[dev1022] Auto-attack system questions and discussion

[OmegaNovaios]

I made this thread to probably, maybe, perhaps get some answers from the developers and/or community representatives regarding this upcoming feature, if not immediately, sometime in the future. Discussion is also welcome obviously.

The one question I have is: How do the developers think implementing this feature will benefit the game? In other words, what good would it do to the game to have this feature replace(?) the stamina gauge and manual attack input?

I have two possible scenarios to explain the developers' intent for having this feature (my knowledge is limited however):

1) The players feel that spamming attacks is an issue with the combat system, therefore the auto-attack feature is being planned to address that. However, it makes me wonder why the developers think that making the gameplay less involving would benefit it in the long run? I have seen more than few times that the players feel that they can not communicate well enough with such a 'fast' combat system. Wouldn't it be better to implement other ways to communicate (such as voice chat) instead of making the gameplay less involving instead? Do you think that the huge majority of potential players will approve of this kind of method to increase the communication in-game, when superior alternatives already exist?

2) The development team feels that going towards gameplay more familiar to the majority of MMORPG players would benefit the game. This basically means that basic attacks are automatic while 'spamming' special attacks with their own cooldowns becomes the norm. However, can you say that this is objectively a beneficial change for the game as a whole, taking into account just how massive of a change we are talking about in the end? Will this change make the game better than, say, improving on and polishing the existing stamina gauge and manual input mechanics? More importantly, as the servers are in Japan there will always be more input lag than in other MMORPG's with region-based servers, making our version of the combat system worse from the get-go.

In the end what we need is a polished system that works, but I would like to hear what the people at SE as well as the players have to say about this feature and it's potential beneficial effects for the game. Lastly, I want to say that I initially did not agree with the decision to bring back the 'classic' classes but as I heard from the Producer Yoshida himself how the feature will be implemented, I agreed with his plans. I hope to see the same happen here. If the developers have plans to make the combat system more involving in other ways, then obviously I would agree with the change.

I believe that an auto-attack system should be added to FFXIV for several reasons similar to FFXI, but with a slight difference and naturally making it more of a middle ground between FFXI and what FFXIV is now since FFXIV has a much faster TP generation process thus making combat still much more active than FFXI even with auto-attack. My proposal is to instead have auto-attack behave exactly like that in FFXI, but keeping the regular attack actions and when pressing the button for those actions it will turn on/off that type of action and even allowing players to not have an auto-attack being performed for the "regular attack Battle Regimen effect" as well as being able to face the monster without attacking while engaged in combat unlike in FFXI.

1. Spamming attacks is an issue for me since I get locked into this "spam queue" where I cannot do any other action until this queue has been executed, which in turn prevents me form using actions such as Feint (500 TP: In the event that you miss an attack you may use this action to perform a guaranteed hit) since there is a specific amount of time to use this action as well as prolonging me to use any other action that isn't restricted by a time limit like this which in some cases causes wasted TP since I like certain TP actions that can use 3000 TP and this queue can force several regular hits after I have already acquired 3000 TP. Now I know that I can resolve this issue by waiting until my regular attacks are executed before queuing the next, but I find this inconvenient as well as a waste of time not performing an action in some cases due to general lag/latency.

Now if an auto-attack was implemented it would resolve this issue as well as promoting the use of Battle Regimen. Now I know that very many people (most of the player base by far) do not use Battle Regimen because it isn't that convenient to use since everyone must stop doing any action what so ever in order perform a Battle Regimen correctly and effectively. This in turn not only prevents people from taking advantage of the benefits from Battle Regimen but prevents people form even attempting to learn to use it properly. If there was an auto-attack feature this would allow players to be active during the event of performing a Battle Regimen thus giving the player base no reason to not use it and even allows players to communicate in battle more effectively because that is one less thing they have to worry about executing. Now I know that this makes performing the "regular attack Battle Regimen effect" the same as before and I can't think of a better way to incorporate this than as my proposal above, but I view this as "using most Battle Regimens is better than using none at all" and it's still possible to perform the regular attack Battle Regimens.

Also, this helps players to maneuver around monsters more quickly to be in the most advantageous spot in event of using tactically placed actions or evading monster AOEs.

2. I'm pretty sure that most of the player base is former FFXI players (whether they liked FFXI or not) and that they would not find this as being something they are not familiar with and maybe even as an improvement to FFXI since combat would still much more quickly paced than FFXI since you can use TP actions much more frequently.