A possible solution to button bloat

With 5.0 coming out soon, I've been really worried about how they're going to deal with button bloat, seeing as how they're practically obligated to introduce new skills with each new expansion (something I don't agree with in general).
Also, I have noticed there are some players who hate being level synced because the game is more boring with a lot of your skills taken away. This idea may solve both issues.
So at level 30, you can obtain your class's soul stone, which grants you job-exclusive abilities. I was thinking, once you get to level 70, you'll be able to unlock a new soul stone, which would get rid of the abilities you learnes between levels 50 - 70 and give you new spells, for a new rotation and a fresh experience.
So when you're queing for, say, 50/60/70 roulette, you don't have to worry about getting a boring dungeon that level syncs you down, because instead of having a restricted amount of abilities, you'll instead be using you level 50 rotation, or whatever.
I think this would work well with how the game currently works, but what do you think? Obviously it's way too close to 5.0 and they already have their system ready to go in about a month, but it's just something fun to think about.
Thank you for reading :)

If you get rid of one rotation, and add a new one, you'd have two rotations to remember when doing new and old content, and I've seen people flail about with current rotations so this might just make more players not care about them. Why not just have them upgrade the animations/spells/abilities of the current abilities to let us keep rotations, like potency boost, but add something new to them. No new buttons added to the hotbar, but skills become newer.

I can understand the issue from both sides. Not getting any new abilities for like 2 expansions in WoW has suuuuuucked so hard. It feels like your character is stuck in neutral and has no growth at all besides numbers, and numbers are boring.

However, you can't just have more and more abilities growing for all eternity.

I think an easier short-term solution would be to wipe out a bunch of the less useful role abilities and stick to the core ones. Clean things up a bit. Maybe consolidate some of the redundant class abilities into a single button press. Not too much, just a little trim here and there, and then it's easier to launch new abilities.

I would rather have to relearn my entire class each expansion than have another MMO where expansions cause no character growth/change. This would obviously be different for every person, clearly some people prefer the comfort of their character always playing like their character. However, the lack of meaningful advancement or change (aside from getting weaker and having a lesser toolkit, actually) drove me away from WoW. Keep things fresh!

As seen in Stormblood, new skills can be upgrades to old skills and simply replace the older skills in rotation, thus not increasing bloat. Also, depending on how they change old skills, some might be removed, thus freeing up space for new skills that don't simply replace old skills.

SE would need to think up and balance a ton of new skills for every class, that's too much work.
I'd prefer something not unlike the old cross-class system: as you level up, you can check a certain amount of skills to take with you into low level content. Not too many, but at least a few that are important for your class to at least somewhat work.
Just to give an example: you can take 2 skills with you at 50+, 3 at 60+ and 4 at 70.
So when you're 64 but get a Haukke Manor, you have your 31 toolkit + the 3 higher level skills you chose to take with you.
I think it's great that you have access to all your role skills even in Sastasha but many classes feel incredibly clunky without the 2 or 3 higher level skills.

Also I much prefer introducing new skills with every expansion while at the same time getting rid of some old ones through pruning.
It's something that really bugged me about the two last WoW expansions... lots of pruning but NOTHING NEW. The character just feels stuck.
Gameplay evoles and SE keeps an eye on this. So over time some skills just fall behind others and rarely get used. Get rid of them in favor of new ones. Give the classes the chance to constantly evolve, each expansion adding a new flavor while getting rid of an old one.
Consolidate some skills through Mastery into one button, maybe switch an older skill of a 3 part combo for a newer one while and get rid of the old one.
Cure3 and Medica come to mind for WHM. Adjust one skill and get rid off the other.
Or Aero2 and Aero3. Something like: if Aero2 is on the target, the button lights up and by pushing it again it instantly and ogcd changes the dot on the target to Aero3 (with the cool Aero3 animation!) and spreads it to nearby targets. You always have the option to press it a third time for having both dots on one target. But that you only have one button for your two dots and only the short animation lock in addition to one the one gcd for Aero2 compared to the cast now.
I think stuff like that would be possible for a couple of skills.
And if a skill is really outdated... well, time to say goodbye. Sure, some skills will be missed but it's still preferable over lacking class developement. You get something new and (hopefully) cool for it in exchange.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

It's something that really bugged me about the two last WoW expansions... lots of pruning but NOTHING NEW. The character just feels stuck.

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Right?? It was my #1 problems with the game. Your character was getting weaker and weaker every expansion instead of more capable. Generally your numbers go down after every expansion due to a secondary skill reset, which I guess is a necessary evil (although I think FFXIV would do well to let us keep our skill speed at least...) but that was always offset by new abilities that "completed" your class. With Legion and BFA, you just plain got weaker. It was awful. Imagine going into Shadowbringers and you're basically reset to your Heavensward class. Not Stormblood, mind, but they prune you back to Heavensward. That's what BFA was like.

I want to avoid that kind of expansion at all costs.

Go to Wolves Den and you can see how effectively they minimized all the skills xD. It can be done :D.

Only a certain number of jobs suffer from button boat, most for quite nicely on a couple of hotbars. Sure some extra reshuffling, removing or merging is bound to happen but it's not that bad to begin with.

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Originally Posted by RareItems

Go to Wolves Den and you can see how effectively they minimized all the skills xD. It can be done :D.

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That's not going to happen though. It's been explicitly stated by Yoshi that the PvP treatment of actions is not being done to PvE.

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Originally Posted by RareItems

Go to Wolves Den and you can see how effectively they minimized all the skills xD. It can be done :D.

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I mean, your PvP character is by design a shadow of your PvE character. They're just plain less capable.

Honestly... They can just use Traits to upgrade existing skills into new, better ones.

Heck, this can also aid with sync too, if they push the actual base skills into the lower levels, then trait them into better skills at the higher levels.

So for example, instead of Dork Knight being trash before level 70 when they get The Blackest Night. They instead a lesser version of it at like level 30, The Black-ish Night. Then when they hit level 70, the trait upgrades it to the full power version. Maybe at level 80 they get an even more potent version idk.

Though, not everything needs to be just potency increases, some skills can gain additional functionality (With the same overall usage), such as how Warrior's Berserk becomes Inner Release.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

If you get rid of one rotation, and add a new one, you'd have two rotations to remember when doing new and old content, and I've seen people flail about with current rotations so this might just make more players not care about them. Why not just have them upgrade the animations/spells/abilities of the current abilities to let us keep rotations, like potency boost, but add something new to them. No new buttons added to the hotbar, but skills become newer.

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Well having more rotations to memorize isn't stopping from people having like 5 or 6 mains in the game. Memorizing multiple rotations can be done, bad players will be bad regardless.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Well having more rotations to memorize isn't stopping from people having like 5 or 6 mains in the game. Memorizing multiple rotations can be done, bad players will be bad regardless.

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But you don't need to have a complete rotational overhaul from level 70 to 80 to give jobs a new skill. I'd rather see them prune skills that are actually worthless (e.g., Repelling Shot, Blank Shot, Freeze, Piercing Talon, etc.) and then upgrade skills into stronger versions (e.g., Caustic Bite/Stormbite get upgraded to even stronger DoTs).

I think for button bloat they will be getting rid of a lot of skills or merging them into others, and using traits to upgrade skills in ShB. For example. Heavy Thrust. I think they will either get rid of of it and buff DRG over all damage, or they will merge it's ability into another skill. Straight Shot is another skill. They could remove that skill out right and buff BRD's natural crit rate and just have Heavy Shot randomly upgrade to Refulgent Arrow. They have already shown they can use traits to upgrade abilities like the BRD's Bite skills and MCH's Shot skills.

For me personally I hope they cut back on OGCD abilities. Double weaving OGCD abilities just doesn't like to work for me and I always end up clipping my GCDs.

Eliminate role skills for starters. Obviously some of those skills are fundamental to a job's role, but definitely not all of them. The ones that are not, or we can live without, bye bye. Pruning regular skills is another option. I can't speak for all jobs, but I'm sure each has at least just one they could eliminate. Consolidation of tier skills is also an option through the mastery system implemented in SB. Does WHM need Cure I and Cure II? Nope. They sure don't. Just have Cure I upgrade to Cure II at a certain level. New skills in ShB and going forward can be a mix of traits, upgrade via tier, and actual new abilities.

We also have to factor that TP is going away, so I am unsure what this does to skills that rely on it. However, we're going to have to continue to just suck up losing skills in synced content. It really isn't that bad, and resources can't be allocated to adjust how effective those skills are, or rework old content to accommodate them. Waste of time.