Idea to simplify combo action skills

Not sure if this idea has been suggested already, but I'll just go with it anyway.

Instead of requiring 5 different buttons/hotkeys for each ability in a combo sequence, just have 1 button, and have it change its icon to the next ability in the sequence when you use it.

For example, with dragoon, the chain impulse drive -> disembowel -> chaos thrust -> fang and claw, there are 4 different buttons.

Instead, when you use impulse drive, the icon would become "disembowel" for the period when the combo is still active (i think its like 15 seconds).

So there would just be 1 button you would press 4 times in sequence, instead of 4 different buttons and 4 different hotkeys to keep track of.

Reason I want this is because my action bars are getting pretty heavy duty, and I am running out of convenient hotkey combinations near AWSD

That's all, hopefully it was clear.

I don't know if that particular idea will work, but seriously something needs to be done about the button overload. Playing with a controller is becoming practically impossible. I managed to do something with BLM (a lvl 50 hotbar and another with a few buttons changed for lvl60 stuff), but when looking at stuff like whm and drg, there's just nothing you can set aside, and nowhere to put it all. Maybe someone has some whiz-bang ideas for squeezing it all in.

Why wouldn't it work? I can't see any situation where you would still want to use "disembowel" when the next combo action is "chaos thrust", etc.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

I don't know if that particular idea will work, but seriously something needs to be done about the button overload. Playing with a controller is becoming practically impossible. I managed to do something with BLM (a lvl 50 hotbar and another with a few buttons changed for lvl60 stuff), but when looking at stuff like whm and drg, there's just nothing you can set aside, and nowhere to put it all. Maybe someone has some whiz-bang ideas for squeezing it all in.

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Are you using the cross hotbar option? If you are flipping pages you are doing extra work..

Cross hotbar gives you quick access to 32 skills.

So what about Ninja who has:

Spinning Edge > Shadow Fang
Spinning Edge > Gust Slash > Dancing Edge
Spinning Edge > Gust Slash > Aeolian Edge

What is the icon supposed to change to when I have multiple options?

Unless I've misunderstood your idea.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

So what about Ninja who has:

Spinning Edge > Shadow Fang
Spinning Edge > Gust Slash > Dancing Edge
Spinning Edge > Gust Slash > Aeolian Edge

What is the icon supposed to change to when I have multiple options?

Unless I've misunderstood your idea.

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Good point, after giving it some thought, I'm going to adjust my idea a bit now. You could still simplify it into 2 buttons, one for each option you have at a given moment.

Initially, the first button is Spinning Edge, and the 2nd button is inactive.

Once you use Spinning Edge, the first button morphs into Shadow Fang and the 2nd button morphs into Gust Slash.

If you use Gust Slash, the first button morphs into Dancing Edge, and the 2nd button morphs into Aeolian Edge.

So your 3 sequences would be

1 -> 1
1 -> 2 -> 1
1 -> 2 -> 2

instead of

1 -> 2
1 -> 3 -> 4
1 -> 3 -> 5

And for dragoon it would be the following sequences (starting with either impulse drive or true thrust)

1 -> 1 -> 1 -> 1
2 -> 1 -> 1 -> 1

instead of

1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 or 5
6 -> 7 -> 8 -> 4 or 5

The only disadvantage I could see with this is that once you start a sequence, you can't stop it and switch to another one in the middle of it. But I think that could be solved with a simple "reset" hotkey, if that situation ever arose. Honestly though in playing, I've never really wanted to stop a sequence in the middle of it to do a different one, since it seems like a loss to do so.

I think would be possible to do this with a macro, I will try it tomorrow and get back to you.

If we could macro macro's to the hotbar then this would be simple, unfortunately we can't but I have another method in mind.

It would actually help with the low standard dps, since they couldn't use the same skill over and over. :p

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Originally Posted by Morbid

Are you using the cross hotbar option? If you are flipping pages you are doing extra work..

Cross hotbar gives you quick access to 32 skills.

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yes, I'm using it. swapping is just inefficient, even though I just have the 2 to page as I turned off the rest. There's also the very annoying "quirk" where when you first pick something from the 2nd bar, it will swap back to the first. You also can't see the state of cooldowns on the other bar. If there's a better way, I'd love to know what it is.

This wouldn't be so bad if you could just stick to what's required for lvl60, but the bulk of dailies is still lvl50 roulettes, and there's only 4 dungeons where full lvl60 is used.

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Originally Posted by Genaxx

It think would be possible to do this with a macro, I will try it tomorrow and get back to you.

If we could macro macro's to the hotbar then this would be simple, unfortunately we can't but I have another method in mind.

It would actually help with the low standard dps, since they couldn't use the same skill over and over. :p

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Macros won't queue, though, so it would mess up the flow of chaining your combo abilities. I feel like the result would be less efficient.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

yes, I'm using it. swapping is just inefficient, even though I just have the 2 to page as I turned off the rest. There's also the very annoying "quirk" where when you first pick something from the 2nd bar, it will swap back to the first. You also can't see the state of cooldowns on the other bar. If there's a better way, I'd love to know what it is.

This wouldn't be so bad if you could just stick to what's required for lvl60, but the bulk of dailies is still lvl50 roulettes, and there's only 4 dungeons where full lvl60 is used.

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That's strange since I use the CHbar all the time and never have had that "quirk"..

Make sure to click that little lock below the hotbar after setting up your skills. To see skills on cooldown I just activated one of the vertical hotbars shrunk it a bit and put those abilities on there so you can see when they refresh. Clean up the UI by also selecting the option to not show inactive slots.

I also use an additional hotbar like Morbid but a horizontal one to display all the long CD skills that are on my second bar. Make sure its not set to shared so you can use it for multiple jobs.

http://s30.postimg.org/muntav681/ffx...016_080101.png

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

There's also the very annoying "quirk" where when you first pick something from the 2nd bar, it will swap back to the first.

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Could you explain this more? I've never know this to happen. Are you saying that if you use R1 to go to the 2nd bar and then use a skill, it will change back to the first?

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Macros won't queue, though, so it would mess up the flow of chaining your combo abilities. I feel like the result would be less efficient.

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They wouldn't need to queue if you could macro macro's to the hotbar. It would work like this;

/mlock
/micon "Spinning Edge"
/ac "Spinning Edge" <t>
/crosshotbar set "Gust Slash" 1 RAR

which then changes the same button to this;

/mlock
/micon "Shadow Fang"
/ac "Shadow Fang" <t>
/crosshotbar set "MACRO NAME" 1 RAR

But since we cannot set macros to the hotbar like this, I will try another way.

The other way is to do it like this;

Hotbar 1
/mlock
/micon "Spinning Edge"
/ac "Spinning Edge" <t>
/crosshotbar change 2

Hotbar 2
/mlock
/micon "Shadow Fang"
/ac "Shadow Fang" <t>
/crosshotbar change 1

/mlock
/micon "Gust Slash"
/ac "Gust Slash" <t>
/crosshotbar change 3

Hotbar 3
/mlock
/micon "Armor Crush"
/ac "Armor Crush" <t>
/crosshotbar change 1

/mlock
/micon "Dancing Edge"
/ac "Dancing Edge" <t>
/crosshotbar change 1

/mlock
/micon "Aeolian Edge"
/ac "Aeolian Edge" <t>
/crosshotbar change 1

Technically it works, but its not very practical, since if you press the next action before the timer is up, it hotbar will change and you will lose your combo. Sadly I dont think its possible to do this right now, however I think its possible with 1 > 2 combo's like below, giving you however many seconds to combo the second action before it switches back to the original.

/mlock
/micon "Spinning Edge"
/ac "Spinning Edge" <t>
/crosshotbar change 4 <wait.3>
/crosshotbar change 3

its been discussed before and it was referred back to why we have macro's, and etc. The argument was then, macro moves dont queue/subjected to delay.

Dev's are like "But it works!"

I fully support this idea and would love to see it taken into consideration.

Many melee jobs suffer this problem causing 'button overload' and would make the UI a lot more simpler and would make movement easy while keeping tabs on one button/click.

I like it.

You also have monks which have a different comboing mechanic. They use stance buffs which enables the use of skills and aren't sequentially locked like the other melees.

Though one way they can tone down on button bloating is get rid of skills that add no depth to the job. Things like stone 2/3, gauss round and dwad. Or at least redo them so it's not a waste of a slot for most of he time, like ninja poison, turrets and most of mch skills that share cooldowns for the same purpose in different areas.

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Originally Posted by Garvey

Why wouldn't it work? I can't see any situation where you would still want to use "disembowel" when the next combo action is "chaos thrust", etc.

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It differs a lot between classes tho, in terms of how they branch. For many you need to keep the option of resetting to the first skill in the chain if you need to quickly set up for a different finisher than you are currently going for.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

yes, I'm using it. swapping is just inefficient, even though I just have the 2 to page as I turned off the rest. There's also the very annoying "quirk" where when you first pick something from the 2nd bar, it will swap back to the first. You also can't see the state of cooldowns on the other bar. If there's a better way, I'd love to know what it is.

This wouldn't be so bad if you could just stick to what's required for lvl60, but the bulk of dailies is still lvl50 roulettes, and there's only 4 dungeons where full lvl60 is used.

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You are most likey experiencing this quirk because you have the setting for which when you Draw your weapon it allows access to certain bars. Even though you set your bars to only switch between 2 sets, having unsheath/sheathed checked will send you back to your first set when you engage.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

You also have monks which have a different comboing mechanic. They use stance buffs which enables the use of skills and aren't sequentially locked like the other melees.

Though one way they can tone down on button bloating is get rid of skills that add no depth to the job. Things like stone 2/3, gauss round and dwad. Or at least redo them so it's not a waste of a slot for most of he time, like ninja poison, turrets and most of mch skills that share cooldowns for the same purpose in different areas.

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With monk you could still do the same thing, you could have a set of buttons allocated for using form-required spells, and a set of buttons allocated for form-changing spells. Both sets of buttons will morph based on whatever is currently available.

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Originally Posted by Callback

It differs a lot between classes tho, in terms of how they branch. For many you need to keep the option of resetting to the first skill in the chain if you need to quickly set up for a different finisher than you are currently going for.

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Ok, I've only really played lancer, so I haven't encountered a scenario where I'd want to reset a chain, but it may still be simpler to still use this new approach, along with a reset button for those situations.

At the very least, it would be nice to just have both styles as a preference option XD

I really feel they'll change combo to be exactly that if they want to give us more skills.
Yes, we have plenty of room in our hotbars, but it would be easier to access a lot of them very quickly.

After all, it works for Ninjutsu

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Originally Posted by Garvey

Not sure if this idea has been suggested already, but I'll just go with it anyway.

Instead of requiring 5 different buttons/hotkeys for each ability in a combo sequence, just have 1 button, and have it change its icon to the next ability in the sequence when you use it...

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It is a nice idea, I actually have something similar to this set up for some of my jobs. The biggest thing from setting this up from what I noticed is you need a "reset" button. Why? If you're in the middle of a combo and you have to stop, then you want to revert back to the start of your combo when time runs out.

Right now I'm doing what you suggested through Macros. Luckily the jobs I have now I don't need to switch around a lot. For example I have a base controller set up with Fast Blade. Fast Blade (X)is set up as a macro to reset back to this "base" set up. If I hit Savage Blade, I replace things like Riot Blade with Royal Authority and RoH are there waiting for me on Square and Triangle.

Like someone posted, which I found to be a great idea, is having my cool downs on a bar below my crossbars so I know when to use LR/RL buttons to get to the 8th set.

Though I agree something like this would be wonderful that doesn't involve all the macros..just..don't know how they'd get to where it works.

Of course if you're on PC someone made an awesome Windows voice activation for their Ninja, I took that and put it to my tank when I'm on PC. Stopped doing it because I do servers and tech support..so by the time I get home I don't want to sit in front of the PC for so long.

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Originally Posted by Leigaon

If you're in the middle of a combo and you have to stop, then you want to revert back to the start of your combo when time runs out.

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Once your combo effect wears off, you'd automatically go back to the first step.

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Originally Posted by Houston009

You are most likey experiencing this quirk because you have the setting for which when you Draw your weapon it allows access to certain bars. Even though you set your bars to only switch between 2 sets, having unsheath/sheathed checked will send you back to your first set when you engage.

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this would be what is happening - but the other option is having to mump through all 8 sets, which is even worse (you can't go back/forward, it's one-way). It's the reason I changed it to behave differently with the weapon out. If I choose HB2, that where it should stay, not just change to HB1 after choosing one thing. Even more ridiculous, it just does it the first time, subsequently is stays where it is.

I think though, on balance, they should have just given the new skills scaling to old content, and relegated some of the older skills to history. There's really no sensible reason to be weighed down with 30-odd "skills/buttons" - particularly when they can/could be be combo-ed if the macro system wasn't so bad. If they do the same thing next time, we'll be tossing controllers in the bin (or more likely, those who prefer controllers will be tossing the game in the bin instead).

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

yes, I'm using it. swapping is just inefficient, even though I just have the 2 to page as I turned off the rest. There's also the very annoying "quirk" where when you first pick something from the 2nd bar, it will swap back to the first. You also can't see the state of cooldowns on the other bar. If there's a better way, I'd love to know what it is.

This wouldn't be so bad if you could just stick to what's required for lvl60, but the bulk of dailies is still lvl50 roulettes, and there's only 4 dungeons where full lvl60 is used.

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I put all my CD in a line hot bar, just above my cross bar, but set to the smallest size, so I can see when they are ready.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

I put all my CD in a line hot bar, just above my cross bar, but set to the smallest size, so I can see when they are ready.

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I've seen a few mention that, will have a look and see if I can figure out how it works.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

I've seen a few mention that, will have a look and see if I can figure out how it works.

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It was a minor pain to set up, but now I couldn't do without it. I even keep some of my main hotbar CD in it, since all my healer dps actions are on my quick bar. I can just stay in qucik bar while dpsing and know still when tetra, assiez, and shroud are ready.

I managed to figure out how to put a hotbar onto the hud to see it, but can't for the life of me figure out how to add anything to it lol

Take your icon and drag it to your bar with the mouse/touchpad.

ok thanks, will give that a go :)

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Once your combo effect wears off, you'd automatically go back to the first step.

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Yup! That's why I mentioned a reset of some sort, but doing this the way it is set up now you need an actual reset macro back to your base. If they made a set up like this they'll have to create it to go back after the timer goes off, and not be interrupted by other macros or timer actions.

When I first was doing SMN I had chotbar copy set up so when I go into bahamut hyper mode, it switches Ruin III and Fus Ro Dah to my main controller set up..but had it on a timer so it did it automatically. Thing was if I used other macros it would interrupt it. So I ended up with a quick reset with my finisher, so once he spits a loogie on the mob it removes those not needed moves.

So they would also have to make it so during this timer that would be shared with the actual combo action it wouldn't screw up anything else. I'm sure it can be done by the FFXIV team though. No problem!

If anything make a skill link options to enable for those who can't or don't want to go to the extent of creating all those action / chotbar / hotbar copies.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

I managed to figure out how to put a hotbar onto the hud to see it, but can't for the life of me figure out how to add anything to it lol

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using a USB mouse of some sort or you can use the PS4 controller touch pad "mouse mode" and click / drag. Though it can be a pain. Maybe there is an easier way but a quick USB mouse solves the issue in 30 seconds.

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Originally Posted by AskaRay

That's strange since I use the CHbar all the time and never have had that "quirk"..

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I get the "quirk."

It happens when my weapon is sheathed and I decide to attack an enemy a skill from hotbar two, causing the game to default me to hotbar 1 because my weapon is now drawn. Even if you have hotbar 2 selected but then use the extended hotbar for your attack, as soon as you release the triggers, the game will default you to hotbar 1 since your weapon has gone from sheathed to drawn.

I get around this by having it so that I have to sheathe my weapon manually ( as opposed to the game doing it for me.)

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

You also have monks which have a different comboing mechanic. They use stance buffs which enables the use of skills and aren't sequentially locked like the other melees.

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MNKs could use a combo builder system like what Godhand or Remember Me had to get the same results as the OP's idea applied to classes like DRG or PLD.

Something I have done that is along these lines (took many itterations to get it how it 'felt right')

My ninja for ex (im a monk main, and perfect balance openers basically made this impossible):

My hotbar 1 slot 1 is a macro:
- /micon spinning edge
- /ac spinning edge
- /wait (standard 1 second)
- /hotbar change 4
- (note that wait is in here so I can mash the one button and it wont change hotbars until I stop mashing, but that the wait isnt longer than gcd)(hotbar 1 slot is empty)
Hotbar 4 slot 1 macro
- /micon gust slash
- /ac gust slash
- /wait
- /hotbar change 5
Hotbar 4 slot 2 macro
-/micon shadow fang
- /ac shadow fang
- /wait
- /hotbar change 1
Hotbar 5 slot 1 macro
- /micon Aeolian Edge
- /ac aeolian edge
- /wait
- /hotbar change 1
(repeat this for slot 2 with dancing edge)

This lets me start all of my combo's with one, and then everything follows is 1 or 2. As macro's cause delay in oGCD's you shouldnt have those on a macro as well, but be careful if for some reason you do. You can cancel the hotbar change if you hit one. Reading thru the thread I saw someone that mentioned having a 'reset' button in case a battle break or something happens and you get stuck on the wrong hotbar. Not something I had done but I think its genius. I would just quickly use up/down arrows to change.

I did this from memory as I am currently not online, however I dont think I forgot any skills that go into the combo. Hope it helps or maybe builds toward a cleaner setup.

Nano Slayer
Sarg. server

So, for instance, if I have 6 buttons, originally for Spinning Edge, Gust Slash, Aeolian Edge, Dancing Edge, Armor Crush, and Shadow Fang, the main idea is I can reduce this to 3 buttons:

If Spinning Edge:

1 Gust Slash
2 Shadow Fang
3 Spinning Edge (re-do... for the sake of prepping Shadow Fang for an enemy that has a GCD left to arrive?)

If Gust Slash:
1 Aeolian Edge
2 Dancing Edge
3 Armor Crush
(No Re-do Spinning Edge, because there's virtually no situations in which you'd waste a combo. Except maybe those pacify these mobs leve quests... in which case you'd just use Mutilate at that point anyways.)

Certainly easier for DRG, especially, as you said (just TT-VT-FT-F&C/WT, ID-DB-CT-F&C/WT, 8 in 2), though at the same time, all this makes me wish these moves still had value outside of their respective combos, so they didn't just feel like single 3-part weaponskills.

Monk would probably just be each of the three options per stance, I take it?
1 Bootshine / True Strike / Snap Punch
2 Dragon Kick / Twin Snakes / Demolish
3 Arm of the... / One-Ilm Punch / Rock Breaker

Would definitely be nice to be able to do this without having to change out hotbars via macros each time.