Climbing & Swimming

Anyone think they'll add these abilities into the game eventually?
Fights that revolve around properly implemented climbing/swimming mechanics would be pretty fun I think.

I don't think I'd like it in fights, but I would love it added to the game for exploration etc.

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

I don't think I'd like it in fights, but I would love it added to the game for exploration etc.

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Yeah, being able to climb onto things such as FC houses would be nice too.

yeah , loved climbing in other mmorpgs (eq2, archeage...) , same goes for swimming , sooo many posibilities underwater :D

For combat while swimming, I cite Guild Wars 2 for ways to make that happen.

For climbing? That would be very handy!

I haven't heard this mentioned since beta... wow.

There are ladders in south shroud that drive me insane I can't climb.

As for swimming, I believe they made an official statement about why they cannot implement it in the game. So no pun intended but, don't hold your breath waiting for swimming to be added.

You never know, though. They also said flying mounts would be unlikely and yeah...

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Originally Posted by RakaMaimhov

I haven't heard this mentioned since beta... wow.

There are ladders in south shroud that drive me insane I can't climb.

As for swimming, I believe they made an official statement about why they cannot implement it in the game. So no pun intended but, don't hold your breath waiting for swimming to be added.

You never know, though. They also said flying mounts would be unlikely and yeah...

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Swimming is probably due to PS3 limitations, since water physics are a problem for a game that's already pushing the limits of what the PS3 can handle.

Speaking of climbing: Ever since I found out characters could jump in 2.0, I thought that would set up the perfect opportunity for a crazier version of FFXI's Attohwa Chasm mountain climb! Ahh, the potential is so great! If you fail to time your jumps right or mess up the angle, down you go! Throw in the unexpected smoke plumes with knockback and you have the makings for some platforming goodness, which would be a nice change of pace.

Climbing?.... Swimming?.... I'd say look no further than Shadow of the Colossus. Imagine if the Bismark primal fight was like fighting Phalanx (13th colossus). It doesn't even have to be anything hard or complicated in terms of mechanics. It could just be a buff/debuff where you gain access to a special skill input (similar to the ultros fight when dps goes imp and get the skill "Imp Punch") that allows you to hang on to Bismark when he does a barrel roll.

Never understood the desire for climbing...all that amounts to is walking into a ladder and going up as if it were a set of stairs. That or the classic "click the ladder and autoclimb" mechanic. Swimming could be interesting but NOT for combat. BRDs certainly couldn't fight and swim...imagine treading water without the use of your arms and trying to fire arrows. Or better...imagine trying to fire arrows underwater. WARs and DRGs wouldn't be able to wield their weapons in any meaningful way though at least DRGs could still kind of be able to poke things. Nevermind that the armor would cause PLD WAR and DRG at least to sink like stones...

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

yeah , loved climbing in other mmorpgs (eq2, archeage...) , same goes for swimming , sooo many posibilities underwater :D

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"Climbing"? Do you mean jumping up on weird places and "climbing" onto higher things? Climbing sounds more like it would be super clunky in an MMO, the jumping up on things works better, plus flying mounts are coming out in the expansion so it's not like we will need climbing.

Swimming brings in other issues, like UNDERWATER BATTLES. Those are completely broken and the "breath" percentage is completely dumb in a RPG.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

Swimming brings in other issues, like UNDERWATER BATTLES. Those are completely broken and the "breath" percentage is completely dumb in a RPG.

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You should check out how Guild Wars 2 implemented underwater combat, excluding certain balance issues with certain classes they did it very well.

I would LOVE to be able to go swimming. I feel like EVERY other MMORPG out there has it, but in FFXIV it is bizarrely absent. The beaches of Costa del Sol and the Mist are just taunting me with those waters.

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Originally Posted by Azper

I feel like EVERY other MMORPG out there has it

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While some games do something with it, I really have to point out that MMOs with swimming mechanics fall into 3 different categories:
1) It's just like fighting on the ground, except with a breath meter and 3 dimensional movement. Boring.
2) It's a completely different experience (very few MMOs do this since it requires basically building two completely different combat systems.
3) Similar to #1, but has more physics in play than just the breath meter. The most infamous example is probably the original EverQuest. While underwater, you were subject to 3D movement but with "ice" slide mechanics, so if you got hit it was an automatic interrupt.

The key thing here is the games that had it, had it since the beginning. There's a lot of work and testing that goes into to to ensure you don't have people swimming above the water. The amount of work required basically ensures that, if it's not there at launch, it'll never be there.

Climbing on the other hand is a lot easier (comparatively) to implement, but don't expect it any time soon.

The swimming wouldn't even need to be of going underwater. Just you know, being able to move past ankle/knee-deep water. :S Those invisible walls drive me nuts. And the fact that to swim, you have to sit. Like... Who sits in a swimming pool or a hot spring? Well, I guess some do, but you know what I mean...

Back in beta I was hoping that you could slip and die in Tam-Tara for moving too far, but the walls made sure you didn't have any risk. Not to mention it'd be funny on WHM to knockback mobs into the abyss.

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Originally Posted by Haprimac

Who sits in a swimming pool or a hot spring?

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The entire country of Japan, actually. Most hot springs are specifically designed to be sat in. Nekkid.
The hot springs in the game are accurate to what they're like in Japan. Which makes sense since the people who designed it probably have regularly gone to at least one.

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Originally Posted by Lithera

Never understood the desire for climbing...all that amounts to is walking into a ladder and going up as if it were a set of stairs. That or the classic "click the ladder and autoclimb" mechanic. Swimming could be interesting but NOT for combat. BRDs certainly couldn't fight and swim...imagine treading water without the use of your arms and trying to fire arrows. Or better...imagine trying to fire arrows underwater. WARs and DRGs wouldn't be able to wield their weapons in any meaningful way though at least DRGs could still kind of be able to poke things. Nevermind that the armor would cause PLD WAR and DRG at least to sink like stones...

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Hello... this is a fantasy game.

I've seen plenty or underwater fight going in games, just got to RIFT for example or Dungeon&Dragons Online.

If you want to go by reality, you can start getting rid of all our "armors" as half of them wouldn't stop a fly or would kill us as soon as we moved because of all the spikes that go into all kinds of wrong places when we move.

Please keep reality out of this, thank you.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

The entire country of Japan, actually. Most hot springs are specifically designed to be sat in. Nekkid.
The hot springs in the game are accurate to what they're like in Japan. Which makes sense since the people who designed it probably have regularly gone to at least one.

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True, true. I realised my mistake only awhile after writing, but was too lazy to edit. I guess I should've wrote "swimming pool or sea water" or somesuch. Like, people running about in swimming suits in Costa can only sit in the water instead swimming. ^^ Best part is that you can't go further than knee-deep (or ankle if you're a roe like me) water so the lalafell won't drown. x')

I was surprised when I first got into this game how I couldn't swim, this is just one of those things that need to come from launch, this is just sad.

Or it could be an hability related to a job : when we want to fish we could swin and go under the sea to find a famous fish ^^

The trouble with swimming, is that you have to pretty much arbitrarily designate areas you CAN'T swim to. A lot of the zones border oceans or large lakes. In theory, you should be able to keep swimming for hours, because these bodies of water are freaking big. Exploring areas like that would either be pointless, frustrating, or both - not to mention that if SE actually rendered these huge ocean areas, that'd be a whole lot of wasted resources.

So, SE would need to create boundaries to keep people from swimming too far. How would this be done? You could arbitrarily set invisible walls, but that is immersion-breaking. Boundaries on land can be excused by setting up steep cliffs or chasms (my character won't go further because it's too steep to climb!), but that's tougher to do in the water (my character can't go further because... well... the water is really, really hard for some reason!).

I seem to recall them having a choice to add swimming or flying with the first expansion. They chose Flying first (if you got to see any of the fanfest stuff, i nerdgasamed). Next will be swimming, probably have to wait for 4.0 for that one. As for climbing, havent heard them talk about this at all. It would be neat but I think you would be limited to what you can climb. specific wall textures, ladders, etc. It would be neat but I don't think climbing would be too high on a priority list. I'm just thankful we can jump now...

EDIT:

As for those who claim swimming and underwater battles and holding breath breaks immersion. it is easily remedied as they have in many other Final Fantasies, with an Item. FF1 had Oxyale you got from freeing a fairy, FFX had almost all residents able to swim and fight underwater, never broke immersion (yuna's voice acting did that for me... lol) They even had one of the more requested minigames for this FF, Blitzball! I never did like blitzball but I would support it for those who did enjoy it. As for barriers underwater, going into deep ocean could sweep you away back to a particular point. you could ride currents of water for "fast travel" underwater, or those currents could flat out prevent you from going further. Get iron boots do you sink to the bottom. Not all underwater content needs have you submersed in water, underwater caverns are a great place to have a instanced dungeon or some harvesting points.

If you want to just end the conversation by saying "its not possible" then you are only limited by your imagination. as you can see, i found ways to solve a few issues in a quick little rant. Imagine what the devs could come up with using player input, past FF's and the drive to make it happen.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

The trouble with swimming, is that you have to pretty much arbitrarily designate areas you CAN'T swim to. A lot of the zones border oceans or large lakes. In theory, you should be able to keep swimming for hours, because these bodies of water are freaking big. Exploring areas like that would either be pointless, frustrating, or both - not to mention that if SE actually rendered these huge ocean areas, that'd be a whole lot of wasted resources.

So, SE would need to create boundaries to keep people from swimming too far. How would this be done? You could arbitrarily set invisible walls, but that is immersion-breaking. Boundaries on land can be excused by setting up steep cliffs or chasms (my character won't go further because it's too steep to climb!), but that's tougher to do in the water (my character can't go further because... well... the water is really, really hard for some reason!).

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I'm honestly tired of seeing people use the words "Immersion breaking" as excuses for things.

Because the current invisible walls everywhere are not, right? Whats even more immersion breaking is how you cannot go beyond ankle deep water. I, and I'm sure many, would much rather have invisible walls placed to create limits in large bodies of water, as long as you could swim in them, than have them gate anything that's beyond ankle deep.

Guess Im one of few people who really detest underwater combat.

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Originally Posted by abzoluut

Guess Im one of few people who really detest underwater combat.

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Well, you wont have anything to worry about for quite some time. Nothing has been officially announced regarding swimming aside from the fact they want to incorperate it at some point. No statement on what this will mean or how it will work.

May I ask what it is about underwater content you so greatly dislike?

Our free company has a beach front house in Mist. I'd love to be able to walk to the edge of the water and wade in and swim. That would be so cool. I know I used to use Sony's PlayStation Home and when it first started swimming wasn't an option but it got added later where one could swim and it is/was pretty neat.

And unrelated to this thread my Main Class is listed as Gladiator when in fact it's BLM. Does anyone know how I can change that for display here on the forum?

This could be fun, depending on how they implement it~! Especially if its for exploration! :)

I think I would be terrified of swimming, at least if we could go out deep. What if something came and attacked you? ;w;

First off, I would love swimming as much as I will love flying. We have to take in consideration that Yoshi-P's team would be working on this; they will want to go the extra mile while implementing this.

They will probably add a lot of little things to go with swimming like gear getting wet (DX11!), water specific emotes, underwater treasures, new zones, new mobs, housing on the water, etc. If they implement it, they will make it a big deal. I'm sure of it. :)

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Originally Posted by Ditto

Because the current invisible walls everywhere are not, right?

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I never said, or even implied that. The current invisible walls ARE obnoxious. I'm annoyed every time I run into one. Fortunately, though, they are rare and hard to run into during normal gameplay. It's unusual in this game that your progress is blocked by something you could easily jump over or by a slope that you could normally scale. Usually a blockage is clearly a wall or sheer cliff, or deep chasm with no visible bottom, where it makes sense that your character would not proceed further. Invisible walls in the water would not be rare or hard to run into. They'd be all over the place.

A game needs to be built from the ground up to accomodate something like swimming or flight. WoW was. This game clearly was not. It's not something you can easily shoehorn in later with any kind of grace. I expect folks who are excited about the upcoming "flying mounts" to be sorely disappointed - they will either be restricted to very limited areas, or available in all areas but restricted in other ways.

Swimming, if ever added, will likely be similar. Maybe there will be dungeons where swimming is a mechanic, but I will be highly surprised if players will ever be able to dive off the coast of Costa Del Sol for some fun in the sun.

My expectations, both for the upcoming flying mounts and the hinted swimming, are pretty much in the gutter. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised with something of actual substance, but true flying mounts and free swimming would require an overhaul of the game as radical as the change from original release to ARR. I'm pretty sure that's something SE would never contemplate - at least, not for the simple reason that some players wanna swim and fly freely. If SE DOES introduce true flying mounts, then my expectations for swimming will likely do a 180. We'll find out next year!

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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IIRC GW2 uses a "fast current" excuse to set water zone limits, when you go near a zone limit you get a warning telling you why you can't go past the invisible wall, and it actually pushes you back if you keep swimming that way. In the end no swimming is more immersion breaking than an invisible wall.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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Immersion solved by permadeath from drowning, falling, or being swept out to sea. But fireballs, magical teleports, elves, and talking animals are ok, just don't put an invisible barrier in a video game cause its never happened before. :)

Here's a game for you!
http://dudelol.com/img/outside-the-n...ashhit-irl.jpg

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Originally Posted by RakaMaimhov

I haven't heard this mentioned since beta... wow.

There are ladders in south shroud that drive me insane I can't climb.

As for swimming, I believe they made an official statement about why they cannot implement it in the game. So no pun intended but, don't hold your breath waiting for swimming to be added.

You never know, though. They also said flying mounts would be unlikely and yeah...

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Actually...on the beta forums they made a HUGE list of all the changes and things they are making. One of them was swimming. It was under the "Coming, but as for when, we dunno" section of it.

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Originally Posted by Meier

Actually...on the beta forums they made a HUGE list of all the changes and things they are making. One of them was swimming. It was under the "Coming, but as for when, we dunno" section of it.

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Yeah IIRC for the first expansion they had to pick between sea themed or sky themed and decided to go with sky. Underwater combat is indeed hard to implement on an already ongoing MMO, but that's what expansions are for.