Say No to auto-attack!

[Demacia]

Durr i h8 auto-attack y focus on using abilities when i cn sit here nd mash 1-1-1-1-2-1-4-1-1-1-1-1. SUCH DEEP COMBAT, SO CUTTING EDGE AND MODERN.

Get over yourselves.

[weeble]

i don't want auto attack, only good thing i can see bout it is being able to type witch might be important for out of macro strategy during battles. but for most part i don't welcome the idea. anyone with a happyness for auto is a tool and just likes a game they can zombie and pretend to be a mmo'er player. they already ruined the old system that made u'r actions important singularly and brought back leeching, afk'ing, pl'ing. but now they gonna go the extra step and add auto attack for you tools too. yoshi the yes man seems to be just givin the baby the bottle so "they" can make there money.

[Irana]

Ya of course i do, keeps me doing something not just watching the fight, I can time my abilities just fine, seems like your just not a very good fighter, Ira keep healing people.

Im a r49 lancer and Im honestly tired of having to jump between Light thrust mashing, to a well placed speed surge when its wearing off, t jump to an invigorate to be able to use Twisting Vice to be able to cancel the NMs sp attack and then ahving to use Comrade in Arms 2 to help my team get even more sp.

So yes, I want auto attack so I dont have to be constantly focusing of how many times IM mashing Light thrust so i can focus on doing my job properly as part of the party.

[MarkH]

I've always thought strategy involve knowing which ability to use and at what time. Having to repeatedly press a button to do a mundane and compulsory task is like having to conciously think about breathing in and out at all time, will that make life more difficult? no. Will it make life more frustrating? indeed.

Is there a point during any fight where you will have to precisely time your attack? That would be the only time where auto-attack will be detrimental to the battle system. It'll be like if the air on Earth regularly alternate between poisonous and safe, requiring us to always be concious about our breathing to avoid breathing in at the wrong time.

If this game will be like FFXI where you will have long period of attacking and some occasional period of non-attacking (like when mob is slept or mob have physical absorb), then you can simply look away from the mob. Kinda like holding your breath when you take a swim.

Having to constantly press a button for normal attack doesn't make the game any harder, or involve any more strategy, for easy mob, either watching a youtube video while letting auto-attack do your work for you, or watching a youtube video while repeatingly pressing a button on your gamepad to attack is basically the same. On harder mob, watching a youtube video and just let your character auto attack or watching a youtube video while only pressing only on the button for normal attack, both run the same risk for death. And if you're concentrating on your fight, what differences would it make? (aside from being much more convenient!)

What having to press a button every 2-3 seconds does is killing socialization while partying. After you party for hours upon hours, even with the most fun and involving battle system (something that is not yet in the game), you will get bored, talking with your party member will extend the enjoyablity for a couple more hours.

And yes the battle system work perfectly fine, you can kill monster with it, kinda like how 2 plain carrots work as a perfectly fine lunch, it'll fill you up, it's just not very interesting, nor enjoyable. Being one of the 3 things people should spend most of thier time doing in the game, especially since the other 2 (crafting and gathering) are even more mind numbingly boring, I feel that making at least one facet of the game fun should be one of their very top priority.

So auto-attack, yes, please! And new battle system, Can I have it?

[Mugiwara]

auto attack sucks, most people who spam one button are either fighting easy enemies, or just not being very effecient, but realy it doesnt matter, Auto attack is currently non negotiable. I just hope they come up with some great way to execute it, cause it will present a lot of problems without a lot of changes to the very core of battle, and good enemy fighting tactics

umm, what mobs aren't easy...

[RedAffinity]

FFXI had auto-attack, and it was VERY involved battle system, and although slow-paced, very fun. Auto-attack isn't the problem.. you're your own problem if you believe you or others will auto-attack their way through a game.

[Morticous]

Mash Mash mash mash masdofjasdojavdobjoasdf mash sadofvjadsfov amssahdafs foadsjfgoiasjdf mash is giving me tendinitis. Auto Attack <Yes Please>. Sorry if you have a certain strategy on how you like to mash basic attack but it will be gone soon saving people from over repetitive movement resulting in TENDINITIS!

[Physic]

umm, what mobs aren't easy...

Mobs that are 10 levels higher than you when you are solo, some of the harder ones when you are duo.

Did you know that monsters in this game upgrade thier skills when they get higher level? High level sheep have a bubble sleep attack that explodes when you hit it, and builds up damage the longer you are asleep. high level cocatrices have an aoe attack that can put 3 different statuses on you at once. Mongrels can get back all thier hp if they target a low defense party member. Zombies have high hp, high defense, and extremely powerful poison over time skills. Toads can lock your abilities, pull in distant ranged users, and have an extremely powerful gut press attack that can wipe multitudes of people if you dont break thier legs. High level pterocs get tail chase which is a powerful aoe attack, that can be avoided, but only if you move fast, which works well with thier other cone attack which is best dodged by moving to the side but has a long range. Spiders could wipe your whole tp instantly.

The monsters in this game are way better designed, and have way more difficulty, with special skills, and abilities you have to deal with. choosing when to attack helps you greatly because it allows you to avoid attacks that would otherwise have locked you in place, yes, not being able to move and attack at the same time actually was on purpose, and was a choice between defense and offence.

To the lancer who wants to auto light strike, if you were fighting multiple mobs like they should have set up, that didnt die instantly, you would be trying to position yourself to get pierce for multiple, or using your tp basic attack so that you get more TP per attack, and can do more trammel, comrade in arms, and apply evasion down, or hp steal to more mobs at once. Having auto attack limits your mobility in doing that, and how will auto attack make you choose between fast damage on one target (light) more dmg and tp on multi target (pierce) and more tp on single target to use more skills (tp stab) not to mention, you should constantly be correcting your distance so as to use your superior range to do damage from a distance without as much risk from aoe/cone skills/debuffs, all the while with stamina in place, you lose nothing by being able to move a lot, and attack when it is best, rather than attacking all the time.

Auto attack alone will only hurt lancers optimal play style.

If you played in parties before they changed SP you quickly saw how different enemies required different playstyles, different skills, and different tactics to be successful. the problem is, now they have you limited to 10 levels ahead of you, when that is solo or duo material, and they keep you fighting mostly the same weak monsters. Essentially they changed the focus from fighting stronger monsters with many difficult skills, to only fighting weak monsters and killing them in 20 seconds.

Most of the monsters you fight, you never see their real abilities/traits anymore, and thats why you can get away with spamming 1 1 1 1 1, even though even now, it is not the best way to play, its still good enough and requires less thought.

Demacia, this system has way more timing and use of skills in play than FFXI, even your basic attack is a skill, that is best used with timing the problem was the sp changed the focus and you dont NEED to do any of that, even though its more effective

[Coglin]

I love the idea of auto attack if they do it even half way decent. Especially with the opertunity for procs in weapos and armor with the materia ideas mentioned. Let me explain how I envision it (this is just my thoughts and ideas), AA would be a base damage attack. Str would modify the maximum amount of melee damage per swing, while Dex modified the minimul amount. To go on, we could then add certain materia to weapons to add certain effects, adding a chance for extra ice/fire/life tap/or other added damage/buffs/debuffs. The damage from AA should by no means be enough damage to kill an enemy solo, but gives you a base point of consistant flow of damage for the battle, still requiring you to use abilities to kill mobs and survive the battles.

My invisioned AA would not be button mashing. Instead, once you target a mob. one button will initiate a consistant swing or what not. For example, every 3 seconds you would swing whatever weapon you have across the mob right to left, then a second swing left to right, or right hand attack followed by left hand, depending on the class, point is, 2 swings every 3 seconds. That, or whatever they deem appropriate.

This type of attack would add more dynamics to the battle based on the type of materia you add to your weapon. Not to mention the future possiblity of spell procs that could be added to enchant weapons magically.

I could certainly go into more detail, but this is just one possibility, and may not be even close to an accurate blueprint of the devs design.

All that being said, this is a possiblity i like to entertain, because I feel it would work well for the game. Thats just my opinion, some may love it, some may hate it, but i just wanted to throw it out there.

[MarkH]

Physic, get a tank, stop the mob from moving, problem solved? After all position have some importance in FFXI as well, it's call a "Samurai/Dragoon/Warrior please first voke and open Light, Paladin stand behind mob, Thief will SATA Shark Bite on to you."

As for the being unable to move when attacking thing, I see that more as a problem than as a strategy. Especially since my character usually only execute my attack 3-4 seconds after I have pressed the button. Usually it will go like this, I press attack, I see Peiste ready breath weaponskill, i try to move behind Peiste, but alas the attack I asked for 5 seconds ago had just start, locking me in place and I get hit by Peiste's weaponskill.

Actually this game doesn't have much timing of skill at all, I mean, if I see another player use a WS, then I use my WS, timed it right, do I get a skillchain? In this game, I see a mob readying weaponskill, try to stun it with leg sweep, I get "You cannot perform that action right now", then I see a normal attack I ask for 5 seconds ago goes off. In FFXI I see a mob casting -aga III magic, I press my macro for Tachi: Gekko (Or Blade Bash), went off right away, mob stop casting.

So I do believe the addition of Auto-Attack and the removal of the need to contantly press on Attack will make it much more convenient for me to choose and use the right ability at the appropriate time to counteract whatever a mob is doing. Not like right now, where when I want to use an ability in mitigate a mob's attack I am informed that as I've already chosen to attack normally, I will have to wait until that goes off first, at which time it will usually already be too late to do anything.

Like I said before, startegy and skill is in choosing the right ability to use and when to use them. Pressing a button to execute a "skill" that have to be constantly use whatever the situation, whatever the mob is doing, add noting to strategy at all.

(as a side note, Cockatrice and Karakul, the mobs you were refering to, people don't fight them, not because the SP cap make them fight low level mob, not because they are hard, but because they are very annoying. I have soloed Cockatrice as early as when I was an R33 Pugilist, as my friend want the feather, I've also fight Karakul for it's skin. Having an SP cap doesn't stop people from fighting high level mob, just make them wait a little longer, after all a star marmot stop giving SP when your rank is too high. And fighting high level mob as an R33 or R45 doesn't stop them from using those ability they have.

And they are not much harder than other mob, but they like to sleep you, which make fights more annoying. I don't mind the wind damage, but I hate having to wait for him to charge it up. They also share spawn with Puk and Antelope, making exping off them unfeasible. You should try fighting Little Apkallu, south east from Bloodshore, those guys are even more "Fun" as they will sleep you and run away to rest their HP back, not any harder to kill, but depending on luck, might take a while longer.

What I want to say is, those ability doesn't make them harder, just more annoying. Kinda like not having Auto Attack really.)