Quote Originally Posted by Bled View Post
I would say that in a war/battle strategy, communication among your comrades is key. AA allows for communication which is key to any strategy, sure you can think of some strategy before the fight but when all hell breaks loose and that falls apart its nice being able to talk to my party to devise a back up plan.

Also i would be completely on board with the current battle system if there was more to this manual input feature. If say they were to create combos of sorts like a GLD Slash + LNC Heavy Thrust = gaping wound (a bleed affect). A innovative feature such as that would definitely help in making up the lack of communication.

The system instead takes what AA does and makes the player spam said AA action, its pointless, redundant, and a step backwards. At least in DCUO (DC Universe Online) they had combos in there manual action based combat it was a perfect replacement for AA.

If you think communicating in a battle with your party is a pick up chat room then your sorely mistaken...

Edit:

And if you say you can effectively communicate in FF XIV's current system during a battle i would say your full of sh**, unless of course your using some sort of "team speak" with your whole party.
talking in battle is hard, you can get out small bursts if you use up stamina and wait, or if you just pause, however when you plan ahead of time, and you play with smart people you are often surprised how well they may adapt.
Truth is a skilled party doesnt need to communicate that much in battle, when they communicate well before. I will admit we dont use most of the useful communication tools in this game any more because we are used to voice options, but look at ffxi, why do you think they had macros and tab speak, and all that jazz, so you could make key phrases and use them in battle, I didnt type in battle in ffxi much. between fights, resting between pulls back when they pulled, after you died, thats about it.

pso cmode, we played with jp people with no tab speak, and we did some crazy things. the only real answer to communication in battle is voice chat, or make battle so slow and non reactive that you lose nothing for taking 10-20 seconds to type messages.

something to think about, even if they take out AA, without stamina, in a cool down system, every second you waste typing, you are delaying the next time you can use said action, if your AA is not enough to win fights as they say, what do you think sitting on your good skills for 15 seconds while you type is doing? this isnt ffxi with 1 skill per minute, or needing only a couple macro presses during a fight. you have like 20 skills, and you get tp fast. with or without AA you wont be able to type long messages, stamina actually gave you a way to do nothing for 20 seconds, without lowering your overall dps/hate, that is gone now.

talk before the fight, mark the monsters, use macros, they gave you the tools, use them.