Auto attack: A complete battle system

[Ciden]

Just an idea. Don't know if its good or not. How about they move the attack to the left mouse button. Hold the button down to gird strength indicated on a bar somewhere. Release at certain intervals for different powered attacks or combos. I play an ARC so if this sounds more inclined to that class I'm just biased :P But since I'm on the topic if the camera could then move to a shoulder view as you draw back your bow and the cursor becomes a crosshair. Oh yahh!

[Shikyo]

Wow this thread is so going off topic, but I'm in favor of bringing in an auto attack system if it meant we would have flashy weapon skills SCs again.

Current system works and works well but it is in fact boring and brain numbing.

auto-attack+ weapon sc's/mb man oh man one can only hope

[Shikyo]

I find it lacking that there is a discussion from Auto attack to one time Skills.

It doesn't even need a toggle. That's like asking why FF11, RO, Everquest, WoW, and every other game had the same issue with one time buffs.

You know how warriors, darknights, and every other DD in FF11 handled those skills? They stacked it. It was never a problem. Ask a thf what his SATA+WS mess up ratio is...so low it doesn't matter.

Belittling a minor problem such as one time activation skills is the same as belittling no-autoattack systems. If a player can't find the right timing to make it all work, they shouldn't be playing no-autoattack systems anyway because they would be micromanaging something even more time demanding.

Auto attack is something that helps the player through the flow of the battle, through stats alone. It shouldn't be mind numbing dexterous on the hand eye. That's the whole point.

It's the walk and chew gum argument. Sure you can do both and do fun tricks with it, but if the chew gum part is automated, you can dance and chew gum, and perform acrobatics. Because it's mightily boring chewing gum.

lol i love this post simple because of the example used ^^ very cute and i would love auto-attack so i can type and fight at the same time. thats just my opinion so dont attack me just give your 2 cent

[kukurumei]

Just an idea. Don't know if its good or not. How about they move the attack to the left mouse button. Hold the button down to gird strength indicated on a bar somewhere. Release at certain intervals for different powered attacks or combos. I play an ARC so if this sounds more inclined to that class I'm just biased :P But since I'm on the topic if the camera could then move to a shoulder view as you draw back your bow and the cursor becomes a crosshair. Oh yahh!

Well ya the funky camera's been a roaming target for SE for a while. As is the light of sight problem. Hate the line of sight in FF14. here's there...but not there..arrrgg why would the system attack.

Charge attacks... prone to abuse,but not impossible. You have to remember MMO tends to stay away from action mini games like that, due to a lot of uncertain variables.

It's under the "don't play with fire" line of thinking.

[Taokii]

At first I was pretty disappointed that one of my favorite parts of the game was being alterred, but now I see it differently. I play as CON and THU mainly so naturally I don't spam hardly ever haha. Reading about the challenges people face I would possibly want a variation to the system too. If the system truly does make it just easier to use but doesn't make it a necessity then I will be happy. I have always liked the idea that you must actively play the game to get anything done and don't want that to be taken out of it. I also don't want the two different styles to be equals. Even if the auto-attack is good enough for normal play, I still want it to be (at least in higher ranks) practically mandatory to actively fight and engage to be playing to the best of your ability.

[Apricoth]

I am for toggling auto attack on/off. That would make a happy medium. The only downside is if people that prefer one over the other it will prove to be an issue for end game companies - will the leaders prefer you to auto-attack or manually handle your attacks? I would say, if I were a leader, I would require manual handling. There are always crucial moments in a big fight that you kinda wish there was no auto-attack - especially if it is a long fight and people start getting bored while on auto-attack. At least with manual, you know if the person is actually there and not just pro-siphoning the experience/loot.

If it has to be in, toggle please. I do not want to be required to auto-attack. I have played too many mmorpgs with auto-attack. I like something a little different. Granted, I would say the only annoying part that gets to me is not being able to chat smoothly. I have to rush through what I say during attacks. haha However, the truth of the matter of that is - what am I doing chatting when I am suppose to be paying attention to what I am helping to kill?

Just my 2 cents!

[Vanguard319]

If you reread my OP, and read many others ideas for AA, you have an option to toggle it on/off. For reasons of not breaking crowd control, or by your example to use skills that buff attacks.

Now as a Archer you could start by engaging a mob you press 1 to start your Auto attack rounds. Once you get to a point where you want to use stacked TP skills or other abilities you press 1 again turn AA off use your buffed skills then press 1 to recommence AA.

Or alternately skills can be reworked to a point where AA won't effect buffed skills.
example:
Hawk's Eye: Your eyes gain hawk-like precision, increasing the accuracy of your next attack.
becomes
Hawk's Eye: Your eyes gain hawk-like precision, increasing the accuracy of your next ABILITY

Multishot: Nock an additional arrow for your next attack, up to a maximum of 3.
becomes
Multishot: Nock an additional arrow for your next ABILITY, up to a maximum of 3.

You make a good point, unfortunately there is a problem with your reasoning, and anyone with a well progressed archer should understand this counter-argument right away:

Multishot and Trifurcate ONLY affect light shot, they can't be used with other attacks or weapon skills. I even verified this for myself when I tried using them with close shot, and heavy shot, so that idea will not work the way you expect without major reworking of archer abilities. as for assigning buffs to work only with abilities, there may be times where an archer may wish to use a buff like hawkseye or raging strike with light shot, for example, at the beginning of a fight where the arc has no TP and has to hit a very evasive target. Your proposal would deny an arc that level of tactical flexibility.

If you are hopelessly hell-bent on getting an auto-attack feature, I would propose this:

give each player a universal ability that costs 0 AP and can be swapped with the default attack, and call it something like

Steady strike - pace your rate of attack to conserve stamina, while dealing constant damage, continues until ability is used again.

Essentially, it would be a looping default attack that only uses a certain amount of the stamina gauge at any time, as the amount of stamina decreases, the attack rate adjusts to allow the gauge to recover.

e.g. if stamina gauge is low, then the attack rate = slowest pace, and stamina recovery = highest rate.
if stamina gauge is high, then att rate = fast pace, and stamina recovery = slow pace.
if stamina gauge is full, then att rate and recovery are both equal.

in addition, make some minor adjustments to the stamina gauge, either abilities use slightly less stamina to function, the stamina gauge refills slightly faster, or possibly even both.

This I believe would satisfy the pro-auto people and thier insatiable need to not think, while giving the pro-manual people the free choice to choose thier strategy, This is a fair enough compromise, and it can be implemented without excessively altering the battle engine.

[Apricoth]

Vanguard319 - you are my hero! Could idea in your above post.

[ChiefCurrahee]

You make a good point, unfortunately there is a problem with your reasoning, and anyone with a well progressed archer should understand this counter-argument right away:

Multishot and Trifurcate ONLY affect light shot, they can't be used with other attacks or weapon skills. I even verified this for myself when I tried using them with close shot, and heavy shot, so that idea will not work the way you expect without major reworking of archer abilities. as for assigning buffs to work only with abilities, there may be times where an archer may wish to use a buff like hawkseye or raging strike with light shot, for example, at the beginning of a fight where the arc has no TP and has to hit a very evasive target. Your proposal would deny an arc that level of tactical flexibility.

If you are hopelessly hell-bent on getting an auto-attack feature, I would propose this:

give each player a universal ability that costs 0 AP and can be swapped with the default attack, and call it something like

Steady strike - pace your rate of attack to conserve stamina, while dealing constant damage, continues until ability is used again.

Essentially, it would be a looping default attack that only uses a certain amount of the stamina gauge at any time, as the amount of stamina decreases, the attack rate adjusts to allow the gauge to recover.

e.g. if stamina gauge is low, then the attack rate = slowest pace, and stamina recovery = highest rate.
if stamina gauge is high, then att rate = fast pace, and stamina recovery = slow pace.
if stamina gauge is full, then att rate and recovery are both equal.

in addition, make some minor adjustments to the stamina gauge, either abilities use slightly less stamina to function, the stamina gauge refills slightly faster, or possibly even both.

This I believe would satisfy the pro-auto people and thier insatiable need to not think, while giving the pro-manual people the free choice to choose thier strategy, This is a fair enough compromise, and it can be implemented without excessively altering the battle engine.

Lets pretend SE slapped on AA just for the sake of shitsandgiggles.

You see the mob you want to kill you draw your weapon. (you still haven't engaged it yet because you didn't press 1 to start your attacks) You use your buff skills: Multishot and Trifurcate you're now buffed up and ready to decimate the mobs face with your salvo of arrows. you press 1 you rain death from above with you "light shot" which also happens to be your AA, if you take no further actions your character will a few seconds later attack again with light shot.

Now lets say you're fighting a NM You take the above steps to open the fight. so you're AAing and using skills then "Multishot" and "Trifurcate" timers are up, you want to do some spike DMG. so you press 1 to disengage your AA buff up and press 1 again to continue.


Alternately you could be fighting that NM and the delay between auto attacks is ~3 seconds (one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand) your timers for Multishot and Trifurcate are up you can press a macro between AAs and buff up. (I suppose stacked skills x3 and if you have multiple you would want to turn AA off) But for single stacked skills this would work very well.

[leomike35]

I guess if they implement auto attack they might as well give us flashy skillchains like ffxi as mentioned above. Also Haste would be needed for Marauders.