[Suggestion] Remove Stamina Bar

[Lyndria]

Unless the current system changes drastically, (which it might) the stamina bar is too much of a hindrance for not enough of a reason.

Limiting Factors

- Each move in the game currently requires the use of a resource:

HP, MP, and TP.

- In addition to these resources we have extra limiters on skills and abilities:

cooldown times, casting times, and animation times.

I understand that some moves are stamina only, but all of the above mentioned are acceptable and make sense. These are typical with any MMO. The stamina bar adds an additional threshold on abilities and actions that is cumbersome.

So why is it there? To prevent spamming?

- Lets say I want to fire off 8 weapon skills in a row: Can't, animation time and tp are the limiting factors.
- Want to pop off 8 cures back to back: Casting time, cooldown, animation time, and mp all limit how often and quickly you can cure.

If actions being used too frequently was a problem I would rather see and increase in cost to the other resources than imposing the use of a stamina bar.

Do we really need a bar to limit how many abilities we can activate at one time? Is it really that important that I can't activate rampart, ferocity, featherfoot, bloodbath etc., etc. in a row without having to wait on a bar to refill, in addition to their cooldown and animation time?

What do you think?

EDIT:
As per later responses I have read (thank you to everyone who has weighed in) I'd like to say that the scope of this is to examine the benefits/hindrances of the stamina bar.

Auto-attack could certainly have an impact and seems to be coming regardless according to a dev post; but could be used or not used both with or without a stamina bar in place, and is therefore not a point of my concern.

[MysteryG]

I agree with this completely! I remember when the game was in Alpha, and when they did away with the initial timing/attack power system, but the stamina deal remained. I was confused about it then, and I'm confused about it now. As a caster it is completely silly. For melee classes that don't use MP, I can see how it could be an acceptable alternative to MP (Think Rouge or Warrior in WoW).

At the end of the day though, the solution is simple, let melee/physical actions use Stamina, and magical actions use MP. Hybrids are happy, DoM's are happy, and DoW's pretty much remain the same.]

Great post! This is one of a few issues I feel like SE has been ignoring.

[Mort]

signed!

remove stamina, add auto-attack, tweak and balance HP/MP/TP useage, remove BR and add Skillchain/magicburst, delete armory system, add some sort of sub-job system, add traits, remove alot of abilitys, remove action points. probably missed something.

/wave

edit: yeah forgot.. DONT make my character jump back and forth when attacking, its annoying as hell, and destroys future plans for positioning tactics!

[Demoleon]

If actions being used too frequently was a problem I would rather see and increase in cost to the other resources than imposing the use of a stamina bar.

Do we really need a bar to limit how many abilities we can activate at one time? Is it really that important that I can't activate rampart, ferocity, featherfoot, bloodbath etc., etc. in a row without having to wait on a bar to refill, in addition to their cooldown and animation time?

I completely agree with this. The stamina bar should be done anyway with and a auto attack system should be implemented. Then it could also leave room for weapons to have a new stat (delay) making things like Short Swords and Dagger more useful in the aspect of attacking quicker (or shortbows attacking quicker, etc.). This will also leave room for better battle animations to be designed seeing as right now everything is clunky and half the time the battle animation just dont proc.

signed!

remove stamina, add auto-attack, tweak and balance HP/MP/TP useage, remove BR and add Skillchain/magicburst, delete armory system, add some sort of sub-job system, add traits, remove alot of abilitys, remove action points. probably missed something.

/wave

edit: yeah forgot.. DONT make my character jump back and forth when attacking, its annoying as hell, and destroys future plans for positioning tactics!

I disagree with most of this. Most players dont seem to realize that just because this is a SE MMO, doesnt mean that its FFXI pt2. There is nothing wrong with the Armoury system and if the Stamina bar was replaced with Auto attack, BRs would actually be valuable and easier to coordinate. As for subjobs, I think the advanced jobs should be added eventually yes, but not a SJ system. They just need to take many of the class defining skills and make them class specific. Personally, I think only certain buffs should be cross classed(no weaponskills) and higher tier abilities for example Cure/Sacrifice II/III, Shock Spikes/Stoneskin II should be limited to DoM only.

[Ranka]

Unless the current system changes drastically, (which it might) the stamina bar is too much of a hindrance for not enough of a reason.

Limiting Factors

- Each move in the game currently requires the use of a resource:

HP, MP, and TP.

- In addition to these resources we have extra limiters on skills and abilities:

cooldown times, casting times, and animation times.

All of the above mentioned are acceptable and make sense. These are typical with any MMO. The stamina bar adds an additional threshold on abilities and actions that is cumbersome.

So why is it there? To prevent spamming?

- Lets say I want to fire off 8 weapon skills in a row. Can't, animation time and tp is the limiting factor.
- Want to pop off 8 cures back to back. Casting time, cooldown, animation time, and uses mp.

If actions being used too frequently was a problem I would rather see and increase in cost to the other resources than imposing the use of a stamina bar.

Do we really need a bar to limit how many abilities we can activate at one time? Is it really that important that I can't activate rampart, ferocity, featherfoot, bloodbath etc., etc. in a row without having to wait on a bar to refill, in addition to their cooldown and animation time?

Who knows, maybe they will do away with it in light of auto-attack. What do you think?

I gotta disagree, how ffxi worked with auto attack was great, but for this maintaining your stamina as well as balancing your skills is key. For this game its not really the skills itself the stamina bar eliminates, its how fast your normal attacks can go off while balancing that with your skills. If you are stacking multiple buffs, lets say your a con and want to use profundity II and some thm buffs to dark seal and blood rite II or something along those lines, to do a lot more damage and to increase accuracy waiting a extra second for stamina to me would make sense.

I gotta say auto attack would feel out of place for this game, at least to me. It really comes down to what ya want, but personally if they did anything with the stamina bar id want a few moves to cost a little more stamina and some to cost less. I rather them implement a move like "Haste" which would increase stamina regeneration rate or something along those lines. Its just with the speed of battle of a character being determined by the individual with accordance to the stamina bar is a nice way we are able to adjust a flow of battle.

[Xeona]

/agreed

Lyn and I have been talking about this for a while now.

Too many bottlenecks for taking action currently.


As someone has already mentioned, the use of a stamina bar would be great as the resource pool for MRD for example.

Everyone would have to have all 4 resource bars though.


HP
MP
SP
TP

Because of the ability to have abilities from all jobs, one would need all resources to pull from.

[Sorel]

- Each move in the game currently requires the use of a resource:

HP, MP, and TP.

- In addition to these resources we have extra limiters on skills and abilities:

cooldown times, casting times, and animation times.

The basic (and advanced guild-bought) attacks of the classes do not have any of the costs listed above. The Stamina gauge is there to regulate them. One could argue that it's not doing a very good job of it, though.

If a configurable "auto-action" feature was implemented, it could pave the way for the removal of the Stamina Bar. But as combat exists currently in the game, the Stamina Bar does have a purpose to exist.

[Winterclaw]

/signed

There are plenty of ways to limit how many actions you take and the stamina bar as is is too much of a problem. Now if it was longer and depleted slower sort of like AoC, that would be one thing. If only certain skills used stamina, like adrenalin in guild wars, that'd be another thing. But this bar is too short and everything uses it, and a lot of it.

[Lyndria]

@Ranka

- I get what you are saying about multiple buff stacking. But maybe stamina could be regulated to just that. Kind of like the charges they gave certain jobs in XI. But for heals, weapon skills, nukes, basic attack, etc. I think having an extra bar to deal with on top the other factors is a bit much for all moves.

- Auto-attack may or may not be the answer - doesn't bother me either way really. But an easy fix for that is a cooldown or increase/decrease in battle animations on basic attacks. Sorel also rightly mentions some of the guild mark abilities that are stamina only. Again, this could be solved with the other limiting factors mentioned besides stamina. Short values for daggers, fists. Longer values for swords, axes. And I'm sure everyone can see how haste could also apply here.

This is why I love the FF community, nice constructive input. Thanks guys.

[Bloody]

They could at least reduce the cost of all actions' stamina usage, since it is so easily depleted. One spell using a third of the bar is kinda silly, and four or five attacks can wipe it out.