Ability Pruning/Consolidate Advocate

Good morning,

Happy Friday everyone,

This may be unorthodox for most others (given the recent highlights of 6.1’s effect over the forums) but as a Ps4 Player that solely uses a controller I definitely am in support to this. Reasons being:

- Less crowded/ hoarding hotbars on my gameplay Screen

-More immersion with the game (efficiently able to read visual mechanics)

-Reinforces muscles memory for combos or otherwise

-Remove unnecessary abilities or consolidate some (only keep ones that truly makes sense while keeping job identity)

I can slightly understand the other spectrum that objects otherwise, mainly feeling as though it’s “destroying” the game overall & I can sympathize with that to a degree, and I wish there’s a middle ground in which we both would have in common rather than pit us against one another (while also remaining assertive to your stance & I with mine’s).

PC & Console gaming does indeed vary in ways that you’ll have try out both! PC games tends to be more complex (WoW being one) while most console games are pragmatic & straightforward.

All in all, just wanted to express that I support pruning/consolidate certain abilities without butchering job identity as the changes for SAM were far unnecessary & instead could’ve gone a different route (I used to support SAM changes till I notice how it too affected me).

Cheers,

I've used controller before, we don't need to prune for controller players. i feel it's a bit insulting to think that we have to dumb things down for them since they have the tools to have as many keybinds as keyboard players (Cross hotbars)

It may be an option but truly not some of us desires that & it may be insulting to PC & some controller users alike.

This is where we are stuck in a gray line since the game fosters both PC & Controller (console or PC) alike.

Frankly I don’t see it insulting as more seeing more resistance for those with keybinding players that are reluctant to see changes

There are many abilities that can be combined, for example, LeyLines and Between the Lines.
There are however many that shouldn't be, and weaponskill combos (with the exception of Reapers basic combo) fall in here. This would actually go against your "muscle memory, able to pay more attention to mechanics" point.
If you consolidate basic weaponskill combo's into a single button, then you are forced to keep track of which skill is being used when, in order to properly time and work around gauge generation and other additional effects like buffs and debuffs. When on seperate buttons, you can do this via muscle memory, without distinct buttons to press, you are watching your hotbars constantly to know if the next time you hit 'combo button' if it will generate 10 gauge and cap you, or if it will inflict the dmg up debuff, etc.

Anything else aside, *pruning* abilities ends up leaving jobs feeling progressively worse to play at low levels by giving them even fewer things to use there.

I actually don’t disagree that consolidation could be good—albeit I hope it would be to open up space for new abilities in future expansions—but pruning the existing abilities? Please, no.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vencio

Good morning,

Happy Friday everyone,

This may be unorthodox for most others (given the recent highlights of 6.1’s effect over the forums) but as a Ps4 Player that solely uses a controller I definitely am in support to this. Reasons being:

- Less crowded/ hoarding hotbars on my gameplay Screen

-More immersion with the game (efficiently able to read visual mechanics)

-Reinforces muscles memory for combos or otherwise

-Remove unnecessary abilities or consolidate some (only keep ones that truly makes sense while keeping job identity)

I can slightly understand the other spectrum that objects otherwise, mainly feeling as though it’s “destroying” the game overall & I can sympathize with that to a degree, and I wish there’s a middle ground in which we both would have in common rather than pit us against one another (while also remaining assertive to your stance & I with mine’s).

PC & Console gaming does indeed vary in ways that you’ll have try out both! PC games tends to be more complex (WoW being one) while most console games are pragmatic & straightforward.

All in all, just wanted to express that I support pruning/consolidate certain abilities without butchering job identity as the changes for SAM were far unnecessary & instead could’ve gone a different route (I used to support SAM changes till I notice how it too affected me).

Cheers,

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Once again, I don't think anyone is advocating more buttons. Most people are concerned about the method of pruning seeing the recent changes in 6.1 where ample other solutions would have achieved better results and kept class identity.

The way Endwalker released with having many Jobs just having their current abilities upgrade and just adding one or two new abilities and skills/spells to try out, I thought was a really good way of approaching Job classes each expansion when wanting to spice things up a bit with them without feeling the need to completely rework them from the ground up.

6.1 completely went in the wrong direction with Samurai and Ninja... They should have just left alone and just combined Mug with Trick Attack or something if they really couldn't figure out what to do with that skill.

SMN's rework was a good choice to finally making the Job feel like an actual Summoner, but the problem with it is, as another Player in the DPS forums pointed, feels like lvl 90 SMN just plays like a lvl 50 job class. For that Job, they really need to add at least another set of three Egi, like Ifirit, Garuda and Titan, along with at least two new Demi Egi like Bahamut and Phoenix. But with all these different Egi providing some sort of different benefit when summoned.

And healers have way too many healing abilities that do the same thing, along side too many panic heal buttons. Alot of those healing buttons can be combined into one and the panic heal buttons really only should be far less than a handful to teach healers of every level how to heal without overall relying on such handicaps, otherwise they'll never improve.


Okay, I'll shut up now. xD

Some classes don’t need pruning there has been enough gutting of actions left and right. On the other hand I do think that some things can be condensed. I am playing PLD and for some reason Royal Authority doesn’t turn into Atonement even though this would be a prime example of button bloat unnecessarily just transform Royal Authority after completing a combo into Atonement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vencio

Good morning,


-Remove unnecessary abilities or consolidate some (only keep ones that truly makes sense while keeping job identity)

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i dont really feel like many classes have any out of place abilities.

though what i would like to see is combo chaining similar to how it is in pvp be added to pve skills

You really dont ever use an ability that doesnt benefit from its combo potency, so the only thing having to assign it to your bars does is waste space. I feel like condensing all combos into their basic core that they branch from would go further to alleviate bar space stress than trying to find out of place abilities.

as others mentioned as well, consolidation helps a lot. another example that they did was consolidating mirage dive into high jump when mirage dive was ready, generally any ability that enables another ability could use it. fang and claw/wheeling thrust (obviously still needing to adhere to their respective positional)

dragoon is one of the jobs that button bloat seems to effect the most, but many other jobs have plenty of things that would help without actually changing how the job plays at all

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

I've used controller before, we don't need to prune for controller players. i feel it's a bit insulting to think that we have to dumb things down for them since they have the tools to have as many keybinds as keyboard players (Cross hotbars)

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I think its the reverse actually

If someone doesn't have an MMO mouse and hasn't been PC gaming their whole life a K+M set up is probably more limiting

In other words, the ceiling is higher for K+M users certainly in number of skills they can use.
But for a casual gamer I'd say the floor is higher on a controller

As far as pruning, I can't speak to raiding but from a dungeon perspective I don't feel its that bad now, but I feel there a bit too many skills that are just press on cooldown.
An OGCD thats up every 30 seconds that you just press once its up is unnecessary. Its okay to have us press less buttons on some classes if more meaningful decisions go into pressing them.

my minor gripe isnt that controller doesnt have enough binds, but its the accessibility of those binds.

controllers back bars (lt+rt and rt+lt) being hidden until pressing the triggers is kind of annoying. you either have to relegate situational abilities that dont have cooldowns to those bars or have to utilize an additional action bar with no binds on it at all just to know the cooldowns of the abilities you put on the back bars. at that point, why not just provide us the option to have our back hotbars visible at all times and not just when the keybinds are pressed?

the dream for me, though, is if they consolidate combo actions into their respective combo starter to branch out into the others like pvp

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Originally Posted by lAurasl

my minor gripe isnt that controller doesnt have enough binds, but its the accessibility of those binds.

controllers back bars (lt+rt and rt+lt) being hidden until pressing the triggers is kind of annoying. you either have to relegate situational abilities that dont have cooldowns to those bars or have to utilize an additional action bar with no binds on it at all just to know the cooldowns of the abilities you put on the back bars. at that point, why not just provide us the option to have our back hotbars visible at all times and not just when the keybinds are pressed?

the dream for me, though, is if they consolidate combo actions into their respective combo starter to branch out into the others like pvp

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You can by activating the WXHB, and if you don't want to use the double-tap method, simply make them the same hotbars you're using for your Expanded Xhotbar.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You can by activating the WXHB, and if you don't want to use the double-tap method, simply make them the same hotbars you're using for your Expanded Xhotbar.

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sorry, run that by me again?

wxhb is the one that requires double tap of trigger to activate, correct? i have it active. setting it to be the same bars as the regular xhb seems like it accomplishes basically the same thing as just having my abilities for the xhb mirrored on a separate bar with no keybinds since im still using rt+lt(and vice versa) to access them, except it then removes binds from me since the same abilities i have on the xhb are also on the wxhb

unless im missing the point altogether

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lAurasl

sorry, run that by me again?

wxhb is the one that requires double tap of trigger to activate, correct? i have it active. setting it to be the same bars as the regular xhb seems like it accomplishes basically the same thing as just having my abilities for the xhb mirrored on a separate bar with no keybinds since im still using rt+lt(and vice versa) to access them, except it then removes binds from me since the same abilities i have on the xhb are also on the wxhb

unless im missing the point altogether

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"why not just provide us the option to have our back hotbars visible at all times and not just when the keybinds are pressed?"
What I've suggested accomplishes this. I don't understand what you've just described but the settings can be tricky to get right.

WXHB displays as smaller xhotbars above the left and right sides of your main xhotbar. You can use this to view your 'hidden' skills that are set to L>R/R>L.

yes, but that then wastes keybinds when you have the same skill occupying two different keybinds.

im not sure if you can do this on console, but on pc playing with a controller you still have access to keyboard action bars, and you can utilize them to drag skills to so you can track their cooldowns without wasting keybinds

but this would be unnecessary if the back xhb were just visible at all times. you wouldnt need to utilize extra action bars or waste keybinds dragging the same ability to two different keybinds

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lAurasl

yes, but that then wastes keybinds when you have the same skill occupying two different keybinds.

im not sure if you can do this on console, but on pc playing with a controller you still have access to keyboard action bars, and you can utilize them to drag skills to so you can track their cooldowns without wasting keybinds

but this would be unnecessary if the back xhb were just visible at all times. you wouldnt need to utilize extra action bars or waste keybinds dragging the same ability to two different keybinds

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Using WHXB gives you 32 (visible) keybinds
I personally set LT + RT and RT+LT to be the same thing that way no matter what I am doing it is easily accessible
That gives me 40 binds, with the option to go to 48.
I also use one of the keyboard hotbars to track the cooldowns for the LT+RT bar

The biggest problem with the controller setup is how bad of a job the game does of showing you the options

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lAurasl

yes, but that then wastes keybinds when you have the same skill occupying two different keybinds.

im not sure if you can do this on console, but on pc playing with a controller you still have access to keyboard action bars, and you can utilize them to drag skills to so you can track their cooldowns without wasting keybinds

but this would be unnecessary if the back xhb were just visible at all times. you wouldnt need to utilize extra action bars or waste keybinds dragging the same ability to two different keybinds

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Yeah I have no idea what you're trying to say.

"but this would be unnecessary if the back xhb were just visible at all times."
What I suggested does this, and it looks a bit like this:

https://i.imgur.com/P3MEath.png

Unless you're trying to say you already utilise BOTH WXHB and the Expanded Xhotbars?
In which case you're asking for three sets of xhotbars to be visible at all times??? 48 abilities on screen all at once?
Seems a bit overkill.


Assuming that's NOT what you're asking and you do only need the 32 skills from 2 sets of xhotbars:
You can assign the same xhotbar to each system.
Place your 'secondary' skills on xhotbar 2.
Assign the WXHB as xhotbar 2.
Assign the expanded xhotbar as xhotbar 2.
???
Profit


https://i.imgur.com/FytDRmA.png
Always Display WXHB
Position WXHB separately from XHB (optional)

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/...7c9d6fec29.jpg
Enable expanded controls (set to xhotbar 2 L and R)
Enable WXHB controls (set to xhotbar 2 L and R)
Optional: disable WXHB so you only access these controls by holding L>R and R>L

like i said, im unsure if console only players still have access to the regular keyboard hotbars, but when playing with a controller on pc, you can just utilize additional keyboard hotbars to track cooldowns

(Ignore all the true thrusts, just added to bars for sake of visibility)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...52/unknown.png

this accomplishes the same thing youre suggesting without wasting keybinds as your suggestion causes both xhb and wxhb to have the exact same abilities on the exact same button.

but yes, i am referring to having the normal hotbars, the xhb, and wxhb all on screen at once. maybe not by default, but an option to.

but i am also a little bit more limited due to an injury that causes me to not be able to feel my hands very well. certain keybinds are harder for me to press so i tend to gravitate away from them or relegate really situational abilities to them so thats why i utilize both the xhb and wxhb for actual keybinds.

it's a major contributing factor to my desire to have all combo abilities condensed into their combo chain opener instead of trying to find misfitting abilities to prune