Animations

[shots]

I know this was brought up in the poll and all, but in my opinion the battle animations are pretty weak. I know as a caster the only animation apart from your self buffs and TP move is the char holding the wand out, and reddish orb starts glowing, and then you fling your wand/staff towards the target.

How about the caster going into a deep meditation or something of that nature. Or like shadowsear, as big of a cast as it is all you do is hold the wand out in front of you, it doesn't feel like it is that big of a move or feel like your doing an awesome cast. For something as big as shadowsear you can have the char glow in a sort of way, maybe do some sort of martial art type of move, float in the air and then release the spell. That would make me feel like, ah nice I just did a badass spell on that bitch and owned the shit out of it. All I see now is health drop and hold the wand out.

I know it isn't a huge thing, there are other top priority problems however, I know quite a few people that are quite displeased with how animations are and somewhat dulls down fights.

[kukurumei]

Every single battle animation is a poor excuse for a modern MMO or past MMO, so I think they're going to be revamped. They'll have to if they wish for any hope out of the bad reputation.

[Eresse]

I'm not sure about some of your specific examples but I do like the overall idea of revamping animations as a whole. Spells and WS do fall short - even in comparison (like usual...) to FFXI which is a ps2 developed game...

[Honz]

I can understand weapon skill animations being really lame since battles are so fast paced that a slow and flashy weapon skill animation wouldn't suit the style.

Ancient magic on the other hand and most spells for the matter have no right to be so pathetic looking.

[Rinsui]

Every single battle animation is a poor excuse for a modern MMO or past MMO, so I think they're going to be revamped. They'll have to if they wish for any hope out of the bad reputation.

Yes, it's really strange. Considering they evidently put hours and hours and hours of work
into the sit-on-a-stool animation or the doze off animation for Lalafels. Those are just
adorable!

[Betelgeuzah]

Every single battle animation is a poor excuse for a modern MMO or past MMO, so I think they're going to be revamped. They'll have to if they wish for any hope out of the bad reputation.

This is false. The animations are top-notch, the particle effects not so much. The problem with the animations is the lack of a proper transition animation between skills, and that some skills take too long to go off. Some animations also get affected by lag, so fixing these issues should be their #1 priority. The animations themselves look great, although it feels like a few skills have filler animation in them and need to be changed to something else.

If you think the animation here is "bad", I want to see someone do it better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KIXk51aqyM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByqVoKfoOB4

Yes, some of the particle effects need work.

[Mavven]

All spells should be like mist quickenings lol

[PrettyPrincess]

All spells should be like mist quickenings lol

I like how this guy thinks

[OJtheLIONKing]

The actual animations are top notch, high quality. Even the worst reviews of the game when it came out were amazed by them, and I want to see them stay.

The particle effects need re-doing. I kinda understand that they might have been trying to reduce clutter or make it more realistic, but it's missing the "awesome!" effect you'd often get when seeing a ws with a big explosion or warp in it connect for huge damage in ffxi, or using a similarly flashy ability in other games--for instance, almost every other 3d FF game. Part of the reason I level is to see what cool abilities I have waiting for me, but with a few exceptions it's been kinda meh. I hope they're able to re-do the particle effects soon, although knowing the fanbase I'm sure plenty of people will complain regardless.

[Betelgeuzah]

The particle effects need re-doing.

The transition animations also need to be tightened imo. The animation from start to finish is top-notch, but when you do many actions in a quick succession they tend to either lag, cut off in the middle (and the limbs disappear and reappear instead of smoothly changing their position) or both. It makes the actual combat look much worse than it could look like. For example, when you get the "move slightly forward, attack, then jump backwards" animation more often than not your player doesn't actually move at all. Even worse is if you make another action during this animation and suddenly reappear in a completely different position than you were before.

They should also work towards making us able to move during few important moments: A) during the active/passive mode transition and B) when doing basic attacks. It is understandable that you can't move during special skills (some of them should be sped up though IMO) but basic attacks and taking the weapon off your back shouldn't root you to the ground.