"Hidden" GCDs need to GO...

[BubblyBoar]

FFXIV absolutely has buffering, so even if you press a button and the skill doesn't go off immediately, it will as soon as it can. Maybe just slow down your button presses so you aren't pressign6 things at once. You have a whole 2 and a half seconds to press 3 buttons, just relax. If you are having issues with buffering, learn which skills have longer locks than others. For example, weaving potions take too long for a double weave, so you aren't gonna get something else in without clipping.

Also, FFXIV has this thing where macros don't buffer and can't be queued. SO if you are doing that, stop using macros.

A timer isn't really needed.

[DracotheDragon]

With practice, you'll get used to it.

you say this but i can out of every 3 spells with red mage do a slow cast while duelcast is active on me.

[RichardButte]

I think some people are not understanding what OP is asking for.

You know how when you're mid cast all your skills are darkened until the GCD is over? Apply that dimming to when animation from abilities won't let you cast anything as well, dim abilities during the full duration of the animation lock, because you can't use any skill while the animation lock is up anyways.

Now I'm not sure how easy this is to implement, as the animation lock length is different for every ability.

This is all I want, and it should be fairly easy to do as the game has systems in place that can dynamically adjust how long the "spinner" appears over an ability (we know this because of how speed can change the length of the GCD, so it's clearly just the game passing that info along to the UI to know how long it should go before accepting another input from the player).

So if the animation "lock" of an ability is 1.3 seconds, the spinner can and should appear over other oGCD abilities for 1.3 seconds, and it should alert the player if they press the ability too early.

I'm fine with the game not buffering these inputs at all, but I'm NOT fine with them failing silently when I thought the previous ability's animation lock (which is ambiguous at best, especially when standing inside another player because we're stacking) had finished but it hadn't and an extremely important oGCD ability failed to activate.

A timer isn't really needed.

There are plenty of things this game doesn't "need" but would be massive quality of life improvements, such as a button that immediately equips the recommended gear for the player.

Is it necessary? Of course not, but it sure as hell makes the overall experience better when you don't need to hunt and pick through every item slot to find what you can equip for that new level.

Yet, that button idea had people opposing it as well, with the same reasoning of "it's not needed".

[Darrcyphfeid]

the solution would be to let us queue more than one skill at a time (but then you maybe press so many buttons that you kind of lose control over you character, because the queue is too long).

Inability or willful refusal to learn and adapt to the current setup will undoubtedly result in this happening, it'll just change the complaint from "this skill isn't activating" to "the game is punishing me for pushing my buttons out of order." I could only imagine how much a change like this would mess up jobs with any sort of cast timers.

you say this but i can out of every 3 spells with red mage do a slow cast while duelcast is active on me.

Again, the Dualcast thing would be an actual latency issue. See also: BLM prior to SB release (they changed the proc timing for spells to get around the issue) and pre-adjustment HW NIN (major backend overhaul for Mudra).

The servers have been exceptionally hit or miss since the launch of SB - I haven't seen an "Excellent" rating in months - but that's still a mostly separate issue from what OP is describing and requesting. As long as your ping isn't being erratic you can readjust with a little practice.

[RichardButte]

I could only imagine how much a change like this would mess up jobs with any sort of cast timers.

How could adding the same audio and visual feedback mechanics GCD skills have to oGCD skills POSSIBLY mess anything up...?

If you press a GCD skill and it cannot activate at that moment, the game tells you.

All I want is for oGCD skills to do the same. They don't need to queue or buffer at all, but if I press the button and the skill isn't going to activate, I want the game to tell me so it doesn't silently fail in the middle of a complex rotation.

The servers have been exceptionally hit or miss since the launch of SB - I haven't seen an "Excellent" rating in months - but that's still a mostly separate issue from what OP is describing and requesting. As long as your ping isn't being erratic you can readjust with a little practice.

Have you tried any other modern AAA MMOs? I think you'll find that even a modest ping influencing the order in which things happen in combat is an issue that's exclusive to XIV.

Why should we let XIV off the hook for this...?

[Istaru]

Why should we let XIV off the hook for this...?

For me, it’s more acceptance that they aren’t going to fix anything.

[Malzian]

Hello latency, my old friend...
Come to murder me again.
Because a casting bar is filling,
And the markers they are glowing,
And the position that was showing on my screen
Is not what it seems.
And so now... we're wiping...

And for the stack I stood alone
Wondering where my party's gone
'Neath the marker of an Ahk Morn
I tried to move over to the main tank
Then the server said, "No I don't think that's right."
So I died that fight,
And that's how we're wiping...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Unfortunately, this is yet another example of how the devs perceive we play and how we actually play are two very different things. Yoshida has gone on record claiming they balance the game with the expectation it's playable up to 200 ping. By that standard, small input lag isn't an issue. They don't think clipping here or there is a big deal.

[Darrcyphfeid]

How could adding the same audio and visual feedback mechanics GCD skills have to oGCD skills POSSIBLY mess anything up...?

Read the quoted text -> read the content of my post -> understand that the content of my post is about a specific subject that is not what your quoted text is about.

You don't see any potential problems with allowing, say, 3 skills to be added to an action queue, that all have to resolve in one way or another before a 4th action (that can be added to the queue if a "slot" is open), on a job with cast bars? Healers would devour Square en masse.

I want the game to tell me so it doesn't silently fail in the middle of a complex rotation.

It doesn't silently fail. It just doesn't go off and the visual indicator that it didn't go off is that the icon didn't dim out. It's literally the system you want, but in reverse.

If you had your way and they added a cooldown indicator for all oGCD actions while doing an animation, it wouldn't change anything for you. You still couldn't activate the next skill in that 1~1.5 second window, and if we assume that you wait for the oGCDs to light back up (because mashing is wrong, or something), you're still not going to get your 6 action Overheat in because your human reaction time and any potential latency issues will still come into play.

Have you tried any other modern AAA MMOs? I think you'll find that even a modest ping influencing the order in which things happen in combat is an issue that's exclusive to XIV.

I don't see how that's relevant. The fact that I can explain, in detail, why what you're asking for isn't going to help you is enough. Also the part where I don't have any significant trouble doing rotations with a ping twice as high as the one stated in your original post.

Why should we let XIV off the hook for this...?

I'll take XIV and Square to task for literally decades of wrongdoings. However, at some point you need to step back and question whether the issue here is with you, your connection or genuinely with the game.

Unfortunately, this is yet another example of how the devs perceive we play and how we actually play are two very different things. Yoshida has gone on record claiming they balance the game with the expectation it's playable up to 200 ping. By that standard, small input lag isn't an issue. They don't think clipping here or there is a big deal.

See also: Willful refusal to adjust.

The game is playable so long as 1.) you're not lagging to such an extent that your GCD is resetting, actions are registering in a timely manner, and everything around you isn't rubberbanding worse than rival AI in a Need for Speed game and 2.) you can perform mechanics and consistently dodge AoE telegraphs.

Beyond that, it is 100% on us. You can't do a 9 GCD Berserk window on WAR because of your ping? Modify your rotation and adjust. You can't do the OP's 6(o)GCD OH window? Modify and adjust!

People performing worse than the OP - I have no idea how good the OP is or isn't doing, but still - have cleared O4S. They may not have cleared Ultimate, but I'm confident enough in saying at least that.

[RichardButte]

For me, it’s more acceptance that they aren’t going to fix anything.

While I get that, nothing ever improves through complacence.

They're working on housing issues, glamour logs, etc. because of community uproar right now. None of that would be on its way had everyone just shrugged and remained complacent.

Read the quoted text -> read the content of my post -> understand that the content of my post is about a specific subject that is not what your quoted text is about.

You don't see any potential problems with allowing, say, 3 skills to be added to an action queue, that all have to resolve in one way or another before a 4th action (that can be added to the queue if a "slot" is open), on a job with cast bars? Healers would devour Square en masse.

Read the quoted text -> read the content of my post -> understand that the content of my post is not what you're suggesting I've suggested here.

I don't want to queue oGCD abilities at all. I just want the same alerts GCD abilities have.

It doesn't silently fail. It just doesn't go off and the visual indicator that it didn't go off is that the icon didn't dim out. It's literally the system you want, but in reverse.

Try pressing a button that's on GCD: you'll hear an audible alert as well as have an error message appear in the middle of your screen in red letters that informs you the button you pressed did nothing.

When an oGCD fails, you hear nothing, and it takes a great deal more attention to look down at it to see whether or not the spinner has come up as opposed to simply listening for the failure sound.

If you had your way and they added a cooldown indicator for all oGCD actions while doing an animation, it wouldn't change anything for you.

It would literally change everything because I would know that when I pressed the button for Wildfire in the middle of my rotation, the error message and sound would alert me if it didn't actually activate.

Here's the thing about UI: you ideally want to allow the player to spend as little time looking at it as possible, and that's absolutely vital considering how much else there is to pay attention to amidst your average raid encounter. This isn't WoW where we have "deadly boss mods" to hold our hands through every mechanic. XIV's raid encounters require everyone to pay attention or you're going to wipe the raid.

The entire reason we have audible and visible feedback when we press the button for an ability that cannot be activated at that moment is so we don't need to look down at our hotbar. We know, without taking our eyes off of the battle in front of us, that the ability didn't activate and we need to press it again. This is a godsend for players trying to pay attention to what the boss is doing instead of whether or not vital oGCDs are activating.

From the sounds of things in this thread, most people mash the button for oGCD abilities a number of times just to make sure they go off, probably because they're too busy monitoring the fight to glance down at the oGCD while they press it to ensure it activates.

We shouldn't have to mash the crap out of our keyboards just to ensure we succeed in making skills activate.

Again, there is already a perfect system in this game that informs players when their button presses won't activate an ability. All I want is for oGCD abilities to be given that same love.

Willful refusal to adjust.

...Is literally the worst response imaginable to a QoL suggestion, yes.

Some people argued that 1.0 was fine and players who didn't like it just needed to "adjust".

Hell, Marie Antoinette suggesting the peasants eat cake because they have no food was just her way of saying "Peasants should just adjust". :P