Chasing Mobs: Glitch, Design choice, or limitation?

First let me start by saying that it can be hard to express emotion in text... well for me anyways. and I wanted to describe my tone of voice here.

"Happy and curious" So if it comes off like I am being angry it is not my intention. So on with the thread.

There is something in FFXI that has concerned me since release.

...That I need to chase a mob around before I can hit it... if it is moving I cannot melee it until it stops moving. (If you have ranged abilities this is not an issue.)

Anyways. I still remember my first days in FFXI. Lvl 1 chasing rabbits around for 20-40 seconds (I exaggerate.) waiting for them to stop so I can hit them. I assumed this was a glitch and that it would be fixed.

Either way I only played FFXI for about 3 months before going back to EQ. (All my friends were still there, nothing against FFXI.)

So I came back in november 2010 and started a new character. I was pretty shocked to find that I still needed to have auto run ready just to chase down some mobs.

So since it has been 7-8-9 years? I want to know..

Is this by design? A Glitch? Or a limitation in the code of FFXI?

Not being able to hit something while moving is not a big deal, but I dislike it and am just curious why can't I.

Also I must note that the rabbit can kick me from 30 yards away while I am running away so it's also not fair.

Thats true and funny, mobs will always hit no mather how and you cant unless it stops
Dont think they will change that anyways

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Originally Posted by Tidon

Thats true and funny, mobs will always hit no mather how and you cant unless it stops
Dont think they will change that anyways

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I agree after this many years, no matter the reason, I don't think it will change. Then again they have been slowly doing some "soloization" to the content and I never thought that would happen.

unlock targeting and you can hit while its running

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Originally Posted by Sureal

unlock targeting and you can hit while its running

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Mind = Blown

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Originally Posted by Sureal

unlock targeting and you can hit while its running

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You beat me to it ... as long as you stay "locked on" you can't get close enough to make a hit. Unlock and you will be able to hit before the mob stops running.

It's simply lag. On your screen, you're right behind the mob, however your current position has a time delay, on SE's servers you are still behind the mob. In addition to that, the mob is actually ahead of you. So while it seems you're directly behind it, in reality there's quite the gap. This can be avoided (or rather fixed) by running not after the mob, but beside it or slightly ahead of it. For that just don't lock on the target and then run slightly beside it. I know it's kind of a roundabout way to do it, but if you don't have any means to claim from a certain range, it's the best you can do.

Edit: Unlocking isn't quite enough, it will get you a bit closer to the mob (most of the time), but even that isn't enough to reach some mobs. As I said, it's just the distance needed to hit it, while unlocking sometimes gets you closer, it won't always be quite enough.

I'd say it's by design, since it is probably meant to prevent people from meleeing and WSing kited mobs while they are moving.

Don't feel bad. I've been playing since US release and just discovered this little gem about 6 months ago.

It's not a glitch, and they can't really change the design. It's the fact that the server is about 1-2 seconds off from you. What you see is where the mob was 1-2 seconds ago, so you have to unlock and run ahead of the mob a short distance, aim for where it is going to be, and you will swing and hit.

You're treating it like an offline game, where your console does all the work and decides to let you hit the monster, while in this case the server does the work, and you are just sending data to it, which takes a few seconds for a round trip. Think of it as aiming for something far away that is moving, you have to aim for where it is going to be, not where it is.

After you played as long as I have you get used to locking onto the target and running ahead of the mob just a little to auto attack it and stop it from running. lol

It's a lag problem. There is always going to be that small delay between when the mob moves and you move so your behind the mob more then it really seems.

To counteract this they would have to allow us to attack a mob from further then we can atm possible.

Would require possibly a 1-3 feet melee distance increase to allow for this. As a part of this, they'd also have to increase the WS distance slightly as well since you can technically WS while JUST outside of melee range, otherwise you could be in melee range (with the new values) and miss a WS while standing still.

EDIT: It might even resolve the issue of "Too far away" 0.5 seconds after firing a WS before the mob physically runs out of range to chase down that Black Mage that just cast Firaja/Blizzard V

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Originally Posted by Yekyaa

Would require possibly a 1-3 feet melee distance increase to allow for this. As a part of this, they'd also have to increase the WS distance slightly as well since you can technically WS while JUST outside of melee range, otherwise you could be in melee range (with the new values) and miss a WS while standing still.

EDIT: It might even resolve the issue of "Too far away" 0.5 seconds after firing a WS before the mob physically runs out of range to chase down that Black Mage that just cast Firaja/Blizzard V

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good god i freaking hate that