An open petition / discussion about Animation Lock and FFXIV

[lackofwords]

First lets define what an animation lock is, or at least what I think it is
Animation Lock - the lost of control or limited of control character upon a certain animation caused from executing a certain action.
Such as;
Animation lock is during the moment a spell is casted or weaponskill is executed, the player is unable to move or cancel the action.
Animation lock for basic and auto attacks is negligible or non-existent.

I honestly thought animation lock was part of the design. It only seemed to make sense not to be running away while your character is in mid-attack animation from a weaponskill. They did take away animation lock for drawing and sheathing your weapon though, so that only reinforced the idea that it was their intent to leave it in.

Additionally, if it was part of their design, then they should have given the player more choices to pick from short animation locks to long animation locks. Almost all of the animation locks now pretty much leads to the players death if chosen at the wrong time.
"Oops, didn't mean to cast a spell now" -> death
"Oops, didn't mean to do that long flashy weaponskill now" -> death

Take for example where some animation locks were part of the gameplay for more action oriented games;
-Souls/Dark Souls where you can't run away when swinging a giant maul.
-Or almost any fighting game where you can't run away when executing a combo or special attack.
These types of games offer a huge range of short and long animation locks. Additional some fighting games even allow you to cancel your action mid-way as a feint.

If it was truly not part of their design, then moving during mid-action should cancel, or nullify all damage the weaponskill, magic spell, or whatever the action would have done. However, it didn't seem like they wanted to have movement as an action interrupt as you could clearly see how they've applied odd work-arounds to cancel spell casting.

[Dreadnought]

there is almost 0 animation lock in SWTOR.
even though it is not an ARPG, it sure as hell feels like it, and its all due to the absence of animation lock. melee or mage.

[Buddhsie]

Please don't reference SWTOR, it sucks, like.. a lot.

[Lionheart]

totally support this. I find it very frustrating. Add my name if you wish

[KenJammin]

I like how my character moves his whole body into his attacks. I don't know how i feel about sacrificing that. In Wow the characters arms move independent from their legs, that's why the game looks like a bunch of gorillas swinging swords around.

I think issues like this continue to highlight why games that copy wow can't succeed without poor graphics to hide all the visual sacrifices they make for frantic game play.

I think they just need to speed up the animations a little, maybe let the character exit the animations a bit earlier, and cut down on all the linking and make individual monsters stronger cause clearly the current system benefits AOE characters more than anything. I think characters inputting actions should suffer a bit of a movement delay, attacks should have more depth and planning to them then just spamming them whenever tp is available, not to mention stronger attacks with longer animations now have a bit more to them, or planning to spam low cost TP attacks like skull sunder no longer become viable.

FFXI was a lot more refined then WoW I think thats why it maintained its consistent niche fan base, I think players so quick to ignore and sacrifice animations encourage games to look nerdy and close out their hardcore fan base. Wow players didn't leave wow and go to other MMO's they're moving away from the frantic unorganized gameplay onto the streamlined content rich console games that have been coming out during the past 3 years where developers have really gained a strong mastery of the platforms they're developing on.

[Soukyuu]

I think the larger problem here is the latency, not animation lock itself. Most of my deaths fighting Ifrit come from the fact he readies an attack, let's say, Eruption, and unless i start running immediately, i will get hit, even if he didn't finish casting when i started to run.

So if they never manage to fix server latency issues, then they should consider removing animation lock. But if they do manage to reduce it to acceptable level, then there I see no reason to do so.

[Kymusashi]

I just want to know if the people here really are expecting to be able to cast spells and shoot bows without any sort of animation lock.

If you ask me, most of the animation lock in FFXIV makes sense. Yes, a person should stand still to shoot an arrow and cast a spell. Those kinds of things should require focus, which really isn't gonna happen when running around.

Or, are you guys arguing that there should be no animation lock in the sense that we should be able to move at all times, but doing so would cancel things like spell casts and shooting bows?

If its the latter, then I am fine with such an idea. If you guys want to be able to do anything without having to think about smart positioning and timing your actions, then I'd have to say you're just lazy and want a brainless way to win.

[captainpicard]

/signed

animation lock feels very 1999

[Chinook]

The Ifrit fight seems to be the main irritating factor with your request.

It does make some kind of sense to not be able to move while performing a 6-hits weapon skill. The real problem is the server lag, that makes the lava appear under you couple seconds late. You could avoid it in most cases without that lag, unless you're a terrible player and initiate a weapon skill while you're standing there. They could make these kind of fights harder and more reactive without that lag.

The exception would be Archer basic shot that shouldn't lock you there, since other basic attacks, even if they're auto-attacks (not talking about the buyable basic attacks), don't.

[Abauge_Goga]

The Ifrit fight seems to be the main irritating factor with your request.

It does make some kind of sense to not be able to move while performing a 6-hits weapon skill. The real problem is the server lag, that makes the lava appear under you couple seconds late. You could avoid it in most cases without that lag, unless you're a terrible player and initiate a weapon skill while you're standing there. They could make these kind of fights harder and more reactive without that lag.

The exception would be Archer basic shot that shouldn't lock you there, since other basic attacks, even if they're auto-attacks (not talking about the buyable basic attacks), don't.

I agree with this comment regarding Archer. We could shoot and move at the same time. As far as spells and weaponskills, I think there should be some sort of animation lock, to give it a more realistic style and to make you think before you do something rather than spam a button without consequences.

However, they should look at the length of these animation locks. A 500 TP weapon skill should take less than a 3000 TP skill and so on. Also, i think the lock should engage the second you hit your button, not 3 seconds after it when you are done casting and already running somewhere.