How do you envision the new combat system "where skill and tactics matter"?

[Vesperia]

How creative will combat be?

How do they expect to alleviate boredom?

How can a fun, engaging combat system even exist with autoattack when such concepts seem at odds with the notion of auto-attack, which basically serves to remove player input?

Unfounded hype or next-gen combat?

Radiant Glory or Heinous Oblivion?

[darkstarpoet1]

i know what i feel the new system will be like, but i will not trash it until i see it in place and get a chance to use it. my worries are that the auto attack will slow down overall gameplay in battles and that i will see most people just run to mobs, pull out weapons, and let auto attack do all the work. i see it going more to the xi strick sub job system as well which is the reason i refused to play xi and would leave this game. i hope i am wrong. any system can have a great or horrible execution so i hope this system has the great side of things and i have unfounded worries.

i will hold off final decision until after i see how auto attack changes things after the first change to see which direction it is taking.

[Vesperia]

i know what i feel the new system will be like, but i will not trash it until i see it in place and get a chance to use it. my worries are that the auto attack will slow down overall gameplay in battles and that i will see most people just run to mobs, pull out weapons, and let auto attack do all the work. i see it going more to the xi strick sub job system as well which is the reason i refused to play xi and would leave this game. i hope i am wrong. any system can have a great or horrible execution so i hope this system has the great side of things and i have unfounded worries.

i will hold off final decision until after i see how auto attack changes things after the first change to see which direction it is taking.

Go on, trash it. I won't mind.

[kukurumei]

Smarter AI. Which is not going to happen. Not in MMO anyway.

Back to reality, there are tricks we have done to facilitate the illusion of this. Not the best as over abuse of it is just as bad as under.

-Elegant battle scripting
Most used by action games, and saved for bosses and dungeons. Annoying special move here, change enmity there, making spikes rise up in the air, summon monster, etc. and "event" that causes a player(s) to react. A gimmick of modern MMOs. Over used it's more or less bitter salting, as once you figure out a "pattern" it just becomes extra annoyance.
Associating probably is that you can't keep using the same gimmicks and you can't just think up of new ones for the ever increasing content. Dangerous route to go down.

- Event skills, precision timing
Related to above, also dangerous as same as above. Too much and too often and it just becomes more annoying without being fun. A major failing of the original battle system. You can't rely on gimmicks. A game of counter-counter-counter-counter, is just a dull game with more timing, a little bit is flavor, a lot is bitter. Duck, dodge, roll, etc are the same deal. Like ninja shadows of FF11, eventually it's just broken once you've figured out the dumb AI.

-Combinations/team combinations/Fusions
The Forte of FF11, which should be up their alley. Probably stacking skills, stacking combinations, chains, etc, we're all very well verse in why it's good. Games that totally rely on it can be bad, but expanding this should be a key to FF14 since they have people good at it. There are lots of things to play here, from the rudimentary to the "I can't think of it because it's so beautiful". Hope the developers find some gold nuggets exploring this area.

-decisive movements/CC
A forte of 2d MMOs rather the 3d. Ragnarok Online comes to mind, with it's pioneer 1vsMany battle style, where counting square grid itself becomes a skill. FF11/FF14 does not have this, since it focuses on 1vs1 Manyvs1.Games like Tera wants to have this with it's AoE-all attack system. It can be explored though. Remote the all monster range, give them separate chase speeds, etc, while increasing the "kite" formula, and reversal. We have a bit of that from fleeing rabbit mages. Freeze/slow/walls/etc are all traits. Plants vs Zombie is like a good primmer for effects we used in this type battling.

-Equipment/ customization/secondary "styles"
FF11 blink of death... not the most elegant or wanted, but the opposite restrictions on the armory system itself helps, and whatever the materia system becomes of it. Stances or "styles" can also help as it's been fairly flushed out in gaming history. Rifts trying to take it to extremes.

-Balance/Restriction
The obvious answer. MMO lives on a very tight mix of "most l33t" and broken exploitation. The trick is to make you feel powerful while making everyone else feel powerful. And a failing of the armoury system. Making everyone the same doesn't do either of that in the end. So the "difference" and "interesting" has founded our modern MMO bulk of time, like tank, melee, range, healer, to offensive tank, dodge tank, counter tank, magic tank, etc -sub genres.

-The curve ball
Here's where it gets more back into the circle of life thing. It's relates to all, how battle planners and system designers think up of "unfair" situations to please the players and teach them to think tactically. Say like you put a melee resistant enemy at the entrance, then mages in the middle, and a final boss that needs to be blitz. If you're restricted to classes and characters, you have to figure out a tactics to defeat each of them while considering you have to defeat the previous form/wave as well. It's difficult, but it's basically a offshoot of gimmicks.

I think this covers the ideals we've built up in the last 2 decade of MMO and gaming theories in general. It's not like we lack academic materials on what a "good battle system" is. We've seen a lot of successes and failures. It's more of a problem that developers tend to either overburden themselves with trying to do something they can't achieve. What used is a spam-tasic fighting game envy battle system if it's broken, massive upkeep, and impossible to balance out and debug...

As an addiumin in the never ending biatching of AA. What's so good about manual attack? Stupid AI is a Stupid AI. Once you know it takes 2 lights 3 mediums 1 heavy and 3 more lights is the optimal pattern to defeat an enemy, it doesn't matter if it's manual or automatic. It exactly the same except that auto attack is less annoying. Thus the 1111121 formula. I don't care if you can 12467785256, when my 1 does the job.

It's not more inputs that's the key here, it's smarter inputs. RO's battle system continues to be one of the most elegant, outdated, and fun system, and it sometimes require less then 2 mouse clicks.

Personally I think half the battle with getting a battle going is how classes are made. A fun class/build contributes a lot to a fun battle system

[Sephr]

Auto-attack isn't a reason to expect the system to be slow, it works in just about every other modern MMO (Of course, FFXI's pretty ancient and it's auto-attack will hopefully not be a reflection of XIV's).

Would be nice if they implemented some new elements like better reactionary techniques, combo techniques (where one strike opens up the option to use use the next) and stuff, but I'm not expecting much. Certainly not expecting 1.18 to provide us with a final well-rounded system.

The info we've had this week has been pretty sweet though, I'm not going to assume anything yet, especially not going to assume it sucks over something as trivial as auto-attack.

[Demacia]

Can't be any worse than the shit we have now. At least they acknowledge that the current battle system is a mindless joke.