Quote Originally Posted by Shougun View Post
I'm curious how some people thought it was immersion though.

I can punch and run, I can swing a sword and run, I can even shoot a bow and run (though honestly I can't hit shit then lol).

Animation lock (on everything) is NOT immersion, in fact its anti-immersion.

There are however some moves that would make sense you couldn't alter while in action, in particular leaps and jumps - if I dash jump into the air it really doesn't make sense I can turn around at the same time or alter course of the jump except for tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny amounts of mid air adjustment for landing.
With many of the actions you CAN move while performing, however, strength is lost without that good stance, and with the ones empowered through leg movement, the ability to react should something go wrong is mostly lost when already on the run.

What I'd hope to see is that eventually we will move as more than just capsules with floppy legs following us to mimic real movement. This would be especially important in terms of having the stanced (animation-lock-like) aesthetics without the unrealistic limitations of those locks. Even if left to mimicry, rather than using a point-plant system (essentially, working as if we had real legs), such a system could allow us to take another one or two steps more-or-less freely during the animation. This could then be used for additional effects, without feeling like a hack-and-slash or instant-spam game.

Let's say I'm a Samurai with a defensive ability that will automatically parry the next melee attack from a certain enemy while I have him targeted. If I move in around the enemy's next (auto-blocked) swing, it will bind as well (holding the enemy in a mutual parry, where neither of us can attack further until I chose to break the bind or he backs away or overpowers me). From there some of my abilities will be slightly modified. I can choose a regular heavy attack while stepping towards the outside (everyone in FFXIV was right-handed, so that'd be to the left) and overpower over his blade without risking being hit. I can use a light attack and step forward to cut under his blade while moving past him, again avoiding his attack.

These wouldn't have to be perfectly timed either. Simply hitting the movement key or keys as you start will be enough. They are procedural differences, not hack-and-slash action dynamics. And in the end, this is all you can really do in a true sparring match (to continue with the sword example). Condition-->Trigger-->Procedure-->Retrigger-->Procedure; considering everything in fine and frantic shades of action only gets you killed, no matter how good your reactions are.

To me this makes more sense than our 1.x combos.