Lack of animations not addressed in live letter

[Koti]

1) The game is still in Alpha.
2) They are trying to make the game more accessable to lower end machines; this means less animations so lower end computer can handle the character models.
3) Gameplay by the majority society is far more important then animation. I hate to say this, I like things pretty too, but if the gameplay is crap (like it was in 1.0), your just going to have another failure.

Face it, even though I would like to see "pretty" stuff, "Pretty" is just fluff. Fluff doesn't keep people playing. Gameplay does. So really, would you rather the game stay alive in the public, or would you rather have another 1.0 mess?

Just saying.

[Hulan]

Gameplay's more important than an (admittedly very nice) little turn animation. I'd rather avoid a wipe than have a nice little turn that slows my character down every time. This kind of focus on graphics and style over gameplay and substance is exactly what FF and JRPGs in general get criticized for.

In the case of turning animations at least, this is something that they can safely improve without endangering gameplay. The animation could be calibrated to take a small amount of time (I'd estimate a 0.25-0.3 second animation would be more than sufficient) and by making the "launching step" on the turn move the character slightly more than usual, the animation can appear to take time, but actually be a null sum.

Sever and client store your position as absolutes for the sake of damage and ability calculations, while the animation plays client side as graphical sugar.

Honestly, during combat, I'm more than willing to forgo a little realism for the sake of smooth gameplay. For instance, after activating a WS, if I slide a bit when I move as the animation completes, that's a price I'm willing to pay. On the other hand, smooth turning animations, pivots, jumps, running; these are things that can be greatly improved from where they are now without impacting gameplay.

[Warlock]

1) The game is still in Alpha.
2) They are trying to make the game more accessable to lower end machines; this means less animations so lower end computer can handle the character models.
3) Gameplay by the majority society is far more important then animation. I hate to say this, I like things pretty too, but if the gameplay is crap (like it was in 1.0), your just going to have another failure.

Face it, even though I would like to see "pretty" stuff, "Pretty" is just fluff. Fluff doesn't keep people playing. Gameplay does. So really, would you rather the game stay alive in the public, or would you rather have another 1.0 mess?

Just saying.

^ This very much so ppl want to bitch again about empty servers? lol the more ppl have the source to play this the more support SE will have the more stuff we get after launch next big thing for Yoshi-P is to implement DirectX 11 better graphics and maybe better animations than 1.0

[Davorok]

I would think many of you would be more concerned about this statement from Yoshi P during the Live Letter:

Right now this is set up on the highest quality in core i7 PC so for those of you playing current FFXIV at highest it should be like this.

While I am certain the true quality didn't come through over the Live Feed, it does seem that the overall graphic quality has been downgraded. Personally I am ok with this as 1.xx was a lag fest for me so I do not mind sacrificing some graphics for gameplay.

[Riv]

"Wow this gameplay/UI/content sucks"
"Oh, it's only Alpha"
.....
"Oh, it's only beta"
....
"Oh, it's the same in retail =("

[Rhomagus]

"Wow this gameplay/UI/content sucks"
"Oh, it's only Alpha"
.....
"Oh, it's only beta"
....
"Oh, it's the same in retail =("

Ya. This sounds awfully familiar. Wouldn't lie saying that I was probably one of those people saying that at that time.

Never again.

It being Alpha is no longer an excuse. While it's true that alpha can potentially be very different doesn't mean it will be. Thankfully it seems that Yoshi-P wants to give it the time it deserves and include us more in the feedback process.

A lot of complaints were raised in beta but according to the dev team at that time, it was too late for suggestions. They were just stress testing servers by then and weren't open to player feedback.

I know I won't make the same mistake twice. Some excuses I can tolerate, but it being alpha is never a reason not to make your voices heard. Whenever I see that reason cited I immediately dismiss it. It's not a reason, it's an excuse.

The new dev team seems much more receptive and capable of receiving player feedback.

[viion]

Just as how you lot nitpick at the smallest lack of detail, I nitpick at the smallest hints of improvement. Is there something wrong with that? Or must you be unneedlessly demanding and sarcastic? Yes, animations need to improve, but not noting that they are TRYING to improve is about as bad as demanding your child do better and not complimenting her when she comes home with an improvement in a school mark.

I have NOT seen one post aside from Rex's that even RELATES to the bit of improvement from the Gridanian alpha video, all I hear is more negativity. I sympathise with you, as I also want improvements, but saying that they're not doing anything, when you have evidence in front of your eyes...? I see it through the video, and I will pinpoint times out after my uni exams, but the improvement is there.

I asked you to show me where in that video you see an "Improvement" in the "Movement Animations", especially since they said they removed them on purpose, so I wonder where you're seeing this improvement that they're not doing because so far they did it on purpose to not have the fancy animations.

This is why I am nitpicking at you, because you're saying they are making improvements, when they said they took the animations out to focus on other things not movement related. So really you are making people believe it will improve when it might not since it was intentional to remove them in the first place (think i repeated myself 3 times there but you might get it).

Also I dont care about the animations as much, if they stay how they are in alpha it wont bother me because I see it as fast, responsive and animation lock can go die in a fire (that said GW2 proves you can have beautiful movement animations and no issues).

I just don't like people going around telling people it will be fixed and fine when we have had no word from the developers that that will be the case, in-fact we've had quite the opposite.

[Warlock]

I asked you to show me where in that video you see an "Improvement" in the "Movement Animations", especially since they said they removed them on purpose, so I wonder where you're seeing this improvement that they're not doing because so far they did it on purpose to not have the fancy animations.

This is why I am nitpicking at you, because you're saying they are making improvements, when they said they took the animations out to focus on other things not movement related. So really you are making people believe it will improve when it might not since it was intentional to remove them in the first place (think i repeated myself 3 times there but you might get it).

Also I dont care about the animations as much, if they stay how they are in alpha it wont bother me because I see it as fast, responsive and animation lock can go die in a fire (that said GW2 proves you can have beautiful movement animations and no issues).

I just don't like people going around telling people it will be fixed and fine when we have had no word from the developers that that will be the case, in-fact we've had quite the opposite.

And the rest of the game looks like shit w/o Luminous engine's sis

[Yrusama]

How long do you think before we start to see the words "PS3 limitations" in official posts? I'm not even sure if there will be limitations, given newer PS3s have a lot more storage to work with than the PS2 HDD. We'll find out, though. Maybe after 2 or 3 expansions.

[Rex]

I repeat:



Quoting this harder so people can see that they're IMPROVING things, and not sweeping it under the carpet.

Is it so hard to see even a hint of silver lining?

I'll repeat it for everyone.



I DID see a turning animation.

Now if I could just link all of you to the point in the live letter that I saw it...

We'll have to wait until they rerelease it to the public.