Its ffxiv combat really so slow and boring?

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Not sure why you're bring it up then, when I had already mentioned it.

Because you said there was no option/choice.

[MomomiMomi]

Because you said there was no option/choice.

No I didn't.

and there's very little choice in using a song. As it is the only real choice is which to use first, and which to cut short

Here it is, see?

I hope you're joking. That is referring to deciding which song to use next. There is no decision on which song to use next, because once you've set your order of play, it can't be changed unless if you let yourself go without a song active for 40 seconds.

The post I was referring to ("not sure why you brought that up then") happened before I even said what you quoted. This one:

You have options. Your problem is there's an optimal order decided by the playerbase, which would happen no matter what.

But that's clearly not the problem I have with the songs, as I had mentioned that was actually one of the choices you actually do have. Which is why my next post thought they were referring to which song comes next, not which order to play them in, because I had already mentioned order is a choice.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

But if you're talking about songs, no, there isn't an option, unless if you consider going without a song for 40 seconds to be an option.

Here it is, see?

You have 6 song orders you can choose from, plus which ones to cut short and which ones to take to term.

Optimal playstyle is a whole different matter.

[Mizunoko]

I mean if you want to overly simplify things then you could say it's slow, but that doesn't speak for what the game's battle system does well on. Theres more to it than just how many skills you have and how fast your cooldowns and stuff is. In my opinion SE tossed that speedy actiony stuff out the window and made up their own style and i think it was a success. With ffxiv its not simply spam all or cooldowns. It's more how you use them and in what order while also dodging and doing original and creative mechanics/strategies to fights. That's what i liked about all ff games is that they take strategy and make it their own. I wont say all other mmo's but i will say alot of other mmo's (i have played many) arent as intricate as ffxiv is in terms of creativity and strategy of battles. Most mmo's ive ever played were simple in the sense that you just needed to make sure your stats were high enough for a battle and then you just go in and spam click skills until the mobs die, maybe dodge an aoe here and there but there was no actual creativity or mechanics put into it. That is why i love ffxiv and chose it as my #1, aside from the glamours and relics which i also love alot. Alot of mmo's ive always played were also very linear too just grind to cap and keep geared up. In FFXIV i feel like im getting my moneys worth when i sub because there is A LOT of content in this game. People who argue saying their isn't are people who do not do the side content. That doesn't mean it's non existent. This game has a LOT of things to offer. Regardless how biased this may sound it IS just my opinion so take it as that, just that i myself think that the speed of combat isn't everything and shouldn't be the only thing that determines a game's worth.
'

[Mizunoko]

Quicken the GCD and it makes each individual GCD feel less impactful. When you're casting Flare/Deathflare or whatever [insert huge damge GCD] much faster than you are currently, they feel less important than "ive been building up to this huge attack for 30 seconds, time to unleash it!" vs "i can do this move every 10 seconds, no biggie".

lmfao i just leveled my black mage to 70 finally and i completely agree with what you said. Every time i build up to get foul and cast it and it crits i look around at my party members and i think to myself "omg did you guys just see that!!!! i just pounded that mob in the ground with a single hit!!!!" lol. It's fun. I don't think anything is wrong with the combat. In ffxiv it's not the same old same old mmo crap where you just stand in one spot and spam buttons. It actually takes thought and practice to maximize your dps and rotations. Alot of people keep saying negative things about it when i feel like it's the exact opposite. It's unique and original and not overly simplified like most mmo's out there.

[Mizunoko]

The slowness of combat has a lot to do with the combat itself, how static it is and how my artificial difficulty they put in. And by that I mean things like dps checks, this is not difficulty, this is artificial difficulty and it is used heavily in ffxiv. So, it does feel slow compared to other mmos and esp slow compared to single players.

Even ESO and GW2 feel super fast in comparison since they also incorporate roll dodging, blocking and what not. I find myself using only my mouse to battle sometimes unless I have to side step a red circle on the ground. And even then I can often eat chips with one hand because I know "Boss A just did this, I can now play using only my mouse til he does this is 2 minutes or he doesn't do anything that hurts bad enough to constitute a dodge" Can't do that in ESO or GW2, nor can I just sit and watch Netflix while only paying 25% of my attn to the game because of muscle memory and because I know there is nothing important to watch for. Even overworld mobs in other games have more dynamic combat systems than some bosses in ffxiv.

SE makes combat feel more difficult with procs, dmg buffs you need to upkeep and sometimes positioning, but these are all forms of artificial difficulty, esp when they are as excessive as they are in ffxiv. You should never spend a fight managing procs, you should spend it engaging an enemy. The more you need to stare at your hotbars the less complex combat is and the less engaging it feels. Again, the combat feels slower due to the way combat is designed moreso than actual time.

tldr
It feels slow because most the time you stand still, there is very little need for movement, too much time spent managing blinking lights and the GCD is a little longer so you add both these things up and you get combat that at least feels slower than it is.

I don't think that just because ffxiv has its own original and unique way to add difficulty to mechanics/combat justifies you saying it's "artificial". You can say it is different, but what it isn't is artificial. Artificial implies that its not original and that it's a sort of fake or imitation, which it is not because there is no base way of doing things. Game's are supposed to be different, if every game out there was exactly the same why would we play other games. That is what is good about ffxiv anyway is that it's unique and not the same cut of the crop that almost every other mmorpg out there is.

[HyoMinPark]

The options I was talking about was consolidating abilities. But if you're talking about songs, no, there isn't an option, unless if you consider going without a song for 40 seconds to be an option.

This is when you use the layout of the fight to determine your song rotation, and you use downtime to your advantage to manipulate your rotation further. I’ll even give you an example:

For UwU, my song rotation is normal in Garuda and Ifrit (except I don’t play Army’s at the end because I can skip it, and immediately re-enter Minuet once the next primal shows up). When Titan spawns, I do the following rotation: Minuet > Army’s > Mage’s > Minuet > Army’s > Mage’s. This is because of the possibility of getting gaoled after Minuet finishes, so you use Army’s instead so, if you’re gaoled, you lose the least potency. My rotation is similar in Ultima: Minuet > Army’s > Mage’s > Minuet > Army’s (clipped) > Mage’s > Minuet, and by the time Suppression resolves, my song rotation is fixed to go back to the “default optimal rotation”. Army’s is used when he becomes untargetable, so that, again, you’re only losing out on the least potent song, not the ones with more potency.

You use encounter downtime to manipulate your songs to your advantage. That’s how you optimize them. If you’re talking about how “rigid” they are, you can use that argument for any job with a combo system. BRDs have more freedom of deciding their song rotation than jobs that have combos do when deciding their rotation. You use the encounter to pick the most optimal—sometimes it’s the default, sometimes it’s different.

Unless you’re referring to the “optimal” rotation always being your default, but that’s the same for anything. There is an optimal way to do a rotation, and anything else is suboptimal. However, given a fight’s timeline, you can manipulate the songs enough to make an even more optimal rotation considering downtime and/or mechanics where you may not be able to target the boss for a majority of a song. BRD is priority-based; you establish priority based on the encounter. I agree with others that it has more freedom than most in terms of core rotation.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Yes, I did. I’m arguing about how it is different on a psychological level: for me, more movement for my fingers means more engagement in the combat; I feel more engaged. Less movement (akin to hitting 1-1-1 which is physically different from 1-2-3 if we want to get super technical/pendantic) means less engagement; I don’t feel engaged. You’re arguing that claiming there’s a difference “is silly”; I’m arguing that I disagree, because there is a difference: physically (on the technical level) and psychologically.

If you say that the combo system is boring, why advocate for a system that is going to further dumb it down? Not saying that you specifically are, but for the sake of discussion: why advocate for something even more monotonous that what is already present, if you think the combat system is currently boring and/or unengaging, and that this new system could potentially make that glaringly obvious.

I also explained the only way in which I would accept such a system—you would have noticed that one is in line with your additional oGCD suggestion.

To clarify - I am pretty sure we're on the same page and in agreement. I may be wording poorly.

1-2-3 and 1-1-1 are identical for all intents and purposes from a complexity/depth perspective, I may not have been clear on that. The order of presses never changes. It's never 3-2-1, or 2-1-3, etc. However, I did cover (and you acknowledged and agreed) that it would definitely be more boring (as you mentioned psychologically speaking).

I would not advocate for switching to PVP system WITHOUT corresponding updates to other systems.

[MomomiMomi]

This is when you use the layout of the fight to determine your song rotation, and you use downtime to your advantage to manipulate your rotation further. I’ll even give you an example:

For UwU, my song rotation is normal in Garuda and Ifrit (except I don’t play Army’s at the end because I can skip it, and immediately re-enter Minuet once the next primal shows up). When Titan spawns, I do the following rotation: Minuet > Army’s > Mage’s > Minuet > Army’s > Mage’s. This is because of the possibility of getting gaoled after Minuet finishes, so you use Army’s instead so, if you’re gaoled, you lose the least potency. My rotation is similar in Ultima: Minuet > Army’s > Mage’s > Minuet > Army’s (clipped) > Mage’s > Minuet, and by the time Suppression resolves, my song rotation is fixed to go back to the “default optimal rotation”. Army’s is used when he becomes untargetable, so that, again, you’re only losing out on the least potent song, not the ones with more potency.

You use encounter downtime to manipulate your songs to your advantage. That’s how you optimize them. If you’re talking about how “rigid” they are, you can use that argument for any job with a combo system. BRDs have more freedom of deciding their song rotation than jobs that have combos do when deciding their rotation. You use the encounter to pick the most optimal—sometimes it’s the default, sometimes it’s different.

Unless you’re referring to the “optimal” rotation always being your default, but that’s the same for anything. There is an optimal way to do a rotation, and anything else is suboptimal. However, given a fight’s timeline, you can manipulate the songs enough to make an even more optimal rotation considering downtime and/or mechanics where you may not be able to target the boss for a majority of a song. BRD is priority-based; you establish priority based on the encounter. I agree with others that it has more freedom than most in terms of core rotation.

None of which is the problem I have with the songs. And the songs aren't even the main problem I have with BRD. I'm clearly not being understood, so let's just drop the whole BRD thing.

The main thing is I don't like presing 1-2-3 instead of 1-1-1 and you don't like pressing 1-2-3 instead of 1-1-1. But I'm not even asking for you to have to press 1-1-1. I want myself to be able to choose to press 1-1-1 instead, while you can keep doing what you've been doing. That's all. I honestly have nothing more to say on the subject. It's just personal preferences.

[Dualgunner]

How would they be able to build a system where both could coincide?