Quote Originally Posted by Jinko View Post
A fighting games mechanics are heavily reliant on animation locks though, MMO's aren't, as I said show me an example of a modern MMO that has game breaking animation locks.

WoW is 8 years old and doesn't have such a thing.
MMO's are designed however the developers choose to design them. It does not cease to be an MMORPG if the developers choose to incorporate animation lock as one of the core combat mechanics, it's entirely their choice, and IMO one that fits best with a slower style of combat like FFXI/FFXIV.

WoW is also not designed with animation locks in mind. WoWs combat was designed to be fast paced instant reaction button mashing. FFXI and FFXIV are not designed to be the same game that WoW is, this is not WoW, and it will never be WoW. Comparing FFXIV and WoW is comparing Apples to Oranges, they're both food, and they're both fruit, but thats about as similar as they are, and the Orange isn't "flawed" because its not red and doesn't taste like an Apple, it's just different.

That being said, the current issues with animation lock stem from two major *real* problems with the game. The first being that the current server architecture is craptastic, which is why *everything* has some sort of wonky delay to it. They are fixing this when the new servers go live much closer to 2.0, there's nothing that can really be done about it until then. The second being the previously mentioned "cant separate feet from torso" animation issue. They could make your character do the gumby slide like they did in FFXI, and they could probably shave a few "warm up" seconds here and there off the beginnings of certain animations to remedy this, but it looks like according to previously posted quotes from Yoshi P. they already have plans in motion to tackle the issue that rely on the benefits of the 2.0 client.

I'm expecting some degree of animation lock to still be present in 2.0, just like it is in FFXI, because that's part of the design and combat flow they chose for their game, and that's not a de-facto "bad thing," but odds are it will be much more tolerable in the sense that the server isn't going to actively fight you for precise control of when your character does these abilities vs when you pushed the button.