Some attention to most annoying combat(or UI?) design flaws please.

So many of you probably experienced important instant cooldowns not going off in one click or some abilities not activating for short periods of time after using instant off gcd skill.
Those hidden cooldows might be very short from 0.5 sec to 1sec but when it comes to challenging content, not being able to pop up defensive cooldown in time might mean a wipe. I am sure at least some tanks will agree.

So either fix the abilities to go off when button is pushed, or fix the UI to represent what is actually available for use and when.

For those who don't understand what I am talking about please watch this video which might give you an idea: http://youtu.be/IgjjWCqOWmw
Please like this bug report and let's get it fixed: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...02#post1230402


p.s. I've just missed Behemoth FATE while making videos for this bug report :/

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Originally Posted by Nayto

If you read Tirioncrey's guide to tanking, you already know to make it a habit to buff yourself in-between weaponskills rather than all at once. Then again I'm already used to factoring in start-up times, for instant abilities frame-counting, so I guess there's some bias in that statement.
Heck that's probably the sole reason I don't use macros ever because doing it yourself gives you half-a-second advantage.

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Working around it is not the solution. And animation cooldown working as intended does not explain why the UI has to be inconsistent whit what is actually happening.

If you read Tirioncrey's guide to tanking, you already know to make it a habit to buff yourself in-between weaponskills rather than all at once. Then again I'm already used to factoring in start-up times, for instant abilities frame-counting, so I guess there's some bias in that statement.

Heck that's probably the sole reason I don't use macros ever because doing it yourself gives you half-a-second advantage.

You are totally missing the point, the problem is UI inconsistency with what is actually happening.

Happens to me on BLM all the time.
+1

I brought this up in beta and it was largely ignored. Yes, this gets on my nerves as well. I'll sit there and spam click buffs between weapon skills but half the time some of them don't even go off. Very frustrating.

I have a theory on this. People keep saying "hidden cooldown" but I don't believe that is what this is. First, understand that every time you press a hotbutton, the signal is sent to the server to "do this ability".

I believe that in order to prevent players from killing the server with rapid button mashing / spamming, the devs have setup something in either the client or server, that causes the game to disregard excess button presses for a brief period after using one.

If they got rid of this, the server would likely lag and crash because of people who can't just press a button once.

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Originally Posted by Synra

I have a theory on this. People keep saying "hidden cooldown" but I don't believe that is what this is. First, understand that every time you press a hotbutton, the signal is sent to the server to "do this ability".

I believe that in order to prevent players from killing the server with rapid button mashing / spamming, the devs have setup something in either the client or server, that causes the game to disregard excess button presses for a brief period after using one.

If they got rid of this, the server would likely lag and crash because of people who can't just press a button once.

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I tend to agree with most people who say this is due to animation of previous skill is still being played, if SE want their combat to feel clunky by having that kind of animation "cooldowns" it is their decision, but UI should represent that nonetheless.

Agree with OP. It's really annoying, not only for tanking but other jobs too. For instance, take blm. I pop swiftcast but need to wait 1-2 for it actually 'apply' because if I start casting as soon as I hit it I actually have a cast time for my next spell. The one after that I won't have a cast time. Stuff like raging strikes should be one click right after a spell and not block me from chaining my attacks. It's almost worthless to use when it cuts down your dps so much. Doing pld right now and I find myself constantly spamming a gcd skill with the key and a non gcd skill with the mouse.

Edit: the swiftcast can probably be classified as unresponsiveness, but the other two examples work

This also applies to SMN, if you cast all 3 dots Bio 2 > miasma > bio then pop fester instantly the dmg will be the same as if you had 2/3 of the DoTs on with the final one not counting even though you just applied them all. Basically, you end up having to wait for the final DoT to actually apply which takes 1-2s it seems.

Happens to me all the time on BLM. I have times where firestarter will proc but it won't tell me it proced until i am 95% done casting the next fire 1. Pretty annoying if you ask me.

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Originally Posted by complexxL9

Working around it is not the solution. And animation cooldown working as intended does not explain why the UI has to be inconsistent whit what is actually happening.

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I mean, working around it might be the solution. The intention may very well be to prevent popping multiple cooldowns at the same time without "losing time." I do, however, agree with your assessment that the tooltip for the ability should reflect how long that animation is going to be, especially if it's instant. It's pretty deceptive for it to claim to be instant and be off the global cooldown, but yet subject to the animation. I've gotten to "feeling out" how long it will take for a certain ability to finish triggering, but I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be outright stated.

Well they put it into "working as intended" category.. that is just like saying "we intend to confuse you with how the UI informs about skills available for use" can't wrap my head around it...

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Originally Posted by Synra

I have a theory on this. People keep saying "hidden cooldown" but I don't believe that is what this is. First, understand that every time you press a hotbutton, the signal is sent to the server to "do this ability".

I believe that in order to prevent players from killing the server with rapid button mashing / spamming, the devs have setup something in either the client or server, that causes the game to disregard excess button presses for a brief period after using one.

If they got rid of this, the server would likely lag and crash because of people who can't just press a button once.

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That theory makes no sense. Why then do other MMOs not have this issue?

This is the first legit "combat flawed" thread I've come across. I know exactly what you mean, its almost an animation lock. For example on my WAR I have a combo I use where I do "Heavy Swing" then "Skull Sunder" and they are tied on cooldown so while that cooldown comes a second time I use "Brutal Swing" as a lead in to "Butcher Block". Even though the cooldown never shows up for "Brutal Swing" I have to wait a few seconds before I can click on it.

This is not a huge deal as long as you are aware of it but a quick "true" global cooldown would be nice. Not something to rage over but something that could be worth bringing to the Dev's attention for future patches or hotfixes.

As a warrior I have noticed this, but it doesn't bother me. I've gotten used to it. E.g. I could be in the middle of rotation and Vengenance comes up which is an instant active and it won't click. But if I wait for my current character animation to finish or come to a close I can click it.

I think the root problem here is that the character animations do not completely allow overlap. So if an ability has an animation and one is in progress you can't use it until the one in progress has reached a certain completion percentage. I find that I can cast a new one about 3/4 of the way through a current one, do to the delay and that they overlap a little, but not completely.

There is a slight aftercast after every ability at least that's what I've noticed, even for things that are off the GCD.

It's really annoying when you want to pop reactive abilities like Sentinel, Convalescence, Hallowed Ground, etc and it goes off 0.5 seconds too late.