Auto-attack

[ChiefCurrahee]

Or talk to the mic.

As has been said multiple times before, nobody is buying the "communication" bullcrap in this day and age. Other MMO's are fine, XIV should be fine as well. People aren't going to accept less involving gameplay to be able to chat in this 3D MSN because they don't accept it in any other MMO either.

No one is buying your bull crap that in this day and age VC is a must... how about that?

You will not get people to join a vent channel for Grind/Behest/Guildleve grps outside of Linkshell groups.

DO you propose that SE create a VC client thats hosted on their servers creating even more overhead and lag for everyone?

What about people that speak a different language? I myself unfortunately only speak english. But those people who are bilingual feel more comfortable typing in english than speaking it because of pronunciation or accent.

VC isn't a solution for the battle system. get over it.

[Delmontyb]

Personally I am in the group of not wanting FFXI's battle system, as I do feel that people who want auto attack use that battle system as an example, for both a pro and a con. I believe that's because for us players who came from XI have fond memories of it, so I can understand why people are so for or against auto attack.

That bit of confusing rambling being said I'll post my hopes and thoughts and I guess we'll know more in the coming weeks of what the new battle system looks like.

1. Being a high ranked player, I find that playing short play sessions I don't mind the battle system at all, and in fact I find it enjoyable. If I end up playing for longer then 30 minutes my view changes and I get tired, and want to do something else. Craft, etc.
2. During fights, I am unable to effectively talk and fight. For those that can, more power to you, but trying to make sure everyone is alive, and also respond to a tell I just received can be difficult. Thus I end up telling my LS and other friends "Going to fight, talk to you after" which makes since, because in a real fight, I wouldn't be chit chatting away with someone on my cell phone, but it does make it hard to be more social in game.
3. I'm all for auto-attack, but my hope is that it's just a very basic attack, or something that can be toggled on or off, really I don't know what they plan to do. I do think a lot of the issues come down to the fact that it's hard to tell what each player's role is in the game, but that's a topic for another discussion.
4. Personally, I would love to see a system that had an auto attack, and also let me queue up attacks on my character that allowed me to setup which skills I wanted to use when I wanted to use them. This is hard to describe in ways, but the idea is that I can press actions and have them show up and be executed in the order that they get queued up, I can then clear my queue if needed, and perhaps other options.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts, I'm hoping to learn more next week as the devs have hinted.

[ChiefCurrahee]

As I was playing FFXI today leveling up Pld (lv23 atm) . I thought.... man this is slow. 12 swings of AA to get 100TP so i can use 1TP move. .

This is not the battle system I support. I don't think anyone here wants that form of gameplay.

I switched over to FFXIV played for 30 min (rank 31 Lnc. rank 10-20 most other DoM/DoW) I had to put it down. I got bored/tired of all the inputs I had to issue.

I'm not saying I'm spamming skills.
i'm not going 1111111113334456478837362673845856267848 in 30 seconds.
Fights are short I maybe use 5-10 commands a fight but it stacks up over time.. It's like a DoT on your phalangeal endurance!

Now the difference between FFXI and FFXIV is that in FFXIV you don't need 100% TP to issue a move. So alternate player issued commands are available much sooner and more often. Which gives a faster pace to battle.

When I was driving home from lunch I thought to myself. Why are people so opposed to AA? They feel it's not a needed mechanic. How will it effect their gameplay if there is one? How will they change the way they currently do things?

While I'm sounding like a broken record. *IF* basic TP building attacks become a sort of AA it frees up the need to issue those commands yourself, which frees you up to make other choices. Whether it's replying to a tell, talking tactics mid fight with your PT, Choosing your next TP skill. Waiting on that cool down to stack some buff skills. I'm not saying make it so I can AA every mob in the game and win. But take away the need to manually enter an attack just for the sake of TP.

I think those people who don't want AA will continue to play the way they have been for the last 6 months. It's not a huge game changer for those people who like the 1:1 input:action type game play. It is a huge game changer for those who DO NOT like the 1:1 game play.

You still get to pick and choose what TP skills you do and when, you still get to pick when and what abilities to use. Your rate of TP gain will be effected but as Alcide has pointed out that can be augmented through certain skills. This would also be a good opportunity for devs to differentiate weapon types by adding delays and TP gains, and creating items that enhance TP gain or delay of weapons.

[ChiefCurrahee]

Alcide, the term spamming doesn't just apply to pressing one button over and over again. I think players feel they are pressing too many buttons during combat. Hence they are spamming buttons.

Thats why in previous posts, people have said pressing 11111 is the same as pressing 55555 or 23456 or 173849.

Your argument of someone who hasn't reached rank 50,40,30 or what ever rank, doesn't understand how the game is supposed to function is ludicrous! Ranks 1-20 fundamentally operate the same as a rank 50, albeit less skills filling your bar. It's not hard to grasp the concept that in order to attack you need to press a button. To use most skills you need TP, to get TP you need to press a button before you press another button, so you can press another button.

How are we who want auto attack not being open minded? We've spent 6 months playing this game in it's current state, We are saying "hey lets try this." It's the people who are saying what we have now if fine who are closed minded. Have you thought about how a console player is going to receive this game? Have you read my thread about changing the UI to make the game more assessable to a gamepad user w/o implementing an AA?

[Linnear]

I think Betel and Alcid are missing some key points in their arguements, lets see if I can try to consolidate some of this issues.

For starters, Betel if you want to say that the game is not invovled enough you are obviouisly not playing glad with a control pad, I sugest trying this level 30+ before you make any more posts about it not being an issue. If you want a game that requires a voice chat and button mashing, then you need to stick with PC only games. Controllers require a diferent system it is that simple. 1-1-4-7-1-1, in a 20 second window will never work well for controllers in a social game, (works great for solo play but if you want that then go play a solo game), If SE created a radical or centralized UI system like someone was talking about earlier with a 3x3 box where after each command the cursur moved back to the center it would be less of an issue.

I don't think that auto attack is the ONLY method of fixing the cross plateform problem but I do think it is one of the better ones, the radical or the 3x3 does not necessarly fix the communication problems you get by entering 20+ commands a min. It is this 20+ commands that is the issue for communicating with a controler, if you want XI to strictly be a mouse and keyboard game then that is too bad for you because SE is making it cross plateform regardless of what you want or think, this means that either a new UI needs to be designed for them or the system needs to change. Working on business as usual ( BAU) is the worst philosophy you can possibly have for a system, it guarentees no advancement, improvements and eventuall stagnation. If you have something usefull to say please say it but please don't say that BAU works fine, it is tool of a simple mind unable to think of something outsisde it's experiences.

Alcide this wil be shorter, if you want to fix your problems with archer just make the abilities work on all moves other than auto attack, congradulations your problem is fixed with or without toggle...... Common guys seriously think about how someone else solution can work, we shouldn't have to be explaining things like this for an MMO, expecially if you want to claim that you want more skill in games......

Auto attack would not get rid of TP generation, it would simply augment it, if you introduce auto attack you can normalize TP generation across other moves to balance it all out so that TP generation per unit time is roughly the same as it is now. (if anyone needs this explained, go read the definition of normalization before hand and if you still not sure how this can work I will explain it.) Surely your smart enough to see how this can work and I am sure the thought crossed your mind, but didn't want to give an advantage to others that argue vs your opinion.

Auto attack if implemented properly will NOT dumb down the game like so many of you are afraid of, it will just result in fewer inputs for the same effect. Personally I am an advocate for more complicated and involved gameplay, but preventing auto attack is NOT the way to do it, if anything it can increase the level of complexity by allowing more non/tp generating moves, (stuns, moving around, avoiding damage, interupts, defence abilities, etc) if that is what you really want.

Once again for thoes who didn't understand it the first time, if you want more than 20+ actions a min, then you can't have a game on controler with the current UI and expect them to communicat with anyone. If you want everyone to use a keyboard or mouse, stick to PC only games, If you want SE to put in a Voice chat be that is your business, it might fix some of these problems but doesn't get ride of the "It sucks to hit 50 buttons for 20 actions on a controller".

[gifthorse]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. Yoshi already said they are reworking the whole combat system. So instead of saying the current system is crap and so we should automate it, how about you think about an ideal combat system instead, and then discuss that?

What would be your perfect combat system?

[ChiefCurrahee]

You guys are looking at this all wrong. Yoshi already said they are reworking the whole combat system. So instead of saying the current system is crap and so we should automate it, how about you think about an ideal combat system instead, and then discuss that?

What would be your perfect combat system?

Um this thread is about how to improve the battle system through the implementation of Auto attack. Not the Automation of the battle system. I haven't seen one post that says "let the game play for me"
Having TP generating attacks, attack in set intervals does not equal automation of the battle system. As you still need player issued commands for TPskills/abilities/Spells

People who are in favor of a FFXIII style battle system, are basically in favor of a nearly full automated battle system. Which is not strategic or engaging at all. (the strategy in FFXIII was to adapt to the changes of the battle system. Not issuing battle commands.)

I'll ask this again.

How will auto attack effect your over all gameplay currently? How will it change the way you play?

[ESAR]

Um this thread is about how to improve the battle system through the implementation of Auto attack. Not the Automation of the battle system. I haven't seen one post that says "let the game play for me"
Having TP generating attacks, attack in set intervals does not equal automation of the battle system. As you still need player issued commands for TPskills/abilities/Spells

People who are in favor of a FFXIII style battle system, are basically in favor of a nearly full automated battle system. Which is not strategic or engaging at all. (the strategy in FFXIII was to adapt to the changes of the battle system. Not issuing battle commands.)

I'll ask this again.

How will auto attack effect your over all gameplay currently? How will it change the way you play?

Auto-attack is not the right decision, it's not going to solve anything, yay so we build TP without touching anything...
What about those basic attacks that had a specail purpose?..
Where do you think those are going?
They're going to be converted into TP moves...
Yay, now we've lowered our overall ability count by 3... and we've ruined a perfectly fun game by having 5-10 second wait times between each attack.

Find another way to fix battle, this isn't going to help.

How many people do you think are going to play this on console if they have to wait 10 seconds between attacks?
I'll fill you in, about 10% that woulda otherwise...
It's a very unwise buissness decision..

A better alternative would be to convert this game into what it really is, a more action type MMO. Take out targeting and allow us to attack whenever making it easier for us to get position.

The action bar is not the problem, the action bar is the exact same as the macro set up in FFXI, 10 slots. If people are having problems because it's 10 slots now, why on earth weren't these problems there in FFXI?

[ChiefCurrahee]

Esar:
Why does Auto Attack have to be 5-10 between intervals? Why not 2-5? why not 3-7? thats fairly fast.
Those skills that generate TP but have a secondary effect on them i.e. Heavy Thrust and Pierce. That is easy to take care of.
Pierce becomes an ability you can slot to make your Auto Attack AOE, or make it a togglable Modifier.

Heavy Thrust is a situational attack at best, It can be a 0 TP move with a short cool down.

Fixed.

As for the FFXIII style stacking system. The major flaw in that is situational command attacks. Stack 2-3 attacks what if all of a sudden you Shield Block and want to use Phalanx? Does that get put into the cue? Does it supersede your stacked commands and fire immediately? If it does, do you then have to restack your commands? What about for a mage? I have 3 Thunders stacked... but now the Tank is going down... Too bad I didn't cure bomb instead.
This system does nothing to the fact that you still have to navigate the action menu to select each and every attack. Which after a short amount of time becomes increasingly tedious.

How do you solve those issues that arise. I'm glad that people are thinking well instead of just have a direct AA, how about this. But follow through with critical thinking of all the ins and outs of the system.

And no one has answered this yet.

How does having an Auto Attack implemented effect your gameplay to a point where the fundamental mechanics change?

Do you still have the ability to issue situational commands?
Do you still have the ability to issue TP skills or class abilities on command?
Do you still have the ability to stop attacking on command (toggle AA on/off or put away weapon)

The only thing that changes is the rate at which you accrue TP, which should be balanced by weapon type. Fast attacking weapons do lower damage and smaller TP return, and slow attacking weapons deal higher damage and have a great TP return.

We aren't asking for FFXI battle system, where it's slow and using 1 TP move wipes out all your TP.

thats one thing in the battle system FFXIV got right, making TP moves cost x-amount of TP and what you don't use you keep.

And Betelgeuzah, I can't talk on vent. I'm a mute. So i'm relegated to using the keyboard for communication, or I'm Deaf and can't hear what you're saying. Oh yeah, I don't speak the same language as you so it's hard for me to understand you, or my english is so broken I communicate better when i type. <can you use auto translate?> <thank you>

[ESAR]

Esar:
Why does Auto Attack have to be 5-10 between intervals? Why not 2-5? why not 3-7? thats fairly fast.
Those skills that generate TP but have a secondary effect on them i.e. Heavy Thrust and Pierce. That is easy to take care of.
Pierce becomes an ability you can slot to make your Auto Attack AOE, or make it a togglable Modifier.

Heavy Thrust is a situational attack at best, It can be a 0 TP move with a short cool down.

Fixed.

Fixed, hardly.

How is making be have to wait when I don't have to now fixing anything?
You want to convert this game back to the dog ages why, so you can play multiple accounts, forget that. There's no real other reason you would need an auto-attack.

Did I not mention that everyone is complaining about wait times, it's not more wait times we need, it's a more organized way of executing the current commands that we need to worry about.

An extended battle queue does that.

As for the FFXIII style stacking system. The major flaw in that is situational command attacks. Stack 2-3 attacks what if all of a sudden you Shield Block and want to use Phalanx? Does that get put into the cue? Does it supersede your stacked commands and fire immediately? If it does, do you then have to restack your commands? What about for a mage? I have 3 Thunders stacked... but now the Tank is going down... Too bad I didn't cure bomb instead.
This system does nothing to the fact that you still have to navigate the action menu to select each and every attack. Which after a short amount of time becomes increasingly tedious.

As for that special category of attacks that executes instantly (Shield bash, Phalanx, second wind, ect.) they can be injected into the current queue.

Pressing that action would have it act after the current action finishes and then the queue would continue.

At any time you could discard the current queue by pressing cancel.

At this point you'd have two options, you can rebuild stamina, or keep stacking commands.

How does having an Auto Attack implemented effect your gameplay to a point where the fundamental mechanics change?

The change incurred with auto-attack removes us from the game and at no benefit. Right now battle is very rewarding, I can input every command, they all have purpose I use my stamina which controls the flow of battle and I need to be conscious of this at all times in order to be successful at my current position (Solo, tank, healer, DD).

What you want to do is take that involved feeling away so that I'm only inputting what you consider important commands (TP skills).

I beg to differ, I see each attack having it's own purpose.

Rather then us ruining the current battle lets get rid of what isn't really needed, remove TP. From this point simply change basic attacks to cost less stamina (depending on the weapon which will cause variances).
This will have them act as what they should be, openers to your devastating abilities (Weaponskills/magic).
I'd also have it so basic skills added bonuses to weaponskills if you chose to open with them, like increase acc, dmg and crt hit rate.

You wanted ideas, there. And I didn't have to ruin the game. (It's my opinion that both an auto-attack and auction house will ruin parts of the game. The change in SP already has)