Realm Reborn = downgrade?

[Ludicrous]

I generally agree, apart from 2 parts.

The animation issue is not that simple. They couldn't just allow abilities to overwrite the current animation and be done with it. The proof is simply the fact that they haven't done it. They're not stupid. Maybe the problem was RAM limitations, i don't know. I do know though, that no matter what the problem is, releasing the game with such animations (even if they "polish" them) is, like you said unacceptable, for a lot of people, including me.

Like i said before in this thread (and i was completely ignored by someone) : It makes no sense to degrade your strong point, that is immersion, (design/animation) in your attempt to mimic someone else's gameplay. MMO gameplay follows a similar pattern in every game. What would draw people into FFXIV? Yet another similar gameplay?

What would make sense, would be keeping the quality of their strong point intact as a priority, and make the gameplay as accessible as possible, while adding tons of content.

The other thing i disagree is to declare that you will play the game no matter what. Even if that's true, i wouldn't want them to think that their current fan base are just blind followers that will play, and pay whatever they shove down their throats.

Personally, if the game was released at the state that i see in those videos, even after "polishing" the animation, i wouldn't pay, or play it. That's what unacceptable means anyway.

By unacceptable I really meant to most people SE wants to buy the game.

I realize they aren't stupid, but it behooves me to question why they haven't done it. Is it the PS3? who knows. They could keep the current game's animations, remove a few frames from them (looks like they did that, looking at chaos thrust from some recent vids), and perhaps speed them up a bit or what have you.

But lets face it, a 3s global cooldown is a long ass time (which I think is too long, but that is another can of worms for a different discussion). Especially, by today's MMO standards. Now when I say "today's MMO standards" I'm not asking them to change their plans for the gameplay.

This is about animations is it not? You and I agree that they are unacceptable.

So then why aren't they clipping the animations?

I'm talking battle as well as movement animations(not emotes obviously). You could easily have the start running/stop running animations they use in the current game now, and then while pressing a WS button it could just immediately at that very moment run the animation for that weaponskill (clipping the start/stop character movement animation). Or have one battle animation clip another for instance? Like activating a weaponskill in the middle of an auto attack animation or vice versa? This is, as far as I know, pretty basic from what I've seen of the competition this game has.

I'm no programmer or computer animation expert, but pretty all of the "big players" (without knowing what else to call them) in the MMO scene today are able to do this. Why can't SE?

We could have both! Quality animations AND good gameplay! The community rep post you quote in the OP baffles me. Why the F did the good animations have to go? They don't give good enough reasons, and the evidence is before us.

These animations aren't good enough SE!

Barring reasons beyond my comprehension why isn't animation clipping in?