[dev1032] Why do we need STAMINA?

[Spuffin]

I have seen far too many "Why do we need auto attack?"

How about... Why do we need stamina?

We already have TP/MP limitation.
We already have Cool Down limitations.

I see absolutely no plus factor as to why stamina is a must have let a lone a convenience...

Stamina allows us to get a burst of 3-4 basic attacks at the beginning fight and then we resort to 1 basic attack every 2-3 seconds which is the SAME thing as auto attack... Then we have to wait 2-3 seconds to use the 3k tp we just built up to use an ability or a weapon skill.... and throughout the rest of the fight you are using 1 basic attack... 1 weapon skill... 1 basic attack.... 1 ability.... rinse and repeat.

Auto attack will allow us to implement Double attack and Tripple attack which is the same thing as the 3-4 fold burst we get from the stamina gauge. They could add dual wield, haste, haste equipment. But adding these adds more content and further diversifying other classes. Things to look forward to.

So give me a reason as to why we need STAMINA.

[Akumu]

Actually I always felt it would be best to either...

1)Get rid of stamina

or

2) Increase stamina regen


The battles seem at a good pace when you start but a few seconds after it gets so slow...

[Spuffin]

I was looking for more of a reason as why we would need to keep stamina or why is it beneficial

[Cairdeas]

Because there is no autoattack it to prevent skill spamming basically.

[Spuffin]

From the massive amount of replies and multiple reasons as to why we need stamina I feel that this is very obvious.

Drop stamina and implement Auto Attack.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

complaint thread. SE don't need them. try to think constructivly.
And auto attack is for pansies.

[NoMX]

Drop stamina and implement Auto Attack.

/quits

Worst part of FFXI was auto attack. FFXIV was bold and broke free of the cookie-cutter molds that shape how we play most MMO's, and they should be applauded for it. Stamina is there to keep you from being able to mass spam abilities. It is what makes you think tactically... It is all about the pros and cons of choosing 1 skill over another. For example, you could use second wind and burn through a lot of stamina to heal yourself a bit at the cost of a tiny amount of tp... Or you could use cure/sacrifice for a small amount of stamina but burn up some of your small mp reserve (if you're a DoW).

The stamina bar is all about adding another depth to the combat system. If they took stamina away you can bet your ass that they will greatly increase the cooldowns on all your attacks, because they will NEED to be limited a lot more heavily. The stamina bar allows your skills to have a lower cooldown (dont kid yourself, theyre all pretty damn low compared to FF11) whilst maintaining balance in combat. In the end, it's all about strategy and timing, and I think they did a great job with it personally. You can spam through your basic attacks and dry up your stamina, or you can pace them out and keep a stamina reserve so you have enough for that legsweep, or that provoke, or that flash freeze when Great Buffalo uses sanora's blast.

In the end, the person who spams 1 until they're out of stamina, then waits for it to regen does pretty much the same DPS as someone who uses it more sparingly, because they always have the same rate of regeneration. Stamina also helps speed up battles against monsters of lower level... For farming and such. In 11 fighting something beneath your level could still take quite some time solo or in a small group, but on 14 usually 1 full stamina bar is enough to kill a mob beneath your level. With auto attack, you couldnt just finish it off quickly. Thats the point... Stamina gives you the option to have a short berserker burst, and chain one skill after another with no break until its out... To finish something off fast, or just do some spike damage... With auto attack you will never have this option.

[Lusavari]

If there's any auto-attack, it needs to be a toggle options because while I strongly prefer putting in each command myself (as it gives me more control over everything. I disliked in XI when my WAR would pull hate off a PLD and I'd have to turn my back until he got hate back) I do see the necessity as it's annoying as hell to actually try to fight and talk at the same time in this game... a /toggle would go a long way.

At the same time... the stamina regeneration gets very cumbersome. The only thing that was more cumbersome was the original stamina system...

An interesting take on it would be to go the FFXIII route, and just make it a fancy ATB bar. You can select a number of actions at once your character can perform which drains the ATB an equal amount per action, with some taking more spots, like the 5 ATB action each character had and so on. Then you can have the action bar sped up, and when you want to execute all your commands at once, you just hit attack, and you can perform up to 5 or 6 basic attacks in a row. Done right it could work.

But as it is, it's redundant. You have HP, MP, TP costs, Casting times, cool downs... A lot of things in general should be taken off the Stamina bar. Sometimes your own healing abilities can get you killed because they took so much stamina, you can't attack and have to risk taking a hit the healing itself will barely cover.

I do strongly prefer stamina over auto attack though. It's a lot less boring trying to manage stamina than it is staring at my character swing every 10 seconds.

[NoMX]

The toggle idea has been tossed around a lot, and it's alright in theory... But I'm not sure how well it would actually work. When used, it'd just automatically use your basic attack at regular intervals... But what happens when you need to halt it to use another ability? It's still going to keep consuming your stamina, and moves like exaltation and tranquility use 100% of your stamina bar. A caster would have to disable the auto attack, wait for their stamina, then use the ability. It'd ultimately just weigh things down.

Also, this game has a lot more AOE functionality built around it than FF11 did. Even the melee all have certain AOE's they are best off using situationally. A toggle for auto attack would make this pretty cumbersome as well, because you'd have to switch which skill is being used by the toggle in mid-fight... Example... You're a MRD and you're using Broad Swing to hit all of the Goblin NM's adds... They finally die... now using broad swing is wasting stamina, so you need to switch to a single target one... Well, you have to fool around with your toggle now to change that, ultimately slowing you down when you coulda just switched button presses instead... mash 1 instead of 2.

Aside from that, I pretty much agree with what you have to say, Lusavari. I'm not against an ATB style attack que... Though it's already kinda doable.

Below macro = pseudo auto attack:

/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>

[Spuffin]

The toggle idea has been tossed around a lot, and it's alright in theory... But I'm not sure how well it would actually work. When used, it'd just automatically use your basic attack at regular intervals... But what happens when you need to halt it to use another ability? It's still going to keep consuming your stamina, and moves like exaltation and tranquility use 100% of your stamina bar. A caster would have to disable the auto attack, wait for their stamina, then use the ability. It'd ultimately just weigh things down.

Also, this game has a lot more AOE functionality built around it than FF11 did. Even the melee all have certain AOE's they are best off using situationally. A toggle for auto attack would make this pretty cumbersome as well, because you'd have to switch which skill is being used by the toggle in mid-fight... Example... You're a MRD and you're using Broad Swing to hit all of the Goblin NM's adds... They finally die... now using broad swing is wasting stamina, so you need to switch to a single target one... Well, you have to fool around with your toggle now to change that, ultimately slowing you down when you coulda just switched button presses instead... mash 1 instead of 2.

Aside from that, I pretty much agree with what you have to say, Lusavari. I'm not against an ATB style attack que... Though it's already kinda doable.

Below macro = pseudo auto attack:

/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>
/wait 3
/ac "Light shot" <t>

Which is why Auto attack would not work with the stamina system. The devs did say that they were thinking about implementing it and they did say in fact that they were revamping the battle system. Basically adding an auto attack and possibly dropping stamina adopting FF11's combat system.

As far as AoE goes it's utterly useless. In fact you NEVER want to AoE any group of mobs as you will have a drastic lose in SP. SE implemented AoE grinds but penalized you for using AoE at the same time.