Animation Lock: Why don't you like it?

[Zantetsuken]

Animation lock is animation lock. Latency made it worse but it would have been a problem without it.

It was the timing critical and position critical Boss battles that made it a problem though. Did anyone complain about animation lock while xp grinding?

To draw a parallel:

Nobody ever complained that Link in 'The Legend of Zelda' (NES) couldn't jump because the game never required him to.

Conversely:

People were extremely frustrated over the unforgiving jumping mechanic in 'Castlevania I' (NES) because the level designs in that game required absolute precision jumping.

As sort of suggested by the above poster, another option is if you move before all the hits land, you interrupt the attack and don't get the full damage. There are plenty of ways to handle the problem situation you described, and many games have used them. WoW has many spells and abilities that require you to be still, and moving will cancel them, giving you less than the full effect. This creates vaulable tactical oppertunities while also keeping actions while "locked" realistic.

Movement locking that is not directly caused by the animation and is instead set by the designers can be okay, as long as you are only locked when movement is an impossibility in a realistic sense.

Ideally, I'd prefer that Chaos Thrust (it really is the best example) change from a total animation lock length of ~4 sec to 2.5 sec

Allow a total cancellation of the move up to the point where the first hit connects (using jump button), and allow movement immediately upon the 3rd and final hit.

Any time between those two points, you are committed to that move and that spot on the ground.

(I think we actually agree on the basic idea here. We might just have different ideas of where to set the margins)

The worst animation lock situation is when the animation isn't *your* animation. In FFXI, cures and buffs can lock the target in place *if* they aren't already playing another animation. That is not realistic and should not exist, because if it was realistic that the glowy auraness of the cure spell required the recipient to stand still once it takes effect, it wouldn't ignore that stipulation just because the target happened to already be moving. In some tense situations, this lock can get you killed depending on whether or not you get locked by the cure. Animation lock created a lot of other stupid situations in XI as well- like when you get up from a raise and you're playing that "rise to your feet" animation, if someone cures or buffs you, the animation starts over, and you remain locked in place even longer than if nothing was cast on you. Not only was that likely to get you killed again in many situations, but it also looked terrible visually. If you died again right after accepting a raise, you wouldn't play the death animation until your character finished playing the raise animation. In real life, life and death wait for nothing, so how is that realistic?

I can't argue with what were obviously animation bug/limitation issues in FFXI. Raises caused all sorts of havoc with animation priority in that game and some of the weird stuff that happened was almost comical.

[Zehira]

Still discussing about animation lock?

[SkyeWindbinder]

Still discussing about animation lock?

LOL ^^This! So. Much. This.

[Shougun]

It was the timing critical and position critical Boss battles that made it a problem though. Did anyone complain about animation lock while xp grinding?

To draw a parallel:

Nobody ever complained that Link in 'The Legend of Zelda' (NES) couldn't jump because the game never required him to.

Conversely:

People were extremely frustrated over the unforgiving jumping mechanic in 'Castlevania I' (NES) because the level designs in that game required absolute precision jumping.




Ideally, I'd prefer that Chaos Thrust (it really is the best example) change from a total animation lock length of ~4 sec to 2.5 sec

Allow a total cancellation of the move up to the point where the first hit connects (using jump button), and allow movement immediately upon the 3rd and final hit.

Any time between those two points, you are committed to that move and that spot on the ground.

(I think we actually agree on the basic idea here. We might just have different ideas of where to set the margins)



I can't argue with what were obviously animation bug/limitation issues in FFXI. Raises caused all sorts of havoc with animation priority in that game and some of the weird stuff that happened was almost comical

.

Imo, of a perfect world, Chaos Thrust should let you move around (*) but keep you facing the enemy, so say you are running towards the monster and you go around to the back (while using Chaos Thrust) your character keeps angled at the monster as if you cut along its side, it would look cool- I think.

*Could also make moving in staggered amounts (like the animation), where during the large swings you get the most movement (if holding a movement key) and during the pauses you get no (to little) movement. (momentum of the weapon skill)

If you want to cancel they either make jump a cancel key (meaning no one is going to play froggy during combat because it will cancel your combo -which I think would make some people happy) or make a cancel key like esc.

To go along with that I would also recommend (and like to see) many fold attacks to provide damage at each hit and not at the end, its a minor annoyance to see many fold attacks damage at the end (Alhanelem suggested this too). Also it would mean canceling a multifold attack like using chaos thrust would be logical, like hitting a few times then veering away from the monster canceling the last effect. (I'm not saying Tera combat, since that is hit box detection, I'm saying if you aren't facing the target it cancels it, if you cancel it your self it cancels it (but what effects done so far are still done - and the cost of the spell :P).


Would give a new meaning to fast/evasive monsters... They could jump away from you and if the game detects out of distance or behind you the rest of the WS would miss and an attentive player could cancel and react quickly - or inversely they could dodge some of a bosses multifolded attack just by moving too far away or behind (allowing SE more types of damage "burst" / "multithreaded burst").

(Again this is just relying on "within range" + "facing / cone" which FFXIV -already- had these features, like dodging the Dodo cone breath - or getting out of the way of bad breath / dragon roar - its not hit box detection stuff, which could take a while to make since its not already made).

[Alhanelem]

Allow a total cancellation of the move up to the point where the first hit connects (using jump button), and allow movement immediately upon the 3rd and final hit.

Any time between those two points, you are committed to that move and that spot on the ground.

(I think we actually agree on the basic idea here. We might just have different ideas of where to set the margins)

Something like that, yes. What I'm trying to convey (mostly) is that whenever movement would be realistically possible, it should be allowed. In cases where being able to move a certain way wouldn't make any sense, then and only then should you be prevented from doing it. In this case, the movement lock is set in such a way that it makes sense, unlike a plain and simple animation lock that prevents movment from 0.00 seconds of the animation beginning until the animation is completely over whether you would be able to move in a realistic sense before the end or after the beginning or not.

What the above poster proposes would also work for the example WS. Being able to strafe while executing the WS seems reasonable. If you're required to face the target while landing the hits, you don't need the precision checks that you would need if the player didn't have to face the enemy.

[Geiger]

Ifrit in 1.0 wasn't a hard fight at all. Most people tried to rush it by spamming skills/spells, which lead to animation lock deaths and wipes.
In ARR it seems there will be very different gameplay mechanics, and I'm guessing the new boss fights will have more to do with skill rather than following formulas and being patient. Bottom line: Less deaths that are 'purely bad luck'.
Sounds good to me.

[Alhanelem]

Animation Lock doesn't making proper timing important?

No. Not having animation lock doesn't make proper timining UNimportant. You still have cooldowns to deal with and animation lock doesn't mean there is no non-animation based locking. Any locking that exists should make sense based on when it would make sense to be able to move, not just arbitrarily locking you from start of animation to finish. When I feel like I should be logically able to move by instinctively pressing buttons, i expect my character to move. That happens in most every game (even those touted as examples of good animation lock) except this one and XI. Your character does not need to be held in place during wind up and wind down.

[Ruisu]

Actually, saying it's a poor function is an opinion. You are obviously of the opinion that it's not a poor function. Holy crap, differing opinions! On a forum thread! Who'd a thunk this could happen? It's a sign of the end times! lol

I, personally, don't like how animation lock was implemented in this game. I think it's a much better design to simply make spells or moves that require a character to stand still be cancelled when a character moves. It just makes more sense to me. Also, chill out with the F bombs, dude. It's just a thread about animation lock, it's not that deep. Calm down.

Saying something is an opinion is an easy cop out of a discussion, rather than discussing what is wrong/right with WELL IT'S AN OPINION SETTLE DOWN JEEZ. I've already stated that I don't care if we keep Animation lock or not, since it was poorly implemented. But to abolish it completely rather than fix it seems to be a common train of thought on these forums. I really don't care either way.

No. Not having animation lock doesn't make proper timing UNimportant. You still have cooldowns to deal with and animation lock doesn't mean there is no non-animation based locking. Any locking that exists should make sense based on when it would make sense to be able to move, not just arbitrarily locking you from start of animation to finish. When I feel like I should be logically able to move by instinctively pressing buttons, i expect my character to move. That happens in most every game (even those touted as examples of good animation lock) except this one and XI. Your character does not need to be held in place during wind up and wind down.

When did I imply that timing was not important without animation lock? I've said that animation lock made your timing far more important. You're referring to the server/game lag. Not animation lock. XIV's animation lock is horrid, but the concept in general isn't bad at all, which many seem to be implying in this thread.

[SkyeWindbinder]

Saying something is an opinion is an easy cop out of a discussion, rather than discussing what is wrong/right with WELL IT'S AN OPINION SETTLE DOWN JEEZ. I've already stated that I don't care if we keep Animation lock or not, since it was poorly implemented. But to abolish it completely rather than fix it seems to be a common train of thought on these forums. I really don't care either way.

If you didn't care, what was with the F-bomb? lol You seem... upset, for someone who doesn't care that someone else has an opinion that differs from yours. Fo serious, tho, you need to pop a pill and chillax brah.

Imo, certain features of a game have their place in certain games. I don't think animation lock has a place in an mmo. And for you to say people who say it's their opinion that animation lock should go is a cop out is severely stupid, because of course people have a reason for these opinions they have. Some people think it should go because it's a terrible feature in their opinion to put into an mmo. (Psst, that's my opinion) Some people think it should go because they feel it's unnecessary and the so-called "challenge" it presents can be done another way, such as cancelling abilities that require standing still when a person moves. There are plenty of reasons people gave for not wanting animation lock, Try reading the thread a bit more before jumping the gun like that.

[Alhanelem]

"I don't like animation lock so it's a bad game design!"

lol.

"I don't like this guy's post so im just going to make fun of him, stamp my foot and leave!"

I don't like animation lock BECAUSE it's bad game design- Not the other way around. Animation lock is totally unnecessary to achieve the skill and timing people claim it brings. It can be achieved without using animation lock.

I fully support locks, limits and controls that are NOT based on the animation, because the animation itself is not the best definition of the time period for which you shouldn't be able to move.

In the end, it doesn't matter whether you like animation lock or not- It's GONE. deal with it.