Impactful Attacks

[VanilleFang]

I can't say I've particularly noticed any particular lack of impact, when it comes to sounds. Personally, I'd like to see more pronounced stagger effects on pc's. Like, an attack that deals 2/3 of the pc's HP bar in damage caused them to take a few steps back, or knocks them down to one knee.

Stone III sounds like it obliterates anything it is cast on, so I kind of have to agree with you.

[Atoli]

It does not feel to me as if the impact of my skills is too weak, but then again, I hear a big explosion and see a giant fireball and a really big dent in the opponent's HP with each Fire IV, so yeah

For classes like my NIN, BRD or lately MNK I do not expect them to have crazy sounds or animations. Shooting an arrow or punching with my bare fist SHOULD not sound and look the same as if I just threw a bomb at the boss.

[basketofseals]

I've said this ever since beta. In 1.23 everything skill you used felt like it had power and impacted the battle. But since beta that's disappeared.

The problem is skills are spammed and there ridicously weak. Even an open world trash mobs an take a dozen plus skills to kill. A monster so weak it could beat on you for several minutes and still not dent your hp.

Why does it take so many of your skills to kill something so weak... only further emphasises the lack of power or weight they have.

To this day I still say the 1.23 attlee system was a lot better than what we have now

Can you name any skills in particular? I don't recall any of the elemental spells having that much wait, and iirc the PLD skills are the exact same ones we have now just slowed down. I do miss that fire blade attack though.

[Ralts]

Most sword attacks sound like we're sharpening a knife

[Dzian]

Can you name any skills in particular? I don't recall any of the elemental spells having that much wait, and iirc the PLD skills are the exact same ones we have now just slowed down. I do miss that fire blade attack though.

I'm gonna say everything basically. the battle system as a whole had more weight to it. some skills just emphasised it more.

the problem here is that you're pressing so many buttons and they all have such similar effects that combat feels nothing more than a glorifed auto attack.

it's almost like a fight between arnie and mr burns from the simpsons. arnie is the warrior of light mr burns is almost any enemy within the game. mr burns could be standing there for ages trying to hurt arnie and arnie wouldn't feel a thing. but at the same time it would still take arnie a dozen of his "powerfull skills" to knock mr burns down... 12 of your best hits or "skills" to defeat a frail old man that hardly has the strength to even raise his hand let alone hit you with it..... doesn't sound very powerfull does it... if anyone saw arnie smacking an old man 12 times and the old man just stands there and takes it they would laugh so hard "look at arnie couldn't even fight his way out of a wet paper bag with hits like that"

in 1.23 I would quite often run around natalan at 50 soloing mobs at 52 or so for the chest keys (sentinals gear was the great back then) run up to a mob stun it get behind it and smash out a combo and bam that thing was dead on to the next.... you felt powerful because you're skills felt like they actually hit hard.

I think maybe the pace and auto attacks helped here. because you actually saw them in 1.23 so when you repeatedly saw auto attacks hitting for a couple of hundred damage and the skill you pressed hit for a couple of thousand there was a huge feeling of power to it...

currently though people hit skills so fast and so often you never see the auto attacks all you see is a bunch of attacks that all do largely the same amount of damage there no real distinction between one and the next and thus it feels like nothing more than a glorified autoattack.. there's never any real oomph to it.

it's not a sound thing either. with the pace of combat in this game and the number of players using skills at any given time the last thing you need is more bass and oomph in the sound effects. but that would also detract because if you added the oomph to the sound effects skills would then sound more powerfull than they really are. you'd end up with massive booms that sound epic, but hardly touch a monsters hp and so many of those epic booms that they'd just drown each other out entirely. combat would sound like an epic warzone but look like a pre school play ground scrap.

[Enur]

@Atoli punching with my bare fist SHOULD not sound and look the same as if I just threw a bomb at the boss.

I'd like to point to the Stormblood teaser trailer. Now those punches are impactful. Unlike the weak sounds we got now.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Did they? I thought that was the echo from the giant curled hand they were standing in. :'D They are fairly close to a rock wall.

[Enur]

In the teaser as they zoomed out you can see the large shockwaves produced by the monks fighting. It was their punches producing the lovely sounds that caused the water in the bucket to ripple.

as to meeka on page one, i did create a thread a few months ago. People didnt seem to get my points.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-Sound-Design

[Zojha]

the problem here is that you're pressing so many buttons and they all have such similar effects that combat feels nothing more than a glorifed auto attack.

I don't feel that's an issue, honestly.

Having played an Assassin in Dragon's Dogma not long ago (dual dagger class), even those attacks seemed pretty impactful and as an action game, I was pretty much mashing buttons like crazy. Snake/Spiderbite and Masterful Kill were probably my favourite, but even rapid attacks like Scarlet Kisses felt very satisfying. That's not even mentioning the glory of heavy 2-handed weapons that just felt immensely powerful, whether you ploughed through bandit/goblin packs or staggered creatures 3-4 times your size with it.

It's very hard to nail on one thing in particular. The fact that people never really stagger, pause or show any signs of being wailed on is probably one of the reasons why attacks feel less impactful. Sound effects "do" matter, but I will agree however that it can seem odd to hear a heavy impact and see no actual dent in the HP. What irks me more is that hit sounds are identical, whether they hit metal, wood or flesh. I think one of the biggest reasons however is that attacks simply don't do a lot of damage relative to the HP - In 24 man raids, even a LB3 can feel rather "meh", because it's still only like 3-4% of the mobs HP. Huge buildup, big animation, big oomph...and you go:"That was it? ._.' "

[Ralts]

I agree in some degree with Dzian