Each expansion I get hyped and also worried about more skills.

For sam I really hated Shoha and the whole meditation system. When it first came out it was the worse, and yes they at last made it better. I still..don't really like it.

New expansion time comes more skill bloat, and changes. It makes me nervous.

Same honestly, this game has a skill bloat problem. I doubt I could play without a controller.

They really need to do a button prune before Endwalker.

(Button prune, forums, not ability prune. There are some abilities that have no business being on separate buttons)

They have already cleaned up with skills with the release of every excpansion, so that it stays playable with the controller.

Back in ARR you had on lvl 50 a similar amount of skill as you have today on lvl 80. Look how many you have today on lvl 50. And this will continue.

That why I main DNS. I wanted to invest on my SAM but too many skills.

All we need is a combo system like in PvP where (sensible) skills flow into the next but it's the same button. And I think I'll get my wish if the last MSQ in 5.55 is anything to go by (if I'm not mistaken).

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

They have already cleaned up with skills with the release of every excpansion, so that it stays playable with the controller.

Back in ARR you had on lvl 50 a similar amount of skill as you have today on lvl 80. Look how many you have today on lvl 50. And this will continue.

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Never had half of the weaponskills, spells or abilties they pruned on my hotbars anyway so it solved nothing. Some jobs are now screwed out of ever getting new abilities and are doomed to get generic upgrade traits to preexisting abilties/spells/weaponskills like Paladin where none of its kit goes unused and cannot be easily pruned except for maybe Cover and Shield Bash. I doubt anyone even has those two things on easily accessible keybinds on their hotbars in the first place with how niche Cover is compared to the other oath spender, Sheltron. And how Low Blow is superior because it's off the global cooldown, not sure if Shield Bash breaks combos but if it does it is even more useless (I don't even have that thing on my hotbar to find out), and mobs don't use interruptible actions enough to warrant an on demand stun.

Just remember we are getting a numbers squish in 6.0; so getting new skills is the least of our worries in terms of adapting to what will likely feel like 2013 ARR numbers.

I personally will have fun, but I imagine a lot of people are going to find it jarring, so a couple of extra skills might ease the discomfort of smaller damage numbers and probably even smaller hitpoints.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

Same honestly, this game has a skill bloat problem. I doubt I could play without a controller.

They really need to do a button prune before Endwalker.

(Button prune, forums, not ability prune. There are some abilities that have no business being on separate buttons)

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I'm in favor of the button prune like consolidating ABC combos, but most players seem to consider having more different buttons to press "deep".

as a tank main i feel the opposite. tanks dont have shit while dps are the only interesting jobs to play, which sucks because the DRK aesthetic appeals the most to me

Y'all should be more worried about how many skills they're going to take away at lower levels only to add them back at high level with a different coat of paint lmao.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I'm in favor of the button prune like consolidating ABC combos, but most players seem to consider having more different buttons to press "deep".

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I find this quite funny too... there's very little difference about pressing the same key 3 times while it changes than pressing 3 different keys that people put right next to each other in the correct order.

Consolidating the combo systems would allow space to add more abilities to be woven in or more skills that interact with different stages of the combo.

Plus there is indeed a ton of buttons for casters too, for example... Why Seraph and Consolation aren't the same button? Why Dreadyrm Trance doesn't turn into Summon Bahamut, and then into Enkindle Bahamut? Ley Lines could turn into Between the Lines while active. Dream within a Dream could turn into Assassination.

Basically there are a ton of conditional abilities that are only usable after a previous ability is pressed, and those could really merge into the same button.

We really need some button pruning.
If skills are mutually exclusive or need a specific skill to have been executed first, just merge them. Leylines/ Between the Lines, Dream within a Dream/ Assassinate, Third Eye/ Seigan with Merciful Eye still on a seperate button etc.
And PvP combo system.
That alone would free up plenty of buttons to make room for actually interesting skills instead of keeping pointless button bloat, deleting nice skills and giving them back 10 levels later with a new animation.

Pruning needs to stop. It ruins the 1-50lvl gameplay. Also classes lose the unique stuff. Comparable to Classic vs Retail soon.

Would be nice if they combined the combos like some of the skills already on RDM and unprune some of the old removed skills

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

All we need is a combo system like in PvP where (sensible) skills flow into the next but it's the same button. And I think I'll get my wish if the last MSQ in 5.55 is anything to go by (if I'm not mistaken).

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I don't think we'll actually get that. The battles where we're playing as other Scions they have super simplified hotbars so you know what to do without people going 'oh god what icon is that' so that anyone could really do it.

Some skills branch, and some can be used in reverse order, ect.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

I don't think we'll actually get that. The battles where we're playing as other Scions they have super simplified hotbars so you know what to do without people going 'oh god what icon is that' so that anyone could really do it.

Some skills branch, and some can be used in reverse order, ect.

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Branching skills are always a false excuse, it's still pretty easy. Say you have a job that has 2 combos : 1 2 3 and 1 2 4. Just consolidate 1 2 3 and leave 4 separate, so that you just need to do 1 1 1 or 1 1 2(previously 4). That already cuts down hotkeys from 4 to 2. Hell, there may even be some plugins that do just that already. :rolleyes:

As far as "reverse order", i have no ideas what you'd be talking about, do you have any exemple?

The only extremely niche thing it'd change is that you couldn't just spam 1 2 on some jobs in very specific situation (such as PLD where you could spam Fast Blade -> Riot Blade for more mana regen) and you'd have to commit to the full combo.

TBH this expansion had the least number of ability used.

I have massives holes in my hotbar since 5.0, I don't use my mouse buttons for WAR, MCH has barely any buttons.
IMO, jobs like GNB have a nice number of buttons, DRG is at the perfect numbers of buttons, SAM as well.
And I'm binding food, pots, even mount. I don't click at all except for targeting a specific mob.

Button prunning happened for MCH, for the good kind because rapidfire was always with Wildfire, made no sense to keep them separate. But they merged a bit too much.
That's also something that bothers me, people wants AoE variant but also button prunning. Make the Single Target spell an AoE and boom, you get both.

Job design is at its weakest, there is gaps between jobs, DRG and BLM are perfect but many other jobs lacks something, QoL/Button.
There is many action that were badly designed, take Flamethrower, Anatman, Shoha. Oh and 2 were reworked during the expansion while Flamethrower is boring since Stormblood.
Considering we've seen variant action, I don't have many hopes about SQEX fixing, completing the current jobs.

Scholar needs a good sort out

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Originally Posted by Nyarlha

Branching skills are always a false excuse, it's still pretty easy. Say you have a job that has 2 combos : 1 2 3 and 1 2 4. Just consolidate 1 2 3 and leave 4 separate, so that you just need to do 1 1 1 or 1 1 2(previously 4). That already cuts down hotkeys from 4 to 2. Hell, there may even be some plugins that do just that already. :rolleyes:

As far as "reverse order", i have no ideas what you'd be talking about, do you have any exemple?

The only extremely niche thing it'd change is that you couldn't just spam 1 2 on some jobs in very specific situation (such as PLD where you could spam Fast Blade -> Riot Blade for more mana regen) and you'd have to commit to the full combo.

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Dragoon has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 that can also end up being 1, 2, 3, 5, 4. Would you suggest that become 11123 or 11132 instead

Also the combo being 1, 1, 1, or 1, 1, 2 would just feel kinda wrong? I would rather skills get upgraded as you level up, personally, like how they've been doing for a decent bit of them

And what you call a 'false excuse' is literally based on peoples' preferences. I honest hate the PvP combat. I need my skills laid out how they are now for me to actually register them mentally, so if they reduced the skills like how you're suggesting, I would honestly hate combat in the game and possibly start moving away from the game if it's handled any way I personally can't handle. Saying it's a 'false excuse' is literally shutting down what someone thinks about it.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

I need my skills laid out how they are now for me to actually register them mentally, so if they reduced the skills like how you're suggesting, I would honestly hate combat in the game and possibly start moving away from the game if it's handled any way I personally can't handle. Saying it's a 'false excuse' is literally shutting down what someone thinks about it.

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Easy, just make it an option. You wouldn't need to enable it.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

Same honestly, this game has a skill bloat problem. I doubt I could play without a controller.

They really need to do a button prune before Endwalker.

(Button prune, forums, not ability prune. There are some abilities that have no business being on separate buttons)

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Yeah no. There are other ways to address by simply enhancing current abilities. Swear to god noone learned any lessons from what Blizzard did over at WoW. Pruning sounds real great until it actually happens and you realize you are left with a bunch of jobs that are just copy and paste of each with literally no differences. We have examples of other MMO's where this has occurred and EVERY single time it was a disaster.

It is a childish MMO playerbase of people all in our 30's by now that cry for new shiny abilities like little kids. They could raise the level cap by 5 and change some of the potencies and I would be happy.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

Dragoon has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 that can also end up being 1, 2, 3, 5, 4. Would you suggest that become 11123 or 11132 instead

Also the combo being 1, 1, 1, or 1, 1, 2 would just feel kinda wrong? I would rather skills get upgraded as you level up, personally, like how they've been doing for a decent bit of them

And what you call a 'false excuse' is literally based on peoples' preferences. I honest hate the PvP combat. I need my skills laid out how they are now for me to actually register them mentally, so if they reduced the skills like how you're suggesting, I would honestly hate combat in the game and possibly start moving away from the game if it's handled any way I personally can't handle. Saying it's a 'false excuse' is literally shutting down what someone thinks about it.

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It's definitely preference but the false excuse is saying "it cannot be done because of branching combos". Yes, it can be done.

If having to change your muscle memory is too much for you in the case we get this kind of changes, I hope for you none of your jobs are actually ever revamped like some have been so far from expansion to expansion.

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Originally Posted by Crowzer

That why I main DNS. I wanted to invest on my SAM but too many skills.

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You main a Domain Name System?

We'll likely get only 1 or 2 actual full on new skills so I wouldnt worry too much, most of which should fill in some missing skills, "aoe version of this, single target version that" kind of deal. Also likely the rest of the EW skills are just upgrades/passives for existing skills. Yet to run into a serious button bloat problems for controller, and I just use 2 crossbars and 1/2 a crossbar for the L+R/R+L (made them both go to same crossbar 1/2).

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I find this quite funny too... there's very little difference about pressing the same key 3 times while it changes than pressing 3 different keys that people put right next to each other in the correct order.

Consolidating the combo systems would allow space to add more abilities to be woven in or more skills that interact with different stages of the combo.

Plus there is indeed a ton of buttons for casters too, for example... Why Seraph and Consolation aren't the same button? Why Dreadyrm Trance doesn't turn into Summon Bahamut, and then into Enkindle Bahamut? Ley Lines could turn into Between the Lines while active. Dream within a Dream could turn into Assassination.

Basically there are a ton of conditional abilities that are only usable after a previous ability is pressed, and those could really merge into the same button.

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I agree with this. Also things like Fire IV and Blizzard IV on a BLM. If you can use one you literally cannot use the other even by accident, why are they different buttons?

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Yeah no. There are other ways to address by simply enhancing current abilities. Swear to god noone learned any lessons from what Blizzard did over at WoW. Pruning sounds real great until it actually happens and you realize you are left with a bunch of jobs that are just copy and paste of each with literally no differences. We have examples of other MMO's where this has occurred and EVERY single time it was a disaster.

It is a childish MMO playerbase of people all in our 30's by now that cry for new shiny abilities like little kids. They could raise the level cap by 5 and change some of the potencies and I would be happy.

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I think you are misreading what I said. I said button prune, not ability prune. There are so many abilities that are only usable while under a condition set by another ability and there are some abilities that are mutually exclusive. These could all get condensed into one button without ruining the flow.

I am also open to combos being put on one button but am a little less sure about that except in conditional combos (1-2-3 but 2 is literally only usable after 1 and 1 does not branch etc)

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

Y'all should be more worried about how many skills they're going to take away at lower levels only to add them back at high level with a different coat of paint lmao.

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I remember I played ninja when it first launched in 2.4 and pretty much didn't touch it after leveling it to 50.
Flash forward to me picking it back up in 5.0.

"They put Assassinate at level 60? Assassinate???"

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I'm in favor of the button prune like consolidating ABC combos, but most players seem to consider having more different buttons to press "deep".

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It depends on the job. Dragoon, paladin and ninja etc, you could easily prune down the linear combos.

Monk on the other hand, not so much because of perfect balance which lets you hit any combo skill. I think SAM has something similar? So these two jobs have mechanics you'd have to strip away in order to do this.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Yeah no. There are other ways to address by simply enhancing current abilities. Swear to god noone learned any lessons from what Blizzard did over at WoW. Pruning sounds real great until it actually happens and you realize you are left with a bunch of jobs that are just copy and paste of each with literally no differences. We have examples of other MMO's where this has occurred and EVERY single time it was a disaster.

It is a childish MMO playerbase of people all in our 30's by now that cry for new shiny abilities like little kids. They could raise the level cap by 5 and change some of the potencies and I would be happy.

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XIV already has a bunch of copy-pastes. Mainly in tank and healing roles. It's not the number of buttons, it's how roles get simplified and how the game throws any utility into the trash bin for sake of making the dps tunnel vision more clear.

What is this skill bloat people are talking about? I wish we had more skills empty slots on my hotbar trigger me.

I want more skills that I don't have to press :cool:

on a serious note, I'd like for them to add combo buttons akin to the playable NPC quests with a toggle

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

It depends on the job. Dragoon, paladin and ninja etc, you could easily prune down the linear combos.

Monk on the other hand, not so much because of perfect balance which lets you hit any combo skill. I think SAM has something similar? So these two jobs have mechanics you'd have to strip away in order to do this.

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Definitely can't change monk since they are not combos.

SAM just has 3 different combos, there would be no issue consolidating that to 3 buttons, one for each sen combo.

I want them to consolidate all movement buttons into just one button. There's no reason to have all that bloat for moving left and right and forward and back when you could just have one "move to the right spot" button. Heck, if you count the diagonals that's a whopping 7 directions you can consolidate into one!

Now you might say, "but movement is an integral part of the game" to which I say, sure! Keep it! But when are you ever going to move to the wrong spot on purpose? And honestly, it should just be a toggle for those who don't want it. Personally I think not letting you move to the wrong spot just makes the game better in every conceivable way, and makes more room for other movement buttons to be added.

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Originally Posted by Nyarlha

Definitely can't change monk since they are not combos.

SAM just has 3 different combos, there would be no issue consolidating that to 3 buttons, one for each sen combo.

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Meikyo Shisui on Samurai allows you to execute any Weapon Skill with it acting as if it was in a combo, similar to Perfect Balance. WHile this is mostly used to build sens, I do believe it is also sometimes used to refresh Jinpu and Shifu buffs, though I don't know Samurai well enough for all of its intracacies.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Meikyo Shisui on Samurai allows you to execute any Weapon Skill with it acting as if it was in a combo, similar to Perfect Balance. WHile this is mostly used to build sens, I do believe it is also sometimes used to refresh Jinpu and Shifu buffs, though I don't know Samurai well enough for all of its intracacies.

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Ah yeah I forgot about that one, been a while since I played SAM. For sen building you could imagine it'd turn your hotkeys to the last step of the combos while active, but yeah you'd have to forego fringe case such as buff refresh when MS.

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Originally Posted by Nyarlha

Branching skills are always a false excuse, it's still pretty easy. Say you have a job that has 2 combos : 1 2 3 and 1 2 4. Just consolidate 1 2 3 and leave 4 separate, so that you just need to do 1 1 1 or 1 1 2(previously 4). That already cuts down hotkeys from 4 to 2. Hell, there may even be some plugins that do just that already. :rolleyes:

As far as "reverse order", i have no ideas what you'd be talking about, do you have any exemple?

The only extremely niche thing it'd change is that you couldn't just spam 1 2 on some jobs in very specific situation (such as PLD where you could spam Fast Blade -> Riot Blade for more mana regen) and you'd have to commit to the full combo.

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What if I just want to do 1-2 and then go 1-4-5? you can't do that if the 1 button already turn into 3.
Example if I just want to refresh disembowel, but not do chaos because I know the DoT won't fully tick.
So I just want to do TT -> Disembowel -> TT -> VT -> FT.
You can't do this in your case.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

Dragoon has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 that can also end up being 1, 2, 3, 5, 4. Would you suggest that become 11123 or 11132 instead

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This is wrong. The Dragoon combos are 1-2-3-6-7 and 1-4-5-7-6. Effective consolidation would be to make them 1-1-1-3-4 and 1-2-2-4-3.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Monk on the other hand, not so much because of perfect balance which lets you hit any combo skill. I think SAM has something similar? So these two jobs have mechanics you'd have to strip away in order to do this.

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Perfect Balance is the only thing really in the way of consolidation and that could easily be replaced by a more engaging burst mechanic. You could then have 3 buttons that change their action based on current form and revert Form shift back to its form cycling effect to consolidate the current 9 weaponskills (6 ST, 3 AoE).

Samurai would only really requires Gekko to apply the Jinpu buff and Kasha to apply the Shifu buff during Meikyo Shisui. You could then consolidate the ST combos into 3 buttons (Hakaze/Yukikaze, Jinpu/Gekko and Shifu/Kasha) and 2 AoE buttons (Fuga/Mangetsu and Oka) with Meikyo Shisui activating the final steps of the combos.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I think you are misreading what I said. I said button prune, not ability prune. There are so many abilities that are only usable while under a condition set by another ability and there are some abilities that are mutually exclusive. These could all get condensed into one button without ruining the flow.

I am also open to combos being put on one button but am a little less sure about that except in conditional combos (1-2-3 but 2 is literally only usable after 1 and 1 does not branch etc)

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See I could fully agree with this but that is not what developers hear when they see these types of post and go into meetings about ability bloat. Blizzard and other developers heard remove buttons so they removed buttons instead of just making one button do multiple things.

I am 100% in support of combining abilities if it makes sense.

For some reason MMO developers across the board think MMO players only want the next flashy button with an expansion or we will turn on them somehow. Right now if you look at WoW they are 4 expansions ahead of us and the tipping point to borrowed power was 2 expansions ago.

So going by that math we are 2 expansions away from seeing if Square Enix thinks borrowed power is a good idea. My guess after watching the current flood from WoW and hated expansions they will never consider this.

Personally I hope they nuke the place in a calamity and reset us back to zero with a brand new design far more open world MMO. Keep the frivolous stuff like mounts or whatever but reset power straight back to 0.

If you want button prune, adopting PvP's combo system is the way to go IMO.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

So going by that math we are 2 expansions away from seeing if Square Enix thinks borrowed power is a good idea. My guess after watching the current flood from WoW and hated expansions they will never consider this.

Personally I hope they nuke the place in a calamity and reset us back to zero with a brand new design far more open world MMO. Keep the frivolous stuff like mounts or whatever but reset power straight back to 0.

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Borrowed power is awful and most WoW players hate it. It ruins what could be evergreen content.

For example Battle of Dazar'alor was a great raid that we may never get to revisit again even with time walking since it was balanced around the Heart of Azeroth and Azerite Power.

....If, a few expansions from now, in FFXIV we all got reset but kept outfits, mounts, pets, titles, basically all cosmetics I would actually be okay with that. Then again I have always wanted to see this game get a new engine and better base coding.

The devs clearly have talent, it's the engine that holds them back.

I love the idea of combo buttons. I adore the NIN aesthetic, for instance, but I feel like I have to be an octopus to play it right. Plus I love these suggestions about SAM since that was the only thing that could sometimes trip me up when I was leveling it.

If there were multiple connected skills on one button, maybe they could add new skills to allow weaving between the button presses without breaking the combo or something for some extra oomph. Something we can't really do right now since it would break the combo. That wouldn't be pruning but instead streamlining and improving.

I think some jobs have to few skills. I really don't get this mentality..
So many people love DNC/WHM/DRK/MCH, but I find it really boring because you have like 1 hotbar..
If we getva 321 button combo for example one day in pve i'm out, i'll find some other game that doesn't cater to babies