The fact of the matter is

[RedHare]

I come from a AOL dial-up perspective. So the UI lag is obnoxious but I find myself pathetically used to it. Even with a golden /fix/ serverside, I can't imagine FFXIV running anything similar to a twitch.

Distance in battle and party orientation originally meant to be a key feature of XIV. (We see how convoluted that was with jaggedy terrain and mob placement.) But I wouldn't count it being completely off the whiteboard. Lining up distances and setting up some kind of attack pattern timing that related to player placement orientation mid-battle is sort of how Square handled tactical MMO battle ethics previously. That sort of planning does require battle to go at a slower pace than what most of us are presently used to, even for MMOs, to effectively 'set-up'.

I honestly don't know anything and only /speculate. I agree with the OP. And I look forward to conclusive info about the new battle system alongside any server-side fixes. I agree to the battle system perhaps was intended to make use of slower pace. IE someone mentioned the "Readying ____" line. Such things may had been planned as helpful for battles that revolve around extensive group timing. If there were magic wand to cure all lag issues, I think Yoshida would be all over it.

--And it is true that many Japanese games do revolve around gameplay not necessarily norm in the west. I feel like this is one of the most known things about gaming today. Why get upset at anyone for only pointing that out?--