Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

The current design of FF14's combat means that players are constantly doing basic bread-and-butter manual attacks even when they aren't doing big cool attacks...so also doing basic attacks that are automated seems redundant.

But that's just me; curious if others may have insights that I'm missing.

IMO

I mean, yes, but I get the point you are making. When you are plowing through your rotation doing potency 1billion on things, a AA doesn't seem like it is doing much. The general feedback is that, while it doesn't do a lot, it will add up over the course of a 30min piece of content so that if you were parsing or caring about numbers, it would give you just that bit more to push them. Otherwise, ya I never notice or truly care if my AA's aren't going off at that time. I am casual so taking 10 more seconds a dungeon is w/e to me.

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

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Do (lower level) PotD floors when Pacified count?

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

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Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

Auto attacks are one of the elements of FF14 that are interesting on paper but in practice are easy to ignore. They do add to damage, but that's not very exciting and that damage could easily be shifted to skill damage. More unique is that they allow attacking two enemies at once without breaking combos, which you might want to do in a situation where one enemy is nearly dead and the other has most of their HP. While it's fun to look for small opportunities like that, how much they actually matter is debatable.

Oddly enough autos are deeper on casters than melee since they are stopped by casts and have a distance limitation. They provide an incentive to be up close and trade the potential safety of range for more damage, but this also needs to be balanced against having enough GCD time to use them. Or at least that would be the case if their damage wasn't non existent on magic classes.

RDM and SMN have the most potential when it comes to making auto attacks useful and fun. A cooldown that greatly increases auto attack damage for a time might be interesting and mesh with melee or instant cast bursts.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

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In your opinion

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

In your opinion

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No it's a fact, go look at combat in 1.0 on youtube, your character just stands there in idle animation inbetween weapon attacks, which makes the game feel slow and clunky, it's why they added AA's and OGCD moves

No auto-attacks was apparently a big issue in 1.0.

But we have an example of jobs that don't do them - casters, because they are, well, casting. SMN, not so much casting but still technically a caster so the autos don't happen.

Now sure, some people will argue they walk up to an enemy on casters/healers and manually turn on auto-attacks and slap them with their book/staff with their 353 Strength stat and the hidden physical damage stat on their weapon to get in a little damage between casts, especially now that many casts are instant or 1.5 seconds. But most players are not bothering with that.

I think the amount of OGCDs we have now on many classes changes things compared to 1.0, but we do have some jobs with a lot less OGCDs like PLD, WAR, MNK.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

No it's a fact, go look at combat in 1.0 on youtube, your character just stands there in idle animation inbetween weapon attacks, which makes the game feel slow and clunky, it's why they added AA's and OGCD moves

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That's literally what ogcds are for now. 1.0 combat is irrelevant compared to modern ffxiv combat.

Builds PLD gauge.

I do think it'd be cool if auto attacks had more of an interaction with your kit like with a chance for a proc of some sort or lowering CDs.

<thwack!> 1
<thwack!> 1
<thwack!> 1!!
<thwack!> 1

auto attacks work in FFXI Because you build TP to do your weapon skill, or so you can work with your teammates and Skillchain

auto attacks in FFXIV is useless

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

The current design of FF14's combat means that players are constantly doing basic bread-and-butter manual attacks even when they aren't doing big cool attacks...so also doing basic attacks that are automated seems redundant.

But that's just me; curious if others may have insights that I'm missing.

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It's something to min-max when you get dumped into 1-60 content as a caster or healer. 1-60 gameplay is already sparse enough that I wouldn't be happy if yet another thing were removed from it.

Good question, will be removed by next expansion. Dont worry!

Speaking of Auto Attack, I wonder will there be a class would you refresh you job action cool down by auto attacking enemy?

Ya know, like Xenoblade 2 combat, or Agnian/Agnus Character from Xenoblade 3.

I would love if auto-attacks had more interaction with the job kits. Now that MNK gets 10 stack chakra during Brotherhood, I would find it fun & kinda hilarious if auto-attacks could generate Chakra on crit as well. Would open up some interesting synergy with Riddle of Wind, which right now is also kind of a weird button to press.

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

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It would also mean that melee jobs end up being punished even harder for drifting their CDs or not keeping their GCD rolling. Personally I wouldn't mind that, but given how you constantly advocate for job gameplay to be easier, it's interesting--funny, yet somehow unsurprising to see you in favour of a change that would actually screw you and you specifically over. And for that reason I am now hoping auto attacks get removed :)

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

But we have an example of jobs that don't do them - casters, because they are, well, casting. SMN, not so much casting but still technically a caster so the autos don't happen.

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Even for a full-time casting mage like a low-level healer, you get auto-attacks hitting after every second GCD or so, and at low levels it is actually a reasonable amount of damage per turn. Not a lot, but enough that you're probably defeating things slightly quicker than you would otherwise, especially if solo.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

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Only at 1.0's launch - autoattack was added to 1.0 in a later patch, after Yoshi took over as producer and director from Tanaka, and the battle system was redesigned from the ground up, as a test bed for ARR. 1.0 autoattack actually did contribute to building the TP gauge in order to use weaponskills and the like, as 1.0 the TP gauge started at zero, like FFXI, as you said. ARR swapped the TP gauge to being full at start however, so autoattack thus lost that particular use.

ARR autoattack was useful for tanks to help keep hate on ourselves when DPS=enmity as every hit you did built up more hate. Naturally that's no longer the case.

do you want your ninja, monk, or any small weapon/quick weapon melee to look like they are simple jack-ing around a boss because there are no autos? Sure you can make the argument that they dont have to be in the game and you'd be right but what exactly are they hurting?

This is the kinda -redacted- -redacted- that these forums have for ideas, things that don't really need changing but would be a headache for the dev team to do.

"The eye reflections are bad, change them!"

*dev changes them*

"Not like that!!!"

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Originally Posted by Silhart

I would love if auto-attacks had more interaction with the job kits. Now that MNK gets 10 stack chakra during Brotherhood, I would find it fun & kinda hilarious if auto-attacks could generate Chakra on crit as well. Would open up some interesting synergy with Riddle of Wind, which right now is also kind of a weird button to press.


It would also mean that melee jobs end up being punished even harder for drifting their CDs or not keeping their GCD rolling. Personally I wouldn't mind that, but given how you constantly advocate for job gameplay to be easier, it's interesting--funny, yet somehow unsurprising to see you in favour of a change that would actually screw you and you specifically over. And for that reason I am now hoping auto attacks get removed :)

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What will be funny is when I become better than you at this game. Then what are you going to say?

Yeah it lets people gently tap ARR hunts so they don't get instantly obliterated into fine mist before half the people present can hit them (in theory anyway)

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

What will be funny is when I become better than you at this game. Then what are you going to say?

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Oh man, I'm actually PRAYING you'll become better at this game than me, because 1) it means that your posts will have merit now that you have actual experience to draw from 2) you'll get to find out how shallow endgame is and realise that maybe the people you've spent this past month shouting down had a point. Then you too can know the joy of being shot down by casuals for daring to ask the game to be more engaging.

No guarantees about 2), but 1) alone is enough to make me genuinely hope for your success. Do not disappoint me.
___
I've nothing more to add to the main topic, so I'll take my leave before I derail this thread any further. Apologies, LilimoLimomo.

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

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crit direct hits say hello.

I think auto-attacks serve as a way of reducing the difference in output of strong and weak players, which is something the devs are always pushing for. If you remove autoattacks, then the players who struggle with basics like GCD uptime will do a lot less damage than they currently do, to the extent that they'll cause trouble for others in roulettes.

I don't think there's any benefit to removing them. It's a small thing to optimize for on certain jobs, which is appreciated. And the fact that it makes lv50 SCH Art of War a GAIN on single target is interesting and fun.

Every time you wipe at 0.1% it's because your Summoner wasn't smacking the enemy with their book.

Auto attacks add purpose to mechanics in fights. The need to disengage or look away at a certain phase.

I don't actually really care for auto attacks myself, so I don't really care if they are removed. Feels like a weird out dated design for me.

I mean remove them or don't i hardly even know their existence even on PLD where auto attacks actually matter to gauge you just kind of forget they are a thing.

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Originally Posted by hunter2

I think auto-attacks serve as a way of reducing the difference in output of strong and weak players, which is something the devs are always pushing for. If you remove autoattacks, then the players who struggle with basics like GCD uptime will do a lot less damage than they currently do, to the extent that they'll cause trouble for others in roulettes.

I don't think there's any benefit to removing them. It's a small thing to optimize for on certain jobs, which is appreciated. And the fact that it makes lv50 SCH Art of War a GAIN on single target is interesting and fun.

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Pretty much this, auto attacks serve as a baseline of damage that is consistent as long as a player is near the boss.

This thread is a great display of the forums being very, very bad at game design.

Good to have these reminders now and then to keep everyone grounded.

I hoped for a moment this would be complaining about how healers and casters have to manually turn on auto attacks. It was not. Tragic.

Maximizing auto attack damage is the most fun available healing Praetorium, and it's still better than SMN Physick.

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Originally Posted by Silhart

Oh man, I'm actually PRAYING you'll become better at this game than me, because 1) it means that your posts will have merit now that you have actual experience to draw from 2) you'll get to find out how shallow endgame is and realise that maybe the people you've spent this past month shouting down had a point. Then you too can know the joy of being shot down by casuals for daring to ask the game to be more engaging.

No guarantees about 2), but 1) alone is enough to make me genuinely hope for your success. Do not disappoint me.
___
I've nothing more to add to the main topic, so I'll take my leave before I derail this thread any further. Apologies, LilimoLimomo.

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I just killed titan in UWU last night and I can't say I'd ever call endgame shallow knowing what it's like to scratch the surface of the ultimate system. I am 100% certain my opinions will stay the same and my position will inevitably increase. You haven't cleared a single ultimate yet, and I am inevitably going to clear UWU now that I've begun the grind.

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Originally Posted by Azlith

crit direct hits say hello.

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I play with damage numbers turned off so I couldn't care less about stuff like that. You're getting into semantics heavily here too, as we're still the ones activating the ability with an input regardless of whether it crits and direct hits. Where auto attacks are just automated entirely.

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Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

This thread is a great display of the forums being very, very bad at game design.

Good to have these reminders now and then to keep everyone grounded.

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How are we going to have any dps in the down time if we run out of TP halfway through the fight? Not every team has a ninja to goad them.

PLD generates Oath Gauge from them but otherwise they don't really add anything. But it's not like they hurt anything by being there. PvP doesn't have autos and it doesn't make any difference in how it feels to play.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

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I can see Auto attack being relevant 11 years ago to provide dynamism to a very slow gameplay.
The fact is that it's not anymore.

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Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

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Both good points, though they don't apply to DoM. BLM whacking things with a staff for 1 damage is like WAR having an MP gauge. These are supposedly just things that are expected to be ignored instead of updated or removed. I'd rather it be a ranged magic blast that deals a few hundred chip damage if it has to exist.

Yeah so you have a way to do damage in deep dungeons when you get silenced

Auto-attacks on melee measure your time spent within melee range. Historically they also used to measure your time spent facing a mob as well, but that changed in patch 3.4. They also measure your uptime of certain buffs that reduce auto-attack delay, such as Fuka and Swiftscaled.

Auto-attacks on physical ranged exist to one-shot you on Ice Spikes/Smoldering Scales.