Animation Lock: Why don't you like it?

[Alhanelem]

"Animation lock" is HUGE in a fighting game.

Not any fighting game I've ever played. In every fighting game I've ever played, few animations last more than like half a second. In FFXIV 1.0, many animations took several seconds yet you still need to make split second decisions in many cases. Animation lock at best has no impact on gameplay, and at worst hurts it immensely. if it's not making the gameplay worse, I'm not going to kick and scream and demand that it be removed, but i'm sure as hell not going to ask for it to be put in if it's not there already. FFXIV is an example of animation lock making the game worse.

So you're basically complaining that you died because you got punished for doing a skill at the wrong time, ignoring the dangers of the enemy?

No. I'm complaing that a course of action that SHOULD BE POSSIBLE is NOT, purely because your character is frozen in place for an unrealistic period of time when, if you were that character in real life, you would be able to move a lot sooner.

What you're saying is that I should learn to live with the animation lock and plan my behavior around it accordingly- What I'm saying is that the animation lock shouldn't exist and that I should plan my behavior around it NOT existing, because it is a poor mechanic that improves the prettiness of the game slightly while drastically slowing the game down for no good reason. Animation lock does not make the game more fun or interesting, or more challenging in a good way.

Adding challenge is not a bad thing, but there are good ways and bad ways to add challenge. Dysfunctional mechanics that limit the control you have over your character are not good ways to add challenge. It's like taking the keyboard/controller away from me for a few seconds every time I perform an action.

In general, disabling effects are the least fun way to add challenge. You expect an enemy to have disabling attacks though- what you DON'T expect is that every single thing you do disables you, when the enemy is not subject to that limitation. Enemies were NOT subject to animation lock- They could do whatever the hell they wanted, because they were being controlled by a server system, and the servers do not render the graphics, therefore do not render the animations, therefore do not experience animation lock. How anyone can possibly think that this is a reasonable, balanced, fair mechanic is beyond me.

animation lock has no beneficial effects on gameplay. it serves ONLY to improve the aesthetics of character animations. Graphics should never, ever come before gameplay, in my not so humble opinion.

Animation lock was particularly bad on FFXI, because even your allies could unintentionally lock you in place by casting cures and buffs on you. If you were not moving at the time the spell animation started playing, you could not move at all until it was over. However, if you WERE moving at the time, you were not affected. Someone tell me how that makes any sense at all?