Fixing the Battle/Party System (was forum=152)Follow

I've been thinking about the problems with the system and i find that the root of the problem comes from the game's roots. Originally in Alpha, the battle system WAS VERY DIFFERENT. The devs say they had the current system planned all along, but i do not believe them. The original system was your classic final fantasy ATB system, where you wait for your bar to fill up and then you pick your action. This original system would've allowed you to do a couple of things due to the wait time. There was plenty of time to reposition yourself, talk to party members, move your cursor to the next ability, set up battle regimens and so forth. Another thing that we have from that battle system is the way the animations worked. You picked your action, and the long animations made sense for such a methodical battle system. Not only was it animation length, but the properties of the animations included animation stun, where you could not reposition your character yourself. Sometimes the animations would reposition your characters. Switching to the new system (and ditching that stupid as hell effect gauge) was for the better, but the mechanics around it never caught up with it. It all has to do with animation. They used the same attack animations, which were caught by motion capture and probably hand tweaked by real animators, as they did in the alpha. These animations were not designed with the current system in mind. Many games feature attack animations with movement stun, even street fighter, which has a top notch battle system, The different between those games and FFXIV is that the attack animations were much much shorter. FINAL FANTASY XI did not have movement stun for normal attacks. They had attack animations of your character moving around and attacking at the same time. Even if you were in the middle of the animation, the game still let you reposition yourself and simply (and cheesily) let your character slide across the screen. In FFXIV, the game has moved away from purely ATB into semi-action ATB. It isn't exactly an action game (and i don't want it to be an action game), but its approaching that rhythm (the current battle system was based on user feedback that they wanted the tempo to be like the attack animations in Dirge of Cerberus, which is an action game.). When you have a full stamina bar and are wailing on the monster, you notice that the game often cancels its own animations to start another one. Do you know what we call this in Street Fighter? A combo. There should be combo animations that lead your character from one command into the next. This could also be a opportunity to encourage smart stamina meter play.

The Party Search Function

The lack of a party search discourages people from partying and meeting new people. It inhibits the community feeling that is necessary to a good MMO. It will also go a long way towards encouraging a better community understanding of party mechanics and class roles. There have been posts providing details for this change.