Action condensing options

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Originally Posted by BrokentoothMarch

An additional layer of execution being condensed to little more than "press next number" is hardly some intense thought.

An actual layer of execution would require more reactive responses. An enemy is casting X, however, if they are casting something else, Y is the better option. I must keep Z up now before the next phase, as I will not be able to reapply Z come that moment. There are extremely few, if any, moments like that in this game.

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Execution isn't inherently tied to any kind of thought process. In Rythm games, high-level play typically revolves around memorizing and repeating a scripted map of inputs. Combos are just a convolution to provide some variety and depth to filler inputs, while the 'thinking' happens in more manageable intervals determined by your overall rotation and cooldowns. Homogenization is definitely a problem in this respect, but giving jobs even less buttons to press doesn't help anything. Condensing combos isn't going to prompt the devs to add complexity in their place.

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Originally Posted by BrokentoothMarch

This is why I often say this game is complex in name only. Aside from many a button, there's not much behind it. And, again, there are some buttons that simply have no business not being collapsible. I once again bring up Ikushoten and Ogi Namikiri, which are buttons that are intrinsically tied (You literally cannot cast Namikiri without Ikushoten) yet are two different buttons. This is hardly complex, but instead just tedium pretending to be complexity.

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I have to side with an earlier poster; I don't really think it's reasonable to comment on a games complexity when you don't actually do the offered content that fully engages the games mechanics. I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that more of the games content should necessitate jobs to actually interact with their toolkit in a meaningful way.

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Originally Posted by BrokentoothMarch

Both of you can cope about how it's more complex to press a button with the label 2 over it rather than 1 all you want, but it doesn't make things any more deep. If you truly are going to tell me that complexity is something we were all taught in pre-school, then what a pathetic bar to pass and I have no need to discuss with either of you. .

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Ok, with all of what you've just said taken into account;

Can you explain why you yourself frequently fail to complete combos during combat encounters? Is it just personal choice not to interact with the combo system or something?

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Originally Posted by BrokentoothMarch

lol

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You're arguing "because there is something that can be done that is more complex that means that this thing isn't more complex" which is a stupid, pedantic argument. Nobody said "1-2-3" is "hard" and nobody said "1-1-1" is "not hard."

The argument is that 1-2-3 is harder than 1-1-1, and significantly more than you're giving it credit for. But, I'd imagine that's difficult for someone with your brain capacity to understand I suppose. There's definitely no difference between DPSing as a healer and DPSing as any other job. Nope nope nope. Healers don't complain about pressing 1 button 70%-90% of a fight, nope nope nope. Summoner being reduced to 2 buttons for a majority of their rotation has been widely accepted as a great idea.

I honestly wish that I lived in whatever world you guys are in.

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Originally Posted by hagare

lol

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Great response. Your intelligence and command of the English language is staggering. I don't know how I didn't see it your way.



You guys want to argue your points, use that brain capacity to do so.

The layering is great for some classes, but not others. It made a lot of sense for summoner, but it wouldn't make sense for something like samurai. What we have right now is likely to stay as it is.

Melees certainly aren't likely to be condensed as most have skills branching off. The most they might do is stack up the AOE combos to save space.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

As a controller player you have 16 slots on 8 pages with immediate access to many of them through the multitude of shortcuts to access those pages without needing to manually flip through them. You actually have more space on a single crossbar than a keyboard player has on a single hotbar. I don't wanna hear that crap about lack of real estate for controller users. If you can't juggle face buttons and the dpad in a game with a 2.5s GCD then that's a you problem.

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and you ignored what I said about execution through movement mechanics

to press the directional buttons "naturally" requires the momentary removal of the thumb from the left analog stick
depending on the actual dance involved with the movement mechanics sometimes momentarily stopping movement isn't an option
not impossible to do but requires fast reflexes and/or enough knowledge about the fight to pre-plan everything

also saying controller has access to 8 pages is a stretch bigger than the Grand Canyon
in combat you have quick access to 3 pages with:
L1 and R1 (which most use as their default bar)
L1 + R1 and R1 + L1
double tap L1 and double tap R1
and while that is 48 buttons total only half (24) are face buttons

and each of those pages I personally have either 'often used buttons' or 'oh crap buttons' on the face buttons and I still have things also living on directional buttons that I wouldn't mind having on face buttons

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Originally Posted by Lauront

They are solely talking about abilities that have chained combos, and these inherently end up taking up more space. Try any melee dps or tank in PVP mode and you will see what they mean. Again, the OP put this forward as an optional thing. I would not use it. Many wouldn't. But it'd be nice as an option for those complaining about lack of button space etc. like Rowde above. With that said, I also like the suggestion Leon had about an AOE type stance. Not that it need be mutually exclusive, but there's non-combo using jobs which also utilise a lot of button space, so that would be beneficial there. Their design is just not very economical in some cases, where it could be.

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So take DRG as an example. They have 1-2-3-4-5 then also 1-6-7-5-4
SAM 1-2-3, 1-4-5, 1-6
I don't even want to look at MNK atm...
I'm literally just looking at basic combo chain skills.
However ranged physical dps don't have a 1-2-3 combo because their basic weapon skill abilities are pretty much a process of pressing 1 until a proc happens that highlights 2 and 3.
Ranged magical DPS don't really have a 1-2-3 combo either as they're more about skill synergies and resource mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

They are solely talking about abilities that have chained combos, and these inherently end up taking up more space. Try any melee dps or tank in PVP mode and you will see what they mean. Again, the OP put this forward as an optional thing. I would not use it. Many wouldn't. But it'd be nice as an option for those complaining about lack of button space etc. like Rowde above. With that said, I also like the suggestion Leon had about an AOE type stance. Not that it need be mutually exclusive, but there's non-combo using jobs which also utilise a lot of button space, so that would be beneficial there. Their design is just not very economical in some cases, where it could be.

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Achieving an AOE stance for the purpose of saving button space is as simple as putting said buttons on a new row. Just flip back and forth as needed.

Man, all this extreme focus on skills when the real glory is in the saved space and keeping hotbars tighter and neater.

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Originally Posted by Lustre

Why do people keep asking for this? It gives me a strong "I want to roll my face on the keyboard and collect my rewards" vibe

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Probably because anything over 24 skills feels like button bloat.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Probably because anything over 24 skills feels like button bloat.

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lol nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Probably because anything over 24 skills feels like button bloat.

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Nah it's probably because FPS games are pretty much played with only 1 button so that's all a lot of the ppl coming from those can handle... :P

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Originally Posted by KuroMaboroshi

example, one of the two common TEA openers would abort its combo after a few GCDs in order to be able to place a DoT on the Liquid Hand the moment it appeared.

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That isn't hampered in any way by combo consolidation, though.

Since all ST combos fork only at their second step or later, you can just got any other ST combos key to restart even the one you're already on.

You lose no access to any of the minor optimizations already possible. There was no use case for hitting Vorpal after Full, only for continuing, changing, or restarting combos, all of which you can still do.

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Probably because anything over 24 skills feels like button bloat.

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Depends on how those in excess (of wherever you tend to draw the line) are used.

Are the excess useful in their own right? Or do they require multiple buttons just to perform a single decision, without any new use cases or affordances provided by their split? Can they only be used after certain actions anyways, and for only as long as the other is on cooldown? Worse, do they effectively lock you out of other skills, making a waste of far more buttons for the time being?

If they do any among those, then they're probably bloat. But that's what's being lost in these comparisons to Heavenward. The occasional oddity like Power Surge aside, those extra skills had multiple use cases as to warrant their separate buttons, unlike Draw play, Ikishoten-Namikiri, and the like. It had a greater number of auxiliary keys, but less bloat.

(And, no, ARR did not have as many buttons as now for most jobs. Our ARR native kits had a max of some 21 keys, and you could only slot 5 Additional Skill actions. Compare that to some 26 native buttons and 5-6 Role Actions.)

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Originally Posted by Saraide

And yet when checking many logs of many different players on real content you very often see missed combos. If the 2-3 spaces on your hotbar you free up make or break your setup, then the issue isnt combo buttons taking up multiple spaces, it's that your hotbar setup sucks.

Pointing to it being an option is completely meaningless. Job difficulty and mechanical difficulty is always connected, make one easier and you make the other easier aswell.

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Or, like me you have a physical impairment that makes having a large number of keybindings impossible.
having the option to consolidate skill chains would be a major QoL update.

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Originally Posted by Croatoan

There should be the OPTION to make all weaponskill combos "one-button" chains instead of requiring you to press a sequence of 3 different keys.
There're also several actions that should be optionally consolidated to 1 key. AST's draw/play for example.
If implemented, this wouldn't grant any kind of advantage or effect other players in the least.

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There is a 3rd party tool that rotates your combo actions. That's all I can say.

As others have said this is completely ignoring that most melee dps have branching base combos. Take SAM for example. As the person stated you have 1-2-3, 1-4-5, and 1-6. They need to be separate because two of them have buffs that need to be maintained to them and you may need to alternate where you are starting on each pull based on the status of your buffs and how much and which Sen you have. So at most, you got rid of a whopping 2 buttons. Not much difference and tbh... I don't see much advantage of it. Like okay wooo. The reality of it is, all you are doing is earning yourself about 2 button spots top for no reason other than... you want to just press the same button. Hells PLD will only gain a single button spot because it too has a branching combo.

That said, if it is purely optional. Sure whatever, but I don't really see a need to use any resources on making it a thing.

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Originally Posted by Vrankyl

As others have said this is completely ignoring that most melee dps have branching base combos. Take SAM for example. As the person stated you have 1-2-3, 1-4-5, and 1-6. They need to be separate because two of them have buffs that need to be maintained to them and you may need to alternate where you are starting on each pull based on the status of your buffs and how much and which Sen you have. So at most, you got rid of a whopping 2 buttons. Not much difference and tbh... I don't see much advantage of it. Like okay wooo. The reality of it is, all you are doing is earning yourself about 2 button spots top for no reason other than... you want to just press the same button. Hells PLD will only gain a single button spot because it too has a branching combo.

That said, if it is purely optional. Sure whatever, but I don't really see a need to use any resources on making it a thing.

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3 buttons for SAM thats enough for a whole new chain of ogcds or new kenki spenders if you feel like just 3 buttons isn't alot then i guess kaiten shouldn't have been removed for button bloat/actionbloat then as well. and getting more kenki spenders is also useless since it's being basically used for shinten spam now by other sams

PLD would save 2 buttons since you only need 2 buttons one for the main combo and one for the branching combo. once again thats two whole spaces they can work with that aren't being taken up cause little timmy could fat finger 3 instead of 4. which is entirely moot for multicombo jobs or branching combo jobs since you can still fat finger 1 instead of 2 for your finisher.

also MNK wouldn't be consolidated into 1 button combos cause his kit actually makes use of each combo button. and for example doesn't have a second step button that is just there to essentially get you to your finisher and serves no purpose outside of being used in the combo. stop bringing him up as a reason to stop ALL other jobs from being condensed. he wouldn't anyways it's not that hard