auto-attack death and decay

[Chumeia]

-COMBAT-

The new auto attach has gimped my Marauder, and other Melee jobs.

First Example:
When engaging a level 19 enemy with my level 23 Marauder you might think the winner was obvious. But no as the auto attack is so slow to repeat if I were to use it alone death is the outcome. If I start using any TP or Magic now new TP is generated due to the time delay and the battle basically becomes magic based. Winning is nearly impossible.

Second Example:
Take the same fight but with a level 19 Thurmage. If I pour my efforts into maintaining HP, and MP then the fight is winnable only very slowly. Spirit dart alone is not enough but unlike Marauder who can ONLY attack with a Blunt object or a throwing weapon, Thurmage has a host of spells and a pool of magic.

Here's the problem:

When you took away the stamina bar and removed the default attack button in favor of the Auto attack only. Marauder can only attack with TP based attacks or throwing weapons. Delay in auto attack and Throwing weapons is very great. I was far happier with the default stamina bar that let us slash several times, then recharge.

The auto attack in FFXI even worked better. But I have to say I was actually hoping there would be a very basic auto attack that would be switch able much the same as there is a button for AOE spells in mages. I also like being able to command a strike when I need it without the computer telling me it's impossible. because the ONLY accessory strikes available are on cool down.

One last example.

I like to join the players who team up for the battle Warden fights. However, I increasingly feel useless in those fights. My axe might get one hit per NPC. That's if I can get the target set and get the lock on before the NPC is defeated by the others. If I don't get it just right my Marauder stands there like a Dumb Ox just holding his axe like he's going to swing but nothing happens. Now I just look like some jerk who came along to looks useful and collect the reward.

I don't dare even think what Pugilist looks like right now. That attack button was pretty much the Pugilist life blood just like Marauder. Now with it removed and all attacks on a clock... No more quick advances. No more self buffing. Hello perpetual death and decay. All in favor of making a long winded game that never ends. Did any one ever to tell you guys some of us solo because we don't have the time to spend in all night raids just to get a level? No, I suppose not.

EDIT: 20110727

My alternate, Thurmage seems to have retained his spirit dart icon, and although I have no direct control over the spirit dart attack, as long as the timer is full I can attack a few second earlier and if the gauge is not full I can use a direct physical attack. Nice blunt force trauma gets the job done.
However, the Marauder does not have the ability to see its primary attack gauge, has trouble locking on, and unlike the mages, has no secondary blunt force type swing, given there is no button to mash.

-TARGETING-

I have no idea what this ABC stuff is and it doesn't provide any descriptions. Hmm not in the manual either... Seems to be a way of determining which targets get priority. A seems to be players or non combat, those you might want to heal and B seems to NPC priority.

Target lock. I've been asking for way to get the target system to scroll over to the next target attacking or attacking the party. However that hasn't really happened. It kinda works but very poorly. Don't know what you did in FFXI but it work there.

Target lock will refuse to give up target:
When an NPC is dead the target lock should auto break and target next NPC attacking but it does not often this system will remain locked on the corpse while I am getting pounding on by the enemy.

-BUTTONS-

It's more difficult to tell when a button has been highlighted now in the combat controls. The larger buttons are nice along with the timers that make stacking more effective. But the highlight is hard to see. Plus if the mouse is on the screen the highlight dissolves making things more complicated during combat. With the older smaller icons, the bar took up less space on a small screen and the highlight was easier to see.

-ICONS-

Many of the new icons (all not just combat) look like they were drawn in 4th grade art class. The new icons are something I'd expect in a beta game or a low quality 2D hand held.

Guardian favor is a scroll, really? It's easy to see but its stands out like a sore thumb as an icon that simply shouldn't be there. Honestly I still don't even known what that effect does.

-DEATH-

With the new changes I am dying allot more. I'd say about 3X as often. Each death seems to loose about 10% on all gear no matter what and Combat itself losses 2-4% seems to as I haven't actually looked very closely. Ok just looked and it was 7% on 100% item.

Having my gear literally rot off is extremely irritating.

Not being able to repair it the standard way is also very irritating. I cannot just gather the materials and fix it. No I have to find some guy in town who sells the dark material. Or pay some one high fees. Before there was enough competition and urge to advance in crafting that a moderate offering would result in someone fixing your gear without to much waiting. Having less gill to offer to get a repair is even more frustrating.

Gear I have never had trouble with decay is now falling apart. Everything I have is rotting. This is a new problem that didn't exist before 1.18

-GILL-

Because some one thought it a great Idea to limit the gill being collected too. This further enforces the idea that the gear is rotting off my body. I cannot afford to offer a nice fee to other players and I certainly cannot afford to pay the NPC the outrageous fees they ask for. There is simply no gill. By the time I earn it, the gear is totally rotted.

[DonC]

Auto Attack while using PUG has been no issue, still use all my abilities as normal no problem. I have found soloing easier as you can spend more time planning attacks without worrying about spamming the basic attacks.

[Chumeia]

Was just reading in the Marauder forum where they are complaining of the same thing I am, only more specific. I am complaining in general regarding the change to all jobs.

As a Thurmage 18, and a bit lower, I was taking on Aldgoat Nanny and winning. I was also taking on the Aldgoat Nanny with the Pugilist at even lower levels. Buffing myself with mage spells I leveled pretty quickly. That was the night before 1.18. Now the Aldgoat Nanny is kicking my lvl 20 accross the hills without more than 60 seconds of combat.

Some little punk is asking that mages get further gimped as they think that mages still have to much power. But let me tell you if I am using all my abilitries and a lvl 20 is wasting a lvl 20 then I am beyond gimped. This is no longer a soloable job, there is no fun it getting killed and not being able to make progress.

FFXI made a huge mistake about midway through its life cycle.
Prior to the new jobs being released but after Summoner and Sub jobs, some one in the dev dept decided that was time to resemblance the jobs. They decided that every one was to powerful. So they balanced us, again, and again, and again. They gimped the Mages the Rangers and the Dragoons. They did this until the Melee jobs literally had more advantage. This made Mages, Dragoons, and Rangers, third class citizens. Red mages used to be pretty good to have, but in the end, all that was desired was a White or Black mage. If the Red was in the party it was treated as a slave deemed incapable of combat and incapable of healing, this mage was forced to spend all its time and magic on weak debuff and enhancing spells that Bards were better skilled to handle. Even the once mighty Summoner was in the end gimped so bad that few actually called on their summons for more than a buff. Rangers who were the go to for pulling were also replaced as the range of their attacks was reduced and several attributes cut.

Lesson to be learned. Over balancing never results in anything good. It only reduces the abilities of players untill we all hate the game and have a general feeling of we are wasting out time here. This is not how you gain players, this is exactly how you loose them.

[Viridiana]

Hmm. . . I haven't had issues getting TP on PGL. I do keep getting this feeling that there's some button I need to be pushing, and it's unnerving as all hell, but that's it.

That being said, my PGL is r50. Obviously, any problem affecting only the lower levels isn't one I'd be able to notice. I do know exactly what you're talking about on MRD, though, and my MRD is r38. 4.2 second recast on MRD AA is goddamn absurd. They're quickly left with very, very little in the way of offense or defense. I felt completely useless on MRD in the groups I was in today.

"Oh, yay, I got to auto-attack once before that mob died!"
"Oh. . . glad you guys were here, because I did absolutely nothing that time."
"Hey, my AA gives me ~200 TP. Sixteen seconds between weaponskills? Sure thing!"

Yeah, MRD's in a bad place right now. I can't speak for how the other classes are lining up at low ranks yet, though.

[Chronic]

lol sounds like you have no clue how to play the new system. I am absolutely raping rank 20+ bloodshore bells with my rank 16 pug.
Auto attack isn't an issue. And the only mage spells I am using are Sacrifice and Stygian Spikes

[Lienn]

I agre with the OP.

PGL and LNC in special have no big deal with TP generation because they both have low delay (LNC has a bit more, but has Speed Surge) and the TP generator basic action. GLA isn't in problem either because, for a class that could never attack due defensive actions stanmina cost, AA was godsend...ARC is pretty much the same it was, not being really affected by AA...the only real victm of AA was MRD because, different from other classes, it had all its performance based on basic actions...the DPS came from basic action, the TP generation was based on basic action (cone actions) and even the tanking possibility required basic actions (its enmity came from constant heavy damage influx...which is gone now)...so right now MRD is just a burden to parties that invite them.

I'm really hoping that it was just the skelleton of the real battle system and that they might adjust these recast times, effects and costs at next patches.

I posted a suggestion regarding MRD basic action balancing at respective forum, but also been asking them to adjust it at all classes, like having pierce, phamton dart, spirit dart and broad swing using the weapon delay as recast, increasing light strike effect duration to 30 sec so PLGs can keep it up fulltime like it was, lowering recast of full and heavy swing to 2 sec in exchange of greater penalties and action cost, etc.

Because, IMO, just like some people never liked button smashing, some other did like it...and adding slot cost to basic actions would make people balance between having more actions equipped or more basic actions (because a basic action with 5~7 action slot cost would mean 2~4 less actions equipped)...

[Irana]

Yeah I hardly recommend NEW PEOPLE TO NOT START OFF AS MARAUDER. you WILL HATE THIS GAME IF YOU DO.

I got marauder to 44 tonite and I can tell that if I didnt have a lot of skills from other classes )like invigorate 2) I would NOT be able to do crap during most fights.

[Gun_Anam]

I've always been against auto-attack, and still am. It's awfully slow and breaks up combat. As a pugilist I used to run around the mobs to evade attacks and with a simple click of the basic attack it would hit the mob. Now if I run around the mob I have to stop, turn to face the target, make sure I don't go to far or I'll have to turn again, then maybe I'll stop long enough for auto-attack to kick in.

I agree with all your points. While I don't feel the effect of the gil changes yet, I can clearly see that the gil sink in the game with the repairs is greater than the gil you can gain from leves or whatever else. I'm pretty sure the majority of the people now have more outgoing gil than they have incoming. It's the start of the FFXIV economy depression.

[Gidonoidon_Sur]

Personally I disagree. In my experiences, I have enjoyed auto-attack. I can watch my character attack and do the moves (which I have not been able to in the past). Also, I can plan my attacks better not worrying about timing "1" correctly. Also, I feel the speed of auto-attack is fine, and remember, this is vanilla, I am sure it will get faster with haste, etc. And finally, although only rank 24, I feel my MRD is stronger then pre patch 1.18. Specifically, I think the damage is higher (consistently) and my attacks have way more accuracy. Plus. I use MRD mostly bc I like the ability to damage several mobs at once, which I encountered often in leves, so of course one-on-one MRD is going to be slightly less damaging than say LNC (I am just presuming it is) because it can inflict damage on multiple targets.

[Lienn]

Personally I disagree. In my experiences, I have enjoyed auto-attack. I can watch my character attack and do the moves (which I have not been able to in the past). Also, I can plan my attacks better not worrying about timing "1" correctly. Also, I feel the speed of auto-attack is fine, and remember, this is vanilla, I am sure it will get faster with haste, etc. And finally, although only rank 24, I feel my MRD is stronger then pre patch 1.18. Specifically, I think the damage is higher (consistently) and my attacks have way more accuracy. Plus. I use MRD mostly bc I like the ability to damage several mobs at once, which I encountered often in leves, so of course one-on-one MRD is going to be slightly less damaging than say LNC (I am just presuming it is) because it can inflict damage on multiple targets.

Unfortunately you have no idea what you're talking about ^^: Before 1.18 MRD was like a truck...we could rampage against hordes of monsters and fight them just as well (actually even better) as we would fight a single target. And now we can't do anything anymore...

If wasn't these battle changes MRD would be ruling these raids since there we have no problem if the monster is claimed or not...but after the changes it became a burden to however invite it. It cannot fight well, the removal of automatic orientation at AA makes you VERY OFTEN lose a swing oportunity because the monster moved out of range while the obscene cooldown of axe was up (or even just stepped to your side so AA wouldn't trigger) and now even the TP generation is terrible...i cannot store enough TP for Maim anymore...monsters are killed faster than i can...hell...i cannot even store 1500 TP for Storm's Path before the monster die. Now MRD is restricted to use like 1 Skull Sunder per fight IF you can swing your axe 2 times to get the 500 TP for it, while i still see LNCs and PGLs using victimize, doomspike and chaos thrust all the time...even GLA is generating TP much faster than MRD.