[dev1032] Auto-Attack without gimping melee combat

First, I'm going to cover something VERY important in pointing out that WE ALL HAVE BIASES. But regardless of such things, auto-attack IS coming to FFXIV, so we might as well be constructive with the Dev team about our issues with it. To be fair, my biases are that I do not care for FFVII, and outright despise FFX, X-2, XIII, Tales of -Blank- games, formula jRPGs, formula kMMORPGs, almost anything with Atlus' logo on it from the last decade, first-person shooters, WWII games, Star Trek, Dragon Age, racing games and about 70% of anime/manga/manwha/cartoons and comics by any other name. I am absolutely giddy about FFI-VI, XIII, IX, XI, XII, Tactics series, Dune by Frank Herbert, Norse mythology etc, and if I had my way all of the jobs in XIV would be throwbacks to Final Fantasy III and Tactics, while the villains would be androgynous Red Mages bent on ultimate power, and a machine empire with personalities akin to Wheatly and GLaDOS.

With that trinket of honesty in the open and dealt with, it's time to take a crack at the subject at hand...

Auto-Attack: targetting an opponent, beginning a simple command, proceed with beatsticking.

Brief History: After the death of Phantasy Star Online (and the DreamCast) and EverQuest era of MMORPGs, there were 3, all of which feature(d) auto-attack... Ragnarok Online, the most popular MMORPG in the world until Gravity's CEO sold their stock majority around '06-07, FFXI, the precursor to this game, and World of Warcraft (which I think needs no explaination). Chances are if you played RO (like myself) before the end of it's golden age, you'd rather not have auto-attack, most especially any type which involves control over the speed at which auto-attack works.

Pros:
-Better tempo for battling systems
-Gradual damage, always a pleasant addition

Cons:
-Unresponsiveness if trying to effectively kite
-Repetitive (lazy) play- see the rages about Rogue in WoW 1.0 for further details
-Begs combat to fix everything else around to it...

How I think it should be addressed-
Since it is an inevitability, I think the best option is not to do away with auto-attacking, but to instead change it's very nature, as a cheap, effective form of assault which only sees gains in the short run.

The list of features to condition AA:

-Auto-attack should be fast-paced, cheap costing, high tempo play which has no modifiers, pure and simple. The number outputs should be small from a distance but worthwhile enough to anchor the battle between skill usage and movement.
-Auto-attacks should fatigue, meaning that over time they get progressively weaker (beginning at about the 3rd strike, with small chips away at the damage potential hitting a minimum of roughly 20% of normal damage). Fully fatigued AA should have a reset clock of about 12 seconds (1/5th of a minute, is quite a bit of time in well paced combat), this reset clock only runs after the most recent AA. When the AA is not fatigued or only slightly fatigued (less than 7~ blows in), fully moving the player avatar or performing a skill resets the fatigue entirely.
-Auto-attacks should produce TP and have little/no baring on stamina
-Auto-attacks should be STYLISH and have semi-random animations, repetitive AAs make it easy to pass out on the keyboard
-AA should be unaffected by buffs and status effects alike.
-A "choke" on AA, when trying to move, meaning AA loses priority to movement, to maintain smooth gameplay

Unaffected by buffs/status effects and being unable to attack while moving? No thank you.

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-Auto-attacks should produce TP and have little/no baring on stamina

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-Auto-attacks should be STYLISH and have semi-random animations, repetitive AAs make it easy to pass out on the keyboard

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These are worthwhile suggestions.

The rest, well....

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-Auto-attacks should fatigue, meaning that over time they get progressively weaker (beginning at about the 3rd strike, with small chips away at the damage potential hitting a minimum of roughly 20% of normal damage). Fully fatigued AA should have a reset clock of about 12 seconds (1/5th of a minute, is quite a bit of time in well paced combat), this reset clock only runs after the most recent AA. When the AA is not fatigued or only slightly fatigued (less than 7~ blows in), fully moving the player avatar or performing a skill resets the fatigue entirely.

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I don't think taking the time to implement something like is worth the dev's time. I think I understand what you're going for though. Trying to limit the importance of auto attack? That is fine goal, but not the best solution.

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-A "choke" on AA, when trying to move, meaning AA loses priority to movement, to maintain smooth gameplay .

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Two points. First, this can be potentially good by eliminating the weird attack animations while running away, and also it would at least allow more movement and timing, as it's impossible to move while attacking currently. That said, I don't like this idea, as you are removing the incentive to be mobile and replacing it with an incentive to pick a spot and never move.



All in all, would probably be a mistake implementing most of these ideas, but I would agree that Auto attack should not be as significant as other MMOs have made them. And I would agree a repetetive animation for auto attack is boring, yet there is already separate animations for critical hits which changes this up already.

Well, I believe that for a game to work at it's best, the most basic, repetitive commands require the most polishing- and auto-attack is certainly one of them. If AA is too strong, it's bad for the game, if AA is useless, it's bad for the game because it removes a threshold of options to the player. This is why I feel fatiguing AA could be important to the game's structure, while the choke or buff/cripple immunity suggestions were whims I worked in because of peaves involving AA mechanics. There probably are better options, but that's why I made the thread :D

What about the Archers, auto-attack is gonna kill multi-shot

Also what about the buff setup ie raging strike, hawk-eye, etc... once auto-attack kick in-between actions you wasted it.

IMO

Auto-Attack = Rise of the BOTs

Timing "next hit" buffs between auto attack engagements was part of XI. It also periodically paused the next attack from going for a short period of time giving you more time for additional input in between. I agree though, having to beat the timer as it were was not the best solution. I really don't know what they are going to do for auto attack but I do look forward to drastic changes in the combat system.

Tiberius- Play RO for about 3 days as an archer and you might think otherwise- one skill- two words- Double Strafe. The reason I suggested fatiguing AA is both to encourage healthy skill usage and to punish bots. And while YES, Bots can use skills, their ability to examine the situation is their weakness, so they will just spam whatever skills they are programmed to resulting in quick exhaustion or so slow of a grind that they can be reported. Actually part of the reason they made it easier to level is to discourage the need for bots.

Karbine- :) Indubitably!

I am not gonna look down on the masses with internet issues but i am looking at a stable connection which most everyone is and should be the baseline when in-regards to this topic.

IF AA were on a random timer like FFXI, sorta, then the issue from me still stands. you but starting the buff then suddenly you start attacking before applying the second buff, imo keep the system the way it is people do overcome these things. This system gives the game its uniquness from FFXI and should be kept that way so people wont be so rush to jump on board thinking....
"oh its a enhance version of FFXI....wait the battle system sucks its final fantasy for crying out load why SE why" and so on

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Originally Posted by TiberiusAugustus

I am not gonna look down on the masses with internet issues but i am looking at a stable connection which most everyone is and should be the baseline when in-regards to this topic.

IF AA were on a random timer like FFXI, sorta, then the issue from me still stands. you but starting the buff then suddenly you start attacking before applying the second buff, imo keep the system the way it is people do overcome these things. This system gives the game its uniquness from FFXI and should be kept that way so people wont be so rush to jump on board thinking....
"oh its a enhance version of FFXI....wait the battle system sucks its final fantasy for crying out load why SE why" and so on

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Personally, I was opposed to AA to begin with- but it IS in the future of this game, so all we can do is try to make it reasonable with the mechanics that already stand.

personally i hate the fact that auto attack is coming to the game, but i will wait to see what it comes as before giving my final opinion. with the easy mode this game is at this point i'd imagine it's gonna be everyone run to the mob then go afk while auto attack kills the mobs. it goes from spamming 1 to standing there for alot of people. i personally don't have an issue with the way the game is setup now, but then again i don't just spam 1 on either of my high classes.

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Also what about the buff setup ie raging strike, hawk-eye, etc... once auto-attack kick in-between actions you wasted it.

IMO

Auto-Attack = Rise of the BOTs

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Your are mistaken to think that this will have any effect on bots whatsoever.

Secondly, FFXI had similar buffs that would apply on next hit and auto attack. The seemingly simple solution was to create a delay before the next round of auto attacks, giving the player plenty of time to initiate the next weapon skill before attacking.

Well... it seems to me that there are quite a few troubles with the game which can be fixed by combining elements. In the case of AA... Why not use it to make Marauders more on-par? Say Marauders had a slower AA fatigue and normal accuracy for AAs, to make up for their skills being low-balled on accuracy.

As long as the delay between attacks is fairly fast, and it allows for various animations (maybe cycle between 3 or so different attack animations), i'm good. Of course, every class already has 2 different light and 2 different heavy attacks (right?) so it might be something totally different from what most people expect.

AA is gonna take away from the fun. I think they should leave it out and focus on the actual attack's status effects.
besides whats the point of having AA with the current combat system. if AA comes were gonna have to revert to FFXI gameplay for it to even be worth having it. If AA comes in all your attacks are pretty much weapons skills now.

Honestly I don't see a problem with using the combat system from FFXI. It's a system that worked then and it could work now, AA is in no way going to minimize the fun factor from playing the game, and imo there is still some use for the stamina guage but, if it proves to be cumbersome I don't think anyone will miss it that much.
A lot of people are dogging FFXI, but honestly if it was as bad as they make it seem, the game wouldn't be around for almost nine years. And if people are going to offer criticism at least let it be positive and reinforcing.

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Originally Posted by Allistar

Honestly I don't see a problem with using the combat system from FFXI. It's a system that worked then and it could work now, AA is in no way going to minimize the fun factor from playing the game, and imo there is still some use for the stamina guage but, if it proves to be cumbersome I don't think anyone will miss it that much.
A lot of people are dogging FFXI, but honestly if it was as bad as they make it seem, the game wouldn't be around for almost nine years. And if people are going to offer criticism at least let it be positive and reinforcing.

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I agree with this to a point... The "battle mode" was much more interesting, and macros made things work- though I also like the idea of free running while fighting, but non-action bar mashing battles are also quite fun. Though- I'd much prefer it to be much faster and more fluid than XI

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Originally Posted by TiberiusAugustus

What about the Archers, auto-attack is gonna kill multi-shot

Also what about the buff setup ie raging strike, hawk-eye, etc... once auto-attack kick in-between actions you wasted it.

IMO

Auto-Attack = Rise of the BOTs

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I am hoping that archers auto-attack will mean they will give them a melee weapon at least single dagger, and shooting your bow will need to be done with a command like it is now melee auto-attack while close and command bow shots manually i know i will get attacked but i think the method used for rng in ffxi is probably the best course of action for handling auto-att with classes who's primary weapons are ranged. bow/gun/ect
Oh yeah forgot to say thank god they are adding auto attack cause i Freakin Hate Stamina! sorry ^^;