Is everyone here absolutely amazed about the content they are introducing, the battle system and everything gameplay related that the animation simply isn't important compared to it? Or are you just figuring it will be awesome just because?

How do you know the game's going to play the way you want it to play? How do you know we are not getting downgraded on something else besides the animations? Because that's exactly how I feel.

Seeing it constantly getting downgrades on every single aspect of the game, with very minor fixes and changes for the best (except the obvious fixes 1.0 needed and got) scares the shit out of me. We lost a lot of unique mechanics that we had from the beginning (some have been posted here already and I won't touch on it). You can criticize them as much as you want, but if you didn't have a working engine and server to test them on you can't say they were the problem with XIV. The main problems with FXIV were lack of content, horrible UI, no market and laggy response from the server. With minor nuisances such as lack of map functionality, arrows stacking to 99, etc. the game felt cumbersome and annoying for the most part.Most of these issues have not been resolved. Why? Because the coding is crap? Give me a break. They are taking it to a whole new direction, and that's the main reason they reworked everything.

As long as the majority doesn't see or care about the animations (or whatever else we come to complain about), FFXIV will succeed, and Yoshida will have absolutely NO NEED to improve upon it. Every single MMO out there proves it. Being popular doesn't mean it's good. These standards we are comparing to are all subjective, the success of a game depends a lot on luck alone, and this issue of great game vs what the majority wants will never be resolved.

But keep voicing your opinions. This is the only way we can change what's currently preferable by the majority. There was a time when art was solely based on doing the best you could. It doesn't work like that anymore. Games had their golden age, and now it seems to be over. There's too much at stake, and if something is unimportant for the majority, it simply won't make it. I understand the dev team, and seeing how successful most games out there are, without being masterpieces, they have every reason to follow that path.

I just don't see XIV going anywhere towards innovation. And that's something to be worried about. Every single one of you who do not care about the animation change have no reason to defend it being removed unless you knew the exact purpose it was removed for. You should defend it, and complain about any aspect of the game that is being downgraded, even if it's not the most important thing for you. The game is the sum of it's parts. If you truly want a great game, please ask for the very best (even if you can't see it, but know others in the community who do. No one wants bad gameplay for the sake of smooth animations). Question their motives, suggest new possibilities. Don't assume they are doing what they are doing with the greatest most sensible and necessary reason in mind just because they are Square-Enix. That doesn't say anything. If people do not care about the animations, that will be the reason to remove it. Conservation of energy. Simple as that.