Thinking Ahead: Is the Game Doomed to have more Ability Bloat Updates?

[Maku]

I want more skills. SE simplified the jobs and just made them boring. I think it's time for SE to stop holding player's hands and dumbing down everything for them. There's no pride beating something that's faceroll.

They didn't do it to dumb down the game. They did it to compensate for Controller players that have to switch between HUD sets all the time.

On topic: I think any MMO that wasn't window based is going to have ability bloat. I just need to get a bigger Screen for my PC to make my game not look so small.

[dinnertime]

RDM I think is one job that would highly benefit from this, as most of their abilities could be condensed down to 4 buttons (Jolt/impact, black mana spells, white mana spells, melee combo).

I disagree with this one. In some cases you'd want to shuffle all 4 of them to slightly even it out and avoid imbalance or to achieve 80/80+ mana faster. Everything else is good though.

Other than that, I just hope for actual improvements in jobs on what they lack on than just upgrades to existing skills.
RDM and SMN needs to have a better feel with their AoE for example.

[Mysticdraggon]

I think it will be fine for most classes if they just condensed each combo GCDs into one button. Not entirely sure what to do about healers though...

that does seem like a good option. as a controller user, while playing monk, i managed to Macro all combos/weaponskills to three slots and it worked really well. it saved me six slots! obviously, this is mostly because the Monk's combo system worked somewhat differently than others. for example, you cant execute the second attack before executing first, and you cant execute the third attack without executing the second.
my Monk macros are something like this:

Name: any
/micon "(any)"
/ac "(courel weaponskill)"
/ac "(raptor weaponskill)"
/ac "(opo-opo weaponskill)"


Name: Basic Combo. consisting of basic pugilist-based weaponskills.
/micon "Snap Punch"
/ac "Snap Punch"
/ac "True Strike"
/ac "Bootshine"

Name: Earthshaking Combo. consisting of two AOE combos and One Ilm Punch.
/micon "Rockbreaker"
/ac "Rockbreaker"
/ac "One Ilm Punch"
/ac "Arm of the Destroyer"

Name: Demolishing Combo. consisting of debuff abilities upon targeted enemy.
/micon "Demolish"
/ac "Demolish"
/ac "Twin Snakes"
/ac "Dragon kick"

basically, if every combo system worked like Monk's/Pugilist's then players would be able to macro most weaponskills into a single slot and thus save a lot of space. it makes sense too, since, as a samurai, i find no use in Shifu unless i use Hakaze first, and i find no use in Kasha unless i use Shifu.

so if, for example, Samurai's combo system worked the same as monks (and of course if Meikyo Shisui opened up all combos the same way Perfect Balance does), my macros would look something like this:

/micon "Kasha"
/ac "Kasha"
/ac "Shifu"
/ac "Hakaze"

/micon "Gekko"
/ac "Gekko"
/ac "Jinpu"
/ac "Hakaze"

/micon "Yukikaze"
/ac "Yukikaze"
/ac "Jinpu"

/micon "Mangetsu"
/ac "Mangetsu"
/ac "Fuga"

/micon "Oka"
/ac "Oka"
/ac "Fuga"

which would ultimately save me up to 4 slots within my first set!

this would certainly fix the issue in terms of classes that have combos, but as you have already mentioned, other classes that barely have combos need to find its own solution.

[Ghastly]

Less new skills = less exciting for new expansion
They should still give us the 4-5 new skills like they always do but let us replace other like we do with role skills or make them replace specific skills that are similar.

[Mysticdraggon]

so i can really see an issue if the developers continue to make more than 3 abilities per expansion and not take away (or update) a few other outdated abilities as some have recently suggested on this topic.

while it is true that players do not have to use some outdated abilities, that does not mean they can be more effective at using outdated abilities AND new abilities at the same time. so a player that does not like ability bloat would be less effective than a play that does either way.

i understand that new abilities means better and more interesting expansions, but that does not mean (as i've already suggested) that the developers cannot update current abilities to have better traits that make them look and feel like new abilities.

for example, say by level 75 SAM, a new trait is added that gives Fuga, Oka, and Mangetsu an AOE range update. this would make the abilities feel the same, but the new scale and look alone would make the trait more interesting than a new AOE clone ability. or for example, in terms of a level 75 NIN, a new trait is added that gives Huton a movement speed buff to the caster, instead of creating a new "speed buff" ability with exactly the same effects.

again, i understand that new abilities are great, but more traits instead of abilities presents a lot less issues.

[Ghastly]

I think we're limiting creativity, art, and job direction when we say it's good to just focus on traits. We're basically asking for glamour for new expansion.
They should still add new skills, it's the only way these jobs will feel new and amazing.

In my opinion it would be better if we could have the option to replace specific skills with others. I don't want Fell cleave II in 5.0. Instead I want a brand new warrior skill which let's warrior smash the floor and stun all enemies and does damage at same time. That's more creative than Fell cleave II.

Basically if I want instead of Fell cleave a I can swap Fell cleave or any related job abilities for that new brand new skill. In my opinion that's the way of the future. No uncreative glamouring of skills please :x

[Jandor]

You can already see where they are going to trim some artificial bloat in the next expansion, jolt/impact, leylines/between the lines, the 1-2-3 combos, etc.

Just hope they spread the abilities out across the levels a bit better, some jobs play terrible at lower levels now. I honestly wouldn't mind if some new abilities came before the "old" level cap in 5.0.

[Shurrikhan]

Crowd control will never be used because it detracts from the every job is viable in every single instance thing they're so obsessed with.

Except previously almost all jobs but tanks (which are themselves basically a form of CC) had multiple forms of CC. The rest, like the thematically continuously hitting Monk, nonetheless synergized with CC; Monk, for instance, was originally able to apply ToD to slept/bound targets without breaking the CC.

This actually reminded me that back before a certain patch, Bind would actually keep a target bound even after they were attacked. I'll understand why they changed that.

This was not infinitely repeatable; it would always break on the second strike, or any strike a server poll after the first (I forget which exactly). Sometimes it would break on the first, as well, but I don't recall whether this was a chance based on potency, target %HP, or a flat chance.

[RichardButte]

specifically in future expansions, are we doomed to have consistent Ability Bloat updates as we have just recently?

if so, what would be a solution? less abilities per expansion? i certainly hope not, yet that may seem to be the case if we are just going to loose outdated gameplay along with new gameplay. of course that is only the case if players do consider the gameplay in question to be outdated in the first place and its removal to be justified.

before i give my personal opinion, i would like to hear what the community thinks about this situation that can only become more problematic in days to come.

Honestly, the game is so, SOOOOO much more hosed due to its inadequate database that can barely even seem to handle the current number of items.

Ability bloat is fixable by simply tweaking abilities and removing some here and there (which WoW has been doing as well, out of necessity). The database issue, however, is a much bigger beast to slay.

The number of items in the game is only going to grow larger, which means more need for glamour logs and better storage solutions, neither of which the devs seem keen on adding due to lack of ability to do so.

[alimdia]

Crowd control will never be used because it detracts from the every job is viable in every single instance thing they're so obsessed with..

I wouldn't say never, they already were used in binding coil and second coil.