The Major Issues

[Insomnius]

On the rude players, we all just really need to not let them get to us. If you notice yourself getting upset, take a minute and just breathe. Do you really want to ruin part of your day being upset at some random guy? Just smile, and either leave or ignore them. I know the timers and having to wait again is a little annoying, but you just can't help it sometimes. For me, I like turning the profanity filter on because it makes any cussing someone starts to spew out comical, but maybe that's just me. Same thing with comedians, the bleeping out of the cussing makes it funnier to me, don't know why :P

Anyways! Just be happy, gaming is a hobby for people to enjoy, listen to some upbeat music (which might be hard because the games soundtrack is just amazing) and smile. Holding on to anger or irritation just makes your life outside the game worse as well.

[Eclair_Xysha]

@ Eclair_Xysha: To be honest, I think a lot of the western rudeness stems from mainly Americans, not so much Europeans (which I am American, before anyone gets all upset). We seem to have an obsession with freedom to the point of it hurting us. Kids are no longer punished, but instead coddled for the most part, not given proper discipline and aren't taught well enough in school, which leads to improper behavior. I mean hell, I'm only 22 and I noticed these issues going through school myself. I'm thankful every day for being brought up right, and having parents that taught me well. Such a great country, cutting school funding yet again, and teachers pay. Gotta build them bombs, terrorists are everywhere! /sarcasm

Muuurrrrikah. It's difficult to even leave. I might as well sit back and watch us all fall.

[Darken]

The internet used to be so different back when the Original MMOs came out because the population consisted of mostly adults. Ever since people started using the internet to babysit their children, it has turned into a cesspool. Not to say there aren't adults that act that way. Now everything is now now now instant gratification or whawhawha this game is broken.

[Mujen]

So why is latency even an issue in FFXIV? Only when people started to do titan they discovered latency issues? No it's because that's when latency issues actually counted heavily. Prior to titan latency issues got you hit with abilities, in few cases killed. Adding 2.5 GCD when "modeling" other games which mostly have <2sec GCD skills (WoW, GW2, etc.) is one way to be unique and provide a slower pace to the game - a uniqueness. But then why ADD low server-side refresh rates and hidden internal casts to 'instant" skills. Not to overload the servers you say, but what about the countless other games that do NOT have this issue? this has been beaten to death in other threads. So the new solution is Memorization > Skill. lt's create a "workaround" for poor design and then tell those who don't feel they should work around a poor design, "noobs" or "L2P".. Memorization > Skill. Also cutscenes in dungeons.. goes back to ver.1 as an issue. 2.5 sec will be felt in pvp - this isn't a pvp game.. thanks.. so explain to me why we're getting pvp when we can't even hit moving targets consistenly if you're melee? Our tab-target function is dysfunctional.. basic stuff.. You can't save the preference to show online LS members at top.. you have to click it every time?? Relic are losing their "wow," DL it's prestige.. I mean, what's really going on here? no ESC function to clear typing.. no kick for DF, cant add to primals if someone leaves.. there's other basics. It's a matter of why add so much limitation and then load everything server side. I played ver 1.0 and doing ARR, just want to have a game to play, lately online-games are dissapointing and technology is only advancing.. it doesnt make sense.

[Sath]

the GCD is a non issue, and the cast animations are a non issue, learn your class, and/or ask for tips, and stop your porn downloads to fix lag. If ppl are dying because you had to move and were GCD'd, heal them earlier or let them know "hey, you know if you stand in that brown circle there, you take alot of damage, so pls dodge it"

And if "memorization > skill" in this game is the game, imagine how many ppl would bitch if SE set phase 5 to a random rotation if ppl can not master memorizing things.

but its sounding like, mujen, maybe this isnt the game for you, there are others out there.

[Jahaudant]

2.5 sec will be felt in pvp

Good lord that was a difficult read, but I did spot it!

For the love of god can you explain this perceived problem with the current GCD? You ignored my previous post... so much for being helpful and willing to explain.

[Mujen]

Good lord that was a difficult read, but I did spot it!

For the love of god can you explain this perceived problem with the current GCD? You ignored my previous post... so much for being helpful and willing to explain.

The problem is they have added both this 2.5 sec GCD along with poor server positional updates.. If ARR was modeled after current top games such as WoW & GW2.. why not have a smooth game and keep the 2.5sec GCD. Why both? ALSO... make skill speed/spell speed worthwhile for classes other than MNK. We're not even going to debate about it's 0.001 effect on GCD and approx 0.006 effect on cast time that's simple math. It's a compounding effect, i'm not singling out GCD alone, but when added to other things, yes it's annoying.. why this longer GCD ontop of latency, skills not firing and positions not refreshing.. it just funnels the problems towards frustration rather than challenging enjoyment. It becomes mercy of the game mechanics rather than obvious player skill. All this crap about memorizing fights is poor design, people do not like to spend lot of time to research fights. Why do you think tanking isn't the most sought role in games? Because you have to understand the fights. DPS is less responsibility & less blame, you can learn the fight easier.

There is no item linkage, no item preview, why do we still have retainers? They do absolutely nothing besides storage, in fact they are more of a hindrance because in order to sell items you have to check the AH for prices and then walk over to your retainer and either remember the pricing or write it down.. More items would be sold if you could goto the AH, lookup prices, even link the item to the search bar for convenience and sell it right then and there. I hardly sell because of this inconvenience. You also have to target the summoning bell amidst a crowd (why do i have to search to hit F12?). Why do we constantly have to click "show online players top" for LS preference? Why can't we see numbers for cooldowns on skills as an option for UI? Sometimes it's hard to see if something is almost off CD depending the skill's color. If the latency issue regarding refreshing positioning was corrected I guarantee we'd see a better success rate for titan HM. It's 2013, we're modeling older games that have already illustrated what's possible and what should/shouldn't be implemented.. why don't we build upon that? If people keep defending/accepting crap, that's what you'll set as acceptable... Why should a company strive to do better if the expectations are low? SE is notorious for letting players struggle to understand their game concepts (both FFXIV & FFXI). How about adding % to the hover tooltip for stats... what does 520 crit rate mean exactly? what does 50 spell speed mean? (heck make spell speed worth it also). Why do adds have to rape healers for regen effects when they are fresh spawns? This is clear for Garuda HM when her adds spawn. It's just a long list of things that add up.. it's not "hey 2.5 sec GCD is the issue with the game" it's an accumulation & unless you can step back and look at the overall picture, instead of analyzing 1 aspect, you're missing the picture completely.

[DanteMog]

You aren't being very helpful or nice, and you don't seem very willing to explain at all.

And for the record, I don't "main" anything in Titan. I play SCH most frequently followed by WHM, then PLD, then occasionally BRD. The forums require me to select a "main class" for some reason.

I'd still like to know why the GCD is causing some people issues.

Edit: Now my main class is level 5 "Harvester". Whatever that is.

I don't know about lag and the GCD but i know the GCD is terrible in this game, its even broken enough to affect skills that are suppose to be instant and arent, then the animations on top wew, i've played many mmos but this GCD is bad, maybe the worst i've ever dealt with.. Strangely its sucks but is usable on whm but on monk holy crap its pretty bad, classes should have had different GCD..

On top of that im sitting on a 370 ish ping time so maybe it does emphasizes the GCD issues more..

[Jahaudant]

You keep mentioning GCD alongside completely unrelated problems as if reducing it would help solve them. You realise GCD (global cool down) is the time between using two skills, right? The GCD doesn't effect skills that are supposed to be instant and aren't, this is an entirely different and unrelated issue.

Any problems you have with the current time for the global cool down are purely personal preference (ie, combat is too slow paced for me).

Let me try to explain. If the game was balanced around a 1 second GCD you would, obviously, be able to attack faster and cast faster but in order to achieve balanced gameplay a number of other changes would need to be implemented. Monsters would have to be adjusted to also hit and cast faster as well and they would need more HP or defence to negate your increased dps and keep encounter length the same. You would have increased TP, HP and MP regeneration, and the internal DOT clock would be reduced to just over a second. These aren't necessarily bad things, but the point is everything would change relatively and the only difference you would see is an increase in the pace of battles.

You will still be frustrated at the bad polling rate, instants that don't fire immediately, the long animation locks and inability to dodge because absolutely none of this would change in any way whatsoever. If anything, the increased speed will make it more difficult for you to deal with these problems, not easier.

This is of course assuming you aren't just looking for a reduction in the GCD without any of the other balancing factors, which is just a roundabout way of saying you want the game to be easier - not fixed.

Edit: You can view market history directly from the sell menu on your retainer. Icon in the top right. You're welcome.

[Rivienne]

If the latency issue regarding refreshing positioning was corrected I guarantee we'd see a better success rate for titan HM.

I have to disagree here. You seem to have latched on to the various time delays inherent in skills as the problem, but the bigger problem is the inability of players to react fast enough. You can agree with this right? You think it is because of skill delay/positional lag, but by and large it isn't. It comes from the drawing lag I mentioned earlier, which is an object prioritization problem. The first time (this has only happened twice sadly) I did Titan without any lag issue on my part or anyone else it was a completely different fight. It was hard, it was challenging even (and I still say Titan evil), but I didn't need to know where everything was ahead of time, I could just react and everything worked out. And that seems to be your real complaint: that you can't react in time without memorization. Most of the time I have to memorize titan because of the lag. Which all relates to the drawing priority lag problem.

The GCD, instant off, server side ticks, positional updates. All of these are only compounding the real problem. If that problem is fixed, they won't contribute much of an issue at all. It also would solve the fate enemy and aoe issues people have, because that is the same issue. Also why Garuda sometimes doesn't re-appear for people sometimes.

I absolutely think they need to fix the underlying issue, but that issue has little if anything to do with the timing of skills or effects as near as I can tell.

Also on regen: it isn't that big of a deal most of the time. The ads rushing straight towards you is something you should be familiar with as a WHM anyway, and learn to adapt. If you wait until the tank has solid threat before regen, it isn't a problem, and usually you can tell by boss behaviour when they are about to spawn. Worst case you kite around the tank until he can grab aggro. Usually I use regen in a fight where the tank has aggro already, but the entire party is taking general unavoidable damage. I can throw regen on the tank while I focus on group heals, or individually healing someone else who took too much damage. If you are using it as a constant part of every fight, trying to keep it up at all times, or before fights, that is the only time you are likely to have real issues with it.

Anyway, I agree we should try and point out the game flaws, but I would far rather they fixed real fundamental technical issues, before they started looking at the behaviour of existing skills or the GCD.

Wouldn't drawing priority be more of an issue in FATEs where you don't see the monsters, rather you see the players? aka "Culling"

.....

There are a lot of things to be fixed, would be a list. But most of them, I don't think are major, but im not a programmer. But stuff like tab targeting needs to be fixed as well.. Idk I feel like this is mostly a complaint thread but I just wish the dev would fix this stuff and Im hoping they do. We'll see what happens with patch 2.1

Sort of and sort of not. (I am a programmer, I don't currently do graphics, but I worked on a simulation 3d rendering engine in a previous contract)

The problem with any 3d rendering system is how you handle the priority of objects. To simplify what I believe to be happening here is this: AOE are a child object of Titan, so in the same way if you have too many objects on screen in FATE some will get dropped or delayed, the AOE itself will get dropped or delayed. The system prioritization is inadvertently adding an artificial delay between the time the server tells it a landslide is coming, and the time it actually shows it on screen. So instead of saying "always draw AOE first" it is doing a different type of prioritization where other events occur first. My best guess is something like this: Self -> Self Animations -> Self AOE -> Environment -> Players -> Player Animations -> Player AOE -> Enemies -> Enemy Animations -> Enemy AOE That is, when the system is overloaded/runs out of time, the things most likely to be dropped or delayed are the enemy AOE. Nice right? This explains almost every animation quirk and delay I have seen that isn't related to network lag. (Though I am not positive about the exact order, this is just a best guess, especially regarding environment. It is also possible that other players are roughly on par with enemies in terms of prioritization, in which case it is first come first serve.. definitely a tricky problem)

The point is that I believe the system needs to have an auto-prioritize to ensure things like enemy AOE are always higher in the stack than other objects so when this type of situation happens, what it drops isn't something that is so very time sensitive/important.

And yeah, I think most threads are complaint threads. There isn't anything wrong with complaining about a problem, but the key thing here is that if you want to be heard, you need to be coherent and structured in what and why, so that it is constructive criticism. This is why the Quality of Life thread got dev feedback, but most threads don't. Point by point, what is wrong, and if possible right, as well as the simplest solution you can think of to the problem.

In other words, if you want to make an impact. Put together a prioritized list of problem situations. It doesn't have to be every single problem you see, just the most important ones that you think effect "quality of life". Explain point by point why it appears to be a problem, and then list potential suggestions for improvement. If it is a good idea, that is implementable devs will take it. (Seriously they will.) But general complaints have to get sorted and filtered by the forum moderators/community support people like everything else, and the more complaint like the thread, the less likely it is to make any real impact, or even get passed on to the developers apart from "general angst in the community about x".