What are your thoughts on FFXIV's combat?

[Darthgummibear]

XIV has some of the most boring combat in gaming. No, I will not hear anyone out. Even with the OCDs, the regular CD is just too long and the fights in general are not engaging or threatening.

In your opinion, what MMO does it better?

[Esmoire]

It is one of those things where, if it was just combat, I would never play FFXIV. The jobs and encounters are aesthetically impressive, and extremely creative. That said, this creativity doesn't extend into the job design. Mechanically, FFXIV some of the most boring classes in any RPG I have ever played. It's wild I can reliably think of RPGs made two decades ago with classes much more interesting on a functional level, even if they are thematically more straightforward. This isn't even talking about how bad the game feels. It's sluggish. It's unresponsive. The controls-- especially targeting-- are atrocious. The UX is really bad. Most jobs have too many buttons, and those buttons are more about quantity than quality.

Of course, FFXIV is more than the combat. I love the story, glamour, housing, crafting, all this and mode. Just need to maybe have job designers that are more creative, as well as those who play the game. I hope the game can be made to feel a bit tighter, as well, with a better tick rate.

[Dzian]

Combat is good, but lacks the final fantasy feel. Final Fantasy 11 menu-based combat feels way better and would have been better fit for this game had it been developed around it from the ground up.

Combat is currently a spam fest, memorized rotations to be executed as fast as possible. Personally, i don't believe it requires much thought, which is good if you want this game accessible to the masses.

While I agree the combat does lack the final fantasy feel especially with all the adjustemnts they've made over the years. and while I loved XI in the nearly 10 years i spent playing it. I honestly don't think i'd prefer the menu based system.. but this is where i feel the 1.23 combat system had things right and looked like it was going in a solid direction. until they abandoned it and wnet warcraft instead.

XI did have a lot more depth to it though. which came down to the bestiary in many ways. you had mobs with high armour like crabs, then fast and agile birds squishy but pretty evasive. slow but hard hitting gigas, every mob felt different and thus required a different approach. even in weapon skills. doing a fusion skill chain on a fire based monster whooops.

it wasnt perfect though because this variety ended up being rather short lived. you could go onto ffxiclopedia (if it still exists) go through the bestiary and notice that 75% of all mobs shared the same weaknesses, ice, thunder, piercing. which is why those becasme the only things you would ever invest merit points into.. but i do think if they'd learnt from that and made sure to diversify it a bit more that it would have been so much better.

but in XIV they went totally the other way and made every monster the exact same. the only thing that changes from one to the next is how much hp they have.. they all have the same defence, the same evasion, the same weaknesses and resistances. and it just makes things boring.

jobs in XI were also way better than in XIV. and while the above flaws kinda made some preferable over others there was still a great deal of flexibility to be had.. look at tanks. ninja, paladin warrior, samuarai, dancer, monk,, bluemage, probably more could all be incredibly solid tanks. i would quite often tank sky gods as a monk using counterstance. or a samurai with seigan. an attack that would stip all a ninjas shadows a samurai could just anticpate and ignore.. opened up many ways of playing jobs not just 1 mindless rotation that never changes.

all things that made it much more fun. and things i wish xiv incorporated more rather than kept stripping away. but i dont think id go back to a menu style system.

[Missbone]

My honest opinion? I think the FF14 combat system is worst from all MMOs out there. Especially the long GCD between the actions annoys me. Its like taking a breaking between each action. Even very old MMOs like HDRO or Anarchy online did this already way better in the past. I guess it thanks to the console players that we got such an akward GCD of nearly 2,5 seconds.

I know no one here likes WoW and it has been a long time since i logged in there. But when in comes to Combat it was a 100times better. Thx to the short GCD which could be reduced even more with some classes and items it was possible to lower the GCD to under 1sec and there was no such thing like a waiting que for actions if you push something to fast. This felt really good back than. There where a lot of reasons that make me drop wow, but the combat was not one of them.

[Shori]

I've not been fond of XIV combat since end of heavensward where they started mashing all job into being the same thing. Player feedback about "boohoo my job cant do this" made devs change the job instead of changing/improving the boss designs. It certainly feels like they design the bosses first and then the jobs around it, which ultimately leaves them broken when doing older content, or when trying something new (which is why we are seeing just a same old rehash of mechanics from previous expacs).
I'd very much welcome the devs to slow down the pace of fights a bit to fit in more utility and puzzle-solving. Thinking of 11's utilities and enfeebling. An example of when XIV did this is back in ARR, some bosses FATEs and hunt marks would cast upon themselves stoneskin. You /could/ just punch it til it wore off or you could One-Ilm-Punch (an old mnk skill) and get rid of that buff. But alas, because not all jobs carried a skill of similar effect it got removed and bosses nerfed.

In short: can we please stop with the 'run here to solve mechanic' and instead have 'use this skill'. kthnx

[Dzian]

My honest opinion? I think the FF14 combat system is worst from all MMOs out there. Especially the long GCD between the actions annoys me..

The gcd doesn't really matter whether it's fast or slow one of the common problems even in this thread is the lack of weight or substance to combat. Doesn't matter if your pressing 10 buttons a minute or 100. When all of those buttons are dull bland and carry no real weight. Combat will feel boring and tedious.

It's the same with skills. More buttons doesn't mean better combat either. The recent pvp revamp demonstrates this how in pvp jobs have 9 or 10 buttons but feel fleshed out and jobs have identity. In pve they have 30 buttons and no identity at all. Every job is the same..

Xiv is all style no substance in its combat.

[Deceptus]

What I'm seeing is everyone sh!tting on the GCD.

The longer GCD allows you to weave abilities in between them. If you're not doing that, of course the longer GCD seems boring. The only role that can't really weave much is Healers but that's a completely different discussion.

[Missbone]

The gcd doesn't really matter whether it's fast or slow one of the common problems even in this thread is the lack of weight or substance to combat. Doesn't matter if your pressing 10 buttons a minute or 100. When all of those buttons are dull bland and carry no real weight. Combat will feel boring and tedious.

It's the same with skills. More buttons doesn't mean better combat either. The recent pvp revamp demonstrates this how in pvp jobs have 9 or 10 buttons but feel fleshed out and jobs have identity. In pve they have 30 buttons and no identity at all. Every job is the same..

Xiv is all style no substance in its combat.

Sorry but this is 100% wrong. It makes a big difference if you push 100 buttons a minute (and get the feeling that you actively doing something and the char respond imidiantly to your actions) or like you said just 10 where you have big breaks and gap between all the actions you do. It maybe doesn't make a difference to you but there are a lot of people out there that ting otherwise. Even if the fights take the same amount of time, the feeling during the combat will be complete different and that's what it is all about. If the combat of a game doesn't feel good to you, the pve will always just be nothing more than a necessary evil.

...

If you mean instant stuff with cooldowns, you can do that in other games with shorter GCD to. The GCD in this game is simply way to long, there is a reason no other MMO out there has such a long GCD

[vetch]

In your opinion, what MMO does it better?

Guild Wars 1.

[Neoyoshi]

For me it's pretty simple; i find it more enjoyable then World of Warcrafts combat, so that's kind of the only bar it had to clear. xD