing the user end would have to handle with this is processing the log and animation data, making even the slightest implication the PS2 is a factor null. Ever start using a spell or JA and attack at the same time? Last time I did it, my PC didn't explode. I saw the sparkles and heard the sound effects of the spell, then quite suddenly went into the swing animation. Was it the prettiest of game happenings? Not really. However, it's not like the game isn't equipped to handle animation overflow.

Either way, I crudely broke down the process earlier. Flow Charts are something programmers should be familiar with, and with that a concept of how code is interpreted in an order designated by the programmers. Is it true no one object can do more than a single thing at the same time? Sure. Does it mean that can never change? Nope. After all, if things in this game never changed, we'd still have the old two-hander formula, no new spells/abilities, AGI's relation to TP feed, and so on.

Overall, this isn't a new idea. I called it Combat Caster because it's been a name for the ability tossed around in past discussion. It's something I imagine only RDM, PLD, DRK, and BLU jobs would have. Could mobs get it? Sure. End of the world? Hardly. If you want to get ants in your pissy anal about when the attack occurs, I doubt people would mind it being executed exactly at the conclusion of the spell's casting, either. Know what something like that reminds me of? Zanshin, an ability that triggers an attack after a condition is met. Replace "missed attack" with "cast spell" and... well, profit.

Love you. <3

Seriously GG, where is your rebuttal for this? Magical Zanshin would be awesome. All we are talking about is adding something that looks like not slowing down RDM's DPS. I started it with a general topic about auto attacking while casting and it turned into something different, but still stayed on the general theme of attacking while casting. This is brain storming. We are putting out ideas so we can bounce them around and get other people's insight on them. I welcome your insight because you are another person on the forums and you are knowledgeable.



I'd rather tell you up front that you shouldn't get your hopes up than have to deal with the river of tears that will ensue if this thread were to continue and be either ignored or answered (it's a lose-lose).

If you want to be creative? Fine. Just don't waste your infinite creative juices on ideas that will never, ever see the light of day in this game. You're better off coming up with shit that will actually work.

It's not your job to tell us what SE will and will not do for us. You don't know and you don't get paid for it. If you want to improve magical RDM so much then go make threads about it instead of pissing on more melee centric threads. There is only so much you can piss on something before it gets pissed off.

But seriously, could you not being so anal about the whole creative process? You only have to say that you can't do 2 things at once and that would be a limitation of what could be implemented. You could even point out possible remedies for that if you want. But needing to stick to whatever your original opinion is and being nothing but a wet blanket is really getting old and really has stopped being constructive criticism.


I almost wish they would split the job in half at this point into a Red Knight and Red Wizard.

OH SNAP! SE he just came up with the next 2 jobs for your next expansion!!! We'll call it War of Ignorance or possibly Opinions Behaving Badly.

[CapriciousOne]

The player isn't parrying/countering/evading/guarding... the Monster's attack actions are being parried, countered, evaded, or guarded. Do you notice the subtle difference there?

The monster is the one acting, Not the player.

There is no exception being made. Players can only perform one action at a time.

This "Computers are magic and can do anything the programmer tells them to do" junk is annoying. It's not about being creative. It's about understanding what is and what isn't a basic constriction of a game's development. There are some things that can be changed, and some things that can't.

This is one of the latter.

Unfortunately I think you still are missing the intended point. While true the player isnt acting he is indeed REACTING to multiple actions at once or at the very least one after the other. I believe that is the point he was trying to make. For the player to even react to each of the multiple attacks there has to be some sort of multiple invoked routine to deal with each of them. Personally I would love some sort of que system that execute commands in the order they are given and process them like a list. For me personally I would go even futher and implement the Gambit system from FF12 because I loved that myself, LOL.

I rarely pay attention anymore during battle as I'm so used to running the same gambit of macros against mobs now but Maybe the spells/macro I execute run so fast that it seem like we already do this to me. Then again my highest tier spell is Stone IV I think but it been a while since I played, with The Elder Scrolls Skyrim out now. Also I tend to rotate spells of the same tier as well while I await recasts so an attack or two usually makes it through during the process of casting them all. For instance, stone,water,aero,fire, thunder,blizzard III is how I like to do.

Also computers are magic and can do what the programmer tells it to do, LOL The biggest issue is the programmers understanding of what and how it needs to be done and breaking it down to a step by step process that can be translated into code. Often times when you think of every day tasks we do we often forget the baby steps that are taken to accomplish them or rather gloss over them. Even typing this message requires more than just a computer and keyboard and internet connection there are plenty of steps required to even get to that point or where only those three things are needed and even after there are more because you have to get to the website, register, etc etc. In any case this is more often the case with getting things into the game.

In addition to that lets be real they have access to the original source code of this program and most of everything we asked for can be done. Once it is designed and planned out the most that is required is either inserting a header file and function call or just defining a new procedure directly inside the module dealing with said action with an appropriate function call and just recompiling the new code. It isnt hard as much as it is time consuming.

Even still though all this would ultimately have performance implications and probably would pretty much wreak havoc with lag which is already horrible as is at times. It probably would give 360s a new bout of Red Circle of deaths. LOL More code = larger files and more commands per player yea it would be awful but it can be done plain and simple. It just a matter of how do you want this and to what extend of cost are you willing to accept to attain this feat?

[cidbahamut]

So many people in this thread with such limited understanding of how programming works. It's astounding.

[Kiori]

from what's been said...i don't think you can say spike damage, countering, parrying, blocking, or guarding can really be considered "actions". The way I see it...the game can't do more then one player "controlled" actions at a time. I don't understand coding, nor do I know if it's possible...but there is a major difference in player controlled actions, and AI actions.

[idx1]

Magic Counter!

Chance of shooting a random spell in its face when you get hit.
Maybe works like spikes, except proc rate isn't anywhere near 100%.

[CapriciousOne]

from what's been said...i don't think you can say spike damage, countering, parrying, blocking, or guarding can really be considered "actions". The way I see it...the game can't do more then one player "controlled" actions at a time. I don't understand coding, nor do I know if it's possible...but there is a major difference in player controlled actions, and AI actions.
Well technically there isnt much structural difference between AI and player actions other than the fact the AI doesnt need to necessarily wait to do an action as it is pretty much scripted where player actions usually have to wait for us to actually press a button to do something before it can process anything but essentially all actions get processed one at a time regardless if it us or the AI it just that PCs operate so fast that it seems like multiple actions are being done at once but often are done one after the other. The only exception is maybe if the developers write code for say a multi-processor environment and use each processor to complete different tasks or use both to process the same code faster for multiple people but even still it would be done one at a time just on do different processors.

[Kiori]

Well technically there isnt much structural difference between AI and player actions other than the fact the AI doesnt need to necessarily wait to do an action as it is pretty much scripted where player actions usually have to wait for us to actually press a button to do something before it can process anything but essentially all actions get processed one at a time regardless if it us or the AI it just that PCs operate so fast that it seems like multiple actions are being done at once but often are done one after the other. The only exception is maybe if the developers write code for say a multi-processor environment and use each processor to complete different tasks or use both to process the same code faster for multiple people but even still it would be done one at a time just on do different processors.

ahh, makes sense. like i said, i don't understand the coding and such,i don't think it's impossible to cast magic and attack at the same time, just the examples people were using didn't make sense with what we control vs. what computer contros for us.

[Greatguardian]

I don't need to respond to points which only tangentially address the issue at hand.

If you have limited/non-existant understanding of or experience with large-scale combat engines, it's plenty easy to look at something that sounds remotely feasible or within the realm of possibility and assume that it is even if it's not.

I refuse to pull the rl card on forums like these, but I will simply tell you right now that there is a huge gap between what is feasible in theory and what is practically applicable within the confines of the existing code base in practice. It's not a matter of how much work it would take. It's a matter of "Well, maybe if we make a new game we could add it into that".

I unblocked lolCapricious to look at what he spewed all over this thread, and honestly I'm not sure it was worth the time. The player is not reacting to anything. Defensive skills are not a player action. Combat in ffxi flows something like this:

Actor 1 (Monster) launches attack at Object (Player) >
Actor 1's stats are compared to Object's stats as each combat check is performed (hit, pDif, crit, counter, etc) >
Actor 1's results are tallied and the appropriate appropriate changes to relevant Object stats are performed >
The appropriate animations are displayed on the client

Player 1 begins casting spell on Object (Monster) >
Server waits X amount of time >
If Player Coordinate =/= Original Player Coordinate and/or Player fails Interrupt check, Fail cast /break >
Else, run Player 1 stats against Object stats as each Combat Magic check is performed (D, resist, mdb, etc) >
Player 1's results are tallied and appropriate changes to Object stats are performed >
The appropriate animations are displayed on the client

Does it matter if both of these actions happen at the same time? No. Why? Because each action is specific to the Actor/Object performing it.

A player is not guarding against a monster when they counter their attack. A monster simply failed an offensive check. This is a very important distinction to make.

You cannot attack while casting. This will never happen. I don't give a damn if you think I'm screwing your creative process doggy style. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

If you really want to herp while you're derping, ask for an ability/spell that stores Spontaneity charges based on the amount of damage you give/receive over a period of time while a 3Dur/5Rec JA or 3Dur/10Rec Spell is active. That's actually possible and almost does what you want to do.

[Seriha]

The funny thing is the time spent casting is technically doing nothing. When we begin a spell, you get the check to see if you have the MP, the target is in range, if you can actually cast it (be it a spell you can use, not silenced, etc.), and then determining how long it would take to cast factoring in things like Fast/Quick Cast and the 2 SCH JAs.

The last part is important, since for long spells, it's possible for us to run around like headless chickens and still get the spell off if we return to the spot where we began the casting. It's when the time designated in this dead zone expires that we get more checks like confirming and reducing MP, status effects like silence/sleep/paralyze, and then the calculation of the effect.

Nothing happens in this dead zone because the game is told nothing happens.

For simplicity's sake, I'm going to call casting a spell a sub-routine. This act is the same no matter what spell is cast, but its result vary based on parameters involving the spell itself like its MP cost, cast time, school, element, and end results. There is absolutely nothing stopping SE from mirroring this sub-routine with a modification tailored toward people with a trait to allow doing something like an auto-attack during this dead zone period.

We can let when this happens be determined by the spell's modified casting time. Divide that by 2, or halfway through a spell's cast, and you can insert the code call to perform a swing and its related information just like a counter and such can be done without regard to your current delay. This would be instant, and the spell would continue chugging away until its completion.

What would be open for debate in this sub-routine, then, would be if the attack always happens, or if its percentage-based. Do we give it tiers? If so, do we maybe change it to an attack performed at 1/3 and 2/3 into the cast, or maybe a chance of double attacking with the normal halfway check? Just what do we do about people likely being in mage gear?

Take off the zealous blinders of hate, there. Your "never" is just your continued crusade against anyone you don't like here expressing a thought you don't agree with. SE being lazy? Heck, we'd probably agree with that. Claiming it a code impossibility? Hell no.

[Greatguardian]

If you were to go back and find the Dev response as to why Pining Nocturne does not stack with Addle, I think you'd find that there is a lockout on actions being performed during a spell regardless of inaction in between start cast and end cast checks.

Could that lockout be removed? That's unlikely. Why? Because it was likely locked out for good reason, in the initial game design/engine/structure, and even if they could screw with it (which I don't believe they can), the consequences could be disastrous.

Even if, and this is a HUGE if for the sake of entertaining your assertions, it was functionally possible to remove the coding lockout on actions being performed mid-cast for spells only, there likely isn't a single person still on the Development team who would know how to do it. Straight up. Most developers just work with a toolkit. They're not core programmers. The people who wrote FFXI's engine 10 years ago are long since fired or reassigned. On top of that, FFXI runs with an in-house engine. It's not something like Unreal where they can just find an SDK or a random new employee with experience working with it. The know-how to fundamentally alter anything at the engine level has been gone for a long time.

Don't forget that the casting time reduction limit was raised to, what, 87.5%? 82%? Something outrageously high. The majority of the delay during casting is not between the start cast and end cast checks, but in the mandatory delay between actions.

What's wrong with spontaneity charges?

[Seriha]

While I have no doubt the people working there now aren't all the same as 10 years ago, I'm going to give a professional gaming company a bit more credit on the code end when it comes to adhering to standard coding practices with documentation and comments embedded in the source code. I don't extend as much faith to the people dictating what is to be coded, but I'm basing that more on things like the recent interview and seeming disconnect between the devs and the players.

As for Addle and Pining Nocturne, from the perspective of adding Slow/Elegy to the mix, a mob doing nothing for 10+ seconds at a time (while being easier to Stun or just let shadows eat a single target) is something that certainly makes them less threatening. As is, we have no idea if they've ever entertained the Combat Caster concept and deemed it an impossibility. From the perspective of gauging processing overhead, I figure someone attacking at capped haste would be competitively taxing computationally, if not more, to what I outlined in my last post.

I'd actually be curious to see their reason for the global delay on actions, since it's something that adds up against hybrid classes. This would also be a factor if introducing charges to Spontaneity. Without knowing how many we could hold and how fast they'd recharge, however, I won't comment further. They're different paths to a similar destination in giving the RDM more possible swings over time, but part of me wants to be greedy and just say, "Why not both?"

[Zerich]

you all know that DRK would get this 9002 years before RDM would

[Sp1cyryan]

RDM? SE gave you a mediocre dagger and sword skill, gravity/gravity II that does not stick on anything of decent importance, and the amazingly rather ineffective spell of temper. While at the same time shooting down hastega, cure V, and various other ideas. What else more could you ask for?!

[Shadowsong]

Circle peg, square hole. That's what I see with everyone's responses (except a few people trying desperately to educate)
You give them more credit to have better code? This is a game designed 10 years ago, with PS2 coding in mind. It doesn't matter if you think it SHOULD be able to be changed, it CANT.

Stop pulling the RL card please, it degrades the entire thread. People obviously wouldnt be poasting if they had no programming experience at all (as misguided as some of the posts are). However what I am noticing is some people are confusing vanilla, classroom programming to high end MMO game engines.

And if all the logic in the world doesn't convince you, how about "SE just doesn't give a shit", because that would probably be the answer if it was possible.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

you all know that DRK would get this 9002 years before RDM would

You are aware, were this possible it would exist for all jobs. I mean really, use your brain.

[Seriha]

Circle peg, square hole. That's what I see with everyone's responses (except a few people trying desperately to educate)
You give them more credit to have better code? This is a game designed 10 years ago, with PS2 coding in mind. It doesn't matter if you think it SHOULD be able to be changed, it CANT.

Stop pulling the RL card please, it degrades the entire thread. People obviously wouldnt be poasting if they had no programming experience at all (as misguided as some of the posts are). However what I am noticing is some people are confusing vanilla, classroom programming to high end MMO game engines.

And if all the logic in the world doesn't convince you, how about "SE just doesn't give a shit", because that would probably be the answer if it was possible.

Sorry, but coding doesn't mold over like a loaf of bread. Languages come and go in part due to the technology they're built for, sure, but all have their foundations in mathematics and logic. Two plus two does not equal five in Japan, much as we sometimes wonder what the devs are thinking. Same goes from PASCAL to C++. MMOs are, rather simply, graphical MUDs. These existed long before PS2s and hardly perform advanced scientific calculations, even on a mass scale. And even then, this function has nothing to do directly with the PS2's limitations. So, yeah, we get it, you're mad we're not rolling over for your hero's gospel. Evil retard meleeRDMs blahblahblah ruining FFXI.

[Zerich]

You are aware, were this possible it would exist for all jobs. I mean really, use your brain.

Read the thread, they were talking about gaining this ability through a job-trait. I didn't know that all jobs had an innate "Magic attk/def. bonus" "Dual Wield" "Treasure Hunter" "Fast Cast" "Auto Refresh" and "Attack Bonus" (to name a few) trait.

In summation, "no u."

[CapriciousOne]

I generally have you blocked and a whole of others but I occasionly view it anyway to entertain myself so the feeling is mutual. None the less you cant deny that there is a clear hierarchy of events between job traits and skills like shield, guard, evasion. The player is "reacting" so to speak based on those same checks you mentioned. I say the player reacts because of the simple fact that there is animation for it when it occurs. Shield activates the player animation raises the shield in blocking motion etc for example. In coding speak after the checks are done the function calls are clearly returning a value to another procedure that determines whether to run the animation for blocking with a shield, parrying, or complete evading the attack or do nothing at all and allow the attack uncontested.

Though even still with all that noted I dont see this as a reality giving the insistence of keeping with old visions and many of the points made later in the thread like many of the original programmers of SE proprietary engine either being fired, retired, or even dead. It is often difficult to come in on somebody elses baby and pick up where they left of or improve upon what they have established without a good consultation with those involved without some serious implications.

In any case I dont see this happening for the simple reason that in most games magic is seen as a function of high intelligence and as such requiring total concentration. In addition cast usually utilizes the hands in the effort to help concentrate the power of the spell being cast and as such would reduce the concentration level of the spell as well as the damage done once it is cast. Now that in itself may be a solution in implementing this feature and allowing spells cast to suffer a damage penalty when trying to physically attack while it is being cast. It wont be popular but it would logically make sense and be "realistic" so to speak.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Read the thread, they were talking about gaining this ability through a job-trait. I didn't know that all jobs had an innate "Magic attk/def. bonus" "Dual Wield" "Treasure Hunter" "Fast Cast" "Auto Refresh" and "Attack Bonus" (to name a few) trait.

In summation, "no u."

I don't care if the topic opening thread wants otherwise, my point stands. If SE added this, it would be available to ALL jobs. This is a UI issue, not something they just decided not to add.

[saevel]

I generally have you blocked and a whole of others but I occasionly view it anyway to entertain myself so the feeling is mutual. None the less you cant deny that there is a clear hierarchy of events between job traits and skills like shield, guard, evasion. The player is "reacting" so to speak based on those same checks you mentioned. I say the player reacts because of the simple fact that there is animation for it when it occurs. Shield activates the player animation raises the shield in blocking motion etc for example. In coding speak after the checks are done the function calls are clearly returning a value to another procedure that determines whether to run the animation for blocking with a shield, parrying, or complete evading the attack or do nothing at all and allow the attack uncontested.

Though even still with all that noted I dont see this as a reality giving the insistence of keeping with old visions and many of the points made later in the thread like many of the original programmers of SE proprietary engine either being fired, retired, or even dead. It is often difficult to come in on somebody elses baby and pick up where they left of or improve upon what they have established without a good consultation with those involved without some serious implications.

In any case I dont see this happening for the simple reason that in most games magic is seen as a function of high intelligence and as such requiring total concentration. In addition cast usually utilizes the hands in the effort to help concentrate the power of the spell being cast and as such would reduce the concentration level of the spell as well as the damage done once it is cast. Now that in itself may be a solution in implementing this feature and allowing spells cast to suffer a damage penalty when trying to physically attack while it is being cast. It wont be popular but it would logically make sense and be "realistic" so to speak.

I've gone over this a few times, you don't block anything. There is no checks done on the client side about blocking or reacting. The block is part of the monsters attack round and doesn't involve any actions on the players part.

Monster Attack Event -> Do calculations (damage / hit / block) -> determine block has happened and perform calculations accordingly.
Send client packet saying block has happened -> Client shows block animation.

Absolutely nothing you did effected that block nor it's animation.

What people are asking for is the ability for the client to initiate two simultaneous actions and have both actions resolve independently without effecting each other. This is not impossible, not even hard, but it requires the server's event engine be programmed to handle it. This is a VERY big change in server code. I'm not talking action scripts which are the things that handle all the calculations and event resolutions, I'm talking the actual management code behind everything. That can cause catastrophic unpredictable effects. Nothing that lots of debugging and testing can't fix, but still manpower intensive. I would expect them to recode the entire client to DX9/10 before I'd expect them to recode the server.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I think part of the reason this thread is getting as big as it is is the same reason as i got upset initially. Not everyone wants this to be done, but it comes down to can/cant it be done and thats what its being argued about at this point more than anything.

Can it be done? Simple answer is yes. Its far from a simple problem, and it would require intensive work and time, and effort, and would completely change the game from the ground up. But it CAN be done. Upon reflection i dont feel it should be done, or if it is not to affect all aspects of the game. At this point though the conversation has shifted to "YES IT CAN" vs "NO IT CANT, WELL IT CAN BUT WOULD BE TOO MUCH TO IMPLIMENT!" Which is true. I think if people would stop saying it cant be done, and stick to "too hard to do" then this wouldnt be so intense.

[Greatguardian]

Can't be done without replacing the god damned Engine is what I said in the first place, Crimson.

When Saevel and I are completely agreeing on something, the rest of you need to step back and think real damn hard about what ground it is you think you're standing on.

[CapriciousOne]

I've gone over this a few times, you don't block anything. There is no checks done on the client side about blocking or reacting. The block is part of the monsters attack round and doesn't involve any actions on the players part.

Monster Attack Event -> Do calculations (damage / hit / block) -> determine block has happened and perform calculations accordingly.
Send client packet saying block has happened -> Client shows block animation.

Absolutely nothing you did effected that block nor it's animation.

What people are asking for is the ability for the client to initiate two simultaneous actions and have both actions resolve independently without effecting each other. This is not impossible, not even hard, but it requires the server's event engine be programmed to handle it. This is a VERY big change in server code. I'm not talking action scripts which are the things that handle all the calculations and event resolutions, I'm talking the actual management code behind everything. That can cause catastrophic unpredictable effects. Nothing that lots of debugging and testing can't fix, but still manpower intensive. I would expect them to recode the entire client to DX9/10 before I'd expect them to recode the server.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. With the logic being used, then one could arguably say that when a monster evades or block our attacks they aren't doing anything either. The way I am looking at this I suppose is that whatever defensive moves are taken, (guard, parry, shield block, evasion) is a direct result of a failed check between you and the mob regardless of what side of the transaction (server or client) initiated the action in question.

I will agree that the process management code on the server would need to be chagned not just for our job but other jobs as well for this to work. It also would be a very time consuming task as well I imagine. The only thing I have to say in reference to these facts is that if the development team didnt waste so much time on these bs and practically useless stuff they have been giving us and other jobs they would've found the time better served improving the heart and soul of the game... the engine than these ridiculously broken crap. PRIORITIES SE PRIORITIES !!! lol

[Greatguardian]

That's correct. Defensive "actions" are not actions. Monsters aren't actually doing anything when they dodge attacks. The player simply fails an accuracy check.

[Brolic]

Can i tag on my idea for running while casting on this thread?

What about casting while casting? why cant i cast 2 spells at once, guys in naruto can do 1 handed seals and i have 2 hands, 2 spells plz.

[Concerned4FFxi]

I always thought this was intentional, as the price of a failed spell has risks associated with it. If this was not by design, then yes, a fix would be welcomed, if as I said it's a reward vs. risk thing then it's fine as is to me.

[tyrantsyn]

Perhaps something could be done between the animation and fast cast to allow RDM to get back to swinging again. I don't know if i'm for the whole swinging while i'm casting thing. Something in that just sounds broken. Your suppose to be doing something that requires your attention. Being able to attack while doing it doesn't sound like your not putting a lot of effort into the spell part and it would just come out half~assed. Being stuck in the animation for a spell you already cast seems like the best place to fix the problem to me.

[Meyi]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

How can you disagree with the truth?

-facepalm-

[saevel]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. With the logic being used, then one could arguably say that when a monster evades or block our attacks they aren't doing anything either. The way I am looking at this I suppose is that whatever defensive moves are taken, (guard, parry, shield block, evasion) is a direct result of a failed check between you and the mob regardless of what side of the transaction (server or client) initiated the action in question.

I will agree that the process management code on the server would need to be chagned not just for our job but other jobs as well for this to work. It also would be a very time consuming task as well I imagine. The only thing I have to say in reference to these facts is that if the development team didnt waste so much time on these bs and practically useless stuff they have been giving us and other jobs they would've found the time better served improving the heart and soul of the game... the engine than these ridiculously broken crap. PRIORITIES SE PRIORITIES !!! lol

Now your being daft on purpose. The server has NO animations so get that out of your head. It's just a huge database with an event processor that's constantly checking for event actions. Your attack round is what will proc a monster evade / guard, so yes the monster didn't do anything at all, the player was the actor that initiated the action.

ACTORS DO NOT DO DEFENSIVE MOVES THEY ARE JUST RESULTS TO ANOTHER ACTORS ACTIONS

There can't say it any cleared then that.

[CapriciousOne]

How can you disagree with the truth?

-facepalm-

the only one who knows the truth is SE PERIOD. Everybody likes to think their view of a topic is the truth but that doesnt make it so necesarily. I include myself in that statement as well but we all see things how we want but whatever. Unless you yourself are part of the development team, anything anybody says is nothing but speculation without confirmation from them.

[CapriciousOne]

I think part of the reason this thread is getting as big as it is is the same reason as i got upset initially. Not everyone wants this to be done, but it comes down to can/cant it be done and thats what its being argued about at this point more than anything.

Can it be done? Simple answer is yes. Its far from a simple problem, and it would require intensive work and time, and effort, and would completely change the game from the ground up. But it CAN be done. Upon reflection i dont feel it should be done, or if it is not to affect all aspects of the game. At this point though the conversation has shifted to "YES IT CAN" vs "NO IT CANT, WELL IT CAN BUT WOULD BE TOO MUCH TO IMPLIMENT!" Which is true. I think if people would stop saying it cant be done, and stick to "too hard to do" then this wouldnt be so intense.

well said and 100% agreed

[CapriciousOne]

Can't be done without replacing the god damned Engine is what I said in the first place, Crimson.

When Saevel and I are completely agreeing on something, the rest of you need to step back and think real damn hard about what ground it is you think you're standing on.
LOL @ this statement like you and Saevel are the authorities on all things SE and MMO.

[CapriciousOne]

That's correct. Defensive "actions" are not actions. Monsters aren't actually doing anything when they dodge attacks. The player simply fails an accuracy check.

so essentially when we attack a mob we aren't really attacking but the mob is failing a defense check.

[Greatguardian]

the only one who knows the truth is SE PERIOD. Everybody likes to think their view of a topic is the truth but that doesnt make it so necesarily. I include myself in that statement as well but we all see things how we want but whatever. Unless you yourself are part of the development team, anything anybody says is nothing but speculation without confirmation from them.

Wrong.

If this were true, the only way we'd know how much the sun weighed or what it was made out of is by going out, putting it on a massive scale, and taking a piece of it home with us in a lab. There is such a thing as applying relative knowledge. SE is not a super special snowflake. After enough time working with similar technology, you're able to identify how other code bases are likely handling things.

See: my explanation of Porter Slips.


so essentially when we attack a mob we aren't really attacking but the mob is failing a defense check.

So, essentially, you're not reading on purpose.

[CapriciousOne]

Wrong.

1. If this were true, the only way we'd know how much the sun weighed or what it was made out of is by going out, putting it on a massive scale, and taking a piece of it home with us in a lab. There is such a thing as applying relative knowledge. SE is not a super special snowflake. After enough time working with similar technology, you're able to identify how other code bases are likely handling things.

See: my explanation of Porter Slips.



2. So, essentially, you're not reading on purpose.

1. I saw this snippet somewhere earlier to but the point I'm making is that unless somebody actually does exactly this then there is always the possibility of error in our assumptions that is all.

2. LOL I was being sarcastic based on the analogy being used but it clearly went over your head.

Try not taking everything I say so literal as I am generally only being speculative/philosophical at best. I could be literal but then I would have to do research, provide examples and get into otherwise lenghty and pointless debates .... oh wait I do that already LOL. Honestly though there are plenty of people that could make valid arguments for and against any and everything I say and I"m good with that as I'm not here to preach and convert anybody. I just simply try to make people think deeper and ensure that people are glossing over certain things or making things sound more accurate than it is without confirmation from the proverbial horses mouth (SE).

Nothing more nothing less than a missed opportunity at humor. I mean you even said it yourself "relative knowledge" and not absolute but so many on these forums would have you think otherwise.

[Greatguardian]

The possibility of error does not necessitate the existence of error. "100% proven facts" are few and far between. The idea is to simply lower the room for error as much as possible.

In this case, there is not much room for error. I don't have SE's server client in front of me, but I also don't need it in front of me. You talk about "research" and "valid arguments", but you make it abundantly clear that you have no idea what you're talking about. That's cool I guess. A valid argument is just an argument that can potentially be true in some possible universe. So I guess you have that half down at least.

It's just not true in this universe.

[saevel]

so essentially when we attack a mob we aren't really attacking but the mob is failing a defense check.

Actually yes.

Defensive moves are part of the attack function.

And while I know your trying to be a d!ck, you do realize I've actually run a RO server before. Ridiculously complex is small a statement for what the server side of an MMO looks like.

[ManaKing]

Being able to attack while doing it doesn't sound like your not putting a lot of effort into the spell part and it would just come out half~assed.

You mean like casting a lvl 75 BLM spell even though you are lvl 95? Single Target instead of AOE? What part of casting a Tier IV sounds like it should require a lot of effort?

I mean if we want to talk about half~assed then we can just talk about RDM lvl 76-95. What's the point of RDM if it is just going to be an inferior mage piece mixed with an inferior melee piece and have no actual job synergy to substantiate it?

I play RDM because it is fun, I don't play it because I delude myself into thinking that my job is actually equal to anyone else's. I just happen to have friends that don't mind having Phallanx 2 around. I would love to reward my friends with an actual job that I like playing that we could all take seriously.

[Meyi]

the only one who knows the truth is SE PERIOD. Everybody likes to think their view of a topic is the truth but that doesnt make it so necesarily. I include myself in that statement as well but we all see things how we want but whatever. Unless you yourself are part of the development team, anything anybody says is nothing but speculation without confirmation from them.


well said and 100% agreed


LOL @ this statement like you and Saevel are the authorities on all things SE and MMO.


so essentially when we attack a mob we aren't really attacking but the mob is failing a defense check.

First off, wow, couldn't this be put into one post instead of four? I know you're eager and excited with this topic, but this is a poor way to go about advertising it. If you want this topic to gain support through popularity, you should consider weighing it to other great classics, such as this topic (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/17942-Cheese-Sandwich-Petition). If it is a truly dire problem, such as cheese sandwiches, then clearly the players will swarm in and voice their concern. Quad-posting is not necessary.

Now, to answer your responses, the truth is in the math. The truth is in the programming. I don't know much about computer programming because I struggled with even the Introduction class, but I at least took a class on it and gained some basic information. Computers register things one at a time, despite how we may perceive multiple things occurring at once. That much I know and I feel it helps me understand GG and Saevel's posts well enough.

There is no magic to computers. Ever. SE are not level 99 wizards who can don their Goetia Petasos and Coats. They're human beings who code just like everyone else.

There are times when I swing while casting. But you know what? That's not actually while I'm casting; I had swung prior to starting my spell, but due to lag, it appears on my end as if the two are simultaneously occurring. Same with swinging during weapon skills and swinging during Dancer sambas. The animation may continue, but that doesn't mean the actual event that your button (macro or enter) registered was able to be processed at the exact same time the swings were.

Now, let's dance in lala land because it seems that's where everyone wants to go these days. If you could have your cheese sandwich and eat it too, how would we balance this addition to red mages? Would their melee swings completely blow while they were casting? Would their magic suck even more than it does now? Or would perhaps both be nerfed for the lulz?

In all seriousness I'd love to see this for Black Mage. I love meleeing in Campaign but struggle to melee much because I'm always busy rebuffing myself and redebuffing the monsters. If only Black Mage could gain Composure too!

[Doombringer]

LOL @ this statement like you and Saevel are the authorities on all things SE and MMO.

actually, the joke here is that he and saevel have never agreed on anything, including the color of the sky, and probably never will again.

the implication being not so much that they're the definitive authority on all things, as it is that the sun and moon have somehow allied to defeat this greater evil.

strange bedfellows and all that.

[Mirage]

Pretty much this. You can only have one action *active* server side, its like this for many online games. The most you can hope for is more fast cast and spells with less ridiculous casting times.
I find it hard to believe that this couldn't be changed by developers relatively easily. I think the reason most games are like this is a gameplay design choice, not because the programmers were unable to code such a feature into the server software.


And while I know your trying to be a d!ck, you do realize I've actually run a RO server before. Ridiculously complex is small a statement for what the server side of an MMO looks like.
Well, most of those RO servers are reverse engineered hobby projects, it's no wonder it sometimes looks like a mess. Also, RO actually has a class that can attack while casting :p.

[ManaKing]

I find it hard to believe that this couldn't be changed by developers relatively easily. I think the reason most games are like this is a gameplay design choice, not because the programmers were unable to code such a feature into the server software.


Well, most of those RO servers are reverse engineered hobby projects, it's no wonder it sometimes looks like a mess. Also, RO actually has a class that can attack while casting :p.

RO does have a class that can attack while casting. That's pretty much where this all started, for me at least. I don't mind that it has turned into us asking if we can have a Zanshin Attack after we cast a spell. I would actually love that.

/startRant

Other games have already implemented the feature to be able to attack while casting. Can FFXI specifically make that change? You would have to actually ask someone that worked/s on the engine instead of random people on a forum, who are not an authority on the game's engine. SO STOP TALKING ABOUT THE TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF THIS GAME THAT YOU ACTUALLY ARE NOT AN AUTHORITY ON TO LEVERAGE MELEE OR ANTI-MELEE ARGUMENTS. No one cares about how smug you are while arguing about things that are completely based on knowledge you aren't actually privy to.

Stay on topic for a discussion about RDMs gaining the ability to continue their melee attacks in some form or another while casting, and stop running off on useless tangents just so you can start fights.

Here is some info we actually do know about: Zanshin. No matter how Zanshin is coded, it exists as a reaction to a players action that failed to hit an enemy and acts like an additional action. It is a passive job trait, the player does nothing to activate Zanshin. So it has a condition to go off, it acts like an additional action, and it is a passive trait. It was also added after the original game engine was created.

I'm asking for a passive trait, aka JT, that will add an additional attack on the condition that I cast a spell. If the mob isn't in range for melee, then I don't get the additional attack because it didn't meet that condition. If you don't think the SE can code that, then you don't think they actually do anything, because this is simple and already exists.

If you want to put further conditions for which spells will actually give you additional attacks, we can discuss that. But whether or not a work around that would work will no longer be discussed here by people that aren't employed by SE. You are just wasting people's time and being blatantly disrespectful to your fellow forum goers with your OPINIONS of things can and cannot work. You don't even have to listen to what I said about Zanshin, just stay on topic.

Just in case you missed it, the topic is about RDM continuing to melee in one form or another while casting so that they can actually have a chance to keep up with other jobs in DPS. Take anti-melee sentiments to another thread and start a discussion about how you would like it improved instead of undermining melee discussions.

EDIT: None of this is aimed at you specifically Mirage. You mentioned RO and I appreciate that someone else has played it as well. Attacking while Casting was not part of the original game engine for Ragnarok Online. Scholars were a later addition to RO coding.

[Selzak]

The game's combat engine simply won't allow you to be in the process of 2 actions at the same time, of any type, ever. It is not built for it. Monsters can't do it either.

Spaghetti code is not the excuse. Engine limitations are.
Are you sure that this is the case? Is there actually something in the code that won't allow it? Because technically, it could always be changed (whether or not it's practical to do so).

edit: NVM, read a bit further. You don't know as much as you think you do about the processes involved here. The only thing making it impossible would be the complexity of changing the code. Maybe you're in college and have learned about object-oriented programming but not multi-threaded processes yet. An engine is just a collection of modules and such that define how the game acts, nothing about an engine is set in stone and unchangeable. Whether or not this particular 'limitation' is too deeply rooted for them to consider altering it is something that only they know.

Computers are very capable of making a video game where the character is casting a spell and hitting something at the same time.

[Greatguardian]

Are you sure that this is the case? Is there actually something in the code that won't allow it? Because technically, it could always be changed (whether or not it's practical to do so).

It's a fundamental design decision that was likely reached at the engine development level for various practical and preventative reasons.

Modern game code works like a large pyramid. You build from the ground up, in layers. By the time you reach the top layer, changing anything on the ground floor would be impossible without collapsing the entire structure and building it over again. A rough overview would look something like this:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/20b1bc876d407388642430fb20a2e2fb.jpg

Most, if not all, changes to the game made post-development are done on the Toolkit level. This includes things like damage calculations, new jobs, abilities, spells, monsters, animations, zones, etc. This is where you can make abilities and spells do whatever you want so long as they fit within the guidelines set by the engine. Spells have to have a cost (even if it's 0), they have to have a casting time (even if it's 0), and they have to have an action delay (which is globally set to 2.0338~ seconds, and can be changed but won't because it's there for good reason). The engine is what actually handles all of these things, and what can and can't be done at the most fundamental level.

Tangent: I'm not an SE programmer (or am I? I wouldn't be allowed to tell you if I was), but you really don't need to be in this day and age to understand what's probably going on in any particular game system. I say probably, but it's a pretty strong probably, as in "It would be fairly godawful coding for the original designers to have done it any other way, and everything we can see on the client side serves to reinforce this idea, so this is probably how it works".

Saevel's about as pro-melee as they come, and as he seems to have similar experience in this field he's basically saying the exact same shit I'm saying. This has nothing to do with "pro melee" or "anti melee" stances. I'm sure if we could attack while casting, he'd be all for it (and hell, why would I be against it honestly?). We just can't.

Making useless comparisons to Zanshin and Parrying throughout this thread can only be called intentionally dense at this point, as we have demonstrated multiple times how those do not mean a damn thing in the context of a single-action system. Do you cast spells when your Zanshin goes off? Are you putting attacks in your attack so you can attack while you attack, dawg? No. Zanshin and DA hits are not individual actions, the game just rolls stats a second time if the player or monster passes a DA/Zanshin check when combat stats are being rolled (see the flowchart I made earlier in the thread).

I think we could use more caps lock, boldface, and "zomg Opinionssssssssss" though. They contribute a lot to this technical discussion. I'm sure if you scream loud enough, the game engine will rewrite itself.

Edit: Multi-threaded processing is impractical and dangerous in a 10-year old persistent MMO environment that wasn't designed for it - not so much on a hardware/software level any more but an implementation and design level. The original server code was a lot more open to this sort of thing (not allowing multiple simultaneous actions, but allowing the delay between actions to reach 0), and it wreaked havoc in practice. People could duplicate items by spamming packets and requests to the server, attack delays could be bypassed by spamming engage/disengage commands, it was a mess.

I'm also not confident that the original server client was built to address this, and I've brought up other times that it's very clear that the game's combat mechanics themselves are certainly not. When you have a basic premise such as "One concurrent action" built in at the ground level, each subsequent level of combat coding assumes that it is accounted for already. The game is not designed to handle multiple concurrent actions, and changing something so fundamental means changing every bit of inherited code as well and rewriting some mechanics completely.

You're right, it's potentially possible with a completely different design in mind, but I never said that no computers anywhere could handle it. I simply said, from the get-go, the amount of fundamental design changes necessary to do so is completely impractical and would essentially require rewriting a massive amount of the code base from the ground up. That will never happen, as it would be easier to just make a new game at that point, so this will never happen.

[Selzak]

I know where you're coming from, and I could care less about whether or not RDMs are meleeing, I just think you're assuming way too much about how the engine is built and what kind of trickery may or may not be possible to get around its supposed limitations.

You made a very valid point when you brought up the fact that this game mechanic is probably not as easy to change as people were assuming. (like flipping a switch or changing a 1 to a 2)

...Then you just kind of went overboard with it (at least, from my perspective) by acting as if it would be impossible to make it work.

as an example:

*Player casting spell*
*If attack round is up, stop casting and hit target* (record time)
*Continue casting spell* (subtract lost time)


An approach like this (obviously a lot more involved, but the overall approach) might work, even though it's not technically doing two things at once. It might not work, but the point is that it's probably not as complicated as you're assuming to get something like this to happen, and probably more complicated than many others have assumed.

[Greatguardian]

I know where you're coming from, and I could care less about whether or not RDMs are meleeing, I just think you're assuming way too much about how the engine is built and what kind of trickery may or may not be possible to get around its supposed limitations.

You made a very valid point when you brought up the fact that this game mechanic is probably not as easy to change as people were assuming. (like flipping a switch or changing a 1 to a 2)

...Then you just kind of went overboard with it (at least, from my perspective) by acting as if it would be impossible to make it work.

Fair enough. Like I said, I don't think that this sort of thing would be impossible for any computer anywhere. I just think that it's highly unlikely that this could be done without a massive overhaul of the game's server client, and an extremely large rewrite of existing combat mechanics. For all intents and purposes, this is outside the realm of possibility.

If people were to offer more educated insight into how this might actually work aside from "I want it, do it now, this is my opinion and that's your opinion and zomg you don't work at SE so shut up" and "well I can write a 1000 line python program that can do this, so SE's server code should too", we might actually be able to move this discussion forward. I find it extremely unlikely that that would happen, though.

I lose motivation to put in disclaimers for these kinds of people very quickly, as they're often completely misinterpreted or misrepresented in order to serve their agenda. Imagine walking into a room where people vehemently believe that the sun is made of cheese, and trying to say "Well no, we're pretty sure it's not made of cheese, as that makes no sense, and we're 99.9% sure that it's really primarily composed of Hydrogen and Helium". People are going to latch onto that 0.1% chance and say "AHA, SO IT COULD BE MADE OF CHEESE, NA NA CAN'T PROVE ME WRONG UNTIL YOU FLY TO THE SUN".

It's much easier to just turn and say "The sun is not bloody made of cheese, at all, shut the bloody hell up."

[Selzak]

Fair enough. Like I said, I don't think that this sort of thing would be impossible for any computer anywhere. I just think that it's highly unlikely that this could be done without a massive overhaul of the game's server client, and an extremely large rewrite of existing combat mechanics. For all intents and purposes, this is outside the realm of possibility.
Guess I caught your arguments out of context because you were being irritated at the people you were replying to. That's a legitimate assumption (still, I just really think it's more guesswork than a given). Tossing a like for wrongly calling you out (my bad) and moving along now...

[Greatguardian]

Guess I caught your arguments out of context because you were being irritated at the people you were replying to. That's a legitimate assumption (still, I just really think it's more guesswork than a given). Tossing a like for wrongly calling you out (my bad) and moving along now...

Don't worry about it, no harm done. I really should have been more clear in general, it can just be extremely frustrating to feel like you're talking to a wall over and over.

Edit: To continue with the idea you presented, the biggest issue I'd see is really the situation wherein your melee round overlaps the end of the spell. Even if you simply cast the spell after the round went off (this is assuming that the Devs make sure to code for negative numbers in remaining cast time. Shouldn't be too hard, but important), you'd still have the 2.0338~ second post-action delay after the spell goes off, which would pause your attack rounds - resulting in a low net gain.

This is also assuming that the magic commands are sent in real-time rather than simply "When Time = Start Time + Adjusted Cast time, check for StartPosition==EndPosition and SpellInterrupted=False" or some variation therein. It would be more efficient for them to have the server calculate magic casting time at the beginning of the cast rather than having the client send both start and end packets. This would mean inserting a check for attack delay and delay status into the original "magic start" routine and adjusting the completion of the spell to be "When Time = Start Time + Adjusted Cast time + Attack round time", and would still miss taking into account whether or not the player is actually able to swing at something.

Christ, the more I think about it the less I want to be "that guy" on the Dev team that gets asked to look into something like this, lol.

[Selzak]

There would definitely be conflict sometimes, but I don't see why it would be terribly difficult to deal with. A particularly easy solution would just be to consume that swing and give the cast priority. Like I said, I was more introducing the idea that it may be possible to effectively allow meleeing while casting instead of trying to make it possible to perform two actions at once. How they actually handle the act of "casting", I have no earthly idea. I do have a hunch that this is possible though, for a couple of reasons:

Casting (as in, waiting for a spell to occur) is sent a lot quicker than it seems because the animation tends to lag behind. If you ever get interrupted you'll notice that your casting animation goes on (sometimes for a really long time...) but you are not actually casting anymore- the log says you were interrupted and you are allowed to swing. *This produces the illusion that you are swinging while casting, actually. If you just watch the log as you're selecting/casting a spell you'll notice that the information is being sent a lot faster than it looks like it is graphically. Keep in mind, there's also a meter that calculates your % location in the spell's cast time. I doubt it would be possible to make it so that your attacks are simply not affected by casting (sometimes the stars are going to align the wrong way), but making it so that you do tend to get your attack rounds in while not affecting the cast sounds possible to me, and I think that'd definitely be good enough for what people want.

In PvP, you'll sometimes notice players (on melee + mage jobs) turning their backs while casting a spell in order to "queue up" a melee attack when they're done casting. This leads me to believe that attack rounds are, in fact, happening while you are casting and that they are simply not produced. I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but eh.

But we're just having fun here, neither of us (or at least I know I sure as hell don't) know very much about what's going on underneath this game.


Are the mechanics beneath this flexible enough to allow them to do something like I mentioned? I have no idea, but I don't think it's unrealistic to think about. Again, the point was just that there may be any number of ways to "make it happen" so to speak. Or maybe it's too complicated and no one could come up with a working solution...I don't know. I think we both agree on the idea that they probably won't be able to do this, but I think it's more of an issue of the size and nature of the development team + whether or not they can be assed to try it. Our disagreement on this seems to be that I think (out of my ass) that's it's probably 65/35 in terms of there being an impractical/practical solution and I think you're more like 95/5.

The real kicker here is that, even if they could do it (even easily), they probably won't lol. I'd love to keep talking about possible solutions though; programming is a lot more fun than discussing melee RDM!

( I kid, as a DRK main I understand the pain of a broken job concept ;; )




*More casting weirdness: That remaining time meter is terribly inaccurate. On long spells, I'll notice myself beginning to cast about 60% into the meter sometimes. I read this as:

1) They are keeping track of casting time in a continuous fashion
2) These calculations are talking to your actual "actions" a lot faster then they are talking to you.

I think that's a good sign for the above idea.

[Neisan_Quetz]

'SE' and 'easy solution' shouldn't be in the same sentance imo :/

[ManaKing]

Wow we are still talking about whether or not it can be done. There hasn't been any real discussion on melee solutions during casting in like 3 pages. Thanks for going off topic again GG and turning another RDM thread into a quagmire that isn't even focused on what we were talking about.

[Greatguardian]

About to head out the door, but just a couple of things to comment on,

Firstly, I'm fairly sure that the actual spell casting time calculations and such are handled server-side at the start of the cast rather than client side or in real time. The cast time bar is just a graphical doodad which fills up at a rate specified by the spell's cast time in the .DATs (which is why it never adjusts based on fast cast, and instead you just see spells go off at 50% cast time) in the form of ([1/Cast time]*Pixel size of bar) pixels/second

This would also explain why you see the kind of lag that you do when spells are interrupted. Rather than sending a "Stop casting spell" command to the server in real time, I believe the server simply flips a boolean for "SpellInterrupted" to true whenever an attack/stun would interrupt casting. This boolean is then only checked when the game actually processes the end of the cast, at the same time that the server checks to ensure that the player's ending position is the same as the starting position.

You can see evidence of this in the way the server handles player movement while casting. As long as you end the cast in the same place that you start it, the cast will go through. This means that the client is most likely not sending any information to the server about casting status in real time, as then any movement would stop the casting of a spell.

This is also visible in the way the server handles gear swaps during casting. Casting time is calculated at the beginning of the spell, and potency is calculated at the end of the spell. Taking Fast Cast off in the middle of a spell won't change the rate at which you cast the rest of the spell.

These sorts of things are where I derive my server casting model from. Looking at that model, I'm not sure where I would inject a command to do anything about melee attacks. Overflow/queue errors can also become an issue in high-haste/low-delay scenarios. It's interesting to talk about (certainly much more interesting than normal red mage melee talk, I agree), I just think it would be extremely awkward to try and implement without redoing the system.

Edit: Mana. Shut up. This discussion is significantly more productive than half of the other threads in this forum combined. Rather than sitting off in fairy land where pissing and moaning equates to results, we're discussing how this might actually be implemented or jury-rigged into existence if they actually decided to take a look at it. I'd appreciate it if you kept your nose out of it if you aren't going to contribute in a meaningful way.

[Selzak]

Wow we are still talking about whether or not it can be done. There hasn't been any real discussion on melee solutions during casting in like 3 pages. Thanks for going off topic again GG and turning another RDM thread into a quagmire that isn't even focused on what we were talking about.
Well, if it can't be done then what's the point of discussing it? But since our discussion is going a bit off-topic, how about this to contribute:

Enhancing Spell:
RDM 45) Subtle Sword- Self-only, potent Subtle Blow effect.
RDM 70) Boost-ACC- Does this exist yet? If not, it would help.
RDM exclusive, self-enhancing spells like Temper are the road to melee RDM...sorry, but it's the most realistic way to make it happen.

*How powerful are En-Spells right now? This should be the road to RDM melee, so a boost is in order if they don't make it worthwhile (worthwhile is just enough to not be wasting your time).


Job Trait:
RDM 30) Manablade- Attacks occasionally regenerate MP while wielding a sword.
This would activate around 10% and the amount gained would scale with levels (ex. Manablade II at 70).






The cast time bar is just a graphical doodad which fills up at a rate specified by the spell's cast time in the .DATs (which is why it never adjusts based on fast cast, and instead you just see spells go off at 50% cast time) in the form of ([1/Cast time]*Pixel size of bar) pixels/second.
I had no idea about this. It's interesting and disappointing at the same time!



This would also explain why you see the kind of lag that you do when spells are interrupted. Rather than sending a "Stop casting spell" command to the server in real time, I believe the server simply flips a boolean for "SpellInterrupted" to true whenever an attack/stun would interrupt casting. This boolean is then only checked when the game actually processes the end of the cast, at the same time that the server checks to ensure that the player's ending position is the same as the starting position.

You can see evidence of this in the way the server handles player movement while casting. As long as you end the cast in the same place that you start it, the cast will go through. This means that the client is most likely not sending any information to the server about casting status in real time, as then any movement would stop the casting of a spell.
Apparently you have dug around in the workings of the game a lot more than I have (not at all), so I'm gonna change my original (very computer sciencey, out-of-the-ass estimation) assumption that there's a 35% chance of them being able to do this to around 10% and closer to your estimate, lol. I had no idea that the game calculates an interrupt this way (now that I think about it, they do tend to happen closer to perceived cast-time...I just didn't know that's how it worked), and I definitely agree that this makes it seem like no, they are not keeping track of casting time continuously (the the start, stop work-around would probably not be able to be applied). Super interesting stuff though, thanks for explaining. I like the Internet sometimes.

[Shadowsong]

It will be a sad day when people like Guardian and Byrth and stuff stop posting. No one else takes the time to explain things, and when people finally do make them quit these forums from sever headdesk, these forums will become like an untended garden (ie full of weeds)

And the topic was about meleeing while casting, not about rdm melee options. Not a single post was off topic.

If you are now magically making the tread about rdm melee fixes, it doesnt need any. However, that "Manablade" idea above sounds actually pretty good!

[saevel]

Guess I caught your arguments out of context because you were being irritated at the people you were replying to. That's a legitimate assumption (still, I just really think it's more guesswork than a given). Tossing a like for wrongly calling you out (my bad) and moving along now...

We never said it was impossible, merely that currently the server side event engine isn't set up for it. Only one action is allowed to be active at any point in time. They could change that but it would require an overhaul of the servers event engine, something you do not do without lots and lots of time and effort. This isn't like changing something client side where the worst you gotta worry about is a PC crashing or people moving where they shouldn't be. If you screw something up in the event engine the server itself would crash, meaning lost data / loot / fights. Could be scrambled world database's forcing you to revert to the last backup. It also could mean really bad things randomly happening, like getting 10K gil at the end of a fight, except the action never completes and that it keeps giving you gil until your character becomes corrupted. Or the monster casts a spell and it keeps processing until you die, and possibly more until the server crash's.

As for the technical aspects, there is no magic in real life. We system engineers do what we do because certain design's tend to work better then other design's. Action based event engines have proven to be the most efficient method of resolving tens of thousands of independent actions per second by thousands of actors (technical name for players and monsters in a virtual world). Other methods tend to be crushed after 30ish players as their are simply too many things going on for the server's processors and memory to handle while being coherent, things will start lagging and your actions will be delayed a few seconds. That and if the client had ~any~ say whatsoever in what was going on, then you'd see TPP that would instantly win you every fight and get all the drops you wanted.

[ManaKing]

Edit: Mana. Shut up. This discussion is significantly more productive than half of the other threads in this forum combined. Rather than sitting off in fairy land where pissing and moaning equates to results, we're discussing how this might actually be implemented or jury-rigged into existence if they actually decided to take a look at it. I'd appreciate it if you kept your nose out of it if you aren't going to contribute in a meaningful way.

Nice opinions as usual. Thanks for having opinions, expressing them while on the internet, believing you are actually capable of being right, and assume everyone that doesn't agree or think like you is wrong. I'm sorry you are rude and incapable of seeing that you are talking in nothing but opinions, but what i really don't understand is why you are on the RDM forums and posting about RDMs when you even admit you don't play it anymore. You don't even suggest ideas, you just sit on other people's discussions and act like you are a moderator or someone that is actually paid to be here. Stop being so condescending and actually suggest something or is being negative and getting in the way all you can do?

The obvious answers is obvious. You just build a condition on top of casting just like the devs did with Zanshin. If you don't realize why that is simple and would work you just don't really get programming. It's simple as pie and easy enough to implement that people could actually do it. The Devs are more than capable of doing this. The question is will they do it and is there anything that anyone can come up with other than gaining additional attacks that would benefit RDM more?




Job Trait:
RDM 30) Manablade- Attacks occasionally regenerate MP while wielding a sword.
This would activate around 10% and the amount gained would scale with levels (ex. Manablade II at 70).


Thank you, that is wonderful. If I had more mp to use while meleeing, I would be a happier RDM, especially outside of aby.



Enhancing Spell:
RDM 45) Subtle Sword- Self-only, potent Subtle Blow effect.
RDM 70) Boost-ACC- Does this exist yet? If not, it would help.
RDM exclusive, self-enhancing spells like Temper are the road to melee RDM...sorry, but it's the most realistic way to make it happen.

*How powerful are En-Spells right now? This should be the road to RDM melee, so a boost is in order if they don't make it worthwhile (worthwhile is just enough to not be wasting your time).



Enspell damage is still in bad shape. SE doesn't comment if we are actually getting Tier IIIs or merit upgrades at any point.

I would prefer if they consolidated subtle blow and acc+ on Temper. I don't care if I have to merit for it, it would be worth it for the convenience of just casting 1 spell.

[SpankWustler]

The Devs are more than capable of doing this.

After surveying an internet's worth of images of people laughing, I've decided on this one.

http://disinfo-drop.s3.amazonaws.com/Joker.jpg

I feel it best conveys the underlying bitterness within the humor of the phrase "The Devs are more than capable of doing this." I am confident they could set out to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich and end up constructing two very sticky and biodegradable hats instead.

Although, you raise an interesting possibility with the mention of something like Zanshin. While it's not very probable the Development Bros could make it possible to melee while casting, a job trait that makes a character attempt one (or more) auto-attack round(s) if engaged when a spell is cast would probably be much easier to implement.

[Greatguardian]

ITT: I don't know anything about programming. Kay.

Alright. I won't talk about any of my programming skills. But, let's have you stop talking about throwing conditions into a system that you don't understand. I'll give you a pseudo-code model that I believe is accurate, or extremely close to the one FFXI uses to process spell casting. You tell me where you'll "throw a condition", and what that condition is, and we'll see how this goes.

Kay? Kay.

Step 1: Client sends packet to server saying "Hey bitches, I'm firin' mah lazer"

>Server processes spell start request, confirms IsValidTarget, and checks player stats and spell stats to determine Casting Time, and records StartTime and StartPosition

>Spell Animation is told to start on the Client

>Server starts the conditional statement: (When CurrentTime = StartTime + CastingTime) and does nothing in the interim. No packets are sent to or from the Client in this time.

>Conditional statement is met. Server requests final stats from the Client. IsValidTarget and IsSpellInterrupted are checked. CurrentPosition is compared to StartPosition.

>If all of these checks pass, Player stats are read from the server and relevant effect calculations are run against Target stats. Effect is applied to relevant Objects.

>If any condition does not pass, player fails Spell Casting.

>Return.

You see, the biggest issue with trying to get the client to do something during casting is the fact that the client and server don't actually communicate while casting. Position data is updated in a separate module, so you can still move of course, but the combat module isn't actually receiving or sending any data to you.

Keep in mind that you're also limited from excessively increasing server traffic, as this could have profoundly negative effects especially for users living in a non-ideal DNS range (eg, about half of the EU, Australia, etc). The current system is built the way it is to minimize the dependence on constant communication in order to make a more pleasant/streamlined experience for all users.

Good luck.

[ManaKing]

Wow nice and bitter as usual GG. I'm not trying to upset you, I just wanted you to realize you are leaving discussions open only to yourself.

This is an actual discussion and I thank you for it. Instead of you saying I see nothing but problems and no one can fix them, you say these are the problem and I don't see a fix for what we are talking about. For me, the fix is we adjust the way in which something would be implemented but keep the same idea. You can shoot down what I say next and I won't care, so long we keep moving on to the next generations of ideas.

If it would really cause that much additional server traffic than instead of having to do a conditional you just cause casting on RDMs to add a buff that gives them a guaranteed Double Attack on their next auto attack. We are still getting around the ungodly delay that gets in the way of more Hybrid play and it doesn't need a conditional check. It also adds a level unique tactics that adds synergy to a job that is trying to be a caster and a melee at the same time. There is no reason you wouldn't cast a spell before doing CDC or Mercy Stroke, because it would be pure profit.

As far as implementing it, you could add it as a 2nd functionality to Temper if you didn't want RDMs to learn it until later. If not, then make it a job trait and share it with DRK (*cough* give us OA in return). If you wanted there to be an upgrade to this trait, then either make it apply to the next 2 auto attacks or grant a Triple Attack instead of a Double attack. Additional double attacks are more suited to multi-hit WS while Triple attack is more suited towards single hit WSs, like relic WSs.

I'm not going to undersell how powerful this would be, but honestly RDM needs something to get them back in the game as a legitimate piece. We are all aware that the delay between actions is one of biggest downfalls of hybrid play. At least if we are dealing with it in some way, hybrid jobs won't always have to suffer for it.

Fire Away Sir.

[Greatguardian]

Fire away at what? A charge-based system is what I introduced to this thread as an alternative to breaking the combat mechanics in the first place, except I brought up Spontaneity charges instead of DA charges (which would be a lot easier to handle).

You made a point of going on in multiple posts about how I obviously don't know anything about programming. I gave you an existing model. I asked you to add to that existing model in a way that would do what you want to do without breaking or completely rewriting that model. Instead of saying "Well they can do it", show me how they could do it because I'm honestly curious what you think you can come up with.

I am still interested in seeing what you can come up with, despite your deflection. You've spent half this thread telling me that I don't know how to program and that this is easy, so please demonstrate your skill for me. Simply saying "A conditional" doesn't mean anything.

I also think you're really stretching what this would do for the job if you think adding melee proficiency will affect how viable Red Mage is in Endgame. I'll tell you right now, buffs to melee won't do a damn thing for the job as a whole in Endgame. The one ancillary benefit to the Spontaneity-charge system I mentioned earlier is that if would affect both melee RDMs and caster RDMs.

[saevel]

Wow nice and bitter as usual GG. I'm not trying to upset you, I just wanted you to realize you are leaving discussions open only to yourself.

This is an actual discussion and I thank you for it. Instead of you saying I see nothing but problems and no one can fix them, you say these are the problem and I don't see a fix for what we are talking about. For me, the fix is we adjust the way in which something would be implemented but keep the same idea. You can shoot down what I say next and I won't care, so long we keep moving on to the next generations of ideas.

If it would really cause that much additional server traffic than instead of having to do a conditional you just cause casting on RDMs to add a buff that gives them a guaranteed Double Attack on their next auto attack. We are still getting around the ungodly delay that gets in the way of more Hybrid play and it doesn't need a conditional check. It also adds a level unique tactics that adds synergy to a job that is trying to be a caster and a melee at the same time. There is no reason you wouldn't cast a spell before doing CDC or Mercy Stroke, because it would be pure profit.

As far as implementing it, you could add it as a 2nd functionality to Temper if you didn't want RDMs to learn it until later. If not, then make it a job trait and share it with DRK (*cough* give us OA in return). If you wanted there to be an upgrade to this trait, then either make it apply to the next 2 auto attacks or grant a Triple Attack instead of a Double attack. Additional double attacks are more suited to multi-hit WS while Triple attack is more suited towards single hit WSs, like relic WSs.

I'm not going to undersell how powerful this would be, but honestly RDM needs something to get them back in the game as a legitimate piece. We are all aware that the delay between actions is one of biggest downfalls of hybrid play. At least if we are dealing with it in some way, hybrid jobs won't always have to suffer for it.

Fire Away Sir.

Actually there wouldn't be nearly as big a conflict between attack vs casting if spells cast faster. Currently this is the only game I know where most spells take as long as they do to cast. Buffing and enhancing spells should be near instant cast, with healing in the 1~3 second range and nukes in the 5s range. But because everything takes forever you end up with this long ass time your sitting there doing nothing but watching a magical bar fill up.

[Shadowsong]

Mana, and anyone else still arguing at this point;
1) Melee while casting, as proposed, is impossible in every sense of the word. If it was possible through ghetto coding and such, it still will not happen, so it stays as impossible
2) If your original goal was to give RDM different melee options, please start another thread, as this thread is specifically about the concept of meleeing while casting.
^ That topic is closed, answered, done.

[ManaKing]

Mana, and anyone else still arguing at this point;
1) Melee while casting, as proposed, is impossible in every sense of the word. If it was possible through ghetto coding and such, it still will not happen, so it stays as impossible
2) If your original goal was to give RDM different melee options, please start another thread, as this thread is specifically about the concept of meleeing while casting.
^ That topic is closed, answered, done.

Yeah, I'm going to ignore that. We'll decide when we are done. So long as GG and I feel like going back and forth I'm not going to stop a discussion.

@GG You do get how Zanshin was added after the original game engine was created, right? It was added as a secondary stage to accuracy checks. I'm not saying that you have to change the original code to get what you want. You just have to build on existing examples. Just like the Zanshin system, the steps system for DNC was added after the fact. The game is more than capable of adding charges or temporary buffs that only persist for a single or even multiple attacks.

I understand we are all extremely cynical of SE, because their track record is horrible. But their track record also does include them adding systems on top of their existing game engine.

I don't personally care if RDM grows as a mage or a melee or both. It just needs to grow out of it's current state. If it grows as a hybrid it needs systems that work with both of it's sides. To attack and cast at the same time doesn't have to be the goal. The only goal has to be for RDM to get stronger.

So long as we can agree at least on this then we can keep going.

[Shadowsong]

You call what you and GG are having a discussion?
The thread: Can we melee while casting?
Answer: No
Discussion? The "discussion" I've seen for about NINE pages is that 2+2 cant obviously mean 4 because come on guys, I know what I'm talking about, I'm kinda a big deal

You think people are going to come in here for RDM discussion? No, people are going to look at the thread title, decide you just don't know how programming works, see 10 pages of arguing that red=blue, and then promptly forget the thread and regain 5 IQ points.

Edit: Please stop bringing up Zanshin,

I understand we are all extremely cynical of SE, because their track record is horrible. But their track record also does include them adding systems on top of their existing game engine.
^This right here is the source of your misunderstanding. The game engine has NEVER changed in the history of the ga...... ya know what? Nevermind. Keep posting, this is going full circle and is becoming funny again.

[Crimson_Slasher]

All i see now when i come to this thread is some theorizing of how to make magic and melee play together better, which is good, then i see shadowsong every couple of posts going "LET IT DIE!" and raging out, then ending each post with some way to make it seem theyre somehow entertained by this despite their repeated posts about ending it filled with agitation. If its so "funny" then enjoy it, if you dont like that a reasonable idea may come from the nitpicking, well theres plenty buttons to help you on the page, like the ignore, back, and xlose buttons.

Even if we let this die, these posts will still sit in a lump on the bottom of the forum, gathering dust so if we need to cover some related ideas to make melee/casting more friendly, as far as i see it, this is as good a place as any. Welcome to the rdm forums, the derail starts here.

[CapriciousOne]

well i suppose that is true greatguardian rarely seems to agree with anybody on any thread from what i've see or rather bothered to check and read.

[Greatguardian]

If I agree with someone, I typically like their posts or talk to them on other forums/via PM on other forums where it's easier to discuss whatever it is I agree with them on.

Zanshin is not an example that affects the way this works.

Steps are not an example that affects the way this works.

These are toolkit-level changes, which I described a few pages ago with my awesome MSPaint pyramid. You can definitely make toolkit changes. You just can't touch anything that might be infrastructure or Engine level without going beyond the scope of the resources we're allotting as "possible".

Please stop treating the Development Bros like religious figures. We can't just have faith that they can magically make 2 + 2 = 5 if we ask them to often enough. This isn't how the world works.

I have given you the model that the Developers are likely working with. You have a significantly broader access to methodology than they do, because there are likely even more infrastructure-specific checks on what they can/can't do in place in their actual server client. This is your topic. You're the one talking about how little the rest of us know about programming. Show me what you would do with this model to make it do what you want.

That is absolutely the only thing worth discussing in regards to the original post. If you want to talk about random RDMelee crap, go bump one of the billion other threads in this subforum about it. This thread is about melee while casting. If you think you know more about coding than I do, which is quite possible as there's always someone better out there, show me what the hell you'd do because I am legitimately curious as to what possible solution you could offer.

Yes. This is a challenge. Yes. I'm not letting this die. Why? Because this is actually interesting to me, and instead of dancing around the issue over and over I want to see what other people can come up with. I want to see people being creative within the bounds of reality. That is far more interesting than splashing around the kiddie pool musing about Summoners riding giant Bahamuts into the Qufim sunset.

[ManaKing]

See this is why I don't care if GG and I agree. He is reasonable and he actually cares about this. Also his sarcasm is delightful.

I apologize in advance that I bring up Zanshin and things like Steps often, but I want to make sure we are on the same page. The point is these are the kinds of toolkit fixes that we can actually expect to get from SE, right? We don't disagree on that at all.

We are aware of the kinds of additional systems that can be build on top of the existing codes. Zanshin is a representation of IF/THEN statements. I'm pretty sure I don't have to explain what these are because they are relatively self explanatory. We know that an action from a player can set off a chain of events that we can call secondary actions aka not actually actions for the sake of whether or not FFXI server will allow us to do more than 1 action at a time. It can also be regulated by conditions so that an action can always set off these chain of events or it has to satisfy specific conditions in order for the secondary actions to occur.

An example of an IF/THEN that doesn't have any conditions is Occult Acumen. You cast a spell. When the spell uses your MP you are given a percentage of it as TP. So long as you have Occult Acumen, this will occur every time (100%) you cast a spell and spend MP on it. If you fail to cast a spell or you don't have enough MP to cast because something removed your MP during the casting of the spell, then you don't get the TP.

In contrast, Zanshin only occurs when a player misses an attack. Furthermore, Zanshin has a conditional 'Zanshin' test you have to pass to see if Zanshin is going to proc. Zanshin only occurs at a set rate (X%), but that rate can be modified by equipment, merits, and job abilities (atmas as well). The server does a calculation to see if Zanshin will go off. If it does, then you make your Zanshin attack. Furthermore, you can make Zanshin act like it doesn't have a condition if you get your Zanshin rate to 100%. If you equip Nanatsusaya, then the server is still going to do the calculation, but it is always going to come up as true because you rigged the calculation with controllable factors.

The other thing I can observe that the Dev team uses is Arrays. Arrays are just ways that you can store information for other functions to use. The most obvious example is Steps. When you do a step, you get a step counter. If you are DNC main, you get 2 steps, if you are /DNC you get 1. Server is more than capable of keeping track of how many steps you currently have and also to make sure that you never have more than 5 of them. From this we can have a system in place that keeps track of specific kinds of actions and can tally them for use in other fuctions i.e. Flourishes. Afflatus Solace is another example of an array. The more damage you cure, the higher damage multiplier you gain for Holy. You also gain additional affects while under Afflatus Solace that is not related to it's array function, meaning that SE can make robust and multifaceted job abilities and traits, if they so choose. Look at how Zanshin is is affected by Hasso and Seigan if you need further proof of the complexity that can be added.

While none of this should be mind blowing for anyone, it should hopefully help you understand what I understand. The devs still have a working tool kit that can easily provide us with the sort of functions that would satisfy a large variety of requests. They choose not to give us things, they are not incompetent nor incapable of doing what we would want. The dreaded 'Balance' that is coming our way, might actually turn into a good thing.

The tools they have at their disposal are basic but powerful tools that can be used in a wide variety of applications. They are more than capable of creating code that can 'simulate' the effects of what it would be like to be able to cast and attack at the same time, at least from a numbers stand point even if they didn't go back and fiddle with the game's original engine code. They can also setup new systems, just like they did for DNC, SCH, WHM, NIN, and SAM more recently.

The mantra for all programmers is KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. The most efficient and clean way to fix a problem in programming is always the best. If you have 2 different ways to accomplish your objective, so long as both meet the same objectives you have, you use the one that takes the least amount of time and will require the least amount of debugging later. The point of programming is to solve problems quickly and efficiently. The only reason you pick more complicated coding is because you are looking to your future problems/expectations and your more complicated code is better suited to your future problem or will reduce the amount of work you will have to do later.

The point I make is that all of the things we want represented can be easily so long as you know how to use simple tools effectively. I can already see that they can use 2 very powerful, but basic functions on other jobs. I know what you can do with only those 2 functions and there is plenty that CAN be done based on what they have already done to other jobs.

To answer the question about reworking the engine so that a RDM can actually melee while casting. Can it be done? Almost 100% certain that it can. Is there a more SIMPLE solution that would use significantly fewer man(or woman)hours of programming? Extremely probable. Most fixes ARE patch fixes in programming. GG is not wrong in his sentiment that changing base code wouldn't happen, but for the sake of being a facetious asshole on the internet, if we talking about whether or not they could actually do it, I'm still sure that they could.

The other solution is that they get rid of the delay on magic. I'm not say this would happen, but once upon a time I used a Scythe on my DRK and would disengage/re-engage mobs because it drastically lowered the amount of time i spent between swings. This was exploitative at best and wasn't what the devs had intended, so they fixed it by giving actions a delay to prevent abuse. The only problem is that delay causes abuse to jobs that have any interest in doing more than 1 thing in rapid succession. For most DPS, this is not a problem because they almost exclusively auto attack > WS. For jobs like DRK or RDM that wish to do both at the same time, this is an absolute hindrance and partially explains why neither job has ever fared particularly well since both jobs were designed around more hybrid play. If the dev team wants to see if they can reduce the delay on ONLY magic, then I would be interested in if they could actually accomplish this. I'm not actually saying they can. I just know that they added delay after the fact and it's at least marginally possible that they can be selective about what they apply it to and what they do not. It will all come down to what they can actually do and if this fits into the 'balance' that we are all 'looking forward to'.

[ManaKing]

I'll suggest actual things when I get back from work to hopefully give you a better idea about what is possible with just the 2 functions I listed. A buffing system for either double attack or spontaneity is well within the scope of this.

[cidbahamut]

The other thing I can observe that the Dev team uses is Arrays. Arrays are just ways that you can store information for other functions to use. The most obvious example is Steps. When you do a step, you get a step counter. If you are DNC main, you get 2 steps, if you are /DNC you get 1. Server is more than capable of keeping track of how many steps you currently have and also to make sure that you never have more than 5 of them. From this we can have a system in place that keeps track of specific kinds of actions and can tally them for use in other fuctions i.e. Flourishes. Afflatus Solace is another example of an array. The more damage you cure, the higher damage multiplier you gain for Holy. You also gain additional affects while under Afflatus Solace that is not related to it's array function, meaning that SE can make robust and multifaceted job abilities and traits, if they so choose. Look at how Zanshin is is affected by Hasso and Seigan if you need further proof of the complexity that can be added.

All I got from this was that you don't know what Arrays are.

[Greatguardian]

All I got from this was that you don't know what Arrays are.

Or how the server processes what we call "additional attacks".

Just so we're clear, Zanshin hits are not a second attack round or a second action. They're not even a subaction. The attack round is the action. Just because you "swing" more than once in that round does not mean there are multiple rounds going on.

Zanshin is just Double Attack with a check for a missed swing in the round.

None of that entire paragraph on Arrays made any sense at all, either. I'm sure SE uses plenty of various data structures in their code, but that doesn't really mean anything to us. Likewise, none of the examples you brought up have anything to do with Arrays... There is a sequence of checks and stats that are run whenever an action is performed successfully. Steps are just a buff. They're checked at the same time requisite MP is checked for spells.

You say "Look at Hasso and Seigan to see how complex this can be", but neither of these abilities are complex in the slightest - no, not even when combined with Zanshin. Not from a gameplay perspective, and not from a coding perspective either. No one is saying SE can't work within the bounds of their own engine. I'm saying that they can't work outside it. If you haven't gleaned from any of the posts in this thread why Zanshin and MeleeCasting are extremely different beasts that fall on completely different sides of that line, I don't know what else to tell you.

I didn't ask you to define If statements. I didn't ask you to .... attempt? to define Arrays either. For the sake of discussion, assume that the audience knows all of this. I asked how you would apply these concepts to actually do something meaningful to the existing structure.

I am not discussing alternatives. I am not discussing concepts. We've been done with concepts for a while.

I have given you a concrete model to work with.

Apply something to it.

Don't explain it to the class.

Apply. Something.

I'm not being facetious. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm telling you that dancing around the issue and talking about concepts is not going to cut it. Anyone can talk concepts.

You need to produce something concrete. I have absolutely no interest in continuing a conversation about fluff - which is sad, because this conversation would have potential if there was even a single speck of concrete alternative input on the actual topic.

[Rukkirii]

Since it is possible to do a large amount of damage and elicit various effects when you stop your melee attacks and cast magic, if we were to allow melee attacks to continue throughout spell-casting, the resulting damage output would be significantly higher than that of melee jobs. Furthermore, the balance of long casting times for powerful magic spells would fall apart. Due to these reasons, we will not be changing this.

[Alhanelem]

Since it is possible to do a large amount of damage and elicit various effects when you stop your melee attacks and cast magic, if we were to allow melee attacks to continue throughout spell-casting, the resulting damage output would be significantly higher than that of melee jobs. Furthermore, the balance of long casting times for powerful magic spells would fall apart. Due to these reasons, we will not be changing this.
My only issue with the system is the delay added to your attacks that occurs when using abilities (Maybe i'm wrong here, but it also seems to apply after you finish casting a spell?)

Casting spells seems to slow you down for more than just the casting time of the spell.

Meleeing through a spellcast is silly though. Isn't this part of the reason Occult Acumen was added? To slightly offset the disadvantage of the time spent casting a spell by giving you some TP? I think the trait could be a bit more potent, but that's all that really could be done here.

(edit: I suppose that's a pointless observation when talking about RDM, but perhaps they could be granted the trait)

[Byrth]

Mages that cast powerful magics have pitiful melee, and if they're meleeing and nuking at the same time they will eventually run out of MP or get killed by AoEs. This would not have been a bad idea, but it honestly wouldn't have helped RDMs as much as they think.

[StingRay104]

Its nice to finally have SE come out and say what I've been saying in the DRK forum forever. Melee while casting won't ever happen now move on with your life. However I think it would be more benefitial if these responses would come faster and that our ideas would actually be acknowledged instead of out right ignored.

[Shadowsong]

My only issue with the system is the delay added to your attacks that occurs when using abilities (Maybe i'm wrong here, but it also seems to apply after you finish casting a spell?)
^
This is a valid complaint,
I think Byrth has a thread going on it right now

[Shadowsong]

Stuff
#mymindisfulloffuck

No one is denying you dont THINK you know what you are talking about. It's apparent you have some interest in this, and you are passionate about it. But please, practice the open mindedness you preach to others to adopt.
We are trying to educate, though after 10 pages it looks more clubbing a baby seal

[Daniel]

honestly maybe I am the only one, but on my ninja, in general I find the time I spend casting spells like store TP makes me lose more TP than I gain...

[Vicious]

I'm surprised this nonsense even merited a CR response...


in general I find the time I spend casting spells like store TP makes me lose more TP than I gain...

You either cast it before a fight for an extra edge on your damage, or you use it in conjunction with Yurin and Myoshu to lessen TP feed. Why is everyone always so confused about this spell?

[Rendra]

only thing I would like to see, is your weapons not disappearing when you're casting!

[ManaKing]

I contribute nothing to actual discussions.

Agreed. If you want to get childish about this, at least I contribute. What do you do?

[ManaKing]

Got another response about a subject I care about. I'm happy. I don't like the answer, but hey, at least it's better than the piss and vinegar I usually have to listen to.

Sorry you guys don't know how to use arrays to achieve a variety of functions. I won't talk about things you don't know anymore. I'm clearly not a credible source because you say so.

[Shadowsong]

Lyltia is awesome

Holy crap its Lyltia, sup man

[Shadowsong]

Sorry you guys don't know how to use arrays to achieve a variety of functions. I won't talk about things you don't know anymore. I'm clearly not a credible source because you say so.

Everyone on the internet is uncredible until proven otherwise. You have not proven otherwise. I suppose I have to repeat myself. No one is denying you THINK you know what you are talking about.
Usually when I am confronted with a chance to learn about a topic, especially one I find interesting and already have a base knowledge, I tend to pay attention to those smarter than me.

Can you at least see this from our perspective? To us, you are sounding exactly like you are condemning us for sounding like. What would YOU say to someone who was saying to you "2+2=5" and was utterly convinced that it was truth?

This is becoming harder and harder not to pull the RL card.
Do you not even second guess yourself among almost UNANIMOUS opposition?

And contribute to what? After post #2 on the first page when someone stated the desired action was impossible, the thread became a joke.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

but it honestly wouldn't have helped RDMs as much as they think.

I think it's to the point that they will keep asking for everything until SE stops always saying "RDM buff... simple answer No"

[Vicious]

Holy crap its Lyltia, sup man

Staying up til 4:30 AM, getting 6 Wings from 5 Bukhis, firing my THF.

[Greatguardian]

ITT: When asked to pretend everyone understands programming and just talk in programming jargon, someone decides that it's not worth trying to explain programming to people who "don't know what arrays are".

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/dc89ba2268b3ce45db1a78271930cc87.jpg

[Shadowsong]

I can definately see "Official Forums IV: You guys don't know what arrays are"

[scaevola]

Stop pulling the RL card please, it degrades the entire thread. People obviously wouldnt be poasting if they had no programming experience at all (as misguided as some of the posts are). However what I am noticing is some people are confusing vanilla, classroom programming to high end MMO game engines.


This is what is generally referred to as "having no experience".

[Shadowsong]

Am I too drunk to remember posting that or are you being cute lol

[Neisan_Quetz]

You were drunk.

[ManaKing]

Well looks like I'm going to have to stop trying and start being more condescending. Apparently that's what all the cool kids on the internet do and I don't have an alternative form of self esteem other than what people think about me.

Oh wait no I do. I just realize I'm actually trying and know that I don't have to second guess myself about stuff I actually know about. I would say that I'd start purposefully posting burden of proof arguments in your topics to be an insufferable nuisance, but wait, you guys don't make topics, you just putz around on the internet and talk down to people so that will never happen. Have fun only criticizing people, everyone thinks you're super cool because you do it. ^.~

Also, notice the rep didn't say they couldn't do it. Only that it would upset the 'balance' of the game.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Just stop while you're still behind.

[Doombringer]

Also, notice the rep didn't say they couldn't do it. Only that it would upset the 'balance' of the game.

to be fair, just because you have 1 reason why something won't happen, doesn't mean there aren't OTHER reasons as well..

example.. you will not walk on the sun.. the sun is to hot.. the sun is to far away. both of those are reasons why you will not walk on it.. but if i were to JUST have mentioned that it was to far away to walk on, that wouldn't have made it not hot.

[ManaKing]

I came out ahead, because I got what I wanted.

Without them saying, 'no we can't do that' you guys still have no room to stand on. I, on the other hand, have plenty because I always had plenty.

So how about you nay-sayers quit while you're behind because you don't actually have anything you will ever achieve with your negative attitudes. Just disagreeing all day won't ever get you anywhere. You guys should actually set some goals about what you want before you keep wasting your time.

[Shadowsong]

You guys remember that South Park where Cartman steals Jimmy's joke?
Completly rewriting reality in your head as a defensive mechanism

[Neisan_Quetz]

All I'm reading is "I reject reality and substitute my own".

[Greatguardian]

All I'm seeing is someone completely sidestepping the only discussion of any value going on in this thread, so I'm done with it.

Talk all you want about zee programz, it doesn't mean a damn thing to any of us until you apply it. I gave you a functional model. If you don't want to even look at it, let alone insert your "conditional" or "array" into it to make it do what you want, don't waste our time.

[Brolic]

I came out ahead, because I got what I wanted.

Without them saying, 'no we can't do that' you guys still have no room to stand on. I, on the other hand, have plenty because I always had plenty.

So how about you nay-sayers quit while you're behind because you don't actually have anything you will ever achieve with your negative attitudes. Just disagreeing all day won't ever get you anywhere. You guys should actually set some goals about what you want before you keep wasting your time.

tony robins, out!!!!

[saevel]

I came out ahead, because I got what I wanted.

Without them saying, 'no we can't do that' you guys still have no room to stand on. I, on the other hand, have plenty because I always had plenty.

So how about you nay-sayers quit while you're behind because you don't actually have anything you will ever achieve with your negative attitudes. Just disagreeing all day won't ever get you anywhere. You guys should actually set some goals about what you want before you keep wasting your time.

No matter what anyone's position, you can NEVER "win" an internet forum debate. There is no ahead or behind, no judge, no points, no victory and no defeat. It's just people saying whatever they want to say behind the semi-anonymous veil of their home computer. Do not at any point in time get personal with an internet forum "discussion" (flame war / troll baiting / e-thuggery / ect..), it never ends well. Take what knowledge you can and walk away without getting into name calling contests. You'll feel better at the end of the day.

[Doombringer]

I came out ahead, because I got what I wanted.


so..... what you wanted.. was to be told no, you cannot have the thing you suggested.. just so long as it was for ANY reason other than the reason everybody else gave?

doesn't seem like much of a win to me.... seems.. almost like.... you know what, 1 second. yah, it seems a lot like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXQlGNAx_Q

[Daniel_Hatcher]

so..... what you wanted.. was to be told no, you cannot have the thing you suggested.. just so long as it was for ANY reason other than the reason everybody else gave?

doesn't seem like much of a win to me.... seems.. almost like.... you know what, 1 second. yah, it seems a lot like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXQlGNAx_Q

Best Youtube video.... EVER!!

[ManaKing]

so..... what you wanted.. was to be told no, you cannot have the thing you suggested.. just so long as it was for ANY reason other than the reason everybody else gave?

doesn't seem like much of a win to me.... seems.. almost like.... you know what, 1 second. yah, it seems a lot like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXQlGNAx_Q

I just wanted an answer. It's better than what we have thus far.