Quote Originally Posted by Niwashi View Post
Sanosuke's point was that this option can't be the drop that spills over because it doesn't add even a drop. There is no extra memory requirement by offering multiple options of how to display something, because regardless of how many other options a player could have chosen from, only the one they actually do choose will get loaded into memory. Hiroshi Minagawa's claim that "due to memory restrictions, we cannot hold data for two types of animation" is total baloney because the machine's memory wouldn't be holding data on both types of animation, it would only hold one or the other.
I'd love to tell you that you're right about that because it seems so sensible, however, he explained exactly why that is not the case. It may seem to be poor implementation, and perhaps it is, but the implementation that they are using according to the dev post is an entire packet of hotbar images all loaded at once such that every conceivable icon that could be on a hotbar (and as such any recast animations) are all held in memory at once. He mentioned that there are some exceptions, presumably for icons that change (MNK's chakra perhaps) or for whatever reason don't need to be in memory and for which some display lag would be acceptable. Something that would be called every couple of seconds at least in battle doesn't qualify.

I can't tell you why the recast animation can't stand alone outside of the packet of other hotbar icons or anything, just that the dev post specifically said that it can't and I have to believe he knows something that I don't.

On another note, I do wish they had just put a 0% saturation filter over the icon while it was on cooldown. The circles do obscure the image enough that if you're at all confused about the icon or placement on your hotbar you'll have (more) problems. I experienced this yesterday coming back from a fairly long break from the game. I was wrestling with muscle memory telling me one thing but visually being unable to confirm what certain icons were (without hovering over them to read). A minor annoyance that will probably pass, but I think there would be better ways of indicating something is on cooldown (even to the last millisecond) than obscuring the image this much.

I sympathize though. I'd like grayscale images for abilities that are on cooldown and other people may think that's a terrible idea.