Animation Lock: Why don't you like it?

[Alhanelem]

When did I imply that timing was not important without animation lock? I've said that animation lock made your timing far more important.

No, it doesn't make it far more important- not in a good way. It's a handicap on the player, not an intended mechanic to promote timing as a skill. You need skill and timing whether there's animation lock or not. It is not needed to have a well-funcitoning game. Basically, this:

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.

You don't need animation lock to make a fight challenging. there are plenty of ways to do it.

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.

The concept *IS* horrid. While various kinds of actions should have sensible delays on allowing input that are based on when you could realisitcally move, having these delays controlled by the animations is terrible. The delays should be arbitrary and based on the amount of time the player should realistically be immobile- Not based on the animation's start and end- points near which it is completely reasonable and appropriate to move, and points at which animation blending can kick in to smooth the transition from one action to the next.

That's why you never use certain abilities while you are timing his..

No duh, but the thing is, the abilities and spells lock you in place much longer than they should, making dodigng these attacks more difficult than it SHOULD be. I expect a certain amount of immobile time on an attack. But the proper time that you should be made immobile is not the full length of the animation- it is only the part of the animation where the actual effect of the attack/ability/spell is being invoked. The wind up and wind down should be able to be broken out of, as in real life you can realistically do this. FFXIV did not have animation lock because it was a good gameplay mechanic- it had it because it mad the graphics more fluid in the absence of animation blending.

You know, as other people have noticed and sometimes criticized me for, I've repeated this a fair few times to different people (but so have the opponents repeated the same things back). So to make everyone jubilant, this is the last time. if you get it, you get it, if you don't, you don't, and that's fine with me.