To answer the OP though, I still play the game, and have since open beta. I, like everyone else, thought the game sucked initially, but I made friends and the game stayed F2P, so I stuck around to watch all the changes and see if it got better. As far as gameplay, they're leaps and bounds ahead of where they started, but yes, the population is still pretty low, and there's gonna be some problems that just can't be resolved til 2.0 hits--not that I'm predicting whether they WILL be fixed
. 2.0 won't be a patch, it'll be a completely new game engine with completely new maps and many other changes. It will definitely be BETTER than the current game, as each new patch has demonstrated...time will tell if they will have a solid game then and will attract enough people back to keep playing.
and the skillchain system was in place but didn't function.
The "skillchain" system, battle regimens, worked just fine from the beginning if you learned how to use them and your party was on the ball. However the interface for it was clunky, and of course the game was so bogged down with other problems that most people didn't ever bother trying to figure out how to properly use it or got frustrated trying to use it. That being said...while battle regimens were awesome as far as DPS increase and mob debuffs if used correctly, the entire system was kinda bleh as far as being fun to use. They removed battle regimens from the game many patches ago though, and no word yet what they're gonna do to replace it (if anything) other than the self-combos. IIRC the self-combos aren't necessarily set in stone atm either.
Did they plan on putting skill chains in? I thought that died with ffxi... as it stood a couple months before it went pay again the combat system was in no condition to have skill chains added just based on the fact that the log, graphics, and input were all out of sync with each other... and the log was significantly worse than ffxi's scrolling combat log... to do anything re-actively based on combat actions with any sort of time window would be nearly impossible...
I'm very interested if anyone knows how the state of combat is now... if the mechanics were in the game now, could you accurately execute closing a sc with a sata ws and time a mb? Would you be able to check a mobs actions and time a stun? Get a fast erase in?
(I know these are ffxi mechanics, but I just want a comparison as far as responsiveness of ffxiv's combat system, this along with remapping the arrow keys would be a big deal for me...)
Eh...skillchains at this point in the game's re-development *could* be done, but I sure hope the 2.0 client/server is a *tad* more seemless. There is still a significant amount of lag involved with what your client thinks vs what the server thinks and what other people's client thinks is happening at any given moment, but it is a fairly constant value. The game is an MMO of course, so you're gonna deal with latency between yourself and the server, and it doesn't help that SE uses servers based in Japan for a worldwide player population...pros and cons to that. Anywho, stuff like this:
-Player A moves a few steps ahead of you... 1.5-2 seconds later (rough guess) in real time your client shows him moving a few steps ahead of you.
-You need to perform a combo that requires you to weaponskill from the front of the mob, then perform a 2nd WS from behind the mob. Combo effect is a stun. You perform WS #1 positioned correctly. Due to the inherent client-server latency, you wait til the mob performs his next action (such as a melee attack) to give you a cue that YES, THE MOB IS FACING ME AT THIS VERY MOMENT, AND I HAVE SOME TIME TO REACT, then you run behind the mob and fire off WS #2.
--If you were to attempt to move without waiting for that sort of cue, there is no guarantee that you'll have the mob positioned correctly, because the graphics on your client will update ~.5-1 second later than the server. Sometimes, if your timing was close, the mob will turn to face you on screen while you get off WS #2, and a second later the server will update your client to show that "Yes, the mob is still facing the other direction and is now stunned from your combo". Or you might have missed your window and he stays right where he is and you don't get your combo effect. You just don't know til you know.
-Boss A starts a weaponskill that you need to react to. You have X amount of time to react as soon as your visual clue shows up (usually your battle log, properly filtered), which is plenty of time as long as you're prepared for it (i.e. not casting a spell, performing a weasponskill...stuff that keeps you from moving/performing other actions at that particular moment). You watch for that cue and react ASAP, and everything's hunky dory. Unfortunately, you can pretty much rely on the fact that when people/mobs start moving, your game client is NOT going to properly show everthing's positioning til everyone stops moving. Sometimes positioning matters during time periods like that, sometimes not. You just have to account for it when it does.
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