Its ffxiv combat really so slow and boring?

[kikix12]

Higher global cooldown is also to alleviate PING issues, thus making the game more accessible across the world. To give an example...

There is an action MMORPG where cooldown is virtually non-existent. It's literally in tenths of a second. A person that is close to the servers can do up to 30 strikes when a person further away can do only...20. Seeing as that game is rather heavy on combat control with short but numerous stuns, knockbacks, airlocks etc, but also on immunity frames, it makes it literally impossible, regardless of skill level, for a very large part of the community to have any actual success in the game. Not only is it nearly impossible to use immunity frames when they are half-second long AT BEST (or less) in PvE (and you're never going to be able to choose what you gain immunity against in PvP since by the time it'll trigger the opponent may be able to use three or so attacks), but it's also virtually impossible to do any damage when you are stun-locked simply because by the time the previous stun goes down, you are stunned twice again since that's the time it took for your client to recognize the stun ended...and the server already did ban any further skills due to a new stun already in place.

When the global cooldown is 2-2,5sec, the difference in PING is far lower. As a result the TECHNICAL ceiling is no more than 10% different. That means that mostly everyone have a CHANCE at every piece of content, even if some have advantages due to PING. Since the floor is set at 2,5sec, the PvE enemies don't need to be so punishing either. As a result a player with high ping can still do them with similar efficiency. Really, the bigger problem is with instances that have too many players (Eureka, the Rising event zone) which is largely on the servers and game engines side (poor culling where enemies and/or their AoEs are not visible while random out of party players are plastered on the screen, anyone?!).

[KaldeaSahaline]

The combat in FF14 is insanely binary. In that skills have either very little or no synergy. While it's not the slowest game out there, it is slower than others. It really suffers in the early game/leveling experience where it's abhorrently slow and could use significant reworks for all jobs.

Higher global cooldown is also to alleviate PING issues, thus making the game more accessible across the world. To give an example...

There is an action MMORPG where cooldown is virtually non-existent. It's literally in tenths of a second. A person that is close to the servers can do up to 30 strikes when a person further away can do only...20. Seeing as that game is rather heavy on combat control with short but numerous stuns, knockbacks, airlocks etc, but also on immunity frames, it makes it literally impossible, regardless of skill level, for a very large part of the community to have any actual success in the game. Not only is it nearly impossible to use immunity frames when they are half-second long AT BEST (or less) in PvE (and you're never going to be able to choose what you gain immunity against in PvP since by the time it'll trigger the opponent may be able to use three or so attacks), but it's also virtually impossible to do any damage when you are stun-locked simply because by the time the previous stun goes down, you are stunned twice again since that's the time it took for your client to recognize the stun ended...and the server already did ban any further skills due to a new stun already in place.

When the global cooldown is 2-2,5sec, the difference in PING is far lower. As a result the TECHNICAL ceiling is no more than 10% different. That means that mostly everyone have a CHANCE at every piece of content, even if some have advantages due to PING. Since the floor is set at 2,5sec, the PvE enemies don't need to be so punishing either. As a result a player with high ping can still do them with similar efficiency. Really, the bigger problem is with instances that have too many players (Eureka, the Rising event zone) which is largely on the servers and game engines side (poor culling where enemies and/or their AoEs are not visible while random out of party players are plastered on the screen, anyone?!).

What game are you talking about so others can understand your POV. I assume you're speaking about Blade and Soul based on your description though and let me say that you are exaggerating considerably, at least from the NA standpoint (YMMV if in EU).

I played that game for 2 years and had plenty of friends who had varying pings play it very successfully.

FF14's artificial ping buffer is awful, archaic design, and holds the game back.

[kikix12]

What game are you talking about so others can understand your POV. I assume you're speaking about Blade and Soul based on your description though and let me say that you are exaggerating considerably, at least from the NA standpoint (YMMV if in EU).

I'm talking about PING, not a specific persons point of view.

And I'm sorry. You are objectively, factually incorrect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwaz_aAih-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meDtc3QqQeI

FF14's artificial ping buffer is awful, archaic design, and holds the game back.

Say that when you start playing on the high-ping side (like, 300-400 PING). You most likely never tried that. Go ahead and try playing the likes of Titan (it's Weight of the Land is particularly nasty) on a Japanese or European server. Can you do it?! Yes, absolutely. But you'll see how much worse you will do simply because of PING difference. In a game that is made to minimize that.

Let me tell you this. I cannot kite, I cannot cast a spell right after swiftcasting, I cannot properly weave in abilities. All of this is because of PING. In this game it is not gamebreaking. In Blade and Soul it WAS gamebreaking. I had to rest frequently after normal mob fights. I absolutely could not dodge attacks. I literally moved straight without stopping, moving out of target circles, and was still hit 100% of the time. My damage could not compare and I couldn't move AT ALL in PvP.

Too bad. This is unavoidable with current technology, except by region-locked servers. You either alienate large part of the playerbase or you use the "archaic" method of dealing with PING...caused by archaic (but still dominant) internet network around the world. Blade and Soul is an example of the first one...Final Fantasy XIV the latter.

And don't tell me that I could just play on European servers. I could, but if I would, I'd never even start playing. I came here upon a friends invite and that friend was playing on NA servers...starting early on in 2.0 I believe. It's simply not a choice.

[Rhysati]

Higher global cooldown is also to alleviate PING issues, thus making the game more accessible across the world. To give an example...

There is an action MMORPG where cooldown is virtually non-existent. It's literally in tenths of a second. A person that is close to the servers can do up to 30 strikes when a person further away can do only...20. Seeing as that game is rather heavy on combat control with short but numerous stuns, knockbacks, airlocks etc, but also on immunity frames, it makes it literally impossible, regardless of skill level, for a very large part of the community to have any actual success in the game. Not only is it nearly impossible to use immunity frames when they are half-second long AT BEST (or less) in PvE (and you're never going to be able to choose what you gain immunity against in PvP since by the time it'll trigger the opponent may be able to use three or so attacks), but it's also virtually impossible to do any damage when you are stun-locked simply because by the time the previous stun goes down, you are stunned twice again since that's the time it took for your client to recognize the stun ended...and the server already did ban any further skills due to a new stun already in place.

When the global cooldown is 2-2,5sec, the difference in PING is far lower. As a result the TECHNICAL ceiling is no more than 10% different. That means that mostly everyone have a CHANCE at every piece of content, even if some have advantages due to PING. Since the floor is set at 2,5sec, the PvE enemies don't need to be so punishing either. As a result a player with high ping can still do them with similar efficiency. Really, the bigger problem is with instances that have too many players (Eureka, the Rising event zone) which is largely on the servers and game engines side (poor culling where enemies and/or their AoEs are not visible while random out of party players are plastered on the screen, anyone?!).

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this at all. Other games without super long GCDs like this operate just fine. Hell, there is a game like Planetside 2 where you have mass-pvp with hundreds of players in one spot and they can manage bullet fire and projectile spam. You mean to tell me that an MMORPG in 2018 needs 2.5 seconds to figure out that someone pressed a single keystroke while other games out there have people flying around on jetpacks, dropping bombs, firing at people on the move, etc? Come on now.

Even if you don't use that example you can just look at WoW. Been around for a decade and a half and has never had problems like that. It's nonsense.

[kikix12]

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this at all. Other games without super long GCDs like this operate just fine.

First...no, they don't. I mean, they DO operate, but games like shooters either limit the matchmaking by regions or people simply don't play them if they do get the problems of high PING at all. They didn't magically solve the problem at all. They just eliminate the player base which have a problem.
Then there are some hardcore people that actually do play. But on your screen...they will just seem like crappy players.

There are other methods to mitigate the issue based on CLIENT-SIDE calculations, but that makes the games prone to cheating. That's why Square Enix doesn't want to do that, because they don't want to spend money on real quality security to prevent client-sided cheating. Look at the bots. They don't even care about investing in dealing with them, even though some are painfully obvious and a good system would automatically eliminate them within minute from the characters being made (teleporting or standing in player-unaccessible places anyone?!). But alas...even they cannot fully solve the issue.


On a different note, I'd say that being one of the most popular MMO games out there, FFXIV DOES operate fine as is.

It is a choice. You made the decision to sacrifice significant performance to play with friends (and I get and respect that). I'm going to say something that might ruffle some feathers, but with all due respect, you shouldn't be catered too. I don't think anyone should be designing systems with the idea of having people from the other side of the planet into account until infrastructure is there to support it.

It seems you gravely misunderstand something. I don't ask to be catered to. It is Square Enix that decided to cater to me and I'm just taking advantage of that.

That's also the cost of having a "world wide" game. This IS advertised as a global game and it DOES allow people to enter ANY server. So it should be consequential and make it PLAYABLE as chosen. If the servers were region restricted before I bought it...sure. I'd have zero issue with that. Developers choice. I can decide whether to buy the game or not. But it was Square Enix that WANTED people like me to get the game, subscribe and play it (well, not really, they don't want us to play it, it's ideal for them if we pay subscription and never log on...). So they reached out to players like me and made the game that way.


I'll reverse your argument. It's your choice to play this game if it have a combat system that you find unappealing. You can look for a different game, more action-packed. There are tons of them. If you are in NA, your horizons are WAY bigger than mine in all things digital, gaming, entertainment and what not for less money than for me to boot. So don't come here and give subjective arguments to counter objective arguments. I merely stated the reason for high cooldown. That's all.

[Kirsten_Rev]

I merely stated the reason for high cooldown. That's all.

The high cooldown has nothing to do with latency mitigation, and everything to do with strain on XIV's servers. Suppose that SE wants to handle 500ms latency: that's going to take no more than one second for you to get a response back from the server for an action. The server ticks (and, accordingly, the GCD) could be a lot lower than 2.5s, and still be fine for this purpose.

SE's hardware, on the other hand, would be brought to its knees, just as it was when 1.0 was originally released with much more frequent server ticks. The back-end wasn't up to the task, and the interface felt horribly laggy as a result, because servers weren't promptly sending responses. To remedy this, they'd need to either (a) upgrade hardware, or (b) improve FFXIV's architecture so as to require fewer server-side calculations. Unfortunately, they don't seem inclined to do either.

As an aside, while FFXIV operates fine as-is, there is a lot SE could do to improve efficiency of the netcode, so as to get more power out of their servers. For example, suppose you're lagging (or disconnecting) and you decide to click on an Estate door to exit into the Housing district. Notice that nothing appears? That's because SE doesn't just require server-side confirmation for transitioning to a new map (good behaviour) - they also require server-side confirmation just to display the door options. That latter is entirely unnecessary, serves no security role whatsoever, yet nonetheless places a burden on the servers. From vendor NPCs to dialogue options, there's a lot of unnecessary data being sent back and forth constantly just to make the game work. There is a chance that this was done due to PS3 limitations, but it certainly shouldn't be necessary any longer. So, they've got a lot of room for improvement, and constructive criticism along the lines of improving the feel of combat is perfectly justified.

[Derio]

At low levels it feels super slow. However at 70 it feels at a moderate pace. Honestly if they made the GCD .5s shorter it would be perfect.

[Tempest222]

If all you had to do was stand in one spot ms hit three buttons them yeah that’d be pretty slow given then gcd, but that’s not the case. There is much more going on during fights and also ogcds which makes it not slow pacedz at all, at least for me.

[ChewieFlakes]

It's not slow. It's just boring. Majority of the excitement comes from boss mechanics and dodging puddles of fire on the floor.

Actual "gameplay" is extremely lackluster/generic. Multiple mirrored classes and no class can bring anything unique or interesting to a party because balance is paramount in a WoW clone. It's not like FFXI where you could have some classes be "weaker" but also have unique utility or aspects that could make them ideal for certain fights. Even if you couldn't pump out as much dps as some classes, you could bring something to fights no one else could and really fostered class identity. Now every dps/tank/healer class may as well be the same, and they say repeatedly that they design content that can be completed with any class composition. That's pretty much required when all you're doing is waiting in 30 minute long queues to go dodge AOE circles and spam a rotation. Sure, some classes may have a skill that slightly increases your critical chance or increases the damage the enemy takes for a few seconds. It makes no meaningful difference in the grand scheme of things. In the end you're just X healer/tank/dps class with a different coat of paint that simply has to learn boss mechanics and satisfy the Recount meter.

[PyurBlue]

It makes no meaningful difference in the grand scheme of things. In the end you're just X healer/tank/dps class with a different coat of paint that simply has to learn boss mechanics and satisfy the Recount meter.

Class variety could be increased, but they're not just totally bland clones of each other. A lack of difficulty probably makes the differences harder to appreciate as there isn't much reason to debate taking a RDM for raise over a BLM in a regular dungeon. In Savage that choice is more meaningful. The healers feel different enough to me even in less difficult dungeons, especially AST with cards. SCH's shields could have been differentiated a bit more by making them last longer and adding a cooldown to them though.

I wouldn't mind moving away from content that is designed to accommodate every class, but if that was done the game would need to have a lot more content or certain classes would become less viable. I don't think it's feasible at this point unless Square wanted to throw another 2.0 at us. Maybe they could have some open world side area where this idea is incorporated, but it would probably be a lot of work even then and it might just end up attracting negative feedback like Eureka.