FFXIV moved away from auto-attack while WOW went without... how odd.

[Chinchilla]

yeah, idk why anyone wouldn't want autoattack. You shouldn't have to focus on hitting punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch... yay i killed a coblyn! I'm under the impression that an auto attack lets the player focus more on using abilities to help win during more difficult solo fights, or to aid the party with enfeeb abilities or healing moves.

Not having auto attack was cool at first. It held my attention while doing leves, having to push a button every 15 seconds. However leves are harder now, and I'd rather not have to push the same button every few seconds when I could be trying to configure the right set of abilites to be able to chain effectively solo.

To each their own I guess, auto attack lets DD's get lazy.... fact. However it allows good players to really get the most out of their fights. FFXIV's 'nonautoattack' days were lame anyway, considering server lag, the fact that even though you had a recast timer on an ability you still needed the stamina gauge to have enough stamina in it. One or the other would have sufficed.

I <3 Autoattack

[Tonkra]

I think a combat system like in Final Fantasy 12 would be perfect for a Final Fantasy MMorpg.
its seems much smoother than the combat in FF14. I hope they're going to change it this way till 2.0.



And it has also "auto attack". I mean why shall i press a button for every stupid non important standard hit?
i mean the button tones *meep* meep* were getting on my nerves anyway in FF14 before the auto attack. i like it much more like it is now.

besides the archer which is the only one who didnt receive an auto attack for his main weapon...no he just hits with his bare hands. why? nobody knows.


thats really inconsistent, isnt it?

[Wynn]

besides the archer which is the only one who didnt receive an auto attack for his main weapon...no he just hits with his bare hands. why? nobody knows.

SE knows why archer doesn't have ranged auto attack. I know why. A good deal of other people who actually play the class know why too.

Play the class and learn how it works. Then you will understand too. Simple.

[OJtheLIONKing]

I always thought FFXII would make an awesome MMO. It's like they took FFXI, fixed a lot of the major issues with it, and made it (IMO) more interesting visually and storywise. On the other hand, it's one of those games that was well liked when it came out, but later it became popular to hate it. See...well, every FF game after VI basically. FFI-VI are grandfathered in because they were around before the mainstream came and ruined etc etc I don't even feel like finishing the sentence. I'm so sick of hearing it.

Ahem! As far as auto-attack goes, FFXIV needed it first and foremost because the engine and servers were slow and unresponsive. I'd often have to wait 2-3 seconds before one of the basic attacks actually went off. Compare this to WoW, Rift, Guild Wars and many other games where you get about instant feedback on abilities--it's part of the reason why they're able to have much faster combat systems than FFXIV. I'm hoping the new engine and server architecture fix these lag issues once and for all, as even now this game is even laggier than FFXI, which at the best of times you still needed to give at least a 1 second lead time on every ability.

Maybe then they can consider going back to the no auto-attack system, but even with the lag considerations the game can work perfectly fine without it. Going back to the "most MMOs outside the FF series" example, I'm usually using an ability on every global cooldown as it is, but they still have auto-attack. To that end, I don't think WoW's Monk class will feel all that different overall from any other class, you'll still be using an ability on every cooldown, but they'll probably just be a bit stronger to make up for the lack of background damage auto-attack gives you. Auto-attack isn't exclusive of a fast paced active battle system, but a laggy server and client architecture is.

Either way, from dev comments before, they're not going back to that system because they spent a lot of time planning and balancing the auto-attack system. It'd be a waste to go back to a system the player base showed a clear dislike for before just to try something new. That may have been how the game was managed in the past, but thankfully things are different now.

[Enyyx]

I haven't read through all the posts since my last so I don't know if anyone else has mirrored by thoughts but:

The reasons I don't like auto attack:

1. I don't use it on ARC, and I feel like somehow I'm missing out on potential dmg by not closing in (getting rid of any sense of ranged class) to use it. I want to say most of the time I'm busy enough where it's not needed, but there's probably once or twice it would have gone off in between everything else i'm doing. But melee arc?? Boooooo!

2. When I was pug main, I was never 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 like everyone else seems to state was what they were doing, I was bouncing between flurry and pummel and my ws's. It was fun. There's nothing fun about auto attack, and some of the restrictions that came with it and stamina being gone are less fun.

3. I still can't really chat while fighting. Wasn't that the main reason auto attack was being called for? >.>

I'll work within either system, I just found more action oriented battle to be more fulfilling. Those people that were spamming 1 weren't really "playing" the game, much like people that just spam standard while synthing.

[Molly_Millions]

lol where were you guys when SE did the players poll? most players in that poll wanted auto-attack. I think it's here to stay.

[Jennestia]

I think a combat system like in Final Fantasy 12 would be perfect for a Final Fantasy MMorpg.

You know FFXII's battle system was an (openly admitted) modified version of XI's, right? It's why I always say they could have easily built off of XI's foundation, much like they did with XII.

thats really inconsistent, isnt it?

Nope, the way Archer works in XIV is quite different from how most ranged DD work in MMOs, so that's why they auto-attack with their hands, even though you're never supposed to be in auto attack range as an archer to begin with.

The main problem holding XIV back in terms of mechanics is the serverside interface, this is the cause for a lot of XIV's clunkiness.

[ellohwell]

lol where were you guys when SE did the players poll? most players in that poll wanted auto-attack. I think it's here to stay.

there was never a question asking for autoattack lol

[Wynn]

lol where were you guys when SE did the players poll? most players in that poll wanted auto-attack. I think it's here to stay.

You act as if the results were unanimous. Surely you must know that isn't the case?

there was never a question asking for autoattack lol

and ^this.

[zaviermhigo]

Love people are still bitching like they're going to change us back to action based moves. Don't you guys every get tired of wasting your energy on the internet arguing about things no one really cares about since they won't get changed? Play more XIV, read a book, do something productive for a change. I check these forums in the morning and in the night, for the last couple weeks really nothing but excessive whiny bitching from everywhere. Worse than before, which I didn't think could happen. Hate to see the forums when they change THM/CNJ :/ its gonna get ugly obviously.