Normal Attacks (light attacks, left mouse click, whatever u wanna call them)

George_Black

What will be the reason for a player to use normal attacks in AoC combat?
Here is how I have encountered normal attacks being implemented in other mmos:

ESO: always weaved with abilities or block, dodge and weapon swap for extra dmg. Not visible due to that games horrible animation implementations.
FF14: no use
BDO: no use
Tera Online: refill missing MP, interrupt, stun target.
Line][Age: L2 had a very cool balance between normal (auto) attacks and abilities on CD with valuable MP cost.

From my personal experience the 2 mmos that did justice to normal attacks was L2, because players would make use of buffs that increased attack speed, critical dmg and critical rate, as well as lightsteal, thus giving a good reasons to use normal attacks and moderate characters MP usage. I happened to be playing one of the few classes that did not use normal attacks at all during PvP.
The other is Tera Online, that added functions to normal attacks as listed above, making them tactical tools.

So I wonder, what will be the reason to use normal attacks, once we will our hotbars with abilities?
How have you felt about normal attacks on previous mmos?

Noaani

I personally prefer EQ2's version (shocker I know).

The game didn't have them.

While the game did have auto attacks, they didn't have any such mechanic for a caster while I played, and as I was a caster in that game almost exclusively, to me, the game didn't have auto attack.

So, with no light/normal attack and no auto attack, you are left with your actual abilities to make use of, and nothing else.

To me, that is how all MMO combat should be.

McShave

Steven has said that normal (weapon) attacks are something you weave in between combat abilities to provide randomized chances of damage boost. Attack procs bleed > ability has a bonus effect, is the commonly mentioned example. I assume the effect you get will depend on what weapon you use and how or if you allocate your "talent" points in the weapon specialization.

I also hope that there will be an option to increase the weapon attack's damage through weapon talent points. I want to use a big 2 handed weapon and chunking multiple people down with wide arcing weapon attacks. I'd use some abilities with the weapon attack's, ofc, but I hope there is fun with swinging away with a big weapon.

JustVine

This should be how basic attacks are always incentivized and balanced around to encourage team work and tactical play https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Tactical_Points still the best system in an mmo. I've written exhaustively explaining it in other threads so today im lazy and just linking. Happy to answer questions about it though. Weaponskill chains could easily fit into ashes plans from what we know so far. Especially given Jeffery's past impact on the systems design for it.

maouw

At a bare minimum, normal attacks are super important when you're level 1 and have 1 ability.