Animation Upgrades

Lots of animations in this game feel really dated. Then there are others that get upgraded animations but only situationally.

I'd love to see all dated animations modernized and upgraded like chaotic spring and heaven's thrust were.

If we focus on dragoon specifically: I'd like to see raiden's thrust just replace true thrust outright, but only give increased potency and firstmind's focus if it is used after heaven's thrust. Same with draconian fury. Make it the base ability but have a combo action with coerthan torment that gives it increased potency and firstmind's focus.

Then there are the second links of each combo tree. These are just weak animations that always feel underwhelming to press. Then there are wheeling thrust + fang and claw. These animations feel extremely dated and they should be more satisfying to press yet never change from the moment you get them despite getting multiple potency increases from traits as you level.

If we look at other jobs the same picture can be painted. I would love to see all animations in the game become modernized and satisfying to press eventually.

edit: Upon closer inspection, they did upgrade the animations for disembowel and vorpal thrust lol.

To be fair, a lot of class animation look like an amatuer trying to use their weapon for the first time, especially if you pause frame by frame during GPose

Samurai probably has the worst skill animation ESPECIALLY if you compare SAM's animation to other video game features katana wielding protagonist such as...

MGS Revengeance
Raiden and Jetstream Sam

Nier Automata
2B

Sekiro Shadow Die Twice
Sekiro

Devil May Cry 3/4/5
Vergil

Especially when it come to a more traditional katana/kendo animation design, SAM's animation like an goofy adventure holding a katana for first time and decided to add as many flashy effect as possible to make up the amateurish animation, while Sekiro's animation is less flashy as FFXIV SAM, I will take Sekiro's Mortal Draw over SAM's Ogi-Namikiri any time and day

When I was levelling PLD for the first time, I thought that it was weird that my Rog broke his arm every time he did a simple sword thrust.

Can't say a ton for newer jobs, but for older classes, everything from HW-forward is pretty good. But those ARR animations are showing extreme age.

If they can change the Souleater animation, I'd be happy.

The "class-based" 123 skills that haven't been updated since ARR definitely need an upgrade, specially Warrior's. Glad Monk's finally getting those removed.

I wish elezen women got their animations tweaked. I would love to play one but the way they SNAP forcefully to their standing pose from movement just drives me insane and I can't stand seeing it.

Less umbrella poses/dances; more running and sprinting animations that we can cycle through. Let people choose to have elezen's "I'm strolling through the forest" run or a more assertive/normal run of an adventurer. It's like standing or sitting poses; running/sprinting options would give xiv a lot of value.

I Just want better casual running and Jumping animations/sounds for all races.

Oh and replace the DRK Sword holding running animation... its eye cancer.

I will agree they aren't the best but lets be real right now, they are still better than every other mmorpg out there.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Less umbrella poses/dances; more running and sprinting animations that we can cycle through. Let people choose to have elezen's "I'm strolling through the forest" run or a more assertive/normal run of an adventurer. It's like standing or sitting poses; running/sprinting options would give xiv a lot of value.

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YES! THIS!!! Having at least a few animation options, or even extending this, a few personality options to choose from when creating your character would be so helpful and would add so much diversity when you see everyone running around in zones instead of everyone having the same animations, would LOVE to see this!

wheeling thrust & fang and claw are some of the best animations in the game
true thrust is fine as it is since it sort of marks the start of the opener making it a rare unique animation and very very rarely get to see it more than once per fight unless you make a mistake

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Originally Posted by Zordrage

I Just want better casual running and Jumping animations/sounds for all races.

Oh and replace the DRK Sword holding running animation... its eye cancer.

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Sam with sword out run animation is worst in the game, darks not even close.

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Originally Posted by Zadood

To be fair, a lot of class animation look like an amatuer trying to use their weapon for the first time, especially if you pause frame by frame during GPose

Samurai probably has the worst skill animation ESPECIALLY if you compare SAM's animation to other video game features katana wielding protagonist such as...

MGS Revengeance
Raiden and Jetstream Sam

Nier Automata
2B

Sekiro Shadow Die Twice
Sekiro

Devil May Cry 3/4/5
Vergil

Especially when it come to a more traditional katana/kendo animation design, SAM's animation like an goofy adventure holding a katana for first time and decided to add as many flashy effect as possible to make up the amateurish animation, while Sekiro's animation is less flashy as FFXIV SAM, I will take Sekiro's Mortal Draw over SAM's Ogi-Namikiri any time and day

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Man, I can see what they were going for with SAM's animations. They're that very fantastical ACTION SLASH style choreography with lots of air time to suggest mobility and combat dynamics, but imo those airborne maneuvers really only work well when they are allowed some hang time with hit stop timing and dynamic camera angles and freeze frames to give them a bit of weight. With the speed of xiv's combat/rotations and how hits are received by enemies it just looks like someone LARPing in their yard with a $50 mall katana with all the short hops and oddly placed flourishes.
Personally, I prefer a more grounded SAM fighting style (both figurative and literal. Keep ur feet on the floor and use the entire earth under you to power ur swings pls!!)

A general change to combat animations I would like to see is a better blending of running/walking animations and the current attack you are preforming. The scooting in combat can look a little goofy.

Square enix should do something about interrupting Dancer's skill animations if they move any direction Specially their 1234 skills; the animations shouldn't cancel themselves if you move. I absolutely support what they did with Warrior's infuriate, you still see the full animation even if you move around or are already moving around.

I value skill animations when fighting than seeing myself cancel the animation just to run left/right/back/forward.

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Originally Posted by Azureskies01

Sam with sword out run animation is worst in the game, darks not even close.

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For some reason, CBU3 love SAM holding katana with both hand 24/7 even when not attacking.
The kendo stance animation is fine if WoL became SAM for the first time and within range of level50 to level70, or during meditation stance.

Even Akechi Mitsuhide, the most traditional and stereotyped samurai character from Koei Tecmo's Sengoku Musou series, don't hold his katana with both hand 24/7.

I've always thought that PLD's 1-2-3 look like auto-attacks lol

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Originally Posted by ZiraZ

wheeling thrust & fang and claw are some of the best animations in the game
true thrust is fine as it is since it sort of marks the start of the opener making it a rare unique animation and very very rarely get to see it more than once per fight unless you make a mistake

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They're both mid at best, the particle effects look umm.... undersaturated and extremely dated compared to the modern animations. It's like flare vs fire 4 on black mage. I hate casting flare because the animation feels so..... hollow? faded? dusty? I don't know the correct word but it just feels empty and weak compared to the newer animations that have substance to their particles. Wheeling thrust/fang and claw have the exact same dull empty particle effect. It's too translucent and not vibrant enough. Even geirskogul and nastrond could have their contrast and volume brought up a bit but I don't think those stand out enough to complain. They are extremely satisfying to use but still borderline dull and dated.

True thrust is fine until you realize that raiden thrust exists and it is 10000x cooler. There's no reason it can't just be baseline then get "combo heaven's thrust: receive 1 charge of firstmind's focus and additional potency".

I think nostalgia is something you value heavily maybe? Hard to say but we're not seeing the animations the same and I am pretty sure you just have bias. Playing with rose tinted glasses on.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

The "class-based" 123 skills that haven't been updated since ARR definitely need an upgrade, specially Warrior's. Glad Monk's finally getting those removed.

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Well, half of them anyway.

They should definitely update the running animation for midlander.

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

They're both mid at best, the particle effects look umm.... undersaturated and extremely dated compared to the modern animations. It's like flare vs fire 4 on black mage. I hate casting flare because the animation feels so..... hollow? faded? dusty? I don't know the correct word but it just feels empty and weak compared to the newer animations that have substance to their particles. Wheeling thrust/fang and claw have the exact same dull empty particle effect. It's too translucent and not vibrant enough. Even geirskogul and nastrond could have their contrast and volume brought up a bit but I don't think those stand out enough to complain. They are extremely satisfying to use but still borderline dull and dated.

True thrust is fine until you realize that raiden thrust exists and it is 10000x cooler. There's no reason it can't just be baseline then get "combo heaven's thrust: receive 1 charge of firstmind's focus and additional potency".

I think nostalgia is something you value heavily maybe? Hard to say but we're not seeing the animations the same and I am pretty sure you just have bias. Playing with rose tinted glasses on.

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not everything needs vfx particle vomit like reaper, WT and F&C are flashy animations that make the character do really cool moves without looking excessive or way over the top
changing these 3 spells seems like extra work for no reason when time could be invested into other things that need it a whole lot more, and I don't know what nostalgia and rose tinted glasses means in this context when the spell animations exist right now and for DT, so that doesn't even apply

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Originally Posted by Rekh

The "class-based" 123 skills that haven't been updated since ARR definitely need an upgrade, specially Warrior's. Glad Monk's finally getting those removed.

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What Monk need was not VFX galore upgrade, but rather animation and hitting sound upgrade.

Bootshine only need hitting sound upgrade.
True Strike and Snap Punch only need animation and hitting sound upgrade and add a little VFX to make hitting feedback loop better.

CBU3 honestly can learn a thing or two from Tekken 8 character when it come to fist and leg attack animation.

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Originally Posted by ZiraZ

not everything needs vfx particle vomit like reaper, WT and F&C are flashy animations that make the character do really cool moves without looking excessive or way over the top
changing these 3 spells seems like extra work for no reason when time could be invested into other things that need it a whole lot more, and I don't know what nostalgia and rose tinted glasses means in this context when the spell animations exist right now and for DT, so that doesn't even apply

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I didn't say it should be as flashy or dense as reaper. Just a little bit more polished than it is now. The worst offenders in dragoon were already updated in dawntrail though so it's not too big of a deal.

You are wilding if you think that wheeling thrust/fang and claw are some of the best animations in the game though. Vorpal thrust and disembowel have better animations now in dawntrail lol. Chaotic spring and heaven's thrust are both 1000% better too. They're supposed to be our combo finishers I just think they should have slightly more impact and presence than they currently do. I think their impact is not even the problem, just the presence of the particles is not there and it's kinda cheesy the way fang and claw plays out. The weapon itself does a single diagonal upswing and from that comes out 3 particle blade waves that look dated and are on different angles than the weapon's swing, then the weapon chains into a thrust that spawns a burst of lightning and weak feeling scaled serpents that fizzle forward and fade away.

The nostalgia and rose tinted glasses in this context means, you are attached to something you've played with for a very long time and feel fond of because you're so used to it. It's human nature to resist change when you're used to something for so long.

Wheeling thrust is pretty good but I'd like to see the serpent particles have more presence or vibrancy or something. At least wheeling thrust's animation matches what the weapon does though. Fang and claw is so bad.

Keeping true thrust a button at all instead of replacing it with raiden thrust and giving it the combo effect I described is like "throwback to level 1.... member being level 1 lancer? wasn't that coool? gridania forest? heh. I member that"

It's a bad animation. It's a level 1 animation. It is infinitely less satisfying than raiden thrust. Even the icon of true thrust makes me sick compared to raiden thrust. It's the same thing with aoe. We get this generic lancer weapon icon, and it upgrades into this awesome icon with gae bolg.

In particular older run/idle animations for older jobs look much worse to me than more recent job. For me own prefered classes Paladin has a bowlegged run animation, and White Mage run/idle animation looks stiff and awkward.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

In particular older run/idle animations for older jobs look much worse to me than more recent job. For me own prefered classes Paladin has a bowlegged run animation, and White Mage run/idle animation looks stiff and awkward.

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I kinda wish there is an "evolved" version of job animation, not just skill animation, but also animation of weapon drawn, animation of walking and running with weapon drawn.

NIN is kinda like that, before became NIN, Rogue/Thief has a more "Assassin from Assassin's Creeds" animation of running and walking with dagger drawn.

Then when became NIN, the animation walking and running with dagger drawn changed into more NIN like. Not to mention jump animation with dagger drawn changed too.

CBU3 please, a max level WoL is a seasoned, experienced fighter, there is absolutely zero reason why a max level WoL has a combat animation of a level 1 WoL or a WoL that just newly introduced to their jobs/class.

Just update change most job's 123 combo rotation with a different one when a WoL's class has reached max level.

And also, please add animation glamour as well, in case there are some folk who prefer an older animation over the newer one, especially Machinist.

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Originally Posted by Azureskies01

Sam with sword out run animation is worst in the game, darks not even close.

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Sam sword out runing animation looks cool in my opinion. are we talking about the same thing ? because im talking about when you press the Sprint/Run skill.
When you press the Sprint/Run skill DRKs look like the are about to fall over their sword... EVERY single asian MMO can make 2h Weapons look awesome when you run with it.. then you have FFxiv where DRK cant even hold it properly...

Its literally eye cancer how it looks.

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Originally Posted by Zordrage

Sam sword out runing animation looks cool in my opinion. are we talking about the same thing ? because im talking about when you press the Sprint/Run skill.
When you press the Sprint/Run skill DRKs look like the are about to fall over their sword... EVERY single asian MMO can make 2h Weapons look awesome when you run with it.. then you have FFxiv where DRK cant even hold it properly...

Its literally eye cancer how it looks.

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Nah, there's walk, run and sprint.
Walk is fine. Sprint is cool. Run is really awkward looking

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Originally Posted by Zordrage

Sam sword out runing animation looks cool in my opinion. are we talking about the same thing ? because im talking about when you press the Sprint/Run skill.

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I m pretty sure he refer to the non-sprint run animation like Rean from Trail of Cold Steel I, which look like a beginner Samurai try too hard to impress others.

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Originally Posted by Zordrage

EVERY single asian MMO can make 2h Weapons look awesome when you run with it.. then you have FFxiv where DRK cant even hold it properly...

Its literally eye cancer how it looks.

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The thing is, most combat animation of FFXIV looks sucks compared to other asian MMO. Not just DRK, but caster animation looks bad too compared to other asian MMO as well.
Bard from what I seen, is the only job animation is great so far.

It's also does not help that some FFXIV combat animation is pretty gender based which can make some animation look bad if your character looks lean heavily on either masculine or feminine.

For example,
Male Roe/Au'ra holding WHM cane
Fem Au'ra/Miqo'te holding GNB gunblade

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Originally Posted by Zordrage

Sam sword out runing animation looks cool in my opinion. are we talking about the same thing ? because im talking about when you press the Sprint/Run skill.
When you press the Sprint/Run skill DRKs look like the are about to fall over their sword... EVERY single asian MMO can make 2h Weapons look awesome when you run with it.. then you have FFxiv where DRK cant even hold it properly...

Its literally eye cancer how it looks.

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run animation =/= sprint animation.

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Originally Posted by Zadood

CBU3 please, a max level WoL is a seasoned, experienced fighter, there is absolutely zero reason why a max level WoL has a combat animation of a level 1 WoL or a WoL that just newly introduced to their jobs/class.

Just update change most job's 123 combo rotation with a different one when a WoL's class has reached max level.

And also, please add animation glamour as well, in case there are some folk who prefer an older animation over the newer one, especially Machinist.

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Animation glamour would be perfect, I support this.