Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

[LilimoLimomo]

Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

The current design of FF14's combat means that players are constantly doing basic bread-and-butter manual attacks even when they aren't doing big cool attacks...so also doing basic attacks that are automated seems redundant.

But that's just me; curious if others may have insights that I'm missing.

[LyraShu]

IMO

I mean, yes, but I get the point you are making. When you are plowing through your rotation doing potency 1billion on things, a AA doesn't seem like it is doing much. The general feedback is that, while it doesn't do a lot, it will add up over the course of a 30min piece of content so that if you were parsing or caring about numbers, it would give you just that bit more to push them. Otherwise, ya I never notice or truly care if my AA's aren't going off at that time. I am casual so taking 10 more seconds a dungeon is w/e to me.

[HikariKurosawa]

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

[Malthir]

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

[HikariKurosawa]

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

In your opinion

[Malthir]

In your opinion

No it's a fact, go look at combat in 1.0 on youtube, your character just stands there in idle animation inbetween weapon attacks, which makes the game feel slow and clunky, it's why they added AA's and OGCD moves

[HikariKurosawa]

No it's a fact, go look at combat in 1.0 on youtube, your character just stands there in idle animation inbetween weapon attacks, which makes the game feel slow and clunky, it's why they added AA's and OGCD moves

That's literally what ogcds are for now. 1.0 combat is irrelevant compared to modern ffxiv combat.

[Enkidoh]

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

Only at 1.0's launch - autoattack was added to 1.0 in a later patch, after Yoshi took over as producer and director from Tanaka, and the battle system was redesigned from the ground up, as a test bed for ARR. 1.0 autoattack actually did contribute to building the TP gauge in order to use weaponskills and the like, as 1.0 the TP gauge started at zero, like FFXI, as you said. ARR swapped the TP gauge to being full at start however, so autoattack thus lost that particular use.

ARR autoattack was useful for tanks to help keep hate on ourselves when DPS=enmity as every hit you did built up more hate. Naturally that's no longer the case.

[Syln]

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

I can see Auto attack being relevant 11 years ago to provide dynamism to a very slow gameplay.
The fact is that it's not anymore.

[VictorSpoils]

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

Both good points, though they don't apply to DoM. BLM whacking things with a staff for 1 damage is like WAR having an MP gauge. These are supposedly just things that are expected to be ignored instead of updated or removed. I'd rather it be a ranged magic blast that deals a few hundred chip damage if it has to exist.