Casting and spell animations...lackluster?

[RahJah]

I agree. The spells need to be more intense/rich in their audio and visual qualities. It would make casting jobs much more attractive.

[Seif]

I agree. Even if they add a BLM cjob what are blms going to nuke with? These 0.2millisecond farts? Final Fantasy I and II on the psp have better effects.

[Endemerrin]

I literally laughed out loud when I first casted "Burn". That's all that really needs to be said. It was absolutely pathetic.
Now, the way I see it, there's two reasons the spells are lackluster in this game.

#1. The actual spell effects are just pathetic. I mean, ancient magic looks worse than tier I black magic in FFXI. This is completely unacceptable given the intensity of this game engine. I want to see enemies engulfed in huge explosions of fire. I want to hear and feel that heat through my damn monitor.

#2. We're forced to have our weapons out when casting, and use them as a casting medium. Part of what made casting in FFXI amazing to me was the fact that your character looked like they were about to drop some serious hurt down. Their body would shake as they held their hands out in front of them, an aura would surround them, their eyes would be closed and mouths muttering. Finally, they'd swing their arms out and you would instantly know what spell was being cast the moment it hit. Both visually, and audibly.

Here? We just have some little glowy hand, and a wave of the stick. It carries no sense of power and destruction that black magic is supposed to have. This is Final Fantasy, after all.

[Anathiel]

I 100% agree with this post. Hope they adress it soon.

[Demacia]

Yeah, from the spell animations to the weapon skills. It's all extremely disappointing.

Every GLA and PUG WS looks exactly the same except simian thrash (which is the only WS that's as good looking as your average FFXI one).

[AshelyRiot]

I agree with this post, some of you have me dying over here laughing just like the animations in XIV

[Hotohori]

I'm sorry but I would have to disagree on skills being too lackluster because there are many skills that improve graphically when going up to their tier II or III versions. Higher level skills in general have better animations for people to enjoy. (Simian Trash, Wide Volley II, Rage of Halone, Maim, Chaos Thrust, etc) The number of skills per combat class are simply too many to expect a special animation for each and every one. Just wait for more tier III, IV, and V skills to come and people will forget how weak tier I versions appeared. Skills without a know higher tier version are all pretty unique and fancy already. Light slash, Light strike and other base attack skill have an amazing 4-5 different animations which can occur which is better than I expected at least.

As for the lack of variety in casting animations there are currently 56 different poses in FFXIV while FFXI only had 42. Every class (Gladiator, Pugilist, Lancer, Marauder, Archer, Conjurer and Thaumaturge) in FFXIV has a different animation for casting magic as does each race/gender (8). In FFXI, the cast animations were only for the different types of magic (White, Black, Blue, Summoning, Ninjutsu and Song) and races/gender (7). So as long as more classes are released, you can expect to see more casting stances to go with them.

[Akumu]

I'm sorry but I would have to disagree on skills being too lackluster because there are many skills that improve graphically when going up to their tier II or III versions. Higher level skills in general have better animations for people to enjoy. (Simian Trash, Wide Volley II, Rage of Halone, Maim, Chaos Thrust, etc) The number of skills per combat class are simply too many to expect a special animation for each and every one. Just wait for more tier III, IV, and V skills to come and people will forget how weak tier I versions appeared. Skills without a know higher tier version are all pretty unique and fancy already. Light slash, Light strike and other base attack skill have an amazing 4-5 different animations which can occur which is better than I expected at least.

As for the lack of variety in casting animations there are currently 56 different poses in FFXIV while FFXI only had 42. Every class (Gladiator, Pugilist, Lancer, Marauder, Archer, Conjurer and Thaumaturge) in FFXIV has a different animation for casting magic as does each race/gender (8). In FFXI, the cast animations were only for the different types of magic (White, Black, Blue, Summoning, Ninjutsu and Song) and races/gender (7). So as long as more classes are released, you can expect to see more casting stances to go with them.

I could care less about the animations/stances/poses... The actual visual spell(or weaponskill) effect is really terrible for a game that prides itself on detail. Stone I+(and other spells) on XI had more impact than the spells on XIV currently. I haven't seen one spell that made me go WOW! or EPIC! yet... I would even settle for a thats cool! I don't want to just copy/paste the spells from XI but hell that would be an improvement.

edit:

[Peregrine]

Added dev tag to discussion. Got to use them, especially on the few areas we all agree on.

[Xquiel]

agreee!!! FFXI's effects are better than FFXIV!!! please fix this =/