Complexity/Sensory Overload

[Snugglebutt]

I play on K/M and that's one hand keyboard and one hand mouse. Same goes for probably most people which cannot keyboard map all the specific class and cross-class skills, potions or macros for use with one hand in my experience so your eyes will be focused on the overly large amount shortcut bars because you will have to spend time positioning your cursor over the relevant skill across many shortcut bars to use the unmapped ones. It's more difficult on some classes while easier on others admittedly. My issue however is not about the difficulty of using rotations or skills itself as a single element of gameplay as some classes can rely on muscle memory more than others, it is not about the fight mechanics itself as a single gameplay element either. It is the combination of the class complexity, fight mechanics and importantly also the GUI micro management/information overload which detracts from the enjoyment of actually taking part in the content (all three elements together) which I think is becoming a problem.

If you play a more static rotation class which does rely on muscle memory then it would be less of a problem for you (bard for example is more muscle memory than machinist etc) and good for you if you play with controller but not everyone does. In my opinion if need to spend more than 10-20% of the time having to focus your eyes away from the content taking part in to micro manage your UI then it becomes an issue and on quite a few classes it feels to me like you need to spend 40% or more of your focus on UI elements and not the content itself tracking all the timers, buffs and debuffs on not just yourself but also the mobs/bosses and other players sometimes, keeping an eye on procs and GCD's/oGCD's alongside tracking chat windows, party windows, all the various bars and icons while also needing to keep an eye on your many shortcut bars for a multitude of reasons.

I reckon if had to guess actual breakdown of time I would on average spend in a 10 second period for example during combat maybe 5 seconds having to focus my eyes on GUI use (darting/dashing between mob/party and self buffs/debuffs/timers plus procs/shortcuts/icons/bars and windows), 4 seconds on tracking the other members/boss AoE's and positions (2 seconds on self positionals/member positions and 2 seconds on boss position and it's AoE positions), the remaining 1 seconds out of every 10 is having a brain aneurysm over the mental juggling of fight mechanics and trying to do as perfect a class rotation as possible, 0 seconds getting to actually enjoy being there or admiring what the developers have created. Like another person said, they might as well have just made the game a series of grey bland rooms and the bosses being just giant straw target dummies because so little time during combat do you get to look around or enjoy it in my opinion these days.

Everyone has different levels of coordination and everyone has different preferences as to how much bloating/complexity is too much or not enough. Not everyone uses controllers and not everyone plays same level of muscle memory classes. I admit this issue is subjective from person to person. I am just saying for me it is getting a bit too much overall when combine all three gameplay elements together. I think the class complexity is about as high as it should go, that there is plenty of room for more classes but keeping the current level of complexity for them including newer skills being higher level direct replacements for the lower level ones to reduce shortcut bloating, that SE needs to change their focus from class complexity to fight mechanic complexity/diversity since there is plenty of room there for improvement, maybe SE could improve macro creation adding if/and/or/else type depth which might help for some, the information/tracking as an element has gone a bit too far for my liking because it takes too much eye focus away from enjoying the content while also having too large an impact during the fight itself.

Anyways, I merely wanted to let SE know my opinion on this issue which I have now done by creating this thread and making my position fairly clear on it. Whether they take on board what I said or not is up to them, it's out of my hands but I hope they keep this issue in mind when moving forward with new content.