Please change the Volcano map

[Valence]

I don't want "time to guard whatever my enemies do" I want animation to actually decrease and all actions to be more responsive to input. I'm sure we will have to wait for the next mmo for that (unless they use the same spaghetti code for that one [knock on wood]). If I'm mid animation for guard and die that makes sense to me. If I've been in guard for a second plus, then the hamster treadmill at SE HQ finally says, "oh um yeah this goes through". That feels like absolute garbage.

Actions are extremely responsive to input since snapshots are instant (almost, within incompressible individual ping considerations). But I see what you mean by reactive, you want to see the damage resolve instantly.

I strongly disagree with that, for the reasons I exposed above. You remove so much counterplay with this alone that it would make the mode extremely washed out in comparison to what it is right now.

if most every other move it is there to counter is snapshot, why is it not? Heck, you can't even defend against a MCH LB before the crosshairs even show up in some cases, it's just boom, instant full damage regardless. Maybe it's easier on people who have near perfect ping, but this is an MMO, such a state of being is as rare as snow on the sun.

Guard is not designed to counter snapshots...

You defend against MCH LB with recuperate and mitigation. Mitigation has to be up when you expose yourself or engage, and recuperate is how you prevent oneshots. Some jobs have obviously an easier time to survive it than others, but all of them can. Spite combinations actually have a lot of variations with proportionate risk vs reward, the lowest damage ones being the most silent, and the highest damage combos being the obvious "you're gonna get nuked, better get prepared if you can, you have 3-5sec" kind of deal. It's not a question of ping (unless you have 500+, but that's a problem for every game anyway). Ping actually has other issues, even at low ping, being the position you see other players at any time versus the actual position they have server side, which is very egregious in this game.

It's not like an FPS where your actual skill at dodging, parrying and situational awareness will be the primary factors to your survival (though the last point is still relevant thankfully), the design is much simpler and prone to costly delay alas, so it's small wonder it ends up being such an aggravation after this much time dealing with it.

You're right, it's not about parrying or dodging, it's about quick thinking and tactical decisions, and not just positioning. It's when to use defensives, when to keep them, when to burn them, and when to engage or not depending on their availability. Taking Spite as an example again, you have to carefully know which targets to hit with it, because while in most cases it will work at low level games (or randomly fail because people will just monkey fire it while another player will have a shield or mitigation up out of sheer unrelated luck), but it sure as heck won't work just like that at higher level.

[Elfidan]

Actions are extremely responsive to input since snapshots are instant (almost, within incompressible individual ping considerations). But I see what you mean by reactive, you want to see the damage resolve instantly.

I strongly disagree with that, for the reasons I exposed above. You remove so much counterplay with this alone that it would make the mode extremely washed out in comparison to what it is right now.

This is just legitimately not true. If every damage ability was snapshot at press then you wouldn't be able to stifle things with cc which you indeed can but not all of them. The biggest example being the fact a miracled SAM just loses their LB bar and that's that. A MCH on the other hand will still successfully execute their limit break even if they get hit with it at the very moment they crouch prior to the reticle animation.

It's your prerogative to disagree but I don't enjoy the sludgy gameplay that FF loves to offer at times (most of the time to be honest). We've reached an impasse.

[Novani]

Guard is not designed to counter snapshots...

You defend against MCH LB with recuperate and mitigation. Mitigation has to be up when you expose yourself or engage, and recuperate is how you prevent oneshots. Some jobs have obviously an easier time to survive it than others, but all of them can. Spite combinations actually have a lot of variations with proportionate risk vs reward, the lowest damage ones being the most silent, and the highest damage combos being the obvious "you're gonna get nuked, better get prepared if you can, you have 3-5sec" kind of deal. It's not a question of ping (unless you have 500+, but that's a problem for every game anyway). Ping actually has other issues, even at low ping, being the position you see other players at any time versus the actual position they have server side, which is very egregious in this game.

Eh, I'm less concerned about the snapshots of enemy LBs and more about the defensive itself being so slow on the uptake that it falls behind and gets worse when lag comes into play; granted seeing LBs like MCH's fire off even when you're in full cover with no LoS four seconds later is a bit obnoxious but that's technically a separate issue. It's similar to Riddle of Earth from Monk in how it works, you can try and predict when you might need it to be up before the other player does something, but it won't be up half the time before you even start seeing attack animations against you. this is often why people melt so much because the game takes too long to register what it's being told versus what the others are doing.

This obviously is a situation that will differ greatly between players, but the simple point is, animation is a flavor detail and it really could use adjustment with that, or a rework to how Guard and similar defensives function. Like I'd be fine with Guard being a stance rather than this weird bubble where you're not allowed to do anything but crawl. Post 6.1 PvP is going faster, but the input actions that increase survivability are not keeping up with the demand.

Anyways, not intending to sidetrack the main discussion of the thread. Volcano map is one of the few maps where these issues shine the most though, having more LoS inhibiters at least lets people have a chance at contribution with these factors in play, so is the main thrust for why them existing is a good idea and can make for interesting matchups. Stomp matches are far too common in most of the others.

[Valence]

This is just legitimately not true. If every damage ability was snapshot at press then you wouldn't be able to stifle things with cc which you indeed can but not all of them. The biggest example being the fact a miracled SAM just loses their LB bar and that's that. A MCH on the other hand will still successfully execute their limit break even if they get hit with it at the very moment they crouch prior to the reticle animation.

If you mean that the 100%HP kill part of Zantetsuken, it's indeed part of the damage resolution of the LB, therefore, like Spite, doesn't apply at activation but at resolution after animation. The LB however checks for Kuzushi at activation, which is an instant snapshot, which means you can kill somebody with kuzushi having faded once you hit them (fortunately, else imagine the awkwardness of using the skill if you had to account for 1 full second of delay, and it would be the same for Spite).

The reason we suspect why Zantetsuken can be miracled or stunned halfway without the damage applying is because it's not standard damage, and the LB has to check which additional targets are hit by the dash AoE. Honestly, This LB has jank attached to it, I'm not gonna lie.

Also by the way, I was convinced that it was impossible to interrupt a Spite, but in thousands of games, I finally got one interrupted in recent days. I don't know what sweetspot of a server tick they managed to hit, but it broke Spite. I do suspect that the answer lies in using a cc (snapshot/instant as all cc are) right between the LB is sent to the server and the server preparing it, aka right in the middle of my ping (which is 20-30ms...), or right between server reception and server preparation, which is also relatively short. This, as well, is jank. I never said everything is well designed.

Eh, I'm less concerned about the snapshots of enemy LBs and more about the defensive itself being so slow on the uptake that it falls behind and gets worse when lag comes into play; granted seeing LBs like MCH's fire off even when you're in full cover with no LoS four seconds later is a bit obnoxious but that's technically a separate issue. It's similar to Riddle of Earth from Monk in how it works, you can try and predict when you might need it to be up before the other player does something, but it won't be up half the time before you even start seeing attack animations against you. this is often why people melt so much because the game takes too long to register what it's being told versus what the others are doing.

This obviously is a situation that will differ greatly between players, but the simple point is, animation is a flavor detail and it really could use adjustment with that, or a rework to how Guard and similar defensives function. Like I'd be fine with Guard being a stance rather than this weird bubble where you're not allowed to do anything but crawl. Post 6.1 PvP is going faster, but the input actions that increase survivability are not keeping up with the demand.

Anyways, not intending to sidetrack the main discussion of the thread. Volcano map is one of the few maps where these issues shine the most though, having more LoS inhibiters at least lets people have a chance at contribution with these factors in play, so is the main thrust for why them existing is a good idea and can make for interesting matchups. Stomp matches are far too common in most of the others.

Some defensive abilities like RoE, Hallowed and Guardian have an annoying delay which imo, shouldn't be a thing. It should be almost instant like recup. Contradance is also an offender with something like 2s delay, and one could even cite Seraph that takes a full second to summon after activation.