2.5s Recast/GCD feels wayyy too long.

Out of all the MMORPG(s) I've played(WoW, Black Desert, Tera, ESO, Blade and Soul, Guild Wars 2, and FFXIV), FFXIV has the longest GCD and the most clunky combat. I don't know what was the design intent behind such a long recast time? Have you guys ever been stunned for 2.5s during combat? It feels like 2 hours. That's how it feels to sit there waiting for that 2.5s every skill. Even stacking Skill Speed + 13% from my buff only reduce it to 2seconds.

IMO, in terms of content, FFXIV is only behind WoW. In terms of graphics, it is only behind Black Desert, but in terms of combat it's really near last out of all the popular MMOs. FFXIII-3 and FFXV both had great and fluid combat, so why can't FFXIV after numerous expansions?

You say its last, but that is your opinion. I like it this slow, and on classes where it feels too slow i just meld skill speed. Its been like this from day 1 of 1.0. It is not going anywhere.

2.5 is fine when there's ogcds to weave.

I mean I prefer faster GCD's myself or fast paced combos or action combat myself.
But the way this game works, a fast GCD just wouldn't work.

If they'd want a fast paced combat, they'd need to change a lot to how combat works. Not just tweaking a GCD.

Not every game needs a 1.5gcd. In fact Id take less gcd and more combo/cooldown abilities with more depth and substance. GCD is fine as is, stack skill/spell speed.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Not every game needs a 1.5gcd. In fact Id take less gcd and more combo/cooldown abilities with more depth and substance. GCD is fine as is, stack skill/spell speed.

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I already stack skill speed. As I said, it only got me to about 2.05 recast. Still nowhere close to 0.5s to 1s gcd.

No, not every game need 1.5s, now a days with modern combat systems most gcds are either gone completely or down to .5s.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

I already stack skill speed. As I said, it only got me to about 2.05 recast. Still nowhere close to 0.5s to 1s gcd.

No, not every game need 1.5s, now a days with modern combat systems most gcds are either gone completely or down to .5s.

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Well, this game isn’t an action combat game. A lot of jobs have oGCDs that require weaving, all of which require about 0.75s to prevent GCD clipping. A short GCD with a lot oGCDs to weave don’t mesh well—as MCH sees with its 1.5s GCD.

I prefer the combat as it is. If I wanted a game with faster combat, I’d go looking for one. But that’s me.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

I already stack skill speed. As I said, it only got me to about 2.05 recast. Still nowhere close to 0.5s to 1s gcd.

No, not every game need 1.5s, now a days with modern combat systems most gcds are either gone completely or down to .5s.

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Yea I would prefer a refreshed system that doesnt rely on the gcd entirely.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Well, this game isn’t an action combat game. A lot of jobs have oGCDs that require weaving, all of which require about 0.75s to prevent GCD clipping. A short GCD with a lot oGCDs to weave don’t mesh well—as MCH sees with its 1.5s GCD.

I prefer the combat as it is. If I wanted a game with faster combat, I’d go looking for one. But that’s me.

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What are you talking about? I'm sure SMN players would love a 1.5s GCD.

https://i.redd.it/z9rdo2d9gxa31.png

It feels so long for you mostly because you are used to shorter GCD.
In the later parts of the game you have enough oGCD abilities to use, as well as often having too many AOEs to dodge, that the GCD really isn't a problem at all - you will usually have something to do at all times.

The gcd is pretty much fine as it is now and like the game isn't fast paced. And some classes would be pretty much overpowered or straight up would attack too fast if the gcd is lowered.
*Looks at blackmage*

And it probably prevents us from destroying bosses in seconds.

I always like this argument. "FFXIV is soooooo slooooooooow" -- says someone either playing a slow job, is low level, or isn't doing it right.

Samurai is a medium-high-speed job, floating somewhere around 49 APM on a training dummy if you count positionals as just one button press (usually it's two, as most people right-click+strafe. In that case it'd be ~55.) For the record, 49 puts it right around Demonology Warlock, which is in the upper half speed-wise for WoW. It's true none of the jobs this expansion quite match up to the fastest WoW DPS specs (Fury Warrior at 67 apm, highest in FFXIV right now is Ninja at around ~55 for one-button positionals, ~60 for two.) Still, the difference isn't dramatically large, and many WoW refugees complain about there being too many mechanics to dodge during boss fights in FFXIV. That would certainly imply that FFXIV fights require more movement than WoW. I disagree however, as even a cursory glance at the world first race in WoW shows there's *plenty* of crap to dodge there, too.

I'm kind of lowballing the FFXIV numbers btw. They're honestly probably a bit higher, as people generally stop casting whenever they have to be off a boss, and on someone like Innocence that's a decent amount (the jumps, the phase transition, getting marked with the big circle, etc. This means about 4%-ish offtime during a pull), so bump the FFXIV numbers up a tad if you'd like. And no, I'm not counting Bloodbath, Sprint, etc., just the rotational stuff. My WoW numbers come from SimCraft, which is literally "this is you playing at your absolute maximum" and also doesn't include defensives for non-tanks. Any APM above the listed amount is wasted APM.

Also, I can kinda tell why you think the combat in this game is slow. If you need help with Samurai and pushing buttons faster there's resources you can turn to (The Balance is pretty good), but in general you should be doing ~30% more APM than you are now. Most of the time for melee it's simply a lack of confidence in your rotation (which causes hesitation as you stop to think what button to press next) or fear of keeping high uptime on the boss (dodging very far from bosses to avoid mechanics instead of staying on it.)

And if anyone says "but positionals don't count lol" -- it's literally you pressing a button to get more DPS. It counts as an action.

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Originally Posted by Powercow

I always like this argument. "FFXIV is soooooo slooooooooow" -- says someone either playing a slow job, is low level, or isn't doing it right.

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I mean... you can take a quick peak at his fflogs to tell that even with his super slow 2s GCDs he can't press buttons right and plays SAM incorrectly.
Meanwhile me here on my summoner double triple weaving lol and want even slower GCD...

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Originally Posted by Xyr

Out of all the MMORPG(s) I've played(WoW, Black Desert, Tera, ESO, Blade and Soul, Guild Wars 2, and FFXIV), FFXIV has the longest GCD and the most clunky combat. I don't know what was the design intent behind such a long recast time? Have you guys ever been stunned for 2.5s during combat? It feels like 2 hours. That's how it feels to sit there waiting for that 2.5s every skill. Even stacking Skill Speed + 13% from my buff only reduce it to 2seconds.

IMO, in terms of content, FFXIV is only behind WoW. In terms of graphics, it is only behind Black Desert, but in terms of combat it's really near last out of all the popular MMOs. FFXIII-3 and FFXV both had great and fluid combat, so why can't FFXIV after numerous expansions?

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Are you bothering to weave your oGCDs in between your GCDs? Aside from the occasional proc drought on Dancer, I'm pretty much constantly pushing buttons. Not to mention queuing up my next WS so that it goes off as soon as that GCD finishes.

Maybe try playing something a little more complex? SAM isn't exactly the most complex DPS in the game.

Try a ninja and you won't feel like things are slow lol.

But I will say that when I first started the game, I had the same feeling. Came from WoW with a 1.5s GCD, and this game felt slow and clunky. But I got used to it quick and saw the reasoning at higher levels with all of the oGCD weaving. To do that correctly you need timing and dexterity.

I've played a lot of gw2 and wow but in this game the fights get so hairy sometimes and they demand a lot of attention that when I have that rare moment I've exhausted ogcd's (mch particularly) I'm relieved I can just do my basic combo and focus on doing mechanics. Also I think in wow they did something to the gcd, I was playing bfa on my outlaw rogue and it was so jank because animations would end before the gcd came up. What made the long gcd tolerable for me in ffxiv was that the animations were long also.

I thought the same until i hit endgame content etc,now it doesnt bother me and i can see why they dont do it like WoWs etc. theyd have to change core stuff overall for these to work~
Anyway i kinda like the way XIV plays atm with GCDs etc

I too wish I could break my 123 keys when Titan breaks out his SPODLERS? .

actually 1.0 had no gcds at all. i believe they just had stamina and animation times. Gcds came with arr i think, some people wanted slower combat, and less button presses.

imo the gcd system is not that good for combat, but many of yall like it so, its clearly debatable

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Originally Posted by Powercow

I always like this argument. "FFXIV is soooooo slooooooooow" -- says someone either playing a slow job, is low level, or isn't doing it right.

Samurai is a medium-high-speed job, floating somewhere around 49 APM on a training dummy if you count positionals as just one button press (usually it's two, as most people right-click+strafe. In that case it'd be ~55.) For the record, 49 puts it right around Demonology Warlock, which is in the upper half speed-wise for WoW. It's true none of the jobs this expansion quite match up to the fastest WoW DPS specs (Fury Warrior at 67 apm, highest in FFXIV right now is Ninja at around ~55 for one-button positionals, ~60 for two.) Still, the difference isn't dramatically large, and many WoW refugees complain about there being too many mechanics to dodge during boss fights in FFXIV. That would certainly imply that FFXIV fights require more movement than WoW. I disagree however, as even a cursory glance at the world first race in WoW shows there's *plenty* of crap to dodge there, too.

I'm kind of lowballing the FFXIV numbers btw. They're honestly probably a bit higher, as people generally stop casting whenever they have to be off a boss, and on someone like Innocence that's a decent amount (the jumps, the phase transition, getting marked with the big circle, etc. This means about 4%-ish offtime during a pull), so bump the FFXIV numbers up a tad if you'd like. And no, I'm not counting Bloodbath, Sprint, etc., just the rotational stuff. My WoW numbers come from SimCraft, which is literally "this is you playing at your absolute maximum" and also doesn't include defensives for non-tanks. Any APM above the listed amount is wasted APM.

Also, I can kinda tell why you think the combat in this game is slow. If you need help with Samurai and pushing buttons faster there's resources you can turn to (The Balance is pretty good), but in general you should be doing ~30% more APM than you are now. Most of the time for melee it's simply a lack of confidence in your rotation (which causes hesitation as you stop to think what button to press next) or fear of keeping high uptime on the boss (dodging very far from bosses to avoid mechanics instead of staying on it.)

And if anyone says "but positionals don't count lol" -- it's literally you pressing a button to get more DPS. It counts as an action.

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not sure what you mean, but if you are counting movement, that isn't what people are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Angry_Evil

I mean... you can take a quick peak at his fflogs to tell that even with his super slow 2s GCDs he can't press buttons right and plays SAM incorrectly.
Meanwhile me here on my summoner double triple weaving lol and want even slower GCD...

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Ah yes, the fflog argument. Yeah, my fflog of 2 eden fights where I had no idea what the boss mechanics were as I just hit lvl 80, and it was the first or second day that raid came out obviously is the perfect evidence of how great the game's combat is. That's like deciding the state of a nation based on the input of two people out of 300 million. If the game had 60s gcd on every skill, and someone who had low logs said the gcd is too long, you'd probably still say that he only feels it's long because his logs lmfao.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

I already stack skill speed. As I said, it only got me to about 2.05 recast. Still nowhere close to 0.5s to 1s gcd.

No, not every game need 1.5s, now a days with modern combat systems most gcds are either gone completely or down to .5s.

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Gone completely?

I don't think so.

You may not see it actively displayed on a screen, but there is absolutely an internal "cooldown" between uses of abilities...especially in the MMO world. It might be baked into the animation of the ability (even if you can animation cancel, there's still a brief window where you cannot activate the next ability), but it is still there. In fact, most of those "modern combat" games give even more precedence to the animation that FFXIV does...but in the end it has the same function as a global cooldown does here - limiting how many actions you can take in a specific time.

Animation delay/lock. GCD. Even the firing rate of a weapon in an FPS - all controls on how often you can attack and do damage to a target, based on and balanced for the type of game it is and the mechanics of the gameplay.

I also find the "down to .5s" a suspect claim - which MMOs have such a speedy gcd? Are they the ones that have the action style combat...that instead uses the animation delay as a means of controlling your rate of attack? Or is there some other fabled MMO out there that uses tab-targeting and button presses, but lets you spam then every half second?

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Originally Posted by Xyr

Ah yes, the fflog argument. Yeah, my fflog of 2 eden fights where I had no idea what the boss mechanics were as I just hit lvl 80, and it was the first or second day that raid came out obviously is the perfect evidence of how great the game's combat is. That's like deciding the state of a nation based on the input of two people out of 300 million. If the game had 60s gcd on every skill, and someone who had low logs said the gcd is too long, you'd probably still say that he only feels it's long because his logs lmfao.

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Ok you are making a terrible argument there, first you wrote that you just hit lvl 80 with SAM so that means that you dont have enough experience with the class to play it properly so if it feels like you have a long GCD is because YOU are not playing properly, that alone renders your whole point kind of worthless but moving on, second so you dont know the fight and you did poorly? not uncommon but it also implies that yo could have a more fluid (faster) feel of the GCD if you knew the fight, hence you feel the class is slow.

So to summarize, you dont know the class well enough, you dont know the fights well enough, how do you expect to fight properlly? and yes by fighting properlly the "speed" (more the feel in reality) of the class goes up. Does this game need a faster GCD? not really if we go just by infraesctructure high ping in some jobs makes them very hard to play, if we go by player feel, most of the time there is enough shit going on in your screen to keep you bussy for a while, so slow GCD is less noticeable especially when you factor in oGCDs. Having a fast GCD will make this game better? probably not, having to hit buttons faster doesnt imply good gamplay mechanics, i mean look at ff15 you could smash that atack butting as fast as you can but it was just that, one button smash even at the highest difficulty that game was extremely boring combat wise. Pretty? yeah, but dull. So fast GCD for the sake of fast GCD is not really an improvement its not even QoL, its just pretty but dull.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

I already stack skill speed. As I said, it only got me to about 2.05 recast. Still nowhere close to 0.5s to 1s gcd.

No, not every game need 1.5s, now a days with modern combat systems most gcds are either gone completely or down to .5s.

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You realize this is impossible, right? Onlines games need to send signals around the globe back and forth between the players and there's no game where such speedy fight would sync properly in a multiplayer game.. Even if you had direct communication with laser and direct line of sight, in a vacuum, and with instantaneous computers you'd still need 0.1 sec to sync 2 players on the globe because the choking point would be the speed of light..
• then you have the average latency of the web of ~0.2sec
• plus the gaming server computation time (be sure the command is valid, not spam, authentificated, etc.)
• plus the player computation time (that you can't assume have the top tier gaming setup)
• plus the back and forth to synceverything..
Realistically, you can't have anything under 1sec and hope you're game will run smoothly... Not with today's technology

You don't see the cooldown, but I can assure you it's there.

And that's why you see thing like getting hitted by an AoE even if you were completely out of the zone on your screen, Or why you can slide-cast, Or why you can trigger an oGCD when there's still a fraction of time to the cooldown, Or having a Benediction going on CD but not saving the target: With time, MMO teams have learn how to hide latency issues like that, but it's far from easy or straight forward

It only feels slow at first until you have a mountain of OGCDs to fill in the gaps. Some jobs are hectic at 80 trying to cram everything in without clipping.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

Ah yes, the fflog argument. Yeah, my fflog of 2 eden fights where I had no idea what the boss mechanics were as I just hit lvl 80, and it was the first or second day that raid came out obviously is the perfect evidence of how great the game's combat is. That's like deciding the state of a nation based on the input of two people out of 300 million. If the game had 60s gcd on every skill, and someone who had low logs said the gcd is too long, you'd probably still say that he only feels it's long because his logs lmfao.

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Oh. My. God. Why is a 3rd party mining my data and putting it on display? That is disgusting, it should be at least opt in. I have no interest in either savage or cretins using my logs as an argument, how do I get this hidden?

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Originally Posted by brasteir

Oh. My. God. Why is a 3rd party mining my data and putting it on display? That is disgusting, it should be at least opt in. I have no interest in either savage or cretins using my logs as an argument, how do I get this hidden?

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Love sarcasm in texts. If games were designed based on logs then they might as well be designed for the top 0.1% players. "Oh your parse is 95%? That's why you feel slow., you are not at 99%. Your parse is 85%? That's why monks feel clunky, it's because your parse is low. Ninja's aren't undertuned you just don't know how to play, look at your logs."

You might as well use "logs" for every single problem anyone ever has with the game at this point.

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Originally Posted by Physic

not sure what you mean, but if you are counting movement, that isn't what people are talking about.

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No, we're not counting moving for mechanics. Yes, we are counting moving to his positionals. This is because moving to hit positionals is literally pressing a button to increase DPS against a stationary target, and therefore counts as an action to any reasonable person.

If you mean more in general, APM means means "Actions Per Minute," or how often you need to hit buttons every minute. The reason this is relevant is because the claim that FFXIV's GCD is so slow hinges upon the belief that combat in general is too slow. Anyone can easily go look up some of the faster jobs in this game and find out that, no, it's really not much slower than a game like WoW. It is slower in general, and some jobs are much slower than WoW equivalents, some of them can keep up with the faster WoW jobs.

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Originally Posted by Angry_Evil

I mean... you can take a quick peak at his fflogs to tell that even with his super slow 2s GCDs he can't press buttons right and plays SAM incorrectly.
Meanwhile me here on my summoner double triple weaving lol and want even slower GCD...

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A level 80 still complaining about the gcd is more than likely someone who bought a skip potion to 70.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

Love sarcasm in texts. If games were designed based on logs then they might as well be designed for the top 0.1% players. "Oh your parse is 95%? That's why you feel slow., you are not at 99%. Your parse is 85%? That's why monks feel clunky, it's because your parse is low. Ninja's aren't undertuned you just don't know how to play, look at your logs."

You might as well use "logs" for every single problem anyone ever has with the game at this point.

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Why would you assume I'm being sarcastic? I don't feel like parse elitism adds anything but toxicity to the community and other regions with higher clear rates allegedly don't obsess over them to same degree. These things also always end up as a cop out in lieu of actual support for an argument like you said. I don't do things in party finder, I want this information hidden.
And the excuse the site gives, "well technically this isn't your information." that is sooo skeevy.

Edit 2: add fflogs-hidden to character profile in lodestone and it hides the parses from fflogs. yay!

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Originally Posted by Xyr

Out of all the MMORPG(s) I've played(WoW, Black Desert, Tera, ESO, Blade and Soul, Guild Wars 2, and FFXIV), FFXIV has the longest GCD and the most clunky combat. I don't know what was the design intent behind such a long recast time? Have you guys ever been stunned for 2.5s during combat? It feels like 2 hours. That's how it feels to sit there waiting for that 2.5s every skill. Even stacking Skill Speed + 13% from my buff only reduce it to 2seconds.

IMO, in terms of content, FFXIV is only behind WoW. In terms of graphics, it is only behind Black Desert, but in terms of combat it's really near last out of all the popular MMOs. FFXIII-3 and FFXV both had great and fluid combat, so why can't FFXIV after numerous expansions?

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1) Game is crossplay with console

2) Once you hit 80 you are working with alot of GCD needing to weave skills and job guages.

3) Black Desert is also pay to progress. -cough-

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

1) Game is crossplay with console

2) Once you hit 80 you are working with alot of GCD needing to weave skills and job guages.

3) Black Desert is also pay to progress. -cough-

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Plenty of console games are super fast paced, Devil May Cry, FFXV, FFXIII-3 just to name a few. Console really don't have problem with high quality combat. I already hit 80 last week.

Also that is one of the two reasons why I don't play Black Desert, the other being there's no content. However, I don't think there's any rules saying non-p2w games must have worse combat systems than p2w games.

As for those of you saying ah there's no such thing as 0 gcd because of physical limitations of how information gets transferred across the internet. 0 GCD is 0 GCD, just because physics won't allow it doesn't mean it's not 0 GCD, no need to argue semantics.

2,5 is fine, ff series was always turn based, 2,5 sec is your turn and your movement is unlimited by your turn

How are you still managing to ignore the fact that you have several OGCD's you use to weave between your GCD's?

You're not using an action every 2.5s, you're using as many as three actions in that time.

That's much faster than having a 1.5s GCD with no OGCDs.

Could OP please address the OGCD argument? Almost all dps jobs have many of those and the ones that don't have cast times where gcd doesn't feel that bad. The combat system is designed around weaving OGCD skills.

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Originally Posted by Xyr

Plenty of console games are super fast paced, Devil May Cry, FFXV, FFXIII-3 just to name a few. Console really don't have problem with high quality combat.

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Those games you listed are not online though so how combat works with those is not really the same as FFXIV. Although playing FFXV (Comrades) online would have it's fair share of actions not registering, players lagging etc, so it's not a perfect example of how to do combat.

You find something to do during GCDs, if you are just waiting for the recast and doing nothing it's no wonder you find fault with it. Use your entire toolkit for your job, eventually you might be complaining there isn't enough weaving!

I'd say OP give ninja a try and youd think the GCD was too short. All ninja openers/rotations require double weaving oGCD's.
But OP is just disregarding oGCD's argument.

weaving in oGCD's is on every job.

Didn't WoW remove all its oGCD abilities with the latest expansion? FFXIV still has them and having time to weave them, and sometimes double weave, is very nice. It feels a bit slower at first but when you get used to it, it's fine.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

Didn't WoW remove all its oGCD abilities with the latest expansion? FFXIV still has them and having time to weave them, and sometimes double weave, is very nice. It feels a bit slower at first but when you get used to it, it's fine.

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A handful of defensive utility cooldowns are oGCD, but everything else was on a 1.5s GCD. They've been gradually backpeddaling on it after maybe a year and a half of people telling them it was a terrible idea.