Lack of animations not addressed in live letter

[Totorixiii]

I'm sure I’ll be flamed but this was a perfect opportunity for them to quell our worry that the animations will stay 'as is'. I think it's obvious now that they are going with what the wow/typical mmo player is used to and no longer want to keep the realistic animations we had.
For me it's a real immersion breaker and a shame.

I understand the animations aren’t important for a lot of players. It just seems a shame that we are losing ver 1.0's saving grace, It was one of the few things reviewers praised.

I agree, 1.0 animations are extremely fluid. Except for the same old repetitive magic casting and enhancing action that every race does.

Other than that, FFXIV 1.0 has the best animation in any MMO imo.

[Yucie]

Yes, what stupid reviewers for knowing the difference between server lag and animations.

The realistic animations caused animation lock and it's what a lot of people had issues with in 1.x.

hurr durr

[Kallivis]

The realistic animations caused animation lock and it's what a lot of people had issues with in 1.x.

hurr durr

Again, animations have nothing to do with that, regardless of if it's called animation lock. That was a system issue, an issue with the code.

There are ways around that and many other games properly pull it off while still keeping nice animations.

[Rhomagus]

They should let the animations remain as an option. You should always be able to interrupt these animations for the sake of gameplay but if I come to a halt after running and decide to run backwards the actual my character's position should be updated first not their animation.

The problem with 1.0 is that they gave the animation too much precedence by making it a game mechanic. You had to fight Ifrit carefully because of animation lock, because you were locked into the animation once you activated it. You don't need the animation in order for the special effect to go off (i.e. Chaos Thrust petals), numbers to display, or damage to calculate; but in XIV 1.0 this was the case. If they would allow you to move after you initiate an ability then there wouldn't be a problem. Just have the position take precedence over the animation.

I'm fine with them allowing us to cancel animations. I actually don't like that they've decided to go the opposite with casting. In original 1.0 if you moved after casting a spell the spell would still go off. After patch 1.18 I think, they required you to stay still during casting and moving would interrupt your cast.

So in ARR it looks like they will allow cancelling animations for melee but not for mages. On top of that, they sacrificed transitional animations outside of combat when, if they'd just allow us to cancel our own animations (not abilities) by moving, we wouldn't have that problem in the first place.

Blaa.... I'm really hoping this is just things not finished as its alpha atm, some cutting down I understand to help people run the game with more people on the screen and on low/mid end PC's but meh, the quality of the animation and textures was a saving grace of the game.

As much as I'm in agreement..

The its Alpha, It's beta, It'll be better after launch! was used a lot in the previous alpha/beta forums to try and get people to stop raising things they considered an issue.
An we know how that ended, it as no diffident in the end.

I totally agree here. We really shouldn't allow that to happen this time around. That's really not an excuse and I don't even think Yoshi-P is against this. It's the reason why he doesn't want to rush it. If there is an issue that we think needs fixing we shouldn't just blow it off until we get an answer. While we do have an answer for the animations I don't think it's a satisfactory answer as other games do not have this problem.

If they can add boob jiggling animation, then they could certainly keep the already existing animations they had. Not like they'd have to re-shoot them or anything (motion capture).

I'm waiting to see Beta before I delve further into this :/ here's to hoping we see them back tho.

Adding new animations, such as getting rid of the "squat" animation for every buff, I'm okay with. I understand if you need to sacrifice a little here an there to implement that sort of thing but boob jiggle physics shouldn't even be on the table if you're using the excuse that animations take up too much memory.

In my opinion they should give us the option. For those with higher spec PC's and better internet connections let us have the transitional animations. For those of us with lower spec PC's or playing on the PS3 give us the options to turn these on. I'd personally rather not have boob physics at all, especially if you're sacrificing in other areas.

I agree, 1.0 animations are extremely fluid. Except for the same old repetitive magic casting and enhancing action that every race does.

Other than that, FFXIV 1.0 has the best animation in any MMO imo.

I agree. They did note that they'd be adding more unique animations for different abilities and different casting animations between white/black magic have already been confirmed.

[Yucie]

Again, animations have nothing to do with that, regardless of if it's called animation lock. That was a system issue, an issue with the code.

There are ways around that and many other games properly pull it off while still keeping nice animations.

The unresponsive nature of such animations, combined with the length of frames, as well as server latency and game code are ALL factors that contribute to it.

I want a game that's quick, fast, and smooth. If doing away with rather boring and ugly animations makes the game so, then so be it.

[Kallivis]

If doing away with rather boring and ugly animations makes the game so, then so be it.

lol
/10char

[darkblade77]

Again, animations have nothing to do with that, regardless of if it's called animation lock. That was a system issue, an issue with the code.

There are ways around that and many other games properly pull it off while still keeping nice animations.

A side note: Animation lock was initially there by design(of the previous team). What was a system issue was that it was never originally designed to be 'removable'. Those animations are as lengthy as they are in part because the old team didn't intend for you to move and do other things while they were taking place.

That being said I doubt the devs want to reduce fidelity as much as anyone else arond here. I mean, the next-gen Luminous engine that is partially driving the 2.0 engine is supposed to be all about detailed animations. The logical conclusion is that they need to improve gameplay and responsiveness of the client over having the better animations, and that a solution that properly does both is not feasible right now due to time/money constraints.

[Rhomagus]

A side note: Animation lock was initially there by design(of the previous team). What was a system issue was that it was never originally designed to be 'removable'. Those animations are as lengthy as they are in part because the old team didn't intend for you to move and do other things while they were taking place.

That being said I doubt the devs want to reduce fidelity as much as anyone else arond here. I mean, the next-gen Luminous engine that is partially driving the 2.0 engine is supposed to be all about detailed animations. The logical conclusion is that they need to improve gameplay and responsiveness of the client over having the better animations, and that a solution that properly does both is not feasible right now due to time/money constraints.

^this is also why I'm waiting for beta. I don't think it's pertinent to give up on asking for these animations if it's important to the community and we don't see them, but I'd rather them tackle ARR's gameplay problems first. If this were a sundae then add all the cherries (non combat animations) on top afterwards.

Boob physics is holding about as much importance as the color of spoon I decide to eat this sundae with.

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

I'm sure I’ll be flamed but this was a perfect opportunity for them to quell our worry that the animations will stay 'as is'. I think it's obvious now that they are going with what the wow/typical mmo player is used to and no longer want to keep the realistic animations we had.
For me it's a real immersion breaker and a shame.

I understand the animations aren’t important for a lot of players. It just seems a shame that we are losing ver 1.0's saving grace, It was one of the few things reviewers praised.

I have hopefully and very hopefully assumed that the animations are still in testing and view everything unfinished until the final product. Animation is extremely important to me. Realistic looking definition makes or breaks a game for me.

To keep the current level of robotic-looking, run in place, insta-stop mannequin pose, character animations against such an incredibly realistic looking game world would be scary to me. I hope it is just unfinished. The 1.0 animations gave you a true sense of weightiness, of immersion, the feeling that your character is realistically alive inside of his/her environment instead of the illusion of buoyancy, that the test versions have now.

You tend to not notice it until it is gone, where it then becomes blatantly obvious. That is the thing, when you stop to ponder your character's lack of 'real-ness', the immersion is immediately shattered.

[Kiroh]

They mentioned before that some animations were cut to cut down on cost. They also mentioned that they were adding more animations.

So they're cutting some animations from the game so they don't have to spend the time/money to render them into ARR, but they're also spending more time/money to create all new animations from scratch?

Wait....wut? ~_~