Lack of animations not addressed in live letter

[Webster]

It would help if they would just answer the question.

[Vilhem]

If they can add boob jiggling animation, then they could certainly keep the already existing animations they had. Not like they'd have to re-shoot them or anything (motion capture).

I'm waiting to see Beta before I delve further into this :/ here's to hoping we see them back tho.

[Dragonheart]

If they can add boob jiggling animation, then they could certainly keep the already existing animations they had. Not like they'd have to re-shoot them or anything (motion capture).

I'm waiting to see Beta before I delve further into this :/ here's to hoping we see them back tho.

Boob jiggle does not affects movement dynamics. Animation were removed to make the game faster and more reactive.

[Dragonheart]

More than animation (it's confirmed that they're the standars from other mmo, that are needed for more dynamic gameplay)

I'd like to know why even in the previuous letter, there isn't mention about the characters "swishhhh" on the ground or running while standing on the place. And lastly i see again, people and monster appering/disappearing at low distance!
ARR engine wasn't supposed to have unlimited character visible on screen? Of course depending on pc power? Uhm.

I hope there are just alpha issues...

What do you think?

[Wilan]

More than animation (it's confirmed that they're the standars from other mmo, that are needed for more dynamic gameplay)

I'd like to know why even in the previuous letter, there isn't mention about the characters "swishhhh" on the ground or running while standing on the place. And lastly i see again, people and monster appering/disappearing at low distance!
ARR engine wasn't supposed to have unlimited character visible on screen? Of course depending on pc power? Uhm.

I hope there are just alpha issues...

What do you think?

Unlimited? It sure got better in alpha, but definetly not unlimited. As of now they can show on the screen around 200 characters at once. You've gotta keep in mind that, due to the high level of customization, there's a lot of data to be sent. Yoshi-P already said that he's focusing on having the most people showing up on screen at once at cost of FPSs and other accessory stuff, but again, nobody said it would be unlimited.
Now, 1.0 had a TERRIBLE coding, and could manage.. I don't remember the exact number, but most probably less than 25 people on screen at once (I've never seen more than that anyway). ARR is being rebuilt from ground up keeping things like this into account. Honestly I haven't seen people disappearing, unless you're talking about when people were walking INTO THE CAMERA, then yes, they disappear because they go out of your field of view.

Beside, the characters "sliding" while they're dead is a result of a discrepancy between where the dying animation happened on your screen and where it happened on the server. The server tries to correct it "moving" dead bodies to where they should be. Veeeery weird and awkward at times, but again, the team is working to fix this kind of bad coding.

[Totorixiii]

I'm sure I’ll be flamed but this was a perfect opportunity for them to quell our worry that the animations will stay 'as is'. I think it's obvious now that they are going with what the wow/typical mmo player is used to and no longer want to keep the realistic animations we had.
For me it's a real immersion breaker and a shame.

I understand the animations aren’t important for a lot of players. It just seems a shame that we are losing ver 1.0's saving grace, It was one of the few things reviewers praised.

I agree, 1.0 animations are extremely fluid. Except for the same old repetitive magic casting and enhancing action that every race does.

Other than that, FFXIV 1.0 has the best animation in any MMO imo.

[Rhomagus]

They should let the animations remain as an option. You should always be able to interrupt these animations for the sake of gameplay but if I come to a halt after running and decide to run backwards the actual my character's position should be updated first not their animation.

The problem with 1.0 is that they gave the animation too much precedence by making it a game mechanic. You had to fight Ifrit carefully because of animation lock, because you were locked into the animation once you activated it. You don't need the animation in order for the special effect to go off (i.e. Chaos Thrust petals), numbers to display, or damage to calculate; but in XIV 1.0 this was the case. If they would allow you to move after you initiate an ability then there wouldn't be a problem. Just have the position take precedence over the animation.

I'm fine with them allowing us to cancel animations. I actually don't like that they've decided to go the opposite with casting. In original 1.0 if you moved after casting a spell the spell would still go off. After patch 1.18 I think, they required you to stay still during casting and moving would interrupt your cast.

So in ARR it looks like they will allow cancelling animations for melee but not for mages. On top of that, they sacrificed transitional animations outside of combat when, if they'd just allow us to cancel our own animations (not abilities) by moving, we wouldn't have that problem in the first place.

Blaa.... I'm really hoping this is just things not finished as its alpha atm, some cutting down I understand to help people run the game with more people on the screen and on low/mid end PC's but meh, the quality of the animation and textures was a saving grace of the game.

As much as I'm in agreement..

The its Alpha, It's beta, It'll be better after launch! was used a lot in the previous alpha/beta forums to try and get people to stop raising things they considered an issue.
An we know how that ended, it as no diffident in the end.

I totally agree here. We really shouldn't allow that to happen this time around. That's really not an excuse and I don't even think Yoshi-P is against this. It's the reason why he doesn't want to rush it. If there is an issue that we think needs fixing we shouldn't just blow it off until we get an answer. While we do have an answer for the animations I don't think it's a satisfactory answer as other games do not have this problem.

If they can add boob jiggling animation, then they could certainly keep the already existing animations they had. Not like they'd have to re-shoot them or anything (motion capture).

I'm waiting to see Beta before I delve further into this :/ here's to hoping we see them back tho.

Adding new animations, such as getting rid of the "squat" animation for every buff, I'm okay with. I understand if you need to sacrifice a little here an there to implement that sort of thing but boob jiggle physics shouldn't even be on the table if you're using the excuse that animations take up too much memory.

In my opinion they should give us the option. For those with higher spec PC's and better internet connections let us have the transitional animations. For those of us with lower spec PC's or playing on the PS3 give us the options to turn these on. I'd personally rather not have boob physics at all, especially if you're sacrificing in other areas.

I agree, 1.0 animations are extremely fluid. Except for the same old repetitive magic casting and enhancing action that every race does.

Other than that, FFXIV 1.0 has the best animation in any MMO imo.

I agree. They did note that they'd be adding more unique animations for different abilities and different casting animations between white/black magic have already been confirmed.

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

I'm sure I’ll be flamed but this was a perfect opportunity for them to quell our worry that the animations will stay 'as is'. I think it's obvious now that they are going with what the wow/typical mmo player is used to and no longer want to keep the realistic animations we had.
For me it's a real immersion breaker and a shame.

I understand the animations aren’t important for a lot of players. It just seems a shame that we are losing ver 1.0's saving grace, It was one of the few things reviewers praised.

I have hopefully and very hopefully assumed that the animations are still in testing and view everything unfinished until the final product. Animation is extremely important to me. Realistic looking definition makes or breaks a game for me.

To keep the current level of robotic-looking, run in place, insta-stop mannequin pose, character animations against such an incredibly realistic looking game world would be scary to me. I hope it is just unfinished. The 1.0 animations gave you a true sense of weightiness, of immersion, the feeling that your character is realistically alive inside of his/her environment instead of the illusion of buoyancy, that the test versions have now.

You tend to not notice it until it is gone, where it then becomes blatantly obvious. That is the thing, when you stop to ponder your character's lack of 'real-ness', the immersion is immediately shattered.

[Totorixiii]

I have hopefully and very hopefully assumed that the animations are still in testing and view everything unfinished until the final product. Animation is extremely important to me. Realistic looking definition makes or breaks a game for me.

To keep the current level of robotic-looking, run in place, insta-stop mannequin pose, character animations against such an incredibly realistic looking game world would be scary to me. I hope it is just unfinished. The 1.0 animations gave you a true sense of weightiness, of immersion, the feeling that your character is realistically alive inside of his/her environment instead of the illusion of buoyancy, that the test versions have now.

You tend to not notice it until it is gone, where it then becomes blatantly obvious. That is the thing, when you stop to ponder your character's lack of 'real-ness', the immersion is immediately shattered.

Agree with you. 1.0 animation captured my sense of realism in slow walking, fast running and coming to stop animation.

As for the lock animation while mage casting is pretty annoying sometimes especially ifrit hard mode, it can ruin a chance of winning the fight.

I'm sure ARR will reduce as much animation lock during magic casting at least up to the first 60-75% of casting before getting locked in. The fast casting spell are the ones we'll have to decide closely since its nearly instant or a 2-3 seconds cast. We'll just have to use our decision during an intense fight and hope nothing goes wrong, which i hope that wont be the case.

[Crevox]

There's a lot of information that just wasn't addressed. They specifically said in the last letter that in THIS one they would give out information on PVP.

Did we get any information? Nope.