The intentional animation delays needs to be abolished

When doing anything in this game, there is some type of delay that is obviously intentional. For example, when using Quick Stride, by the time the player has control after using the buff, there's no longer a point to having used the buff. Even with the new video we see of the new battle system for 1.18, there are major delays. There should not be any hesitation at all and all battle actions should be seamless. We should be able to use skills instantly on the move without our characters stopping.

to what end? Serious question

Umm how about no? and how about attacking as soon as the animation for the last attack to stop then allowing another attack?

if thats what you meant, then you post didnt come across that way

Watch the video: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/13462

Now count how long it takes for actions to occur AFTER the player has pressed the hotkeys on the bar. It takes at least a second or two for the actions to occur. Look at how long it takes the player to get into battle mode and engage the mob. In fact, there's such a delay that the player is GLIDING to the mob while engaging. It is not seamless and fluid. I understand you're a hardcore FF fan, but so am I. It doesn't mean everything about the game is perfect just because it's called Final Fantasy. I'm pretty sure that over 70% of the player base that they lost agrees with me. Keep defending it as much as you like, but a bad game is a bad game. I'm still here because I have hope for it and I hope that they make it better.

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Originally Posted by Tenku

Watch the video: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/13462

Now count how long it takes for actions to occur AFTER the player has pressed the hotkeys on the bar. It takes at least a second or two for the actions to occur. Look at how long it takes the player to get into battle mode and engage the mob. In fact, there's such a delay that the player is GLIDING to the mob while engaging. It is not seamless and fluid. I understand you're a hardcore FF fan, but so am I. It doesn't mean everything about the game is perfect just because it's called Final Fantasy. I'm pretty sure that over 70% of the player base that they lost agrees with me. Keep defending it as much as you like, but a bad game is a bad game. I'm still here because I have hope for it and I hope that they make it better.

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For one thing, the new animations will not be implemented in 1.18, but 1.19. So it will look goofy at first. And the video is a system cobbled onto the old animations rather than the complete system with all new animations.

For another, you make an assumption in your initial post that the delay is intentional. I believe it's not intentional and is a consequence of poor network responsiveness, as all commands have to bounce to the servers and back before they engage. It's been discussed elsewhere that the UI is server-side rather than client-side, which other games don't do because it causes severe performance issues.

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Originally Posted by Lerris

For one thing, the new animations will not be implemented in 1.18, but 1.19. So it will look goofy at first. And the video is a system cobbled onto the old animations rather than the complete system with all new animations.

For another, you make an assumption in your initial post that the delay is intentional. I believe it's not intentional and is a consequence of poor network responsiveness, as all commands have to bounce to the servers and back before they engage. It's been discussed elsewhere that the UI is server-side rather than client-side, which other games don't do because it causes severe performance issues.

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You're correct about the UI being server-side rather than being client-side. Yes, that causes delay/lag to a degree. However, there is intentional delay. That video is directly from Square Enix meaning they are playing directly on the server so there shouldn't be any delay at all due to poor network response. It was the same in FFXI. They intentionally slow it down to make it feel more like their older FF games and to be unique from all the other MMOs out there. I do not mind the slower battle system as long as it's fun like in FFXI. (Chain kills, chain spells/skills, teamplay, CC, hate control, etc)

This and the slow to build up-animations are killing the combat for me.

Fix the servers...fix...them....

Here, I hate RIFT, but just compare the speed of the battle system, response, and animations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt85TqYk3qY

When you're dealing with that speed during battle, you have to deal with the environment, positioning, and even running away. I know we don't want FF14 to be like every other MMO, but I feel that SE can keep the feel of Final Fantasy but have an intuitive battle system like modern MMOs.

(BTW that's me in the best pvp gear only after 2 months of playing the game so it got boring real fast since there was no longer progression for me)

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Originally Posted by Tenku

You're correct about the UI being server-side rather than being client-side. Yes, that causes delay/lag to a degree. However, there is intentional delay. That video is directly from Square Enix meaning they are playing directly on the server so there shouldn't be any delay at all due to poor network response. It was the same in FFXI. They intentionally slow it down to make it feel more like their older FF games and to be unique from all the other MMOs out there. I do not mind the slower battle system as long as it's fun like in FFXI. (Chain kills, chain spells/skills, teamplay, CC, hate control, etc)

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Ok, first off, not a fanboy. Hate the entire concept of the server side UI, it's horrible, inefficient, and poorly designed.

Now, you're making several assumptions. First, that they're playing at console. This is not assured, and in fact is most likely incorrect. I would say that it is exceedingly rare for a company to have a data center of the size that it takes to house that amount, and bulk, of hardware on the same site as their main office space. We're talking special cooling systems required, and it's just generally safer from a physical security standpoint to not be able to look up the FFXIV Server Center in the NTT phone book. Odds are that in their office location, they experience the same latency that any player in Japan does.

You're also neglecting the fact that test servers aren't generally ran on production-level hardware. Some MMO's do have this, but those are the ones that have public test servers. We have no idea how many test situations are being run, or what level of hardware they're being run on.

They have also stated that to expect the animations to be choppy and non-seamless for a while. This is what happens when you add things like being able to change modes on-the-move without animations for that being in the game.

Now, I will agree with you that there IS a concept in games called animation lag, which FFXIV needs to ensure they do not introduce. *TRUE* animation lag, unlike what you describe, is the process where another action cannot be initiated until the currently running animation has completed. I do not really see evidence of this in place in the current video we've been provided, there seems to be ample delay between swings for that to not be an issue.

Yes, FFXIV has always suffered from UI lag, and hopefully it is something that is on their long-term plans to address. However, you cannot just go from a server side to a client side UI in a day. That would likely be a 4-6 month project in and of itself, and right now it is not "game breaking". FFXIV is not a "twitch game" like RIFT or WoW, and there's no glaring need for instantaneous respone. Want? Absolutely yes. Need? No.

You're probably right, but I think that it's more than just latency issues if they are so close to the server yet we still see those delays. And yes, we WANT instantaneous response. Everything about gaming is WANT, not need.

I suspect it's more about load on the test server then true latency. Do not forget that the internet does not care about how physically close you are. If you have different ISPs and you are connecting to your neighbor over the internet, your packets could easily be going to Chicago, or Denver before the first point where the two networks peer exists. It is well known that the japanese players did have a significant latency advantage in FFXI, but I would not think that alone accounts for this.

And of course gaming is all about wants, but it is a balanced metric of "what do we want more?" Do we want a far more playable game, with content, systems, and mechanics that work to create a fun experience, or the interface to be half a second more responsive. We want both, but which do we want first?

It's been, quite frankly, too long and this progress in my opinion too small, but let us not berate progress simply because it is not perfect. I would rather have improvements in a flawed state then berate them for minor imperfections and have them start holding off everything until it's been through 6 months of rigorous QA to make sure it is flawless, wouldn't you?

The internet doesn't care how close you are? Are you high? Do you know anything about network traffic?

In the game you're faced with a term known as "Animation Lock." Due to the current stamina implementation, you can queue new actions before the previous animation has ended. I speculate that this won't change very much with 1.18. However, you can't do anything else such as stop attacking, move, get out of the way of the TP attack that's going to 1 shot you, etc. It's an obnoxious system horribly put together.

To clarify, you guys should probably look up how the UI works and is built. Compound that with server-sided decision making and all servers being overseas for US players, and you have one horribly in-efficient system in which you end up pressing the button 5 times before something actually happens. By then, it's queued it several times so you cycle through active/passive repeatedly.

How can you enjoy new content if the game still plays like FFXI with down syndrome? The content won't be flawless. Based on description, it will be Nyzul Isle +1. If you played XI and did Nyzul Isle, you'll recognize that it was 100 levels of running back and forth repeatedly to touch random crap and then every 20 levels you got to get a fancy new piece of askar or similar with a mindless boss fight where you didn't have to do anything special in particular or coordinate much. Except this time, the loot just falls to some random person rather than being able to even cast lots. What happens if some D-bag gets a drop and it's supposed to go to someone else? He just keeps it and the other is screwed.

In conclusion - Animation lock sucks, input lag is here to stay, and here's to hoping the "raids" are similar to what they stole the name from, WoW.

I completely agree with you, after one second that I use the skill mobs takes damage, and plus one second more the animation starts... this makes the battle slow. Also in the video, the auto-attack have the same delay =(

*Readying ___insert ability___*

*wait 1-3 seconds*

*Ability execute*


........are you kidding me? it HAS to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Shozokui

The internet doesn't care how close you are? Are you high? Do you know anything about network traffic?

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The internet doesn't care about miles. The speed of light is just that fast.

The internet does care about the number of connections, which is usually related to distance in miles, but not necessarily.

One of the problems right now is that the client only starts the skill animation after it receives the confirmation from the server. You can tell by watching the mob's hp dropping before or right at the animation starts on your client. One way to solve this is to rewrite the logic so that the client will execute the skill animation earlier to compensate the network lag. Plus, most skills have a "charging" state at the beginning when your character lights up slightly anyway, this would be the perfect time window.

Here's a graphical explaination:

User triggers a skill ---> mob hp decreases on screen
_________________^ server response (which includes network lag)
____________________-----> starts playing animation on the client ie: screen goes darker and character lights up
_________________________| charging state |
_______________________________________|skill actually landing on mob|

What it could be done:
User triggers a skill ---> mob hp decreases on screen
____---> starts playing animation on the client
______| charging state |
____________________| WS landing on the mob |

Edit: sorry for the weird ____ in front of the arrows, white spaces are automatically omitted so the spacing was messed up without those

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Originally Posted by Lerris

The internet doesn't care about miles. The speed of light is just that fast.

The internet does care about the number of connections, which is usually related to distance in miles, but not necessarily.

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The Case of the 500-mile email.