The problem with "Instant OFF GCD" abilities makes combat feel less rewarding.

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

You must have missed the part where he explained how piercing is always superior to swinging.

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You must have missed the part where he's not a Paladin in Final Fantasy XIV.

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

You must have missed the part where he's not a Paladin in Final Fantasy XIV.

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Oh, so all of that stuff you were saying about the game needing to be realistic is suddenly out the window when I show you that it's not currently realistic. Isn't that convenient?

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Originally Posted by Kantide

The tactical nature of the game requires a little more anticipation when casting things like Benediction. You had 2.5s of GCD to realize your tank was going to die. You should have either A. interrupted whatever you were casting to use Benediction or B. Find a tank that can survive more than 2.5 on his own.

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Cuz the tank is the only person who ever takes damage. You never see any healers needing to heal each other or themselves, and since that much has to be true, then healers having to cast a resurrection during battle must certainly be a myth as well. Nope, every GCD is used to cast heals on the tank, and if they die then it must have been within 2.5 seconds of being topped off. Therefore a dead tank always means that bad tank is bad, or the fault is on you as a healer for using one of your 2.5 second GCDs to heal someone other than the tank. Case closed.

You stand up for the game's "tactical nature." Then you paint a picture of the game's tactics forcing healers to endlessly overheal a single target with every 2.5s GCD just in case an emergency presents itself when they can't cast, because they can't count on being able react to an emergency by using instant-cast abilities off of the GCD. Spam healing a single target -- where exactly is the game's tactical nature that you mentioned?

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

There are many ways to handle ifrit. Having a Paladin do it is simply the most convenient because there's really no point in having an offtank in the fight. We've done it with only one tank with DPS taking turns interrupting. I found that to be pretty fun.

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Yeah, take shield bash off the GCD *and* animation cooldown and one paladin could do it all by himself.

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And it's not about having the 'strength' to do it, it's about momentum and footing. There's no gladiatorial art there someone is bashing someone with a shield while also slicing them up with their sword. One might happen directly after the other, but that's still not simultaneous <-- Key Word. I'd be impressed with anyone who could rear back and smack something with a shield with enough force before recovering from swinging their blade, because they'd be defying the laws of physics. And that is quite impressive.

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Maybe they couldn't Zorro and shield-bash at the same time, but swinging sword and shield with enough force at the same time is reasonable.

Then again, Ifrit's much larger than me, has much more fortitude (hp), and much more strength (he hits me harder than I hit him), how is it "real"istic at all that I can ever stun him with my shield.

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No I'm saying it should be based on the reality SE has defined for the game. After all, it is their game.

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On the whole, the reality is pretty good, but it needs some improving.

We players are saying we're really not that bothered that our animation gets stopped to start another one.

Sometimes I start RoH as ifrit jumps into the air after his spikes, or to do the charging thing, and it stops my RoH animation midway. I don't see SE trying to address that. Do you?

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

Oh, so all of that stuff you were saying about the game needing to be realistic is suddenly out the window when I show you that it's not currently realistic. Isn't that convenient?

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"No I'm saying it should be based on the reality SE has defined for the game. After all, it is their game."

Quoted from an earlier post for your convenience.

And please, that still wasn't even close to an example of someone swinging a sword and shield bashing something simultaneously.

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

Translation: "You simply didn't predict that crit ahead of time." After all, hallowed ground going onto cooldown and leaving us dead before it goes into effect is not exclusive to Mountain Blaster. In fact, Mountain Blaster is so predictable that it's probably the most rare place to see this happen. But it does happen elsewhere all the time.

But yep. You're right. That's on us. We're bad that way. All of us who play paladin and aren't you have a lot to learn.

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Agreed. He knows exactly what goes on exactly at that moment, and all limiting factors, because everything in his theorycraft world is ideal...all conditions met so it should always be on our hands. The fact instant skills take so long to activate is quite annoying. To the point that adding it into latency it can take up to even 3 seconds to activate.

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

Translation: "You simply didn't predict that crit ahead of time." After all, hallowed ground going onto cooldown and leaving us dead before it goes into effect is not exclusive to Mountain Blaster. In fact, Mountain Blaster is so predictable that it's probably the most rare place to see this happen. But it does happen elsewhere all the time.

But yep. You're right. That's on us. We're bad that way. All of us who play paladin and aren't you have a lot to learn.

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Originally Posted by Gray_Spy

Agreed. He knows exactly what goes on exactly at that moment, and all limiting factors, because everything in his theorycraft world is ideal...all conditions met so it should always be on our hands. The fact instant skills take so long to activate is quite annoying. To the point that adding it into latency it can take up to even 3 seconds to activate.

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As I've said numerous times previously, what you're referring to is called 'Latency' and has nothing to do with animation locks or GCDs.

I agree the .3 second latency should be reduced. This isn't that. I believe that thread is down the hall somewhere.

oh ok, because "instant" and "latency" have no effect

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

As I've said numerous times previously, what you're referring to is called 'Latency' and has nothing to do with animation locks or GCDs.

I agree the .3 second latency should be reduced. This isn't that. I believe that thread is down the hall somewhere.

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Latency is when I hit Fast Blade, hear the attack go off, see the animation, and then notice that my GCD never got triggered. The ability was never actually used.

That is not what is happening when Hallowed Ground DOES go onto it's (seven frickin' minute) cooldown, while then allowing the caster to die before they are put under the ability's effect. The server IS confirming the use of the ability before it reports the player's death. That is not a latency issue.

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

The first is called a lag spike.

The second is a perfect example of latency. You saw yourself activate an ability before you took damage, but on the other side it saw you take damage before activating the ability, That's the very definition of latency. -_-

They are both latency related issues. Just in the first one you actually completely lost connection for a couple of seconds, the second just dealt with the delay between the connections.

Once again, I agree that the latency NEEDS to be fixed. Just not the animation locks or GCDs.

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The first is ANY TIME AN ENEMY IS MOVING when I try to cast something in melee range. That is not called a lag spike. It would be quite the coincidence if I got a lag spike every single time an enemy moved. No, that is a latency issue.

The second is not an example of latency. I did not only see myself activate the ability before taking damage. The server saw it too. Hence the ability STAYING ON COOLDOWN FOR SEVEN MINUTES AFTER DEATH. That is the product of an animation delay -- a direct result of the game confirming my ability's use, triggering it's cooldown, but then requiring me to complete it's animation in it's entirety before assigning the ability's effect -- and I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you and say that it needs to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

Latency is when I hit Fast Blade, hear the attack go off, see the animation, and then notice that my GCD never got triggered. The ability was never actually used.

That is not what is happening when Hallowed Ground DOES go onto it's (seven frickin' minute) cooldown, while then allowing the caster to die before they are put under the ability's effect. The server IS confirming the use of the ability before it reports the player's death. That is not a latency issue.

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The first is called a lag spike.

The second is a perfect example of latency. You saw yourself activate an ability before you took damage, but on the other side it saw you take damage before activating the ability, That's the very definition of latency. -_-

They are both latency related issues. Just in the first one you actually completely lost connection for a couple of seconds, the second just dealt with the delay between the connections.

Once again, I agree that the latency NEEDS to be fixed. Just not the animation locks or GCDs.

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

The first is ANY TIME AN ENEMY IS MOVING when I try to cast something in melee range. That is not called a lag spike. It would be quite the coincidence if I got a lag spike every single time an enemy moved. No, that is a latency issue.

The second is not an example of latency. I did not only see myself activate the ability before taking damage. The server saw it too. Hence the ability STAYING ON COOLDOWN FOR SEVEN MINUTES AFTER DEATH. That is an animation delay -- a direct result of the game confirming my ability's use, triggering it's cooldown, but then requiring me to complete it's animation in it's entirety before assigning the ability's effect -- and I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you and say that it needs to be fixed.

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If you're talking about enemy movement, then specify the enemy is moving. Either way it's still a latency issue.

And it's only natural to expect an ability to actually go off before receiving it's effect. So do you want them to shorten the time it takes to activate hallowed ground? Because that's a completely different request. And it would be a 'change' not a 'fix.'

Fail game. Major flawed design.

At this point, I could actually see myself being happy even if animation locks were left unchanged, and even if the rate in which abilities are used remains the same, as the devs are insisting will be the case... AS LONG AS:

(a) The word "instant" is changed so it is no longer misleading players. While the delay following these abilities may be less than 2.5 seconds, showing the word "instant" instead of a delay time implies a delay of 0 seconds. In reality, this is not the case, so they are not truly instant. These "instant" abilities also imply that they do not obey the 2.5 second GCD of other abilities that are used beforehand, which would lead one to believe that they can be used immediately after an another ability, but in reality they are still subject to the animation locks of abilities that are used beforehand. That is not instant either. If you are going to keep the timing how it is -- which is not instant -- then please, don't hide this timing behind the word "instant." This choice of language is only confusing players. Any other choice of words would be better than how it reads currently.

(b) We get some sort of visual indicator for animation locks on our off-GCD abilities, similar to how the GCD is currently visualized on our other action buttons. Continue doing things as intended and keep the timers how they are, that's fine. Just let me SEE how they are. I don't like being forced into spamming buttons simply because these timers are being needlessly hidden from players. If these timers could just be given a form of visualization, then the lifespan of my input devices will increase dramatically, I will be less likely to develop carpal tunnel, and my significant other will be able to sleep in the same room without me having to listen to them complain about how I should come to bed because my keyboard is making too much noise~

(c) Abilities are changed so they are considered to go into effect immediately when an animation lock begins, instead of after the animation lock ends. Again, keep the animation locks at their current duration and maintain the current pacing of ability use, I don't care. Just don't put my abilities on their ridiculously long cooldowns without them ever taking effect. (*cough* Hallowed Ground *cough*)

If the timing between abilities is not going to change, then at least change these three things, please. They have no effect on the pacing of abilities/combat, because they have no effect on the duration of ability locks or animation locks themselves, allowing the game's tuning to be kept the same and negating the concerns about difficulty that were raised by the devs. Yes, you can keep your animation locks, your visual fluidity, and your cherished pacing of combat and abilities, and I'll get over it in time. Just please, address the needless unpredictability of it all. Is that really too much to ask for?

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Originally Posted by Raymeo

At this point, I could actually see myself being happy even if animation locks were left unchanged, and even if the rate in which abilities are used remains the same, as the devs are insisting will be the case... <snip>

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Yes, this would be something. Personally I think that having the abilities designed this way is completely bonkers, and it doesn't solve the problems it causes, but at least it would inject some clarity into the matter and make it clear that these are abilities are not instants in any traditional use of the term.

THE GHOST OF TANAKA LIIIIIIVVVESSSS

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Originally Posted by Kantide

The only reason the ability isn't popping immediately is because you are still under the effects of the cast you just finished. The tactical nature of the game requires a little more anticipation when casting things like Benediction. You had 2.5s of GCD to realize your tank was going to die. You should have either A. interrupted whatever you were casting to use Benediction or B. Find a tank that can survive more than 2.5 on his own.

People keep mistaking this battle design for action when it should be categorized as tactical.

It's like saying "I didn't know I was gonna run out of MP by spamming Medica II".

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If thats the case then shouldn't you think the cast bar would take into effect the animtion, so once you cast the spell the effect instantly takes effect.

Or that instant cast skills should have a .5 grey out/recast timer to say you can't spam the next move you have to wait a little bit.

There are much better ways of displaying this information, right now when I click an instant cast spell the next skill is lite up and looks like it can be used but in actuality you can't because there is a hidden animation lock out mechanism which isn't displayed by the action buttons.

Clearly people are confused by this and its SE's fault at the end of the day because they are making it look like instant action/instant cast, but its actually not.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

instant cast skills should have a .5 grey out/recast timer to say you can't spam the next move you have to wait a little bit.

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Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Now I understand this complaint! :)

To try and formalize what I think I see here...

So as I understand this issues now: in effect, the problem people are saying is that the icons show as ready, even though they are not, because the action perform is still being animated. This means that those who are only using the visual status to know when to trigger, are in essence hitting certain actions too soon sometimes. This is especially confusing and frustrating to those who equate the cast time, with the total action time, since they believe that it should be instant, and perceive by icon availability that it is instant, when in fact while the cast is instant (and non-interuptable), the performance of the action is on a delay due to being locked to the animation, that is not reflected in the icon.

This makes sense, but isn't the problem as it is being represented in this and other threads. Given the existing behaviour, the problem isn't the instant cast not being instant per-se, but the icon availability (and potentially verbiage some people are confused by), so perhaps this discussion should instead be redirected towards polite suggestions of visual cues and changes the developers could implement to account for the animation lock so that the status of icons can be clearer for these cases.

Of course the developers may still say no, but it seems that suggesting practical improvements to the icons may be a better use of time, than arguing or complaining about differing opinions on that which developers have already said they will not change. This would technically be considered an enhancement as opposed to a bug, so this venting is unlikely to do much good and is in fact likely to feed back into existing frustration with this behaviour, and that will just make the game less fun for those dealing with it.

Anyway! Hope everyone can take a moment to calm down on this (and other) issues. This is a game, and letting yourself get frustrated over it isn't much fun. Better to try and think of alternative ways to improve the game for you that the developers might be willing to consider, and in the meantime, learn to work within the existing environment as best you can.

Just my opinion. :)

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

Please share with me a specific scenario where it's impossible to interrupt an ability with either an off GCD stun or Silence due to the animation lock. I'd love to hear it. And whatever you come up with (if anything) I can assure you I can give you advice on how to make it work.

Also share an example of RNG spike damage that's impossible to anticipate and results in a death purely because your benediction didn't go off the exact nano-second you pressed it and not because a tank didn't use a cool down or the ball was simply dropped healing wise somewhere.

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Really? It's in the OP - http://youtu.be/40a_cnDQKeE

See that little "E" (3rd skill on 2nd hotbar) being pressed few times and not going off? See it being pressed at 00:04 just before the enemy cast is being finished and still not going off? Well that is Silence not going off and not interrupting one shot boss ability. Is that example good enough for you to stop your bunch of "these lame mechanics is how SE intended them" posts?
I don't care if it's by design if the design itself is awful.

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Originally Posted by complexxL9

Really? It's in the OP - http://youtu.be/40a_cnDQKeE

See that little "E" (3rd skill on 2nd hotbar) being pressed few times and not going off? See it being pressed at 00:04 just before the enemy cast is being finished and still not going off? Well that is Silence not going off and not interrupting one shot boss ability. Is that example good enough for you to stop your bunch of "these lame mechanics is how SE intended them" posts?
I don't care if it's by design if the design itself is awful.

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^^^^^^ /thread.

As much as I love this game, I cannot justify paying a monthly fee for a game where the devs simply said "it's working as intended, deal with it".

That just boggles my mind. I enjoyed leveling, I enjoy the world, I enjoy the classes and combat(some of the time), I love the music, I love the dungeons(with exception of CM, that was quite possibly the most boring and lame designed dungeon I've ever played in the past 5 years. I'd rather run Sastasha 50 times than CM). But the fact that their crap code and engine isn't going to be changed because they believe its "part of the difficulty"?

Say what you mean Square "We don't know how to fix it, so....its intended".

The second they address these issues(which they may never do), I will be subbing so fast. But I will not continue to do endgame dungeons while the issues still exist.

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Originally Posted by complexxL9

Really? It's in the OP - http://youtu.be/40a_cnDQKeE

See that little "E" (3rd skill on 2nd hotbar) being pressed few times and not going off? See it being pressed at 00:04 just before the enemy cast is being finished and still not going off? Well that is Silence not going off and not interrupting one shot boss ability. Is that example good enough for you to stop your bunch of "these lame mechanics is how SE intended them" posts?
I don't care if it's by design if the design itself is awful.

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Impossible? You're joking right?

Let's go over the sequence of events in this video.

1. Bard uses Heavy Shot.

2. Chimera Begins casting Ram's voice

3. Bard Uses Heavy Shot.

4. After using heavy shot bard notices Ram's voice being cast, begins spamming Blunt Arrow

5. Ability Doesn't go off because Bard is stuck in animation lock from Heavy Shot

6. Party dies.

Like I said in a previous thread, if you know an ability is coming up that you need to interrupt, and you're the only one capable it becomes the priority. If the bard hadn't got himself locked into using Heavy Shot, he would have been able to interrupt it with no problem. So no, this is not an example of a time it was 'impossible' to interrupt successfully.

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

White Knight drivel

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I can't believe someone is actually defending poor design. Name another MMO where you have to actually sit still and auto attack while waiting for your opportunity to do the interrupt?

If they give every boss a set rotation, do you realize how boring that is? Every strategy simply becomes what Titan HM is. A piece of paper right next to your monitor telling you when he's about to do what. Is that difficult? No. It's lazy design. Pure and simple.

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Originally Posted by Dorfentyme

I'm bad drivel

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No point in naming other MMOs, because, well, this isn't other MMOs, this is FFXIV. They made the game, they can design it however they want, just because it isn't what you want, doesn't mean its bad.

Latency could be lowered, but animation locks are fine, and you simply need to learn to adjust to them, you'll have more fun with that instead of incessantly whining. Trust me.

"How long do I have to wait before I can cast my next ability?"
"If I push my ability now, will it go off?"
"The interface didn't indicate any reason why this ability shouldn't have gone off, so why didn't it go off?"

These are questions the player should never have to ask while in combat, and yet every player, at some point, has asked them. Many continue to ask them, myself included. It's bad design, plain and simple.

If they're not going to fix the model, at the very least they need to document this invisible cooldown and give it a numerical value that is indicated visually on the interface.

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

not understanding the point at all

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Wait, I'm bad because I have to have a piece of paper telling me when the boss is going to do what? Or the boss design is bad? Because having a REACTION time rather than KNOWING when someone is going to happen is completely different. Being good at reacting is way better than being good at "I know when this is going to happen because the boss mechanics are lazy and they follow a set pattern." Sorry, but your logic is extremely flawed. But you'll never understand that because this game can do no wrong.

I'd much rather have to REACT to an ability rather than go "okay..he's about to do this..so...BAM. Stopped it. Piece of cake." That's so mindlessly boring over and over again. Not knowing when what is going to happen and having to REACT to it makes you a better player, and is ultimately more rewarding and more engaging. But continue supporting a game with these terrible design decisions. There's no getting through to someone who refuses to admit the game has any kind of flaws whatsoever.

The white knights have reached a new low with this game.

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Originally Posted by Dorfentyme

Still bad

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Oh really? So 'reacting' to stuff is the clear defining point of 'skill' in any MMO, is basically what you're saying right? Since when? You do realize the only reason WoW became that is because they HAD to. That's the beauty of this game, it isn't wow. But sure, I guess there is little point to explaining that to someone who refuses to let go of the past.

Call me White Knight all you want, it doesn't change the fact that you're closed minded. I personally can think of many other things that can be just as challenging as reacting. Endurance, being able to remain calm when shit hits the fan, being able to deal with an impossible looking situation and coming out on top. So you learn how to deal with it and then deal with it, and then you're able to keep dealing with it the more you do it, you get better at dealing with it. Does it make it less skillful? No, it means you're learning to adapt and get better. Does it get boring after awhile? Sure, but what doesn't? If all you want is constant twitch action then go play LoL or something else. I've had my fill, and would much rather have what FFXIV has right now. Battles that require thinking and planning ahead, formulating a strategy and then succeeding when you execute that strategy soundly. Not because you could press a button in 0.5 seconds.

*best Hydaelyn voice* Think....feel....Adapt....

you might actually find you enjoy it too.

It is getting annoying for me now. It really does feel sluggish and I am not a fan of spamming a button in hopes it activates all the time.

Kanzer I think everyone by now understands your position. Thanks for bumping the thread, but enough is enough. You are like one of those 1.0 players who say 2.0 ruined the perfect and unique 1.0 game, but the vast majority will say otherwise.
Same with these mechanics, you can defend it all you want, but for most people sitting with chronometer while waiting for the boss to do it's stuff, so they can interrupt it, is simply not fun. I'm glad it's fun for you, if we are unlucky, it will stay fun for you, but my hope is it won't, as the bug report I made wen't into "duplicate bugs" section - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ight-mechanics (yep the same video you were defending so pationatelly as working by design).

I don't believe this means they are going to fix instant off gcd abilities, neither they will make any exception for blunt arrow, I just think they will nerf bosses, and make those casts long enough, so you can interrupt them even in the worst case scenario (that is, right after using other ability).

Unfortunatelly I don't think that will please any side of the argument, because what we will have is:
most of the times interrupting will be piss easy and not challenging, but will prevent the rare broken cases like in the video.

However that is way better than being forced to do nothing while anticipating for cast, or to risk interrupt not going off in time.

Some people's "working as intended — deal with it or go play WoW/LoL" attitude is just sad.

This is just a classic case of a 'hardcore' raider trying to justify how much time they spend in 'insert mmo here'.

I mean look at Black Desert or Tera, or APB or hell even Global Agenda. People are craving more reactive combat. If anything Kanzer you're the one stuck in the past. You'd rather we return to patterns and sitting on our hands until our UI timers tell us what to do at every moment than have a visceral and adaptive combat experience? I'm sorry but WoW's days are nearly over. In the next decade, nobody is going to want to go back to that.

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Originally Posted by Rivienne

Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Now I understand this complaint! :)

To try and formalize what I think I see here...

So as I understand this issues now: in effect, the problem people are saying is that the icons show as ready, even though they are not, because the action perform is still being animated. This means that those who are only using the visual status to know when to trigger, are in essence hitting certain actions too soon sometimes. This is especially confusing and frustrating to those who equate the cast time, with the total action time, since they believe that it should be instant, and perceive by icon availability that it is instant, when in fact while the cast is instant (and non-interuptable), the performance of the action is on a delay due to being locked to the animation, that is not reflected in the icon.

This makes sense, but isn't the problem as it is being represented in this and other threads. Given the existing behaviour, the problem isn't the instant cast not being instant per-se, but the icon availability (and potentially verbiage some people are confused by), so perhaps this discussion should instead be redirected towards polite suggestions of visual cues and changes the developers could implement to account for the animation lock so that the status of icons can be clearer for these cases.

Of course the developers may still say no, but it seems that suggesting practical improvements to the icons may be a better use of time, than arguing or complaining about differing opinions on that which developers have already said they will not change. This would technically be considered an enhancement as opposed to a bug, so this venting is unlikely to do much good and is in fact likely to feed back into existing frustration with this behaviour, and that will just make the game less fun for those dealing with it.

Anyway! Hope everyone can take a moment to calm down on this (and other) issues. This is a game, and letting yourself get frustrated over it isn't much fun. Better to try and think of alternative ways to improve the game for you that the developers might be willing to consider, and in the meantime, learn to work within the existing environment as best you can.

Just my opinion. :)

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I totally agree with you, the biggest problem with this is that not all skills share the same animation and have varying degrees of length, so for this to work the system would need to determine the recast cooldown based on the previous skills animation, I don't see SE doing this.

The other way would be to have all instant cast skills have similar length animations, again I don't see SE doing that either.

Going by the recent feedback from the dev team they are happy to sit idly by and not fix any of this stuff because it takes too much time and effort. (A.K.A working as intended)

This still doesn't tackle the problem of reactive skills such as Shield Bash and Blunt Arrow sharing the same GCD as the rest of the skills.

Are we really supposed to stand there and do nothing until a monster uses an ability in fear of missing the chance to stun or silence them, its just really bad design.

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Originally Posted by Kanzer

Call me White Knight all you want, it doesn't change the fact that you're closed minded. I personally can think of many other things that can be just as challenging as reacting.

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Almost all fights in this game are designed with reactions as the main mechanic, take Titan or Demon Wall, or Ifrit, Garuda, and almost every boss at all of the mid range dungeons.

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Endurance, being able to remain calm when shit hits the fan, being able to deal with an impossible looking situation and coming out on top.

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Endurance means squat when you are on the floor dead because you didn't evade an attack, or someone didn't stun or silence the monster in time.

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So you learn how to deal with it and then deal with it, and then you're able to keep dealing with it the more you do it, you get better at dealing with it.

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If I was being held in a prisoner camp, I would have to deal with it, doesn't mean I would like it ! (Stupid analogy I know, but I am fighting stupid with stupid here.)

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Does it make it less skillful? No, it means you're learning to adapt and get better. Does it get boring after awhile? Sure, but what doesn't? If all you want is constant twitch action then go play LoL or something else.

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But bu bu but !! this game is heavily twitch based go fight Titan if you haven't already, thankfully Titan is scripted so we can "plan ahead" otherwise we would all be completely screwed.

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I've had my fill, and would much rather have what FFXIV has right now. Battles that require thinking and planning ahead, formulating a strategy and then succeeding when you execute that strategy soundly. Not because you could press a button in 0.5 seconds.

*best Hydaelyn voice* Think....feel....Adapt....

you might actually find you enjoy it too.

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Planned ahead standing there doing no DPS just so I can stun something is hardly planning ahead that's being restrictive.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hello,

Based on the way the game was designed, and also taking into account the current level of difficulty, the development team has no plans to change the timing in which non-global cool down actions can be used, and would like players to take this into consideration when forming strategies.

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Really? That's the official response?

You know that this statement is just a nice way of saying:
"The developers did not think this through and it's too hard and costly to change this now. The encounter designers created reactive fights, but the developers didn't think of that and made instant casts non-instant. Oops. Now, please learn the bosses by heart and time them with a chronometer, because we don't have the budget to fix our failure. Thank you for staying subscribed."

Please tell us that this isn't honestly the way Yoshida intended this game to be, and you just made that statement because the developers can't give an ETA for fix yet. Please.
Otherwise, fights in this game will shortly become the most boring yet tedious fights ever.

Like "My checklist says that the boss will cast his nuke in 2 seconds, my animation takes 1.3 seconds plus lag, so I need to interrupt him NOW"-tedious.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

I totally agree with you, the biggest problem with this is that not all skills share the same animation and have varying degrees of length, so for this to work the system would need to determine the recast cooldown based on the previous skills animation, I don't see SE doing this.
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Going by the recent feedback from the dev team they are happy to sit idly by and not fix any of this stuff because it takes too much time and effort. (A.K.A working as intended)
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Are we really supposed to stand there and do nothing until a monster uses an ability in fear of missing the chance to stun or silence them, its just really bad design.

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Ridiculously overly large (definitely way too wordy) opinion incoming:

As someone who has been a part of development teams in the past, I would like to try and diffuse this a little. While there are those developers who are very much "I don't care about you or your opinion" I have seen quite the opposite in this team. While there are hard line stances they take on some issues, it is rarely because they don't care, and rather because of fundamental design decisions that cannot be changed or more importantly, time management.

Development in a live environment is often rather like during pre-release crunch time. You prioritize as best you can the issues at hand. You have fundamental game breaking bugs: these have highest priority unless they have a large development overhead and you can release with the feature disabled and only re-enable when fixed, in which case they are usually delayed. You have lower priority bugs which vary, and are prioritized by how detrimental and what percentage of people will be inconvenienced by them, as well as how much effort is involved in fixing them. You then have features, which may or may not improve overall quality of life for a large number of users, these also are weighted based on affected number of users, and total time to implement.

A moderate bug that only affects a small number of players, but has a huge overhead in development time, is sometimes prioritized lower than a moderate feature that affects a large number of players and can be implemented in less time. This doesn't mean they don't care about it, it means they have a limited amount of time, and have to prioritize it as best they can. Sometimes features take priority over bugs, sometimes the reverse. It is a balancing act that is never gotten quite right. Sometimes you predict something will be a quick fix, and it isn't, and sometimes you predict something will be very hard, and it is easy. It is a never ending game of re-adjusting expectations to fit the reality of the situation..

By the developer response (which again appears to be in response to the op argument that there shouldn't be an animation lock, not the actual problem as I tried to lay it out) it appears that in this case they perceive it as a minor or non-bug, that effects very few people substantially, and thus is going to be a much lower priority because there are so many other things to do. However, locking the icons based on a global animation lock, may be something that they are willing to do, and from a development standpoint, could be something more easily prioritized

While I do not know how they implemented it, given my experience it would be far far simpler to implement a global animation icon lock, then change the animation lock behaviour itself as people desire. Thus why I say, it would be more productive to try and consider alternative ways to improve the situation. Assuming they simply don't care and will stamp anything as "won't fix" or "not a bug", is not really productive to determining if there is a workable way to improve the situation for those who find it detrimental to their game play.

It is quite possible that the developers never ran across this situation as you have, because they knew the system so well they never triggered it. This is a common developer problem. So claiming the entire system is bad design, doesn't take into account that perhaps when used as intended, there isn't an issue, in which case the problem isn't engine, but UI. There is a distinction between bad design, and design that doesn't take into account those who won't play the system as intended (though sometimes they can be one and the same of course). Overall this does appear to be a problem SE has had with this game, that is not predicting the ways in which players would use the system differently than intended, though again it could be much of it is simply lack of time to do things right.

Just trying to help keep things civil and help people look at things clearly. I have been in multiple sides of this kind of situation at different times (design, planning, development, support, customer.. by far I prefer being customer. and luckily I have avoided PR and PM), so I find that the biggest problem is people not being able maintain perspective and lacking empathy, and thus compromising the ability to look at things objectively. On the one side you get "everything is perfect there is never anything wrong because I like this game as it is", and on the other you "everything is terrible about this game the developers are horrible because it doesn't work the way I want" both sides are skewed and need balance. And while it is hard sometimes, the best way to keep balance is to try and step back and consider "why?", then "what can be done to improve things?" Not only in terms of the game design, but other peoples opinions on the game design. I find the best stance is to try and understand the other persons perspective, even if I don't agree with it myself. Sometimes you might find that another person is in the right and you are in the wrong, or maybe that both of you are in the wrong and that the right solution is something else neither saw because you were both so caught up in your own vision.

I guarantee the developers would far rather (and be more open to) civil discussion and considerations for ways to improve things over time, as opposed to never ending arguments about why the system as is doesn't work the way you want and needs to be fixed right now or is perfect as is and everyone who disagrees should just leave.

Right. Done for now! Just my opinion.

I usually just press my instant off GCD abilities when the GCD timer hits the half way point after a skill. It always works and comes out when I press it then.

I actually kind of like it, it's improved my timing and play so I don't mash keys anymore and all my moves are smoothly transitioning into each other with added buffs in between each attack. I'm also learning to read patterns and study enemies instead of twitch reacting to them.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

... I'm also learning to read patterns and study enemies instead of twitch reacting to them ...

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Your sentence is a spot-on explanation of how fights are going to work in FF because of this broken system. You're not fighting, you're playing Super Mario.

You know, where you know the first level by heart because you've played it dozens of times and can run through it blindly? You jump even before something shoots at you because you know that a monster is going to appear in 3 seconds?

Fighting in a MMO (and every MMO i've played until now except for FF seems to agree with this) should be about reaction, tactics and dealing with hard mechanics. If FF actively prevents you from *reacting* to something, what's left is to run out of circles and press your stun when your timer tells you to. I refuse to believe that this is intended - it's simply a hefty oversight that's very hard to fix now, so they just ask us to "base our strategies around this".

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Originally Posted by JiaYow

Your sentence is a spot-on explanation of how fights are going to work in FF because of this broken system. You're not fighting, you're playing Super Mario.

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No i'm pretty sure i'm fighting. I like animation locks and decision making. Knowing what attacks leave me open reminds me of playing a fighting games, I can be punished for hasty offensive play, and can be rewarded for making correct defensive decisions and holding off my attacks. I just feel paladins need to have their stun skill reworked so they aren't forced into the stun bot roll.

To fix the problem you're stating, all they have to do is make the fights more dangerous and make the enemies patterns less predictable. That way it's not like "playing the first level by heart again". The GCD and animation lock mechanics don't even have to be touched for that, just the enemy ai and skills like the paladins stun.

I don't want to see the combat mechanics changed, I actually enjoy them a lot, I can flow freely from attacks and off gcd buffs in between and it's a lot of fun nailing them correctly. I just want to see the fights and encounters changed. It really comes down to preferences, I don't know what else to tell you. I like it, some don't. The only thing I want is for the encounters to be more randomized and different for each fight.

Or they could just change all the off GCD abilities to say "Can only be activated in the middle of the GCD" so it doesn't confuse players. I have yet to feel the need to mash the key to get it to work, but it can be deceptive because it shows it's available earlier on. Maybe have the skills grayed out until the GCD reaches the half way point?

The only thing I wish was that when I hit an ability I don't have to hit it five billion times for it to finally go off. I hate abilities that are open off of GCD (like silence/self-buffs) and I have to press them 4-5 times for them to actually go off. Or worse, GCD is up, I press silence and it doesn't go off.

It's -clunky- and I don't care if main abilities have a 20 second GCD, I just would like instant abilities to be instant, twitchy, reactive abilities. It's clunky and slow. Honestly, this is the only thing that drives me crazy about the game. I love everything else I've encountered so far, and aside from little changes, this is the biggest annoyance that is game-breaking to me.

I can't imagine this game actually having competitive PvP with a clunky system like this.

It's unfortunate. Companies in this day and age shouldn't be making mistakes like this.

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Originally Posted by complexxL9

Thinks he speaks for everyone

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If I were like one of those '1.0 players' you described, then, well, I daresay I'd have that stance. But I don't, if you haven't noticed I'm actually enjoying the game. And I'll post as much as I feel like posting, thanks.

And just a side note, as much as you think or wish you did, you don't speak for everybody, or even the vast majority, unless you actually have some cold hard data to back up that claim. And no, this thread doesn't count as cold hard data, it's a very small representation of those who play the game as a whole, and even then it's the whiny loud representation, so...yeah.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

I totally agree with you, the biggest problem with this is that not all skills share the same animation and have varying degrees of length, so for this to work the system would need to determine the recast cooldown based on the previous skills animation, I don't see SE doing this.

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This isn't a problem.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Going by the recent feedback from the dev team they are happy to sit idly by and not fix any of this stuff because it takes too much time and effort.

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That's because the issue introduced in this thread isn't a problem, and their official response is directed at that. Is there Latency? Yes. Should they optimize their rather slow .3 second location check? Yes, definitely. Should they completely redesign their animations and every boss encounter in the game cause a bunch of whiners are incapable of making critical choices and somehow think 'twitch' reaction is the very definition of skill? No, no they shouldn't.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

This still doesn't tackle the problem of reactive skills such as Shield Bash and Blunt Arrow sharing the same GCD as the rest of the skills.

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The only one of those abilities that shares GCD with anything is Shield Bash, cause you know, it's on the same GCD. Blunt Arrow is not. If you know you're going to need it in the next couple seconds, the don't shoot your arrow for some other purpose. As Ricky says, it doesn't take rocket appliances to figure that out.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Are we really supposed to stand there and do nothing until a monster uses an ability in fear of missing the chance to stun or silence them, its just really bad design.

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Are you afraid your epeen will shrink if you fall behind a bit on the damage meters because you ensured the groups survival?

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Endurance means squat when you are on the floor dead because you didn't evade an attack, or someone didn't stun or silence the monster in time.

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How asinine, it means plenty. Do you have the endurance to concentrate long enough to know when it's your turn to interrupt and when you should be prioritizing that over other things? How is that any more 'mindless' and 'boring' than pressing the same sequence of buttons over and over instead?

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Originally Posted by Jinko

If I was being held in a prisoner camp, I would have to deal with it, doesn't mean I would like it ! (Stupid analogy I know, but I am fighting stupid with stupid here.)

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Right, comparing a video game to a concentration camp, I'm sure those who lived it would love to know how much you downplay their suffering. You're not fighting stupid, you're just living it.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

But bu bu but !! this game is heavily twitch based go fight Titan if you haven't already, thankfully Titan is scripted so we can "plan ahead" otherwise we would all be completely screwed.

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Bu bu bu bu Titan is super twitch based, and it's not! That's basically what you said right there. And I think no more needs to be said about that. lol.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Planned ahead standing there doing no DPS just so I can stun something is hardly planning ahead that's being restrictive.

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So doing a particular job is restrictive? I'd have to disagree, only a whiny kid would think doing something important and not being able to do 'SUPER AWESOME COOL STABBY STUFF' at the same time is restrictive.

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Originally Posted by Unruhe

WoW isn't perfect (nothing is) and gets a lot of public flak despite having more subscribers than most other MMOs combined, but the one thing that WoW has that nobody can argue against is fluidity.

On a core, fundamental level, World of Warcraft works. If you push an attack, that attack happens. If you run to a spot to avoid an AOE, you avoid that AOE. If a boss starts casting a spell and you press an interrupt, that interrupt happens instantly and successfully every time. WoW has a fluidity and responsiveness that a many recent high-profile games (TOR and ARR especially) simply lack.

How any development staff can sit down and say "Let's make a hotkey, tab-target MMO" and then expend zero effort in nailing combat absolutely boggles my mind. WoW exists. It's easily accessible. It's free until level 20. Have your devs play it. If your WoW-like game feels sluggish and laggy compared to WoW, then you need to start over. You don't release a game with a similar monthly fee while offering what is clearly mechanically inferior to WoW. The final kicker is ARR even managed to have a terrible tab-target system, too! How do you even mess up tab-target? How?!? SE knows, apparently.

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Just want to re-quote one of my favorite posts from another thread regarding this whole delay/GCD issue. The last part of his post really HITS home.

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Originally Posted by M4Fade

Just want to re-quote one of my favorite posts from another thread regarding this whole delay/GCD issue. The last part of his post really HITS home.

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Exactly. There simply is no way to defend this. If Square wants to compete with MMOs in this day and age, they need to not develop a system that wasn't even great 10 years ago.

Hell, a lot of steps they have taken show that they still aren't up to date with current technology. Time limit on dungeons so they can avoid duty finder server congestion? Really? Yeah because that's totally needed if you're using hardware from this decade.

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

I like animation locks and decision making.

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Allow me to interject:

Animation locks don't exist. When you get Demolish, and then again when you get Dragon Kick, check it out. They're Monk's longest animation abilities, lasting over a second in animation time. Both of them can be clipped with off gcd abilities.

Decision making: What decision making, exactly? All decisions I make regarding off gcd abilities happen because boss mechanics, not because the GCD is super long.

Honestly the whole thing just sounds like a bullshit justification on SE's part. Just because they say it was designed that way to allow for decision making doesn't mean that everyone is going to start making decisions there or that there is even a need for it.

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Originally Posted by M4Fade

Just want to re-quote one of my favorite posts from another thread regarding this whole delay/GCD issue. The last part of his post really HITS home.

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Great quote. Couldn't agree more. This game will never have a great combat system until they fix this crap. For a re-launched game I don't know how they left the latency the way it is. It's utter crap. You notice it leveling up but it's not a big deal. When you finally get to content where you need to stun/silence or wipe, it becomes apparent that something is wrong. When you get to content where it's dodge or wipe it's clear they dropped the ball. It's sad to see because the game looks great and they had some good ideas for fights, but this is just ruining those fights.