I genuinely hate the new WAR animation.

[Kalaam]

This is exactly what I want. Slam the axe in the ground during the first swing of the fist, release the axe, two more fist swings, then rip the axe out of the ground.

This would likely be much better, but I assume it would require an animation lock. Or it'd be too detailed of an animation and too long.
Question: Does Passage of Arms makes the PLD stab his sword into the ground like in the benchmark ? 'cause that does make it look very cool, but I think I remember it not being the case in game.
My point being it's kind of the same situation.

[Beddict]

Question: Does Passage of Arms makes the PLD stab his sword into the ground like in the benchmark ? 'cause that does make it look very cool, but I think I remember it not being the case in game.
My point being it's kind of the same situation.

Yeah, here's an up close video I recorded. Sword gets slammed into the ground, it's just normally difficult to see because of the shields spinning around the PLD, and the blue wings.

[TouchandFeel]

Yeah, here's an up close video I recorded. Sword gets slammed into the ground, it's just normally difficult to see because of the shields spinning around the PLD, and the blue wings.

The issue is that Passage of Arms has a movement lock that requires the PLD to stay in place or the action is cancelled. This works with the animation because the player is stationary and therefore so is the sword stuck in the ground.
With an attack such as the WAR one from the benchmark, they are almost guaranteed to not have a movement lock and so if the axe was stuck into the ground it would be moving along with the player, since character animations are centered on the character animation skeleton, which would make it look as if the axe in the ground was sliding along with the WAR during the punching part of the animation. The devs are pretty careful to avoid such situations of animations looking goofy during regular use, so I am doubtful they would be okay with it. If they were to go the route of adding something into the animation to show the axe leaving the WAR's hands and then returning, it would likely be something that would look less goofy when the player moves around such as something like the axe is thrown up into the air and then caught after throwing the punches.

[Shurrikhan]

The issue is that Passage of Arms has a movement lock that requires the PLD to stay in place or the action is cancelled. This works with the animation because the player is stationary and therefore so is the sword stuck in the ground.
With an attack such as the WAR one from the benchmark, they are almost guaranteed to not have a movement lock and so if the axe was stuck into the ground it would be moving along with the player, since character animations are centered on the character animation skeleton, which would make it look as if the axe in the ground was sliding along with the WAR during the punching part of the animation. The devs are pretty careful to avoid such situations of animations looking goofy during regular use, so I am doubtful they would be okay with it. If they were to go the route of adding something into the animation to show the axe leaving the WAR's hands and then returning, it would likely be something that would look less goofy when the player moves around such as something like the axe is thrown up into the air and then caught after throwing the punches.

You'd think by late 2021 they'd have learned how to spawn a separate, not-player-relative doodad, with the axe just being yanked over as needed via an old Holmgang-like chain. But alas...

[TouchandFeel]

You'd think by late 2021 they'd have learned how to spawn a separate, not-player-relative doodad, with the axe just being yanked over as needed via an old Holmgang-like chain. But alas...

They can do that and have the tech for it, all it requires is spawning a separate entity from the attack action. They do exactly that with ground AoEs that stay where you drop them. However that entity has an actual purpose and sticks around for longer, so the computational resources used for it make more sense, whereas spawning a separate entity just for visual purposes and then despawning it a couple seconds later is not efficient and makes far less sense in terms of justification.
So it's not at all a matter of them not being able to do it when it is a matter of the superficiality of the end result not justifying the cost of the means of achieving it, especially when there are other potential solutions that could give similar end results without such cost.
I honestly feel people in general are way too quick to denigrate the capability of the devs on these forums when they themselves have likely little to no real knowledge of video game development and particularly the extra complications of an MMO. Don't get me wrong, the devs can and do make mistakes; they're human, it happens. But the way they often get hyperbolically portrayed like apathetic bumbling morons is a bit much, especially considering that they have put in an extensive amount of time and effort creating a game that we all seem to enjoy. There is nothing wrong with presenting our ideas and feedback, questioning the devs or even pointing out where we feel they may have slipped up; but perhaps dialing back the condescension and snark is warranted.

[AC9Breaker]

I think the new WAR ability looks cool.

[Shurrikhan]

So it's not at all a matter of them not being able to do it when it is a matter of the superficiality of the end result does not justify the cost of the means of achieving it, especially when there are other potential solutions that could give similar end results without such cost.

I disagree. With it, the skill would arguably look iconic. Without it, the skill looks merely ridiculous. And it's not unique in that regard. To thus constrain all future skill animations that could benefit from VFX with multiple points of origin in a single stack (or use a further VFX stack), or leave them similarly half-assed, shouldn't be an acceptable solution.

Most skills already use two "stacks" of VFX, usually holding 2-3 VFX files each, for the caster and on-hit or at-target-area. Each of those separate VFX files is either placed at an absolute location of origin or a relative location (i.e., about the target or player). In this case, they could easily use a generic aura-flamed axe if the problem is querying for a particular weapon appearance to associate with the spawned VFX. The only thing that remains thereafter is to allow a third stack, whereby you can have a caster stack, at-target-area stack, and on-hit. Voila.

If that takes a revision to the system, short of being truly impossible, it's probably worth it. It's a modern MMO that already plays it safe in nearly every other possible way. They don't need every excuse throw their way.

[Barwara]

As a WAR main I don’t really mind the new animation. I kind of enjoy it when my character punches things... it fits the personality I imagine she’d have.

[Beddict]

The issue is that Passage of Arms has a movement lock that requires the PLD to stay in place or the action is cancelled. This works with the animation because the player is stationary and therefore so is the sword stuck in the ground.
With an attack such as the WAR one from the benchmark, they are almost guaranteed to not have a movement lock and so if the axe was stuck into the ground it would be moving along with the player, since character animations are centered on the character animation skeleton, which would make it look as if the axe in the ground was sliding along with the WAR during the punching part of the animation. The devs are pretty careful to avoid such situations of animations looking goofy during regular use, so I am doubtful they would be okay with it. If they were to go the route of adding something into the animation to show the axe leaving the WAR's hands and then returning, it would likely be something that would look less goofy when the player moves around such as something like the axe is thrown up into the air and then caught after throwing the punches.

No argument there, I was simply providing an answer for what Kalaam asked: does the PLD stab the sword into the ground during Passage of Arms? I do agree with what you're saying though, and that the devs are more likely to make the WAR toss the axe in the air rather than plant in the ground simply so they don't end up with the issue of the axe gliding across the ground if the WAR moves around.

[TouchandFeel]

I disagree. With it, the skill would arguably look iconic. Without it, the skill looks merely ridiculous. And it's not unique in that regard. To thus constrain all future skill animations that could benefit from VFX with multiple points of origin in a single stack (or use a further VFX stack), or leave them similarly half-assed, shouldn't be an acceptable solution.

Most skills already use two "stacks" of VFX, usually holding 2-3 VFX files each, for the caster and on-hit or at-target-area. Each of those separate VFX files is either placed at an absolute location of origin or a relative location (i.e., about the target or player). In this case, they could easily use a generic aura-flamed axe if the problem is querying for a particular weapon appearance to associate with the spawned VFX. The only thing that remains thereafter is to allow a third stack, whereby you can have a caster stack, at-target-area stack, and on-hit. Voila.

That's not how things work and it isn't a matter of "vfx stacks".

All vfx or really anything and everything in basically any game engine needs a spatial coordinate point to spawn from. Those points can be either an existing entity that is currently in existence such as the player or the target npc, or any of the sub-entities contained within such as say the animation bone that is used to attach and orient the weapon model that the player has equipped, or a new entity has to be dynamically spawned relative to the location of an existing entity to then act as a spawn point for whatever, in this case a static object pointing to/loading whatever axe model.
In order for the ability to appear to have the axe get stuck in the ground and remain in that spot until it is supposed to disappear; that spot, in spatial coordinates, has to be determined and stored as a collection of independent points of data since it is no longer spatially determined relative to an existing entity but it's location within the game world itself. Therefore a new entity that the engine can determine is at x,y,z coordinates in the game world is needed so that the axe will spawn there and stay there until despawned.

It's not unlike how our brains work. Let's use the following as an illustrative example.
We are having to watch and keep track of a man walking through a forest and carrying a gemstone. The man has 3 pouches on his belt that he can carry the gem in. It is obviously relatively easy to keep track of the gemstone because we know it is one of the pouches on the man's belt. We know where the man is, therefore we know where the pouches are and therefore we know where the gem is. Easy, no extra thought involved. Now the man stops, proclaims "Here seems good" and sets the gemstone down at his feet before continuing on through the forest. Now in order to keep track of where the gemstone is you have to actively register and remember where the "here" is that the man set the gemstone down which results in you having to now keep track of two separate things, the "here" of the gemstone and the location of the man where before you could just keep track of the man and what he was carrying. With the two separate things to track at independent locations it requires more thought.
While a very simplistic dramatization, that is essentially a good encapsulation of how it also works in a game engine.

I said nothing against "multiple points of origin" in regards to the vfx for abilities or actions. I have no issue with those and there are plenty of examples already in the game where multiple dynamic/free-moving points are utilized, such as the vfx where to players are tethered together like Cover or any number of boss mechanics. Again, the issue is not whether multiple points are referenced for vfx generation, it's utilizing existing points of reference that are already being tracked as opposed to generating a new one dynamically that then also has to be tracked which requires extra computational resources to have that point merely exist and is not considered efficient and so tends to not be used unless there is more going on than just a superficial visual element that lasts for 2-3 seconds.
Also, vfx "stacks" is more of a compositing term when doing vfx for things like film where you are layering multiple vfx elements on top of each other 2-dimensionally to composite together and create the desired effect. I've only ever somewhat seen that term in game development within the context of vfx when talking about layer composition of 2D elements for particles in a particle fx generation system, so I am not so sure you are applying the term correctly in this context. I mean there are data stacks, but that is something completely different. Anyways, the way you are using "stack" seems more like you mean "package" which is just the generic term for any grouping of data elements, including visual effect elements.

I'm not saying that they couldn't do it and it is not a matter of technical difficulty or needing to revise systems or the engine or whatever. Not only could they easily have animations that include spawning an entity that displays a static visual element on the ground that disappears after a bit, they already have done exactly that with the footprints left behind when riding your chocobo mount. I also gave the example of ground AoEs previously so an example of them being able to do this was already established.
What I am saying is that doing it that way is unlikely because it is resource inefficient and goes against most common resource optimization practices for video game development, especially for MMOs that have to really double-down on optimization. Doing that with an attack animation where battle is one of the places where the most stuff is dynamically occurring and having to be computed and tracked makes it even more unlikely.

You're free to want it to be done that way, I'm just pointing out a known hurdle for it actually happening and why the devs would likely not want to do it that way.

No argument there, I was simply providing an answer for what Kalaam asked

No worries, my response wasn't directly aimed at you or what you said. I was just continuing on that line of conversation and quoting the last person in it as a reference point. Sorry if that was not clear.