[dev1022] Defining Auto-Attack and how it relates to MMORPG.

[Ava]

Personally, i'd prefer a nice middle ground, based around tactical play to take advantage of weaknesses in enemy groups to bring them down quickly.

Which in essence is what we have now. What i worry about is how adding an auto attack feature to the game will change it's flow and pace. If you don't have to choose every attack, you get lazy, so many times in FFXI party members who had no major role would just watch something whilst playing because auto attack would do it all for them, and they just had to hit a macro once every few minutes.

I prefer the feeling of control i have over my attacks, and an auto attack would rob me of that feeling, i don't want it, nor do i feel i need it.

people complain about the 'action spam' as though that's reason to add auto attack, but to be fair, would that make action spam disappear? no. it would just slow the feel of battle down to something lackluster, something utterly generic. there wouldn't be the same urgency anymore.

If you've ever played any of the other popular MMOs besides FFXI, you'd realize that auto attack and laziness have absolutely nothing in common. People AFK'd in combat in XI because of the nature of combat, using the OP's words, XI was a slow paced tactical system. It was essentially a middle ground between what we had in XI, and what other popular MMOs like WoW, Rift, Warhammer, Aion, <insert generic mmorpg title> have. Middle ground is clearly not working out for a lot of people.

I'm not opposed to an auto attack system at all, but I do admit I fail to see how it would work without drastic skill changes to current classes. I like the current pace, but feel it's too spammy. Perhaps making auto attack weak and remove some of the "spammy" abilities from classes we could have a system that feels both tactical and fast paced.

My favorite class I have ever played in any game was a rogue in WoW, the class had complex rotations and had a very high skill cap. I realize not all classes were like this in that game, and people probably have the fear that classes in XIV might turn into those bad examples, but it is possible to make fast paced tactical combat via auto attack.