Auto-attack

[ESAR]

Linnear,

AA only automates basic TP buliding in the game, I haven't really seen a down side to this other than giving the ADD kids less to do.

Dude, be careful what you say.
Know any stats on ADD?
It's suspected that 35% of people have some form of ADD.
Regardless, it's a big damn number of people of people for a company to just ignore.
Also ADD isn't what you think, people with ADD would be able to focus better on things they enjoy like video games so in reality it's a the percentage of people playing with ADD is probably higher.
No one should be scared of ADD pretty much everyone has it it's BS.
You don't really need drugs either, the school systems just need to better conform to people with these learning needs. I'm sure I coulda passed school if this was the case. I didn't really like going so that was my bigger problem xD.
(I really shouldn't have put this part in, but I'm not sure many people know what ADD actually is, it's just a way of thinking really, I wouldn't call it a disorder. I swear my problem is that I can only concentrate on one thing at a time and if that one thing is really boring to me I just can't concentrate on it. This is why it affects people in school, their grades fail if they aren't enjoying a subject they're learning. School just need to be more fun and to the point of what you want to learn. I'm rambling sorry xDD)

Like I said before, what is wrong with automating a portion of the battle which is less enjoyable?

Everything. Battle wasn't meant for auto-attack, every action has purpose and pulls its weight in battle. That's why some people choose to only press 1,1,1,1,1.. because basic attacks are powerful enough to use as your only attack. Not more powerful then other attacks they can use, but it gets the job done. This also in no way means you need to fight like that which as evidence from what I hear, you don't.

Why do 20 things when you only need 12?

Because most people (not the smaller percentage of people that want auto-attack) want to feel involved in the video game they're playing, not like some distance figure.

Did you ever have auto-attack in a console RPG? No.

That's because there was no need for it, there isn't with an MMO either.
The only reason they have auto-attack is because they added TP (and they possibly did this because at the time of the creation of FFXI there were limitations that caused them to need to limit data transfers and such) and it was probably easier to string all the battle animations together since most were automated and not controlled by the player. It's probably much cleaner for them to only process a command from the players once every 5 or so seconds rather then every one.

We no longer need to be limited by such things, it's the future, we can have a more rewarding game.

The reason I want to be able to do 20 things when I only need to do 12, is because I can... If you don't want to, make macros, nothings stopping ya.

You don't need to make them, I play on controller and I have no problem with it, the only problem for me with battle is the targeting. I'm not saying I'm better then you or anything, but I'm pretty sure your exaggerating your need for an auto-attack.
It's going to do alot of bad for what this game can be, it's a bad idea (no offence and sorry).

That is button mashing for the sake of hitting keys IMO. AA doesn't need to simplify battle or reduce inputs.

There is no need to reduce these inputs, it's not the button mashing that's the problem, it's the fact that executing commands has become sloppy and we resort to button mashing.
With an extended battle queue it would solve this problem. Yeah you still have to input those 20 commands but it'll flow real nice and every action you select you know is going in the queue, there's no guesswork involved.

And if you're so adamant on needing to input less, make strings of commands and set them to macros. There, your 20 commands (which is an exaggeration on your behalf) has been changed to just one. Now you can be as distant from the game as you choose.

See what I did there, I solved your problem and mine without needing to resort to some outdated and ancient technology.

They each have nearly 10 years expereince designing, balanacing, tuning their gamepaly to that audiance.

You do realize that SE is right here with them right. They invented alot of really neat features and as far as I'm concerned every other MMO fails in comparison to that. One thing they have that no other does (besides meaningful and strategic battle (I've only tried others but was never as impressed as I was with FFXI, that's why I haven't played any besides), they own at storytelling).

They no exactly what works and what doesn't and they implemented all that knowledge into this game. That's why I can sleep well knowing that they're not going to listen to such a ridiculous request like add an auto-attack or an auctions house. If you need I can solve all your problems without creating more by adding these two things.

I am not saying never try something new, but this should of been tried in Alpha, and then thrown out latter, the problem is Alpha/Beta did not last anywhere near long enough and they had no forums during that testing phase to quickly get comments from the community, (biggest mistake of the entire project by far, why test if your not going to provide a method for outside input?).

They didn't try it because they knew it was a bad idea.
Do you want to know why everything failed?
The change in attack speed caused too many changes to be needed elsewhere in the game.
It's in no way that this game has failed, it's rather the contrary, this game is going to succeed because they noticed a vital flaw early in the games life. They will succeed, just the testing period and ironing out is going to take longer because of this. In fact if they play there cards right, every game on this planet will be nothing in comparison to this.

It also allows for weapon speed to come back into play, granted this can also be accomplished by other things like implementing it into the stam bar, it is a nice elequant solution to both my problems, too many boreing actions and no weapon speed.

I do agree that no difference in weapon speed is one of this games biggest problems but how on earth is having no control over your weapon going to help that?
It's not, You've taken any definition we can get from weapons and ruined the possibility that we can have that.

Rather and a far more modern solution, would be to reexamine the current weapon speeds and change them to have a unique feel. That's what the weapon descriptions sounded like to me on the FFXIV site and when I first heard about stamina. It sounded to me like pugilist would attack fast and with lighter attacks using less stamina and marauder would attack with longer more powerful swing capable of hitting multiple foes.

Rather then having every class feel the exact same because we can use abilities amongst the classes we need to make them all feel different by changing the rates at which they use stamina.

Me having no control of my basic attacks and only inputing commands every few seconds will make every class feel bland and I'm not going to want to play a game like that.
Rather we have a real foundation to make this game very unique and interesting, lets bring out what we already have and just make it more user friendly and interesting.

P.S please do not list other ways to fix the above problems, I know there are other ways of fixing them, and some of them are just personel issues I have with the game, just tell me why AA is bad for FF? I just showed that you can have AA and still button mash (even though I don't particularly like that option), so what else am I missing here.

I'm hoping this was addressed to me and you didn't skip my last post lol. But I've thought alot more into the consequences of adding AA then you have, I came up with an idea to do it at first but soon realized that it takes too much from this game and the idea should just be abolished.
If you want a game with auto-attack go play another, this game will pave the way for other games as long as it doesn't listen to such narrow-minded requests as this. (I'm not being rude but you need to be open minded to both sides of your argument if you plan to have success backing up yours).

Take it from my extremely devoted and well thought out opinion, an auto-attack was not meant for this game, it's an older outdated tech and there are much better rewarding options that can do everything an auto-attack can plus more.

The extended battle queue is a perfect example of this.

Once again if you wanted to press less buttons that was never in this games description (not even in alpha) and it's probably best now if that's your biggest problem to try another game.
I'm not saying I don't want you to play, I'm just saying you might of misunderstood what they were trying to do with this game, make it the best game possible. To do that they need to think outside the box, not conform to other games. It's the FF tradition and it's why they sell millions of copies of they're games.

[Linnear]

Linnear,

I swear my problem is that I can only concentrate on one thing at a time and if that one thing is really boring to me I just can't concentrate on it. This is why it affects people in school, their grades fail if they aren't enjoying a subject they're learning. School just need to be more fun and to the point of what you want to learn. I'm rambling sorry xDD)

This is called being Human, if you don't like something, chances are your not goign to want to put time into it, some people are more diciplined at it then others, ADD in genearl is a lot of BS, it is rarely diagnosed by people who have done research in the field, your General practicioner has no business diagnosing ADD neither do your parents or your teachers. If you suspect you have ADD go se a psycologist if you think it is affecting your ability to do school work. Personally in my expereince it has more to do with boring teachers and out dated teaching methods based on memory recall then problem solving and independant thought, but this is an entirely different problem. In case your curious my younger brother was professionally diagnosed ADD he was on meds but stoped at 16, and my fiances two younger brothers both used druds during their college/university years. I have also done research on the neuro chemistry of the ADD drugs and taken educational training on exceptional learners, so I know a few things on this subject as well.

Because most people (not the smaller percentage of people that want auto-attack) want to feel involved in the video game they're playing, not like some distance figure.

You have no evidence that I am in the minority Esar, unless you have seen some numbers I haven't, if this is your opinion say it as such opposed to claiming it as fact, unless your willing to defend this with data.

We no longer need to be limited by such things, it's the future, we can have a more rewarding game.

Ok Esar lets try this again, AA does NOT LIMIT THE GAME PLAY!!!!!!!! you can have just as many actions and button mashing with AA as without it. Limiting means preventing an action or a process past a preset variable, go look it up if you don't believe me. AA does not do this, everyone that claims this is the case either dones't know the definition of limiting something is, or can't figure out that AA doens't mean that you need to make the game pace slower or input Hitting a button is NOT the future, we have been doing it since PONG!!!!! common seriously if your going to make a comment of this nature, think about it before hand, ask yourself how true is this statement? do I need to reword it so it makes sence? Do I have ANY proof of it at all, How easily can this be refuted? if it is refuted can I defend it? If you can't do any of the above steps then I would sugest refraining from posting grand claims. AA is about 10 years old or so, at least I can't think of an example of a system older than that, unless you count holding down a shoot button for continual firing, hiting buttons for an action is not revolutionary, like I said Pong did it, and every game since then as well until AA started poping up.

I'm not saying I'm better then you or anything, but I'm pretty sure your exaggerating your need for an auto-attack.
It's going to do alot of bad for what this game can be, it's a bad idea (no offence and sorry).

Ok reading comprehension time, when I say "why do 20 when it can be done in 12" then I latter say (in the same post I might add) you can do like wow and have AA and still have 30 is commands a min, and you reply that I say there is a need for auto attack becuase I need fewer commands, your showing me is that you only read sentences one at a time and the text as a whole is meaningless to you. (BTW this is not the result of ADD it is the result of bad reading comprehension, two different problems, if you think ADD stops you from being able to read one page continually, then once again you might want to talk to a professional about it.)


I never said you NEED to reduce inputs( I did say in other posts that for the controller community, with the current UI it currently limits communication and the development of mor einvolved game paly in the future) I said you need to reduce boring tp building ones and replace them with better ones, if you want a butotn masher, that fine thats your opinon but AA DOES NOT STOP THIS!!!, Ok one more time for thoes who still dont' get it. YOU CAN HAVE A BUTTON MASHER AND STILL HAVE AA, this is not a good arguement, it is false, WoW and Rift both do this, if you really want this in FFXIV thats fine, but it DOES NOT MEAN CAN"T HAVE AA please think of something better.

With an extended battle queue it would solve this problem. Yeah you still have to input those 20 commands but it'll flow real nice and every action you select you know is going in the queue, there's no guesswork involved.

Esar this does not help as you still need to input the same moves as before, only you get to put them in before you get the actions, there is no guesswork involved now, I am not sure what you mean by that, I am assuming you mean UI lag issues, but I that has mostly been fixed, and I am taking it for granted that they will continue improving this aspect, if not the queue will not resistate a game that needs a queue to make up for input lag, it is 2011, smoth UIs in online games has been around for 10 years now.

And if you're so adamant on needing to input less, make strings of commands and set them to macros. There, your 20 commands (which is an exaggeration on your behalf) has been changed to just one. Now you can be as distant from the game as you choose.

Did you even read my post?

I do agree that no difference in weapon speed is one of this games biggest problems but how on earth is having no control over your weapon going to help that?

You can figure this one out, I have faith in you.

I'm hoping this was addressed to me and you didn't skip my last post lol. But I've thought alot more into the consequences of adding AA then you have,

Really bad assumption on your part, in the unlikly event that this is true, if you have spent all that time thinking about AA and still can't figure out how this helps weapon speed, still can't see how it doesn't need to limit inputs, How a game can be just as spammy with an AA system? then I don't think I can help you understand.


[QUOTE=ESAR;58256]

Take it from my extremely devoted and well thought out opinion, an auto-attack was not meant for this game, it's an older outdated tech and there are much better rewarding options that can do everything an auto-attack can plus more. [QUOTE]

I know you think your opinion is well thought out, and I am sure you are devoted to this game, but hitting a button for an attack is NOT revolutionary, You hit a button and you swing, you hit another button and you swing, I think I heard of this system..... it is called a VIDEO GAME!!!!, AA is actually a newer mechanic, but if XI was the first game you ever played then I can see why you think this way, but it doesn't make it true.

I'm not saying I don't want you to play, I'm just saying you might of misunderstood what they were trying to do with this game, make it the best game possible. To do that they need to think outside the box, not conform to other games. It's the FF tradition and it's why they sell millions of copies of they're games.

I think you don't have enough experience in games to be able to see how retro the idea of hiting buttons for every attack is, it is a much farther throwback then you seem to acknowledge.

Ok lets try this AGAIN, What is wrong with AA? Someone, anyone give me a solid reason, other then you don't like to see your character do stuff without your input?

Right now I have a couple of pros for AA

All I see now vs AA is I don't like to see my character swing unless I am telling him to... ( I want spam DOES NOT COUNT BECUASE THIS IS NOT TRUE< YOU CAN SPAM WITH AA) hopefully this is the last time I need to describe this.

[ESAR]

Linnear,

How about this...

After reading that post I still have no idea why you want an auto-attack. It would probably help if you can enlighten me as to why you think we need it so bad.

What I think I'm getting from it is that you either don't like pressing every button...
Or that you don't like pressing buttons to build TP.

So since I don't know I'm going to make those assumptions for now (please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Now if we took out TP since the whole building of TP is the issue we could input an extended queue and basic attacks could have varying speeds and each basic would be used to open for other actions as well as increase acc, atk, and crt rate or proceeding actions...

Or if it's the button pressing with the extended queue you could macros a command string...
/ac "Light Stab" <t>
/ac "Light Stab" <t>
/ac "Light Stab" <t>
/ac "Red Lotus" <t>

One button instead of four and you could even make them longer.
(I'm not sure if that's how you make macros, I've never needed to in this game.)

Ok so if that all doesn't tickle your fancy...

I believe a traditional auto-attack will take alot from the game. The game wasn't meant for one and it will ruin the game for me at least (I'm sure others as well).

Let's try a non-traditional one that uses stamina and nothing really has to change about battle, then everyone can have what they want.

100%-61% auto-attacks at a fair speed, using up stamina.
60% attack speed reduction.
30% second attack speed reduction.
15% third attack speed reduction.

Auto-attack and be switched on or off during battle.

When one of your basic attacks is selected your character will start to auto-attack.
If you want to change the basic attack simply select it in the action bar and your character will auto-attack with that.

Now that that's outta the way.

If you what do know what is wrong with (at least a traditional) auto-attack, it's boring, too much wait time between actions.

Think about this now, if everyone is complaining about that little wait time for battle regimen (and they are) and everyone complained about the wait times in the alpha battle style (and they did). Why do you somehow believe that everyone is not going to complain about the wait time in an auto-attack (cause if evidence is any factor they will)?

So this is why I have a strong belief that a traditional auto-attack wouldn't really be the answer to the games problems. By the lack of people wanting to wait for battle regimen or wait to attack I don't think forcing everyone to is a wise decision.

Would you consider an auto-attack like the one I presented? would that fill the void you find from battle?

If none of this is doing anything for you I just need to understand why it's so important to you described in as few words as possible. Maybe we can come up with a way that will work for everyone.

Also, I'm sorry I had the idea for this auto-attack a long time ago, I shouldn't mentioned it before. It's not that I believe auto-attack will ruin the game, but converting battle to a traditional auto-attack would. If it's an auto-attack that fits in the realm of what's there, it wouldn't bother me.

One of the bigger problems in battle is that no weapon feels any different from the other, what they need to do is change the stamina and speed of the basic attacks and give them all a feel that related to the natural speed of the weapons.

[ChiefCurrahee]

Let's try a non-traditional one that uses stamina and nothing really has to change about battle, then everyone can have what they want.

100%-61% auto-attacks at a fair speed, using up stamina.
60% attack speed reduction.
30% second attack speed reduction.
15% third attack speed reduction.

Auto-attack and be switched on or off during battle.

When one of your basic attacks is selected your character will start to auto-attack.
If you want to change the basic attack simply select it in the action bar and your character will auto-attack with that.

Now that that's outta the way.

If you what do know what is wrong with (at least a traditional) auto-attack, it's boring, too much wait time between actions.

Think about this now, if everyone is complaining about that little wait time for battle regimen (and they are) and everyone complained about the wait times in the alpha battle style (and they did). Why do you somehow believe that everyone is not going to complain about the wait time in an auto-attack (cause if evidence is any factor they will)?

So this is why I have a strong belief that a traditional auto-attack wouldn't really be the answer to the games problems. By the lack of people wanting to wait for battle regimen or wait to attack I don't think forcing everyone to is a wise decision.

Would you consider an auto-attack like the one I presented? would that fill the void you find from battle?

If none of this is doing anything for you I just need to understand why it's so important to you described in as few words as possible. Maybe we can come up with a way that will work for everyone.

Also, I'm sorry I had the idea for this auto-attack a long time ago, I shouldn't mentioned it before. It's not that I believe auto-attack will ruin the game, but converting battle to a traditional auto-attack would. If it's an auto-attack that fits in the realm of what's there, it wouldn't bother me.

One of the bigger problems in battle is that no weapon feels any different from the other, what they need to do is change the stamina and speed of the basic attacks and give them all a feel that related to the natural speed of the weapons.

You know Esar, this type of auto attack system I think is what we have in mind. We want to be able to interject skills and abilities on demand, We want start and stop attack when we choose. What I don't want and I can't speak for others is the necessity to manually input every attack that just for the sake to build TP to use an ability that requires that TP. The TP generation is what I want to see automated. There is no reason why if I engage in a battle and I issue the command to attack, that I need to continually issue that command over and over again.

I proposed a system of auto attack in another thread, which quickly turned into a for or against debate. However both our ideas are very similar.
I proposed that:
1) that 1 basic attack becomes automated w/o stamina loss. Weapons however have a delay based on type.
2) Some TP generating attacks become upgrades (i.e. pierce upgrades basic to AOE)
3) Other TP generating attacks become situational attacks that use Stamina (i.e. heavy thrust)
4) Abilities use Stamina to regulate frequency of use.
5) Weapon skills use TP and stamina to regulate their frequency of use.
6) spells use MP and Stamina to regulate frequency of use.
7) AA can be turned on/off as not to interrupt crowd control (i.e. sleep & bind)

Both our ideas draw very similar parallels.
the only real differences:
you favor AA to drain stamina
the choice of what TP generating attack becomes AA.

AA won't ruin this game, if done to balance the active input of abilities and skills with the automation of TP gain we can still have a very active and engaging battle system.

[kukurumei]

AA won't ruin this game, if done to balance the active input of abilities and skills with the automation of TP gain we can still have a very active and engaging battle system.

Having AA will be much easier to balance then not having AA, that's for sure. It's easy to draw from the vast knowledge of MMO and RPG history the moment you implement AA. Because AA is more or less matured to the point, we can reasonably predict how a battle system would pan out given a or b options.

Basically we have an already established bag of tricks to do an Auto attack system. Well it won't be very original, but we saw how originally can ruining things.

If you must have toggling, I would perfer to inject my auto-skill idea, where auto-attack is a skill among other select job specific auto-skills, where some can be purely defensive in nature, or passive aggressive, which can be switched on in battle.

And auto skill that sacrifices any attack for defense like stronger version of defender for instance, or a better way to build TP or a better way to build enmity.

We already have skills like that, so it's easy to modify and adapt them into auto-skills.

So something basic is say a 4 slot equitable ex:
Auto-light stab
Auto- heavy stab
Auto- defend (decrease block damage for instance if you have a shield)
Auto - shock spike like stun counter

there are lots of tricks we have learned in the Auto attack history. That would be equiviant to "stance changes" in many RPGs and the rare MMOs.

[ESAR]

You know Esar, this type of auto attack system I think is what we have in mind. We want to be able to interject skills and abilities on demand, We want start and stop attack when we choose. What I don't want and I can't speak for others is the necessity to manually input every attack that just for the sake to build TP to use an ability that requires that TP. The TP generation is what I want to see automated. There is no reason why if I engage in a battle and I issue the command to attack, that I need to continually issue that command over and over again.

I proposed a system of auto attack in another thread, which quickly turned into a for or against debate. However both our ideas are very similar.
I proposed that:
1) that 1 basic attack becomes automated w/o stamina loss. Weapons however have a delay based on type.
2) Some TP generating attacks become upgrades (i.e. pierce upgrades basic to AOE)
3) Other TP generating attacks become situational attacks that use Stamina (i.e. heavy thrust)
4) Abilities use Stamina to regulate frequency of use.
5) Weapon skills use TP and stamina to regulate their frequency of use.
6) spells use MP and Stamina to regulate frequency of use.
7) AA can be turned on/off as not to interrupt crowd control (i.e. sleep & bind)

Both our ideas draw very similar parallels.
the only real differences:
you favor AA to drain stamina
the choice of what TP generating attack becomes AA.

AA won't ruin this game, if done to balance the active input of abilities and skills with the automation of TP gain we can still have a very active and engaging battle system.

The only thing is that every single basic attack is just as important as the other. I'm not sure about the latter tp builders but if we look at the initial ones we can see this. For GLA each action has a different damage type and one has more attack while the other has more DEF. Archer has two, one for close range one for long. Lancer has the basic and one that binds a target in place (which he could literally spam to keep a mob from moving, this could be very handy later. Marauder has the basic and an AOE cone that does a little less damage. Puglist has a basic and another that raises def and evasion. Every class may have two basics but from fight to fight you're going to want to switch between them.

It's not right to just take one out and call it the auto-attack TP builder.

I personally find battle very rewarding in this game compared to others of it's type. Every basic attack is more then a basic attack, they're attack I can use to either grab strategic advantage and are actually quite good at dealing damage.

There are two jobs that would be ruined with an auto-attack that I've personally played. Gladiator and Lancer.

Gladiator because when tanking the idea is to focus on your shield arm for defense.
No one else may have noticed this but if you put your shield up and wait for an attack you have a better chance of blocking. My strategy with this is to time attacks so that they execute without ruining my chances at blocking.

Blocking in this game is not like FFXI, it takes skill. If there was an auto-attack in place you would lose all of this control over battle, it would honestly just take all the fun out of it for me and others.

Lets talk archer. Archer is one of the funnest jobs out there. You just sit back and launch a few basic attacks while building TP. Most of what they do are basic attacks, they're building TP for these larger attack. The problem is that's most of the fun in archer is the building. If you automated their basic attacks this is one class that would literally become no fun to level (at least for me). You'd have to wait about 5-6s to do anything meaningful .

I really don't understand why it is so imperative that auto-attack is needed, every class has a very unique style of fighting that is very rich because each action is rewarding and pulls it's own wait. If we made it a traditional auto-attack like you suggest having one ability not use stamina it would actually destroy what they've created.

Battle is also not so fast paced that anyone should "need" attacks automated. The problem is that alot of you are very comfortable with an auto-attack and though they've created a game that does not need one you're so stuck in your ways that the thought of not having one is freighting or frustrating.

The only reasonable things that I can think of is having every attack cost stamina, that way the game doesn't have to be ruined for those that enjoy of being able to control every action.

In reality when they made this game they said how can we make the process of gaining TP less mundane. Well they accomplished that, every action is important and pulls it's own weight. really if anything I think they shoulda just took TP out, if so no one would even feel the need for an auto-attack. lol

If we have to have one though the only thing I ask is it doesn't drastically change the game for me and others. If they did put in an autoattack like you suggested I'd be writing a letter to square enix asking for my 75$ investment back, I didn't sign up for that type of game, I have no interest in it. If they did I'd feel like I was cheated out of my money and the time I've been waiting.

And yes auto-attack is the end of the world for me. I tryed to go back to FFXI after a few years of not playing and I just cannot stand the wait times involved. It's very unrewarding for me and I'm not willing to pay a monthly fee to play a game like that, I don't care how amazing the story is.

We just need to compromise. No one is right or wrong, everyone has there own opinions and flavors. The best solution is to find something mutually acceptable.

I really really really think you'll would enjoy an extended queue though, I think it would solve what your looking for but in a better way. Yes you would still have to press every individual command, but it would be much easier to perform and control, plus you can set commands to a macro and execute a string with just a macro press.

There's no reason they can't create both.

Can't wait to find out what they've decided to do xDDD