Gamerescape Interview: Summons, Chocobos, Train Tracks and Rocks

[TenraiNagi]

I would like jump to be used for the following:

• Jump around obstacles. [An obstacle course mini-game could even be implemented!]
• Reach previously inaccessible places (climbing: jump on a railing, then on crates, then on a tree branch and finally on the roof of a house.) [use these places to hide chests, NPCs, beautiful scenery and other fun things]
• Definitely make jumping mandatory for thorough exploration! [Players should have to use jump more as they move away from the main path. At even have to jump to reach new places to explore, otherwise inaccessible.]
  
• Evade some attacks (attacks on the ground, attacks coming out of the ground, performed around the legs, etc.) [FF6 had a "float" spell to avoid ground-abilities, why not jumping?]
• Monsters should jump to try to reach players above or below them.

I think jumping should be used for more than just avoid random obstacles on the ground. It has to be used to explore otherwise inaccessible parts of the world, town and dungeons. Jumping is an exploration feature and could be used for some special mini-games.
As for combat, the influence of jumping shouldn't be great. Only reduce damage from certain weapon skills, abilities and spells. In combat, the main purpose of jumping should be strategic placement.

^ This a million times!

I would like to see jumping used in dynamic boss battles as well, where maybe the terrain changes during the fight.

And please don't restrict it. No invisible walls anywhere please. If I want to jump from a mountain, that's my choice. (Damage from falling should apply though, and death if jumping from a very high place)

This! More importantly BLOCK IT IN TOWNS!

Just look at games like WOW, Rift, LOTRO etc. Towns that are popular are filled with retards jumping about on their oh-so-kewl mounts like demented 5-year-olds on beany-bags.

We don't need that idiocy in FFXIV thank you.

No mounts in cities, so you shouldn't face that here.

[Mort]

I would like jump to be used for the following:

• Jump around obstacles. [An obstacle course mini-game could even be implemented!]
• Reach previously inaccessible places (climbing: jump on a railing, then on crates, then on a tree branch and finally on the roof of a house.) [use these places to hide chests, NPCs, beautiful scenery and other fun things]
• Definitely make jumping mandatory for thorough exploration! [Players should have to use jump more as they move away from the main path. At even have to jump to reach new places to explore, otherwise inaccessible.]
  
• Evade some attacks (attacks on the ground, attacks coming out of the ground, performed around the legs, etc.) [FF6 had a "float" spell to avoid ground-abilities, why not jumping?]
• Monsters should jump to try to reach players above or below them.

I think jumping should be used for more than just avoid random obstacles on the ground. It has to be used to explore otherwise inaccessible parts of the world, town and dungeons. Jumping is an exploration feature and could be used for some special mini-games.
As for combat, the influence of jumping shouldn't be great. Only reduce damage from certain weapon skills, abilities and spells. In combat, the main purpose of jumping should be strategic placement.


Also, hopefully, the new version of the game will have an actual line of sight feature that prevent us from attacking from behind a rock, through a wall and other silliness like that. I've always found it stupid that my archer was able to shoot arrows through thick walls, rocks, cliff, etc. Jumping could then be used to momentarily have the monster in line of sight and perform an attack at the cost of accuracy.

Agree! You got it totaly right!

[Soukyuu]

I would like jump to be used for the following:

• Jump around obstacles. [An obstacle course mini-game could even be implemented!]
• Reach previously inaccessible places (climbing: jump on a railing, then on crates, then on a tree branch and finally on the roof of a house.) [use these places to hide chests, NPCs, beautiful scenery and other fun things]
• Definitely make jumping mandatory for thorough exploration! [Players should have to use jump more as they move away from the main path. At even have to jump to reach new places to explore, otherwise inaccessible.]
  
• Evade some attacks (attacks on the ground, attacks coming out of the ground, performed around the legs, etc.) [FF6 had a "float" spell to avoid ground-abilities, why not jumping?]
• Monsters should jump to try to reach players above or below them.

I think jumping should be used for more than just avoid random obstacles on the ground. It has to be used to explore otherwise inaccessible parts of the world, town and dungeons. Jumping is an exploration feature and could be used for some special mini-games.
As for combat, the influence of jumping shouldn't be great. Only reduce damage from certain weapon skills, abilities and spells. In combat, the main purpose of jumping should be strategic placement.

This sums it quite nicely for me. Especially the exploration part.

Also, hopefully, the new version of the game will have an actual line of sight feature that prevent us from attacking from behind a rock, through a wall and other silliness like that. I've always found it stupid that my archer was able to shoot arrows through thick walls, rocks, cliff, etc. Jumping could then be used to momentarily have the monster in line of sight and perform an attack at the cost of accuracy.

Agreed.

[Mirage]

Greetings,

We would like to gather your thoughts about jump and how you would like it to be used (In combat? Getting around obstacles?) so we can pass them along to development team. Please let us know what you think. Thanks!

I would like to see jump used to get over obstacles of a reasonable height. Currently, we slide up nearly vertical cliffs as if our characters had 0 mass, and it would look much better/cooler/immersive if these sorts of obstacles were dealt with by jumping instead. At the same time, cliffs and obstacles of equal height as these we just slid right over might suddenly stop us dead in our tracks. This sort of inconsistency is really annoying, and I would hope this is something jumping could be used to get around.

It could also be used to let us jump down heights that we wouldn't be able to get back up from without taking a detour. Having to manually jump when you were at the edge of such a cliff would prevent accidental drops. There should probably be a limit on how high stuff you could jump down from, cause I could imagine it looking ridiculous to jump down from height that is more than 4 times your character's own height. Then again, we did that all the time in FF11 without dying, so maybe it doesn't matter.

Maybe jumping while on a chocobo would allow higher and longer jumps than you would be able to do on your own?

In combat, maybe to get up on platforms in the combat environment? One thing is for certain, you can't use it to directly dodge ground-based effects or other attacks that would rely on split-second timing, unless you let the client deal with this client-side (could lead to hacks). If not dealt with clientside, this sort of timing would be pretty annoying to deal with for many players, because the network latency for players around the world often varies a lot. At least as long as servers stay in one single geographical location.

@nakiamiie

Good exploration ideas. I would like to be able to find stuff that would only be reachable by jumping as well.

I do hope you understand how hard it would be to avoid damage by jumping though, unless the jump made you stay in the air for several seconds. When you see an 1-2 second long attack animation and get ready to jump over it, the attack would already have been finished on the server before you were halfway through it.

[Nakiamiie]

I would like to see jump used to get over obstacles of a reasonable height. Currently, we slide up nearly vertical cliffs as if our characters had 0 mass, and it would look much better/cooler/immersive if these sorts of obstacles were dealt with by jumping instead. At the same time, cliffs and obstacles of equal height as these we just slid right over might suddenly stop us dead in our tracks. This sort of inconsistency is really annoying, and I would hope this is something jumping could be used to get around.

It could also be used to let us jump down heights that we wouldn't be able to get back up from without taking a detour. Having to manually jump when you were at the edge of such a cliff would prevent accidental drops. There should probably be a limit on how high stuff you could jump down from, cause I could imagine it looking ridiculous to jump down from height that is more than 4 times your character's own height. Then again, we did that all the time in FF11 without dying, so maybe it doesn't matter.

Great explanation!
I'd like to add that I support not having invisible walls to prevent us from falling off things. Why? Simple, battle placement strategies. When fighting a monster with knock-back abilities, you'd have to consider it and position yourself accordingly. This allows for more strategies and sometimes restriction in fights, making the whole combat process more interesting in certain situation. On more thing, the higher level you are compared to your opponent, the more chances you have to resist a knock-back (same for the monsters).

As for falling, above a certain height, we should start getting damages from falling. I know this is not an action game but it also doesn't mean the only source of damage should be combat-related. It could also be a cool way to finish off monsters by knocking them down a cliff.
In regards to cliff marking the boundaries of a map (the bottomless pits we see in Coerthas, for example): instant-death with no exp and drop for the monsters, and for the players, have them grab the edge and climb back up. The animation time to climb back up should serve as a penalty for being careless.
It's all about adding more strategies to combat in the game. It's a strategy game after all.

Maybe jumping while on a chocobo would allow higher and longer jumps than you would be able to do on your own?

Definitely! Great idea!!

In combat, maybe to get up on platforms in the combat environment? One thing is for certain, you can't use it to directly dodge ground-based effects or other attacks that would rely on split-second timing, unless you let the client deal with this client-side (could lead to hacks). If not dealt with clientside, this sort of timing would be pretty annoying to deal with for many players, because the network latency for players around the world often varies a lot. At least as long as servers stay in one single geographical location.

@nakiamiie

Good exploration ideas. I would like to be able to find stuff that would only be reachable by jumping as well.

I do hope you understand how hard it would be to avoid damage by jumping though, unless the jump made you stay in the air for several seconds. When you see an 1-2 second long attack animation and get ready to jump over it, the attack would already have been finished on the server before you were halfway through it.

Yes, I'm aware of it as well. I'm just hoping the problem will be solved in the future. I'm sure everyone would be happy to have less perceived lag. ;D

[Hohenheim]

Greetings,

We would like to gather your thoughts about jump and how you would like it to be used (In combat? Getting around obstacles?) so we can pass them along to development team. Please let us know what you think. Thanks!

You should use it in boss mechanics meaning like final boss type not just small ones " Raid Bosses " but as long as I can jump off mountains if I feel like I don't care what you do with it don't restrict it! No one likes invisible walls!!!

[Soulfire]

Greetings,

We would like to gather your thoughts about jump and how you would like it to be used (In combat? Getting around obstacles?) so we can pass them along to development team. Please let us know what you think. Thanks!

I would probably jump all the time.

I think it depends on what the developers want to do. If it's just going to be used to traverse terrain it could be done automatically or through the menu when reaching certain locations. But if you want platformer boss battles then perhaps assigning it to a button would be best. There are only so many buttons on the standard controller, but the inputs to target the micro menu and status effects on your character could be combined. (Micro Menu → Status → Micro Menu → ...) Then maybe stick jump to the trigger by default so people are less likely to be jumping all over the place.

That trigger button, man... It's effort! wwww

[Nakiamiie]

I would probably jump all the time.

I think it depends on what the developers want to do. If it's just going to be used to traverse terrain it could be done automatically or through the menu when reaching certain locations. But if you want platformer boss battles then perhaps assigning it to a button would be best. There are only so many buttons on the standard controller, but the inputs to target the micro menu and status effects on your character could be combined. (Micro Menu → Status → Micro Menu → ...) Then maybe stick jump to the trigger by default so people are less likely to be jumping all over the place.

That trigger button, man... It's effort! wwww

We definitely need a jumping button, it's worth it! And with button re-mapping, jump-haters will be able to simply change it to something else and assign the jump button something more "useful" in their eyes.

[Soulfire]

We definitely need a jumping button, it's worth it! And with button re-mapping, jump-haters will be able to simply change it to something else and assign the jump button something more "useful" in their eyes.

I'm throwing incomplete thoughts around without much explanation to my reasoning, but that initial part about having it through the menu or automatically is so people aren't hitting jump all the time like a twitch, which is what will happen going the button route, and that's what most people are against. There could be a cooldown to try to counter this, but that would be stupid to mess a jump up and have to wait ten seconds to try again.

The mapping was a joke and really has no bearing.

The issue, aside from ideas on mechanics, is pretty much that we want the ability to jump whenever and traverse terrain how we please, yet we also want a way to force restraint on ourselves to not jump absolutely everywhere and ruin the aesthetic appeal of the game.

I recall playing a game that let you jump, and let me tell you, I jumped wherever I went, and mid-air jumped on top of that! It really was ridiculous!

There needs to be some method of penalty, but a cooldown timer is not it.

Perhaps after a jump you could temporarily be forced still in a landing animation. This would prevent people from jumping everywhere when running places as it would slow them down. Some locations, such as towns, could be made to disallow jumping. And then there could possibly be a small MP cost on top of the jump. (You're able to jump yea high because...?)

All that would make a jump button pretty reasonable.

And yes, I am for a jump button if you're curious. I just don't have the self-control. w

[Platinumstorm]

Greetings,

We would like to gather your thoughts about jump and how you would like it to be used (In combat? Getting around obstacles?) so we can pass them along to development team. Please let us know what you think. Thanks!

Combat, getting around obstacles, cancelling spells [if toggled] would all be great. Mario type environments are also really fun in MMO settings.