Titan issues that need addressing.

[Nutz]

I don't understand any of these responses. Nowhere in the OP was there a single complaint about this fight being too difficult. Several people have come back with inane responses about how it's really easy to work around the problem outlined in the OP.

Either it's some sort of server issue, or more probably (in my opinion) simply bad design. It seems like it was just a choice by the devs to begin the animations for a particular action's effect after the cast bar ends. The result is that, for example, Weight of the land casting time ends and then Titan's animation and the explosions trigger, but the explosions don't happen until Titan throws his hands forward. It's a relatively short animation, but the effect happens at least a quarter second later than would be expected. This happens with most things though. BLMs are always casting their next spell during the animation for the previous spell, for instance.

I believe the reasoning for this is that they don't want the animation to play in the event of a last second stun, sleep, death, out of area or line of sight, etc. To me though, it seems like it would make more sense in most circumstances to begin the animation early such that the visual effect of the damaging event (in this case weight of the land's explosion) occurs simultaneously with the cast bar filling to 100%.

Please understand that this isn't to 'nerf' the Titan fight(s) or any other, but simply to sync up the visual data that players are primarily using with the numerical account of what's going on. I think it would be a worthwhile endeavor for all parts of the game simply because it would make a lot more sense.

[Verdan]

Considering "Dodge shit marked out on the ground" is part of every boss' mechanics, any time this stuff doesn't sync up it's an issue. Whatever it is, it's gotta be on the list of fixes needed and I hope it is.

[Elim]

Want to know whats funny? Player characters are completely opposite. Most of our moves do not apply to their target until the animation is over. Lmao. Benediction, for example.

[Xoriam]

Considering "Dodge shit marked out on the ground" is part of every boss' mechanics, any time this stuff doesn't sync up it's an issue. Whatever it is, it's gotta be on the list of fixes needed and I hope it is.

Considering you are not lagging, if you move out of the aoe BEFORE THE CAST FINISHES, not before the animation finishes you will be fine.
nothing wrong with Titan.

Want to know whats funny? Player characters are completely opposite. Most of our moves do not apply to their target until the animation is over. Lmao. Benediction, for example.

Gotta love them wasted benedictions.

[Dhex]

Want to know whats funny? Player characters are completely opposite. Most of our moves do not apply to their target until the animation is over. Lmao. Benediction, for example.

Yeah but it's going the opposite direction so that makes some sense. We see it on our screen instantly - but it has to travel all the way to the server before it's recognized.

[seekified]

Basically, people are saying that the game needs to fix their unfortunate networking circumstances for them. I'm sorry, but that's not the way this works.

Also, you should be watching the castbar to see what's happening and where you need to be - this is a necessity to clearing more difficult raid content later in the game and Titan HM was originally a very good way to force people to, well, play better.

As for the animations vs. damage thing, that is a conscious design decision that I'm very happy with. Other MMOs look weird when damage hits before an animation is even halfway done, but FFXIV gets it right by not applying damage and heals until our visual representation of the game world tells us that a target has been affected by whatever was done.

[Fynlar]

Also, you should be watching the castbar to see what's happening and where you need to be

Castbar tells you the former. It gives you absolutely no indication of the latter.

[seekified]

Castbar tells you the former. It gives you absolutely no indication of the latter.

You can infer your required positioning by estimating how much is left of the cast. The telegraph will go up within fractions of a second of the castbar and you know you need to be off the telegraph by the time the cast completes. The problems arise when your view of the game is significantly behind the server, but I do agree that what's referred to as "the lull" shouldn't exist. That pause slows down gameplay and feels unnecessary.

I have to say I've never had problems with this. If my character is off a telegraph by the time it vanishes, I don't get hit.

EDIT: I think tightening up this system would be fantastic and would make battles feel more responsive, but I also think it can be a pretty dangerous thing to change a basic part of the battle system after two years.

[Gyson]

I think more than a few critics of this thread are missing a point (which I thought I spelled out clearly enough) in the opening post.

First, I find it difficult to believe that most players monitor Titan's cast bar. Heck, going by the number of interrupt opportunities that pass by unchallenged on everything from the average mobs to dungeon bosses, I would argue that most players aren't watching cast bars anywhere. While it's fantastic that the fraction of people on this forum who are participating in this thread (which make up an even tinier fraction of the people playing the game) are apparently all cast-bar watching pros, as someone who is always tanking I feel like I can safely say that most of the time the only one staring at cast bars seems to be me (as I'm rarely able to count on the average player to help interrupt anything).

Second, this thread is not about what people should be doing - remember, "we're apparently all pros here" , so nobody is dropping any insight bombs on anyone else. But for your average player (you know the one, that fellow who has died early *again* on Titan attempt #X) the issue pointed out in the original post is not making anything easier for anyone. It is very difficult to convince your average player that they failed to react in time when every visual indicator on their screen is reinforcing the idea that they *did* react in time. The average player is not going to want to hear a lecture about castbars versus telegraphs, or theories on video/processor lag versus network latency - on their screen they see themselves clearing the AOE-warning makers before it vanishes and/or explodes, and a) it is a lie, and b) it is a lie they're buying into. To argue with them that they were "late" at that point is to basically tell them to stop trusting their own eyes and the information being displayed on their screen. It doesn't work.

I would argue that tightening up the animations (especially for this trial) such that the castbar and animations are more in sync would be infinitely more useful towards helping players improve compared to a futile attempt to educate everyone in the game about the quirks and workarounds for this encounter. Simply put, if Bob sees his character die in an explosion he will make a real effort to move faster/anticipate better in the future. Where as Bob seeing his character die (when standing a safe distance from an explosion) is not likely to put much effort into improving at all, because in his mind the game got it wrong, not him. And when half your Duty Finder PUG is filled with Bob's having this issue, it sucks for everyone wasting their time on that run (regardless of who is doing it right or wrong).

We can argue about whether or not this can be fixed, but nobody should be arguing about whether or not it would be preferable to have things syncing up better (hint: it would be preferable). And yet some of the responses seem to be doing just that, which is more than a little strange.

Side note: for the memorize and move early crowd that is proudly chiming in on this discussion - I would also argue that you are essentially screwing over the rest of the party in an effort to guarantee your personal survival. If everyone is tightly stacked to minimize the amount of traveling distance needed to clear all those "Weight of the Land' telegraphs, you must realize that by breaking formation early (even a half second early) you're causing those telegraphs to spread out more, which in turn is making escape more difficult for the people who are waiting for the telegraph as a visual cue to start moving. Perhaps you don't realize this or you just don't care, but it is what it is.

[Cutie_McSnuggles]

First, I find it difficult to believe that most players monitor Titan's cast bar. Heck, going by the number of interrupt opportunities that pass by unchallenged on everything from the average mobs to dungeon bosses, I would argue that most players aren't watching cast bars anywhere. While it's fantastic that the fraction of people on this forum who are participating in this thread (which make up an even tinier fraction of the people playing the game) are apparently all cast-bar watching pros, as someone who is always tanking I feel like I can safely say that most of the time the only one staring at cast bars seems to be me (as I'm rarely able to count on the average player to help interrupt anything).

While I can sympathize with the idea of wanting cast bars and animations synced. If you're not paying attention to cast bars then how did you get past bosses like Coincounter and Chimera who's major attacks have no AOE indicators, and how do you expect to deal with mechanics in Coil many of which also have no AOE indicators? Paying attention to cast bars is a required skill to succeed in this game.

Also, it's the tanks job to stun bosses. Good DPS will hold off on using stuns during most boss fights so they won't build up immunity.