Impactful Attacks

[Jim_Berry]

Wow is a game that uses a faster gcd than ffxiv. Attack speed is not the issue as Wow skills still feel a helluva lot more impactful than ffxiv.

A fury warrior in wow felt like a berserker thrashing the foes, a monk felt like a martial artist who crushed the enemies bones, a paladin felt like a righteous crusader vanquishing evil. i could go on.

In ffxiv on the other hand, nothing really stands out. Lets take a strong attack.. Rage of Halone. this attack feels weak as all you do is flail your sword as if it its weightless while making swishy-swashy sounds. you cant hear it hit the enemy.
the monk equivalent would be snap punch. this ability sounds awesome right? youre punching with a snap. you expect to hear that but all you get is a "thud" while doing a funny pose. no crispy, satisfying attack. no snap. just a blunt thud.

Exactly! And, like, why give it an animation of 5 hits when the last attack is what actually grab the mob's attention?

[Shurrikhan]

Though for me the lack of any ragdoll, knockback, staggering or collision is far more significant to the lack of "impactful" feeling in XIV's skills than the underutilized and untermastered combat SFX, I think the latter's the only one with a real hope of change in this game.
Sadly, I don't say that just because it's an MMO; others have pulled that off decently well.

That said, I feel like every move in the direction of improvement would be an boon both in long run and short, e.g. giving back multi-hit skills multiple hits, and giving a reason that they might perform differently than single-hit skills other than just wasting single-hit buffing abilities like Life Surge.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Exactly! And, like, why give it an animation of 5 hits when the last attack is what actually grab the mob's attention?

Same reason Maim is 2 hits, BB is 3, Demolish is 6, Vorpal Thrust is 2, Straight Shot is 2, Gust Slash is 5, Scourge is 2... only one hit isn't always as impactful or entertaining to execute as multiple hits in rapid succession.

[HelSpites]

Wow is a game that uses a faster gcd than ffxiv. Attack speed is not the issue as Wow skills still feel a helluva lot more impactful than ffxiv.

A fury warrior in wow felt like a berserker thrashing the foes, a monk felt like a martial artist who crushed the enemies bones, a paladin felt like a righteous crusader vanquishing evil. i could go on.

In ffxiv on the other hand, nothing really stands out. Lets take a strong attack.. Rage of Halone. this attack feels weak as all you do is flail your sword as if it its weightless while making swishy-swashy sounds. you cant hear it hit the enemy.
the monk equivalent would be snap punch. this ability sounds awesome right? youre punching with a snap. you expect to hear that but all you get is a "thud" while doing a funny pose. no crispy, satisfying attack. no snap. just a blunt thud.

Did we play the same game? One of my biggest problems with WoW was that the combat had absolutely no impact to it at all. I played a WW monk in WoW and their skills generally felt like crap. The only half decent skill they had was that rapid punch thing and even that didn't feel particularly fun to use.

Honestly, I don't get the complaints in this thread. The combat in ff14 feels a lot more impactful that most mmos I've played. The only ones that really have a leg up on ff14 are black desert and tera (and vindictus if you count that as an mmo) and that's because those are action mmos with hit stun after every attack. That's not exactly something you can implement in a more traditional mmo combat system like ff14's.

[Shurrikhan]

Did we play the same game? One of my biggest problems with WoW was that the combat had absolutely no impact to it at all. I played a WW monk in WoW and their skills generally felt like crap. The only half decent skill they had was that rapid punch thing and even that didn't feel particularly fun to use.

Honestly, I don't get the complaints in this thread. The combat in ff14 feels a lot more impactful that most mmos I've played. The only ones that really have a leg up on ff14 are black desert and tera (and vindictus if you count that as an mmo) and that's because those are action mmos with hit stun after every attack. That's not exactly something you can implement in a more traditional mmo combat system like ff14's.

It seems a mixed bag to me as well. It's notoriously difficult to tell when a fire mage has cast many of its skills, for instance, unless looking at its procs or floating combat text caused, due to so many instants and "castable while casting" skills in play, while many of the two-handed melee hits actually feel nice and chunky. Others still, like WW Monk make you notice just how much you're basically just a column hit box hovering around another column hit box and tossing vague animations vaguely in the enemy's direction. Overall, I feel like every comparison between WoW and XIV's animation "impactfulness" would likely fall in XIV's favor if only there was some actual animation on the receiving side for hits taken, even if as general or shallow as XIII's.

Sadly, other games that do feel like they have meaty, impactful hits fall into the world of ani-cancel (at least for any remotely serious or even decent play), wherein the animations themselves blur into a flailing of limbs, making them less than ideal examples. (See: Blade and Soul, especially KFM. Sometimes the cancellation is less than jarring, and other times it's almost hard on the eyes.)

Same reason Maim is 2 hits, BB is 3, Demolish is 6, Vorpal Thrust is 2, Straight Shot is 2, Gust Slash is 5, Scourge is 2... only one hit isn't always as impactful or entertaining to execute as multiple hits in rapid succession.

And they'd be more engaging still if they still actually dealt damage on each hit, instead of being so obvious a veneer over a single hit (and a delayed one, at that). Imagine if there was actually a sort of crit chance accretion on those multi-strikes, so that each crit in series has you subconsciously a bit more hyped for the next damage read.

[Gumbercules]

Its the sound design that fails in FFXIV imo, all attacks sound weak. no "oomph" to anything just "pat pat pat pif" (bootshine)

While im no sound technician im guessing its a lack of bass in the attack sounds. you cant feel it like you can in gw2. that game knows how to mae satisfying sounds

Yeah I can see this really adding to the impact of blows in combat, kinda how the first time you hear fell cleave go off is actually memorable cuz of that saw like swoosh sound. Sound can really bring alot to a game's combat. Dont get me wrong its ok atm but could be better, like id like for axe attacks for example to have a louder noise to their blunt sound...hell id say even gorier sound. Or like bard attacks sounding like they are hitting "flesh" and not just kinda lazerish sounds (mch is ok since its a gun)

on the wow thing: While I got fed up with legion pretty quick some of the melee animation changes were really damn nice, and a big impact of it is sound.

Also I could really get behind "smaller" numbers showing up for multi hit WS. I feel it really would add to the overall feel that you are infact hitting multiple times. (for example the first "hits" are just shown off current base damage calculation and last "hit" tallies the remaining extra damage, which would work since most of these multi hit attacks are designed to make last hits seem "heavier")

[JunseiKei]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bVUR9xN8OI

Thats a Snap Punch. Quick, crisp and whip like. In game its slow and boring to both look at and hear.

I mean, hitting a bag and hitting someone in the face don't sound the same. Hitting someone in the face is a pretty dull sound and nothing like that crisp sound you'd get from a bag.