Auto-attack

[Kaedan]

Speaking of Rift and Aion:

Auto attack in Rift and Aion is worthless. It just doesn't do anything. Everyone's too busy spamming their other skills.

What I don't get, is that in Rift and Aion, people spam two or three skills over and over (Aion better than Rift, since at least it's not just "combo builder skill > combo builder skill > finisher"). But when they're pressing the exact same number of buttons in this game, it's unacceptable.

It just doesn't make sense. I think it's more to do with people's psychological needs than anything else. It's that, "if it's against the norm, it's bad" sort of thinking. Because they are so ingrained with the idea that AA is necessary (afterall, almost every other MMO has it), they just automatically assume it's needed in this (even though it's worthless in almost every other MMO).

[Betelgeuzah]

I have seen the evolution of VOIP used for games what I see right now is a dichotomy in most games which splits up the players in thoes that do and thoes that don't

I think the threshold to use voice chat instead of normal chat is a bit higher, especially if you are unsure about your English speaking skills. But the benefits are clear, so it's a small prize to pay in my opinion. And of course nobody would be forced to use it even if it were a bit like a requirement for some things.

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

Why do 20 things when you only need 12?

Instead of making the portion of the battle which is less enjoyable... more enjoyable? Instead of reducing "things" from 20 to 12 because you only need 12... why not make it so you need all 20 "things"? It is all backwards.

I think it is quite a cheap way to fix the issue. It is not only about ADD kids either, the gamers these days are probably in their 20's or even 30's and they would most likely play this kind of game for "ADD kids" rather than a game where battles are more automated. Why is this kind of game somehow "inferior" that you need to use an insulting term like that? I don't think most people would agree with that.

Remember WoW also has an AA and still allows for 30 ish commands a min, AA does not mean you need an automated battle system.

Yes... and if the end result is still 30ish commands a minute with or without AA, the change is like turning the game from green to red. Except every other company has a red game so they will have a lot more competition to deal with.

AA doesn't mean simplified battle or even more automated battle or fewer button input

But for this game, it does. That's what ultimately should matter the most.. And if they change the game even more, so that AA works like in other games, and the end result is the same as if they had just improved on the existing feature.. it's pretty much a waste of resources.

I don't think XIV can compete with WoW, or EQ2 simply becuase the people who like that style of gameplay are going to stick with thoes games in the long run.

XIV doesn't really have that different gameplay from these games, and SE seems to be taking it toward them even more. I don't think SE should compete with them, but unfortunately I doubt the game is different enough that it would get the privilege of not competing for the same audience.

Button mashing does not mean strategy or "thoughtful" gameplay goes out of the window. The gameplay SE has provided in XIV does not really work well for other kind of gameplay than what MMO's offer. They haven't really shown any indication that they would try to do anything differently with the changes so far either- in fact it seems Yoshida is not really the type that tries out new ideas, but goes with the existing, proven to work systems. I mean, we can hope for this to not be the case but so far there really isn't anything that would make the game stand out.

(AA bulid or focus on abilities, Haste>str or w/e depending on what your fighting, Amnesia mobs or high defence mobs, etc)

You could already do everything listed here if S-E released stats to modify these values (yes, Haste and stamina can work together. Yes, weapon speed and stamina can exist together).

just tell me why AA is bad for FF?

It is a 'cheap' and lackluster solution to fix the problems of the game. You could fix the game better if you took those 5 things and implemented them, instead of one so-so feature with a noticeable downside to it (and you would still have to implement few of those 5 things anyway if you wanted to fix the game).

Why should we be satisfied with the inferior solution? Why aren't we encouraging the developers to fix their game properly and discourage them to take the cheap route?

[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

[Reika]

This thread should just be renamed "Auto-Attack: A blast from the past!"
OR "Auto-Attack: Because I am lazy!"
OR "Auto-Attack: All the mmos are doing it!"
OR "Auto-Attack: Because I hate originality"

That is what I think of auto attack...

[kukurumei]

And it only cost them 90% of their expected profits for the fiscal year 2011. What a great deal that is.

[Betelgeuzah]

Yes, the lack of auto-attack cost them all that profit.

[Reika]

Oh if ONLY they added auto attack 6 moths ago, then they could have started charging us!
PFFT as if this one minor unnecessary feature cost them any kind of money.