[dev1008] About Jumping

[Kimahri]

15,000 views on this one topic alone.....Whew.

[Veronica]

This is horribly OT but.. anyway, Skyrant are you collecting horrible grammar posts in your signature section? Lol

[Jennestia]

This is horribly OT but.. anyway, Skyrant are you collecting horrible grammar posts in your signature section? Lol

First 1 is a famous post from XI's early days.

[Skyrant_Kangaroomouse]

This is horribly OT but.. anyway, Skyrant are you collecting horrible grammar posts in your signature section? Lol

First 1 is a famous post from XI's early days.

What Jennestia said (LINKY).

As a Lalafell, I am not amused by the thought of jumping to conclusions; beeing afraid of heights and all. You however should not be too worried, you always land on your paws anyways.

PS: FB request sent

[Skeeter]

You're not really late to the party as nobody has yet to offer a particularly compelling reason as to why jumping should be included that can't be solved by fixing another issue(mainly collision and better area design)

As many as of the counter arguments, if not more are simple responses with no backing, reread the whole thread. There have been plenty of examples given. It opens up a whole new dimension of game design opportunities, whether it be battle tactics or future dungeon and terrain design. I always hate using WoW as an example but there are plenty of fights in that game where if you mistime a jump to dodge an ability you are going to die. Or if you misjudge moving from plat forms or small ledges. The counter argument against this was "GIMMICKS!!". Well that is all PvE encounters are, but I guess we could just stand on the side of the dragon and tank+spank and be funneled through our maze like zones, how exciting.

Others have suggested an auto or menu jump when you encounter the areas where it would be useful but that would be so much more time and coding to go through every single zone and put them in.

I really feel you there Skeeter, but on the other hand you have to understand that alot of the fanbase that are subscribing to this MMO are relying upon the past ideals and traditions. The main issue I see the Dev Team having is appeasing both the MMO fan, and the FF fan.

And they would quit because you can jump? That is just as childish as people who sit and bunny hop like idiots. A fatigue system where you can't abuse jumping, I don't see why any old school FFer would have a problem with. Did they refuse to play FFXI because you can see the mobs and battles weren't random encounters?

But of all the things to pick your battles on... jumping? That's the most important thread of the English-speaking boards?

You'd think this game was near perfection if this is all that has people riled up.

Oh it definitely isn't the most pressing problem. This argument just goes way back to the early days of FFXI and people are just sensitive to it. When one side pushes hard, the other pushes back just as hard and threads like this happen. It truly boggles my mind a big company like SE with all the experience they have with FFXI released a game in this shape. It is like they ignored everything that ever happened in the MMO world including their own lol.

I think I am done with this topic, we're just beating dead horses and repeating things at this point.

[gifthorse]

As many as of the counter arguments, if not more are simple responses with no backing, reread the whole thread. There have been plenty of examples given. It opens up a whole new dimension of game design opportunities, whether it be battle tactics or future dungeon and terrain design. I always hate using WoW as an example but there are plenty of fights in that game where if you mistime a jump to dodge an ability you are going to die. Or if you misjudge moving from plat forms or small ledges. The counter argument against this was "GIMMICKS!!". Well that is all PvE encounters are, but I guess we could just stand on the side of the dragon and tank+spank and be funneled through our maze like zones, how exciting.

Earlier someone said jumping would ruin exploration and that FFXIII jumping worked becasue you were going in a linear direction the whole game...

Don't you just find that funny?

Wouldn't the opposite be true? The thing that stands out to me in Final Fantasy is the complete want of exploration, not just on the ground, but above the ground also. It's so linear and the sense of discovery of certain areas in a FF game are dwarfed by the potential of discovery if jump was added.

I don't see how jumping is a gimmick either. If people think it's a gimmick, then I'd hate to see their vision for an ideal combat and exploration system. Standing in one place, balancing numbers like a mathematician is a combat system that is in desperate need of some gimmicks to make it more involving.

[Neptune]

What Jennestia said (LINKY).

As a Lalafell, I am not amused by the thought of jumping to conclusions; beeing afraid of heights and all. You however should not be too worried, you always land on your paws anyways.

PS: FB request sent

wow.. lmao at that thread in your link! that is really amazing. bookmarked!

[Focant]

The forums are a bit hard to follow right now, so I think I'll use this thread as a breaking in point. D:

I haven't read pretty much any of this thread, it's just far too long to do that, so if I cover old information please forgive me!

Jumping is definitely a strange topic and it amazes me how much people seem to want it implemented. As of yet I haven't seen any compelling arguments supporting it. At most it seems to span the territory of "mmo standard" and "solution to knee high walls," the last of which isn't a problem born out of a lack of jumping by any means. Firstly, though jumping is considered an mmo standard these days, XIV isn't really the same as a lot of the mainstream mmos out there as far as gameplay and style of play goes. XIV, like XI, doesn't have a strong emphasis on quick, rapid movements and the terrain of the game is a bit more sculpted, for lack of a better word. Gameplay wise there's little to nothing to really gain from implementing a jump feature. At most it creates a limited degree of vertical movement which, personally, I don't believe constitutes freedom and seems more like a gimmick. Other games benefit from jumping because they were designed with it in mind. XIV isn't that kind of game. There's no real reason to jump, no high cliffs to fall from, no fences to vault (there are fences but none worth jumping D: ), and in general the game has little use for it. Sure, you could jump to scale those nasty knee-high barriers, but honestly it'd be far easier to allow scaling of it while running. There are already small cliffs that you can climb that are far higher than some of the impassable ones. It's just a matter of improving the invisible barriers and terrain hang ups. Also, XIV isn't as open as some other mmos out there, the zones are well defined and high cliffs surround the navigable areas. Ultimately it'd be like jumping in a closed box. Sure you can move up and down a little but it's not like it does anything but tire you out.

Also, I see the word "realism" tossed around a lot and I have to say that's a bit of a misnomer. It's not really about realism but about aesthetics and flow. If you consider how XIV, as well as XI, feel when played, how they handle, it's readily apparent they have a much more weighted and dense feel to them. This is far from a bad thing and is actually one of the things I like about the two games. Keeping that in mind though, imagine for a moment how jumping would look, how it would feel in the game. Taking into account your character's run speed, the way they move when taking corners or changing direction, imagine them jumping in as consistent a style as you can. It's not about the realism of the jump but about how it meshes with already existing animations and movement. I don't know about you all but when I think of it I, at most, see a small bound, a hop. Far from anything you'd see in other games and almost more of an emote than an actual gameplay function.

I could probably go on but I won't as this is getting a bit long winded already. The takeaway message though is that jumping is a shortsighted "solution" to problems best remedied by tweaking other aspects of the game. It also would serve only as, essentially, an emote if they wanted to keep the animation consistent with the aesthetics of the game. It wouldn't have any gameplay purpose beyond anything scripted, like a specific "jump" point in game that automatically makes the action for you. I mean, ultimately, I think a jump emote would be fine, something just to look fanciful, but a lot of people are arguing this from a gameplay standpoint, an argument which this feature has no ground to stand on.

[Malakhim]

The forums are a bit hard to follow right now, so I think I'll use this thread as a breaking in point. D:

I haven't read pretty much any of this thread, it's just far too long to do that, so if I cover old information please forgive me!

Jumping is definitely a strange topic and it amazes me how much people seem to want it implemented. As of yet I haven't seen any compelling arguments supporting it. At most it seems to span the territory of "mmo standard" and "solution to knee high walls," the last of which isn't a problem born out of a lack of jumping by any means. Firstly, though jumping is considered an mmo standard these days, XIV isn't really the same as a lot of the mainstream mmos out there as far as gameplay and style of play goes. XIV, like XI, doesn't have a strong emphasis on quick, rapid movements and the terrain of the game is a bit more sculpted, for lack of a better word. Gameplay wise there's little to nothing to really gain from implementing a jump feature. At most it creates a limited degree of vertical movement which, personally, I don't believe constitutes freedom and seems more like a gimmick. Other games benefit from jumping because they were designed with it in mind. XIV isn't that kind of game. There's no real reason to jump, no high cliffs to fall from, no fences to vault (there are fences but none worth jumping D: ), and in general the game has little use for it. Sure, you could jump to scale those nasty knee-high barriers, but honestly it'd be far easier to allow scaling of it while running. There are already small cliffs that you can climb that are far higher than some of the impassable ones. It's just a matter of improving the invisible barriers and terrain hang ups. Also, XIV isn't as open as some other mmos out there, the zones are well defined and high cliffs surround the navigable areas. Ultimately it'd be like jumping in a closed box. Sure you can move up and down a little but it's not like it does anything but tire you out.

Also, I see the word "realism" tossed around a lot and I have to say that's a bit of a misnomer. It's not really about realism but about aesthetics and flow. If you consider how XIV, as well as XI, feel when played, how they handle, it's readily apparent they have a much more weighted and dense feel to them. This is far from a bad thing and is actually one of the things I like about the two games. Keeping that in mind though, imagine for a moment how jumping would look, how it would feel in the game. Taking into account your character's run speed, the way they move when taking corners or changing direction, imagine them jumping in as consistent a style as you can. It's not about the realism of the jump but about how it meshes with already existing animations and movement. I don't know about you all but when I think of it I, at most, see a small bound, a hop. Far from anything you'd see in other games and almost more of an emote than an actual gameplay function.

I could probably go on but I won't as this is getting a bit long winded already. The takeaway message though is that jumping is a shortsighted "solution" to problems best remedied by tweaking other aspects of the game. It also would serve only as, essentially, an emote if they wanted to keep the animation consistent with the aesthetics of the game. It wouldn't have any gameplay purpose beyond anything scripted, like a specific "jump" point in game that automatically makes the action for you. I mean, ultimately, I think a jump emote would be fine, something just to look fanciful, but a lot of people are arguing this from a gameplay standpoint, an argument which this feature has no ground to stand on.

You're not really late to the party as nobody has yet to offer a particularly compelling reason as to why jumping should be included that can't be solved by fixing another issue(mainly collision and better area design). Yoshi has even said as much that he would appreciate it if players could separate jumping from collision earlier in the thread.

I'm not saying a compelling argument CAN'T be given. I'm just saying that in nearly 60 pages not one has been presented other than the aforementioned "it's in other MMOs!" and "wah I wants teh jump wah!(paraphrasing). It's pretty insulting that people on the jump side of the fence automatically assumes that anyone who isn't for it is a stubborn dinosaur, when all that really needs to be presented is a situation that can't be helped without including a jump as per their vision.

Anyway, excellent post.

[Turtle]

I am very appose to the idea of jumping for the most part. The only FF I have seen it work in is FFXIII. If FFXIV were to incorporate something along those lines I would be fine with it. Short of that free-jump would be terrible. It's something this game doesn't need. I also feel that even if that were a possibility, that thier are many other things that should come far before a jump feature. Such as changing the current bland animation style of abilities, fixing the armoury system and working out the kinks in our class system. That is my personal opinion.