The problem with "Instant OFF GCD" abilities makes combat feel less rewarding.

[complexxL9]

Hello fellow players, I want to take few minutes of your time to discuss on Instant Off GCD mechanics in ARR, which in my opinion will hurt the game in the long run.

Some videos:
http://youtu.be/sEMkGhlcwUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=IgjjWCqOWmw

How this is "instant" or "off GCD" when you have to wait roughly 1.3 sec after every skill use, before using another (be it instant, off gcd or not).

Combine that with actions happening after skill animation is finished ant what you get is "instant" abilities happening 1.8 second after you try to use them.

In 1st video 10th second you can clearly see how I am spamming fifth skill (which is instant off gcd) after using 1st skill. The skill is going off only roughly after 1.3 sec (you can calculate by watching how much global cooldown has passed) and then you see additional 0.5 sec passing before the buff actually appears on my character.
Second video has timers on how long time must pass until you can use "instant off gcd abilities" but if you also add the time when the next ability effect is applied then there is even more of a delay.

In game situation modeling:
1. There are times when you find yourself off gcd, and you would like to use 2 instant off gcd skills + normal skill, if instant skills in fact worked instantly and off gcd, it should be possible to make it happen all at once (1 off gcd + 2nd off gcd+ normal skill in any order).
In ARR case it will take ~2.6 seconds.

2. You are at 50 HP, you drink a potion and in 0.4 sec get hit by monster for 51 damage - you are dead. Potion takes effect only roughly after 0.5 sec (as most abilities if not all), so what you have is: cooldown on potion usage, used up consumable, but due to no heal effect in 0.5 seconds you are still dead.

This feels clunky, unresponsive, unintuitive and in times - frustrating. It adds unnecessary complexity and devalues skills as well as combat in general.
Combat could feel so much more rewarding if instant skills worked instantly.

Why that was Square Enix "intention" is beyond me (they have stated that this is working as intended and is not going to be addressed).

If annoying, clunky, unresponsive is not enough of a reason, then here is a video on how this combat design + encounter design, can ruin your day: http://youtu.be/40a_cnDQKeE

Related "bug" reports (I put bug in quotes because it's actually more of a feedback on combat design):
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ight-mechanics
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...es-the-casting.

I would really like them to reconsider these mechanics, because success is what I wish for this game.

Let me condense what the TC is saying in less words:

1.) You cannot use a skill until the current animation ends. So an ability that is off the GCD still must respect this horrible aspect of the game.

2.) A skill's effect will not occur until after its animation ends. So an ability that has no cast time still must respect this horrible aspect of the game.

And combined those two make a really clunky combat experience. I've made a video illustrating this problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgjjWCqOWmw
Also made a bug report about it, too bad it went to "working as intended" section right after.
Dunno what else to do.. maybe we should all report this bug over and over repeatedly so SE finally reconsiders their "intentions" with these horrible mechanics.



Official response:

Hello,

Based on the way the game was designed, and also taking into account the current level of difficulty, the development team has no plans to change the timing in which non-global cool down actions can be used, and would like players to take this into consideration when forming strategies.

After this response, I feel this is the least SE should do.

This is extremely annoying, but since they've said time and time again that they're not changing this behavior, whatever, I can accept it.

What I *really* hate, though, is how there's no UI feedback or ability queue for this animation delay. You can't reliably know if the ability will go off or not with one press, so you basically have to mash the key until you're certain it's activated, and then begin to mashing the next key.

If I could press the key ONCE and have it activate once the previous animation has finished (y'know, like I can do with regular weaponskills and spells if I press them a bit before the GCD is up?) I would be far less annoyed with this.

[Sixteen]

Title made me think you wanted to get rid of instant abilities, was prepared to rant and all. You are right though, these abilities are really annoying to use. On my warrior having like 7 "off-gcd" defensive abilities its a pain activating them with the delay when you need them quickly to survive. It's as if the 2.5 second GCD wasn't silly enough, so they decided to make combat even more slow.

[AnimusDeus]

link is borked for me too

[complexxL9]

Your Youtube link is currently leading me to my upload's page on my own Youtube account.

link is borked for me too

Sorry, fixed the link.

[QuantumDelta]

It was my chief criticism in beta, it's slightly amusing that a regen is instant cast yet less time efficient than a Cure III... you can basically only cast a regen on a tank when the tank is at full HP in a hard hitting fight.
There are other examples, and there are DPS examples as well.
The problem with this of course is that if you do let everyone have their instants off cooldown the classes (melee, acn/smn) that have lots of instant cast abilities receive a massive balance related boost, it's not really an option I'd like to contemplate when PvP is considered.
I'm all for reducing the GCD, but I'm not sure about making things instant cast not trigger one.

[RyuujinZERO]

It was my chief criticism in beta, it's slightly amusing that a regen is instant cast yet less time efficient than a Cure III... you can basically only cast a regen on a tank when the tank is at full HP in a hard hitting fight.

Regen is a HoT. Much like a DoT it's all about opportunity cost. While you're spamming cure over and over you're locked into a casting animation and unable to do much else. HoT's and DoT's allow you freedom to take other actions while it's ticking over - if your ward doesn't need a tonne of heavy healing this instant Regen will buy you a grace period before he needs another big heal.

Arcanists are a class entirely built around that principle - DoTing up targets, allowing you to properly analyse the situation and adjust tactics accordingly. So as a white mage you should be familiar with that

[Naks]

I posted a bug report about this issue on my Archer a couple days ago, it can be quite frustrating, if your going to label a ability instant then its instant not instant+invisible cast time

[Jinko]

So you mean instant cast abilities are sharing the same cool downs as the main abilities ?

Your wording is very confusing, that being said I do agree.

As for the post above mentioning regen, of course its not as efficient as using cure 3, thats the whole point.

[complexxL9]

So you mean instant cast abilities are sharing the same cool downs as the main abilities ?

Your wording is very confusing, that being said I do agree.

As for the post above mentioning regen, of course its not as efficient as using cure 3, thats the whole point.

No, what I mean is that every ability has a hidden lockout time during which you can not use any other ability. I call this "animation cooldown".

You can observe this when using instant skill which does not trigger global cooldown (skills are not greyed out) and trying to use another skill asap, you will see that despite second skill not being greyed out, it won't go off for about 1.3 second has passed (until hidden "animation cooldown" is finished). This is seen in the video on youtube at ~22sec mark (spamming 1 skill after using 7th which is instant off gcd).