Auto attack: A complete battle system

[Eldaena]

I can't speak for others but for me this will fix many things. I can go afk between fights, can take my time using actions, can read them, talk, check who is online, search for a friend, look to see who is seeking for party and perhaps build one while still soloing. I mean it's endless things this can help with. That's one that they can do, doesn't mean it's only solution. It's no longer what people think is best for them but what's best for the game to be kept alive before it becomes little to late.

1) Why are you going afk between fights? That is poor dedication to your party. At least wait until a leve, behest, quest, or nm fight is complete.

2) I certainly hope if you have a skill or something ready to go you aren't leisurely deciding when to use an ability regardless if it's auto attack or manual combat. And why would you be reading what your ability does in the middle of a fight? Don't you already know?

3) Trying to party build, chit-chat, or browse information while fighting is completely unengaging. You might as well just be botting your way through your ranks if you just plan to auto-attack in this manner.

Using auto attack as some cure-all for the issues with the battle system will not fix the problems.

I will now entertain the thought of auto attack. Here are some problems I am seeing:

First and for most, people like this gentleman I quoted going afk on me in some important fight. Sure he'll be auto attacking, but what about battle regimen? What about tactics? This is completely unacceptable. (And I'm not saying emergency afks are a problem with me, but come on. At least now if someone goes afk they are autofollowing someone else and basically out of harm's way. I can't be accountable for someone autoattacking and then dying in combat.)

Another point is just the pure sluggishness of people that will be caused by an attack happening on its own with any of their other abilities or spells. (When you are forced to make an attack without an auto feature it puts the person in a position where they can see everything going on. Click, attack, check damage being dealt, click, attack, look at tp, click, attack, check hp, click, attack, cue up spell or skill. It keeps the battle flowing with no down time with what your hands should be doing. It is more engaging contrary to some people's beliefs because you are there, and you are in it. However, it also allows for more freedom. You have control of what your character is doing. If you are spamming attacks that is just poor playing. You yourself cause your own lag and delay of a spell or skill because you have several attacks cued up.)

The delay of starting or fishing an attack will still occur. You will still go to click a skill and you will have to wait until the current animation of you attack completes before that skill will start. It will not make combat faster because the same issues that are making it slow without the auto attack will still be present. It would literally be the same as it is now, but you don't have to click on the attack for it to happen.

Halting attacks in order to: do tactics, avoid ruining crowd control, put away your weapon (like if the wrong ability is stacked during BR), unengaging a mob, etc. would be difficult. I don't see how this would be sped up at all in comparison to a manual attack. If anything I could see it being worse than manual.

The skill of players is very important in this battle system we currently have and giving them an easier mode of combat I fear will on degrade that skill. Right now when you fight with someone you can tell who is on the ball and who isn't, and it would be the same with auto attack in some stances. But I do not want the argument of 'well I was auto attacking' as a reasoning for contributing to battle.

If auto attack is put into the combat system, I can see how it could be a tiny bit useful in very specific situations, but overall I think it will be abused more than used appropriately, as well as a 'quick' fix that doesn't really solve major issues. It seems almost obsessive how so many people are craving this tiny little feature rather than some more major changes to the combat that could assist it more than this.