I genuinely hate the new WAR animation.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

That's not how things work and it isn't a matter of "vfx stacks".

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Go ahead and look at the game files being loaded by the client. You'll find that they are packaged into sets of 2-3 total files, sharing points of origin. These have been referred to by data-miners and XIV VFX mod developers as "stacks". I'm merely using the term that's already been used for this.

Alternatively, look at the tools by which those VFX are replaceable and how exactly their categories allow for the replacement or omission of those VFX. We can literally look at how the game is assigning and actioning these files.

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Let's use the following as an illustrative example.

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Far from necessary.

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such as the vfx where to players are tethered together like Cover or any number of boss mechanics.

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Those use, again, only a caster and target VFX stack (or, "package" to use your term instead) each.

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it's utilizing existing points of reference that are already being tracked as opposed to generating a new one dynamically that then also has to be tracked which requires extra computational resources to have that point merely exist and is not considered efficient and so tends to not be used unless there is more going on than just a superficial visual element that lasts for 2-3 seconds.

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What I suggested (yanking the axe to your location via the old Holmgang to-target animation) entails only a single reference to location, and that location would not be dynamic once set.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Okay, I'm going to be blunt about this. You simply do not know what you are talking about in regards to how game engines work and I feel comfortable in saying this as someone who has years of professional experience as a game designer with multiple shipped titles including an MMO under their belt.

You are referencing, with only a rudimentary understanding, another person's work that in of itself is only scratching the surface of one isolated part of the much greater system that is the game engine.
You also continue to go on about vfx data packages and how this 3rd party plugin interprets and manipulates them which has frankly nothing to do with what I was talking about in regards to a simple aspect of how game engines work and discern the existence of things in a game world.

Just looking over the documentation provided for what appears to be the most popular of these mods, two things become clear.
First is that the mod is simply a basic vfx editor which allows some limited manipulation of the associated data files, such as switching out or turning off vfx elements for a package and manipulating numeric parameters such as scale and orientation. It only knows of and touches the data within those files and provides little insight into what is happening in the game engine itself around those vfx files when a function referencing them is called. Plainly put, the mod's interactions are specific to those data files and their parameters and not the engine.
Second is that the creator of the mod only has a rudimentary understanding of game engines themselves. Funny enough when looking at their list under "To Do" it references them realizing the exact thing that was part of the central point in my posts, "it looks like ground-targeted aoes are spawned on a dummy actor". To someone who has experience working in game engines, this is something you would assume to be the case based on knowledge of game engines.
While it may sound like I am trying to belittle what the creator did with their mod, I am not and I think what they made is cool and obviously shows a lot of dedication. However, it is what it is and people should see it for what it is and not try to make it out to be something that it isn't.

So in short, nothing about "vfx stacks", the vfx files themselves or a mod that allows you to edit parameters of these files have anything to do with what I was saying or the point I have been making.

VFX and much of anything else being spawned into the game world needs an explicitly established point of origin, as is made obvious by the very mod(s) you bring up, or else you'll get an error and the thing won't spawn or, depending on the engine, it may just spawn the thing at the default world coordinates of x0,y0,z0. These points are almost always established through the placement and existence of a game entity/game object into the game world.
Those objects will often be placed by a dev directly into the game world in the game engine editor if they are to activate/spawn in a predetermined or predictable location, spawning/activating when the map loads or at a scripted or triggered time.
If the thing is to be spawned at a known relative location, such as on the player's weapon, but at an indeterminate time, an existing game object will be referenced by the entity as the point of origin such as the animation bone in/for the weapon being referenced by a vfx file as the point of origin for something like making flames engulf the weapon.
When something has to be spawned at an indeterminate time and location, such as would be the case of having an axe appear in the ground at the current location that the player is standing when a certain attack ability is used and the axe stays there for a specified amount of time before being disappearing, that requires the game engine to dynamically generate a brand new entity/game object into the game world to mark the desired location and be used as a point of origin.
Therein lies the problem, that the game engine has to create on-the-fly a brand new entity into the game world to be used as a reference point and more entities existing requires more system resources. Again, it has nothing to do with the number of files in the vfx package, the number of referenced points of origin, the color of the vfx, the scale of the vfx, whether the vfx is referencing one art file or another or any of that stuff. It is about needing to generate and place a whole new game entity into the game world.

In regards to your old Holmgang yank animation bit, no it requires multiple reference locations, not just a single one. Just the chain vfx for the animation requires two points. How would you draw the line for the chain without two reference points? You can't. The animation requires two, the player and the target. Doing the same general animation but with the axe sticking in the ground idea is the same, minimum of two reference points, the player and the axe in the ground. The difference is that with the old Holmgang, the second point, the target, already existed in the game world; while with the axe in the ground one, a new entity had to be generated into the game world in the engine requiring additional system resources.

As for why the data-miners and modders may be calling them "stacks", it's likely because they are used to using database-centric terminology and extracting data into tables and organizing it into data stacks for easy parsing and so they just generally call such organized groupings of data "stacks". If just viewing these datafiles as a database or dataset, I guess you could refer to them as data stacks but in an actual game development environment they aren't called that, at least not in my experience.

To wrap this all up, even though I am pointing out that you don't know what you are talking about on this topic, that isn't necessarily a condemnation of you. The vast majority of people have little to no knowledge of the ins and outs of game development since most have no actual experience doing it. That's fine, to be expected and shouldn't be something to hold against somebody. At the same time, when you don't know about something you should act from a place that acknowledges that and takes that into account instead of trying to bluster your way through to a false sense of subject matter expertise.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

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yeah yeah yeah but leaving an axe in the ground would be cool

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

To wrap this all up, even though I am pointing out that you don't know what you are talking about on this topic, that isn't necessarily a condemnation of you. The vast majority of people have little to no knowledge of the ins and outs of game development since most have no actual experience doing it. That's fine, to be expected and shouldn't be something to hold against somebody. At the same time, when you don't know about something you should act from a place that acknowledges that and takes that into account instead of trying to bluster your way through to a false sense of subject matter expertise.

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Fair enough, but let's put this into a historical perspective:

When the devs said it would be impossible for PvP to include glamours, self-same subject matter experts quickly defended that... only for the devs to, under a small flood complaints, realize they actually could make glamours work in a cross-server setting.

When the devs said it would be impossible to code a one-handed glamour onto a two-handed weapon, and instead for a time provided two-handed versions of each previously 1-h primal weapon, "subject matter experts", levying similar detail to your post, defended... only for the devs again to, under pressure, figure out the problem and remedy it.

If the matter is truly impossible, it won't happen. Simple as that. But regardless of all the lengthy subject expertise to the defense of what was to many a less than acceptable status quo, things that were previously allegedly unfeasible to fix have already been fixed. Why then go to so much effort to mute complaints? The devs aren't generalizable resources, so what specific opportunity so offends you about anyone asking for a correction that would make, to them, an awful animation into a good one (and allow for others, past or potential, in a similar bind to do the same)?

It's not my job as a player to say whether the devs can or cannot, say, make Heavy Shot actually aim at my target (despite that other MMORPGs clearly manage this and other skills clearly already act about and towards a target's particular animation bone). I can still state how much I dislike that it doesn't and how much more I'd like it if it did. Just as I'd like this skill a whole lot more if the axe didn't just abruptly disappear, with neither an upward toss or back-sheathe as an excuse.

At present, even having carefully read through your posts, it still seems unlikely to me that there is anything to fundamentally prevent that, while I can imagine many an animation that would likely benefit from a similar allowance. You say I cannot know what holds them back, technically speaking, from having the axe do more than just vanish. Do you, though, know what would make it so unfeasible, either? If your point was merely that there are unknown costs and clearly they favored the lesser but more efficient option, we already know this. It means merely that we are among a group (those who'd be turned off by the axe simply disappearing) that they didn't feel was worth appeasing. Fair enough, so long as they measured that group correctly -- but I've no way of knowing that precisely, and have seen changes that seemed to over- or underestimate the size of one group or another. In the meantime, I'll use my voice as I see fit and complain about what, to me, is worthy of complaints (such as an ability that would otherwise look pretty cool instead just looking dumb af).

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In regards to your old Holmgang yank animation bit, no it requires multiple reference locations, not just a single one.

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You're conflating the total with what was suggested. What was suggested was an axe in the ground and, later, that a VFX act between that previously set position and the player (e.g., the opposite of Between the Lines, or like literally any ability --player or mob-- which spawns something in place which is later flung at the target). Every animation does something at or offset from the caster's position. All I am asking is that this particular skill also reference a singular, fixed position, as to pull the axe back to the warrior.

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VFX and much of anything else being spawned into the game world needs an explicitly established point of origin, as is made obvious by the very mod(s) you bring up, or else you'll get an error and the thing won't spawn or, depending on the engine, it may just spawn the thing at the default world coordinates of x0,y0,z0. These points are almost always established through the placement and existence of a game entity/game object into the game world.

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I just said the same. So what it is between my "VFX use an established point of origin" and yours that makes it impossible to leave an axe in the ground (as opposed to, say, red swirly mist, a patch of flame, or a Ley Lines)?

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When something has to be spawned at an indeterminate time and location, such as would be the case of having an axe appear in the ground at the current location that the player is standing

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How is that any more indeterminate than any other animation? Use, say, Chaos Thrust or Kasha on the move, and each VFX will spawn at the player's location despite those each being different locations in respect to the game world. The later animations don't have to lag behind you, each centered at the original snapshot location. At the same time though, other skills in this game clearly can do exactly that. So what's unique to this request that would make it unable to, in effect, do either?

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that requires the game engine to dynamically generate a brand new entity/game object into the game world to mark the desired location and be used as a point of origin.

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Which is so very different from Between the Lines, a function which acts about and uses as a point of origin what was a new entity/game object placed by a player skill at their then-present location?...

I think this is likely going to be an Upheaval trait, upgrading it to whatever this is called. Lariat perhaps?
But I don't like how the weapon just vanishes, I'd rather see my axe spinning around with me or something.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

as someone who has years of professional experience as a game designer with multiple shipped titles including an MMO under their belt.

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How would you resolve the complaint? A lot of us in this thread all agree that the one thing in particular is a flaw, and are to debate how to deal with it... Since you have experience, and have given the reason why one particular idea will not work, how would you "fix" what most of the posters agree is a "issue"?

And, there were also two other ideas brought up in here... for the Warrior to put the BattleAxe away before the punches go wild, or for the BattleAxe to get thrown into the air, and then caught by the Warrior as it falls back down, after the punches are done. Canadane also just made mention of "rather see my axe spinning around"... Since you have experience, what are your thoughts on these ideas?
Do you think that any one of them would work, and why or why not? or do you have a complete different idea of your own?, that you think may work.

Certainly seems like an aoe upheaval or just straight upheaval upgrade, only issue I have with it is that it seems like a rather long animation.

doesn't matter since all ogcds animations get clipped by other ogcd and gcd animations, assuming this is an upheaval upgrade. I'm gonna wait till the skill showcase for the full context though personally this still looks a bit better than inner chaos golf swings, even with the odd axe disappearing and reappearing. A good compromise would just have the axe sheathe on your back similar to BRD's when they use Peloton but imo its not a big deal. Just looks odd in a game where half the time you are sliding across the arena like your are on ice.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

... even having carefully read through your posts...

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While you say that or may feel that, it doesn't seem like you truly have or are failing to comprehend what I wrote. It seems like you are too busy flailing at shadows to rationally digest the content of my posts.

You keep claiming that I am declaring that the specific thing that you want is impossible. I said no such thing and said multiple times that it is absolutely possible from a technical standpoint, that the devs could implement it and even provided multiple examples of things in the game that show it is possible such as AoEs that are placed on the ground and the footsteps left behind when riding your chocobo mount.

Even your very first response to me quoted a snippet where I was saying it was possible.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

So it's not at all a matter of them not being able to do it when it is a matter of the superficiality of the end result not justifying the cost of the means of achieving it, especially when there are other potential solutions that could give similar end results without such cost.

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So it doesn't matter how many times you try to use examples of things not being impossible against me because I never even said that in the first place and said quite the opposite.
If you had actually read what I had said carefully like you claim, this would be obvious.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If your point was merely that there are unknown costs and clearly they favored the lesser but more efficient option, we already know this.

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My point was that there was a very well known technical cost to that one specific suggestion of having the axe get stuck in the ground and that because of that known cost they would likely go with a different solution that would would avoid said cost if they were to address the primary concern of the axe just disappearing.
I was pointing out a consideration for one suggestion that would make it a less likely candidate that the devs would go with because based on the number of times that it was being mentioned, that consideration was not actually something that people knew.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It means merely that we are among a group (those who'd be turned off by the axe simply disappearing) that they didn't feel was worth appeasing.

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I have never been against the devs addressing the feedback that the axe just disappearing looks bad. I was one of the very first people in this thread to say that very thing and provide a suggestion to address it.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

... I think the axe just disappearing and then reappearing looks odd but I find the idea of a WAR just straight up punching something incredibly amusing.
Perhaps for the animation the WAR just shifts the axe to one hand and then punches with the other before spinning around with the axe to finish off the move. Basically keep the punching concept but rework the animation so the axe doesn't just pop out and then back in like that...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

In the meantime, I'll use my voice as I see fit and complain about what, to me, is worthy of complaints (such as an ability that would otherwise look pretty cool instead just looking dumb af).

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Please go ahead and voice your opinion, I have always supported people voicing their opinions even if I don't agree with them.
If you don't like something in the game, say so. If you disagree with someone, go ahead and present your counter-argument and if someone disagrees with you and has a differing opinion, they should make that known if they want too.
There is nothing wrong with any of that and I said as much in my first reply to you.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

There is nothing wrong with presenting our ideas and feedback, questioning the devs or even pointing out where we feel they may have slipped up; but perhaps dialing back the condescension and snark is warranted.

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As can be seen, my initial point of contention was not an opinion differing from mine but the unwarranted flippant condescension aimed at the dev team by someone who has zero sense of what it takes to make a game like this and the level of effort and passion required to do so.

It's easy to sit back behind your keyboard and say snarky stuff like ...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You'd think by late 2021 they'd have learned how to spawn a separate, not-player-relative doodad, with the axe just being yanked over as needed via an old Holmgang-like chain. But alas...

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... as if the devs are too incompetent to do something that seems so simple to you, when in reality you have no knowledge or experience in the matter.

So I highly suggest you dial back the Dunning-Kruger and attitude if you want people to take you seriously and respect your opinions.

While you may feel that I am trying to shut down your opinion, please know that I am not and I want you to express publicly your issue in hopes that the devs see it and take it into consideration. I want that for everyone. You feel that having the axe get stuck in the ground would look cool and I agree it could definitely look cool. Practically though, I feel that the devs would be more likely to seek a different solution because of the technical consideration that I have talked about. If the devs decide that they will go with the suggestion of the axe being stuck in the ground despite that consideration, I am totally cool with that and would trust that they are comfortable with the bit of extra resources it would require. Mostly I would be happy that they listened to people saying that they didn't like the look of the axe just disappearing and made a change to make it look better one way or another.

That's all I really have to say on the matter and I don't think prolonging this kind of back and forth is doing anyone any favors, so I am just going to end it here. Ultimately I sincerely hope that you and I and everyone else ends up with a something that they can feel good about in regards to this animation and can appreciate how much the developers do for us to make and maintain this incredible game.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

How would you resolve the complaint? ...

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In terms of the complaint of the axe just disappearing, a complaint that I agree with and voiced, I already provided a number of possible solutions previously in this thread that I feel are doable.

There is the one from my initial post that you even commented on in your earlier post.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

I agree with both sentiments presented here.
Perhaps for the animation the WAR just shifts the axe to one hand and then punches with the other before spinning around with the axe to finish off the move. Basically keep the punching concept but rework the animation so the axe doesn't just pop out and then back in like that.

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I was also the one that made the suggestion of having the WAR thrown the axe up into the air and later catching it.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

If they were to go the route of adding something into the animation to show the axe leaving the WAR's hands and then returning, it would likely be something that would look less goofy when the player moves around such as something like the axe is thrown up into the air and then caught after throwing the punches.

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Those are just a couple of animation changes that could be implemented to address the complaint that don't really incur any additional technical cost and I am sure that people could come up with plenty more animation ideas that would work.

One consideration, asides from potential additional technical costs for some ideas, is that we don't know for certain what the ability actually is, whether it is GCD or oGCD, an AoE or single-target so it is difficult to know for certain if a suggested animation would really fit or not.
Many believe that the punching indicates that it is an upgraded Upheaval or maybe a new ability that is an AoE equivalent and that seems plausible. Looking at the length of the animation, which is pretty long, that could point to it being a GCD ability, so maybe it is a new 3rd step in the AoE combo. We don't really know for sure and so a definitive answer is not really possible.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

In terms of the complaint of the axe just disappearing, a complaint that I agree with and voiced, I already provided a number of possible solutions previously in this thread that I feel are doable.

There is the one from my initial post that you even commented on in your earlier post.

I agree with both sentiments presented here.
Perhaps for the animation the WAR just shifts the axe to one hand and then punches with the other before spinning around with the axe to finish off the move. Basically keep the punching concept but rework the animation so the axe doesn't just pop out and then back in like that.

I was also the one that made the suggestion of having the WAR thrown the axe up into the air and later catching it.

If they were to go the route of adding something into the animation to show the axe leaving the WAR's hands and then returning, it would likely be something that would look less goofy when the player moves around such as something like the axe is thrown up into the air and then caught after throwing the punches.

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Ah.. apologies. >.< To be honest, I had complete forgot that.. whom the original poster of the ideas were, I mean, as I have memory issues, and it was..
I had to go and check the time-stamps to verify, almost a month ago.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

One consideration, asides from potential additional technical costs for some ideas, is that we don't know for certain what the ability actually is, whether it is GCD or oGCD, an AoE or single-target so it is difficult to know for certain if a suggested animation would really fit or not.
Many believe that the punching indicates that it is an upgraded Upheaval or maybe a new ability that is an AoE equivalent and that seems plausible. Looking at the length of the animation, which is pretty long, that could point to it being a GCD ability, so maybe it is a new 3rd step in the AoE combo. We don't really know for sure and so a definitive answer is not really possible.

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And, on that scale... I hope that the action is not a trait upgrade, and is its own thing, hope that would not make a different action get deleted, but if it has to be a trait upgrade(ew), in order for another action to not be deleted, I would prefer that; as I would regard that option as the "lesser evil", and I hope that the action is a GCD action, as the animation is much too long, to fit as a oGCD action...
While.. on the other scale, whether or not the action is ST or AoE, does not matter to me all that much, since it would just dictate whether the action is not used much(AoE) or used often(ST), and when I look at the animation itself, I could with ease see it as a normal AoE action, or a ST with too much flair, since the game already has ST action animations that are as big as AoE animations.