I want auto attack as personally I didn't have a problem with the battle system in FFXI. I was always kept very busy in-spite of it's auto attack. However the one great thing it will allow is time to socialise with my party, something which I think is really lacking in FFXIV. I can go out in a party atm and we will constantly either fighting or running to the next fight. With the current system hardly anyone will say a thing for hours and thats just sad. If you stop to reply you aren't contributing to the party and if you try to send a message while running to the next mob you will probably get stuck on some awkward terrain. I hate that I can't reply to a message without watching my DPS drop to 0.

There will always be boring grind battles and there will always be bad players who just spam 1 or just let auto attack do it's thing, so it really doesn't make a single bit of difference in that respect.

I think some people are making mountains out of molehills with this whole auto attack announcement, anyone reading this thread would think you could just login, hit go and let the game play itself if they weren't clued up on how it actually works.

Let the devs do their thing, they are completely changing huge chucks of the gameplay by the sounds of it and that is going to take time and money. They would only be willing to spend that time and money if they really believed this would be better for what they have planned.

So chillax and wait and see the finished product before jumping to conclusions.