I love beautiful animations.. but I think they're too slow for this game

[byyako]

I totally agree with this post. The battles feel extremely slow due to the animation lock. It was okay back in the FFXI days but now after playing all the other games in the market with smooth game play, this type of system in FF feels like an old machine running with a conveyor belt that every movement is sitting in queue being processed one by one.

I play MMORPG for that immersion experience and this chopped up battle rhythm is kind of a killer.
I have to agree the animations in FF is very detailed, superb among the competitors (Wow has one of the worst looking animations) and if we could push the battle system to become more refined and smooth, FF will at least win at this part of game play.

[illriginalized]

So now we are talking about limiting the animations.. and the colors??? Huh!?!?!?! I think the animation should just be faster. If anything, more fluid. Less like you're watching a documentary on animations in a museum and more like real life. Also, I think the beautiful colors should stay! And be separable from the animation when appropriate. It might even be way cooler looking that way.

And also, I feel compelled to address the illiteracy in your post. You felt... compelled.. I'm sure, to call out the "people" who are "comparing" WoW to FF. /airquotes. Has one person in this thread compared the two games? I remember bringing up some features of WoW's animations, but I don't remember comparing the games to each other. In fact, the only references to WoW are on a technical level in this thread. So it must be a child's game if a player expects responsive character movement during battle? I don't think you mean to say that, but then again I'm pretty sure your brain turned off as you started your last paragraph and automatically typed some bullshit about WoW vs FF.

Despite that, I'd really like to hear your more focused opinions on the OP.

OP compared WoW animations to FF animations... favoring WoW animations over FF... That is that WoW's cartooney animations are more streamline than that of FF animations, because FF animations lock up. I guess comprehension skills fails you hard or you're just grasping at straws cuz of my attack on posers and WoW fans.

lol mother of God you talk about illiteracy... yet you over examined my post. WoW is in fact a child's game.. everything about it resembles a child's game and should never be used as a form of comparison to FF. That is just... embarrassing.

Stop being butt hurt or just go back to WoW, poser or.. emo. Take your pick, whatever.


P.S. I'll call out anyone who mentions WoW in this forum and I'll troll them just for the lulz. You mad? Pepper your angus, son.

[Rydin]

OP compared WoW animations to FF animations... favoring WoW animations over FF... That is that WoW's cartooney animations are more streamline than that of FF animations. I guess comprehension skills fails you hard or you're just grasping at straws cuz of my attack on posers and WoW fans.

lol mother of God you talk about illiteracy... yet you over examined my post. WoW is in fact a child's game.. everything about it resembles a child's game and should never be used as a form of comparison to FF. That is just... embarrassing.

Stop being butt hurt or just go back to WoW, poser or.. emo. Take your pick, whatever.

You can compare the responsiveness of other MMOs
Being that the lag/latency of FFXIV is not a graphic issue, there is no reason (Aside from physical server location) that this game can't be as responsive as other MMOs
From a server standpoint... a 40 man raid is more calculation intensive than an instanced 8 man boss

[OJtheLIONKing]

Personally, I'd rather they kept the wonderful animations they worked so hard on and just made them fully interruptable. This isn't a hard thing to accomplish. While I'll somewhat miss how realistic it felt to walk around, it's not good for gameplay. However, we have to expect the best in gameplay in addition to graphics in order for this game to compete in the market. That's just how it is. Incidentally, Final Fantasy XI should be completely excluded from this argument, as it has exactly the same problem except worse because sheathing/unsheathing weapons still stops you mid-run last I checked. FFXI was not the paragon of a perfect MMO many former FFXI players on this board like to say it is, and if the best this game can do is copy a 10 year old game that was successful but hasn't been a market leader in at least 7 years, it's doomed to failure.

Thankfully, unlike many on this forum, Yoshi-P and the devs seem to get how to deal with it, but the engine appears to have really hamstrung their ability to fix many of these issues. We can call it an excuse all we want, but the fact is creating a new engine is a considerable time and resource investment that the company would not have taken unless they considered it necessary, and this is one of the reasons it has to be done.

[Firon]

Personally, I'd rather they kept the wonderful animations they worked so hard on and just made them fully interruptable. This isn't a hard thing to accomplish. While I'll somewhat miss how realistic it felt to walk around, it's not good for gameplay. However, we have to expect the best in gameplay in addition to graphics in order for this game to compete in the market. That's just how it is. Incidentally, Final Fantasy XI should be completely excluded from this argument, as it has exactly the same problem except worse because sheathing/unsheathing weapons still stops you mid-run last I checked. FFXI was not the paragon of a perfect MMO many former FFXI players on this board like to say it is, and if the best this game can do is copy a 10 year old game that was successful but hasn't been a market leader in at least 7 years, it's doomed to failure.

Thankfully, unlike many on this forum, Yoshi-P and the devs seem to get how to deal with it, but the engine appears to have really hamstrung their ability to fix many of these issues. We can call it an excuse all we want, but the fact is creating a new engine is a considerable time and resource investment that the company would not have taken unless they considered it necessary, and this is one of the reasons it has to be done.

no you did slides in xi when you did an running unsheathe same for voke or anything else. You could always move during ws or anything in xi.

[Tibian]

Animations in battle.

I'd like to see these animations sped up like 1 light year. I suggest making them so fast they seem unnatural, then scaling it back one notch. It's really lame how your character gets animation locked in tough battles, and it doesn't make any sense.

I do think melee animations in general need to be sped up slightly, I don't know if I'd want them as fast as you say though. I'll discuss casters in a bit, because they need a ton of help in several areas regarding animations.

Buffing yourself

The unique spell effects accompanying each buff are truly incredible. If I could just sit outside the town activating these buff effects just for the eye candy it'd be great. The problem is, in the middle of a fight there's no time to enjoy them. Especially because if you use another buff right away, it clips off the animation of the active buff, so you don't get to see it anyway. How about we speed these up as well?

I actually think the buffing animations are some of the most lack luster. Protect, shell (when it was still in the game), were awfully dull and boring. I would much rather have protect be like the opening cinematic "ultima bubble" where you activate it and it spreads radially from your character and then buffs those in range. As it stands now though, buffing animations are very very anti-climactic and quite dull. So I do disagree with you here.

I suggest the dev team open up WoW and click some buffs. When you press a button, your buff instantly activates, but it leaves a lingering animation somewhere on the screen (usually over the characters' heads). This is a much better thing to have happen. You get to see the whole animation.

I would love this. WoW's buffing mechanics are fantastic, so is being able to cancel them very quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, the only thing SE really needs to do in regards to animations is to allow more than one animation to overlap another. If you notice, you can only be doing one exclusive animation; when another starts, the previous one is cut off.

How about we have buffs that instant-cast with no animation lock, but with a spell effect that persists and doesn't get overwritten by another spell effect? I'm asking for the spell effects to mix in version 2.0. Like the black smoke of Dark Seal mixed with a flaming axe of Bloodbath, for example. Instead of one cutting the other one off. And no animation lock, leaving you free to move or act. So you can cast 5 buffs subject to some kind of global cooldown, then use your move.

Animation locking is one of the major fixes of 2.0. If it isn't fixed, the game won't succeed. It is a very very serious and game breaking issue that SE cannot ignore. They have publicly stated they are removing it. Until 2.0 you just have to make do unfortunately.

Some of these buffs take so long to play out, that it's really hard to use 3 or 4 before you use a spell because the 20 second timers wear off by the time you chain your buffs. Like if you're a BLM, and you want to use Sanguine Rite, Dark Seal, Excruciate, Necrogenesis, and Parsimony on a spell, guess what? You don't have time to play through that many buff animations before your combo timer expires. I really don't like that.

Part of that is also with global cooldown and the response times of the server/client interactions. The animations do clip currently, so while you can chain them, this is more of an issue with global cooldown rather than the animations. Lots of improvement still here for animations though.

Crafting

The crafting animations are all incredible, but again, watching so many really slows down the process. The first few levels it's pretty awesome, but before you get to 50 most people have turned on Netflix or the TV. It's just way too long. How about letting us instantly issue commands without having to wait on the animation? Maybe the animations can be sped up like 5x or something and it would still look good? Try it out. I really don't like waiting that long.

I am in the camp that thinks the crafting mechanics and "mini-game" needs to be completely thrown out and redone. The problem is that crafting classes are considered actual "classes" and not just supporting professions like many other MMOs. The animations and the pause time during animations is atrocious and insufferable. A better solution to the current pause time is to simply play a random selection of animations while keeping the color wheel independent of the animations. A one second global cooldown could be implemented so when you select "Standard" it will only take one second until you press "standard" again. Not only does this speed up the synth process, but it makes crafting much more active and intuitive, rather than having that god awful pause time while the animations occur.

Gathering, etc. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Going to a museum is a great experience but playing an action game is totally different. These animations were poorly thought through when they were implemented in the game. It really needs to change for version 2.0 or this game really doesn't stand a chance at great success.

I have a similar mindset when discussing gathering as with crafting. The "mini-games" (hot and cold) are atrocious and need to be thrown out. Delink the animations with the actual gathering process, implement a one second GDC on selecting options... and thus you have a temporary fix until 2.0. I find HARVESTING animations are acceptable since you don't have to play a terrible mini-game, but the actual process of cutting a tree is one of the worst things I have seen in any MMO.

Returning to casters and their animations now.

Freeze, Flare, and Benediction are easily the best graphics casters have. They have impact, they feel important when used, and most importantly -- people can easily see what spell has been used and can react to it appropriately.

The biggest issue plaguing caster animations is very simple: all spells are arbitrary waves and blobs of color. The reason why flare/freeze/benediction look impressive is because they have a unique shape and impact to the spell. Regular spells like fire, blizzard, thunder don't really have appropriate animations. Not every spell needs to be "SUPER IMPACTFUL" on the scale of flare/blizzard/benediction, but they need a significant buff in appearance.

The second biggest issue is that all spells appear on the designated target. There are no spell trails and certainly no indication of who cast what spell. These spell trails really do matter and give important positioning information to the party and allow party members to see what spell is being cast and by whom, and for what reason.

Finally, the last significant hurdle SE needs to tackle in regards to caster animations is the actual casting animation itself. Currently every race brings their own wand/hand up to their face and then throws it out (mind you there is no actual "throwing" of a spell because there are no spell trails, lololololol.) Regardless, only having this weird hand extend animation for every race and every single type of spell is really dull and boring. Black mages could use a casting animation that involves their current weapon (like slamming it down into the ground, or thrusting the weapon out and having the spell coming out of the weapon with a trail). White mages could be more self involved and not rely on their weapon -- putting their hands together and then casting them out to heal.

[Adam]

I agree with the OP. Let me just say every game in MMO history does NOT have this problem, FFXI and FFXIV are the only ones with it. Get rid of it, fix this problem this is the #1 reason people avoid this game. I love Square-Enix games. Obviously I'm playing FFXIV not wow or any other mmo. Why? Simple because I want to see this game succeed and ENJOY it. This animation lock is my only beef with the game. At the same time I have played other MMOs so I do know what diffrent types of MMOs are, one thing I can't stand is when resentful FFXI players who think 11 was the god of all MMOs want to recreate 11. Dude FFXI servers are still up, if you want 11 go play that.

[Noir]

OP compared WoW animations to FF animations... favoring WoW animations over FF... That is that WoW's cartooney animations are more streamline than that of FF animations, because FF animations lock up. I guess comprehension skills fails you hard or you're just grasping at straws cuz of my attack on posers and WoW fans.

lol mother of God you talk about illiteracy... yet you over examined my post. WoW is in fact a child's game.. everything about it resembles a child's game and should never be used as a form of comparison to FF. That is just... embarrassing.

Stop being butt hurt or just go back to WoW, poser or.. emo. Take your pick, whatever.


P.S. I'll call out anyone who mentions WoW in this forum and I'll troll them just for the lulz. You mad? Pepper your angus, son.

Agreed. Wow is garbage. And SE better not down the graphics with this new engine! Keep the same graphic quality and improve on the likes of seeing more players onscreen animations, etc , etc

[Riaayo]

OP compared WoW animations to FF animations... favoring WoW animations over FF... That is that WoW's cartooney animations are more streamline than that of FF animations, because FF animations lock up. I guess comprehension skills fails you hard or you're just grasping at straws cuz of my attack on posers and WoW fans.

lol mother of God you talk about illiteracy... yet you over examined my post. WoW is in fact a child's game.. everything about it resembles a child's game and should never be used as a form of comparison to FF. That is just... embarrassing.

Stop being butt hurt or just go back to WoW, poser or.. emo. Take your pick, whatever.


P.S. I'll call out anyone who mentions WoW in this forum and I'll troll them just for the lulz. You mad? Pepper your angus, son.

I'm pretty sure 95% of the FF community played their first FF games, or even the "legendary" FF7 when they were kids... which makes all the old FF games "kids games." Compare to WoW which has always had a huge amount of adults playing it... what game is for Kids?

Are you of the same philosophy that Anime is for children because it's "cartoons"? I'm sure by getting any sort of response you think yourself a successful troll, and that's fine. Continue living under your bridge which productive people constructed to actually continue on with their lives rather than sit under stuck in the same place, constantly badgering others who pass you by.

I've never played a single game that had this animation lock BS or the ridiculous server lag that this game has. Not a single single-player game or mmo does it except XI and XIV, and you don't beat the competition by ignoring what they do and doing worse than they do.

Insulting WoW, which most of the FF community does, generally only stems from favoritism, fanboyism, and a general lack of understanding for games outside of the FF bubble. Most people I know in FF insult WoW constantly but have never even played it. How ill-informed is that? I'm all for personal opinion but it feels like most people in this community have not even done the research to form an educated opinion. They just sit around, assuming everything that competes with the 1 thing they have ever experienced sucks compared to it.

[Lux_Rayna]

First of all, a light year is a measure of distance, not time. Getting this wrong doesn't invalidate your opinion (unfortunately) but does give a very poor impression of you.

Noooo I wanted to mention this first! Blast!

I have to say, I disagree with your post as strongly as possible. Not every game has to be sped up as much as possible, there are lots of games like this out there already, and some of us like a slower pace in their games. Especially for Marauders (Warriors) the slow but heavy attacks feel appropriate but I like the pace of the game.

I have to say, I agree with your post as strongly as possible, since if I want speed ill go play an action game (hurr)

As for animation locks, use some skill to play the game. All of the enemies attacks are in some way predictable, attack when it is safe and don't just spam attacks.

Didn't you hear? Skill spam fests are all the rage :O just run around spamming 1-4 and watch yourself do impossible acrobatic feats.