Animation Lock: Why don't you like it?

[Alhanelem]

I see that even three references to my definition of 'Realistic' weren't enough.



So what happens to a player who tries to walk away just 2 hits into Chaos-thrust? Do they forgo the rest of the hits or just flail about in midair?

Blending doesn't solve that issue. Either the remainder of the WS animation is cancelled, or the player runs around stabbing at the air while magically hitting the target behind them.

Did you see any of this in the videos we've seen? I sure didn't.

The animation lock most of us are complaining about and don't want is the animation lock where you SHOULD be able to move, realistically, but cannot, because you are arbitrarily rooted in place. Where the desired movement isn't logically possible, it still makes sense to keep the player in place. You lock the player not based on the animation itself, but based on when it makes sense to be able to move or not.

Good gameplay mechanics also avoid issues with your second possibility: If the gameplay mechanics are well made and you move in the middle of your attack, if you are not in a position where you can hit the enemy, then that hit misses. simple as that. That is, you design the WS so the hits are actually timed at various points in the attack (to correspond with where the animation is actually "striking"). Then you do checks at these times as to whether the player is facing the target or not.

Animation lock can very greatly in its level of obtrusiveness. In a bad example like XI and XIV 1.0, you can't move for a very long time after an action- a much longer time than is realistic based on the animation. In a good example, the animation itself might move the character (e.g. a leaping attack where your character moves forward towards the target actually moves you there) and the control lockout ends immediately on reaching the target point.

In short- sometimes it is realistic to lock out control- but those lockouts need to be realistic rather than simply being from start to end of a model animation.

In order to maintain 'Realism' (*see definition above), either multi-hit weapon skills need to go, or animation lock needs to stay in some form.

See above. multiple hit attacks are completely and totally doable without having animation lock.

To me, a great example of the animation lock situation is Zelda: Twilight Princess vs. Zelda skyward sword. In the former, you can swing your sword any way you want while on the run. No animation lock and it works perfectly- it wasn't unrealistic at all.. In Skyward Sword, there is animation lock when you swing your sword. This was very frustrating for many people coming off the previous game which let you swing while moving, because every attack stops you dead in your tracks.

Real life human beings aren't subject to animation lock, why should our characters in game be, if you're talking about realism?

[Zantetsuken]

The animation lock most of us are complaining about and don't want is the animation lock where you SHOULD be able to move, realistically, but cannot, because you are arbitrarily rooted in place. Where the desired movement isn't logically possible, it still makes sense to keep the player in place. You lock the player not based on the animation itself, but based on when it makes sense to be able to move or not.

I agree with the above, but too many here are asking for a complete removal of the the animation lock -- throwing the baby of 'realism' out with the bathwater of inconvenience.

Good gameplay mechanics also avoid issues with your second possibility: If the gameplay mechanics are well made and you move in the middle of your attack, if you are not in a position where you can hit the enemy, then that hit misses. simple as that. That is, you design the WS so the hits are actually timed at various points in the attack (to correspond with where the animation is actually "striking"). Then you do checks at these times as to whether the player is facing the target or not.

Even with improved server-client reaction time, I doubt latency will be low enough to allow this many checks per second in ARR.

As I said before, 1.0 latency really made animation lock seem much worse than it actually was. And the fact that battles were designed without latency and animation lock in mind was the only thing that made players aware enough to complain about it.

[Shougun]

I agree with the above, but too many here are asking for a complete removal of the the animation lock -- throwing the baby of 'realism' out with the bathwater of inconvenience.

Like realism, hate animation lock. Imho for a FF game (wild physical feats possible) no animation lock is more realistic then animation lock. Still a weighted system would be cooler (no turning your thrust and hitting still, or actually being able to stop mid way by like 'esc' key or other canceling feature (moving)).

Even with improved server-client reaction time, I doubt latency will be low enough to allow this many checks per second in ARR.

As I said before, 1.0 latency really made animation lock seem much worse than it actually was. And the fact that battles were designed without latency and animation lock in mind was the only thing that made players aware enough to complain about it.

No idea about their server tech, but I know the intense action games actually predict combat in order to make it look like it is happening in the now. I have very little experience with servers but I imagine adding that feature would take a lot of work. SE is against an interesting wall of "needs to be better before release, take your time" and "other games, fresh games, are being released that may have more features then you, hurry up". . .

Still, anybody with that kind of action programming speak up, I have no idea how probable it would be (the real time visual combat) - besides just guessing like most people (and SE resource police'rs drive me crazy lol).