Dev1037 Enhancement of Battle Effects

Yeah... Hey Dev's, for some reason, we don't have permission to click and enlarge images. What's up with that?

I'm having that problem too.

SE does not give me more ashamed of what you have given me lately. I'm a fan, or rather I was a fan of the work they did, but now it's so shit.
Increasing the size of the effect of spells? so ridiculous. The game needs more blocking, more varieties of effects on abilities. Circle Blade, Phanlax and others are exactly alike. Sentinel I and II as well. Please, if you are doing something to improve to do with quality, elegance and agility.

The game needs the Action House and not the rubbish called MW. The game needs a party battle system similar to FFXI. Where I have fun, be reciprocated with a good amount of experience and that makes me want to do everything in groups. We want fun.

They want to make the game more visually interesting? Exaggeratedly spells ... want to see tornadoes and not a breeze to use aero ... want to see icebergs falling from the sky and not to use Blizzard .. I do not know what that is. FF is synonymous with exaggeration ... always has been. SC system we want and not poor BR.

I still have faith in the work they do, but honestly? every day so I watch them fall. If you need ideas can count on me ... send me email, because apparently there are professionals in need of ideas and skills.

No more .... goodbye.

Lame! So many more important things to be improved/adjusted and they make spells size bigger.
Now i'm definetely coming back to the game! *Sarcasm

They should had waited a little longer and released a better update note, with more changes to the battle effects.
SE insists on failing...

The spell sizes really did need increasing, and its not the only thing they are working on. We are just getting constant updates from the devs, rather than waiting for the next patch and getting a barrage of stuff we had no idea or input about.


Its not really an update note in the least bit, at least not in the usual sense.

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Originally Posted by Blackragnarok

SE does not give me more ashamed of what you have given me lately. I'm a fan, or rather I was a fan of the work they did, but now it's so shit.
Increasing the size of the effect of spells? so ridiculous. The game needs more blocking, more varieties of effects on abilities. Circle Blade, Phanlax and others are exactly alike. Sentinel I and II as well. Please, if you are doing something to improve to do with quality, elegance and agility.

The game needs the Action House and not the rubbish called MW. The game needs a party battle system similar to FFXI. Where I have fun, be reciprocated with a good amount of experience and that makes me want to do everything in groups. We want fun.

They want to make the game more visually interesting? Exaggeratedly spells ... want to see tornadoes and not a breeze to use aero ... want to see icebergs falling from the sky and not to use Blizzard .. I do not know what that is. FF is synonymous with exaggeration ... always has been. SC system we want and not poor BR.

I still have faith in the work they do, but honestly? every day so I watch them fall. If you need ideas can count on me ... send me email, because apparently there are professionals in need of ideas and skills.

No more .... goodbye.

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You do know they are working on implementing an auto attack system/ completely new battle system style right, as well as things such as an Auction House? Go back and check out the most recent letters before jumping down the new team's throat.

Also Aero and Blizzard 1 have never been visually explosive spells. 2-4 or ara-aja level spells are what really take the visual cake in FF games. I'm sure alot will be redone, but an increase in effect size is a good if small step down the right path, much like the increase in all around non-humanoid monster size.

EDIT: After the mods fixed the links in the dev post, the spell does look better with increased size:

http://k.min.us/jkqxNc.jpg

Current Scenario
SQUARE-ENIX : O-hey, check out this little change we're doing to make abilities a little flashier.
PLAYERS : CHANGE NOT BIG ENOUGH DO MORE WORK.

How things worked in FFXI in 2006
SQUARE-ENIX : *Three months of Silence*
PLAYERS : Why won't they tell us how things are coming along with the game? S-E hates the community!

Don't get into a fit just because they are actually showing us the little things they are working on that aren't strictly the hueg overhauls.

I don't like it and it shows a lot of laziness on the dev team. I'm quite tired of these quick fixes.

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Originally Posted by Zezlar

I don't like it and it shows a lot of laziness on the dev team. I'm quite tired of these quick fixes.

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Its most likely making way for other changes. Also its something that was actually needed, how does that show laziness?

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Originally Posted by Teknoman

Its most likely making way for other changes. Also its something that was actually needed, how does that show laziness?

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It's a quick fix rather than actually changing the problem. I agree that a FEW of the animations will benefit from an increase but it doesn't change the fact that most of the animations suck. They are too short and have no effect at all (ALL offensive magic spells).

I like the enhancement of the battle effects. I hope the [visual] enhancement will also include vivid additional animations for particular battle effects. Example: BATTLE REGIMENS!!!!!!! Please make these combos (or some of the combos) visually distinctive--instead of just pink limbs, weapons, and monsters.

Hello everyone! We’d like to thank you for all of your feedback regarding your concerns.

We have discussed this matter with the development team. In regards to the size of magic and action effects, the current adjustments are just the beginning. The development team feels that more adjustments will be needed going forward. While they will not be implemented right away, we will continue to implement changes in the future.

Anyone who thought that was all they were gonna do... well nvm.

Excellent.

May the twelve be with you.

I just love you Dev team guys =D

That's good news and I'm glad to hear anything back, but what adjustments? Those is the kind of things we need to be hearing. I'm sure they know what their plan is, I'm sure they can give more details other than "more coming". We knew there was more coming. We want to know what it is so we can discuss it in great depth, and so the dev team has a good archive of discussion to refer to at anytime, instead of waiting longer.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

Hello everyone! We’d like to thank you for all of your feedback regarding your concerns.

We have discussed this matter with the development team. In regards to the size of magic and action effects, the current adjustments are just the beginning. The development team feels that more adjustments will be needed going forward. While they will not be implemented right away, we will continue to implement changes in the future.

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..The near-future, right? As in, when the new battle system is enacted..?

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Originally Posted by Len

..The near-future, right? As in, when the new battle system is enacted..?

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Most likely? :o

Just as a side note, a good example of how a tornado style spell should look is already in game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUivSjDRGbs

Check out that special whirlwind move the Ixali uses.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

Hello everyone! We’d like to thank you for all of your feedback regarding your concerns.

We have discussed this matter with the development team. In regards to the size of magic and action effects, the current adjustments are just the beginning. The development team feels that more adjustments will be needed going forward. While they will not be implemented right away, we will continue to implement changes in the future.

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I think that the casted magick animation should change (the purple thing), its way to big and hides the magick animation.

ThI think its time to put on the smug suspenders be happy with the announcement and wait for the people to start posting, "what's wrong with the battle animtions now!?! This isn't fff:xi 2!!!"

If I'm wrong then I'm wrong but the trend is that 4 or 5 people come on and are mad they're changing the game at all, there I hope I've explained my snide comment. Other than that I'm really excited about the news.

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Originally Posted by Anathiel

I think its time to put on the smug suspenders be happy with the announcement and wait for the people to start posting, "what's wrong with the battle animtions now!?! This isn't fff:xi 2!!!"

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Why would anyone say something like that about the battle animations? I get that this is your chance to strike back at the baby-killers and horrible horrible psychopaths that are happy with some of what the game already has to offer, but that's a ridiculous thing to say. Even if you're being sarcastic.

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Originally Posted by Orophen

Why would anyone say something like that about the battle animations? I get that this is your chance to strike back at the baby-killers and horrible horrible psychopaths that are happy with some of what the game already has to offer, but that's a ridiculous thing to say. Even if you're being sarcastic.

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It's called a strawman argument. It's a fallacy people often use when they have been proven wrong and they lack a more solid argument to come out clean.

It's used very liberally in this forum. for instance when someone that happens to think that something is actually ok with the game is magically turned into a completely blind "white knight" that thinks that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this perfect game. Like someone like that even existed.
When they can't counter an argument some people find it much easier to completely misconstrue it in order to turn it into an extremized version that's much easier to refute.

In any case, I'm glad to see simple logic being proven right, and looking forward to see future implementations.

I like the motion captured animations but a lot of the effects are really lack luster. Weaponskill animations in FFXI were so much better, I remember on my warrior when I would rampage it was like you could feel it. Playing Marauder in 14 the animations feel and sound like I'm playing an arcade game, like I'm dropping coins on the enemy, wow that must hurt, it just doesn't feel right. The attacks don't feel aggressive.

Yikes, what if XIV isn't being given the budget for art-labor, and that's the reason we're just getting "bigger spells"? :(


Although, who's to say that this is the only change to the system we'll see? How do we know that the size of the effects isn't just something they're working on in the back end, releasing that change so that we just have SOMETHING different while in the mean time working on all new effects (which will then be "bigger")?

*edit*
just saw the Rep's post...

Can't say I won't welcome improved battle effects, however I hope that they will in the very near future give us more effective spells/skills such as Ancient Magic. There are so many skills and spells that are never even used because they are useless!

So yea, thanks for this addition, but don't lose track of the actual BIGGER issues.

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Originally Posted by Iron

Can't say I won't welcome improved battle effects, however I hope that they will in the very near future give us more effective spells/skills such as Ancient Magic. There are so many skills and spells that are never even used because they are useless!

So yea, thanks for this addition, but don't lose track of the actual BIGGER issues.

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There are a lot of dead wood abilities, and a lot of them do need some serious tweak attention in the summer. Quick review of the ones I have that I haven't ever considered using:

Ancient magicx6
Trammel
Trance Chant
Repose
Soughspeak in light of the easy hate mechanics of curing

Hm now that I write them down that's not that many nearly useless skills.
I've heard the enmity transfer abilities on pug and lancer are nothing compared to XI levels of trick attack and collusion. I was thinking of making a list of abilities that have little to no function, or are so weak that even if they do what they say there's no functional purpose due to impotency to get some dev attention on them.

But no use doin that until we have the new battle and stat system.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

Hello everyone! We’d like to thank you for all of your feedback regarding your concerns.

We have discussed this matter with the development team. In regards to the size of magic and action effects, the current adjustments are just the beginning. The development team feels that more adjustments will be needed going forward. While they will not be implemented right away, we will continue to implement changes in the future.

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I am so glad to have the official word from SE, thank you Rukkirii!!! Its great to know that you guys are taking the time to really listen.

Well if you want the devs to read what you have to say you should try following their directions. They specifically said to put the dev tags in [ and ]. Probably a common mistake, but a crucial one.

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Originally Posted by Flower

Well if you want the devs to read what you have to say you should try following their directions. They specifically said to put the dev tags in [ and ]. Probably a common mistake, but a crucial one.

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They said the complete opposite, lol.

Oh well, if it's feedback we're throwing about, I'll say my bit and all..

The battle animations - the actual, moving model swinging its weapon and so forth animations - are wonderful. Please, be very careful when doing stuff with them. Setting aside when you forcefully override one ability into another, they flow almost perfectly with little to no clear point where one animation-state ends and another begins. It would be horrible if we lost that.

On spells, however? Well, in my opinion, the spell effects were rather nice.. there was something cool about the understated style, though I guess it's no bother if you feel like playing around with them. But if you ask me, what needs looking at are the animations on the casters themselves. Casters have one animation, basically (or is there a separate one for radicals? anyway, 2, tops) for casting magic. While that's all well and good it makes the casting process terribly boring, and I would suggest, if new caster animations are out, to add magic circles or something. They wouldn't have to be huge, flashy things under the casters, but a little something around the radical or wand maybe..

Oh, and the 'magic missile'-type spells could really do with visible projectiles.

Anyway, yeah, that's my thoughts. A tad irrelevant to the discussion though it may be, lest it not be said at all: Careful with the melee animations, you might break something that's already really nice. But the casting animations are a bit lackluster.

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Originally Posted by Fensfield

Oh, and the 'magic missile' type spells could really do with visible projectiles.

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I second this, honestly when i was playing the alpha and i saw the spell "Shadow Dart", i honestly thought i'd see a little magic orb or something fly and hit the enemy....but really all it looks like is i'm waving my staff about and the enemy is having a fit while all these little numbers fall out of it.

^^;

This is just a speculation, but I think the current DoM has got great potential for animations just thinking about how their AoE works. Personally I love the fact that you can toggle AoE on/off whenever you want for any spell, but I don't like the fact that the animation is always the same, it's both lame and it makes difficult to understand the range of the AoE.

Now think about our DoM: we've got two different types of AoE, conal and circle (love this feature *-*).
If they work toward a visible rapresentation of the AoE on the field instead of multiple spells on all of the mobs we could have, in exemple, a Fire AoE casted by a Conjurer that consist in the whole field of effect burning, and a Fire AoE casted by a Thaumaturge that is a wall of flames spreading from the mage.
This would both be damn cool and help the players to understand the different AoE.

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Originally Posted by Alcide

This is just a speculation, but I think the current DoM has got great potential for animations just thinking about how their AoE works. Personally I love the fact that you can toggle AoE on/off whenever you want for any spell, but I don't like the fact that the animation is always the same, it's both lame and it makes difficult to understand the range of the AoE.

Now think about our DoM: we've got two different types of AoE, conal and circle (love this feature *-*).
If they work toward a visible rapresentation of the AoE on the field instead of multiple spells on all of the mobs we could have, in exemple, a Fire AoE casted by a Conjurer that consist in the whole field of effect burning, and a Fire AoE casted by a Thaumaturge that is a wall of flames spreading from the mage.
This would both be damn cool and help the players to understand the different AoE.

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I think this is a quite good idea. The old animations aren't bad, per se, just a bit understated, but adding new ones for AoE will make the different types more distinctive. i'm thinking back to FF7 where the single target spell would look cool, but the multi-target spell looked like the world was ending (my sole motivation for playing a mage of any type). Especially Thunder3-All =D.

Obviously it can't be that huge in an MMO, but this would be a good direction to go as far as new particle effects.

Hey everyone! One of the lead designers, Hiroshi Takai, recently posted some further insight into the enhancement of battle effects and other advances going forward. Without further ado...

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Hello everyone! This is design lead Takai!

As previously mentioned in the most recent Letter from the Producer, the development team is divided into a number of smaller teams that work together side-by-side on the overall scope of the game. While the effects team is one aspect of this, the work that was required to adjust the scale of battle effects was almost completely separate, made no impact on the work of other teams, and was something that we were able to complete single-handedly.

We’re aware that players feel that the game screen is looking fairly somber at the moment when it comes to graphics and effects. We’ll do our best to quickly release elements that are able to contribute to addressing that very issue.

This most recent battle effect size enhancement is similar to the case with the previous monster scale adjustments. Naturally we’re not done yet, and we’re currently making adjustments in conjunction with the battle team lead by Matsui. This collaboration is tied into various elements, as well as motion adjustments, related to the battle system and battle content and we’re moving steadily closer toward the releasing the first set of updates.

I’m sure I’m going to frustrate some of you with the fact that I can’t give you the specifics about the content or the release schedule, but know that this doesn’t just apply to effects; we’re also taking care of things related to the all around graphics. Hang in there until Yoshi-P makes his announcement!

Thanks!

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Thank you for doing what you can for now, dev team. I look forward to what you have in store. :D

Less copy/pasta environments mayhaps? That would be very welcome in the main travel paths.

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we’re also taking care of things related to the all around graphics. Hang in there until Yoshi-P makes his announcement!

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=) I wonder what this means for Eorzea!

I'm really glad to hear more from the dev team. Helps me get more of a feel for them and all. Really am thinking that this game is going to shape up very nicely ^__^

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Originally Posted by Chezen

Thank you for doing what you can for now, dev team. I look forward to what you have in store. :D

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Idem, I feel the same! :o