Casting and spell animations...lackluster?

[Benjaman]

All battle visuals and sound effects are incredibly dismal. For a company that should pride itself on the aesthetics of their games, SE sure did f*** up in FFXIVs combat department.

[Menchi]

Definitely one of the low points of the battle system. Everything just looks and feels so weak and under-powered.

[MRBJ1978]

I totally agree with what you all have said about the spell animations... I know how bad the battle system itself needs to be fixed and how there are bigger issues than this, but for me the sights and sounds of the game I am playing are just as important. Especially what I have come to love and expect from my Final Fantasy games!

Other than living, eating, sleeping, and breathing for the Summoner job (lol), one of the main things I look forward to in all Final Fantasy games is playing as the spell casting jobs. I cant wait to see the spell animation and hear the sound FX and see how they get bigger and badder as they go up in level. I could not wait for FF XIV to come out because I knew that the spells were going to look awesome but boy did I have a shock in store!

I cannot believe how this is supposed to be the UPGRADE to FF XI and be so superior as far as graphics go, yet the spell animation and sound FX in FF XI blow FF XIV out of the water! The elemental spells are bad enough, like a tiny pebble hitting the monster for a Stone spell, but when I saw the animation for Dia, Bio, and others like Rasp and Shock... I was horrified! What the hell, you need a magnifying glass to even see it... I want stuff that looks and sounds like Blizzard IV and Thunder IV from FF XI not stuff that looks and sounds like it came from FF IV. Heck, what am I saying, even those animation and sound FX look and sound better...

And please don't even get me started on how lame and disappointing the casting animation is... you hold your hand up in front of you, it glows, you hear a faint hissing noise, and the only difference between THM and CON are the colors? Really? Do we really need to say yet again that this is supposed to be a UPGRADE from FF XI? When you were casting a BLM spell it looked and sounded as if you were really calling forth something powerful, I don't even know what to compare it to in FF XIV. I love love love the Mage jobs but this really makes me want to stay away from them or just go back to FF XI full time because every time I play as one on FF XIV I just get pissed off because of how awesome it could have looked and sounded yet how crappy it is!

[Sushi]

Agreed! I prefer casting spells in ffxi.

[arlee]

Agreed! I prefer casting spells in ffxi.

I prefer the spells and weapon skills in XI, the ones in this game are just plain sad and boring. 95% of the skills animations are yawn Also the sfx for the skills or magic are boring too.

No clue how they went from XI skills to this garbage

[Valentia]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who felt as though the combat animations were largely underwhelming.(oxymoron alert!)

What this game is missing is the same amount of, "Wow! that is COOL!" That we got from FFVII-FFX. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzLit5oBQ8M

The spell casting sounds are sub-par to typical Square Enix quality, the magial effects are dull and uninteresting, the exception being spam heals during behest/parties, and the only nice animations that I have seen so far would be the end-game PUG attacks and mid-game/end-game archer skills. Square, I hope you're reading and translating this!

[Kallera]

I prefer the spells and weapon skills in XI, the ones in this game are just plain sad and boring. 95% of the skills animations are yawn Also the sfx for the skills or magic are boring too.

No clue how they went from XI skills to this garbage

I agree, I haven't gotten to some of the higher level skills yet on my PUG, but the most interesting one seems to be seismic shock, and even then I can't enjoy the animation, as I'm inputing other actions as well. I guess the problem becomes, do we want the animations to interfere with the next strike, or will they just be sacrificed for quicker reaction time?

Or maybe we should let PUGs suffer. ;;

[Lusavari]

Well. Let's think about which ones have cool and unique animations: Earth Render, Arrow Helix, Iron Tempest...

And then I know Axe has two WS types. There's the Upward Swing, and the Over Head Smash. the standard upward swing works for slashing skills, while the overhead smash is truer for blunt skills. It is true they could do something fancier. than reusing a lot of those.

Most of the spells don't bother me a lot. Protect and Shell: Awesome job. Stoneskin... It's OK... it's more like a wall than skin. The animation for when you get hit with it on is far better. And then there's the attack spells. Fire, Water, Thunder, and Aero seem Alright to me. Blizzard is a little to plain, it's just a frost cloud. But the only attack spell I find really unacceptable is Stone. It's like a glowy hard to see pebble is shot into the monster, followed by a poof of a dust cloud, and even that's hard to notice. It's just to plain.

For Stone, the old XI rising rocks animation was always cool. And for Blizzard, it'd be awesome if it was just adjusted to at the end, you had the cloud consolidate, and make a spikey ice crystal.

[Rimmer]

Well. Let's think about which ones have cool and unique animations: Earth Render, Arrow Helix, Iron Tempest...

And then I know Axe has two WS types. There's the Upward Swing, and the Over Head Smash. the standard upward swing works for slashing skills, while the overhead smash is truer for blunt skills. It is true they could do something fancier. than reusing a lot of those.

The axe weaponskills are definately boring... I'd like to see my character jump in the air and slam her axe into the ground generating shockwaves, much like seismic strike..Definately a huge lack of multi hit weapon skills as well..

Shantotto would be laughing her ass of at some of those spell animations... Ohohohoho!

It is true that alot of the games animations are incredibly lackluster, hopefully this gets commented on by Yoshi & the team soon, as i believe it to big a huge problem with the game currently.

[Lusavari]

Shantotto would be laughing her ass of at some of those spell animations... Ohohohoho!

This line removes any and all credibility you could possibly have. =/

Otherwise, as I was explaining, yeah, everything is not really that great. No Flashy Raging Rush or Shadow of Death sort of deals. Plus considering some of the names, you'd suspect more to go along with them.