Animation Lock: Why don't you like it?

[Alhanelem]

Animation Lock do not ruin PVP in any way at all, See LoL, see HoN, see DOTA2 they have animation lock and they are still enjoyable, giving more challenge than any PvP games out there.

They are not enjoyable BECAUSE of animation lock, they're simply enjoyable whilst happening to have it.

The animation lock in those games is BARELY noticeable. It does not have a great impact on the gameplay. It doesn't disable your character for a couple seconds- on top of that, you can cancel animaitons on many actions- so they don't really even have animation lock on everything.

Animation lock NEVER has a positive impact. It can either not impact anything because the animations are too fast to be noticeble or you aren't completely locked down, or it can have a negative impact if it's any worse than that.

That was queuing a skill.

No. he's not talking about queuing actions. You could perform other actions while you were locked by an animation- just not MOVING AROUND. and in certain battles where you need to move around a lot, that is a major, major hinderance. Yes, you can work around it and yes you can still beat those contents. But that doesn't mean it's good game design- I can assure you of that, as someone who has some experience interacting with the industry.

B) Limit your movement in battle and have animation lock in place of the visual global cool down on your skill bar.

Why do people keep talking about animation lock and global cooldown as if you have to have one or the other of these things?

ANIMATION LOCK IS NOT INTENTIONALLY PLACED IN MOST GAMEs AS A GAME MECHANIC. It is there for visual quality purposes only. Some games that have an emphasis on realism will have an unobtrusive animation lock intended to keep the player's actions looking realisitc. However, there is NOTHING realistic about being frozen in place because someone cast a buff on you or you finished casting a spell 3 seconds ago.

There are many games that have neither animation lock or global cooldowns.

MMORPGS tend to have global cooldowns not because they limit actions, but for network performance reasons- by limiting most nonmovement actions to 1 per server 'tick', the server is able to handle a greater number of simultaneous players.

By the way, many here seem to be forgetting something:

I prefer Animation Lock for aesthetics in most cases, but I recall it being a problem for many in general.

The ORIGINAL POSTER of this thread was advocating animation lock on AESTHETIC grounds.

That I can understand and respect (whilst disagreeing, but still, I respect it). Personally, I don't feel animation lock compromises my immersion enough to be worth having to deal with.

[GodseijuroHiko]

I can't honestly say I hated the lock because.... well I just adapted to it. It just made sense? I dunno lol, people just seem salty over Ifrit. I used fighting games as an example because I see it all as combat.

I guess the Fighting/Action gamer in me understands the depth the ani-lock gives. I enjoyed timing my attacks on Ifrit the same way you to don't perform certain moves in fighting games because they are easily punished. I can pick out the the flow chart Kens who just LOOOOVE to dragon punch and Hurricane Kick. I pretty much see most actions now as frame data lol.

I guess I'm picturing a person using a heavy attack, raw launcher, or hyper/super combo but then changes his/her mind and then just walks away. (Which you can with a focus back dash or.. X-factor cancel) Doing so makes you lose crucial resources (meter, gauges etc). With out a system like that, I just see a fighting game where people just spam attacks with no consequence. I only mention that because I saw a few people mention that the combat would get very spammy.

http://youtu.be/oWz36CfCAv4?t=12s

Picture that, if you clicked on the video, a person anticipating the super attack, jumped over Ryu (very possible). He ends up behind him and is now awarded a free combo because of that person's mistimed attack. Now, imagine Ryu saying,"oh $h!t." He then decides to walk around while doing that attack. Seems very silly to me.

When you throw a punch or kick in a fighting game you commit to that action. If you used it in a bad situation you pay for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1-uYDfrQgo

In that situation, a person with experience wouldn't randomly throw out a hurricane kick while rose had full super and EX meter. You would have a safer time doing it at the start of the round when the opponent had zero bar, or during a combo when you're obviously hitting them.

Now, I'm not saying that every time we auto attack we get locked in. For a special move however, It just kinda makes sense in my head. I feel like 1.0's server issues were separate and the latency was the culprit. (Try doing combos online when there is lag. You'll mess it up even though you've practiced the timing in training mode 1000 times. Some Tvs even have more lag (my tv is 2ms, while my GF's is 14 LOL) than others making it even harder to do combinations you know you can do).

I know many of you have done Miser monk burn. While going through your rotation, did you you wait for her to use Bad Breath/commit to an attack? Or did you just run to the front just to do you Simian Thrash combo? (The latency was so slow, I used to run through her and hit it and run back so it looked like i was hitting her from the back, even though it registered in the front. I'm sure I'm not the only one who did that.)

Have any of you ever played against someone else online that does the SAME attack over and over? Do you complain that they're spamming? Or do you anticipate and punish? All that person is going to do is stay in the corner and use ranged attacks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LKMjgJn-fk

It's lame, and yes you feel even lamer when you get beaten by it. I just don't want to be that lamer in ARR just hitting my bar and saying, "oops he's attacking again let me run away while I'm Simian Thrashing..."

I think that the game would have a deeper richer combat experience with the animation lock. It would allow us to use ALL our weapon skills instead of just the MAIN one. If a boss gives a smaller window of attack. (Ifrit Extreme), you'd use a weapon skill with the least amount of lock.The damage would be lower, but it would add to the reality that the boss is too fast, and you have to attack in smaller openings. If a boss was slower, well then we go balls deep! Until he swings that is... It'll vary from boss to boss.

I don't really care if it stays or goes. Just as long as the animations make sense and there is a deeper challenge outside of ADDs and hate reset. (I know many of you pretend to want a challenge, but some of us actually want it. *The spammer I mentioned, are the easiest opponents to face ^_^*). Either way I'll be playing the game.

Apologies for wall o' text

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

No. he's not talking about queuing actions. You could perform other actions while you were locked by an animation- just not MOVING AROUND. and in certain battles where you need to move around a lot, that is a major, major hinderance. Yes, you can work around it and yes you can still beat those contents. But that doesn't mean it's good game design- I can assure you of that, as someone who has some experience interacting with the industry.

Yes, we're talking about the same thing. You could not perform actions on top of each other. In ARR, your GCD starts when the animation starts. In legacy, while you can que the action and perform the skill, it was a few seconds apart from each other. You always had a global cool down.

Some animations would be interrupted because they were lengthy. For instance, Bloodletter. After using that WS, then queuing up another WS or Skill you had to wait a certain amount of seconds after the animation had started. It's the same thing in that sense, but it just looks different and the way it functioned was to lock you in place.

The problem is how people perceive the function of the two. All people are seeing is the visual, but those cannot be compared because the visuals and blending are not complete. I think some people are confused about what they want and how either of them actually function. Some people want something visually that they are already getting when the game is complete and some just have no clue at all what they are talking about.

[GodseijuroHiko]

Not any fighting game I've ever played. In every fighting game I've ever played, few animations last more than like half a second. In FFXIV 1.0, many animations took several seconds yet you still need to make split second decisions in many cases. Animation lock at best has no impact on gameplay, and at worst hurts it immensely. if it's not making the gameplay worse, I'm not going to kick and scream and demand that it be removed, but i'm sure as hell not going to ask for it to be put in if it's not there already. FFXIV is an example of animation lock making the game worse.

This is where you are incorrect good sir. There is frame data in EVERY fighting game. It's why some attacks have slower and faster start ups. Doing a fireball with Ryu will get you punched in the face by Balrog if he knows it's coming. Which is why being predictable in fighting games is retarded. Every move has a flaw. That's why there are terms such as "bad match ups" A character who has the least amount of bad match ups is considered top tier.

When Ryu goes "Hadouken!" he's locked in that motion. Proof in the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LKMjgJn-fk

http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2009...eet-fighter-4/

I'm actually grateful I'm part of several gaming communities. The more you know...

Now imagine Ryu doing a fireball and then suddenly walking backwards to avoid the Hurricane kick punish. Seems a bit broken right? He can just stay on one corner and chuck fireballs alllll day....

That's why there are nice words such as "balance."

One miss timed fireball can cost you the match.

[Leo_Hart]

Remove animation lock would not help you to win Ifrit Battle if you dun understand the fight well. I wonder how many ppl will ask animation lock to remove if Ifrit Battle never exist. I'm fine with Animation Lock but hope the fight wont be too casual after remove it.

[Arkine]

I'm 100% OK with animation lock and would like it see it stay.

FFXI has animation lock and it was alright.

Just remove instances that require you to haul-ass on the drop of a dime to avoid getting 1 shotted.

Boom, happiness for everybody.

[Sylkis]

What if you still had full skill animations,you can move freely during it but the animation and action are cancelled on moving?

[Kikosho]

They are not enjoyable BECAUSE of animation lock, they're simply enjoyable whilst happening to have it.

The animation lock in those games is BARELY noticeable. It does not have a great impact on the gameplay. It doesn't disable your character for a couple seconds- on top of that, you can cancel animaitons on many actions- so they don't really even have animation lock on everything.

Animation lock NEVER has a positive impact. It can either not impact anything because the animations are too fast to be noticeble or you aren't completely locked down, or it can have a negative impact if it's any worse than that.

It's funny you brought real life into this from a previous post. I clearly remembering seeing plenty of fighters get knocked out when they decided to throw a punch, kick, or even lunge at their opponent and get countered for it cause the momentum of their action didn't allow them to dodge. That's "animation lock" in real life.

Like I said before, animation locks are not the problem. Animation length were the problem which you even admit. XI's animation locks with getting cured, now that was stupid, especially since it was something the player had no control over.

@Arkine, that wouldn't be a solution either, since removing mechanics where you need to dodge on the spot, removes difficulty from encounters.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

What if you still had full skill animations,you can move freely during it but the animation and action are cancelled on moving?

this is good, much better, penalty for doing so, launch a skill but not finish will result in penalty of wastage

[Catapult]

That wasn't activating the skill immediately. That was queuing a skill. After you initiated the skill, the one qued took a few seconds for it to actually go off. Thus, a global cool down...

/slap

A global cool-down is the mandatory delay between the input of any command and when it is permitted to be input again.

Get your terms right.