Auto Attack wins!

[UnrealTai]

Kae I can see how you came up with that, but
How I'm taking their making things fast paced is simply increasing animation and delay on AA attacks so characters aren't standing around for 15 seconds at a time like in XI.

If this is their take, then players should be able to chat just as much as they did in XI during fighting, because the faster pace is being granted from things going on automatically,

While player inputted manual commands will be needed a little less.

If their plan is to eliminate the feeling of spam attacks, AND, increase battle pace, then this is how they would HAVE to do it with their statement.
Remember, they plan on doing both (ironically to someone that does not play this sounds contradictory)

While at the same time you can't simply win with AA, so in that case they would need to increase the time it takes to kill a single mob. As even with a majority of the spam being for fighting, another large portion is from targeting because fights are too short, some before you can even get one swing in.

Are bad lazy players going to come about from implementing AA? Of course! They're going to instinctly revert to how they played other MMO's, which is to let the AA feature do almost all the work, and most FFXI players KNOW you can't do that.

So just like in XI and as stated by evenstar you just have to kick them from party and not play with them. The community will eventually weed them out for being lazy a**hats.

[Kaedan]

Kae I can see how you came up with that, but
How I'm taking their making things fast paced is simply increasing animation and delay on AA attacks so characters aren't standing around for 15 seconds at a time like in XI.

I sincerely hope that is not the case. If it is, they aren't keeping it fast-paced, they are slowing it down.

If their plan is to eliminate the feeling of spam attacks, AND, increase battle pace, then this is how they would HAVE to do it with their statement.
Remember, they plan on doing both (ironically to someone that does not play this sounds contradictory)

Actually, he says the exact opposite. "we are thinking about making the auto-attack system for FFXIV have a shorter attack delay". "battles rich in strategy, pace, and exhilaration". "require proper timing of abilities, magic, and weapon skills.". So my point still stands that you won't have time to have a conversation during battle.

While at the same time you can't simply win with AA, so in that case they would need to increase the time it takes to kill a single mob. As even with a majority of the spam being for fighting, another large portion is from targeting because fights are too short, some before you can even get one swing in.

I highly doubt they will increase the time it takes to kill something. That would just piss people off. Additionally he says, "that with the exception of weak enemies, you will not be able to win by using just AA." Meaning you'll be able to AA weaker enemies to death.

Are bad lazy players going to come about from implementing AA? Of course! They're going to instinctly revert to how they played other MMO's, which is to let the AA feature do almost all the work, and most FFXI players KNOW you can't do that.

So just like in XI and as stated by evenstar you just have to kick them from party and not play with them. The community will eventually weed them out for being lazy a**hats.

Oh, I know that it's MOSTLY the player's fault for being a lazy bum... but there is no reason to ENCOURAGE laziness.

[Holy_Dragoon]

Quick question that others may have better insight on.
How will auto-attack relate to 0 cost skills such as Heavy Strike, Full Thrust, Pierce etc? Right now these do have a place, be it not always in every fight. Occasionally it's nice to throw out a Heavy Thrust in order to temp bind a mob that is running all over the place. It seems to settle them down.

[Alcide]

Quick question that others may have better insight on.
How will auto-attack relate to 0 cost skills such as Heavy Strike, Full Thrust, Pierce etc? Right now these do have a place, be it not always in every fight. Occasionally it's nice to throw out a Heavy Thrust in order to temp bind a mob that is running all over the place. It seems to settle them down.

I guess they'll just scrap them, like they're doing with everything...
Choosing a different attack is too much effort for lazy people.

[northernsky]

Quick question that others may have better insight on.
How will auto-attack relate to 0 cost skills such as Heavy Strike, Full Thrust, Pierce etc? Right now these do have a place, be it not always in every fight. Occasionally it's nice to throw out a Heavy Thrust in order to temp bind a mob that is running all over the place. It seems to settle them down.

That's a good question. But I don't think that this is a major issue. For example, why not having an icon where you toggle which auto-attack you are going to use (having the choice between all the 0 cost skills abilities that you have earned)?

[Kazimir]

Quick question that others may have better insight on.
How will auto-attack relate to 0 cost skills such as Heavy Strike, Full Thrust, Pierce etc? Right now these do have a place, be it not always in every fight. Occasionally it's nice to throw out a Heavy Thrust in order to temp bind a mob that is running all over the place. It seems to settle them down.

They are likely changing a lot more than we realize with the battle system. Having these different basic attacks may not be necessary once that is done.

They also haven't given us the information needed to make an educated guess about what they are doing. For all we really know they will make it so we can just select that attack and it will auto-attack until we pick another.

[Grit]

Quick question that others may have better insight on.
How will auto-attack relate to 0 cost skills such as Heavy Strike, Full Thrust, Pierce etc? Right now these do have a place, be it not always in every fight. Occasionally it's nice to throw out a Heavy Thrust in order to temp bind a mob that is running all over the place. It seems to settle them down.

I think it would be cool if we are able to make our auto-attack a little more customized.

They could allow us to choose the order in which our "basic" attacks occur. You might set your character to do Light Slash > Light Stab > Light Slash > Heavy Stab.

But they'll probably just re-use the animations and have your character cycle through them automatically. As far as status effects go, those should be passed off onto manually activated skills. And who's to say there won't be any 0 cost skills? They'll just come with appropriate cool-down timers.

[Lamhirh]

you already can do that. its called macro <_<

[Lamhirh]

I personally dont use it. only times i do somethi gin party is behest ( whis is easy to get oparty usually) and during leves, but i do leves with friends/LS, so i really dont need party search <_<. also most random people would get annoyed as i actualy like walking everywhere ( as XIV have very nice walking animation, and i am RPer in my heart <_<)

[Holy_Dragoon]

@northernsky
You see that is just it, Auto-Attack for things like Full Thrust would lessen your effectiveness. Through my experiences thus far in the game I have found the other basic attacks to be situational. Also they have purpose in things like Battle Regimens (Mind you BRs can be a little flaky and seemingly insignificant).

I just hope that it's one of the things that has been considered when implementing Auto-Attack. Without more information, it's hard for me to make a call one way or the other. If they considered ways to do these types of things, then by all means I can see this as a positive direction.

I think the intricacies of the current system are not taken advantage of because they are minimal, and to notice them you have to pay very close attention to things like overall damage output and group dynamics. Most gamers want to have a good time, and easily see the benefits of their in-game skills. Even I will admit, I can easily spam Light attacks and be mostly successful. However I have found enjoyment in figuring out the subtle differences to placing skills at the right time against tougher mobs.

For an example, just last night we would use Heavy Thrust to bind Raptors that would get out of control, then have 2 Lancers balance the timing of Twisting Vice in order to prevent 90% of those AOE attacks that Raptors can do. It paved the way for less healing, and more offensive magic. This in turn came full circle as Raptors would want to attack mages, but could not because we would keep them bound long enough that they would swap targets back towards our Marauder Tank.

I would hope that these kind of things can continue under the coming Auto-Attack system.