I do remember the players poll asking about battles, some of the comments were the sluggish feel of it all and the pacing. Looks like they have fixed it with getting rid of the animation locks and the ability to walk backwards... why is that even a concern? For mouse and keyboard users it will make gameplay much more responsive, wouldn't you think? In a PvP battle or a high end dungeon, I have a feeling this will be welcome, I bet some wish they could have had this for the Ifrit battle.

While it may have not been directly asked for, this is what we are getting. I think it looks much better than what we did have. Besides we have yet to see how this works in a higher level situation, the concerns with these features might not be as bad as you might think at that point. I guess we will have to wait for Beta to see how it feels then.