What if auto attack was removed alltogether?

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Aetrion, Nov 28, 2014.

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  1. Heradite

    Heradite Avatar

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    So you want a challenge in combat and yet you want a class that is more powerful and rare that you presumably would play as? Seems to me like you just want to be entitled to easy PVP wins.

    Sorry, I don't want an entitlement MMO. Next idea?
     
  2. KuBaTRiZeS

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    I'm not content with auto attack either, but I don't know why the alternative to not have auto attack is to have a basic attack. Why do we need those? Damage? we could just raise the minimum amount of damage on hit skills do, so instead of getting ones we'd get twenties... Attack speed? it could affect cooldowns time in locked mode and draw speed or Global Cooldown in deck mode... I find this kind of implementation more suitable for SotA than a basic attack button.

    Playing in deck mode you have plenty of buttons to push, and in my opinion there's no reason for adding another. For me, the only good reason to have auto attack is because playing in full locked mode you'll eventually end having everything in cooldown, so auto attack gives them a basic damage output. It also can be fixed by making one of the basic skills on every tree a reliable basic attack and there you go, auto attack out of the picture without the need of a basic attack button.
     
  3. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    If auto-attack were removed, combat for me would turn into furiously clicking my mouse button until me or the target died.
    I would not be happy with that.
     
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  4. Aetrion

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    You don't use abilities to fight currently? Because the point would simply be that the target dies from ability use, rather than needing the constant background damage on top of that.
     
  5. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    When I fight, I rely on auto attack to keep things going while I watch for useful abilities to pop up.
    If I had to manage on abilities alone, combat would be less fun than I already find it to be.
     
  6. Aetrion

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    Yea, but there are already tons of character where precisely that doesn't work at all. If you play a light armor character who relies on kiting or a mage or archer who have really crummy auto attacks you end up with exactly the situation that you say you don't want.
     
  7. CastChaos

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    Auto attack is needed for something to rely on in combat systems that aren't 100% real time, as in not something like Ultima IX, rather has any modifiers, like the deck system.
    I presume enemies are usually "auto attacking" you, instead of standing still, waiting for a good opportunity to activate some special ability once in a while. Now then, it would be lame to stand still at let something continiously keep biting or slashing me while I'm waiting in awe for my very special secret attack. Nor would it be any great if the choice for chards were forced to be limited by the fact that one needs to make sure there's always an ability available. But if enemies do stand still, waiting for a chance for a special ability and I stand still waiting for MY special ability showing up, too, then that doesn't only look lame, but then we can just utilize a round based ATB system and be off with it (Don't do it though.).

    This thread was useful to remind me that maybe the combat system won't be something I'd utterly love and that I will need to wait after launch, watching videos, reading guides and being on a lookout for related forum posts. Since it's money this time, unless some free trial gets implemented.
    Hope interface status: down.
     
  8. King Dane

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    Something strikes me as odd that moving in Super Smash Brothers Brawl Project M is harder than the entirety of SotA's combat. Add the need to attack, grab, and block, and suddenly the idea of AFK fighting becomes unimaginable in that game (not to mention all of the advanced techniques that can be used).

    SotA's combat starts at *click and wait*, and ends at *stare at hotbar and click*. There has to be some way we can dress things up a bit so that combat has some difficulty to it. I understand that part of the card-system's purpose was to level the playing field, and so maybe we should keep melee combat as is, sort of like in UO, where melee was generally a lot easier (it consisted of click and chase and one hotkey for bandages), but maybe making magery more difficult to use (like in UO) is the ideal way to make it both powerful and rare. However, I don't know how that could be accomplished without taking magery off of the roulette system, which would go against a core element of the game (which is bad, for reasons Rune stated in another thread).
     
  9. Net

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    Auto attack is really useless and rather expensive for archers against good armoured opponents. They waste arrows which make no damage at all.
     
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  10. Halvard

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    balancing sure that is needed and will be done countless times before launch. Removing auto attack is just a bad idea imo.
     
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  11. Borg

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    Autoattack is the ultimate combat system for lazy lizards. Nothing to be proud of......( Zero skill required ).

    Its boring, but I recon it has advantages, I can eat my sandwich while smashing mobs.....
     
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  12. DavenRock

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    I can tell you this, in real life, if someone hits me in the face I will automatically hit them back. :p Without thinking about it.
     
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  13. Aetrion

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    Things should never have higher hard stats because they are "difficult to use". That completely breaks the power curve in the game. How the power curve in a game should work is that in the beginning you get huge strides in how well you perform as your skill increases, but as you approach the really high echelons of skill it takes a lot of practice and work to further improve. When you introduce a system where something that is hard to learn gives you a significant boost in power it completely flips the principle of "easy to learn, hard to master" on its head, and instead just ends up splitting the community down the middle to the people who can use whatever that system is and therefore play in a completely different league and the people who can't and really have no reason to even play at that point.
     
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  14. Kuvu

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    Honestly it doesnt seem to work half the time. I can target a mob and get into attack range and half the time auto attack doesn't attack for some reason, it seems totally random.
     
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  15. MalakBrightpalm

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    Sorry bout the wall of text, the central point is highlighted for low-attention-span readers.

    I think you are all right, to a degree. Now, the following is just my opinion, but I happen to like my opinion, so I'm gonna throw out what I see as being the solution not only to all of these observations, but to the auto-attack concept in the first place:

    There are certain things that people do in a MELEE that are automatic. Most of those things don't happen in a SHOOT OUT, and sure as hell don't happen in a MAGICKAL FIRESTORM (for tips on how people act when accosted by sudden magick events, look at real world examples of bombings, lightning strikes, poison gas leaks, mudslides, earthquakes, tornadoes...).

    When another creature is in front of you, swinging it's limbs at you, you put up your arms automatically to defend your face, neck, and abdomen, the big vulnerable spots on the front of your body. Guys especially learn to passively watch for low swings towards the crotch, and will flinch away from them with preternatural speed if they see them. Dodging, blocking, and parrying are TO SOME DEGREE automatic. Even toddlers and senile old people demonstrate this ability. Hell, kittens show some ability to respond to melee range threats.

    When someone is shooting at you, AND YOU KNOW IT, people tend to duck, cover their heads, and look for stuff to hide behind. It's automatic. We call it common sense, I wonder if it isn't part of a hereditary instinct complex from surviving hailstorms and diving bird attacks, not to mention the fact that neighboring groups of humans have routinely made war on each other since before we classified them as homo-sapiens. That's enough time to evolve an instinctive reaction to a thrown rock.

    When mysterious forces are tearing your environment apart and discharging strange energies at you, people tend to panic, pure and simple. If someone recognizes in the chaos exactly what is happening, they might act rationally, which is why we have emergency preparedness, but in many cases, even trained people freeze, panic, run wild, or become self destructive.

    On the flip-side, when untrained people are ATTACKING, even children learn how to punch and kick and bite, but they tend to be pathetically bad at it compared to trained fighters, and if you think that's an unfair comparison watch a video of a trained fighter taking on an untrained drunk. The drunk looks JUST like a tantrum throwing toddler in his technique. When the untrained are presented with RANGED combat, they can put projectiles in the air, but accuracy is a pipe dream. And as for magick, I'm all in favor of the untrained being totally unable to manifest so much as a glowing butterfly.

    So I think there should be an auto-attack, ONLY for melee, and it should be kinda weak. Just a basic back and forth weapon swing. If I AFK fight something woefully weaker than me, I can auto-kill it, if I'm patient (or eating a sandwich). The trained techniques, the ability glyphs, should represent not basic moves like "slash one enemy" or "thrust over and over", but advanced moves, right from square one, that really matter. The dps from constant ability use should be EASILY more than the auto-attack, so that someone who sucks at playing the game cannot win just by dancing and letting AA do all the work. It's more of a rangefinder, placeholder, tool for fishing for on hit procs, and general realism thing. It shouldn't be the lion's share of your damage.

    Archers shouldn't auto-attack. That's just dumb, think about it: You line up a great shot, get your best arrow, aim for the eye, and fire! Oh no, the target lived and is headed for you! You fire again, using your broad head to stop em in their tracks! But they don't die! Then as you consider your next shot, you plink them halfheartedly a few times as they move towards you, waiting for the chance to aim another shot at their eye....

    That last part would NEVER happen. What kind of tard throws away ammunition and time and effort putting arrows in the air that he KNOWS won't kill the target? Every single arrow shot should be an ability, and they should be LETHAL (vs insufficiently protected targets). One arrow to the head is usually enough to kill a person. The only explanation for a target taking many arrows to kill is protection, either cover, or deflection, or being a really massive creature. Spiders and wolves should go down in precisely one hit. Unarmored humans in two, maybe three.

    I can totally see a role for long duration spells as the auto-damage filler. Perhaps a death spell that tethers the target to you with a passive chain, a DoT that will siphon SMALL amounts of life over the next several seconds while you prepare another spell, but I think that should actually be the more advanced and costly effect, one that is learned AFTER death touch, death ray, death field. A truly trained mage should be able to light an opponent on fire and keep it burning, but that's a much more impressive display than merely throwing a ball of fire AT them. Low level magick is, and should be, kinda ineffective, or everyone would do it. It's for support and hybridization. HIGH level magick should be self sufficient, so that a mage doesn't need to carry a bow or a battleaxe, his magick is enough. This would also solve the problem of warriors in full plate using magick: LET THEM use the dinky low level effects, those wouldn't be tuned to be all that great anyways, and all those points in armor, shield, and blade skills means less points spent in focus masteries, further reducing the power of what they can cast.
     
  16. Athens

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    I don't see auto attack as being a problem, as long as its not too strong. I have seen it used by other games without making the game easy.

    I have had this problem too, and it really bugs me; especially when I get nothing but heals during my first few cards.

    Regarding Mages:

    If you want to have a rare class, you can't go about it by making it "secret" or trying to force players away from it. Imo, a better approach would be to make the mage a challenge to play, but very effective. This would encourage the "entitled mmo" players to move to easier setups.
     
  17. Aetrion

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    Having a basic skill to attack in melee no matter who you are and having a system that automatically attacks the moment you are in melee are IMO two different things.

    Rare classes are never a good idea in a game. Let's say you make magic training a hidden system that people have to find first, the result is simply this: Everyone who really wanted to play a mage but gets frustrated by the system leaves. A year later you can read up on all the secret steps online and it's no longer a secret. Net result is: Lose players, class becomes common regardless.
     
  18. Borg

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    You think too much, welcome to the lazy lizards club.......
    Yea auto attack is important, I usually auto attack flies when they get too close.
     
  19. Duke William of Serenite

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    I recommend we try it without auto attack.
     
  20. Nerdwing

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    I'm mainly concerned by the fact it takes me 20 swings with an axe to kill a small wolf tbh
     
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