FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread VI: Phase 3, FFXIV is still on the rag!

[omegaB]

the battlespeed now is fine, anyfaster and most people wont be able to adapt and do what they need to survive. Even now, for some mobs you have to kind of hold back if you want to avoid thier AoE. This, not even at endgame super smart mob and react to what hes doing level.

you already got to provoke, slash use one skill on evade, another on parry etc.

far as people saying why cant i move in middle of attacking, ehhh the point is to be smart and attack when its least dangerous, you cant win if your spamming, spam is more dmg, attacking carefully is being defensive, its really totally logical.

only thing that annoys me is the lag to an action, and i dunno if provoke needs a sub target, maybe it does, i dunno

[Hyan]

Movement is fluff. Nobody likes fluff - its unnecessary, and doesn't need to be added to the game.

The NPCs are essentially mannequins that hold more loot and can be sold from. At least you got to pick the pose of your mannequin, though!

I know you're trying your best to be sarcastic here, but that's pretty spot on unfortunately.

Especially if I want to remember which retainer I've already checked and which I have not, I'd rather have them stand still than move around the place.

Or have the retainer move out of range when I'm browsing its wares.. yay?

[omegaB]

I know you're trying your best to be sarcastic here, but that's pretty spot on unfortunately.

Especially if I want to remember which retainer I've already checked and which I have not, I'd rather have them stand still than move around the place.

Or have the retainer move out of range when I'm browsing its wares.. yay?

think he means like changing standing position like other npcs, but honestly with that many of them, i dont really care if they are moving are not.

[Brodan]

"PS3 limitations"
/runs

[Lucavi]

There's always a bit of truth in my sarcasm. I'm not really talking about walking around - that's stupid. A list of the basic NPC stances would be nice, though. Some people lean, some people hold their arm, others tap their foot. Right now (and its Beta, so it gets a free pass from me) its 3,000,000 clones of Jango Fett standing around in their boxers and wifebeaters.


Yeah, you got the picture, Omega. I don't think anybody wants a walking or pacing NPC at this point - there's enough bodies to sort through.

I hope Tanaka doesn't take people's complaints about battle speed to mean that the animations need to be sped up. The animations are fine - Pugs already look like they're on crack when they crit, but, like Celeras and so many others have said, the battles need to be more FLUID.

You're locked into every animation you perform, you can't cancel any moves or spells by moving, enemies react based on your WS ("running to the back of the spear far away EVERY skewer, and never any other time), and even if you see a move coming, its hard to avoid it because you're getting locked up.

Much of this stems from the battle system being nearly a carbon copy of XI's in terms of the movement, so I have that same "rooting" feeling here when I'm WSing that I did in ballista in XI when I was penthrusting some fool. Thank god the attack range (for Lancers) is much improved, and if someone is out of range, I don't lose my TP.

I know they can't really "fix" the stiffness issue or the move-cancelling issue because they design their movement all around mo-cap, and breaking the animations before they're finished their pre-scripting would probably look terrible. I don't see a lot of "half" animations either - upper body only or lower body only motions - so it looks like we'll be relying more on reacting AFTER a move has landed than reacting as it starts up, unless we're given an insta-stun spell, shield bash, or moves like shoulder tackle/leg sweep.

If Tanaka hears the cries as less of "fix the delay and stiffness!" and more of "MOAR SPEED!", this game is going to wind up looking hilarious once we get our hands on some haste gear.

[Hyan]

It would definitely go a long way already if the basic attacks worked like in XI where you could strafe left right or back without locking into place. Even better if they can make most if not all animations that way.

[omegaB]

There's always a bit of truth in my sarcasm. I'm not really talking about walking around - that's stupid. A list of the basic NPC stances would be nice, though. Some people lean, some people hold their arm, others tap their foot. Right now (and its Beta, so it gets a free pass from me) its 3,000,000 clones of Jango Fett standing around in their boxers and wifebeaters.


Yeah, you got the picture, Omega. I don't think anybody wants a walking or pacing NPC at this point - there's enough bodies to sort through.

I hope Tanaka doesn't take people's complaints about battle speed to mean that the animations need to be sped up. The animations are fine - Pugs already look like they're on crack when they crit, but, like Celeras and so many others have said, the battles need to be more FLUID.

You're locked into every animation you perform, you can't cancel any moves or spells by moving, enemies react based on your WS ("running to the back of the spear far away EVERY skewer, and never any other time), and even if you see a move coming, its hard to avoid it because you're getting locked up.

Much of this stems from the battle system being nearly a carbon copy of XI's in terms of the movement, so I have that same "rooting" feeling here when I'm WSing that I did in ballista in XI when I was penthrusting some fool. Thank god the attack range (for Lancers) is much improved, and if someone is out of range, I don't lose my TP.

I know they can't really "fix" the stiffness issue or the move-cancelling issue because they design their movement all around mo-cap, and breaking the animations before they're finished their pre-scripting would probably look terrible. I don't see a lot of "half" animations either - upper body only or lower body only motions - so it looks like we'll be relying more on reacting AFTER a move has landed than reacting as it starts up, unless we're given an insta-stun spell, shield bash, or moves like shoulder tackle/leg sweep.

If Tanaka hears the cries as less of "fix the delay and stiffness!" and more of "MOAR SPEED!", this game is going to wind up looking hilarious once we get our hands on some haste gear.

but really why should you be able to stop in the middle of penta thrust, or run in the middle of swinging, thats the risk of using the big moves, its a basic of most fighting games, if you attack you leave yourself open. Pug was going to have defensive stances and offensive. I dont know if you should be able to cancel in the middle of a WS

But i definately think in a game where position matters, you need to have the moves go off when you press them, commiting to a WS is one thing, but having it go off 2 seconds later when the mob is beginning a WS sucks balls

[Brodan]

If Tanaka hears the cries as less of "fix the delay and stiffness!" and more of "MOAR SPEED!", this game is going to wind up looking hilarious once we get our hands on some haste gear.

I will look like SWG combat after NGE. /plays yakkety sax

[qpoiuwer]

It's already rare enough to get to trigger stuff like Haymaker with how fast battles are now. Any faster and they may as well remove all the reaction abilities.

[Meko]

I hope they just scrap the retainers/bazaars etc and add an auction house. Auctions house's are the best imo. It's centralized and if done correctly, can be managed better than that of FFXI. The AH in WoW allows you to see "top" payout so that you don't end up spending more than you should have.

[Brodan]

"
Regarding Final Fantasy XIV and the market battle system is something we would like to consider the equilevent to the auction house we had in Final Fantasy XI. Only that you'll also be able to fix your equipment and things like that. It is something we really want people to enjoy. Also after the release of the game we will see how it goes and for example find out what kind of search options players will want and need and improve the situation. We don't really want to introduce the auctionhouse from the beginning because that is going to determine the economy system. So we want to improve it slowly and adjust it accordingly. "

[Hyan]

I hope they just scrap the retainers/bazaars etc and add an auction house. Auctions house's are the best imo. It's centralized and if done correctly, can be managed better than that of FFXI. The AH in WoW allows you to see "top" payout so that you don't end up spending more than you should have.

They won't scrap anything, they will just add both. AH is already planned to be implemented, but marketplace is the system that needs feedback so that comes first.

Hopefully they can make it unique enough that it can stand on it's own, I think there could be a lot of different things that can be done with the system and not make it useless when there's an AH.

[Waraji]

I strictly see it as Repair Shops & Random # of Mats for sale. Whereas the AH will probably be wholesales.

[Lucavi]

but really why should you be able to stop in the middle of penta thrust, or run in the middle of swinging, thats the risk of using the big moves, its a basic of most fighting games, if you attack you leave yourself open. Pug was going to have defensive stances and offensive. I dont know if you should be able to cancel in the middle of a WS

But i definately think in a game where position matters, you need to have the moves go off when you press them, commiting to a WS is one thing, but having it go off 2 seconds later when the mob is beginning a WS sucks balls

I'm not talking about moving in the middle of the animation, I'm talking about not being rooted to the ground during the 2 second start up of a WS, or locked into this full long animation of a step forward >> thrust >> step back, which is often times longer than the enemy basic attacks AND specials (seriously, in the time it takes for one of the longer thrust animations for lancer, a puck can charge and deliver a backflip special without you having any opportunity to attempt to evade). If its going to come back to long moves like that, simply allow me the option of picking a short animation for lower damage, or a long animation for heavy damage.

I see what you're saying about leaving yourself open if you're attacking at risk, but the game doesn't work like that - its not realistic like that, so putting a realistic depiction shouldn't be used in your response. I take no more damage if I'm standing still or attacking, when, by your logic, if I'm hit while attacking, I should take more damage, or at the very least, have lower evasion for that incoming attack. I'm fine with that, if that's the system, but it's not. Right now the system is "press button for attack or skill >> locked in place before skill starts >> locked in place during skill >> locked in place after skill >> free to move", which starts being pretty clunky when all you wanted was to do a quick attack up buff, then roll behind the mob.

I had no problem with being locked into a penta thrust, and trust me, I played Drg for my entire FFXI career, so I know more about that job than any other. Penta thrust started up pretty quickly, and was over in roughly 4 seconds. Penta rooted you, but you could cancel the back of the animation with another animation, such as super jump. Often times, you could cancel it so quickly that you could vanish after the initial "shing" of the WS and the expansion of the white circles around your character. This was useful because when you were an insanely-geared end-game level drg, popping a 1.8k-2.5k penta on some flyer tended to make them angry, and not having to worry about eating that raw damage was useful.

You can "cancel", or rather, I should say "overlap" normal attacks behind WSes in the Beta, but you still cannot move in any direction while doing it - its really just overlapping because the intitial animation is so long, which mostly has to do with delay, but there are quite a few other games out there that allow you to sidestep while doing normal attacks (often called white damage) and only lock you in for special attacks (yellow damage). I realize that FFXIV and FFXI are unique in that they're Square games, and Square games typically don't have you moving at ALL during attack phases, but that still doesn't mean that its a little disjointing and old-fashioned coming back to this style after a few years abroad.

I also agree with others: if this game speeds up too much, it'll make triggering reactionary abilities that much harder. Things like feint (if they ever fix it to only proc on evades, but I hope they dont!) and haymaker (only works for YOUR evades, but if you're spamming attacks, you'll miss them pretty easily) will be pretty hard to use without people sitting on their attacks, waiting to see the results, which will also result in a lowering of DPS because you're standing still when you should be attacking.

The speed doesn't have to increase, but the fluidity and pacing could use some work. Sadly, both of those things are locked into the movement and delay system that both FFXI and FFXIV share, so odds arent looking to good on a fix or adjustment there.

[Hyan]

The speed doesn't have to increase, but the fluidity and pacing could use some work. Sadly, both of those things are locked into the movement and delay system that both FFXI and FFXIV share, so odds arent looking to good on a fix or adjustment there.

Not really. I dunno what animation system XI uses, but some of them do not lock you into place.

The delay I experience with skills is also more severe than what I experienced in XI. It wasn't instant there either, but 0,5-1sec delay is still much better than what we have here, and over time I believe the servers will improve enough to get there.

Just have to QQ about it enough.

[BlackheartX]

Just had a dead rat run off the side of cliff and when the server finally realized it was dead, it then slid down three cliff ridges and dropped off the last ridge. All while still sliding in mid air into the cave valley below. best death ever!!!

[Kurokikaze]

My character stops when I use buffs like Quickstride (flee) / Raging Strikes (zerk) or try to nock arrows for Multishot (pulling extra arrow out of quiver). That kinda stuff you should be able to do on the go.

I don't mind being rooted while attacking. But at least buffs need to change.

[Kurp]

With a very responsive client, I think the reactionary abilities would be much easier to use. With the delays and occasional glitches where you have to hit punch or stab more than once to get it to work, they become more difficult to use.

If I know my ability will be used as soon as I press it, it'll allow for more stamina pooling and you could get in a better rhythm with enemy attacks.

[Lucavi]

Not really. I dunno what animation system XI uses, but some of them do not lock you into place.

The delay I experience with skills is also more severe than what I experienced in XI. It wasn't instant there either, but 0,5-1sec delay is still much better than what we have here, and over time I believe the servers will improve enough to get there.

Just have to QQ about it enough.

You are correct. Some normal attacks allow you to slide left and right while attacking. I'll amend my post to reflect that. All attacks, I believe, did not allow you to move forward while attacking, if I recall. If someone is backpedaling, they could eventually get out of range even with you pressing "up" on the keyboard while attacking (assuming your delay was fast enough to continuously attack) and this was more prevalent while chasing a running target (especially in ballista), where when you attacked while moving forward, you automatically stopped after a slide forward during your attack, and then would have a delay before you started up again. It made attacking a fleeing target with auto-run very difficult.

Kuro that happened a bit in FFXI too. When you used stuff like flee, there was an ability delay on it, so you stopped for a moment, though it typically looked like you just slowed down. That shit was hilarious in ballista when a rng would shadowbind a thief because he got in range JUST enough by trying to pop flee.

The delay is in both games, its just noticeably worse in FFXIV due to beta and temp servers. I figured, though, that if they were using an entirely, brand new (crystal tools, people - CRYSTAL FUCKING TOOLS!!!!) engine for everything, they wouldn't carry over the same delay.

[Hyan]

I can't recall, but what you describe sounds familiar.

Either way, XIV needs similar animations... I'm afraid not many realize to suggest it though ._.