Comments from the Devs

[Charismatic]

Problem I have with auto-attack is that you currently get rooted to the ground for every action you take.

Whoa, someone else who sees this as a problem!? Anytime I bring it up, people seem to act like it doesn't matter. In plenty of games you can still move while you're acting and/or smoothly transition from one move into another but you can't do either in XIV. That's one of the largest issues I have with the current system.

[Sephiroth]

I'm not worried at all about the rate of content. All of the big projects talked about should be coming in May and I am expecting companies in about two weeks with a post explaining them in detail next week. So in six weeks it will be time to judge whether this game is on the right track.

[Hyan]

Whoa, someone else who sees this as a problem!? Anytime I bring it up, people seem to act like it doesn't matter. In plenty of games you can still move while you're acting and/or smoothly transition from one move into another but you can't do either in XIV. That's one of the largest issues I have with the current system.

This and the animations that do not seem to sync properly are my biggest gripes with the current system. There is no transition animation and while I have no problems with the actual animations themselves, switching from one animation to the other is not smooth at all.

What I mean by this is that the limbs tend to disappear and then reappear in the starting position of the next animation instead of the limbs actually moving to the correct position frame by frame.

If they could fix that issue, make it so basic attacks do not root you to the ground and generally speed up the skills like they did with the gathering animations... that'd take them quite far.

[Charismatic]

This and the animations that do not seem to sync properly are my biggest gripes with the current system. There is no transition animation and while I have no problems with the actual animations themselves, switching from one animation to the other is not smooth at all.

What I mean by this is that the limbs tend to disappear and then reappear in the starting position of the next animation instead of the limbs actually moving to the correct position frame by frame.

If they could fix that issue, make it so basic attacks do not root you to the ground and generally speed up the skills like they did with the gathering animations... that'd take them quite far.

Honestly, if they did these things and allowed you to 'cancel' your current action into reactionary abilities (like haymaker) and stances (like the shield blocking stance) I would probably not even care too much if they left the base system the same. I would still change a good few of the abilities, traits and stamina/mp costs on abilities that classes get but the system itself would be something I wouldn't mind them leaving alone.

[solracht]

This and the animations that do not seem to sync properly are my biggest gripes with the current system. There is no transition animation and while I have no problems with the actual animations themselves, switching from one animation to the other is not smooth at all.

This is actually why I couldn't believe them when they said the alpha battle system was a temporary one (not that we really needed any proof they were just saving face). The animations were fine when you had a forced 1.5-2 second delay between actions (because of your turn bar filling up) but as soon as we switched to a battle system where you could easily chain skills, it showed that the animations weren't made for it.

Unless they made animations that were going to look bad on purpose, I guess.

[Hyan]

Honestly, if they did these things and allowed you to 'cancel' your current action into reactionary abilities (like haymaker) and stances (like the shield blocking stance) I would probably not even care too much if they left the base system the same. I would still change a good few of the abilities, traits and stamina/mp costs on abilities that classes get but the system itself would be something I wouldn't mind them leaving alone.

I think they could go a bit further and make moving in the battlefield faster. I haven't given much thought to it but I think the "position + direction" thing they've got going on could be refined more as well.

I think they'd have to do something about the monsters for that to work too though. Meh, anyway this was a good reminder that I should probably make a thread about the animations.

[Charismatic]

This is actually why I couldn't believe them when they said the alpha battle system was a temporary one (not that we really needed any proof they were just saving face). The animations were fine when you had a forced 1.5-2 second delay between actions (because of your turn bar filling up) but as soon as we switched to a battle system where you could easily chain skills, it showed that the animations weren't made for it.

Unless they made animations that were going to look bad on purpose, I guess.

I honestly think the same thing. I also think that system worked better with reactionary abilities and offhand stuff like shields since they were on a separate bar.

[neubian]

I read the original Japanese post and in the first paragraph, he states that in order to make adjustments to the battle system and the balancing of battle mechanics, they think that the implementation of an auto-attack is necessary.

[Hyan]

Well now I'm confused.

[Elcura]

If they do add auto-attack, they could do it within the confines of the system. Taking PUG for an example, heavy strike and light strike would be your auto attack sets, so when you pick heavy strike, your auto attack might be slower but stronger, light strike makes your auto-attack quicker but weaker (for TP building). Add in stances and more reaction abilities and I reckon you have a decent system (pending design of skills).

THM would have phantom dart as their normal auto attack, silhouette as an auto attack that lowers enmity, shadowfall as an aoe-auto attack (probably won't end well for anyone, lol).

GLD would have stab and slash as two damage forms for different enemies.

MRD would have heavy attacks, and broad aoe attacks.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I had some crazy idea about the basic attacks and how they could have been executed. It's more console-like but if there was a transparent overlay that appeared when you engage in battle that showed either your d-pad or some four basic attack button and you selected your next basic from that, or could stack up to three like that, it would free up action bar space. I am not good in art or anything though...

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...V/ffxivatk.jpg

Of course mine isn't transparent cuz that's beyond my ability (and MS Paint too), but this is the basic idea. It could up above the target hp bars or to the middle-left of your character when engaged. You'd also have to figure out a way to make this work when these buttons are normally used for other stuff during combat (like holding L1 or R1 while pressing your basic, or making you hold one of those to activate action bar command), but that's the gist of it. I always felt that you should have all four basics at your disposal always, and if you were gonna mash buttons, they should combo together, like a fighting game or something. Meh, just my ideas on it.

[Lucavi]

A lot of people complain about lack of auto-attack, but what they really want is less input during combat. However these things aren't really related (unless you only played FFXI): there are a lot of MMORPGs that have auto-attack where you have to press buttons more often than in FFXIV.

XI has pretty much the fewest imputs during combat of any major MMO on the market. Auto attack would allow the devs to include more abilities for people to play with, because players wouldn't simply have to mash 1 over and over again to do what essentially boils down to "white damage". I don't expect people that have only played XI and XIV to understand that, though, as when compared to the snooze fest that is XI combat (again, compared to the rest of the major MMO market), XIV must be as engaging and "thrilling" as hell.

[Croy]

Official Translation of Matsui Comment on Auto-Attack

Hello adventurers of FFXIV! This is battle lead Akihiko Matsui.

I would like to take this moment to explain the current plans we have in place.

First off, once the future battle balance and battle system adjustments take place, we feel that the implementation of auto-attack is quite necessary. Please embrace this as just one of the many necessary revamps needed to create more interesting and strategy rich battles as well as solve the tediousness of having to spam a button.

With this said, I do not feel that the implementation of auto-attack will solve everything. In other threads there have been many topics coming up about what is going to happen to the stamina gauge and claim system, how classes should have unique qualities and stats, what’s going to happen with monsters, raid dungeons, equipment, etc. I have looked over all of the great number of elements and at the current stage feel that without implementing auto-attack that the future battle system would be impossible.

Compared to the FFXI auto-attack system, we are thinking about making the auto-attack system for FFXIV have a shorter attack delay. (This has been a heated debate on the forum, and having been lead of FFXI please forgive me for bringing it up as a point of comparison. There is no "better" or "worse" system.)

The objective here is not to lower the battle difficulty. The main objective here, when thinking about battles rich in strategy, pace, and exhilaration, is instead of having to time regular attacks, we will be preparing situations that require proper timing of abilities, magic, and weapon skills. Following this, weaker enemies are a different story, but we will make sure it’s balanced so you can’t win a fight just by using auto-attack.

Due to the fact we still have a lot of elements that need to be tested and looked into, it is difficult for me to tell you any more info in great detail, but if you give me some time I will do my best to share the information with you. Thank you!

And also the translation for Minagawa's second talk on aggro icon and what it means going forward.

Hey everyone! Thanks for the huge amount of feedback!

I would like to explain two things.
The first is about the design choice regarding having an aggressive icon at all and the second is in regards to our plans to integrate an ON/OFF toggle for displayed UI elements.

First, as to the reason why we added the aggressive monster icon, for the upcoming battle fixes, we decided to display addition information necessary for battle strategy.

There are many aspects related to the upcoming battle fixes, but one example of how we are making adjustments that lead to more enjoyable gameplay is by showing information such as the strength of field monsters (their level), whether or not they are aggressive, and whether or not they will link. With this new information, players can make a decision whether they wish to fight these types of enemies and it also allows them to plan crowd control out ahead of time.

Due to the fact that a quick fix for this is quite difficult, we have been making adjustments in stages. We have discussions with Yoshida and the battle team about what kind of info should be shown and what should be masked and once we make a decision we have been implementing them.

The current aggressive icon and the upcoming enemy level display are only one part of the current stage of edits.
　
Next on the agenda is the ON/OFF display toggle.

The aggressive icon that was recently implemented was a bit of information we wanted players to be able to check easily that fits hand-in-hand with the future battle plans, and thus we released it as a full-time display feature. Originally we thought that the icon wasn’t something that needed to be easily turned on/off, but after seeing the current reactions and hearing all of your feedback, after long consideration we have decided to make it possible to toggle the display. We will also continue to make adjustments to display toggling and display methods for the information displays we have planned for the future.

I apologize for not going into more detail earlier, but hopefully now you can better see our reasoning for the implementation.

[solracht]

Oh man, I can't wait for the forums to notice the UI announcements

[Groovebox]

Woot! Bring on the AA... very pleased to hear this!

[Lucavi]

Haha, right on time after my post; speeding up auto attacks to fall in line with today's MMOs. Not surprising at all, but it'll be great to watch the fur fly from the purists.

[Elcura]

I like how an on/off button needed a long discussion. I don't care about the icon, it's information and the more you have the better, but my first suggestion to complaints would've have been just to make it toggleable.

[Sirenia]

omg YUSS auto attack!

[Kenshiin]

Haha, right on time after my post; speeding up auto attacks to fall in line with today's MMOs. Not surprising at all, but it'll be great to watch the fur fly from the purists.

Could you expand on how it falls in line with today's MMO? How much faster than ffxi do other MMO's auto attack?

[Grey Jorildyn]

Battle speed isn't necessarily determined by auto-attack speed. However one of the most significant effects on battle is this--as the number of spam/cycle-able abilities you can spam increases, the time spent in battles decreases. XI had very few abilities and forced you to auto-attack (and thus controlling the pace of battle) because the only way to generate TP was to auto-attack (with the exception of Meditate--which consequently made SAM a broken-ass job for so many years, right?). And you needed TP to do real damage, but there were some exception here as well, such as Barrage, which also consequently made RNG quite good.