I just plain don't like the current battle system...

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

I'm nearly 30 in CON (my fiancee is the same in GLA). When do we encounter mobs that actually require the use of things like counters (to stop TP attacks), stuns, silence, etc.?

As of yet, the game has yet to throw anything at us that cannot be dealt with by the tried and true spank-n-tank.

When does the fun start?

(Hint: The fun should've started 28 levels ago.)

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actually it occured some time ago. the sp system basically made it so you dont fight things that are difficult, and thus most people never fight the monsters with different battle mechanics.
This is why people complain about powerful attacks that can one shot most people, because you were supposed to avoid or stop them from happening.

an excellent example is the puks, low level critters, but their flip kick is completely avoidable, and stunnable. higher level versions get access to tail chase as well, which makes you watch for which WS they are using. they also have enough dmg for thier level, that is almost always worth it to try to avoid these weaponskills.

high level cocatrices, have a variety of enfeebles that a healer would love to remove.

sheep have aoe sleep bubble, the longer you sleep the more dmg it can do, but a ranged player can pop it early allowing melee and tanks to continue

impish incantations? man i would love for someone to stun that at any level

undead have strong dots that healers will have to deal with

Piestes have gaze paralyze, if the melee arent paying attention to his eyes they can get frozen, the tank has no choice, so if the mages dont get paralyze off fast people will die.



the problem isnt that they dont have complex mob and battle mechanics, the problem is that there is no longer much reward or reason to fight all the different mob types, and when you do its usually fighting versions of them that arent high level enough that you dont just steam roll them before they do anything.

far as stamina, what i dont get is people complained that they had to do to much in battle, and so they want auto attack. Then people complain that stamina is not allowing them to do more in battle. If regular attacks were weak/didnt have different functionality i could understand, but they are pretty powerful, and when im on pug, im actively choosing to use either flurry, pummel, light strike, or heavy strike, they all have different uses and advantages.

Anyhow managing stamina is a big deal, I think giving you the option of spamming many abilities fast, or holding out and slowly using whats needed, but maintaining the same overall amount of attacks was a great idea.

But its going to change, honestly i really dont think most of the changes you guys want are good changes for gameplay, they sound good when you say them, but once you start to really think about how it will actually work it usually doesnt achieve what you want to achieve

I agree, why have cooldowns and stamina.

Actually, I think auto-attack would achieve exactly what I want. I encounter an enemy, engage and auto-attack, use stamina abilities to damage the enemy further and build tp, then devastate the enemy with a powerful tp ability.
This would allow you to conserve stamina when you need to (setting-up a skillchain) or spend it when you don't need to.

see what konnichiwa wants is fine, and its an auto attack system, but it is not the action packed, strategic system that other people think adding auto attack and getting rid of stamina will bring. Its a simple idea of let game auto attack, pepper in dmg dealing skills once in awhile, some people prefer that, but thats what it will be if you get rid of different basic attacks, and make skills all cooldown, or tp based.

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Originally Posted by Physic

see what konnichiwa wants is fine, and its an auto attack system, but it is not the action packed, strategic system that other people think adding auto attack and getting rid of stamina will bring. Its a simple idea of let game auto attack, pepper in dmg dealing skills once in awhile, some people prefer that, but thats what it will be if you get rid of different basic attacks, and make skills all cooldown, or tp based.

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In every other MMO I've played that had auto attack, it was never your primary source of damage for ANY class (except paladins in WoW, but that's because Blizzard hated the class). Auto attack was just doing something while you used your actual abilities to do the real damage.

I'd expect the same of auto attack in XIV. It's really just a way of doing some damage to the mob so you'd have the ability to chat with friends without stopping the fight entirely.

so basically better combat is one that doesnt require so much action, that you are unable to type. But has some moments of entertainment thrown in there.

Well the game is getting auto attack, so it may very well be that this is what people really want from combat. Sounds a bit boring to me, especially after doing it in FFXI for years.

I seriously doubt it'll be like FFXI. We don't expect auto-attack to be a primary source of damage as it was in FFXI, to the emphasis should still be on using your other abilities. The only difference is I don't have to waste extra attacks (thus extra stamina) to build enough TP to fire off the big weapon skills. And hopefully I won't be getting myself into the spot as often where I have to stop and wait for my stamina to recharge. And if I so? Well I'm not totally useless, since the auto-attacks are still doing their job. Now, if auto-attacks used stamina, that would suck and be a pointless addition. We'd be better off spamming 1 in that case. The biggest problem I have is being put in a position where I have to literally stop all actions while I wait precious seconds for my stamina to recharge.

It's not about being able to afk to make a sandwich and still do dmg in combat, it's about being more engaged as soon as combat begins. If your character is attacking while you make your next judgement on which special to use, combat feels more tactical and immersing than mashing the 1 key repeatedly and waiting for your gauge to fill. Technically, with auto-attack, you can still do this. But in situations where you'll want to burst or coordinate attack with someone else, you won't sit idle while reserving, or building, stamina.

PS--Rogue dmg was almost always melee (auto-attack) in all specs primarily. If their poison was top dmg, it's because of melee hit and speed.

I dont understand how there is a difference between your character attacking while you make a decision or your character not attacking while you make a decision... No one even knows if auto attacking wont take stamina to do as well yet. There hasnt been any more info besides 'We are implementing and auto attack' as far as auto attack goes.

Tp should not be generated through auto-attack, only through specials.

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Well the game is getting auto attack, so it may very well be that this is what people really want from combat. Sounds a bit boring to me

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There will be more going on with auto-attack and stamina combined than without auto-attack. Those buttonmashers out there are still free to mash.

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Originally Posted by konnichiwa

Tp should not be generated through auto-attack, only through specials.

There will be more going on with auto-attack and stamina combined than without auto-attack. Those buttonmashers out there are still free to mash.

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Source?
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Tp should not generate through auto-attack is just my opinion. No source :(

I mean the 2nd part of that.

It goes opinion, quote from a few posts above mine, opinion. Sorry, I didn't quote his entire post and I'm not clear when I'm stating fact or opinion.

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Originally Posted by Physic

so basically better combat is one that doesnt require so much action, that you are unable to type. But has some moments of entertainment thrown in there.

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Better combat would be combat so intense, strategic and involved that you'd never be able to type during it. Current combat is the complete opposite of this, where you could just stop to type and let most mobs hit you. Auto attack would only ensure that you're at least hitting them back the entire time.

If this combat is that to you, its because your fighting weak stuff, partially the developers fault, because they herd people into behests, and set the cap on exp at 10 levels higher, when a team of 8 can destroy those mobs in seconds. Before said limitations i had many involved second to second battles versus super powerful monsters, where you actually had to adapt to the fight and make decisions that mattered in battle.
honestly i dont really get the button mash aspect of the game, there are so many things i usually have to do in combat that i dont have time to be pressing auto attack all the time.
keep evasion high with light attack, burst damage with heavy/flurry debuff mob accuracy, watch for when i evade for fast damage and stun jarring strike. watch for when i miss so i can feint. watch for mob tp skills i can avoid, alter positioning. In leves, determine the state of the party, adapt taunting and hate skills, or holding seperate mobs.

Maybe this is because back when i did most of my leveling, best exp was outside of leves, and the tougher mobs gave more experience, and were what you fought if you had large groups. We would seek out interesting fights because those generally gave the best exp. Steam rolling weak mobs was good for certain mob types, if the spawn rate was fast but it was just an alternate path, and even though the mobs had low hp, they generally still had dangerous abilities.
Even now, since i have done mostly low man things, and didnt realize the 10 level experience cap, i fought more difficult battles where each action was pretty important.

I can see saying combat is too involved, but when you fight the harder mobs, in the more challenging areas, at levels where you dont own a mob before it can even use its skills, the battle system shines, and you dont have time to just press auto attack in battle, in fact that would kill your stamina, not allowing you to make good use of it when you need it.

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Originally Posted by Physic

If this combat is that to you, its because your fighting weak stuff

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I've fought harder stuff as well and generally I'm just furiously spamming heals to keep the tank alive (such is the role of a healer, though).

But the real problem there is that it's still more efficient to kill 3-5 "faceroll" mobs in the same time it would take you to kill one orange-red mob that will actually challenge you.

I love punching the horns off of Aldgoat Billies. It's fun because it gives me a specialized goal other than simply attacking the mob until it dies and it's also fun because I have to specifically set up my skills to accomplish this goal. I want to gain enough TP to fire off Concussive Blow II while not killing the goat before I break its horns, and I also want to stack up my accuracy and damage-increasing buffs before I fire off CBII. It makes the combat extremely goal-oriented and is easily the most fun I've had with the combat system.

In any other case, I could use all of these abilities to kill the mob faster, but generally just nuking it to death works fine. All of the other abilities take more time to cast than they're worth in helping to finish the fight, typically, so there's no real point in using them.

If more fights could be made like the horn-hunting battles, this game and the battle system would be infinitely better for it. In fact, I consider the specialty combat to change the drop table of a mob to be one of the best aspects of this game and I wonder why it wasn't more heavily advertised. I honestly didn't even know it was in the game until fairly recently and I consider it one of the game's best selling points.

Adding auto attack will help you accidently kill that billygoat before you break the horns off. It would be better to ask for more dynamic monsters like the billygoat, skeleton, buffalo, etc. Almost everything with a head has its head specifically hit when hit with Concussion blow II, Skull Sunder II, or Shrieker from the front. but the problem is it doesnt really do anything. What it could do is put them in a daze every time you do enough damage to the head, when they come out of the daze, rinse and repeat. The Buffalo is actually a perfect example of what they should do with way more monsters. Certain weaponskills can incapacitate the legs and knock it down completely for a good amout of time, and wipe its TP. We need more of that, not auto attack.

Auto-attack does not assume auto-target as well. If your goal is to target something specific, there should be no accidental killing blow via an unintentional melee strike unless you made the mistake of not selecting the correct target first.
Attacking from start to finish while controlling which specials are used and when all while consistently damaging the target seems very immersive and appealing to me.

Edit: auto-attack can also help you consistently damage one target while focusing another with specials.

yeah, i agree that horn hunting is more entertaining, and i look at a lot of the systems that were in the game, for hard fights they were seriously pretty involved.

I will say that mages get left out of a lot of the interesting battle elements. Tanking is a complex activity, meleeing can also be pretty involved with different enemy skills, trying to build up dmg and survive. But mage stuff seems like you basically spam either heals or damage, and managing mp isnt as much of an issue now, so they really dont have too many concerns in battle. They could probably use magic abilities that have more utility, different effects, and ranges. While on pug i have line of attack weaponskills, aoe weapon skills, single target big dmg, single target debuffs, various buffs and reactionary skills and whatnot, mages dont seem like they have too much variety in what they do.


Konnichiwa. what reika is refering to is that you hold back on your regular dmg skills as much as possible so as to focus as much dmg on the skills that have a chance of breaking the horns. If you are auto attacking you increase the chance you will kill the monster before you can break its horns off.

there are actually a fair amount of game mechanics like this in harder fights, like raptors if you hit them in the back they can do a huge dmg aoe move. So if the mob turns, you can just not attack and run back to the front, in an auto attack system, its fairly likely at least one attack will go off before people can change positioning.

for on next hit skills, it allows you to stack buffs and then use it on the skill of your choice, sometimes these skills are your regular attacks, not your weapon skills.

procs for reactionary skills like haymaker, phalanx, fracture, can fail if your stuck in an animation, so they will have to make sure you can interupt any animation to perform these abilities. (ie if your in mid swing you can still pull off one of these abilities)

The stamina system allows you to, for example with the bloodweapon weaponskill mongrel, build your stamina/tp to full then unleash a lot of dmg at once.

in FFXI you basically had to turn around, or sheathe your weapon to try and control these type of things, but that was a stop gap measure, and kind of foolish.

Yea, only 3 attacks damage the goats horns, and only from the front. you cant just 'target' the horns and do damage to them, you can only target the goat, the right skills automatically target the body part if youre standing in the right place. The rest will just do damage to the goat, leading to its death and no broken horns. They would have to make A LOT of changes to monsters and other skills before they can add auto attack.

It would be nice if we could just target specific body Parts and do damage to them to incapacitate or break. It is something they will need to look into doing.

I see what you're saying, I agree that a lot will need to be changed to implement auto-attack. Sorry if my newb is showing, I guess I shouldn't comment on something I'm not well-versed in.

I am blown away that your name is Dickbutt. Thank you for making my day.


As far as battle goes, I welcome whatever changes they've already got lined up, but client-side UI is really the only thing that'll put a smile on my face.

It's not only combat, but everything that lags. Open a menu, click an item, do ANYTHING---there's a feeling of trying to "run through water," where everything feels muddled/hampered.


Admittedly, I spend more time in game than anyone should, and (lately) not enough time on other things. I say this to dilute the impact of: I have had dreams at night, in my sleep, of logging in to find a client-side UI with minimal server checks. I'm able to tab around, open menus, and fight in real time. Then I wake up. ._.


To me it feels like the difference between software mouse and hardware cursor, where there was an unnecessary delay/response/input/everything---and then you switch to Hardware cursor and it just works; moving wherever you do.

I want a battle system that rewards players for having good skills, strategy, cooperation, reactions, quick thinking, and adaptive thinking.

I don't want a battle system that rewards your performance based primarily around what kind of gear you have.


I want a reward system more like an FPS, where raw skill separates the good players from the bad players. Even in Call of Duty, a level 50 player with all the guns unlocked can still get whupped by a level 1 player with good skills.

lol a game based on skills now a days, I would love to see that. If it happens, hell might freeze over. (meaning I'd like a skill based game, where people felt like they should get better at playing their class over time, which we don't have)

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Originally Posted by zaviermhigo

lol a game based on skills now a days, I would love to see that. If it happens, hell might freeze over.

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Tera has this, and it works very well. FF14 needs to be the future of MMO's and not cling to the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytrya...=youtu.be&hd=1

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Tera has this, and it works very well. FF14 needs to be the future of MMO's and not cling to the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytrya...=youtu.be&hd=1

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Tera's battle design looks great, but that art style is so gaudy and awful to me.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

I want a battle system that rewards players for having good skills, strategy, cooperation, reactions, quick thinking, and adaptive thinking.

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I've wanted this in an MMO for so long that I've given up ever hoping to find it.

The closest I ever found was WoW's PvP, but even that ultimately boiled down to who had the better gear. :\

a big part of rpgs will always be gear and some form of progression. Rpgs tend to be most about progression

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Originally Posted by Physic

a big part of rpgs will always be gear and some form of progression. Rpgs tend to be most about progression

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Yes, but in this day and age, we should be sophisticated enough to have both gear and stats based progression, as well as a real-time, action oriented, strategic and player-skill-based battle system.

yeah thats a fine theory, which i may cosign on for some things, but even in that scenario, you re still going to have gear and some for of progression, basically making it so that skill will never be paramount.

Also though i enjoy the idea, a lot of other people want to keep the action element minimal, they dont want an rpg streetfighter or call of duty, IE the skill curve of battle is supposed to be more about what you choose to do rather than how skillfully you can pull it off.

The genre would be fun, and i cant wait for it, but its a different market i think

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Originally Posted by Physic

yeah thats a fine theory, which i may cosign on for some things, but even in that scenario, you re still going to have gear and some for of progression, basically making it so that skill will never be paramount.

Also though i enjoy the idea, a lot of other people want to keep the action element minimal, they dont want an rpg streetfighter or call of duty, IE the skill curve of battle is supposed to be more about what you choose to do rather than how skillfully you can pull it off.

The genre would be fun, and i cant wait for it, but its a different market i think

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Then XIV needs to be about strategy in its battle system, but as it stands there isn't terribly much strategy to be found.

The strategy of "tank n' spank" seems to be the only one really required, and the small bits of strategy found in using class skills are very often unnecessary to actually win battles.

That's the only way this game would truly shine, if using a good strategy in a fight were to be the ONLY way to defeat certain monsters.

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Originally Posted by Physic

yeah thats a fine theory, which i may cosign on for some things, but even in that scenario, you re still going to have gear and some for of progression, basically making it so that skill will never be paramount.

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I see your argument, but what I'm trying to say is that we're not dealing in theory. There is an actual game out now like this, and it's called Tera.

I really really want FF14 to succeed, but my hardcore friends who left to play the Korean version of Tera rave on about it. If what they're saying is even half true, Tera is gonna blow FF14 away by comparison.

FF14 is not going to be free to play forever, and time is running out for the devs to get this game on track.

Y u keep advertising Tera >.>;

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Originally Posted by Reika

Y u keep advertising Tera >.>;

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Who, me?

I'm not. We can't have an honest discussion about FF14 if we bury our heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the good points of other games out there.

In the real world, FF14 will have to face stiff competition from a lot of other games.

It ain't just Tera, either.

WoW is still going strong, a lot of people seem to like Rift and, crap, let's not forget SWTOR which already has somewhere to the tune of 2 million people signed up for and trying to get into the beta (myself and fiancee included...).

I hate to say it but if Yoshi-P pulls this one off, he should spend the rest of his life being hailed as a God among developers.

To be honest, I'd rather see SE stop making gradual improvements and devote most of the resource to some ground-breaking changes that will make FF14 like a new game. What they should do is to stop doing these updates, hack up a prototype and make a super cool video that show us HOPE....and "re-launch" FF14 6 months later or something. Time is running out, nobody wants to wait indefinitely even though there is no monthly fee now.

Btw, has anyone tried Rift? I looked at it but it doesn't look interesting to me at all, perhaps I didn't look hard enough :P

I feel the same in the battlesystem there is no need for any bigger changes when you rank up

All just standing waiting for next behest its so easy so fast no need to chnge your abilities i just play same setup for my pug and tha

Behest is way to easy and no tactics at all all you do hit the mob weaponskill then to next no need to have any setup thats is the problem i think

Many people want it easy also i think but they could have done 2 versions of behest one hard for people who wanna use there abilities and skills and one for people who just wanna do it easy spam hit and WS and cure

One other version where you have to use right abilities and focus i hope for some real action where you have battles who is fun and exciting

I've actually given up on this game until they introduce some sweeping battle system changes.

It's just not even worth logging in for me, as far as I'm concerned, not even for easter hats. :P

I don't think they should dump everything completely just change how they use it. For example, stamina bars could be used only for melee's. They could then introduce stats like haste that makes it refill faster. Mages should be limited by casting times like in FFXI.

I think if they can get it to work properly the stamina gauge could feel like an ATB gauge from older FF games. nostalgia ftw