Melee while casting?

[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.