I hope the next expansion reverses Heavensward's emphasis on rotations

[Shurrikhan]

I play primarily with PC, so that's one of the differences. Another detail is that I don't play FFXIV judiciously enough to justify mastering an estoric button mapping of shifting to different skill bars just to use an ability within finger reach. If it isn't visible on the screen and can be ctrl+number clicked via left hand, then that button is too far away. Some people may be perfectly fine with this old horse system, but it's better to be focused on actually seeing what is on screen than to be switching between controls and the screen.

Adding in something like randomly flip flopping between side attacks and frontal to max damage, + remembering to use cooldowns before using jumps, + remembering to use the dragoon level 60 ability when you have enough time saved up is way too much work for a rotation. I'm not entirely sure what other games some commentators have played that have even more complex rotations, but this games rotation system at end game IS very, very complex with some jobs. Also, keep in mind this game encourages playing multiple roles / jobs, so the rotations need to be simple enough that they aren't a burden when swapping between two or three other jobs. That's just not happening at the moment.

Apart from tracking your over-30s CDs being a bit larger a thing here, most of that complexity has been present in most MMOs I've played, and I've been glad for it each time. Sure, I'd like to have a bit more situational deviation that required me to be looking more at the screen to figure out optimal skill choices and timings than at my hotbar, but that level of complexity feels very, very standard.

I've never felt burdened by any of the jobs rotations, despite playing all of them; the tool-tips, paired with having a consistent relative measure for damage in the form of "potency" rather than <%weapon damage + %attack power + flat>, etc., make picking a logical sequence of moves pretty easy. I can't imagine that most players wouldn't have their rotations down for personal dps and probably a couple 4-man compositions, where those may cause a difference, after spending all that time to hit level 60. XIV's gameplay may make it worthwhile to math something out on occasion, like the average potency of a particular combo, or the amount of DoT ticks needed for a DoT to be worth doing (give or take certain multiplier windows), but it also makes it very easy to do exactly that. Know your windows in terms of GCDs, and perhaps at what GCD recast you could fit one more, figure out the "worth it" times for different DoTs and when to hold onto CDs. The multiplicative stacking between different buff types and debuffs together isn't so extreme that you'll end up with different answers in but very few cases between having all of your CDs ready and just one or two when entering or preparing for a given decision. The practice you get from leveling dungeons does mostly carry over into endgame, even if the latter may ask much more of you; you get a feel for the timings, which, unlike rotations, cannot be broken by mechanics or phases. Better yet, the more you practice on a couple different classes, the better you can look at the tooltips of another and basically figure out almost exactly how it should be played without having touched it before, or fit new experiences to a high level of play. (I don't recommend telling others their business, unless perhaps if they're clearly wasting class tools like Heavy Thrust, if even then, but it makes it that much easier to figure out why something's not going as expected. This game does ask you to have at least a shelf-knowledge of your companion jobs after all, niche and associated capabilities for DPS, and tools for healers and tanks. And it gets a lot more fun once you know how something's likely to go, or can maneuver it to a more ideal conclusion.)

Now, that's not to say that I don't think there are shortcomings. Nor do I think that the support given is enough for ALL players.

Many abilities seem to suffer from being underweighted purely to keep a particular job balanced against others. Elusive Leap, for example, can only be used as a last resort or after having memorized a fight because it has such a long CD; as long as no other job is forced to need a target-less movement ability, neither will you need Elusive without being bound or heavied, at which point in usually just becomes another closer, but one on a seemingly arbitrary 150% to 300% CD; when add phases are more frequent than every three minutes, it can no longer function as a means to intercept adds before they reach the healer so that the tank can easily take them from you; as long as another DPS without Quelling Strikes or Elusive Jump is present, there is no tank-DPS-improving effect from using Elusive. Putting all those things together, it becomes a really weak ability, even if one we'd by no means want removed or replaced. And the only reason I can imagine for that is that between all its other mobility options DRG mobility would feel too strong if Elusive were a "real" ability, say, at a 1 minute duration, and dropping 20% of its enmity instantly and supplying 20% more as bonus enmity on the target, which enmity-multiplied tanks could better reap the benefits of than others. I don't understand why such a tenuous balance would be taken over trying to keep identity-heavy gameplay integral to the job. Would it really hurt balance in a way that could not be easily rebalanced to make Elusive Jump feel useful? To reduce the WM/GB lock-in to 10 or 7.5 seconds, speed-scaled? To reduce the Grit MP cost? To reduce Shuukuchi's CD from 60s to 45s? To increase the activation speed of the different "Fists of" and up Fists of Winds to at least Ninja passive movement speed? I realize these are all slippery slopes, but there should be a point to start at which they go from largely forgotten to feeling identity-driven or -core, powerful, and largely essential.

Others just feel a bit button-bloating, and only a few of them at best by necessity. Take Deathflare, Fire IV and Blizzard IV, and Whirling Thrust and Fang & Claw, for instance. They are all locked behind yet another ability, Fire IV and Blizzard IV's Enochian and WT and F&C's Blood of the Dragon do so without altering any of the original abilities' effects, while still keeping their importance. I therefore have a sort of love-hate relationship with that ability. As long as BLM is built so that each spell is essentially function-based, rather than using any undermechanics where strength can more subtly create function, it seems right. But that's three whole abilities that, when locked out, feel cumbersome on one's hotbars. Deathflare is a bit simpler. I simply do not see why it couldn't have defaulted to take the position of Dreadwyrm Trance itself just after activation. And that still leaves Deliverance, Fell Cleave, and Decimate to speak for themselves...

As for the support side of things, there's plenty that can be said or done. Parsers, for one, even if only in a training room and with added features allowing you to track relative potency or factor crits instead into averaged effects on damage so you can look cleanly at what your outputs would be, would help quite a bit, imho, for anyone who wants to know exactly what they're doing in order to quickly figure out the 'why' and 'how' of their gameplay. Simply mentioning certain rotational strings explicitly in job quests would do the same. Heck, just having your AI companions of your same class type ever behave in an rotationally-sound or seemingly intelligent manner would go a long way for leading new players into class or job gameplay. Mentioning the basics of what it takes to quickly and cleanly clear an encounter, be it trash mobs or a boss or a set of adds, whatever, could go a long way for getting people into a party-helpful or broader-viewed mindset. At present we leave all of that in the hands of often unreliable companions, many of whom will find it too tedious to actually provide instruction and just zone their way through the slowed dungeon, and third-party addons, the latter of which we even lock into a "don't ask, don't tell" paradigm. As much as I like the idea of player dependence and dislike the idea of mandatory addons, that doesn't seem a reliable way to ensure that players have full access to their gameplay, or, in turn, their game.

[Khalithar]

I disagree with getting rid of the rotations, however I DO feel that the combat has gotten bloated and they could stand to remove some of the clutter and streamline the game a little bit.

To give a few examples:

1. Abilities like Maim, Heavy Swing, Straight shot, Hot Shot, and Huton could definitely stand to be removed from the game. Not to say nerf the classes, I'm saying fold the bonus of those passive buffs in to the base class itself but remove the need to maintain those passive buffs.

2. I think the cross class system could stand to be removed entirely, again I know people will think this is a nerf because of the loss of things like blood for blood, raging strikes, and internal release but if they tune the numbers correctly they can compensate the classes for any potential dps loss. While also giving certain abilities (provoke) as a baseline ability for tanks so they don't have to change boss mechanics.

3. Combine certain active abilities. Combine Ley Lines and Enochian for Blm, have the Brd song restore TP AND MP rather than one or the other.

Again, these might seem like nerfs, but as I said, all they need to do is adjust potencies of a few abilities and the dps will be roughly the same while removing some excess buttons from some of the other action bars.

[FallenArisen0990]

I kinda agree with you OP. It's why I'm slowly falling out with the game. At this point, I just cap tomes and do dailies. Rotations on the other hand, I dislike. Tho you are free to do your own rotations, there is really only one true rotation. Some content even punishes you for not pumping out "big" numbers. The game is way too simple in everything, even in stats... What's the point of all these numbers if the "percentages" never change. It's primary my biggest complain about the game honestly. The game doesn't really allow for you to be creative in combat. Just do the same thing over and over with same nonsense and same everything.

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree with getting rid of the rotations, however I DO feel that the combat has gotten bloated and they could stand to remove some of the clutter and streamline the game a little bit.

To give a few examples:

1. Abilities like Maim, Heavy Swing, Straight shot, Hot Shot, and Huton could definitely stand to be removed from the game. Not to say nerf the classes, I'm saying fold the bonus of those passive buffs in to the base class itself but remove the need to maintain those passive buffs.

2. I think the cross class system could stand to be removed entirely, again I know people will think this is a nerf because of the loss of things like blood for blood, raging strikes, and internal release but if they tune the numbers correctly they can compensate the classes for any potential dps loss. While also giving certain abilities (provoke) as a baseline ability for tanks so they don't have to change boss mechanics.

3. Combine certain active abilities. Combine Ley Lines and Enochian for Blm, have the Brd song restore TP AND MP rather than one or the other.

Again, these might seem like nerfs, but as I said, all they need to do is adjust potencies of a few abilities and the dps will be roughly the same while removing some excess buttons from some of the other action bars.

1. When you remove abilities like Maim and Straight Shot there's really almost nothing left to the class gameplay, though. The one thing ARR Bard had to really worry about was keeping up Straight Shot in preparation for DoTing, in order to better reap the benefits of River of Blood procs refreshing Bloodletter (and now Rain of Death). Without Maim, max enmity and damage is literally to spam the same combo (Butcher's Block) over and over again, as long as someone else can apply the Slashing debuff. As it stands, these elements, however small, cause certain decisions across certain scenarios or compromises. I have Arrow—I can now do a SE, BB, BB combo to lose only 0-27 potency for a ton of enmity. Previously, even Huton could be considered a choice. When an AoE pull was limited primarily by your TP, rather than your rate of attack, for instance, it could ever well be worth it to sacrifice Huton uptime (or, a Huton recast) for an extra Katon. These are decisions, not just passives.

Hot Shot I can see reason to remove as it's already so long that the only thing it really feels right for is stance-dancing, because its low damage makes it the perfect candidate for keeping up auto-attacks rather than using Gauss Barrel's damage multiplier, but its duration pairing with Lead Shot, which essentially requires GB, and the painfully long lock-in duration of GB mean that you'll only really see that use at the end of a short stance-dance or after things have already gone out of sync. As such it doesn't do much, gameplay wise. It's just a periodic obstacle. But more than that I'd rather just see it changed for something more interesting, likely using it as a tool to make up for some of MCH's often punishing RNG-dependence.

Similarly, I could see a reason to combine Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon if and only if Machinist got the same treatment. At present, both, by nature of having no cross-building resource or the like to reduce the relative cost of each across a mixed party, cause any ranged-supported party to prefer either a near-pure-magical or pure-physical party. And as Army's Paeon's TP restore sees less and less use (along with Rain of Death's accuracy boost), this ends up giving the only truly pure option to Machinist, who then became the king Ranged of this tier despite having slightly lower dummy dps than Bard even prior to the recent buffs. Now, as caster LBs were integral to many fight strats, having that pure option wasn't the whole reason for Machinist's preference, but it was a large part. But that complaint comes from a point of compositional balance to me, not because I find the song complexity meager or redundant, especially now that song cast times have been cut in half. I highly enjoyed having to watch caster burst, healer accuracy, healer mana, and physical TP all alike in 3.1. Reducing that to simply caster burst vs. raid longevity does not imply increased fun to me. Nor would it even quite be precedented by Fey Wind (from the separate Fey Light and Fey Glow), as that has only ever been like two sides of Foe Requiem or Hypercharge, a raid dps increase rather than its alternative. I'd rather see a different way to balance out those compositions that makes for more engaging gameplay for the class itself than resort at the outset to simplification. Yes, Heavensward is starting to get bloated, and where those bits are unnecessary or uninventive it seems bloated already (Fang & Claw, Whirling Thrust; Fell Cleave, Decimate). But that's not a reason to reduce complexity. It's a reason to get smarter about how we apply it.

2. Undoubtedly strength could be rebalanced easily enough apart from one small aspect— DPS checks that would otherwise require the holding of CDs. But you have to consider then what those phases meant to the skilled players struggling against them. Did that aspect of timing one's cooldowns, holding off on DPS and preparing for a time- or %HP-triggered phase with punches cocked, add something to the game for them? If so, the decision of whether or not to remove cross-class skills outright must consider whether the inconvenience of some button bloat is worth taking away fight dynamics from those who care or cared about those dynamics.

If Blood for Blood really came down to just a 2% DPS increase, it could be absorbed easily enough into passive rebalances. But, it doesn't. It means windows of opportunity that veteran players will track and make decisions upon. Juicing that window for all its worth gives noticeably more than that average at-a-glimpse contribution, while failing to do so gives less.

For example, an Internal Release should be present for my every Howling Fist, every other Elixir Field, every other Touch of Death, and every third Demolish. Controlling how I time my Demolish will determine how long it takes to de-sync from Internal Release, forcing me either to hold the cooldown (acceptable if it would time into a Bootshine and/or Twin Snakes only, and without desyncing from the previously mentioned), or adjust my rotation slightly to re-sync it. On my Bard it must eclipse as many DoT applications as possible, but has much less significance on my filler attacks themselves. It differs from my 20s CDs in that it can only reach a single full-term application, while the others can affect it twice, for a total of 32.5 seconds. It alongside other cooldowns means the ability to add up to a third to one's DPS for a short time, allowing a raid to better control just how much DPS they do and when. That's a lot of intrigue to remove simply out of seeming redundancy or disuse among others.

That's not to say, of course, that these dynamics couldn't be adjusted into each individual class, likely in much more engaging ways than present in the at best copy-paste cross-class skills. But that's a matter of revision at that point, not simply removal.

3. Again, these are totally separate abilities. Both control DPS dynamics, but they have very, very different affects on rotations and windows within the spec. Considering gameplay-affecting abilities merely as a checklist for burst bonus percentiles absolutely flattens and homogenizes gameplay, not just between classes but within the class itself. This has fractured class gameplay in other MMOs. And this one seems to get enough criticism for homogenization as is.

[SaitoHikari]

I don't think the emphasis on rotations is actually a problem.

It's how some classes COMPLETELY CHANGE making the jump from ARR to HW. People give devs tons of grief over Bard and Wanderer's Minuet. Dragoons suddenly became a positional class on top of having to maintain a new buff. Black Mage gets the same thing, but completely changes their rotation on top of that.

And then there's Monk, which doesn't really change, but gets a lot of quality of life boosts instead.