Auto attack: A complete battle system

[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.

[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!

[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.

[Shadowbliss07]

I just hope that they don't make it exactly like it was in 11... I hated that battle system. It was soooo slooowwwwww! It was cool when you had TP and could dish out some very cool graphical weapon skills.... that much i liked. But the battle itself usually took a VERY long time because of the incredibly slow auto attack system. And to me it was pretty boring... sitting there for 10-15 seconds until i could get 100 TP and then do a WS. woopdee... nah I don't want that to happen to this game. If they do that then the auto attack better be faster (as they say it will be but who knows) and TP gain better be comparable to what we have now. Please don't screw this up SE...

[TidBones]

I can only say ....Haste gear

SE continue what youre doing.

[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.

[Kimahri]

Malakhim....See? No less than a few hours from the dev post and I already see Esar and Dreamer whining.

It's not completely automated, Dreamer. Stop crying, please. It's not the end of the world. Your character won't have an engage & disengage button only. Trust me. Smacking the number one isn't a better solution to strategy.

[ESAR]

Malakhim....See? No less than a few hours from the dev post and I already see Esar and Dreamer whining.

It's not completely automated, Dreamer. Stop crying, please. It's not the end of the world. Your character won't have an engage & disengage button only. Trust me. Smacking the number one isn't a better solution to strategy.

Whining, give me a break..
It's you'll from FFXI that whined to get what you wanted. All I"m saying is congratulations, you've most likely ruined what could have been a very successful game.

The Developers know what they are doing that's why they decided to implement a type of attack like this.

Anyone even stop to consider why they would add stuff like battle without auto-attack, market wards or action based SP?

Of course not, because most of you lack something called imagination.
They did it for us. They did it because in FFXI it's what we asked for.

The economy was bad, they realized the AH was the root cause and they're working on fixing that.
Are you going to let them? of course not, you'll just complain till you get an AH. You'll do this because you don't understand what you're fighting for, you'll are just fighting blind.


TP building was considered very boring by some because of the extended wait times. this also caused classes to feel the same. Can you really tell the melee classes appart in FFXI? barely. Yeah some will build TP qiucker, some will do more damage, but in reality it's all about waiting those few attacks to use a TP skill, how absolutely pointless, why not just make every attack important and allow us full control.
I'll tell you. Because people that have no idea what the real problems are will decide in there heads and keep whining untill they get what they want. (that's you FFXI....)



Last but definatly not least, SP. Yes there was a problem with the first SP system, but does that condem all action based SP?
Of course it does.... because you'll have voices, and though you don't have a clue what you're talking about you have the right to complain.
You think they just invented this to screw with us? they didn't, they did so because they understand math and that understanding leads them to the realization that Action based SP is the only way to fully balance SP.

So yeah I may be upset but I'm not whining.
I'm upset because I feel like I'm the only one that's even given consideration to the future and what these things will do to the game, but because I'm only one voice no one will here me.

I'm not going to ruin my life for some flipping video game though. I don't need to try and battle with a bunch of blind fools. GL, have fun ruining your game.

And yes if you keep it up it seems like they will make this an FFXI-2, so keep up the good work.

And do me a favour, try some change in your life once in a while, it'll make you feel alive again....

[Malakhim]

Malakhim....See? No less than a few hours from the dev post and I already see Esar and Dreamer whining.

I'm nobody's dad, bro.

But as you can imagine, their tantrum isn't going to help their cause either.

Guys, I was one of the bigger supporters of an active attack, but let's just chill out for a sec and see what's coming down the pipe. If it's crap, it's crap. If it ain't, well hurray.

We'll just have to wait until we get to see some substantial news.

[Theon]

lol [SIZE="7"]WAKE UP[/SIZE] ,one of the reasons so many players quit the game was the lack of an auto attack feature.

Thanks SE! Weapon speed please!

This will make the combat feel soo much better.