Quote Originally Posted by Dreamer View Post

There's a reason why offline games don't use this mechanic. It's simply boring. The only reason it is popular in MMOs is because it helps compensate for ping times. How much fun do you think the combat in Elder Scrolls would be if instead of having manual control your character just swung once per second automatically?

I wouldn't say AA is a step backwards, but it's definitely not an ideal solution. The sooner the genre moves towards more real-time combat, the better. SWTOR isn't using it, neither is GW2 (the auto-attack there is more like a toggle for any ability rather than what we're referring to here). DDO, which has one of the better combat systems in MMOs, doesn't use it even though the combat is still semi-turn-based. One of the more interesting titles coming out soon, The Secret World, doesn't use auto-attack.

The sooner this mechanic goes the way of the dodo, the better. Hence why I'm rather agitated they're rebuilding their combat system around it.
Exactly. It's just sad that they think spamming actions was a necessary evil of the original system. It isn't. Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, TERA, Blade & Soul, DCUO, basically every next-gen MMO has active combat. If FFXIV thinks it can compete with auto-attack... well they're right. They can always compete in the special olypmics.