Will Auto attack be implemented?

[Lonni_Bonni]

Also, there's no real need to make certain weapons attack slower or faster as some of you believe. Simply make weapons consume the appropriate amount of Stamina. This way, a slow attacking weapons cost more Stamina and takes longer to recharge for the next attack. And a fast attacking weapon consumes less Stamina and will take less time to recharge.

-Lonni

[Kaizer]

I actually don't want them to revert back to complete auto-attack. I feel like its going backwards instead of making progress. True, the current system is not fun. During beta, I commented how the stamina bar felt like it did nothing in terms of strategy. The fact that you could only see the stamina cost of the first action on the mob is terrible, plus you couldn't really gauge the cost of actions very well.

In the beta forums I suggested they add tick marks or at least cost numbers to actions and how much stamina you have. You have 10 stamina and light stab takes 2.5 etc or whatever. Then you can also know your stamina recovery rate better (stamina recovery rate 1 stamina unit a second or something). This gives the player the feel of more control, strategy, and planning. Maybe even add class uniqueness through stamina bar stats. Longer bars, faster stamina regeneration for certain actions, or spells that affect stamina (I know some lancer abilities do this and having numbers or at least symbols attached to them would help).

Instead of auto-attack maybe some sort of queuing or combo system like some people suggested. I would definitely be interested in that.

[EliseDee]

NO AUTO ATTACK THE SYSTEM IS FINE THE WAY IT IS!

[Blitz0309]

NO AUTO ATTACK THE SYSTEM IS FINE THE WAY IT IS!

You propose a good argument there, well thought out and with a lot of valid points.

/sarcasm off

The system is not fine, the game isn't fine. I'm glad you love the system... but keep in mind this game has to appeal to the masses.. Or you're not going to be playing it long.

[Sorel]

If auto-attack is implemented, adjusting weapon speed by using stamina cost would seem to be the most efficient way to implement it, as it uses an existing combat sub-system to control the speed, instead of making a new one.

However the case, the stamina costs for each weapon's auto-attack should be varied considerably. Axes should be slower than swords, so their auto-attack stamina cost should be higher than the auto-attack stamina cost for swords.

Has anyone thought about having armor effect the stamina gauge? So that a character wearing lighter armor has his stamina gauge refill faster, while a character in heavier armor has her stamina gauge refill slower. Combined with the above, it could allow for some interesting variety for players to experiment with. A lightly armored Marauder's auto-attacking axe could be as fast (or faster) than a heavily-armored Gladiator's auto-attacking sword.

Just a thought.

[Cerin_Merin]

The simplest way to introduce auto attack is via a macro: /autoattack on or off. With it on, your character only auto attacks the default normal attack when Stamina is at 100%. The player may, if they wish, manually speed up the normal attacks if they click the Heavy/Light attack commands.

It's really the best of both worlds. And it's plain and simple. You can turn it off or on to your liking. And you can even speed it up to your liking. Keep in mind, this mechanic still depends on the Stamina bar to function.

-Lonni

Also, there's no real need to make certain weapons attack slower or faster as some of you believe. Simply make weapons consume the appropriate amount of Stamina. This way, a slow attacking weapons cost more Stamina and takes longer to recharge for the next attack. And a fast attacking weapon consumes less Stamina and will take less time to recharge.

-Lonni

I think these are actually pretty good ideas. Adding Auto-attack as an additional feature would satisfy people that would want to simplify the battle system. Furthermore, changing the minimum delay between strikes with each weapon based on how "slow" it should be reduces the amount of attacks spammed. Further changes to damage would further help in defining the attack speed of each discipline.

This would also help the Battle Regiment system a lot. An auto-attack feature would allow us to use Battle Regiments while still maintaining a regular attack pattern. Battle Regiments take time to set up, so setting up auto-attack to automatically kick in when under Battle Regiment mode would be excellent.

In reality, I am biased towards the current system, but I still see the use of such a feature. I believe that one of the interesting parts of this game is the stamina system, and that it should only be modified, not removed. Removing a system takes a lot of time and effort on SE's side of things, and it wouldn't be intelligent to ask this of them and also expect a relatively quick change.

[Axl]

One of the letter's from the producer mentioned a toggle-able auto attack system. Sounds good to me.