The combat system still needs a lot of work.

[Transmigration]

Hey all, I just recently came back again after giving Legion a go. Great expansion, but the community in WoW is abysmal these days and overshadows all enjoyment I get from the game. I hadn't played FFXIV for a couple patches, so I'm finding all kinds of new stuff to do and having a great time.

One thing still bothers me though about this game. The combat and movement feels so terribly clunky, especially after spending a couple months in Azeroth again. The fluidity of CD usage and ZERO lag during combat and movement in WoW makes FFXIV feel insanely sluggish in comparison. FFXIV has become a superior game in a lot of ways and is in my opinion one of the best MMOs to date, it's just a shame that it's held back by this clunky combat system and laggy movement response.


Spending more resources and time on revamping it would have an immense impact on not only everyday casual gameplay, but raiding and PvP as well. I love PvP and have spent thousands of hours on it in Warcraft, but I cringe at the thought of it in FFXIV. It's not the map design or objectives, it's the combat. It just doesn't foster competitive game play at all.

I really feel like revisiting the combat and getting it perfected would draw a huge sector of the gaming community to this game and increase the funding for future development from a PvE and PvP standpoint. As long as the LoL community continues to stay away, we should be good.

This post is to try and get SE's attention drawn toward putting more work in to combat and reducing lag to the lowest possible, not to make the game more like WoW. I only used WoW as a comparison because in terms of fluidity and responsiveness, it is the king of the MMO world; I don't think anyone can dispute that whether you like the game or not.

Please thumbs up if you think this is an important issue and will improve the game.

*edit* I want to be clear on something. I'm in no way referring to the 2.5s GCD. With the complexity of rotations vs other mmos, this game can not have a 1s GCD.

Also, I was an avid player of FFXI from Zilart to WotG. So I don't have some skewed perception of what the pace of combat should be in a game. I loved FFXI, but this game's combat is designed to be more akin to modern MMOs and should respond to user input as a modern MMO does.

People are still reading this as a complaint about the GCD and speed of combat. My issue is with the responsiveness of actions and how they work with one another.

[Dreamsoap]

I agree. Everything about this game is amazing and I couldn't go back to other titles, but the combat really stood out for me in a bad way. It actually took me three trials to get hooked on the rest of the content to want to pay for a sub, otherwise I would have started playing last year. I personally think B&S has the best combat system I've ever played, but I understand FFXIV is nowhere near that style of game. I can only dream.

[CosmicKirby]

One thing still bothers me though about this game. The combat and movement feels so terribly clunky, especially after spending a couple months in Azeroth again. The fluidity of CD usage and ZERO lag during combat and movement in WoW makes FFXIV feel insanely sluggish in comparison. FFXIV has become a superior game in a lot of ways and is in my opinion one of the best MMOs to date, it's just a shame that it's held back by this clunky combat system and laggy movement response.
.

One counterpoint I can raise. Yes, there's a lot more fluidity in WoW's inputs. However, I feel there's no weight at all to any of the abilities in WoW. Everything goes so fast that even big hits fade into your next spam input. Combine this with very very bright coloring and effects and I can barely tell what's going on in a given fight in WoW, whereas I can usually tell what the rest of my party/raid is doing in FF14. Maybe this is just experience letting me differentiate one but not the other, but it's definitely a factor for me.

[SessionZero]

Eh, the combat moves at a decent enough pace for me. Between CDs and OGCD skills to supplement my GCD skills, combat moves at a pretty solid pace IMO. And I also played Legion at launch, enough to get two 110's. It's a bit frantic for me, but maybe I'm just an old man.

[Transmigration]

One counterpoint I can raise. Yes, there's a lot more fluidity in WoW's inputs. However, I feel there's no weight at all to any of the abilities in WoW. Everything goes so fast that even big hits fade into your next spam input. Combine this with very very bright coloring and effects and I can barely tell what's going on in a given fight in WoW, whereas I can usually tell what the rest of my party/raid is doing in FF14. Maybe this is just experience letting me differentiate one but not the other, but it's definitely a factor for me.

That was certainly true before Legion, but Blizzard somehow managed to add weight to the animations in the most recent expansion while maintaining the same level of speed and precision they had with the previous system. You should checkout what they did, it's pretty amazing.

[Croweyes]

I personally like how things feel in FFXIV's combat. Like CosmicKirby said, WoW has no weight to its skills and weapons. As a tank mainly I like how slow my swings are cause i'm waving around a big ass Two-hander Axe or Sword. Everything in WoW is overblown speed and " GRAAAAAAA FASTERFASTERFASTERRRRRR ". I like the " clunky " feel to it, its more down to earth.

[Wavaryen]

I was going to come and make a post about this, but I will here since I saw this.

I love the content, I enjoy the game. However, the combat is sooo bad for me. Here are key points for me.

1) How many DARN skills do you really need? I mean do people find this fun? After doing combat or even a dungeon I am drained.
2) Slow I mean it got better since I hit max level, but I feel very slow.

That is the main two points for me. This is the first mmo that I don't really care that I am good at the role I play. I just get by with what I do, and I know I blow because I am a summoner. I wanted it because I always enjoyed the pet classes and enjoy dots, but with pet skills+trance+aether+dots. I will gladly be called bad and just get by, because this game combat and class design is some of the worse.

Good thing this game has tons more things to do besides combat, but STILL combat is the main part..and I have found very few people who thought it was good.

[CosmicKirby]

That was certainly true before Legion, but Blizzard somehow managed to add weight to the animations in the most recent expansion while maintaining the same level of speed and precision they had with the previous system. You should checkout what they did, it's pretty amazing.

The animations ARE nice, but that's not what I mean.

I mean that my Swashbuckler's spam strike felt no different from my free pistol shot, ever. I mean that my big ol Cannon Barrage cooldown felt kinda lame and it happened and left as soon as it came. Arcane Blast felt as lame as ever. There's a few abilities that still feel nice and powerful and fun to use, like Killing Spree. But overall my rotation in that game just feels like it's going too fast and doing both too much and too little at the same time.
I'm not fully sure how to explain in, other than my Wildfire Rotation feels like a much slower and steady paced dance, my Outlaw Rogue's rotation felt like an erratic spamfest. I don't like the spamfest.

(Plus, comparatively FF14's rotations are much, MUCH more complex than Legion's)

[Derio]

Lol can you imagine if they doubled combat speed. The horror

[Wavaryen]

Lol can you imagine if they doubled combat speed. The horror

Cut back a good 60 percent of the skills. Combine some, make the skills have bigger impact, and It could be faster. I would not say double..but having this many skills is more tedious than fun.