Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'd say you're kind of going full-tilt conspiracy here.

In the OP's defense, people held the same belief with WoW's skill consolidation and look how that turned out. Seeing FFXIV borrows plenty of ideas from WoW, the OP's concerns aren't without some merit. Do I think we'll see something like Full Thrust combo become a single button? Hopefully not. That being said, some jobs will have to see some pruning. Even if you take away Piercing Talon, Keen Flurry and Feint, Dragoon still has a massive amount of buttons to its rotation. In fact, I don't even have Feint on my hotbar and still use 27 abilities. As I didn't count the aforementioned two or Elusive Jump since those are all situationally used, if at all, adding an additional five like they did in Heavensward would be cumbersome.

What I suspect could happen is combo ability are merged into one button-- with each changing based on proc duration. So True Thrust becomes Vorpal Thrust and then Full Thrust. Blade & Soul does this it, though I'm not entirely certain how I feel about it. While technically three different abilities, you are still pressing only a single button, albeit three times.

[Pondera]

In the OP's defense, people held the same belief with WoW's skill consolidation and look how that turned out.

Couldn't have said it better myself. People can say all day long that it was a content drought that brought WoW's declining popularity, but if you look at the sub count graphs, you'll see that subscribers started to drop off LONG before that was an issue, even before Mists of Pandaria was dropped. It was around when Blizzard removed the talent trees, basically slapping everyone who spent hours agonizing over the most efficient spec in the face and laughing at how much time they wasted. I reason that you can have amazing foes all day long with brilliant dungeons, creative enemies and complex mechanics, but what is the point if you can't do anything cool or engaging in that content?

A lot of combos can already be condensed through the use of macros, a point I've made several times before during this thread. We most certainly don't need devs to hold our hand in this regard, skilled and talented though they may be. They are called expansions for a reason, and if your character that you've spent hundreds of hours on, is made lesser not through any triumph of evil, but because the powers that be have declared a play style that you've come to cherish as "too complicated" for people who aren't going to dodge that AoE no matter how simple the game is for them, no amount of shiny baubles is going to fix that feeling of "used to be able to do that cool thing, but now you can't because reasons"

I'm really hoping my fears are unfounded and Yoshi-P is going to pull out some more gaming wisdom. I'm hoping that when he says "reassessment", he's talking about why Skull Sunder and Savage Blade are cross-class skills. Or why Black Mages have access to a cross class skill that increases damage based on dexterity. I'm hoping that he's looking at Cross class skills and realizing that, with a selection of imperative ones, a selection of okay ones, and a selection of ones that simply don't do anything, people are making the same choices 100% of the time.

[Zojha]

People can say all day long that it was a content drought that brought WoW's declining popularity, but if you look at the sub count graphs, you'll see that subscribers started to drop off LONG before that was an issue, even before Mists of Pandaria was dropped. It was around when Blizzard removed the talent trees[...]

More precisely, it started in early Cataclysm, so early 2011. Talent trees were still a thing at the time, the main change was that now, you were given a bunch of abilities that used to be one-point must-have talents right when you picked a tree and had to invest 31 points in it before you could invest in another. Was that the reason people left, though? Let's not forget Cataclysm was often hailed for finally making things a bit more challenging again, which might also be the reason people left. And looking at the market, League of Legends massively rose in popularity during that time (active playerbase more than doubled between June and November 2011 alone!), so competition might also be a reason.

Alas, that is mostly speculation! But the more facts, the better.

[Shurrikhan]

A lot of combos can already be condensed through the use of macros, a point I've made several times before during this thread. We most certainly don't need devs to hold our hand in this regard, skilled and talented though they may be. They are called expansions for a reason, and if your character that you've spent hundreds of hours on, is made lesser not through any triumph of evil, but because the powers that be have declared a play style that you've come to cherish as "too complicated" for people who aren't going to dodge that AoE no matter how simple the game is for them, no amount of shiny baubles is going to fix that feeling of "used to be able to do that cool thing, but now you can't because "reasons".

To be honest though, if a series of actions all perform a single decision/action, why spend 3-4 buttons on it? Each is a mere fraction of a real key-choice. All 8 DRG combo abilities for instance come down to an entirety of 2 decisions—do I want direct damage or a much more powerful wt-Vulnerability and DoT, which usually comes down to a single check of 'how much uptime will I lose on the Vuln and DoT if I CT+1 again right now?' In the regular 60 rotation, that decision simplifies to "which combo did I just use, so I can use the opposite?" And yet we spend 8 keybinds on the damn thing. I'd call that the obvious place to start cutting down on button bloat rather than "hand-holding", if SE was to start by allowing those combos to be simplified to a single button each. Granted, I'd much prefer that combos be more or less taken out altogether, and each of those skills be given a real purpose, but I don't see anything wrong with Thrust Combo vs. Drive Chain, where each advances up to a new point (weaponskill) as you acquire more abilities within the chain. Heck, you could give more reasons to drop a combo early and still simplify the key binds for maximum choice per button.

I'm really hoping my fears are unfounded and Yoshi-P is going to pull out some more gaming wisdom. I'm hoping that when he says "reassessment", he's talking about why Skull Sunder and Savage Blade are cross-class skills. Or why Black Mages have access to a cross class skill that increases damage based on dexterity. I'm hoping that he's looking at Cross class skills and realizing that, with a selection of imperative ones, a selection of okay ones, and a selection of ones that simply don't do anything, people are making the same choices 100% of the time.

And I'm just hoping that comes from making the others more viable choices, rather than axing them altogether. Give Savage Blade and Skull Sunder unique mechanics, make more use of Hawk Eye's perfect accuracy (probably just takes more periodically super-evasive enemies, etc.), make Featherfoot and Keen Flurry more reliable (much like Perfect Dodge before its change) so that it can be used to bend strategies, rather than as general, indistinct filler mitigation. Revamp what you can where the opportunity arises to bring in something interesting and otherwise missing from classes attuned to the particular skill.

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EDIT:

oh, Savage Blade and Skull Sunder do have unique mechanics. It's just that they're mid parts of a combo, so without the action prior to that, their usefulness is questionable. To GLD, DRK and WAR, they already have threat acquiring combos, and to every other class, such as ARC, ROG, and DRG, these are somewhat frail DPS classes that, should they pull threat away from the tank, their lifespan is measured in seconds. Perhaps I've missed something in my analysis?

I've used Skull Sunder only a couple times off class, when first tanking one of the Titan Ex adds and later a full dungeon as a Monk. The 450 potency of enmity was handy, even if it did come at a real potency cost. DPS classes are generally far from frail given Heavensward tuning, or even before that. I've tanked numerous Expert roulettes on my Monk, Ninja, or Dragoon since, albeit without bothering with Skull Sunder.

What I meant though is that Skull Sunder and Savage Blade have no inherent mechanic apart from their enmity modifier, which already made Skull Sunder the only viable choice between the two (4.5x rather than 3x enmity originally, closer or equal now). Let's say Savage Blade were made to hit with additional damage based on damage RNG-mitigated (dodged, blocked, or parried) within a second of Savage Blade, while Skull Sunder instead had a higher "stagger" modifier (some new 4.0 system where in damage can sap the attack power, accuracy, and/or the next x damage of the attacker at a given percentage), making it more useful for mitigation. Both feed from either's <Combo 1>, but only the native skill combos on to Step 3 (Rage of Halone / Royal Authority or Butcher's Block).

As for Keen Flurry, this is something I really wish was available to tanking classes. Womping up my parry rate by 40% on top of Dark Dance's 30% would make my DRK a parrying machine. Low Blow would NEVER be on cool down, but it's only available to DPS classes and, as I mentioned before, they're moments away from repainting the walls in fresh crimson the moment they get more bossly attention than the tank, and it doesn't matter if they parry or not. I can see it being useful in leveling or solo work though. DPS do need the occasional defensive cooldown, just as tanks need offensive ones, just not as many as would exceed their role specialty.

Featherfoot is something I'm really surprised to see on the chopping block, assuming reports are right and it's not Fists of Wind they're thinking of (though an increase in mobility before a boss blankets the room in AoEs could be extremely useful still). A 20% chance to safely ignore all damage, be it magic or physical, could save one's bacon. Again, I'd love to see this on my DRK. Stacking with DA-Dark Dance, 50% chance to dodge? Move over PLD, there's a new sheriff in town, and I'll be MTing everything from this point on.

My issue with these is simply that they aren't reliable enough to allow a melee to do anything differently in themselves, given a situation where mitigation would make the difference. Take Garuda Ex's Wicked Wheel during the tornado-strewn add phase (so, the stacked Garuda and Suparna) for instance. At minimum ilvl, a Dragoon could barely survive being one-shot due to his higher physical defense. A Monk could do the same with Fists of Earth. Sacred Soil could provide the same for all melee in the area. Both jobs could memorize the telegraphs to pull out in time, but taking the damage and then stacking within range of the tank without losing positionals for an Overcure Cure III was more efficient if at least 2 members were injured, or even a non-procced Cure III or Medica if 3 or more were, especially given the long period in which to regen that health.

However, Keen Flurry and Featherfoot could never factor into this decision anyways, or only as extra chance mitigation on an already present change rather than being the means to bend the strategy. If it triggered the dodge, great, but with both tanks and likely 2+ melee over there, you're still getting the AoE heal regardless. Only Ninja could reliably ignore that damage, with Perfect Dodge's one-time 100% mitigation. Given that incoming AoE, Perfect Dodge's change to Shade Shift's 20% HP physical shield is actually more effective in many cases because the healer decision is otherwise unchanged, but it is rarely as exciting, and would actually be less effective if only the majority of other melee (including tanks) within the AoE radius also had a means of reliable active mitigation. That's why I wish Featherfoot would be revised to a sort of 'smart' CD. That role being filled, I'd then be fine with Keen Flurry either being exchanged for a sort of increasing-over-time chance, attack-rate-dependent chance, or even overhauled back into its original offensive ability CD-reducing skill.

I can think of certain situations in which that "gravy" mitigation is a more appropriate design choice, e.g. in situations where you don't want to require that particular cross-class skill, but generally it feels lackluster, especially for something DPS can use, in which case I'd have thought the purpose was manipulation of tactics rather than raw potential mitigation. And its not like you can't have both, satisfying the needs of both tanks and dps. It just might require certain undermechanics at the worst.

And yeah, that would be frighteningly powerful stacked with Awareness while Blood Price is unavailable.

[Pondera]

And I'm just hoping that comes from making the others more viable choices, rather than axing them altogether. Give Savage Blade and Skull Sunder unique mechanics, make more use of Hawk Eye's perfect accuracy (probably just takes more periodically super-evasive enemies, etc.), make Featherfoot and Keen Flurry more reliable (much like Perfect Dodge before its change) so that it can be used to bend strategies, rather than as general, indistinct filler mitigation. Revamp what you can where the opportunity arises to bring in something interesting and otherwise missing from classes attuned to the particular skill.

oh, Savage Blade and Skull Sunder do have unique mechanics. It's just that they're mid parts of a combo, so without the action prior to that, their usefulness is questionable. To GLD, DRK and WAR, they already have threat acquiring combos, and to every other class, such as ARC, ROG, and DRG, these are somewhat frail DPS classes that, should they pull threat away from the tank, their lifespan is measured in seconds. Perhaps I've missed something in my analysis?

As for Keen Flurry, this is something I really wish was available to tanking classes. Womping up my parry rate by 40% on top of Dark Dance's 30% would make my DRK a parrying machine. Low Blow would NEVER be on cool down, but it's only available to DPS classes and, as I mentioned before, they're moments away from repainting the walls in fresh crimson the moment they get more bossly attention than the tank, and it doesn't matter if they parry or not. I can see it being useful in leveling or solo work though. DPS do need the occasional defensive cooldown, just as tanks need offensive ones, just not as many as would exceed their role specialty.

Featherfoot is something I'm really surprised to see on the chopping block, assuming reports are right and it's not Fists of Wind they're thinking of (though an increase in mobility before a boss blankets the room in AoEs could be extremely useful still). A 20% chance to safely ignore all damage, be it magic or physical, could save one's bacon. Again, I'd love to see this on my DRK. Stacking with DA-Dark Dance, 50% chance to dodge? Move over PLD, there's a new sheriff in town, and I'll be MTing everything from this point on.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

To be honest though, if a series of actions all perform a single decision/action, why spend 3-4 buttons on it?

Because, at least for me, consolidating an entire combo into a single button would result in fundamentally boring combat. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your post, but do you mean to advocate Dragoon's Full Thrust or Chaos Thrust combo should be reduced to one button? If so, I would seriously have to consider whether I'd continue playing. This would reduce the entire rotation to basically five or six buttons. Having to press multiple buttons and weave oGCDs into the rotation is what makes an otherwise simplistic combat system fun. It feels good to press those 3-4 buttons. Pressing just one or two may work for action combat because the enjoyment comes from reacting to the unpredictability, but for tab-targeting, I think the opposite is the case. It just becomes boring.

[ArikDimas]

snip

I think Shurrikhan means to condense it like the 1st weapon skill for melee weapons in Guild Wars 2, where after using the first part of the combo, it turns into the 2nd, and using that turns into the 3rd.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I think Shurrikhan means to condense it like the 1st weapon skill for melee weapons in Guild Wars 2, where after using the first part of the combo, it turns into the 2nd, and using that turns into the 3rd.

If that is the case, I still don't know how I feel about it. Certainly a better option to the alternative, but it does mean pressing a single button even if the animations are different. I suppose it depends on what other abilities we get to tie into everything. This could work, provided there we more combos or ways to connect abilities. Admittedly, if new abilities in Stormblood made it so we actually had to choose between say, Chaos Thrust and some other skill. That would make combat less muscle memory and more strategic.

[Shurrikhan]

Because, at least for me, consolidating an entire combo into a single button would result in fundamentally boring combat. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your post, but do you mean to advocate Dragoon's Full Thrust or Chaos Thrust combo should be reduced to one button? If so, I would seriously have to consider whether I'd continue playing. This would reduce the entire rotation to basically five or six buttons. Having to press multiple buttons and weave oGCDs into the rotation is what makes an otherwise simplistic combat system fun. It feels good to press those 3-4 buttons. Pressing just one or two may work for action combat because the enjoyment comes from reacting to the unpredictability, but for tab-targeting, I think the opposite is the case. It just becomes boring.

Since I did say I'd prefer that each combo step had inherent value instead, there's probably some level of misinterpretation. I should have been clearer.

My point was that the combat we have right now is ALREADY only 4 Dragoon weaponskills (CT+1, FT+1, Phb, HT), because there's no use of any combo opener or bridge separable from its finisher.
That means you are hitting the same ability multiple times as is, just with different binds. You can't get more "button bloat-y" than that.

So if that's all the complexity we're going to ever get out of the combo, why not create a single dynamic bind for each? After using True Thrust, the slot advances to Vorpal Thrust, and so forth.
Consolidate F&C and WT to the 4th step of either combo. If the buff is "Fang" you strike from the back to gain the 90 potency and the WT animation is used. If the strike is "Claw" you strike from the back and the F&C animation is used. At level 56, you can only get 200 potency out of the attack. 58 adds the RNG and associated bonus damage component, so it's an actual buff. : o

In exchange, we get 6 more slots of space for actual ability choices.

Or, make clipped combo variants or the individual combo-able abilities actually usable (on their own), and actually differentiate WT from F&C. Either way. Just don't waste 6 whole buttons on mandatory links.

[Duelle]

Couldn't have said it better myself. People can say all day long that it was a content drought that brought WoW's declining popularity, but if you look at the sub count graphs, you'll see that subscribers started to drop off LONG before that was an issue, even before Mists of Pandaria was dropped. It was around when Blizzard removed the talent trees, basically slapping everyone who spent hours agonizing over the most efficient spec in the face and laughing at how much time they wasted.

You mean the tons of people that opened their web browser, typed thotbot/maxdps/elitistjerks.com and looked up what was the best talent set up for every spec? Yeah that was so much work. /s

The sub drop came from a combination of things. PvP was an outright mess through most of Cataclysm. The fact several classes were changed for the worse didn't help. On top of that, endgame, AKA the thing that Wrath had introduced a LOT of people to, was a lot harder to get into and progression/gearing up took longer because of how content was tuned (which in turn led to insular player behavior which meant a lot of people hit a progression wall). LFR and the catch-ups introduced with the final patch of the expansion helped a bit, but that didn't do much due to Dragon Soul being lackluster. Only then we can include the folks that did not like the talent changes leading into MoP.

As for the change to the talent system itself, most people who complained didn't understand why the change was made. The talent system was a load of false choices and had been like that since the first change made to it leading into TBC. And some wanted their false choices solely for the illusion of progression over a system that offered slightly more variety but with less pushes of a button. The complaints were no different than if people complained that instead of getting served mud sandwiches like they had been for 4 years, their sandwiches now have ham and lettuce and actually edible things in them. Sure, WoW's devs eventually took that system in a stupid direction (entirely killing the consequence from picking talents by making talents easily swapable), but the intent behind the change was solid.

They are called expansions for a reason, and if your character that you've spent hundreds of hours on, is made lesser not through any triumph of evil, but because the powers that be have declared a play style that you've come to cherish as "too complicated" for people who aren't going to dodge that AoE no matter how simple the game is for them, no amount of shiny baubles is going to fix that feeling of "used to be able to do that cool thing, but now you can't because reasons"

This assumes everyone loves the changes and job growth going into Heavensward, which is not the case. Sure, some have taken to the new systems, while others simply adjusted and tough it out.