Graphical upgrade is great and all that. But... Gameplay ? Animations ? It's Linked.

But with due respect to everything else ...When do we see an uprade to this slightly dated combat system and it's animations, not allowing for much more reactivity while skating on ice during "none-root motion of the lower part body" If anything, 1.0 part of it's "spirit" was aiming for something that looked like a part "medieval" combat simulator, part turn by turn system, but it had it's lower body root motion simulation and dependancy of what does the upper body pretty on point (when the game wasn't laggy from it's intertwinement system blunders of functions and code piled on each other making it feel sluggish 80% of the time, and it was botched, the combat system was clunkey and botched, not because of this root motion to influence of the upper body part on what does the lower body, but a whole set of spaghetts.).

Plenty of games have this lower body root motion of feets adapting to the direction you walk to with slightly added adaptation to speed and whatnot (and a bunch of them do it really nicely), in ffxiv it happens that in some animations during combat you have it, but... but in a lot of other animations, the whole body has a "set" and locked animation that will not WANT to adapt to your movement and stay stuck in ice skating mode, making it a lil harder to really appreciate momentum but also to figure out where your mass of center, or just "true" center for true location pin pointing, is.

A much more defined situation of where and what your feet are at, at this very moment changes a lot in terms of precision of not only your actual "real" location (and not an approximate by measurement made by your own eyes about where your middle point may be) But also a slight de-coupling of what the upper body does with skills and what the lower body does to keep the character steady (aka having slight sidesteps of heels and feets readjusting for heavier swings, as a drk, adds so much more visual impact and is a nice touch) helps visually to feel more weight to attacks, but also this de-coupling of animations would also allow to entirely remove skill and abilities "lock ins" of attack animations that freezes the entire body, resolving 3 issues with one stone.

Because SURELY if we get more detail and finesse visually, the systems like combat and animations need to follow for homogeneity of this upgrade, i don't see SE being the professionnals that they are not getting some serious buiseness in areas that really matters also for upgrading the gameplay ?

Well they did say they'll update animations as well. We just don't know if it's character movement animations or more.

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Originally Posted by Starshower

Well they did say they'll update animations as well. We just don't know if it's character movement animations or more.

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When Yoshi P said (in the interview about questions picked) he doesn't understand what players are talking about with ogcd's interfering sometimes with gcd's animations for around 0.5 seconds , he knows full well "full body motion" animations like throwing a potion or eating food "while" combat, are interfering with combat animations so much because it's "full body" and not "root motion" adaptable and flexible animations that would still allow for a natural flow of any other skills "smoothed" and faded in the following attack animation.

I have this very obvious example of pot and food while combat taking"host" of the ALL body animation and taking it hostage for like 0.5 to 1 sec for food but, but but we have this for a lot of OGCD's just messing up GCD's activations for the same "full or mostly full body lock in animation", because of non decoupling and non fade in and fade out interpolation of these animations in between themselves and these fade in fade out animations are not "next gen" it's already current to past gen. So when Yoshi P plays innocent by not knowing what people talk about, i have a hard time believing it, because he also plays, he does savage, he can only know it and see it if noobs like me understand it and can feel it very much.

I'm somewhat of a /gpose fanatic... love the feature... and i'm withholding judgement on this graphical update til they show us full characters. While better lighting and textures are nice, like OP, I've noticed a lot of body jank over the years while taking screenshots mid animation. Particularly at the elbows and ankles (all joints can be sus, but those two points are the most egregious). Some of these things probably gonna require a few more triangles to fix rather than a shiny new coat of paint.

I honestly have no idea what you're on about. I was recently talking to a buddy at work about how impressed I was with how my YoRHa dress responds to my movements while playing DNC. Granted, I played FF games when they were 8-bit, and picked up FFXIV after being away from gaming for two generations of consoles. I suppose my standards are just much lower than newer gamers.

What should be clear though, is that they strive to make improvements to many of the game's features. I can't offer any assurances that they have updates to the combat system and animations in mind, especially when right now they are more concerned with the game's overall aesthetic. That being said, animations would likely be the next thing that does get some attention. The combat system is something else entirely. They've basically set their feet on the design changes that came with ShB, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

1.0 had much better animations, beautiful ones that gave me the illusion of characters being more realistic.


I wish they would bring back those original animations along with much higher polygon-count models, including thighs, elbows, knees, hands and feet for a much better look and overall game experience.


It might have not been possible before because of hardware limitations as no one seemed to have enough graphics power to move the game but things have changed and GPUs are more powerful now and should allow for an increased quality.

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Originally Posted by Katt_Felista

When Yoshi P said (in the interview about questions picked) he doesn't understand what players are talking about with ogcd's interfering sometimes with gcd's animations for around 0.5 seconds , he knows full well "full body motion" animations like throwing a potion or eating food "while" combat, are interfering with combat animations so much because it's "full body" and not "root motion" adaptable and flexible animations that would still allow for a natural flow of any other skills "smoothed" and faded in the following attack animation.

I have this very obvious example of pot and food while combat taking"host" of the ALL body animation and taking it hostage for like 0.5 to 1 sec for food but, but but we have this for a lot of OGCD's just messing up GCD's activations for the same "full or mostly full body lock in animation", because of non decoupling and non fade in and fade out interpolation of these animations in between themselves and these fade in fade out animations are not "next gen" it's already current to past gen. So when Yoshi P plays innocent by not knowing what people talk about, i have a hard time believing it, because he also plays, he does savage, he can only know it and see it if noobs like me understand it and can feel it very much.

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You're eating food and drinking a potion in combat, of course it will take time to do. It shouldn't be instant.

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Originally Posted by Starshower

Well they did say they'll update animations as well-

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Fingers crossed for unique death animations.

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Originally Posted by SigmaOZ

1.0 had much better animations, beautiful ones that gave me the illusion of characters being more realistic.


I wish they would bring back those original animations along with much higher polygon-count models, including thighs, elbows, knees, hands and feet for a much better look and overall game experience.


It might have not been possible before because of hardware limitations as no one seemed to have enough graphics power to move the game but things have changed and GPUs are more powerful now and should allow for an increased quality.

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Same here, I love how smooth and fluid character animations were in 1.0

However this cant be replicated anymore because back then, the combat was slow enough to allow those animations flow with the tempo of battle but in current game you have to take into account at the more snappier and quicker pace of battle flow that having smoother animations or in this case more frames would make the visual flow extremely jarring. Its a technique I see in fighting games where character models dont fully animate every single motion because they need to follow with the player's button presses and thus resort to instead make each character's "key poses" stand out to still sell the animation of an attack while not worrying about animation locks, which is probably the reason why this game is like that now.

Granted we could use more motion capturing in cutscenes or at least in very important scenes. THATS what I missed the most from 1.0, not the gameplay animations but the smoother cutscene animations between characters and the superior camera work.

All i want is the ability to take off my boots without the magical sandals appearing.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

You're eating food and drinking a potion in combat, of course it will take time to do. It shouldn't be instant.

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In WoW your character has to sit on the ground to eat/drink. :p At least we can move here after use, though damage suffers for a couple of seconds.

I hope they decide to fix the Au Ra run animation.

i think theres a middle ground to be found here. things like eating food shouldnt be done during combat anyway, but other 1.0 things like leaning into your turns and unique death animations would be wonderful.

Agreed, cut-scenes in 1.0 were smoother and much better, even movie-like.


I don't see a reason why that type of movement couldn't be brought back, let's keep things separated between "combat movement" and "non-combat movement", all I want is my character to move more naturally outside of combat, just like they did in 1.0.


They can keep the current movements for battle and may even improve on it without affecting the combat, they can even neglect the potions' animations just like when used while running, there's no animation for them.

Sadly all they can do is a face lift. They can't upgrade animations or even fix clipping problem. Don't forget they use some really strange engine.

I'd honestly be happy if they gave semi-unique stances and combat animations to each race. FFXI had each race and gender hold their weapons and do weapon skills in varying stances and with tweaks to the base animations to give them variety and in my opinion more life.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

You're eating food and drinking a potion in combat, of course it will take time to do. It shouldn't be instant.

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It taking time is fine, it being so ping dependant is not. Animation lock in this game is very strange where it's both client side and then again server side, leading to situations where you cant play MCH on on anything but low ping without heavily clipping and drifting. Yet that's something SE refuses to even acknowledge. Of course less of a problem in a country like japan with mostly great internet connection infrastructure but the world is larger than that of course.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

You're eating food and drinking a potion in combat, of course it will take time to do. It shouldn't be instant.

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The problem is it's not tied only to eating or poting while fighting, as i said earlier, it's a whole animation codes and techniques problem that permiates even into skills, ogcd's, that are using overlaps / layers of priorities over other animations that are ment to be more flexible / can be "interpolated" into each others, there are types of animations of ogcd's that prevent to use a GCD right after for more then half a second, some of these are tied to how the animation system takes "host" of the whole character's anims from head to toe, locking this character in it's animation until completion before you are even allowed to activate the next skill. But root motion animations mix - matches between gcd's and ogcd's are also a big problem if you don't allow both of them to smoothly interpolate into each other to prevent this "lock" / hard "stop" before you can activate your gcd.

From the shader updates and slight reach for stylized subtle semi graphical realism, how some of the characters still behave in combat, it feels like they allways wanted some of the 1.0 animation / "fantasy" simulation kinda into the game, so adding back root motion systems for lower body/ legs and heels/feet with weight adaptation to swings would make it that step closer to homogeneity with graphic fidelity they are aiming/ going for.

Even tho players are probably not asking for an "overhaul" of the whole system, even tho there are areas that are lacking, and combat could be transformed into something much more dynamic / nervous, especially in ARR , the combat system is a bit of a bore, or something seen and seen and seen again and again and you are still waiting for a bunch of ogcd's to pop to be fillers of your boredom in combat, especially in ARR. But at least make it look like character movement has a bit more sense , and nice weight when characters move around using their heavy hitting skills. Add impact, add the gravitas / severity of it, without impeding at all on the character's movement speed.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Same here, I love how smooth and fluid character animations were in 1.0

However this cant be replicated anymore because back then, the combat was slow enough to allow those animations flow with the tempo of battle but in current game you have to take into account at the more snappier and quicker pace of battle flow that having smoother animations or in this case more frames would make the visual flow extremely jarring. Its a technique I see in fighting games where character models dont fully animate every single motion because they need to follow with the player's button presses and thus resort to instead make each character's "key poses" stand out to still sell the animation of an attack while not worrying about animation locks, which is probably the reason why this game is like that now.

Granted we could use more motion capturing in cutscenes or at least in very important scenes. THATS what I missed the most from 1.0, not the gameplay animations but the smoother cutscene animations between characters and the superior camera work.

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I was waiting for someone to bring this again. I blame certain youtube videos made by people who didn't even play during 1.X themselves.

This is only true to action animations, the extra detail to the walk/run/stop animations did not prevent delay or lock you in place when it came to just running around. The combat slowed you down with weapons sheathed, but that was already not going to be a thing in ARR's new combat system. The only thing that stopped them from keeping the visual momentum in how characters move was the arbitrary design decision they took. And it's not like they don't have access to the animations already implemented. They're still used all the time in cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

You're eating food and drinking a potion in combat, of course it will take time to do. It shouldn't be instant.

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They should make it instant in combat, but with a % chance for your character to start choking and incapacitate themselves.

Joking aside, I'm sure it's fine as it is. No need to overoptimize.

A lot of the animations definitely feel a bit stiff.
I went back to Au'Ra and the animations are so much smoother imo than on Highlander and Elezen.
It changes how it feels to play a lot my character kinda just feels more responsive.

7.0 is about 2 years out and you're expecting them to give you all the possible things they will work on this far out when they almost undoubtedly don't have anything to show you yet even if they wanted to? Show a little patience.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

It taking time is fine, it being so ping dependant is not. Animation lock in this game is very strange where it's both client side and then again server side, leading to situations where you cant play MCH on on anything but low ping without heavily clipping and drifting. Yet that's something SE refuses to even acknowledge. Of course less of a problem in a country like japan with mostly great internet connection infrastructure but the world is larger than that of course.

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I don't think I ever experienced any problem but I don't drink tinctures or whatever in the middle of combat, just the initial food buff at the beginning if it has ran out. I don't see a purpose to food buffs in the middle of a fight since the party is either familiar with the fight or they're not. I do use echo drops and other potions though and I never had issues. The game ping is steady at 68/69 and never 70 or above. I'm not saying what you're experiencing doesn't exist, I have played BDO and animation lock is part of what killed that game so I understand how horrible it can be.

I do miss being able to butt drift using animation bugs though.

There are also some limitations with not having a physics engine (like Microsoft's Havok or Nvidia PhysX), as YoshiP mentioned clipping can't be prevented without one, as you need some sort of collision detection to determine things like hair #50 is colliding with that chest piece and model. Imagine real explosions and changes not in a cut scene, or handling real items in NPCs hands instead of empty things. They could sort of 'cheat' by simulating collision and animations calculations, like a template for these scenarios so the client and servers don't have to do complicated math for X amount of players at the same time. That's the main reason why they don't have such an engine, a lot of effort for little benefit but I can imagine once they get past the graphics dev cycle, it could be in a roadmap especially in a 10 year plan and if they really want to blow the lids off and make it a complete FF experience.

Updated animations are already making it into the game. When I put away my WHM cane in the new cutscenes or duty complete scene at the end of an instance, it’s a much smoother and more natural animation. It’s not used outside of CS though, I wish it was but not yet.