Character animations

Something I found annoying when I first started playing 14 was that they changed the character of many of the races.

On FFXI Mithra acted and moved in a very cat-like manner, their stances and animations were very different from every other race and gave them a wonderful character. On FFXIV Mi'quote are basically just human races with a fluffy tail and some ears, they have none of the magic mithra have.

Are there any plans to change this at some point and infact does anyone that still plays a mi'quote that played a mithra in XI see this as a bad thing?

All animations on characters where motion captured (captured in real life) which is why they all move similar. In ffxi the animations where all generated with computers.

I doubt this will change much at all. I see no major issue personally though, the character animations themselves are unmatched in my opinion.

I love the motion capture. And mithra in ffxi were very butch, Not really "cat-like". Plus some mithra stances for weapons wre a tad reduculous, like the batting stance with great katana, or the polearm stance that made them look like they was shoving the pole or staff up someones behind.

While I don't think this is much of a problem at all, they could look at adding some animations to make the mi'qote more ferral, I guess. They are a little plain.

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

While I don't think this is much of a problem at all, they could look at adding some animations to make the mi'qote more ferral, I guess. They are a little plain.

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Even using Motion capture, isn't there a cat stance in Kung Fu?

They worked pretty hard on the animations they have now, especially with the way you accelerate/decelerate and very fluidly turn and switch directions.

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Originally Posted by Rydin

Even using Motion capture, isn't there a cat stance in Kung Fu?

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tiger, and its more human look then you think. all your doing is making your hands in a "claw" shape.

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Originally Posted by gifthorse

While I don't think this is much of a problem at all, they could look at adding some animations to make the mi'qote more ferral, I guess. They are a little plain.

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mithra emote were plain to.... >.>

Miqo'te aren't mithra, I know a lot of people enjoy them the way they are rather than being 'feral' I don't see a reason to try and make it more like FFXI.

Currently characters don't have an idle emote. They just stand around in a vegetative state, so SE has the opportunity to give Mi'qote some interesting ones. And not just for Miqote either.

For me it seemed really silly to wholey copy all the races from FFXI but totally lose the character of the races they copied and make them all so generic, at least it means they can make animations easily portable to ALL races I guess. Sure they used motion capture but they have no character. Mi'quote are just a pretty human race with fluffy cat ears and a stuck on tail. To me it seems they used more expensive technology to animate the races and so just made them universal to all races to be cheap.

I'd take the work of a talented model animator over motion capture if like with FFXI they do a better job.

But it isn't a better job, if they transferred the motions from FFXI it would look awful on graphics this good. It looks ok on 10 year old graphics but it would look pants in XIV. I can see what you're saying about them not having too much character but I guess I'm not bothered about having things over the top; I already think they're pretty different. My Elezen is pretty stoic and refined, while the Miqo's are more playful and bouncy. I think idle animations is a good idea.

The only thing I've been having an issue with, and I'm not sure this is something that can be fixed easily due to the motion capture, but characters tend to move the same. In the market wards, it feels like I'm in a Michael Jackson music video.

Could there be different motion types for the races? Or at least give different idle motion, its freaky seeing the same shuffle.

Animations look great. I'd prefer if they were going to do more animation work with the existing races that they do something for casters. Every casting animation is identical (followed by a different color explosion).

and they can't talk

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Originally Posted by rainfish

Something I found annoying when I first started playing 14 was that they changed the character of many of the races.

On FFXI Mithra acted and moved in a very cat-like manner, their stances and animations were very different from every other race and gave them a wonderful character. On FFXIV Mi'quote are basically just human races with a fluffy tail and some ears, they have none of the magic mithra have.

Are there any plans to change this at some point and infact does anyone that still plays a mi'quote that played a mithra in XI see this as a bad thing?

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I really like how they are now. I was playing as a Mithra in FFXI and in FFXIV there are many "cute" emotes for the Miqo'te that are similar to anime cat girls. And, unlike FFXI, the races are mixed together in cities and throughout the world, so it is more natural to see that everyone has influenced everyone. Thus having Miqo'te more human than acting like bipedal cats, which makes sense. :o

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Originally Posted by Kallera

The only thing I've been having an issue with, and I'm not sure this is something that can be fixed easily due to the motion capture, but characters tend to move the same. In the market wards, it feels like I'm in a Michael Jackson music video.

Could there be different motion types for the races? Or at least give different idle motion, its freaky seeing the same shuffle.

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and why WHY does that shuffle have an audio component oh god.

I think the point the OP was making wasn't the fact that they aren't mithra but rather that ALL characters pretty much use the SAME animations and there's lil to no differences between racial animations here. Regardless of whether motion cap was used, just makes things that more dull and one more to add of the many MANY things that they didn't learn or take from 11. It's REALLY disappointing knowing that every single FF 14 race pretty much talks, acts, and moves the same way and the race is pretty much just a skin :S

On 11 each race acted and played different on top of having their own specific lore, you don't really get that sense in 14. So I agree with the OP in every sense that my Miqo feels like a fluffy human with a tail... its static and boring, some of us would like defining racial attributes. That being said, aside from the emote list (only diff aside from our "skin" between the races) there's much work that would need to be done to truly make these races seem unique and a definite preferred start is having racial + gender specific animations in battle. There was even difference in races and genders ability to perform ws's different (motion wise) in 11, weird as heck that my miqo jumps and swings weapons about in the same exact manner a Lala or Roe would...