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

[Phobos]

Animation lock is present in a lot of games, and coping with it properly is what defines a skilled player. In some games, dealing with animation lock means clipping yourself out of longer ones with shorter ones, or chaining them fast enough to clip 3 or 4 and only see the last animation. In FFXIV, you just have to deal with it. Not locking yourself at times you could get killed is a skill.

There's things you need to get used to in any game. In FFXIV, it's just getting used to not killing yourself with animation lock.

The only thing I can get behind removing would be the animation lock at the end of a spell - this does seem extra punitive because you had to stand there casting the whole time anyway, and if you're moving before the spell finishes but don't interrupt in time you get punished by the server delay letting your cast finish and lock you.

[Onidemon]

So, FFXIV has some truly great animations. Lush motion capture. Rich animations while crafting, sitting down, gathering, /psyching up to activate abilities, casting spells, doing weaponskills, buffing yourself or others, etc. ad infinitum.

As an artistic accomplishment, these animations are truly great. But I don't like how they slow the gameplay down to a halt, and I really don't think the masses or the critics are going to take too kindly to them. So I'd like to see them changed in 2.0 if SE has any sense at all. I really don't want to ride the burning ship to the bottom of the sea floor, but I have a feeling I might be doing just that.

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.

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 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.

It's hard to find a video of such a simple feature of WoW, but here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJMSvhhiNg&t=15s

Note that you can still move freely while one of these buff animations is playing out.

In another example with super annoying music, here is an example from WoW of spell effects being divorced from animation lock, something SE hasn't quite grasped for whatever reason:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU5dEgpEbf0&hd=1&t=1m17s

It's a little baffling that after so long since the game's release, these lengthy buff animations are still in the game with no end in sight. Does anyone see what I'm talking about?

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.

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.

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.

Weaponskills

The weapon skill animations are truly something special. These animations are so great, something inside me says design the game around these animation so we can somehow watch this great eye candy and still be able to move nimbly through a battlefield. The combat in FFXI was pretty slow-paced and it allowed for these kinds of animations, but FFXIV is considerably faster-paced. If we are going to have these beautiful animated weaponskills we need to make sure the tough fights leave room for the animation lock plus about 3 seconds of server lag / latency.

You see, the average gamer can be bothered to memorize patterns in a fight and learn an encounter, but not to wrap their minds around the idea of planning out their animation locks. Kudos really have to go out to those of us who had the patience, dedication, or uncontrollable addiction (lol) to win the Ifrit fight and learn how to "schedule" our animation locks but I have news for you dev team, the gaming masses you hope to seduce will not be as tolerant as the loyal few who still subscribe.

Don't take my word for it. I ask one thing. Put the Ifrit fight up at E3 this year and let journalists play it. It's time for a reality check.

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.

All the best,
Neptune

From another thread.... B&S gameplay. This is how battles in XIV should look like. The animation is still nice and smooth imo but speed up a lot. I'd be very happy to see this in 2.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMiTQtaJ6wQ&feature=youtu.be

[Oniji]

From another thread.... B&S gameplay. This is how battles in XIV should look like. The animation is still nice and smooth imo but speed up a lot. I'd be very happy to see this in 2.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMiTQtaJ6wQ&feature=youtu.be

The price you pay for sped up graphics is that you lose some of the weighting of the characters, which you can see in that youtube video.

I don't really think animation speed is the issue here.

I think it is just the way their current animation system handles (or doesnt handle) animation overlap and how the animations influence/effect the game mechanics when it should really be a one-way thing i.e. game mechanics influence the animations.

[Jinko]

Animation lock is present in a lot of games, and coping with it properly is what defines a skilled player. In some games, dealing with animation lock means clipping yourself out of longer ones with shorter ones, or chaining them fast enough to clip 3 or 4 and only see the last animation. In FFXIV, you just have to deal with it. Not locking yourself at times you could get killed is a skill.

There's things you need to get used to in any game. In FFXIV, it's just getting used to not killing yourself with animation lock.

The only thing I can get behind removing would be the animation lock at the end of a spell - this does seem extra punitive because you had to stand there casting the whole time anyway, and if you're moving before the spell finishes but don't interrupt in time you get punished by the server delay letting your cast finish and lock you.

Show me any modern game that suffers animation lock, I can't think of any and certainly not the newest MMO's around, which are moving more towards action based combat.

I don't think dealing with animation lock is a skill... its more a necessity.

[northernsky]

I don't think dealing with animation lock is a skill... its more a necessity.

I don't totally agree with this.

For instance, dealing with mobs animation lock is a skill, it allows us to avoid some of their most punishing attacks. In this case the chance of being avoided is a trade-off to the strength of the attack, from the mob's perspective.

It's the same for players. You could auto-attack the whole fight, or take the risk to launch greater damage at the expense of being hit by a mob special attack.

What makes me further think that it is actually planned that way is the self combo system. That would have to be the most punishing animation lock. If you throw 2-4 WS in a row, you deal considerable damage in a short amount of time for a ridiculous amount of TP and more importantly, a large part of the combos include possibilities to alleviate the risk of animation lock, such as "stun" or "pacify" effects.

So yeah, I think animation lock is part of the game design, and like some others say, the absence of animation lock for doomspike was "corrected" in the last patch.

That said I would like it to be more fluid and less punishing, either by making it a bit faster, or by at least reducing, or removing, the lock before and after the actual animation

[Jinko]

Believe me avoiding 100 tons is not a skill it is a necessity, unless you want to die. (you could say having the skill to avoid is necessary though I guess, but even so its a stupid cheap mechanic to have in a modern game, I say mechanic but that would suggest it is intentional when I just think its a by product of bad coding)

You say its deigned this way, yet someone posted previously demonstrating that Yoshi-p had confirmed that animation lock would not occur in 2.0.

So either he's lying or he's changed his mind.

I am much more inclined to believe that these fights have been designed with the new server and engine in mind, so when they move them over there will be less to optimise and they will work as intended.

[bobbygunz]

Editive layer of animation that separates upper and lower body might help assuage some of the problems with animation problems locking up the combat and movement mechanics. My main problem with combat is how some spell effects obscure your field of vision. Cures, buffs, critical hit animations, along with weapon skills. When all these go off at once you're not even fighting a monster anymore, just a bunch of light effects.

[Rokien]

Why don't you try and jump straight up in the air swinging a weapon... and move sidways while doing it to dodge an attack. I like how realistic this game is, keep it that way. It makes the weapons feel goooood

[northernsky]

Believe me avoiding 100 tons is not a skill it is a necessity, unless you want to die. (you could say having the skill to avoid is necessary though I guess, but even so its a stupid cheap mechanic to have in a modern game, I say mechanic but that would suggest it is intentional when I just think its a by product of bad coding)

You say its deigned this way, yet someone posted previously demonstrating that Yoshi-p had confirmed that animation lock would not occur in 2.0.

So either he's lying or he's changed his mind.

I am much more inclined to believe that these fights have been designed with the new server and engine in mind, so when they move them over there will be less to optimise and they will work as intended.

Well why did they "correct" the doomspike "bug" (i-e being able to move freely while in animation)?

The post from Yoshi-P you are referring to is a list of 6-7 things lumped together from an interviewer, to which he replied that it would be taken care of in 2.0. This was asked live in an interview, hell, I never even send an email with more than 2 points to be replied because past that point I know I won't get a complete answer, yet the recipient had all the time to ponder what I have written.

Further, it may be working as intended now, yet they might want to change it in 2.0. If so, will they take mobs animation lock out too?

Now something that seems interesting is separating upper and lower body animations. In that respect you bring a very good point (bolded), I'm looking forward to see the finalized combat system

[Matsume]

Teleport/Return Animation: I would like to see player's characters become aglow with pure white (or iridescent) light and either shatter into a firework of sparks or condensce into an infinately small ball of white light that disapears upon teleportation.