Thinking Ahead: Is the Game Doomed to have more Ability Bloat Updates?

specifically in future expansions, are we doomed to have consistent Ability Bloat updates as we have just recently?

if so, what would be a solution? less abilities per expansion? i certainly hope not, yet that may seem to be the case if we are just going to loose outdated gameplay along with new gameplay. of course that is only the case if players do consider the gameplay in question to be outdated in the first place and its removal to be justified.

before i give my personal opinion, i would like to hear what the community thinks about this situation that can only become more problematic in days to come.

Well I think something they could do later is have existing abilities on jobs augment or upgrade to a better version. Kind of like how they updated some of the spells that had multiple versions with the same effect but just an increase in potency.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Well I think something they could do later is have existing abilities on jobs augment or upgrade to a better version. Kind of like how they updated some of the spells that had multiple versions with the same effect but just an increase in potency.

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well i guess you spoke for me on that one.

yes, i do wish they would give current abilities more progressive-based effects and buffs rather than adding more abilities in general. aspects such as range, AOE range, use effects upon weilder/caster, use effects upon enemies, ETC, all with visual-affect updates based on the players level would make current abilities look like something completely different.

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Originally Posted by Mysticdraggon

if so, what would be a solution? less abilities per expansion?

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They've sort of already done this. SB had less than HW, and axed a lot of old abilities as well.

I would guess this is a trend set to continue. I just kind of worry that jobs at low levels will feel pretty barebone (a complaint now) and will be offputting to newer players.

On the flipside, if SE doesn't change it up somehow, it may feel like they're focusing too much on whatever new jobs are added-- players may complain about neglect to older ones and even more people might rush the new shineys.

I'm not sure loading up on passive traits is the answer, but then, I don't have an easy answer to it myself.

1. They need to really remove some spells that aren't good...remove it, make it better and not useless.
Examples:
- Fluid Aura - Repose/Sleep. (Keep them in PvP only.)
- Dissipation - Shake it Off.

2. Make traits of spells like they did in SB.
Example: They fixed Lightning from BLM. Has a trait were the spell gets better as you level.
No more 3 Lightnings!...
Then they turn around and do this...
Leylines and Between the Lines should not be separate. Hello bloat!
What would help? Between the Lines is now a trait: Set LL and then press LL again to return back to it.
Then gives BLM a better spell please and thank you lol.

3. They could do what they done in PvP. You use one skill, and it'll change into another.
Example: Warrior can branch off into: Heavy S - Skull S - Butcher B. and Heavy S - Maim - Storms E/Storms P one of those skills can be it's own slot.
So instead of having 6 skills in the hotbar. We would now have 4. Save us 2 slots or 3! If they changed the Enmity combo of Butches Block.
How? Use Heavy S into Maim and replace Butcher B with either Storms E or Storms P.
Hope what I am trying to say here makes sense. xD I confused myself a little.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

1. They need to really remove some spells that aren't good - Fluid Aura - Repose/Sleep for example (Keep them in PvP only.)

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They just plain out don't want to remove crowd control abilities, maybe they plan to use them again in normal gameplay, maybe they think newbies could get an use of them, but all the skills people consider useless have some sort of crowd control effect.

Either way the fact that you don't need crowd control in normal gameplay means you can just remove those abilities from your hotbar if you want to.

The reason they had such an issue is trying to let every job be everything. Almost everyone had DOT, Damage circles, raid buff, self buff, heal of some sort, status down combo, status up combo, stun, and even enmity effects. Everyone doesn't need to have every effect or ability in some way shape or form. Outside of appearances jobs had almost no flavor to them. I'm certain we have not seen the last of ability bloat , but the true fix is to introduce things that justify replacement in rotations rather than yet another thing we have to do to be "ok" at our jobs.

I can see us getting maybe a new skill or 2 but I am all for the idea of more traits as well level to augment the spells/skills into newer versions. I know some classes at 70 seem to have quite a bit still.

I guess it's just me, but I really don't understand why so many people consider more options a bad thing. Maybe it's just that I came to 14 from 11 where most jobs had skill and spell lists that dwarfed what we have in 14.

Passive abilities are a great way to go. You can have the passive on the existing ability when you level up or have the passive buff your class when you hit that level. All without adding another button to the bar too.

There are MMORPGs that prove you don't need a lot of abilities to play well. Guild Wars is one, Revelation Online and with the ability pruning from WoW(I think Square could've been a lot more drastic with their pruning for SB) it feels really good.

But I love passive abilities. I love them especially because of my anxiety and I don't have to click another activatable at a specific time XD.

I don't mind them trimming excesses, but I'm worried that if they don't add new skills in later expansions that we'll see even worse leveling than we do now. Jobs used to feel complete at 50, and 60 made them even better. Now they feel kind of half-baked at 50 and some don't even come together until 70. And then you have the terrible experiences like MCH where you get your new gauge/resource thing at 50 and have no meaningful interactions with it until 62- that's a heck of a long time. I almost wished I hadn't bothered to level the job once I found out that I'd be stuck dropping Gauss Barrel like a dweeb or taking the huge punishment from Overheating. So I hope SE takes the slow skill learning rate into account when the time comes, as well as placing skills in a logical order.

I think players can handle a few more buttons personally. By all means have traits to upgrade existing abilities but maybe one or two more additions wouldn't hurt either. :)

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Originally Posted by alimdia

They just plain out don't want to remove crowd control abilities, maybe they plan to use them again in normal gameplay, maybe they think newbies could get an use of them, but all the skills people consider useless have some sort of crowd control effect.

Either way the fact that you don't need crowd control in normal gameplay means you can just remove those abilities from your hotbar if you want to.

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Crowd control will never be used because it detracts from the every job is viable in every single instance thing they're so obsessed with..

Add a mechanic that requires several group's of mobs to be slept. Well say goodbye to the 2 of the 3 caster jobs straight away... no spot for you in this content as you can't sleep stuff...

This is why crowd contols even stuns and silences were only ever used as a small dps increases. And now not even worthy of a role skill slot because they're just never used. Same with heavies binds sleeps pacify.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Crowd control will never be used because it detracts from the every job is viable in every single instance thing they're so obsessed with..
heavies, binds, sleeps, pacify.

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This actually reminded me that back before a certain patch, Bind would actually keep a target bound even after they were attacked. I'll understand why they changed that.

Unless they do some bigger changes, they will be pruning every expansion to fit new abilities in.

A few things they could do to fix this in the longer run,

-More traits, they started to do this with SB, but hopefully they do this more moving forward.
-More pruning. Some abilities serve little purpose but still warrant a spot on the bar. Some examples are Heavy Thrust on DRG (you only hit it every 30 second to keep up a buff) or even more so their combo set-up WS (Impulse Drive, True Thrust, Vorpal Thrust) whose sole purpose is to be used so you can use better WS for higher damage (Full Thrust) or debuffs (Disembowel, Chaos Thrust). Though pruning them would mean more of a removal of the combo system which I doubt they will do, so alternatively for these abilities they could gie them the PVP treatment.
-Do what they did for PVP. This is where a big change would occur. For many abilities/spells you only use them in combo or with certain procs. So they spend a good chunk of time cluttering up the hot bars. RDM I think is one job that would highly benefit from this, as most of their abilities could be condensed down to 4 buttons (Jolt/impact, black mana spells, white mana spells, melee combo). The usual argument against this is "But hitting 1-1-1 is boring/too easy", though I'd counter argue that 1-2-3 isn't much different, and all that added bloat just adds a false sense of complexity. In the case of RDM they could condense them down to those 4 buttons for their main rotation, which that opens up 7 new slots for new abilities that can give more depth to the job without having to remove/rework everything they already have.

Of these I think going the PVP route for buttons is one of the better things they can do. They can condense redundant skills into a single button without removing them from the game or doing big reworks to how the class plays, and open up more slots that can add to the job as it already is without all the time consuming reworks it would take to remove/rework most of a jobs kit.

Instead of five new skills in an expansion that changes your rotation, how about one super awesome skill that compliments the current rotation?

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Instead of five new skills in an expansion that changes your rotation, how about one super awesome skill that compliments the current rotation?

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i would not mind that. again, even if adding more traits may be the best option, that does not mean that we shouldn't get at least one ability per expansion.

I think it will be fine for most classes if they just condensed each combo GCDs into one button. Not entirely sure what to do about healers though...

Traits, role action skills, and upgrades to existing skills are all options the devs could go down. We may even get new combat systems that we don't know about yet, did anyone take the gauges into account when thinking of future expansion combat back in 3.0?

To solve ability bloat they should just upgrade existing abilites that replace abilities that already exist.

I want more skills. SE simplified the jobs and just made them boring. I think it's time for SE to stop holding player's hands and dumbing down everything for them. There's no pride beating something that's faceroll.

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Originally Posted by Lithe

I want more skills. SE simplified the jobs and just made them boring. I think it's time for SE to stop holding player's hands and dumbing down everything for them. There's no pride beating something that's faceroll.

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They didn't do it to dumb down the game. They did it to compensate for Controller players that have to switch between HUD sets all the time.

On topic: I think any MMO that wasn't window based is going to have ability bloat. I just need to get a bigger Screen for my PC to make my game not look so small.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

RDM I think is one job that would highly benefit from this, as most of their abilities could be condensed down to 4 buttons (Jolt/impact, black mana spells, white mana spells, melee combo).

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I disagree with this one. In some cases you'd want to shuffle all 4 of them to slightly even it out and avoid imbalance or to achieve 80/80+ mana faster. Everything else is good though.

Other than that, I just hope for actual improvements in jobs on what they lack on than just upgrades to existing skills.
RDM and SMN needs to have a better feel with their AoE for example.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

I think it will be fine for most classes if they just condensed each combo GCDs into one button. Not entirely sure what to do about healers though...

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that does seem like a good option. as a controller user, while playing monk, i managed to Macro all combos/weaponskills to three slots and it worked really well. it saved me six slots! obviously, this is mostly because the Monk's combo system worked somewhat differently than others. for example, you cant execute the second attack before executing first, and you cant execute the third attack without executing the second.
my Monk macros are something like this:

Name: any
/micon "(any)"
/ac "(courel weaponskill)"
/ac "(raptor weaponskill)"
/ac "(opo-opo weaponskill)"


Name: Basic Combo. consisting of basic pugilist-based weaponskills.
/micon "Snap Punch"
/ac "Snap Punch"
/ac "True Strike"
/ac "Bootshine"

Name: Earthshaking Combo. consisting of two AOE combos and One Ilm Punch.
/micon "Rockbreaker"
/ac "Rockbreaker"
/ac "One Ilm Punch"
/ac "Arm of the Destroyer"

Name: Demolishing Combo. consisting of debuff abilities upon targeted enemy.
/micon "Demolish"
/ac "Demolish"
/ac "Twin Snakes"
/ac "Dragon kick"

basically, if every combo system worked like Monk's/Pugilist's then players would be able to macro most weaponskills into a single slot and thus save a lot of space. it makes sense too, since, as a samurai, i find no use in Shifu unless i use Hakaze first, and i find no use in Kasha unless i use Shifu.

so if, for example, Samurai's combo system worked the same as monks (and of course if Meikyo Shisui opened up all combos the same way Perfect Balance does), my macros would look something like this:

/micon "Kasha"
/ac "Kasha"
/ac "Shifu"
/ac "Hakaze"

/micon "Gekko"
/ac "Gekko"
/ac "Jinpu"
/ac "Hakaze"

/micon "Yukikaze"
/ac "Yukikaze"
/ac "Jinpu"

/micon "Mangetsu"
/ac "Mangetsu"
/ac "Fuga"

/micon "Oka"
/ac "Oka"
/ac "Fuga"

which would ultimately save me up to 4 slots within my first set!

this would certainly fix the issue in terms of classes that have combos, but as you have already mentioned, other classes that barely have combos need to find its own solution.

Less new skills = less exciting for new expansion
They should still give us the 4-5 new skills like they always do but let us replace other like we do with role skills or make them replace specific skills that are similar.

so i can really see an issue if the developers continue to make more than 3 abilities per expansion and not take away (or update) a few other outdated abilities as some have recently suggested on this topic.

while it is true that players do not have to use some outdated abilities, that does not mean they can be more effective at using outdated abilities AND new abilities at the same time. so a player that does not like ability bloat would be less effective than a play that does either way.

i understand that new abilities means better and more interesting expansions, but that does not mean (as i've already suggested) that the developers cannot update current abilities to have better traits that make them look and feel like new abilities.

for example, say by level 75 SAM, a new trait is added that gives Fuga, Oka, and Mangetsu an AOE range update. this would make the abilities feel the same, but the new scale and look alone would make the trait more interesting than a new AOE clone ability. or for example, in terms of a level 75 NIN, a new trait is added that gives Huton a movement speed buff to the caster, instead of creating a new "speed buff" ability with exactly the same effects.

again, i understand that new abilities are great, but more traits instead of abilities presents a lot less issues.

I think we're limiting creativity, art, and job direction when we say it's good to just focus on traits. We're basically asking for glamour for new expansion.
They should still add new skills, it's the only way these jobs will feel new and amazing.

In my opinion it would be better if we could have the option to replace specific skills with others. I don't want Fell cleave II in 5.0. Instead I want a brand new warrior skill which let's warrior smash the floor and stun all enemies and does damage at same time. That's more creative than Fell cleave II.

Basically if I want instead of Fell cleave a I can swap Fell cleave or any related job abilities for that new brand new skill. In my opinion that's the way of the future. No uncreative glamouring of skills please :x

You can already see where they are going to trim some artificial bloat in the next expansion, jolt/impact, leylines/between the lines, the 1-2-3 combos, etc.

Just hope they spread the abilities out across the levels a bit better, some jobs play terrible at lower levels now. I honestly wouldn't mind if some new abilities came before the "old" level cap in 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Crowd control will never be used because it detracts from the every job is viable in every single instance thing they're so obsessed with.

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Except previously almost all jobs but tanks (which are themselves basically a form of CC) had multiple forms of CC. The rest, like the thematically continuously hitting Monk, nonetheless synergized with CC; Monk, for instance, was originally able to apply ToD to slept/bound targets without breaking the CC.

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Originally Posted by Cluebilly

This actually reminded me that back before a certain patch, Bind would actually keep a target bound even after they were attacked. I'll understand why they changed that.

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This was not infinitely repeatable; it would always break on the second strike, or any strike a server poll after the first (I forget which exactly). Sometimes it would break on the first, as well, but I don't recall whether this was a chance based on potency, target %HP, or a flat chance.

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Originally Posted by Mysticdraggon

specifically in future expansions, are we doomed to have consistent Ability Bloat updates as we have just recently?

if so, what would be a solution? less abilities per expansion? i certainly hope not, yet that may seem to be the case if we are just going to loose outdated gameplay along with new gameplay. of course that is only the case if players do consider the gameplay in question to be outdated in the first place and its removal to be justified.

before i give my personal opinion, i would like to hear what the community thinks about this situation that can only become more problematic in days to come.

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Honestly, the game is so, SOOOOO much more hosed due to its inadequate database that can barely even seem to handle the current number of items.

Ability bloat is fixable by simply tweaking abilities and removing some here and there (which WoW has been doing as well, out of necessity). The database issue, however, is a much bigger beast to slay.

The number of items in the game is only going to grow larger, which means more need for glamour logs and better storage solutions, neither of which the devs seem keen on adding due to lack of ability to do so.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Crowd control will never be used because it detracts from the every job is viable in every single instance thing they're so obsessed with..

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I wouldn't say never, they already were used in binding coil and second coil.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Honestly, the game is so, SOOOOO much more hosed due to its inadequate database that can barely even seem to handle the current number of items.

Ability bloat is fixable by simply tweaking abilities and removing some here and there (which WoW has been doing as well, out of necessity). The database issue, however, is a much bigger beast to slay.

The number of items in the game is only going to grow larger, which means more need for glamour logs and better storage solutions, neither of which the devs seem keen on adding due to lack of ability to do so.

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ive always thought that bloat in general would be the game's downfall. glamour alone seems to force people to keep most of the items they get for the sake of cosmetics when the system itself could be updated. i mean, do we really need grade 1-5 glamour prism types, DoH craft requirements, 6 types of glamour prisms including dispellers and empty prisms? same could be said for crafting due to the amount of items required for crafting; some of those items only exist for one craft! plus the amount of items needed for one single fisher class.

so yeah, i really want to see a massive "item bloat" update if it would improve the game's quality, paving the way to new content and updates.

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Originally Posted by Mysticdraggon

ive always thought that bloat in general would be the game's downfall. glamour alone seems to force people to keep most of the items they get for the sake of cosmetics when the system itself could be updated. i mean, do we really need grade 1-5 glamour prism types, DoH craft requirements, 6 types of glamour prisms including dispellers and empty prisms? same could be said for crafting due to the amount of items required for crafting; some of those items only exist for one craft! plus the amount of items needed for one single fisher class.

so yeah, i really want to see a massive "item bloat" update if it would improve the game's quality, paving the way to new content and updates.

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Exactly.

It's a shame because the depth of the crafting/gathering systems in this game are what make them so damn good, but at the same time, it produces many times the number of items that your average MMO would add every xpac.

Also, storage sucks because many 61-70 recipes require items from HW or earlier, meaning getting rid of old mats is often a bad idea as you'll need to rebuy them if you do. :\

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Exactly.

It's a shame because the depth of the crafting/gathering systems in this game are what make them so damn good, but at the same time, it produces many times the number of items that your average MMO would add every xpac.

Also, storage sucks because many 61-70 recipes require items from HW or earlier, meaning getting rid of old mats is often a bad idea as you'll need to rebuy them if you do. :\

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i never found a good reason to continue crafting beyond level 50. the motivation back then was so that i could craft glamours. now after reaching level 55 Blacksmith in HW, it was all just one big giant loop of pointlessness. basically, you need to be a good gatherer of raw HQ items to be a good Crafter (for both crafting and crafting gear), thus you need to have good HQ gear to be a good Gatherer, but you need to be a good Crafter to make HQ gathering gear! if you dont have all HQ gear, your going to have a really bad time in both gathering and crafting.

some may say that its good for gil farming, but as a solo player and homeless, my gil income by just doing daily roulettes, beast tribe missions, and fates is getting me more gil than i can spend PLUS a lot of EXP.

i'm also doing just fine without HQ gear for DoW jobs, since most events i participate in are usually going to be level synced. on top of this, the best gear available in the game has nothing to do with crafting. glamour items are also not really a problem since most of the best looking gear are dropped from dungeons. even if i did need a little more kick, ill just place materia on my gear, and they would probably be just as good as the HQ version. cant meld materia due to crafter level too low? well the only problem there is convenience. go to the next city and pay the materia melder less than what i believ to be 1000 gil per meld.

overall, i have nothing else against crafting other than the fact that the time spent crafting IS NOT WORTH IT. or at least in my case.

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Originally Posted by Mysticdraggon

overall, i have nothing else against crafting other than the fact that the time spent crafting IS NOT WORTH IT. or at least in my case.

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That's actually the beauty of crafting and gathering: if you don't want to do it, you really don't have to.

It's not like some games where you're going to need to buy your way to having the gear you need or whatnot. If you don't want to participate, chasing gil is entirely optional.

I mean, I just bought a rank 8 FC with a mansion attached to it from money I made through goldsmithing and castaway chocobo chicks, but most people have zero need for a mansion or even a house at all (I needed the basement to use as a machinima studio, and the med plot houses basements are sadly TINY...).

So again, the devs did a great job with the economy by allowing players to choose their investment level without being punished for it (unlike the database, which is going to destroy us all one day, heh).

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Originally Posted by alimdia

They just plain out don't want to remove crowd control abilities, maybe they plan to use them again in normal gameplay, maybe they think newbies could get an use of them, but all the skills people consider useless have some sort of crowd control effect.

Either way the fact that you don't need crowd control in normal gameplay means you can just remove those abilities from your hotbar if you want to.

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Some of the black mage quests would be nearly impossible without sleep. Just make sleep better, don't remove a vital spell in their arsenal for solo quests.

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Originally Posted by Mysticdraggon

so if, for example, Samurai's combo system worked the same as monks (and of course if Meikyo Shisui opened up all combos the same way Perfect Balance does), my macros would look something like this:

/micon "Kasha"
/ac "Kasha"
/ac "Shifu"
/ac "Hakaze"

/micon "Gekko"
/ac "Gekko"
/ac "Jinpu"
/ac "Hakaze"

/micon "Yukikaze"
/ac "Yukikaze"
/ac "Jinpu"

/micon "Mangetsu"
/ac "Mangetsu"
/ac "Fuga"

/micon "Oka"
/ac "Oka"
/ac "Fuga"

which would ultimately save me up to 4 slots within my first set!

this would certainly fix the issue in terms of classes that have combos, but as you have already mentioned, other classes that barely have combos need to find its own solution.

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Honestly Sam is a million miles from bloated.. as it stands I basically use like 1 xhb and half the expanded one..

http://i.imgur.com/Uh9Hq5Y.png

sets 1 and 2 are almost identical the only difference is ive put my aoes where my disengage combo and gap close are.. and set 4 is my expanded bar exactly the same on both sides.

i basically never have to press r1 or change sets ever once a fight starts... hell most of the time i never even need to let go of r2 on a boss fight.. (save for a third eye proc for seigan)

it's really not a bloated job at all..

i have all my jobs set up on 2 hotbars + the expanded one. and on nearly all of them half of set 1 and set 2 are exactly the same. deliberately done to minimise button presses and trigger swaps.. even on my paladin.

http://i.imgur.com/0YV3SY9.png
empty box there for random role skills i might need. interject reprisal etc

i can play most of my jobs and hardly ever have to change to a different hotbar set because the bloat really isn't that bad... in 70 content i might open on set 2 do a halone combo to start then go to set one and never change sets for the rest of the fight....

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Originally Posted by Mysticdraggon

specifically in future expansions, are we doomed to have consistent Ability Bloat updates as we have just recently?

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Recently, we had Ability un-bloating.

In the producer's last letters, and with the pre-SB live videos, devs already have expressed their concerns with too much buttons to press and how it is not a good thing for the game as it is intended to be played.

In fact, what had the most reflection in that words, is the PvP rewamp. You now have just a bunch of buttons, and a choose of few optional traits and skills to personalize your PvP job. While on the PvE side, you already noticed some tiered skills now just have one only button, that changes with the higher tier of the skill when unlocked.

About the future, it is very likely that, with new skills, there also will be a look at old ones and some of them removed and some other changed in order to make up for the ones removed.

I'd expect that the unwritten rule of "do all with three skill bars" will be kept on any expansion. I also want go blunt, and will welcome a future "do it all with two skill bars". I'm gone far but dreaming is still not a crime.

I believe that one thing that greatly limits the class design and creates ability bloat is their senseless quest of making each job have the same number of skills.

Let's take a look at dragoon for example, why does heavy trust still exist? It served a purpose during 2.0 where the class was nothing but repeat the same boring combos and press buttons when off CD but this is no longer the case. And what about B4B? Why not just add it's effect to dragon sight and call it a day? What purpose B4B serves right now other than solo content, which can be easily worked around by giving the option of targeting yourself with DS. Mirage dive is another one, why not attach the eyes effect to the jumps themselves? Why is mirage dive a thing?

They really should not focus too much in the number of skills the classes have(unless one class has like 12 or so more skills than the others), and focus more on classes mechanics and identidy.