Why doesn't pve have pvp combo structure?

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

Pressing separate buttons adds an additional layer of execution the game sorely needs. Most content is already braindead scripted, imagine having to do it while only pressing one button over and over again. People already rejected the changes to healer that have you doing just that.

We might as well put one button on DDR mats or guitar hero controllers at this rate.

Next people will be asking "why cant we just automate the game?".

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The problem doesn't lie with 111 or 123 but the quite bland class/encounter design in general. There is rarely tactics evolved, just pure memorisation a la Simon says.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Ayy, pale skin Xaela partners!



Simple.

make combo chain buttons for each combo. for example, SAM currently uses 6 buttons for its current GCD rotation buttons:
-hakazae
-Jinpu
-Shifu
-gekko
-Kasha
-yukikaze

There are 3rd party add-ons out there I've seen videos of that condense all three combos into just 3 buttons: gekko combo, Kasha combo, Yukikaze combo. bam, 3 buttons of pointless bloat saved.

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Meikyo Shisui

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Ayy, pale skin Xaela partners!



Simple.

make combo chain buttons for each combo. for example, SAM currently uses 6 buttons for its current GCD rotation buttons:
-hakazae
-Jinpu
-Shifu
-gekko
-Kasha
-yukikaze

There are 3rd party add-ons out there I've seen videos of that condense all three combos into just 3 buttons: gekko combo, Kasha combo, Yukikaze combo. bam, 3 buttons of pointless bloat saved.

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sounds fine but how would Meikyo Shisui work?

I can't imagine how boring this would be. It already is excrutiatingly mundane to press 1-2-3 over and over again. This is becoming a joke at this point. (Especially for me as a DRK).

I don't think PVP is the right template to use here. They should think about wether or not this is sustainable for 2 years until the next expansion.

I personally would like 1 2 3 combos removed entirely, or at least have them only on 1 or 2 jobs. I don't like how *every* melee DPS and tank job has them (Machinists have them as well), it's lazy and boring. WoW has 19 tank or melee DPS specs, and as far as I know not a single one relies on 1 2 3 combos.

Im also not a big fan of the Combo system in this game, no matter if its just the one button solution or not. People complain about a mindless one button smasher. But the truth is that even with 3 keys you repeat the same rotation over and over again, you just need more space. Instead of giving you a choice how to build your rotation and adapting things to your play style its already premade and you only have to follow it and push a few other buttons here and there from time to time (for example interrupt, Def CDs or Ressurect).

Maybe an additional option for players who prefer the pvp interface would be nice, giving you the choice if you want to use the standart version or the compact pvp version for the different actions.

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Originally Posted by Shin96

I can't imagine how boring this would be. It already is excrutiatingly mundane to press 1-2-3 over and over again. This is becoming a joke at this point. (Especially for me as a DRK).

I don't think PVP is the right template to use here. They should think about wether or not this is sustainable for 2 years until the next expansion.

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i‘d support a 1-1-1 combo over and 1-2-3 combo if we would get new skills that would make gameplay more exciting or older skills again. i‘m just a little stressed sometimes when a new expansion comes a long with new skills that older ones get killed off. (scholar flashbacks)

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Originally Posted by Shin96

I can't imagine how boring this would be. It already is excrutiatingly mundane to press 1-2-3 over and over again. This is becoming a joke at this point. (Especially for me as a DRK).

I don't think PVP is the right template to use here. They should think about wether or not this is sustainable for 2 years until the next expansion.

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I actually would be in full support of this if they could use the extra buttons to expand on our current jobs instead of the trend they have where they take away 8 skills when the expansion drops and give us back 3 or 4 at max level.

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Originally Posted by HotPixels

I'm not sure what makes you think pressing 123 is more complex than pressing 1, 3 times lol.

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I've always been a little curious about this sentiment when people suggest combo consolidation too. If you're comfortable with the jobs you play, and familiar with a keyboard, pressing 3 different buttons is a negligible increase in difficulty from pressing one button 3 times. This post you're reading now was typed as naturally as breathing, without even thinking about it, and I hit probably 30 different buttons in the process of doing so. If anything, consolidating them makes things harder as it's more difficult to discern what step of a combo you're on, and you lose the option to break a combo on purpose.

But really, I just find it funny when someone says pressing '111' is the last straw that makes a job too easy, as if '123' wasn't just as easy. I don't have any particular love for autocombos for the above reasons, but could it be that they're equally trivial, and you're just fooling yourself into thinking you're doing more work with the latter?

If anything, that the bulk of job rotations can be condensed into one button in the first place is the root of the issue. The real solution is not to distract yourself from that fact with a busywork input method, but to design jobs with more complexity, with rotations that have real degrees of nuance and randomness. That would be more difficult of course, but it's the real answer to the problem.

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Originally Posted by Myon88

But really, I just find it funny when someone says pressing '111' is the last straw that makes a job too easy, as if '123' wasn't just as easy. I don't have any particular love for autocombos for the above reasons, but could it be that they're equally trivial, and you're just fooling yourself into thinking you're doing more work with the latter?

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Healers don't seem to be that happy with their 111 rotation o.ô

However, condensed combos as an option would be nice for the people who want to use them. I would like to have them for Dragoon. But at the same time I have placed the combo for my Dark Knight 3 times on my PvP bar to use it like the 123 combo in PvE.

Just a personal anecdote, but when I play Red Mage and Gunbreaker I have my melee/Gnashing Fang combo tied to shift 5-7 because those are the only only spots I have room to fit them without putting them at a super awkward keybind like ctrl 8-0. Having those combos tied to 1 button would make things a lot less annoying for me because I wouldn't miss the key combos on accident occasionally while dodging mechanics and it would free up more space for extra skills.

Having those combos be 3 buttons doesn't make the job any harder, it just makes it more annoying to play comfortably for people like me who prefer to keep my main skills easily hittable but can't because certain jobs have too many main skills to bind.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

Just a personal anecdote, but when I play Red Mage and Gunbreaker I have my melee/Gnashing Fang combo tied to shift 5-7 because those are the only only spots I have room to fit them without putting them at a super awkward keybind like ctrl 8-0. Having those combos tied to 1 button would make things a lot less annoying for me because I wouldn't miss the key combos on accident occasionally while dodging mechanics and it would free up more space for extra skills.

Having those combos be 3 buttons doesn't make the job any harder, it just makes it more annoying to play comfortably for people like me who prefer to keep my main skills easily hittable but can't because certain jobs have too many main skills to bind.

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GNB already has a consolidated combo on one button, Continuation.
Fact that people always overlook this just shows that consolidating a combo into one button does just reduce it to merely one button, and negates the fact that it's a combo.

I don't want every job to end up like a healers Glare/Broil/Malefic spam.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

GNB already has a consolidated combo on one button, Continuation.
Fact that people always overlook this just shows that consolidating a combo into one button does just reduce it to merely one button, and negates the fact that it's a combo.

I don't want every job to end up like a healers Glare/Broil/Malefic spam.

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And yet every expansion we end up losing skills and getting some back because people want new expansion skills, but we're simply at the limit of how many skills we should have.

Maybe if they could actually consolidate the amount of keybinds we have instead of outright deleting skills, we could finally have an expansion that actually builds on the job we played last expansion instead of one where half our skills magically disappear overnight.

Or they could just delete the entire Gnashing fang combo to make room for some new Endwalker gimmick for the Gunbreaker job, which is probably what's going to actually happen if they don't consolidate anything.

I changed my stance on this several times as people debate 1-2-3 will be boring or just not practical to merge when only a few jobs dont have divergent rotations GNB DRK and MCH being the only DPS with a never ending 1-2-3.

For the people against it:
besides MCH, no job is just its rotation DRG need its disembowel and jumps NIN needs its ninjitsu, SAM never had a straight forward 1-2-3. MNK also need to focus on keeping up twin and demo, no caster needs this besides of few QOL stuff like RDM physical finisher and SMN Trances and some tweaks with BLM. The job wont be any easier , a case here and there can be made with a few tanks and MCH but otherwise the jobs will retain their joy and make room for other refinements and free up space

Uhhh no. There are plenty of situations that happen in content where you might want to do something different than your usual 1-2-3 / 4-5-6. If youre finding the job complicated because it has more than one button, go read up on it or play healer.

Why are people assuming that condensing combo's into a single button makes the game easier? That is a very, very short sighted way to look at things, and totally disregards the possibilities it could offer.

I'm not even going to address the fact that 1-2-3 isn't harder than 1-1-1, but I'll try make a case as to why it should be condensed.

The issue right now with most combo's is that they just aren't very exciting, and they are always repeated ad nauseum. Take DRK for example, you will ALWAYS do 1-2-3, why does it need to be 3 buttons? Just merge them into one, and give us back the old enmity combo as a secondary button (But make it inflict a dot or something). This would double the action a DRK could do, and even have some more design space for something fun like an additional oGCD, with the same amount of buttons.

Those who want the buttons merged aren't advocating for less abilities, they are advocating for more abilities. Merging the boring ones into a single button allows for more design space for other, more fun abilities.

Enough abilities get deleted as is, and this is an issue DIRECTLY linked to button bloat. Merging combo's would allow us to keep all of our toys, and receive new ones without suffering button bloat.

I'd rather have each button on my bar be a totally unique combo-chain or oGCD, than wasting 4 buttons for a sequence of attacks that practically never changes.

The issue regarding healers I've seen littered in this thread isn't that 1-1-1 is boring, it's that 1-1-1 is the only option they have. Give them a 1-1-1, a 2-2 and a 3-3-3-3 and not a single one will complain if each of those option has a specific use case.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

And yet every expansion we end up losing skills and getting some back because people want new expansion skills, but we're simply at the limit of how many skills we should have.

Maybe if they could actually consolidate the amount of keybinds we have instead of outright deleting skills, we could finally have an expansion that actually builds on the job we played last expansion instead of one where half our skills magically disappear overnight.

Or they could just delete the entire Gnashing fang combo to make room for some new Endwalker gimmick for the Gunbreaker job, which is probably what's going to actually happen if they don't consolidate anything.

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There's definitely room for button consolidation, but simply turning every combo into one button isn't the best way to do this. Many jobs have skills that are mutually exclusive, you can't use one while the other is available, or some skills simply become redundant in the presence of others.

BLM: Combine Ley Lines and Between the Lines. Have B2 upgrade into Freeze and F2 upgrade into Flare.
NIN: Combine Dream within a Dream and Assassinate.
SAM: Combine Meditation and Shoha. Upgrade Shinten into Seigan when under Merciful Eyes.
DRG: Combine Fang and Claw with Wheeling Thrust. Delete Piercing Talon.
PLD: Combine Requiescat with Confiteor. Combine the effects of Intervention and Cover, or simply buff one and remove the other.
GNB: Probably would make the Gnashing Fang combo here a 1 button combo, the same as Continuation. So that you simply alternate between the two just like MCH's burst phase.

There, that's all of the worst offenders in terms of button bloat out of the way. The only other jobs with 'too many' buttons are SMN which already does all of this sort of thing with it's Bahamut and Phoenix skills, and BRD, but that already only has 2 combo skills and I'm not familiar enough with it's endgame rotation to know what else to realistically be axed.

I definitely wouldn't combine the combos for the melee jobs into single buttons. Mainly because their combos is what their entire rotation is based around. You remove those and they're reduced to 3 button jobs.
SAM and MNK both have skills that simply wouldn't work with this sort of consolidation, because they unlock the ability to use combo skills out of order.
DRG has 2 very long combos, get rid of those and it has 2 spamming combo buttons and Jump.
Lastly, NIN, has a heavy burst rotation. It already spends half of its time simply hitting the 1-2-3 combo waiting for mudras and Trick Attack to come off cooldown, and it only has 4 of those combo skills to consolidate anyway. Combining them wouldn't achieve much and would make it more boring.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

There's definitely room for button consolidation, but simply turning every combo into one button isn't the best way to do this. Many jobs have skills that are mutually exclusive, you can't use one while the other is available, or some skills simply become redundant in the presence of others.

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That is the real issue, not button merging.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

BLM: Combine Ley Lines and Between the Lines. Have B2 upgrade into Freeze and F2 upgrade into Flare.
NIN: Combine Dream within a Dream and Assassinate.
SAM: Combine Meditation and Shoha. Upgrade Shinten into Seigan when under Merciful Eyes.
DRG: Combine Fang and Claw with Wheeling Thrust. Delete Piercing Talon.
PLD: Combine Requiescat with Confiteor. Combine the effects of Intervention and Cover, or simply buff one and remove the other.
GNB: Probably would make the Gnashing Fang combo here a 1 button combo, the same as Continuation. So that you simply alternate between the two just like MCH's burst phase.

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Most of these are perfect examples of what I'm aiming at. Make a button have a mechanic.

Yet, these are generally all things you do in between your basic combo's. I would love to see the same mind set applied to more varied basic ability design. Make certain combo's reactive, require a pre-requisite, lower damage but faster GCD (and visa versa), etc.. Button consolidation wouldn't be an issue with more varied ability design.

I'm going to stress again that button removal isn't the goal. For each button removed a new one should come in it's place, but, 1-2-3 combo's are just an artificial way to pad the number of buttons a job has access too.

Sure some classes in their current design might need a tiny redesign, but as NIN's Shadow Fang has proven, there are easy cop-outs to achieve this.

The only jobs that really have a combo however are the melee, and MCH.
MCH has far too few buttons as it is so I see no reason to consolidate those.
I've just explained why I don't think any of the melee DPS should have their combo's consolidated.
That just leaves tanks, which already have simpler rotations than the DPS anyway.

Perhaps some of the tanks could see something done with their combo's to differentiate them a bit. I would suggest maybe mix up PLD's combos, and maybe consolidate some of GNB's. Especially as they're two jobs that quite blatantly do have too many buttons.
WAR and DRK if anything need something a little more than what they have, although DRK already has a decent number of skills, it's just it's burst phase that is too simple and similar to WARs.

I quite like the 'variety' of combo systems that the phys ranged have. MCH has 1-2-3, BRD has 1-(maybe)-2 that is dependant on an RNG you can influence, and DNC has a 1-2/A-B system kinda like RDM.
If they could rework the tanks a little something like this, I'd be down for that.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

MCH has far too few buttons as it is so I see no reason to consolidate those.

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Because when consolidated, other combo's with different uses can be added? Why should a class only have 1 combo?

Additionally, a rotation is no reason to shy away from consolidation, as new rotation will be made with a new system too. A branching combo's can be solved in the vein of NIN's Shadow Fang (which was a combo finisher originally).

Consolidation is about maintaining what we have, instead of how it is now, where every class looses stuff. Example: Why did the DRK loose his secondary combo it had for years? Sure enmity has changed, but couldn't they just change the effect from increased enmity to a DoT and keep the entire combo? The answer is button bloat, removing the combo freed up 3 buttons for others stuff yet left the DRK with only 1 combo to do over and over. I see a lot of people complain about healer 1-1-1, but how is the DRK 1-2-3 different? Both deal damage and do nothing more, both also have no additional options. If they just consolidated the combo's they have 2 buttons with twice the combo's and an additional gameplay aspect (the DoT in my example) with an additional 4 they could use for other buffs/debuffs/oGCD's.

Pressing a button is pressing a button. Pressing 1 is the same as pressing 2 to me. It's the effect on the button that matters, if I press 1 and deal damage and press 2 and get a shield, THAT feels different to me. If I press 1 and do damage, and press 2 and do damage, how is that different from pressing 1 twice?

Edit: I can agree upon the DNC execution. That is the only job I fail to see consolidation working for.

Shadowfang was a combo finisher like Armour Crush. It's now a standalone GCD skill.
It's been removed from the combo but it hasn't resulted in any button consolidation at all.
If you actually consolidate NIN's combo skills, you save 2 buttons at most, but then NIN's rotation is 50% hitting 1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-2 etc.

Do you really want DRG to be 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2 with occasional Jumps?

Again, how do you accommodate for MNK's Perfect Balance, Form Shift or SAM's Meikyo Shisui?

"Pressing a button is pressing a button. Pressing 1 is the same as pressing 2 to me. It's the effect on the button that matters, if I press 1 and deal damage and press 2 and get a shield, THAT feels different to me. If I press 1 and do damage, and press 2 and do damage, how is that different from pressing 1 twice?"
90% of any given DPS jobs skillset basically just deals damage. I'm sure you're not saying 90% of their kit could be replaced with 1 button...

You say consolidating buttons makes room for new skills, but then how long until you want those new skills consolidated and we're back where we started? After all, they all just deal damage.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

There's definitely room for button consolidation, but simply turning every combo into one button isn't the best way to do this. Many jobs have skills that are mutually exclusive, you can't use one while the other is available, or some skills simply become redundant in the presence of others.

BLM: Combine Ley Lines and Between the Lines. Have B2 upgrade into Freeze and F2 upgrade into Flare.
NIN: Combine Dream within a Dream and Assassinate.
SAM: Combine Meditation and Shoha. Upgrade Shinten into Seigan when under Merciful Eyes.
DRG: Combine Fang and Claw with Wheeling Thrust. Delete Piercing Talon.
PLD: Combine Requiescat with Confiteor. Combine the effects of Intervention and Cover, or simply buff one and remove the other.
GNB: Probably would make the Gnashing Fang combo here a 1 button combo, the same as Continuation. So that you simply alternate between the two just like MCH's burst phase.

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SMN:
- Combine Enkindle (Pet ability) and Enkindle (Demi Primal) - These two abilities can't be used at the same time.
- Combine Dreadwyrm Trance with Summon Bahamut. Can't use Bahamut without using DT first. DT already turns into Phoenix after Bahamut anyway.
WHM:
- Trait that upgrades Cure 1 into Cure 2 and adjust MP accordingly (500-750 range)
- Trait that upgrades Fluid Aura into Assize and change Assize name to Flood. FA is useless as it is, and low level CNJ / WHM mana regen sucks. Give FA an 8% mana gain on use.
- Trait that upgrades Medica into Cure 3 and simply extend the range on Cure 3. Silly both exist. Or call it medica 3 for the eventual Cure 3 that is going to have to be made later.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Do you really want DRG to be 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2 with occasional Jumps?[/I]

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Dragoon is probably the worst example you can use against button bloat and they always have been. There is literally zero functional difference between 123-4 / 567-8 vs 1111 / 2222 other than the amount of buttons that requires it. One requires 8 slots and one requires 2.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Shadowfang was a combo finisher like Armour Crush. It's now a standalone GCD skill.

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That was just an example of how you could handle certain moves in a worst case scenario.
Ideally I'd stick 'em all in a combo, or one of button with cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

If you actually consolidate NIN's combo skills, you save 2 buttons at most, but then NIN's rotation is 50% hitting 1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-2 etc.

Do you really want DRG to be 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2 with occasional Jumps?

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It's indeed very convenient if you ignore oGCD's and combo's that could have been added instead in your examples. The whole idea is to create more combo's with a specific purpose instead of damage dumps.

See the following example:
1 = three hit basic damage combo
2 = two hit combo ending in a dot
3 = four hit combo ending in a resource stack (let's say 3) that can be spend on 4.
4 = Ability with cooldown that doesn't break combo
5 = random oGCD buff
6 = random oGCD group buff
7 = random oGCD attack with follow up attack
8 = Shadow fang like stand alone

3 - 5 -3 -3 - 3 - 4 - 8 - 7 - 7 - 2 - 6 - 2 - 1- 4 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 - 4 -2 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 8 etc..

Less buttons than most existing classes, yet more engaging because it has multiple things to do with different pre-requisites and other stuff.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Again, how do you accommodate for MNK's Perfect Balance, Form Shift or SAM's Meikyo Shisui?
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I don't see the issue here? These skills right now are needed because of the way the game is designed right now. Just adept these skills to work in the new system.

Meikyo Shisui as an example: You either use this skill to get your 3 sens (which are all combo finishers so there is no problem at all, as this could perfectly work in a consolidated approach) or to quickly refresh buffs. In case of the second option, just change the way skills are designed with the new system in mind. Easy fixes are to stick the buff in the combo finisher, create oGCD's for these buffs, or just live with it that you can't use Meikyo Shisui to achieve these, which is perfectly valid too.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You say consolidating buttons makes room for new skills, but then how long until you want those new skills consolidated and we're back where we started? After all, they all just deal damage.

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Obviously not, if each "chain" is designed with an idea/mechanic in mind. You yourself suggested to combine skills like Ley Lines and Between the Lines, so you obviously understand some skills belong together.

On the other hand, it's easy to see skills like Vorpal Trust and Jump don't belong together, as Jump includes movement an animation lock, unlocks Mirage Dive, etc.. Meanwhile Vorpal Trust, True Trust and Full Trust are simple reskins of each other that work identical and only Full Trust serves a purpose, so nothing is lost consolidating these.

I reached my character limit on my last post, but the core of what I want to say is that each button should FEEL different.

If I press 1 and do damage, with nothing else, no animations locks, no buffs, debuffs or cooldowns. That feels very different from pressing 2 and dealing damage and getting animation locked or pressing 3 and doing damage while being locked out of that ability with a 20s cooldown. There are to many combo's right now in game that don't FEEL different but at the same time are making sure we don't get new buttons because of the bloat they cause.

My earlier 8 button example would require 15 buttons in the current system. That's practically half a console player's buttons, which is absurd as it would only do 8 things. But in the new system you would have a lot of space filled for gameplay and would only be using 30% of a console player's buttons. And as I've shown before, it doesn't make it any easier to use.

EDIT: Simple example of why I want consolidation:
Think of the DRK how it currently is, and consolidate Hard Slash, Syphon Strike and Soul Eater into a single button combo chain. This would leave you with 2 buttons:
1. Spinning Slash > Reprisal > Power Slash combo chain. Executing Power Slash grants a resource stack (3), and you are locked out of this combo until this resource is depleted.
2. Scourge, now a short duration DoT that requires 1 stack of the resource from the former button. But has a 20 second cooldown.

By consolidating a combo chain, brought back 4 abilities that got deleted and linked them to a new mechanic to manage. Making the class both harder to use, but giving it extra options without require additional buttons to use and without taking away anything else.

Consolidate Unleash and Stalwart Soul and you regain an additional button, which could be used for another combo. Maybe one with an animation lock or a casting bar.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You say consolidating buttons makes room for new skills, but then how long until you want those new skills consolidated and we're back where we started? After all, they all just deal damage.

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You're completely ignoring the fact that the skills can do stuff like interaction, resource-management, etc. They can be something else than just an skill with a dps number to it.

About new skills being consolidated... It's inevitable. 3-4 expansions later, of course you'll have to revise everything and rearrange stuff to give room to more new stuff - That's exactly the premise of the OP. It's either that, or have your job never have anything new in future content. The way XIV leveling works is the same as WoW, you'll inevitably end with a bloat of unmanageable skills if you don't rework at some point. WoW though, lack severely at that because it "reinvents" itself with every xpac, and that's where the fault is.

Actually, I can see a case for SAM.
It's only the combo finishers that have unique effects, other than the two 2nd GCD's each applying a minor buff, so you could just have them as three buttons that cycle through the combo like Continuation, syncing up the first and second button presses so that you can switch between them on any given GCD, and apply the relevant Sen when completed. Meikyo Shisui could then fix each button at the last of the sequence until it's spent. My only issue is the discrepancy between the 3-combo Getsu/Ka and 2-combo Setsu finishers, and whether or not that would be too much to coordinate on the fly or if it would simply take a lot of getting used to.
This could then make SAM's combo system markedly different to the other melee and free up space for some more focus on Hissatsu skills.

I'm still not convinced about MNK and/or DRG though.
You say "the issue is it's designed that way" but then, it IS designed that way. MNK is 100% based around it's combo system, with each discrete GCD having it's own positional, it's own unique effect, and two skills to manipulate your combo progression. Your whole focus is on what part of the combo you are in on any given GCD, and muscle memory is very important for it.
I am all for making changes to some jobs, like SAM, to mix things up and create more variety between jobs, but in MNKs case, it's very much an intentional design choice, and by removing it's combo system you remove part of what makes it's specific job identity, and you also force MNK players to be constantly glancing at their hotbars to check what part of the combo they're on instead of relying purely on muscle memory. While this would be an issue for SAM only every 2nd or 3rd GCD, this would be an issue for MNK on every single GCD, while adjusting positions at the same time.

DRG is it's own beast, and unfortunately I haven't played it enough recently to be familiar enough with it's nuances to to make a solid case. However I know from optimising my MCH bursts lately that counting which Heat Blast you're on is essential in not clipping your GCDs (you need to hit 5 Heat Blasts and know when your 6th GCD is up so that you can get a Split Shot/Drill/Anchor in your Wildfire window as well) If you lose count and you go to hit Heat Blast as your 6th GCD again, it will fail, and you will clip, and you will definitely not fit a 6th weaponskill into your Wildfire.
You're watching your hotbar like a hawk at that burst moment, in order to hit your GCDs smoothly, and it requires markedly more focus than your 1-2-3 combo does. That's fine, it's a burst window, but it's not sustainable 100% of the time while also dealing mechanics.
But my reservation is that doing this to DRG's entire combo system, would turn it's entire rotation into this same GCD counting, hotbar watching exercise that MCH's Hypercharge/Wildfire window is. Instead of allowing your muscle memory to keep track of your combo progress, you're constantly counting "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..." and/or constantly staring at your hotbars instead of the battlefield.


So I would say, in the interest of keeping jobs different and interesting:
Consolidate SAM.
Keep MNK as it is, it's combo system is it's signature.
DRG is a beast of a combo system and if it needs consolidating, it also needs some concessions elsewhere or some kind of rework to allow for it.

I don't think muscle memory is that different between 1-2-3 and 1-1-1. As such I don't see why it wouldn't be able to work with DRG.
MNK would indeed require the most work to adept, because it's the most mechanically ingrained with the current system. On the flip side, MNK has been a mess for many years now and hasn't seen it's gameplay evolve since ARR, so maybe taking some more liberties here and re-imagining the whole job might be an option too.

Either way, I'm only suggesting consolidation isn't bad when used to evolve the game. Because most people opposing it in here seem to think consolidation will result in simplification, which isn't necessarily true. Yet cry out every expansion when half their skill bar gets deleted, which is a direct result of NOT consolidating.

If they consolidate combos into 1/2 buttoms at the end of the day they will reach the same point of where they have to remove or adapt skills to add new ones but with the big diference is they turned every melee into a single key spam fest, DRK gameplay in SB recive a lot of complains due dark arts spam and ppl want this back but instead of being a oGCD being our GCD system? ppl are complaing today in SHB about spam mechanics like inner release and actual Healers gameplay being extremly boring and uninteresting so basically turn every job in to have betwen 7-10s of spam the same key over and over again will be recive way more complains more sooner than later.

and my personal question, what happen when they reach that point? they will add more steps on the combos making the spam windows even larger to avoid removing skills? sounds like hella boring to me specially since i can't swallow current inner release windows i wont wanna play a game where that is basically 100% melee gameplay now.


I personally don't see the buttom bloat problem at all, i play with a gamepad on pc and still have the same double trigger shortcut aviable for me and that's 16 slots to fill, there is still to much room to add in to the jobs + they could upgrade and add several effects to the current combo steps that add new effects/procs/resource without the need of just add more fluff skills at the cost of turning our GCD system in to the spam fest to make space.

this game is not kingdom hearts or genshin impact where fast paced combat focused on quick decisions and fast dodges/blocks/parrys are where the dificult of the game is based and favors having combos in 1 buttom to let the player focus on other stuff, this game have extremly low combat pace with bosses taking a eternity to do anything in a choreographed manner, such change only will allow players to watch netflix more comfortably considering 99% of the content require almost nothing from the player so i wonder how much time will takes when someone say they just pass throught everything by presing 1-2buttons only and reducing the mechanical execution requeriments of our rotations are just only show how simple are actually designed all mechanics in this game even on savage and ultimate.

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Originally Posted by Achantion

I don't think muscle memory is that different between 1-2-3 and 1-1-1. As such I don't see why it wouldn't be able to work with DRG.
MNK would indeed require the most work to adept, because it's the most mechanically ingrained with the current system. On the flip side, MNK has been a mess for many years now and hasn't seen it's gameplay evolve since ARR, so maybe taking some more liberties here and re-imagining the whole job might be an option too.

Either way, I'm only suggesting consolidation isn't bad when used to evolve the game. Because most people opposing it in here seem to think consolidation will result in simplification, which isn't necessarily true. Yet cry out every expansion when half their skill bar gets deleted, which is a direct result of NOT consolidating.

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On the contrary, I've just explained why consolidation of those melee jobs actually makes them more complicated.
With individual steps of the combo having unique effects, you need to keep track of where you are in the combo, and as I explained with MCH's Heast Blast 'combo', essentially a 1-1-1-1-1-2 combo with weaving, you need to make sure you're counting your GCDs. If you don't, you miss that last '2', dealing 1/6th less damage with Wildfire and clipping your GCD which knocks your damage output down, potentially unsyncing your rotation if you keep doing it.

In other cases, muscle memory can do this for you, instead of counting 1-2-3, you're pressing X, Circle, Triangle, X, Circle Triangle... or whatever keys you've set them to. You know when you get to the last button in your sequence, you move your finger/thumb back to the start.
With the combo all on one button, you need to count, constantly, in order to ensure that the specific skills in the combo line up properly.

The reason this isn't an issue in PVP, is because PVP skills have been simplified to remove all of this nuance, so that you can focus on the battlefield, and react on the fly to your opponents and teammates actions, instead of executing a rote-learned and fixed rotation.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I'm still not convinced about MNK and/or DRG though.
You say "the issue is it's designed that way" but then, it IS designed that way. MNK is 100% based around it's combo system, with each discrete GCD having it's own positional, it's own unique effect, and two skills to manipulate your combo progression. Your whole focus is on what part of the combo you are in on any given GCD, and muscle memory is very important for it.

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Except you are wrong about monk as well.

Monk DPS, outside of OGCD's has essentially two phases. The Buff Phase and the DPS phase.

The buff phase could entirely be done via the flank if Demolish was changed to a flank move rather than a rear move and Snap Punch was changed to a Rear move instead of a flank.

Resulting in the DPS phase being the rear.

With a new rotation that looks like this:

Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish (Condensed to 1 button)
Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch (Condensed to 1 button), repeat
Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish

All your buffs line up.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Except you are wrong about monk as well.

Monk DPS, outside of OGCD's has essentially two phases. The Buff Phase and the DPS phase.

The buff phase could entirely be done via the flank if Demolish was changed to a flank move rather than a rear move and Snap Punch was changed to a Rear move instead of a flank.

Resulting in the DPS phase being the rear.

With a new rotation that looks like this:

Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish (Condensed to 1 button)
Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch (Condensed to 1 button), repeat
Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish

All your buffs line up.

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Despite the fact that Demolish and Twin Snakes have different durations, what about Leaden Fist?
And again, Perfect Balance and Form Shift. What are we doing with those? Just get rid of them? Do you understand why they exist?
Monk can break it's combo system. For the opener, you could go Twin Snakes > Snap Punch > Snap Punch > Demolish > Dragon Kick > Bootshine. How would you manage that with consolidated combos?

And even so, what I'm reading is "if you simplify the jobs so that you can consolidate the skills, then you can consolidate the skills." Well then they're not currently simple enough to consolidate are they? And you are therefore simplifying the jobs in order to consolidate them in one place and add in more complexity elsewhere.
This isn't solving any issues, it's just moving the goalposts, and if you do this in order to add more skills in elsewhere, what would those skills do that would make it so much more interesting? And I'd like examples, not just "it doesn't matter, anything could be interesting, just some kind of mechanics." because those skills could also be boring. For over 2 years, until the recent rework Monk received in the last major patch, it had two OGCD's that were essentially useless. So those non-combo skills didn't add anything to the job at all.
The fact that 6 buttons were used on this combo system didn't hold back the job design in any way, it still had room for additional skills to increase the jobs complexity, but they didn't do that.

Monk is all about it's combos. This all sounds like "I don't like Monk, change it for me" without considering if the current iteration of Monk appeals to Monk mains or other people generally as it is.


I've already given concession to Samurai. In fact I've even come around to thinking it would be a good idea, seeing as in my experience with SAM I haven't yet mastered using Third Eye properly due to it not being on my main xhotbar.
However, consolidating SAM's combos would probably require a little simplification:
Meikyo Shisui would have to be changed, in order to immediately progress each combo button to it's last step, and hold them there.
The effects of Jinpu and Shifu would likely have to be homogenised into one buff, so that landing on the 2nd step of any combo would apply it. Maybe even give it 2 stacks so you still have to complete 2 combos to get the full effect. this wouldn't be too much of a detrimental change to it as the rotation is already all about steadily building up power.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

And again, Perfect Balance and Form Shift. What are we doing with those? Just get rid of them? Do you understand why they exist?

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Perfect Balance was created as a quick generation/regeneration button for Greased Lightning in ARR. If you really want to keep the burst function it has now, it could easily be replace with a more engaging burst (i.e. Blitzes) as has been suggested by multiple posters is the Dps Forums.

Form shift was added to allow Monks to start combat/phases with a Formed Twin Snakes/Dragon Kick rather than a formless Bootshine. They could easily revert Form Shift back to its original Form cycling function which would allow Monks to cycle through the actions on their 2 combo buttons.

Combo consolidation in some form or another would be good imo, more space for situational or utility skills would let jobs shine in the ways they're unique, both in terms of how they play and what unique bonuses they bring to a party. Total number of buttons feels like it's close to the right spot right now, but assuming they'd be adding new ones, well... combos take a decent amount of space right now. If those opened up skill slots added more unique situational buffs that changed which of your GCD skills you wanted to use at specific times I don't think you'd lose complexity overall.

This is a bad example but let's say they consolidated combos and introduced 30 second cooldown skills that applied vulnerability to specific damage types like what SB had - so maybe one class applies periodic vuln to slashing and one class applies periodic vuln to blunt, neither with 100% duration on the boss possible. So as a monk you'd want to use a punch combo during blunt and a karate chop combo during slashing, or something along those lines. Also don't ask me how that would work for like, samurai. Hit 'em with the hilt during blunt I guess.

There's probably a lot of reasons to not make something like that debuff based, but I hope it illustrates what I'm generally getting at, periodically available skills that modify what we'd want to optimally use for the next 6-10 skills. Or hey, maybe more defensive or utility cooldowns too - if players get a wider variety of skills, bosses can use a wider variety of mechanics - it's not like every fight is against a punching bag.

for this to be perfectly implemented most jobs will need to be retooled for such a drastic change PVP works because they arent the same as PVE and were intended to be swifter, and id rather keep most of the jobs incarnations ....


most

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Except you are wrong about monk as well.

Monk DPS, outside of OGCD's has essentially two phases. The Buff Phase and the DPS phase.

The buff phase could entirely be done via the flank if Demolish was changed to a flank move rather than a rear move and Snap Punch was changed to a Rear move instead of a flank.

Resulting in the DPS phase being the rear.

With a new rotation that looks like this:

Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish (Condensed to 1 button)
Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch (Condensed to 1 button), repeat
Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish

All your buffs line up.

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Monk is designed to be able to switch between single and multi target mid cycle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Except you are wrong about monk as well.

Monk DPS, outside of OGCD's has essentially two phases. The Buff Phase and the DPS phase.

The buff phase could entirely be done via the flank if Demolish was changed to a flank move rather than a rear move and Snap Punch was changed to a Rear move instead of a flank.

Resulting in the DPS phase being the rear.

With a new rotation that looks like this:

Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish (Condensed to 1 button)
Bootshine > True Strike > Snap Punch (Condensed to 1 button), repeat
Dragon Kick > Twin Snakes > Demolish

All your buffs line up.

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how the hell would formless fist work since most of those skills are trapped behind other skills. it would not work for monk without dumming the job down, its aoe maybe but still formless fist exists so

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Originally Posted by Jirah

how the hell would formless fist work since most of those skills are trapped behind other skills. it would not work for monk without dumming the job down, its aoe maybe but still formless fist exists so

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Perfect Balance only exists right now as a burst phase and could do with a more engaging replacement and Form Shift could revert back to cycling through the various forms. Neither source of "Formless Fist" is a serious barrier to compressing the Monk's weaponskills.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Perfect Balance only exists right now as a burst phase and could do with a more engaging replacement and Form Shift could revert back to cycling through the various forms. Neither source of "Formless Fist" is a serious barrier to compressing the Monk's weaponskills.

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Form Shift QoL change be reverted back to how it was seems reductive just to for the sake of condensing, Perfect balance is a burst phase and can be reajdusted to disregard Twin demo and the aoe resetting twin at FpF, having said all this MNK is still a bad example as ur never doing the same 1-2-3 twice so itll require to either be dumbed down and have a designated debuff/buff rotation or just leave MNK be focus on other skills that are bloat like the fists or role skills or its 3 Buff skills rather than trying to simplify its current rotation

FFXIV is definitely a PvE game but still tries to bait PvP players who in doubt might like it, but it's only a bait in view of the reward and the gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Form Shift QoL change be reverted back to how it was seems reductive just to for the sake of condensing, Perfect balance is a burst phase and can be reajdusted to disregard Twin demo and the aoe resetting twin at FpF, having said all this MNK is still a bad example as ur never doing the same 1-2-3 twice so itll require to either be dumbed down and have a designated debuff/buff rotation or just leave MNK be focus on other skills that are bloat like the fists or role skills or its 3 Buff skills rather than trying to simplify its current rotation

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Wrong. The Monk weapon skill cycle repeats every 18 gcds as you alternate Dragon Kick and Boot Shine every Opo-Opo Form and Twin Snakes and True Strike every Raptor while Coeurl Form has Demolish alternate with 2 Snap Punches:

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 6 4 5 3 1 2 6 4 5 6

Turned into a 2 button combo this becomes:

1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2

The rotation is far from as free form or complex as you believe.