Still no auto-combo for 123 on old jobs.

I feel like all this talk about "complexity" vs "braindead" is missing the actual heart of the matter which is that consolidation tends to lead to loss of flexibility.

If we had forced consolidation, then I can no longer spam 1-2 to keep refreshing Brutal Shell until Heart of Corundum comes back up as the SMN hardcasts the healer up again. In that situation, being forced to press 3 and delaying 2 for a GCD could end up with a wipe.

We'd also lose the flexibility to end our combo early for later alignment. Being able to press 1-1-2 or 1-2-1-2 to prime a 3 for when the boss returns is sometimes worthwhile.

These are things that people do consider, forcing combo consolidation just removes this flexibility. That's why I'd rather see optional consolidation for the people who don't care for such considerations rather than forcing it on everyone.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

It's the constant push for further simplification in general.
People ''just'' wanted burst windows simplified.
People ''just'' wanted gapcloser potency removed.
People ''just'' wanted animation locks removed.
People ''Just'' wanted busy weave windows removed.
People ''just'' wanted slightly less button bloat.
People still want positionals removed.
People still want their GCD's consolidated onto a single button.

If you question or criticise any of these suggestions, people immediately think of the one suggestion in a vaccuum and it's annoying. Because you can never put the simplification process to question.
At a certain point you just got to ask; when will people be happy? Because idk about you but i find myself having less and less fun with 14 the more they remove abilities and simplify the game.
Look at how the healers ended up. I can not stomach playing them because i don't want to press 1 button over and over. Is that the extent that people want to take things? Because it genuinely seems that way.

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You are playing the wrong game if you don't expect the trend of simplificiation to continue. Simply put, it's obvious this is the devs intention and the majority of players enjoy it. Best not to get your hopes up.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

You are playing the wrong game if you don't expect the trend of simplificiation to continue. Simply put, it's obvious this is the devs intention and the majority of players enjoy it. Best not to get your hopes up.

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If it makes you feel any better, i'm already one foot out.
The only reason i was still playing for the last year were friends but i already told them i'll be taking a break from the game.
My sub expires this week and i won't be resubbing until at least the next tier, but idk if i want to raid anymore even.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

It's the constant push for further simplification in general.
People ''just'' wanted burst windows simplified.
People ''just'' wanted gapcloser potency removed.
People ''just'' wanted animation locks removed.
People ''Just'' wanted busy weave windows removed.
People ''just'' wanted slightly less button bloat.
People still want positionals removed.
People still want their GCD's consolidated onto a single button.

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And, outside of perhaps the last, none of those are the person to whom you were/are speaking. (Even then, it's not "all GCDs should be one button". It's "Each GCD action should be one button, instead of arbitrarily anywhere from 1 to 4 buttons for that single rote course of action.")

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people immediately think of the one suggestion in a vaccuum

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They clearly haven't been, though. Nor have I. There is considerable mention of the surrounding framework of the game.

If others were to behave in the way that you have, by conflating every instance of a larger trend into which they feel your opinion or suggestion could be nested with that individual opinion or suggestion, they could as easily look at your refusal to even consider agency-per-button-count as yet another way to take pretense of complexity over actual complexity.

You see the issue?

Again, I'm in agreement that the game has been oversimplified. I think that needs to be reeled back. In my case, that would almost certainly include replacing rote combos with actual separate but variously combo-capable (branchingly synergetic) actions so that the button count is actually meaningful (i.e., actually gives real complexity instead of reducing the space available for it while providing nothing beyond a bit of extra finger-dancing).

But strawmanning others' positions through conflation and vilification are not how one meaningfully deals with any such issue.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

I feel like all this talk about "complexity" vs "braindead" is missing the actual heart of the matter which is that consolidation tends to lead to loss of flexibility.

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Depending on how it's implemented.

Combos each have only two options, though:

1. Continue the combo
2. Restart the combo early

Everything else is self-sabotage.

Or, take something with a far greater current button cost but more decisions available in total (such as via multiple combos):
A Dragoon currently has 7 single-target GCD buttons to be optimally used. However, it has only 3 GCD decisions optimally available to it:

1. Continue Full combo
2. Continue Chaos combo
3. Restart either combo

So long as you retain access to those 3 decisions, there is zero loss to flexibility -- only to traps that predominately affect only the most anxious or those with the least manual dexterity.

Finally, take Samurai:

• Continue Setsu combo.
• Continue Getsu combo.
• Continue Ka combo.
• Restart any combo.

Here, though, because Setsu already forks from Getsu and Ka at the 2nd GCD per cycle, unless one intends to spam Hakaze indefinitely, for which there is no use case, one could choose not to bother with the 4th button and still be able to reset any combo in the extremely rare even that they need to refresh a buff because of 40 seconds straight of downtime-or-poor-play but have no Midare available.

Granted, none of this quite matters when, as suggested by the OP from the start, the stacks would be a separate option. (One could just keep a spare uncomboed combo-opener on their bar to force whatever resets they want.)

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

It needs a lot of the old complexity brought back.

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Agreed.

Though, that doesn't mean we should, as a rule / without regard, preclude even any and all customization, technical innovation, or the like just for its making the game's actual simplicity clearer.

If there are conditions we want to put on it, first, so be it. It does intersect certain worrying trends, however tangentially. But this shouldn't be an option we immediately categorize just to archive forever.

Let's take an example:

Let's say I'd love to be able to start charging a spell before having a target for it and to be able to change my spell's target right up until its final actuation period. On the surface, though sounds like a way to simply not have to worry about my target dying or getting punted out of an AoE stack or to prep a GCD heal to go off just after a tank-buster, thus reducing reward for game-sense or fight knowledge; however, it would also allow players to prepare cast for enemies not yet spawned in or for random target damage that hasn't yet revealed its victim, and that in turn is something the game could further play around. Just as one shouldn't consider only what can be gained through some new QoL feature, it makes no sense to consider only what would be lost.

No. Just no.

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Originally Posted by Ajisaii

How braindead do you want this game to be?

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This statement alone tells me this person never played games like aion BnS

I've said this in at least two other threads and I'll say it here too: I keep track of where I am in a combo based on what button I've pressed, and condensed combo buttons like PCT and VPR's makes it harder to do that. I tend to overcap on gauge far more often on those two because of it. It's also what I use to know which positional I need to hit with Melees as well.

The 'minority' who wants the option to keep combos separated OP mentions isn't just because of some strange elitist mindset

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Granted, none of this quite matters when, as suggested by the OP from the start, the stacks would be a separate option. (One could just keep a spare uncomboed combo-opener on their bar to force whatever resets they want.)

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As I said before, I'm fine with optional combo consolidation as OP asked for, but SE has shown to be very all-or-nothing, so if they do implement combo consolidation, there's a very real possibility that they'll force it for everyone and give you no way to reset your combo, hence 'loss of flexibility'.

Remember when they consolidated Minuet and Pitch Perfect on BRD and if you didn't already have Pitch Perfect on your bar you're just out of luck because they no longer allow you to set it to the hotbar?

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm concerned about loss of flexibility, and why I will continue to voice out this concern.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

As I said before, I'm fine with optional combo consolidation as OP asked for, but SE has shown to be very all-or-nothing, so if they do implement combo consolidation, there's a very real possibility that they'll force it for everyone and give you no way to reset your combo, hence 'loss of flexibility'.

Remember when they consolidated Minuet and Pitch Perfect on BRD and if you didn't already have Pitch Perfect on your bar you're just out of luck because they no longer allow you to set it to the hotbar?

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm concerned about loss of flexibility, and why I will continue to voice out this concern.

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GOOOODSS... I remember when they did that along with Mirage Dive for DRG in EW, and they undid the change for DRG pretty quickly after complaints, but left it for BRD only to undo it at the start of DT. Still salty about that, and that phys ranged grievances aren't prioritized the same way melees' are.

I guess now 123 takes brain power , we are doomed

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

It's bad players trying to remove as much friction as possible so they can parse high.

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Except none of these changes are for parse players. They didn't gut Dragoon's oGCD spam to make parsing easier. That's just a "happy" benefit. And it's really not if you're in any of those discords. They did it for Casual Timmy who they perceive wasn't playing Dragoon because it was too "busy". In fact, there was a thread over on the JP forums complaining the changes prior to 7.1 weren't enough. Hence why we got this watered down "update."

If making it easier for parsers was their goal, they'd have killed off the two minute meta years ago. That, and the high potency "finishers" they keep tacking on are far bigger sources of friction for a parse than TCJ or oGCD ever were. Didn't crit Double Down and Lionheart in your pot window? Might as well run to the wall, you're not getting 99 no matter what you do.

The only reason I could see them consolidating combos into one button would be to save a bit of action bar space... Which is probably more of a gamepad issue than a Keyboard and Mouse one...

But the way the game is going, they likely wouldn't even add anything into the newly opened space and MNK kinda still needs all 9 of their attacks to be available for Perfect Balance.

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Originally Posted by Kandraxx

What is exciting or engaging about pressing 30 buttons in a fixed rotation that all do nothing but damage? It doesn't make a game that has maxed out it's core complexity more compelling to play. There is an exact reason why it's possible to clear the games hardest content with 1-button-hacks. What is ''fing braindead'' is not removing mundane/nonsensical buttons but the game design itself. Open world basically doesn't exist and all the mainstream instanced content is ''dodge orange/watch arms + gimmick mechanic X'' inside a tiny box. So either you are like me and found your love in side content or really good friends keep you logging on or you probably already left for greener grass elsewhere.

I mean, if you, others or Yoshida himself really feel like that a job must be stuffed with 40 clockwork-like skills, no matter how nonsensical and 'dial a combo' mechanics for the game to not enter mobile territory then something is fundamentally wrong.

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I do agree with that assessment. They could make the 30 buttons interact better with the kit as they used before for sure, but the fact remains that they nuked the whole battle system after HW so it's not like there is a lot of variables left for the kits to actually interact with beyond damage. But it also goes to show the differences in expectations between players: some do like muscle memory rotations and following a scrip and take pleasure in doing it without mistakes (like playing an instrument in a way), while some want to make choices as they go. The problem being that not only the current battle system and encounters are exclusively designed for the former, but the latter also requires a lot more brain power at any given time during an encounter which required a different kind of balancing between encounter and job design.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

As I said before, I'm fine with optional combo consolidation as OP asked for, but SE has shown to be very all-or-nothing, so if they do implement combo consolidation, there's a very real possibility that they'll force it for everyone and give you no way to reset your combo, hence 'loss of flexibility'.

Remember when they consolidated Minuet and Pitch Perfect on BRD and if you didn't already have Pitch Perfect on your bar you're just out of luck because they no longer allow you to set it to the hotbar?

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm concerned about loss of flexibility, and why I will continue to voice out this concern.

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To be frank I wouldn't care about losing that tidbit of "optimization" that is almost always shooting oneself in the foot anyway in this damage meta, for something more interesting and less niche. A newer system with actual meaningful choices, not that kind of micro choice.

On Pitch Perfect, that was a very dumb decision back then that annoyed me and I was fortunate to have kept the PP button on my hotbar, but on the other hand, you could still drag Minuet to replace the old PP button where you wanted to have PP, and keep Minuet as a duplicate elsewhere on your hotbar where you wanted to have Minuet. Virtually, it was the same, you had Minuet in one place, and PP in another. The main drawback was the icon changing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aravell

As I said before, I'm fine with optional combo consolidation as OP asked for, but SE has shown to be very all-or-nothing, so if they do implement combo consolidation, there's a very real possibility that they'll force it for everyone and give you no way to reset your combo, hence 'loss of flexibility'.

Remember when they consolidated Minuet and Pitch Perfect on BRD and if you didn't already have Pitch Perfect on your bar you're just out of luck because they no longer allow you to set it to the hotbar?

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm concerned about loss of flexibility, and why I will continue to voice out this concern.

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I'm so glad I still have my pitch perfect on my hotbar. That change was absolutely unnecessary. I'll never take that button off my hotbar.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Except none of these changes are for parse players. They didn't gut Dragoon's oGCD spam to make parsing easier. That's just a "happy" benefit. And it's really not if you're in any of those discords. They did it for Casual Timmy who they perceive wasn't playing Dragoon because it was too "busy". In fact, there was a thread over on the JP forums complaining the changes prior to 7.1 weren't enough. Hence why we got this watered down "update."

If making it easier for parsers was their goal, they'd have killed off the two minute meta years ago. That, and the high potency "finishers" they keep tacking on are far bigger sources of friction for a parse than TCJ or oGCD ever were. Didn't crit Double Down and Lionheart in your pot window? Might as well run to the wall, you're not getting 99 no matter what you do.

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The problem here is that casual Timmy will be bad regardless of how easy you make the jobs because he doesn't engage with battle content or care about how he's performing. Why tf would you design your battle content to cater to people who don't care about it?

Fuck no, this game is already easy as it is.
Stop it.

123 does take brain power. everything you do does. is it a lot? certainly not. but it is a tiny little bit which adds up with other stuff.

and what is outside the buff windows? we will have a complete 1111 situation there.... looking over to healers... that didnt end well

If a combo can be reduced to 1-1-1 with no loss of decision making and flexibility, then it's already functionally the same as healers' 1-1-1. It's just a matter of tactile feel and…

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

I keep track of where I am in a combo based on what button I've pressed, and condensed combo buttons like PCT and VPR's makes it harder to do that. I tend to overcap on gauge far more often on those two because of it. It's also what I use to know which positional I need to hit with Melees as well.

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PCT is halfway there to lulling me to sleep the same way healers' do. I have to will myself awake to pay attention to the white paint stickers that I'm collecting.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

123 does take brain power. everything you do does. is it a lot? certainly not. but it is a tiny little bit which adds up with other stuff.

and what is outside the buff windows? we will have a complete 1111 situation there.... looking over to healers... that didnt end well

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The "123 isn't hard" argument is one of Xenosys' bad takes that people love to parrot and this argument simply fails to understand what it is that makes the game engaging.

Pressing 123 isn't hard.
Not letting your buff fall off isn't hard.
Refreshing your DoT isn't hard.
Pressing your oGCDs on cooldown isn't hard.
Spending gauge to avoid overcapping isn't hard.
Hitting a positional isn't hard.

When you take any one of these things in a vacuum they seem like something insignificant that could be discarded without much impact. The problem is that the game is only interesting because you need to keep all of these little plates spinning at the same time. The number of things that you need to keep track of to execute your rotation properly gets lower with every patch and the game becomes less engaging as a result.

I feel like lot of people are missing the point, it isn't about whether or not pressing 3 different buttons in sequence is harder or easier than pressing 1 button 3 times in row, it's that combos, and spam are mechanically different ideas. BRD, BLM, and to an extent WAR are spam jobs, while MNK, SAM, and DRG are combo jobs. So in the way that turning a spam jobs into a combo jobs would detract from the job's gameplay, I think turning combo jobs into spam jobs could be as inappropriate as well. PCT as "combos" but it effective plays like a spam job where every time you cast an Additive or Subtractive spell, it just changes color, and ramps up in damage a little. It's a pseudo combo.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

The problem is that a lot of people want to turn jobs into other jobs in some attempt to chase this ever elusive "complexity".

There's people that want to turn NIN into a Dex-using SAM complete with castbars. There's people that want to turn SMN & RDM into no-rez, slow-cast boomy casters like BLM. There's people that want to turn MCH into a "hundred spinning plates support job" like BRD, and each and every time they say the same thing about "friction" to justify wanting such changes all while not realizing that they're basically asking for the dreaded "homogenization" they complain about, except they're fine when it caters to *THEIR* way of playing with little to no regard to others. (I for one would absolutely hate if NIN/MCH/SMN/RDM changed in those ways, but then get called "brainless" when I don't want them that way.)

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Who? What? Where? When? You're arguing against points that people who don't exist never made.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

- Had to cut the rest of your post for character limit -

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How about we design the combat system for people who enjoy and engage with the combat system and design other aspects for the people who enjoy those instead? Trying to dumb down the combat system to the point that people who have no interest in engaging with it can play their jobs well is how you design a boring game.

Trying to counteract boring job design by putting all of your eggs in the fight design basket doesn't work either because:

a) Now the fights have incredibly limited replay value because they're near identical if you change job or role.
b) Every fight is just stack/spread, in/out, limit cut and curtain call anyway. We need (and aren't getting) more unique mechanics for this to even be worth thinking about.

You simply can't design a feature to cater to everyone without making so many compromises that it doesn't actually appeal to anyone.

If someone doesn't enjoy battle content and doesn't want to learn how to play their job well, that's fine. Casual content in XIV is easy enough that it doesn't matter anyway. Just make the jobs more interesting, let the people who enjoy battle content enjoy them and the people who are bad now will still be bad and that's fine.

I'm tired of people asking for less buttons to press.
I want more buttons to press.
Load me up on maximum hotbars, SE.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

They certainly exist (not in this topic per say), and they're just some examples of how some people want jobs to go in one direction but only if its to their personal preference regarding rotation demand (in this case more of it). It's also why I'm not any more inclined to agree with those wanting harder jobs as I do wanting simpler ones, because while I don't like being left bored (as VPR and PCT did) I don't like getting "skilled out" even more than I already am. I only really play 7 jobs as-is because I don't like jumping through the flaming hoops of the rest because it's not satisfying even when I do it correctly.

Though it's all a moot point anyway, since apparently job changes have been done with the mobile version in mind this whole time, so auto-combos are more a matter of "when" not "if", or how my beloved NIN is probably going to lose its Mudras/prep work any patch now because for some reason the PC version has to accommodate for the mobile version and hitting your jutsu correctly sounds like it would be agony on a touchscreen.

Hell, that might be part of why NIN wasn't included for its initial release, because they haven't figured out how to properly gut it first.

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I think you've misread the statement that Yoshi-P made about the mobile version of XIV. He said that the game had to be simplified as part of the process of translating it to a mobile game so that things could be done more quickly and casually. He did not say that the design of actual FFXIV was informed by the decision to make a mobile game.

They're completely separate games developed by completely separate companies in completely separate countries. CBU3 have nothing to do with the mobile version of FFXIV. It's being developed by the Tencent studio who made the mobile version of PUBG. It's literally just a cash grab with the FFXIV brand name slapped on it.

I have an unpopular opinion.. but hear me out,

1- 123 should be removed for all jobs and make it like auto attack.
2- by reducing number of filler buttons now jobs can have room for other skills that could be unique.
3- remove filler combo will give room for players to focus on actual fight instead of focusing on 123.

This is my opinion

If you want to remove 123, just get the mod and figure out yourself why it's bad. It's a 'convenience' that is sweet poison since you would be an idiot to not have it. 'Just make it an option' is a bad faith argument and you know damn well that having it as an option is entirely useless when it will either be entirely useless due to it not being 'optimal', or it will be optimal then the option is redundant anyway.

Look at DRG and how that is met with immediate backlash, but the players say 'Hurr it's still not good enough'.

Well play a different job then. There's 21 of them. If you can't find one, how about not playing the game in the first place until something comes out that you can be happy with?

Removing 123 won't make you better or somehow make you able to concentrate on the fight, because you are incapable of doing it in the first place. You and the Timmy's have other things going on or have other crap playing in your browser and go 'Wow, I couldn't see it' when it's literally plastered on the screen for six seconds. Even if you could concentrate on the fight, they'll still find a way to screw up. Why? Because they didn't bother to actually put in the work to learn. You have literally hundreds of hours to figure it out, and the people wanting it easier still can't do basic rotation.

Maybe stop pretending you are good and actually try to be good at rotation before wanting changes. That is what people should be doing.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I've seen a lot of people complain about adding that, saying it would make the game too easy and simplify gameplay, yadda yadda.
So there's been push back from players who can't accept that basic 123 combos aren't hard.

I rest my case lmao

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To play devil's advocate, the only thing melee has to worry about now *is* button bloat. Although if they removed button bloat and made positionals actually relevant I would be really happy.

RDM really needs that melee combo put together though. It's by far one of the most annoying things about setting up its bars. Especially since it kinda already has it with the Resolution combo. It's inconsistent.

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Originally Posted by Enjuden

If you want to remove 123, just get the mod and figure out yourself why it's bad. It's a 'convenience' that is sweet poison since you would be an idiot to not have it. 'Just make it an option' is a bad faith argument and you know damn well that having it as an option is entirely useless when it will either be entirely useless due to it not being 'optimal', or it will be optimal then the option is redundant anyway.

Look at DRG and how that is met with immediate backlash, but the players say 'Hurr it's still not good enough'.

Well play a different job then. There's 21 of them. If you can't find one, how about not playing the game in the first place until something comes out that you can be happy with?

Removing 123 won't make you better or somehow make you able to concentrate on the fight, because you are incapable of doing it in the first place. You and the Timmy's have other things going on or have other crap playing in your browser and go 'Wow, I couldn't see it' when it's literally plastered on the screen for six seconds. Even if you could concentrate on the fight, they'll still find a way to screw up. Why? Because they didn't bother to actually put in the work to learn. You have literally hundreds of hours to figure it out, and the people wanting it easier still can't do basic rotation.

Maybe stop pretending you are good and actually try to be good at rotation before wanting changes. That is what people should be doing.

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Imagine thinking that aligning 3 glowy buttons in the correct order when they light up is being good at a rotation..

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Originally Posted by Enjuden

If you want to remove 123, just get the mod and figure out yourself why it's bad. It's a 'convenience' that is sweet poison since you would be an idiot to not have it. 'Just make it an option' is a bad faith argument and you know damn well that having it as an option is entirely useless when it will either be entirely useless due to it not being 'optimal', or it will be optimal then the option is redundant anyway.

Look at DRG and how that is met with immediate backlash, but the players say 'Hurr it's still not good enough'.

Well play a different job then. There's 21 of them. If you can't find one, how about not playing the game in the first place until something comes out that you can be happy with?

Removing 123 won't make you better or somehow make you able to concentrate on the fight, because you are incapable of doing it in the first place. You and the Timmy's have other things going on or have other crap playing in your browser and go 'Wow, I couldn't see it' when it's literally plastered on the screen for six seconds. Even if you could concentrate on the fight, they'll still find a way to screw up. Why? Because they didn't bother to actually put in the work to learn. You have literally hundreds of hours to figure it out, and the people wanting it easier still can't do basic rotation.

Maybe stop pretending you are good and actually try to be good at rotation before wanting changes. That is what people should be doing.

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So convenience is a bad evil thing that should be punished? Am I a lesser player for using a more comfortable PS5 controller instead of a Wii remote? Are you really genuinely against OPTIONAL QOL CHANGES?

I find controllers more comfortable, controllers cannot easily fit all buttons on so you have to use toggles to swap between different sets of buttons.
Having condensed combos means more free space to help create a more comfortable cross-hotbar. The action condensing so far for me has only been a positive and is also ABSOLUTELY OPTIONAL.

Condensed combos also seem to be the perfect everybody wins fix to the current button bloat issue where job design is stagnating from Devs unwilling to add more buttons onto most jobs incase it bloats controller players hotbars.

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Originally Posted by undull1

Condensed combos also seem to be the perfect everybody wins fix to the current button bloat issue where job design is stagnating from Devs unwilling to add more buttons onto most jobs incase it bloats controller players hotbars.

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When has square enix ever added complexity or improved job design after removing buttons?

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Originally Posted by Valence

Imagine thinking that aligning 3 glowy buttons in the correct order when they light up is being good at a rotation..

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I'd recommend reading any one of the 500 posts that have already addressed this point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by undull1

So convenience is a bad evil thing that should be punished? Am I a lesser player for using a more comfortable PS5 controller instead of a Wii remote? Are you really genuinely against OPTIONAL QOL CHANGES?

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The problem is that condensing 1-2-3 very quickly stops being optional when it's objectively the superior option that won't let you fail a combo ever.

If you want condensing as a viable *option*, you also need to have an equally powerful motivator to make non-condensed a viable gameplay choice, or you're virtually deprecating it.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

The problem is that condensing 1-2-3 very quickly stops being optional when it's objectively the superior option that won't let you fail a combo ever.

If you want condensing as a viable *option*, you also need to have an equally powerful motivator to make non-condensed a viable gameplay choice, or you're virtually deprecating it.

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The motivator --damn significant in trying to optimize for a raid fight or even just maintain orientation amid mechanics-- is tactile cues and their accordant memory aids (when I hit this combo-finisher, I will have 2 GCDs until adds spawn).

The necessity for parity is simply removing the traps that do not offer any agency (e.g., once you've started a combo, the only options are to reset it or to continue it, similarly to Monk outside of PB). With that the value of those cues is significant enough that I'd have no desire to consolidate skills until having lost use of at least a couple fingers.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, each combo needs two and only two options available to it: to continue, and to restart. All else is a trap. There will never be a reason to hit a combo skill deeper or, other than the opener, lower than what is readied.

_______________

This takes up 2 buttons per combo, with the total reduced per redundant opener. (3 combos sharing the same opener would need only 4 keys for complete control.)

In practice, though, basically only one job in the game can benefit noticeably from a partial combo (GNB, via Brutal Shell), while all others could use 1 button per combo at cost only to tactile cues, not to control.
(Note that while DRG may want to cancel after a mistaken Disembowel or Vorpal in order to swap chains, that can be done by simply hitting the opposite combo, maintaining full access to any and all viable ST weaponskill actions with just 2 buttons.)

_______________

That said, I don't think I could give up the memory aid of having the separate keys on a job with actual cycles. It helps me keep in the rhythm of the fight in ways I'd imagine consolidation (where, say, a GCD 54, GCD 55, and 56 of the same combo are indistinguishable except by SFX and AFX) would fall far short of.

Moreover, rather than a fixed toggle for consolidation or no consolidation, I'd still prefer players be able to macro whatever they please and as they please (though still to one actuation per button-press without some degree of uptime loss), and simply for those without cycles (DNC, BRD, RDM, etc.) to see small changes to make those separate keys more worthwhile:

For instance, Bard might allow for a second stack of Straighter Shot (so that there can be more to Refulgent/Shadowbite than just key-swiping through them into Burst/Laden), and Veraero and Verthunder might be given a more reasonable cast time of 3 or 3.5 seconds (dps-inefficient, but sometimes useful for readying a spell against an enemy about to fall out of immunity or for rebalancing [if that were ever made a real/felt mechanic again]).

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Tl:dr: Given basic parity of being freed from traps, separate keys would still be superior for most players serious about scripted content (i.e., any serious content) due to their supplied memory aid. Offering consolidation will not push out separate keys in any way once you remove what traps provide no agency beyond sandbagging. Thereafter, consolidation should be wholly customizable, however, as supplied by drawing back the intentional sabotage of the macro system, rather than an official and typically XIV-dev-ified toggle.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

each combo needs two and only two options available to it: to continue, and to restart. All else is a trap. There will never be a reason to hit a combo skill deeper or, other than the opener, lower than what is readied.

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There are situations in high end optimization in which breaking combo and using a specific GCD (e. g. Chaotic Spring) can lead to gains if any other GCD would ghost just before a boss disappears from the arena. This is just one example and more do exist. We could argue that they're niche enough but still, they're there. Making the combos of most jobs automatic a la VPR would remove this kind of emergent game play from players.


In any case, I agree with Kaecilius and TomsYoungerBro, the jobs right now are so simplified that simplifying them further by condensing GCDs would essentially make battle content play itself and SE will not give anything in return after removing something. We can start arguing for the consolidation of combos when it makes sense within a job's kit but right now this is not the case for most simply because of how "streamlined" they all are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

As mentioned earlier in the thread, each combo needs two and only two options available to it: to continue, and to restart. All else is a trap. There will never be a reason to hit a combo skill deeper or, other than the opener, lower than what is readied.

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The trap *is* the point. It's a failure state that is not overtly punishing, but one that you don't want to repeat in optimal play, especially in high-end content. We can simplify combo failure states out of the rotation, but let's not pretend there's no point in adding extra cognitive load on a player when they are performing multiple other operations during a combat.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

There are situations in high end optimization in which breaking combo and using a specific GCD (e. g. Chaotic Spring) can lead to gains if any other GCD would ghost just before a boss disappears from the arena. This is just one example and more do exist. We could argue that they're niche enough but still, they're there. Making the combos of most jobs automatic a la VPR would remove this kind of emergent game play from players.

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The only way in which breaking combo can be of net advantage is by resetting it (returning to the opener and prepping a new combo). There is ZERO value in using an unprepped combo skill. You're not getting a dps gain out of a lone Chaotic Spring (no True->DB prior). Its DoT requires its combo preparation.

Viper cannot reset its combos. It has nothing to do with what I just suggested, which is to retain access, always, to reset combos.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

I'd recommend reading any one of the 500 posts that have already addressed this point.

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They make zero sense.

I also recommend reading the post I made somewhere earlier about people enjoying scripted things, even as easy as 1-2-3, vs people enjoying other things and seeing little value in this.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The only way in which breaking combo can be of net advantage is by resetting it. You're not getting a dps gain out of a lone Chaotic Spring (no True->DB prior).

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I just gave you an example of high end optimization in which that's possible.

It'll never stop being funny to me that the people who want this and say "there's no difference, there's no skill expression" are, 99% of the time, the same people that have broken combos if you plug their run's into xivanalysis. Or have 60% uptime on a fight that doesn't have downtime.

Anyone who doesn't break their combos/does have 99% uptime as a non phys range/doesn't have their funny numbers hidden in shame support this? I'd like to clown on you.

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Originally Posted by IOwn92FCHouses

It'll never stop being funny to me that the people who want this and say "there's no difference, there's no skill expression" are, 99% of the time, the same people that have broken combos if you plug their run's into xivanalysis. Or have 60% uptime on a fight that doesn't have downtime.

Anyone who doesn't break their combos/does have 99% uptime as a non phys range/doesn't have their funny numbers hidden in shame support this? I'd like to clown on you.

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I want this. Stop projecting. Also it's very ironic that the character you're posting with has no funny numbers on display to prove your skill with how your attitude is.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

I want this. Stop projecting. Also it's very ironic that the character you're posting with has no funny numbers on display to prove your skill with how your attitude is.

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Sorry, I consider the opinions of War mains invalid. No wonder you hard grieved as Monk. Going from the easiest role as tank to dps sure is a trip, huh?