[Suggestion] Remove Stamina Bar

[goonMagi]

agreed.

the stamina system seems utterly pointless, as if they added it in just because it sounded like it would reinvent their game. It didn't.

[Shadowskill]

Hello

Can always change the usage of the stamina bar. maybe to control basic attacks, kind of like the delay system they had in FF11?

Had this idea posted in the general forum, http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...nt-Auto-attack

Might work well with your idea

[Aldarin]

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.

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.

casting times and animation times are basically the same thing, so there are really 3 main limits currently. The recast time, the animation time, and the stamina bar. The issue with the stamina bar is that is acts as a universal cool-down timer, which is redundant since the animation times also act as a universal cool-down. Every ability has a recast time, minimum being the animation time, as well as a universal cool-down time, being the animation time. Removing the stamina bar would change little in the current gameplay, but would remove a cumbersome element.

As for auto-attack, there are both pros and cons to an auto-attack system. The biggest issue I see is what happens when people want to use a higher level ability as their base attack. As for meshing with the stamina system, auto-attack would be much easier to implement without the stamina bar, but the removal is not necessary.

[kukurumei]

casting times and animation times are basically the same thing, so there are really 3 main limits currently. The recast time, the animation time, and the stamina bar. The issue with the stamina bar is that is acts as a universal cool-down timer, which is redundant since the animation times also act as a universal cool-down. Every ability has a recast time, minimum being the animation time, as well as a universal cool-down time, being the animation time. Removing the stamina bar would change little in the current gameplay, but would remove a cumbersome element.

As for auto-attack, there are both pros and cons to an auto-attack system. The biggest issue I see is what happens when people want to use a higher level ability as their base attack. As for meshing with the stamina system, auto-attack would be much easier to implement without the stamina bar, but the removal is not necessary.

That's because they spam stack BR, so the stamina bar takes little roll in that.

It is redundant though in the fact that you have attacks, skills and debuffs all stacked on the same bar. TP plays a stupidly small roll in this, as TP skills themselves becomes the odd man out.

It's a really weird system when you dissect it to its theories, as you'll realized so many opposing figures are really stepping on each other's toes from MP, stamina, cool downs, and TPs glooping into one.

Why have cool down if you have stamina, why have TP if you have stamina, why have MP if you have stamina? We don't really know anymore, besides very minor niches. I spam light attack, to get TP, which isn't really worth using due to the lag time, and stamina, while magic is always useful because they take almost no stamina with long casting times to replenish them, then we have to play with cool downs, it's irrelevant when you think about why we have so many "bars".

Basically it's a mess, that'll get magically cleaner if stamina was removed.

Something needs to be done like make skills exclusively auto attack, exclusively stamina and exclusively TP. When you start mixing and matching it really goes haywire.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Instead of removing the whole thing, i would say an adjustment/balance is in need. Say those basic attacks should consume little stamina comparing to a WS. Magic should use the same minimal stamina and still depletes MP.

And they should add more cool animation in it.

[Vanguard319]

I like the stamina system, it's a thinker's battle system. It forces the player to think about thier next move and how to manage thier damage and skill usage. In some ways, it's like the heat gauge in the Mechwarrior series, you built a mech around ballistic weapons, (low heat) missiles, (mid heat) and energy weapons. (high to very high heat) You could group your weapons to fire in various ways, but you were always limited by the heat they generate, with penalties for overheating, ranging from reduced movement, to shutting down and becoming a helpless target, or my personal favorite, suicide from engine/ammunition explosion.

My point is that both systems force the player to plan a strategy: For a certain target, do they use lo-stamina attacks for constant damage over time, and risk not doing enough damage? Do they use stronger skills that use more stamina, generate massive spike damage, and risk tiring? Or do they choose a middle path, mixing hi and lo stamina skills for optimal damage and stamina use?

[kukurumei]

Instead of removing the whole thing, i would say an adjustment/balance is in need. Say those basic attacks should consume little stamina comparing to a WS. Magic should use the same minimal stamina and still depletes MP.

And they should add more cool animation in it.

That's more or less pointless. IF you make costs of stamina minimal, then why have a stamina requirement at all.

It's like having HP if every enemy does 1 damage to you. Eventually you'll be like, why watch the HP bar, ever.

If you're going to balance the stamina bar, it's going to be much much much harder then that.

Reason it's a complex and redundant mess. Not going to say removing it will solve all our problems, but it'll certainly make things tidy to balance.

I like the stamina system, it's a thinker's battle system. It forces the player to think about thier next move and how to manage thier damage and skill usage. In some ways, it's like the heat gauge in the Mechwarrior series, you built a mech around ballistic weapons, (low heat) missiles, (mid heat) and energy weapons. (high to very high heat) You could group your weapons to fire in various ways, but you were always limited by the heat they generate, with penalties for overheating, ranging from reduced movement, to shutting down and becoming a helpless target, or my personal favorite, suicide from engine/ammunition explosion.

My point is that both systems force the player to plan a strategy: For a certain target, do they use lo-stamina attacks for constant damage over time, and risk not doing enough damage? Do they use stronger skills that use more stamina, generate massive spike damage, and risk tiring? Or do they choose a middle path, mixing hi and lo stamina skills for optimal damage and stamina use?

That's when the overriding strategy gets implemented. Speed is king, SPAM! That's what happens when you realized that quantity can make up for quality.

tactical combat through micro management = 400damage
Spaming = 380 damage

Speed is, and will always will be an effective tactic, when it comes to these types of battle systems. It's not wrong, just boring.

While it can be balanced, it's just a horrible mess to balance it with.

You're going to have a super tough time balancing that. Do you make light attacks weaker? do you make healers most costly, do you make defend stronger, do you make TP more powerful?

It's even more convoluted when you have every flexible skill setups.

A choice between doing an attack or not doing attack? Brute force is mightily elegant.

Ever seen the commercial where a guy is sinking in a sand trap, and his 3 friends are conducting a strategy meeting to properly save him? While the 4th guy grabs vine and throws it to him.

[Vanguard319]

They could at least reduce the cost of all actions' stamina usage, since it is so easily depleted. One spell using a third of the bar is kinda silly, and four or five attacks can wipe it out.

yeah, there are good reasons to keep the stamina gauge, tweaking it by adjusting the rate it recovers, or adjusting the stamina cost of each ability wuld be easier than trying to redesign the battle system from scratch. In addition, if SE adds spells like haste, that would also directly affect the rate at which the gauge would recover

[Aldarin]

Except that the limiting factor in many cases is the animation time, so unless haste affects both stamina regeneration and animation time it will be semi-useless.

anyways the system would not be redesigned from scratch. the current system works fine except for the redundant stamina bar. the only change would be the removal of the stamina bar, which would take little to no work on the part of the programmers.

[Vanguard319]

Speed is, and will always will be an effective tactic, when it comes to these types of battle systems. It's not wrong, just boring.

While it can be balanced, it's just a horrible mess to balance it with.

You're going to have a super tough time balancing that. Do you make light attacks weaker? do you make healers most costly, do you make defend stronger, do you make TP more powerful?

It's even more convoluted when you have every flexible skill setups.

A choice between doing an attack or not doing attack? Brute force is mightily elegant.

sorry, but you have it backwards, brute force only gets you so far, and speed is absolutely worthless without the skill to stay alive long enough to close in and use it, therefore, skill has been and always will be more important than speed, and even brute strength.

Case in point: the zerg strategy for the Seed Crystal fight in ffxi was all-or-nothing and more often than not resulted in failure, the arrowburn strategy took longer, but had a better success rate, since you could recover after a partial wipe as long as your tank survived. Of the two the former was all about brute force (in the form of the best gear) and speed, while the latter required skill.