[Suggestion] Remove Stamina Bar

[Lyndria]

Unless the current system changes drastically, (which it might) the stamina bar is too much of a hindrance for not enough of a reason.

Limiting Factors

- Each move in the game currently requires the use of a resource:

HP, MP, and TP.

- In addition to these resources we have extra limiters on skills and abilities:

cooldown times, casting times, and animation times.

I understand that some moves are stamina only, but all of the above mentioned are acceptable and make sense. These are typical with any MMO. The stamina bar adds an additional threshold on abilities and actions that is cumbersome.

So why is it there? To prevent spamming?

- Lets say I want to fire off 8 weapon skills in a row: Can't, animation time and tp are the limiting factors.
- Want to pop off 8 cures back to back: Casting time, cooldown, animation time, and mp all limit how often and quickly you can cure.

If actions being used too frequently was a problem I would rather see and increase in cost to the other resources than imposing the use of a stamina bar.

Do we really need a bar to limit how many abilities we can activate at one time? Is it really that important that I can't activate rampart, ferocity, featherfoot, bloodbath etc., etc. in a row without having to wait on a bar to refill, in addition to their cooldown and animation time?

What do you think?

EDIT:
As per later responses I have read (thank you to everyone who has weighed in) I'd like to say that the scope of this is to examine the benefits/hindrances of the stamina bar.

Auto-attack could certainly have an impact and seems to be coming regardless according to a dev post; but could be used or not used both with or without a stamina bar in place, and is therefore not a point of my concern.

[MysteryG]

I agree with this completely! I remember when the game was in Alpha, and when they did away with the initial timing/attack power system, but the stamina deal remained. I was confused about it then, and I'm confused about it now. As a caster it is completely silly. For melee classes that don't use MP, I can see how it could be an acceptable alternative to MP (Think Rouge or Warrior in WoW).

At the end of the day though, the solution is simple, let melee/physical actions use Stamina, and magical actions use MP. Hybrids are happy, DoM's are happy, and DoW's pretty much remain the same.]

Great post! This is one of a few issues I feel like SE has been ignoring.

[Demoleon]

If actions being used too frequently was a problem I would rather see and increase in cost to the other resources than imposing the use of a stamina bar.

Do we really need a bar to limit how many abilities we can activate at one time? Is it really that important that I can't activate rampart, ferocity, featherfoot, bloodbath etc., etc. in a row without having to wait on a bar to refill, in addition to their cooldown and animation time?

I completely agree with this. The stamina bar should be done anyway with and a auto attack system should be implemented. Then it could also leave room for weapons to have a new stat (delay) making things like Short Swords and Dagger more useful in the aspect of attacking quicker (or shortbows attacking quicker, etc.). This will also leave room for better battle animations to be designed seeing as right now everything is clunky and half the time the battle animation just dont proc.

signed!

remove stamina, add auto-attack, tweak and balance HP/MP/TP useage, remove BR and add Skillchain/magicburst, delete armory system, add some sort of sub-job system, add traits, remove alot of abilitys, remove action points. probably missed something.

/wave

edit: yeah forgot.. DONT make my character jump back and forth when attacking, its annoying as hell, and destroys future plans for positioning tactics!

I disagree with most of this. Most players dont seem to realize that just because this is a SE MMO, doesnt mean that its FFXI pt2. There is nothing wrong with the Armoury system and if the Stamina bar was replaced with Auto attack, BRs would actually be valuable and easier to coordinate. As for subjobs, I think the advanced jobs should be added eventually yes, but not a SJ system. They just need to take many of the class defining skills and make them class specific. Personally, I think only certain buffs should be cross classed(no weaponskills) and higher tier abilities for example Cure/Sacrifice II/III, Shock Spikes/Stoneskin II should be limited to DoM only.

[Xeona]

/agreed

Lyn and I have been talking about this for a while now.

Too many bottlenecks for taking action currently.


As someone has already mentioned, the use of a stamina bar would be great as the resource pool for MRD for example.

Everyone would have to have all 4 resource bars though.


HP
MP
SP
TP

Because of the ability to have abilities from all jobs, one would need all resources to pull from.

[MariyaShidou]

At the end of the day though, the solution is simple, let melee/physical actions use Stamina, and magical actions use MP. Hybrids are happy, DoM's are happy, and DoW's pretty much remain the same.

That's basically what it is for Allods Online, no Auto-Attack and Stamina works really well there. Stamina also serves to differentiate 1h and 2h weapon within the same class, with basically 2h weapon acts as carefully planned big hits while 1h serve as attack/skill spamming for status effect, creates different play styles within each class. They should really look at Allods combat system, it is in a way very similar to FFXIV but works better. Just don't copy F2P WoW clone Cash shop system there

[Taokii]

I personally love the combat system's goal. It isn't perfect and requires some tweaking, but removing the stamina bar isn't something I would like to see happen. Honestly as a CON it's one of the only things keeping me from nuking like crazy and finishing a fight in three seconds. It does prevent spamming, you can't sit there and press 11121112111211121112 otherwise you will run out. You have to time all of your attacks, but not to an extent that it is frustrating. It requires you to actively engage and not watch everybody loves Raymond in between starting and stopping a fight. That's my two cents anyways..

[Reika]

I personally love the combat system's goal. It isn't perfect and requires some tweaking, but removing the stamina bar isn't something I would like to see happen. Honestly as a CON it's one of the only things keeping me from nuking like crazy and finishing a fight in three seconds. It does prevent spamming, you can't sit there and press 11121112111211121112 otherwise you will run out. You have to time all of your attacks, but not to an extent that it is frustrating. It requires you to actively engage and not watch everybody loves Raymond in between starting and stopping a fight. That's my two cents anyways..

This. Stamina adds balance to ability use and prevents complete spamming of basic attacks.

[Mort]

signed!

remove stamina, add auto-attack, tweak and balance HP/MP/TP useage, remove BR and add Skillchain/magicburst, delete armory system, add some sort of sub-job system, add traits, remove alot of abilitys, remove action points. probably missed something.

/wave

edit: yeah forgot.. DONT make my character jump back and forth when attacking, its annoying as hell, and destroys future plans for positioning tactics!

[Kaedan]

signed!

remove stamina, add auto-attack, tweak and balance HP/MP/TP useage, remove BR and add Skillchain/magicburst, delete armory system, add some sort of sub-job system, add traits, remove alot of abilitys, remove action points. probably missed something.

/wave

edit: yeah forgot.. DONT make my character jump back and forth when attacking, its annoying as hell, and destroys future plans for positioning tactics!

So in other words:

"Make this FFXI-2"

No thanks.


On Topic: Though I do agree I don't see much reason to have the ATB at the moment. All it really does is slow you down if the fight goes on for too long.