Climbing & Swimming

[Chiramu]

yeah , loved climbing in other mmorpgs (eq2, archeage...) , same goes for swimming , sooo many posibilities underwater

"Climbing"? Do you mean jumping up on weird places and "climbing" onto higher things? Climbing sounds more like it would be super clunky in an MMO, the jumping up on things works better, plus flying mounts are coming out in the expansion so it's not like we will need climbing.

Swimming brings in other issues, like UNDERWATER BATTLES. Those are completely broken and the "breath" percentage is completely dumb in a RPG.

[Alukah]

Swimming brings in other issues, like UNDERWATER BATTLES. Those are completely broken and the "breath" percentage is completely dumb in a RPG.

You should check out how Guild Wars 2 implemented underwater combat, excluding certain balance issues with certain classes they did it very well.

[Azper]

I would LOVE to be able to go swimming. I feel like EVERY other MMORPG out there has it, but in FFXIV it is bizarrely absent. The beaches of Costa del Sol and the Mist are just taunting me with those waters.

[kyuven]

I feel like EVERY other MMORPG out there has it

While some games do something with it, I really have to point out that MMOs with swimming mechanics fall into 3 different categories:
1) It's just like fighting on the ground, except with a breath meter and 3 dimensional movement. Boring.
2) It's a completely different experience (very few MMOs do this since it requires basically building two completely different combat systems.
3) Similar to #1, but has more physics in play than just the breath meter. The most infamous example is probably the original EverQuest. While underwater, you were subject to 3D movement but with "ice" slide mechanics, so if you got hit it was an automatic interrupt.

The key thing here is the games that had it, had it since the beginning. There's a lot of work and testing that goes into to to ensure you don't have people swimming above the water. The amount of work required basically ensures that, if it's not there at launch, it'll never be there.

Climbing on the other hand is a lot easier (comparatively) to implement, but don't expect it any time soon.

[Haprimac]

The swimming wouldn't even need to be of going underwater. Just you know, being able to move past ankle/knee-deep water. :S Those invisible walls drive me nuts. And the fact that to swim, you have to sit. Like... Who sits in a swimming pool or a hot spring? Well, I guess some do, but you know what I mean...

Back in beta I was hoping that you could slip and die in Tam-Tara for moving too far, but the walls made sure you didn't have any risk. Not to mention it'd be funny on WHM to knockback mobs into the abyss.

[kyuven]

Who sits in a swimming pool or a hot spring?

The entire country of Japan, actually. Most hot springs are specifically designed to be sat in. Nekkid.
The hot springs in the game are accurate to what they're like in Japan. Which makes sense since the people who designed it probably have regularly gone to at least one.

[Aussir]

Never understood the desire for climbing...all that amounts to is walking into a ladder and going up as if it were a set of stairs. That or the classic "click the ladder and autoclimb" mechanic. Swimming could be interesting but NOT for combat. BRDs certainly couldn't fight and swim...imagine treading water without the use of your arms and trying to fire arrows. Or better...imagine trying to fire arrows underwater. WARs and DRGs wouldn't be able to wield their weapons in any meaningful way though at least DRGs could still kind of be able to poke things. Nevermind that the armor would cause PLD WAR and DRG at least to sink like stones...

Hello... this is a fantasy game.

I've seen plenty or underwater fight going in games, just got to RIFT for example or Dungeon&Dragons Online.

If you want to go by reality, you can start getting rid of all our "armors" as half of them wouldn't stop a fly or would kill us as soon as we moved because of all the spikes that go into all kinds of wrong places when we move.

Please keep reality out of this, thank you.

[Haprimac]

The entire country of Japan, actually. Most hot springs are specifically designed to be sat in. Nekkid.
The hot springs in the game are accurate to what they're like in Japan. Which makes sense since the people who designed it probably have regularly gone to at least one.

True, true. I realised my mistake only awhile after writing, but was too lazy to edit. I guess I should've wrote "swimming pool or sea water" or somesuch. Like, people running about in swimming suits in Costa can only sit in the water instead swimming. ^^ Best part is that you can't go further than knee-deep (or ankle if you're a roe like me) water so the lalafell won't drown. x')

[RyujinUzikin]

I was surprised when I first got into this game how I couldn't swim, this is just one of those things that need to come from launch, this is just sad.

[Kingmanath]

Or it could be an hability related to a job : when we want to fish we could swin and go under the sea to find a famous fish ^^