Quote Originally Posted by Tenku View Post
Watch the video: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/13462

Now count how long it takes for actions to occur AFTER the player has pressed the hotkeys on the bar. It takes at least a second or two for the actions to occur. Look at how long it takes the player to get into battle mode and engage the mob. In fact, there's such a delay that the player is GLIDING to the mob while engaging. It is not seamless and fluid. I understand you're a hardcore FF fan, but so am I. It doesn't mean everything about the game is perfect just because it's called Final Fantasy. I'm pretty sure that over 70% of the player base that they lost agrees with me. Keep defending it as much as you like, but a bad game is a bad game. I'm still here because I have hope for it and I hope that they make it better.
For one thing, the new animations will not be implemented in 1.18, but 1.19. So it will look goofy at first. And the video is a system cobbled onto the old animations rather than the complete system with all new animations.

For another, you make an assumption in your initial post that the delay is intentional. I believe it's not intentional and is a consequence of poor network responsiveness, as all commands have to bounce to the servers and back before they engage. It's been discussed elsewhere that the UI is server-side rather than client-side, which other games don't do because it causes severe performance issues.