What ability is this, and what class uses it?

[Abriael]

If Final Fantasy gameplay took a cue from its own cutscenes, more people might actually play it.

That's much easier said than done. If gameplay could really keep up with cutscenes in most games there would be *no* cutscenes.

The only valid way I've seen used so far is turning a large part of gameplay in quicktime events, and quicktime events are utterly despised by a large part of the playerbase (and I can already see how much hate they'd generate in a MMORPG, as people would accuse the developer of taking control away from them).
There are also finishers, but Age of Conan demonstrated that they really add nothing to gameplay, and they become boring after a very short while.

[gifthorse]

That's much easier said than done. If gameplay could really keep up with cutscenes in most games there would be *no* cutscenes.

The only valid way I've seen used so far is turning a large part of gameplay in quicktime events, and quicktime events are utterly despised by a large part of the playerbase (and I can already see how much hate they'd generate in a MMORPG, as people would accuse the developer of taking control away from them).
There are also finishers, but Age of Conan demonstrated that they really add nothing to gameplay, and they become boring after a very short while.

Take apart the events in a cutscene and you have basic things like: interesting skills with a highly visual animation, battle system where positioning matters, fast response times.

FFXIV battle system is very mathematical. Half the time you're just balancing stats and that's the problem. SE should start looking at their own cutscenes and using that as a model for their gameplay, rather than looking at their own gameplay and using that as their model.

[Abriael]

Take apart the events in a cutscene and you have basic things like: interesting skills with a highly visual animation, battle system where positioning matters, fast response times.

What makes them spectacular isn't only the basic animation, but the direction, the camera angles, the music, the linking between those animations. It's not really possible to do that outside of a directed cutscene, besides with quicktime events.

They actually did something kinda akin to that with FInal Fantasy XIII, but to achieve that they had to remove part of the control from the player.

The more specific an animation is, the less adaptable it is to the environment and to the other mobiles. This means that the most spectacular animations simply cannot be in player control, because the player needs to be able to use all his tools in every area of the game.

[Malakhim]

They actually did something kinda akin to that with Final Fantasy XIII, but to achieve that they had to remove part of the control from the player.

And we all know the shitstorm that caused, and yet people here are going nuts FOR an auto-attack.

[Abriael]

And we all know the shitstorm that caused, and yet people here are going nuts FOR an auto-attack.

Yep. I actually *liked* that combat system by the way. It was pretty tactical if used in it's deepest options, but i would definitely have quite a lot of trouble even figuring out how to apply even parts of it to a MMO.