Will Mounts be able to jump?

[Matsume]

I hope none of the mounts can jump. Chocobos however, they can easily tie this into Chocobo breeding -- For example Red Chocobos could be able to jump, while our favorite Light Blue and Dark Blue chocobos can traverse watery obstacles, while our trusty purp-black/gold (FFIX) chocobos can fly.

Two words: Yoshis's Story (no pun intended)

Furthermore, I am pretty sure Yoshidasan has discussed jumping in one of the LIVE producer letters in which he explains that jumping on mounts is highly unlikely to be implemented. If I knew just where to look I would post the Link, but alas the videos tend to be lengthy (one or two hours) and I am not interested in spending that much time searching for this.

[Lirion]

I think advocating free jump is really only for those that want to free jump whenever they please. So to answer your question, yes. Contextual jump where if you move forward and there's a spot where jumping makes sense is perfectly reasonable and would loads of depth to in-game possibilities. In Zelda, you could jump anywhere at a certain height above you, and control the direction and angle you jump off of things. This is as much as is necessary. I can think of loads of scenarios where this would be practical and effective, from a development/programming viewpoint and for adding depth and creativity to content in the game.

Whereas, being able to have control over whether you're standing up jumping at a fixed height and the same animation every time would add nothing to the value of FFXIV that hasn't already been done in other games, in which that context of jumping is both appropriate and necessary. As the game stands now, free jumping is asthetic. Imaginary boundaries and the layout of the world of Eorzea, do not require nor advocate the necessity for this.

Yes, as the game stands now it would mostly be aesthetic, but the world in 2.0 will be designed with jumping in mind and jump isn't coming before then so I really don't see what all the fuss is about. In Zelda I wished I could freely jump, having that contextual jump doesn't bring depth at all imo, all you're doing is pressing forward towards something and he jumps on his own.

[DrekeLamorte]

Yes, as the game stands now it would mostly be aesthetic, but the world in 2.0 will be designed with jumping in mind and jump isn't coming before then so I really don't see what all the fuss is about. In Zelda I wished I could freely jump, having that contextual jump doesn't bring depth at all imo, all you're doing is pressing forward towards something and he jumps on his own.

For 2.0 is one issue, as long as people are keeping that in mind.

As for Zelda's game mechanics, I AM a fanboy and damn proud of it. Owned the Legend of Zelda gold cartridge for NES back in '96, and have been in love with the series ever since. Ocarina of Time's Contextual Jump was one of many features that set the standard for gaming for years to come. It being heralded as one of the greatest games ever made. I've played many zelda's hundreds of times and would feel strongly that free jumping in that game would make every puzzle/ challenge/part of that game lose all meaning. From a dev/programming standpoint and a mechanical standpoint. And yes, the "lol" immersion of it. So I guess we agree to disagree.

[Sephr]

Because the entire in game worlds collusion detection was based on an inability to jump. Thus to impliment it, they will have to spent a ton of man hours readjusting the world to remove all avaliable exploits players can use with jump. I prefere they use that time for real content, more classes, more jobs, and more anything but that in general.

You are aware they're redoing the game's world, right? Seems like the perfect time to me.

I don't understand the hangups about it, how can anyone become actively annoyed over seeing someone else jump? If you really find it that annoying in a game you should probably take a step back and re-evaluate things.

Other MMOs make pretty good use of the jump feature for exploration as well as boss mechanics (e.g. Jump at the right time to avoid being rooted to the floor), I don't think these are bad things, though people definitely do like to complain about everything.

As for it not being final fantasy, expect to see it more in the future, XIII-2 added it and I'm pretty sure XIII versus will have it.

Edit: As for this actual topic, I think mounts jumping would be a great idea. You could jump and then glide a bit on chocobos (ala XIII-2) to reach certain hidden areas you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach.

[Phe]

Jumping will be made to interrupt spellcasting at a point in time...

[lackofwords]

Yoshidasan has discussed jumping in one of the LIVE producer letters in which he explains that jumping on mounts is highly unlikely to be implemented. If I knew just where to look I would post the Link, but alas the videos tend to be lengthy (one or two hours) and I am not interested in spending that much time searching for this.

You do not remember that they've transcribed all the information into text? Took me less than a minute to find it. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/30508

44:17
Q: This wasn't mentioned in the FFXIV 2.0 announcement, but are there any updates on jumping and swimming?

A: Let's start with jumping. Since we're completely renovating the map for FFXIV 2.0, we'll have to perform a lot of tests when implementing jumping. We've debated waiting until Version 2.0 to do so. We are currently running various tests on it actually.

For swimming, we're looking at implementation sometime after 2.0. We think that being able to swim wouldn't be much fun by itself, so we'll also be adding areas that you can explore underwater, temples and the like. Please keep in mind that we're still in the very early stages of development.
* A work-in-progress video of jumping animations was shown at 44:52.

51:53
Q: Any chance chocobos will be able to swim and/or jump in the future?

A: First off, let's start with jumping. I've told the team that jumping while riding a mount is not a good idea. I see a lot of problems happening so I was very hesitant about that idea. However, there are many of us who'd like to see jumping chocobos. We're still in the middle of discussing the matter.

Next, swimming. Implementing swimming mounts will be very challenging. We will definitely have to get creative with how the animation will work in the water. If we do implement this, we might make it so that players will be able to swim only on the surface, but not dive under.

[Estellios]

Different functionality != different stats. In other games, e.g. FFT A2, different chocobo colors had different functions, almost different jobs even. It's more like customizing the automaton in FFXI- e.g. the black chocobos would fly, yellow ones had a healing ability, red ones had a fire attack, etc. They're distinct enough that each one has value. If it was just stats I would agree, but different breeds of chocobos did different things in previous games. There's a precedent for that.

Yeah, I remember spamming the MP restore with the white chocobo =P

It's part of the series "legacy" so to speak so I think in most cases people would like it. I'm just wondering how many would cry over the fact that their black chocobo can't be a healer and they really want to use the black one because it matches their outfit or something. If anything it would be nice if different breeds had different native abilities but you could pass them on to other-colored offspring so you could customize but there is value in making them all unique.

[Jennestia]

Two words: Yoshis's Story (no pun intended)

Furthermore, I am pretty sure Yoshidasan has discussed jumping in one of the LIVE producer letters in which he explains that jumping on mounts is highly unlikely to be implemented. If I knew just where to look I would post the Link, but alas the videos tend to be lengthy (one or two hours) and I am not interested in spending that much time searching for this.

He did mention it, mostly due to terrain issues, it's why if they ever do implement the system hopefully it's tied to Chocobos more so than random mounts because they can do so much more with it that way.

[Rukkirii]

We're currently looking into the possibility of giving mounts the ability to jump once we implement the jump feature. Once we have more information to share, we'll be sure to pass it on.

[Rane]

We're currently looking into the possibility of giving mounts the ability to jump once we implement the jump feature. Once we have more information to share, we'll be sure to pass it on.

Thank you! I looking forward to finding out whether I will someday be able to jump deep ravines on my chocobo!