In Favor of the Stamina Bar

Today, after a short-lived coma in the realm of Eorzea, no less induced by the very topic of this post, I was perusing the Lodestone when I came across the Auto-Attack video that riveted my soul. And I should inform you that this is in the most negative sense imaginable.

Before I carry on with this post, I deem it necessary to define the word stamina.

stamina: The ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.

I like to believe this sort of exertion and refining of the mind is what the stamina bar brought to Final Fantasy XIV.

Needless to say, I have become very livid upon hearing that the beloved stamina mechanics are being removed. To me, I felt like it really kept the battle at an intense pace, but not at a pace where it felt like everything was falling out of my control and I was being thrown into a slaughterhouse of the most callous kind.

Square Enix was no fool when they decided to implement Guild Mark Traits such as Muscle Memory and Mind Over Matter (naturally, these were among the top of my priorities to obtain), for this is precisely what the stamina bar engages our bodies and minds in.

Why just the other day, I was out in Thanalan attempting to recover my limbs from atrophy, when I was ambushed by a stray pack of rabid Dodos. Withdrawing my sword, that signature bell chimed (the one that plays each time you open the forsaken action bar) and henceforth thrust my stance into one of pure adrenaline-rushed battle. Despite (or at the very least what I thought) to be the unremitting weakness of my state, I can claim with utmost assurance that the stamina bar did indeed play a significant part in my convalescence as I mercilessly laid these unfortunate Dodos to a defamatory waste.

Tell me, how can one stimulate oneself so mentally and physically when the game does all the fighting for you?! No doubt I would still be bedridden (perhaps for life) had it not been for the beauty of what I believe to be our departing, lifesaving Stamina Bar.

It is a terrible mistake, an appalling misdemeanor, to throw our salvational stamina to the wind. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it blew right back. Even though the stamina bar may have been the cause of my coma, it was inarguably and ironically what led me to a full recovery.

And for that, I owe it my life.

IMO it should of just been an ATB bar and had combat similar to FF12,

It sounds like you want to keep stamina because of its role in your immersion and role-playing ability. However, it is not a good gameplay mechanic.

Good gameplay needs to be prioritized over immersion.

yeah, you think lol I know i missed the point

Hi Claire,

I cannot ascertain if your original post is meant to be Jonathan Swift-ian in tone - a la "A Modest Proposal" - because if it is, first, I applaud you for taking the time to skewer the Stamina Bar, but I also fear your efforts will be mostly lost here. ;)

Or conversely, if you're truly in favor of a Stamina Bar, I respect your opinion, but I, for one, am glad to see it go. :)

Nice writing. :)

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

It sounds like you want to keep stamina because of its role in your immersion and role-playing ability. However, it is not a good gameplay mechanic.

Good gameplay needs to be prioritized over immersion.

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i disagree. I believe it was a good gameplay mechanic, although there were a couple of skills that could have been tweaked, but doesnt matter its going away regardless.

It could have worked if abilities didn't also have timers on them. Timers with stamina bar stacked on top doesn't = a good experience. All it did was preventing you to do your best.

It slows combat down. Once you get to 0 Stamina you just sit there and wait for it to go to full or spam a spell whenever it regens enough stamina. For a lot of the lower cost spells it didn't even make a difference, but for high cost spells it was frustrating/boring.

I didn't like how once you started your first moves, you were scraping the bottom of your bar for the next attack. Add in the fact that a basic attack cost the same in stamina as a special move, really wtf?

Then there's the part of "oh, well just wait for the bar to build back up instead of spamming everything". This promotes a game style that's far too slow for today's market.

Not sure if serious....

They should've made stamina more interactive and dynamic (a la Vindictus, for instance). If they would've gotten this much down, it could've made for an interesting "true action" / traditional hybrid system (of course, the gameplay would have to actually support it, which it hardly did from the beginning).

I just hope they don't copy FFXI's auto-attack verbatim... that would be even less enjoyable, heh

I am in favor of stamina bar and will always be, but the fact is that it doesn't matter. AA is coming no matter what you think, and you as well as I need to deal with it and either quit following this game or hope for the best while providing feedback.

Not that I don't understand the rationality behind the decision. Being able to control the players actions allows for Matsui to create more interesting and balanced content. But this comes with the sacrifice of freedom. And while at the end of the day this game needs much less freedom and more controlled gameplay, I do not agree that the stamina bar's removal was the most optimal way to accomplish this.

By no means was the SB a perfectly implemented feature either. It's major flaw was that it acted as a separate cooldown for every action. That would have needed to be changed towards only acting as a cooldown for skills that had no cooldown and mp/tp cost of their own.

The gameplay is going to get even more boring quite soon unless you're a mage or an archer, but one can only hope that this is a transition phase for things to come. A sidestep that I don't think this game ever needed, but it's still better than shutting the game down and not even trying. So I won't complain.

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Originally Posted by Physic

i disagree. I believe it was a good gameplay mechanic, although there were a couple of skills that could have been tweaked, but doesnt matter its going away regardless.

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Yeah, I know you do. We had that giant discussion in that other thread about this.

stamina bar and recasts timers are there to hinder the spamming of powerful abilities. having both right now the way it is, is doubling that effect with no rewarding tradeoffs

if you wanna keep the stamina, allow skills that have no recast timers to work off stam bar. if an ability needs a recast timer, then dont have it take up stamina. this pretty much boils down to doing the same thing as either have full recast timers, or going off a stamina bar with no recast timers.

it comes down to preference, they both accomplish the same thing.

I think Anima system would have been good if they implemented properly, like where abilities would not need a stamina, also if the initial attack was a multihit instead of just 1 hit per button press. But AA is coming and i welcome it, im not sure how its going to be but i know it makes the DEVs easier to control battle so we can form strategies to kill the enemy instead of watching movie and spam few buttons.

This is why, regardless of how you feel about the forums, you have to come here and speak your mind. If you don't, the things you love about a game can be wrote over without the devs ever being aware there were some who actually like what they had designed in the first place.

They may still decide to change it, they might end up keeping it, but at least your voice is heard, and you never know.

no thanks.

And at this point you would be crazy to think they would go back and re-balance all they just did for something they just wiped out. Honestly dont bother, too many people dont like it and they are not going to re-balance everything all over for part of the community,

I've waited almost 10 months for them to get rid of this bar of annoyance.

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Originally Posted by Zanfire

no thanks.

And at this point you would be crazy to think they would go back and re-balance all they just did for something they just wiped out. Honestly dont bother, too many people dont like it and they are not going to re-balance everything all over for part of the community,

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why not they changed it over part of the community the first time. to me the removal of the stamina bar and auto-attack is a way to make the battles slower to give the impression of having a difficult battle. it's only difficult after because each and every class takes a nerf to slow things down.

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

why not they changed it over part of the community the first time. to me the removal of the stamina bar and auto-attack is a way to make the battles slower to give the impression of having a difficult battle. it's only difficult after because each and every class takes a nerf to slow things down.

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Because it's too much back and forth. Once they do something, they need to stick with it, or this game will never get out of the woods.

I also would like to see the stamina bar stay, but it does need a few tweaks to it.

Could either do a way to toggle auto-cast on the attacks that are closest to an auto attack, and/or significantly reducing the stamina cost of the simpler actions.

As I feel, the current combat system is one of the better things going for XIV, and what the game really needs is more content and the UI improved.

It's a moo point. It's like a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter. It's moo.

They are going to do what they want with it. Hopefully it doesn't become as slow of a combat system as FFXI's, or one like WoW where its mash 12234141342134341 every single GCD with the occasional CD ability used.

Caster - stamina/cast time/mp/queue recast/gcd. That's everything you need to cast on a mage class. Which in my opinion is way to much to worry about.

And melee isn't much better. Stamina is a waste of time at it's current state. Although I wouldn't mind it for sprinting on chocobos. If they had made stamina regen faster then I wouldn't mind it at all. Or if they would let you put speed surge on all battle classes then sure why not. But still I will take AA + no stamina and just focus on strategy and I pray that the boss fights and trash mobs fights are more dynamic than just a lame tank and spank surge.

its already gone and 99% chance they wont waste a ton more time adding it back in, its just too much time they DONT have to get TONS of other stuff done (jobs, materia, transport, new areas, re-doing the lifeless world, UI and server side fixe, content in general) There is just no way in hell they are going to suddently go back and re-work it all again. Unless you want to delay 1.18 til September/October?

LOL.......

@Firon What game is that signature pic from?

Really there is no reason to force mages to use the stamina bar. The magic system is already restricted with spell costs, spell inductions, spell cool-downs and the mage's MP pool.

No. Nuke the stamina bar from orbit.

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It's a moo point. It's like a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter. It's moo.

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XD Thank you.

It's time to give up the idea that those players can finally understand how the current battle mechanic works and enjoy it.

According to the recent updates, SE will only turn basic normal attacks into Auto-Attack. The tactical normal attacks may still remain and come with adjusted CDs and recovery lags, and that is actually the same with our current battle mechanic. Therefore, the concept of stamina may somehow still be hold by having well-adjusted CDs and recovery lags. This means, those players who can enjoy and take advantages from the current battle mechanic are still able to do well after Auto-Attack patch. On the other hand, those who can't understand that they are playing FF14 and keep blaming their ignorance for battle mechanic may still suffer the same pain even when auto-attacks mechanic is installed.

Here's to hoping the cooldowns aren't as long as certain FF11 abilities. I just don't see people being able to tolerate that level of slow these days.

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Originally Posted by Tezz_Xivectro

Here's to hoping the cooldowns aren't as long as certain FF11 abilities. I just don't see people being able to tolerate that level of slow these days.

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Abilities in this game and FFXI were totally different, FFXI abilities were useful and had a duration and sometimes lifesaving.
But expect a increase in recast due to no stamina, but my assuming is it would go from 1 min recast to like 1:30sec, considering most of the abilities last a single attack.