Auto attack: A complete battle system

[Kimahri]

Malakhim. I was only trying to say that this game is not perfect or even close. I'm tired of people defending it at every turn. Like how 51% of Republican's still think Obama isn't an American. I want everyone to say, "Hey! This game could be better!" y'know? You're right, though. AA isn't the answer to everything. We still need the battle system refurbished in other ways. BR being maybe another key point.

[Warp]

I am very excited by this dev post. To quote Bart Scott: "CAN'T WAIT!"

[kukurumei]

Now that that's settled, let's move on to how auto attacks works or in this case, speed and skill timing.

In FF11 (we will always have to refer to it) we have what is known as "stacking" or more informally "interrupt" type skills. Basically, you are interrupting your initial strategy (auto attacking) with skills that will change the outcome of the battle.

This forms our auto attack -> skills -> TP ->WS time line. FF14 have not changed that despite the lack of auto attack.

Now I'm assuming from the developers comments they want it to be more situational and faster speed. The conclusion I've read into that is they want auto attack -> Skill modifed auto attack -> TP ->WS/BR/SC.

Normally we would read this as passive skills. But what happens if we twist that angle a bit like some RPGs and MMOs, where it's actually property changing skills, or otherwise known as enchanting.

We already have some of that in FF14. Like counter or steady, nock, triple, etc. It is not impossible to have a battle system like that, where skills aren't meant for a big SATA+WS ideal (stacking) but a change in auto attack properties. Thus the need for quicker auto attack rates.

Of course it may also signal a more tricky battle system especially with body parts, where you can use "hit weak point" type things with skills that change attack properties. Or defensive stuff.

The trick here is to not make it too gimmicky (like the current one) where once you get the overall idea, you abuse it to heck and back.

[Malakhim]

Malakhim. I was only trying to say that this game is not perfect or even close. I'm tired of people defending it at every turn. Like how 51% of Republican's still think Obama isn't an American. I want everyone to say, "Hey! This game could be better!" y'know? You're right, though. AA isn't the answer to everything. We still need the battle system refurbished in other ways. BR being maybe another key point.

Nobody isn't saying they don't want the game to be better. The fact that they don't coincide with what you want the game to be doesn't mean they think everything's perfect the way it is, and ostracizing them arbitrarily makes them more wary to listen to anything you say in the first place.

The only thing that I find annoying though is now we know it's there, but we don't have any actual information on any of the real details except "it's gonna be big". I'd kind of want to know how auto-attack is going to change the game.

[Shikyo]

WOOT! FFXIV lives to fight another day!

man i am soo happy to see they are still in the fight! i was just about to reopen my XI account and find a high populated server just to have ff online fun the way it should be... man this is so great, all ppl wanted was a small glimmer of hope that a change for the better was coming ty so very much XD

[InuraBera]

I don't see the argument between either - I'm fine with it in or out, and now that it is decided - well, they have a baseline for the new design decisions. The thing is, many games with auto attack nowadays have you pressing just as many buttons as FFXIV currently does with only a few (important) skills which you use out of 'rotation' as reactive skills.

My only request would be that it is more involved than the Final Fantasy XI system which was the biggest drawback for me in my brief playtime, was that Auto-Attack accounted for most of your attack time, with very little input (at least at the lower levels, up to around 25-30, even parties involved just sitting auto-attacking!) At the same time, it doesn't have to be ensuring that you attack every time something is 'off cooldown' ala World of Warcraft PvE rotations. Nothing is wrong with either of those systems, but the WoW situation gives you the same as we have, and the FFXI one is slightly dull - in my opinion.

Even with the addition of auto-attack, I'd expect you to be as involved as you are currently (in terms of action use) in the new combat system when it is released - just not pulling off basic attacks all the time, instead reactive or other skills along the lines of the current TP moves, rather than auto-attack becoming a huge part of the thought put out when fighting (as in, you probably wont have to worry about aggro from it, unless your tank has died at the keyboard).

*Edit* It amuses me greatly to see that this gives 'hope' to people. Of all the things I am interested about in the way combat could change, baseline attacks has to be the least. I look forward to the system as a whole - the inclusion or not of auto-attack would have made no difference to me.

*2nd Edit* Also, considering the auto-attack will be added to the new battle system, I doubt it would be comparable to just sticking auto-attack into the current system. I just hope they do a good job overall, and look forward to seeing it in action, as I'm sure basically everyone is this thread is hoping for the Combat System in the future, no matter their point of view.

Our Lords have spoken, now we must wait!..well, continue waiting anyway!

[Shikyo]

Nobody isn't saying they don't want the game to be better. The fact that they don't coincide with what you want the game to be doesn't mean they think everything's perfect the way it is, and ostracizing them arbitrarily makes them more wary to listen to anything you say in the first place.

The only thing that I find annoying though is now we know it's there, but we don't have any actual information on any of the real details except "it's gonna be big". I'd kind of want to know how auto-attack is going to change the game.

sounds like you dont like this but too bad all the happy ppl in this thread know how this will change things, if you dont i guess you'll see when it is implimented

[Grit]

Nobody isn't saying they don't want the game to be better. The fact that they don't coincide with what you want the game to be doesn't mean they think everything's perfect the way it is, and ostracizing them arbitrarily makes them more wary to listen to anything you say in the first place.

The only thing that I find annoying though is now we know it's there, but we don't have any actual information on any of the real details except "it's gonna be big". I'd kind of want to know how auto-attack is going to change the game.

More info is always nice. But from what Matsui-san said, auto-attack itself is not what is going to change the battle system. They decided that it was a necessary change to go along with the "new" battle system.

[kukurumei]

*2nd Edit* Also, considering the auto-attack will be added to the new battle system, I doubt it would be comparable to just sticking auto-attack into the current system. I just hope they do a good job overall, and look forward to seeing it in action, as I'm sure basically everyone is this thread is hoping for the Combat System in the future, no matter their point of view.

Our Lords have spoken, now we must wait!..well, continue waiting anyway!

Considering the fact that FF11, you had a skill ever 5 level ish, alternating between active and passive(trait). Yes lower levels you didn't have much skills to play with, but you can see after a decade FF11 has a crap load of skills even for the most passive of players.

Secondly the idea of "stacking" skills played a huge role in FF11, which can lead to wait, but that was the beauty of FF11 battles vs more fast pace ones . It was the careful strategist that wins, rather then the rash power plays of other MMOs.

They look to have realized that they're not very good at the "Rash power play" ideals and it doesn't really cater to their audience, now they want to head back to the strategist type battle, trying to twist it with "situation".

It does give hope to certain people because AA is in essences a "practical" ideal. It's been time tested, and has a large bag of tricks.

Did you really think SE invented the AA->activate skill -> TP -> WS formula? Of course not, it was on the backs of every single MMO out there.

It's harder to get it wrong then right, in a sense.

[Sojiro]

I am willing to give it a shot. So long as we eventually get some more battle defined roles I wasn't too concerned over manual attack vs. auto attack. To be honest I didn't mind the manual actions, and on the same coin I don't mind an AA. Lets just see what they have in store for us. Bayone as others have said, please pass on the thanks to Akihiko for sharing.