Collision detection: Envirnoment and Monsters

[Hotohori]

I believe the removal of collision had to do with the fact that in FFXI, players could purposefully inhibit the movement of another player while in combat making them unable to move when necessary for positioning or evading certain abilities. Often the tactics of battle may involve sidestepping a certain skill, averting your gaze or moving away to exceed the range of a damaging skill for safety. With collision there may be multiple players interested in what you are fighting and choose to intentionally block your abilities to use safer tactics in hopes of your potential failure. Many players would use third-party tools and .dat modifications to take away character collision in FFXI.

So although as unrealistic as it may be to be able to walk through another player, it can be unfair to be unable to move properly when necessary due to simply having others around you whether they have ill intentions or not.

As for monster collision, with the party sizes of certain groups of enemies and the sheer size of some monsters, movement can be difficult at times. They even removed the /follow trait of monsters seeing as they may also inhibit a player when needing to sidestep or such. I would hate for losing a battle because I could not move with 10 goats stuck to me. Also if many players are intentionally able to block the free movement of a monster, terrain exploitations may become possible with narrow passageways.