Combo Action Button

[Shurrikhan]

I, too, am not looking forward to new abilities while bloat is still rampant, but I think we -- and many others besides us -- will have very different ideas of where and how that bloat exists. Piercing Talon, though underwhelming, does not seem bloat to me so long as mitigateable melee downtime will exist, and I suspect mitigateable melee downtime will exist so long as variable percentage of melee downtime will exist -- for without that mitigation balance would shift more steeply towards either the minimization or maximization of the number of melee in a given party, constraining either encounter design freedoms or player compositional freedoms. What is the point of Lucid Dreaming so long as non-tanks do not partake in mob-gathering? What is the point in Diversion, so long as it will only ever be used as a lowest-priority burst CD among many, used on-CD thereafter? Even the devs have realized that at best Invigorate guts sustained physical AoE and merely punishes death in a randomized manner and have thus removed it. So why do we still have LD or Diversion or Protect? Piercing Talon at least cuts the average ppgcd loss of downtime by ~30%, helping to tighten melee-ranged balance. It sure as hell deserves improvements, but it [a melee-downtime-mitigation tool] has a good reason to be there. But we'd sooner scrap that than 2-minute CDs that can be performed at near optimal performance by an auto-clicker? Or over continuing to lock out access to 13 out of 14 weaponskills in [10 out of every 11 GCDs]? ...Your solution path seems a bit paradoxical here.

You are once again conflating two different things into a singular argument; in this case, contradicting itself. Piercing Talon is button bloat because it's worthless in virtually every scenario imaginable. Alphascape has been especially cruel to melee DPS yet there is precisely one scenario where it can be used with any degree of consistency. And that is you're targeted second for the Fist mechanic in O11S. In any other scenario, you'll have enough time to maintain your combo. And therein lies the problem. If you break a combo with Piercing Talon you could have otherwise kept simply waiting around to re-engage the boss, it's a guaranteed damage loss. There are zero scenarios where breaking your combo will ever be a gain unless you were going to lose it anyway. This is why I consider Piercing Talon button bloat. The times in which you'll use it are so staggeringly low a good number of people don't even bother putting it on their hot bar. If they want to improve it, go right ahead—take it off the GCD. If they aren't, delete it because it serves no purpose otherwise.

None of this compares to Diversion or Lucid; the former being essential for tanks to maintain aggro outside tank stance, and the latter providing the same coverage whilst also restoring MP. Invigorate used to be more valuable when TP actually mattered. The changes to SB made it a non-issue outside of AoE scenarios. So like Piercing Talon, it's uses were minimal... though still less minimal. They've elected to remove it instead of reworking it. I want them to pick between the two for Piercing Talon.

Again, you're conflating a need by circumstance with a need for a circumstance. We currently need Lucid Dreaming. But we do not need mana to need a two-minute CD to be maintained. Nor do we need to limit mana management to, again, what can be done by an auto-clicker.

Is Diversion necessary in the way enmity is presently handled? Yes. But does it need to be? Do threat tables inherently limit their consequent gameplay to dependence on a cooldown ability to cope with that same system? No. Which is why nothing like Diversion has notably existed in other MMOs. It didn't even exist outside of Ranged jobs until Stormblood. It isn't necessary. Even if we don't want to sacrifice tank dps or return Ninja's once-notable erDPS via SW/SS, that's totally doable. You don't need to spend bloat buttons on it.

Melee-specific downtime, on the other hand? That is almost certainly a necessity of design when creating a slew of threats in a given encounter. Something which mitigates that, especially if it can be used skillfully, deserves to exist, because the thing it fixes is already about as fixed in itself as it's going to get. If the system has no inherent space for a control mechanism -- if further button count offers no real control by which to exert mastery and improve your situation -- then any skill there is bloat. Piercing Talon as it stands presently, is bloat. But the function it fills deserves to have something to fill it. Now, that doesn't need to be a ranged attack; in Heavensward, Monk's Meditate was the best melee downtime skill. But it makes sense when giving melee downtime, inherent to designing a fight that feels at all immersive, that you also give a ways to mitigate it. If preemptive movement truly feels like enough, then so be it -- the need is met. But if it's not, then something like Piercing Talon (perhaps instead in the form of a more fluid combo-connection into DS-ST or even Jump, SSD, and DFD giving ultrabrief damage and knockback immunity -- who cares as long as it feels good and it lets melee skillfully shrink the gap consequent to varied fight designs), improved as to be able to be used skillfully in the mitigation of melee-specific concerns in a way that synergizes with or compliments their kit, that has a very real place. Diversion does not. It's not just the lack of TP concerns now that gives Invigorate place. They don't augment gameplay. And that's what matters.

Consider: 20 more potency on Yaten-Enpi and it would be obligatory insofar as it doesn't cause desync, almost identically to Fracture among Heavensward Monks. Already, it can be a faint gain to use strategically at certain skill speeds, even without any benefit towards dodging. So why is Piercing Talon shit by comparison to EnhEnpi? And at present, Enpi adds something to the gameplay. Because of Yukikaze's flexibility if running mid-to-upper SkS, I can ensure I finish a combo just as melee downtime begins. And it makes it feel sharp. It feels rewarding. Because it hits for 280 potency less and has its job's rotation doesn't have a single GCD to spare unless taking painfully excessive Skill Speed.

Concept didn't kill Piercing Talons. Specifically designed internal mechanics -- the inability to cast PT without breaking melee combo and the sheer unalterable length of said melee combo, neither of which have any need to exist as they are (especially the first) -- did. The numbers did. Implementation did.

Enpi works. It works really well. But if precedence works as you're suggesting, that will be soon to follow into the trash bin, because it won't just be Piercing Talon. When you invite actual reduction of available options, rather than critiquing the ones that don't presently work, we lose actual stuff, not just the illusion of actions possible as your keyboard meanders fivefold to complete one decision. Alternatively, when you invite honesty as to how many decisions you actually have, then the focus is on their efficacy and on improving it rather than just taking anything below standard back behind the shed for the mercy stroke.

If I believed that there would be a replacement for the purpose Piercing Talon should fill, I would be fine with this. But all precedents are to the contrary; Monk's most central mechanic -- controlling the timing of their forms -- was gutted because someone decided "they have enough DoTs" without thinking about what those open-stance DoTs, ToD and Fracture (and Impulse Drive if not for Fracture's greater ppgcd) did for Monk. Fracture's purpose wasn't that it was a DoT. Touch of Death's purpose was scarcely that it was a DoT. Together they wove sub-rotations and allowed unparalleled freedom at higher Skill Speeds. But how will Piercing Talon be seen, now that it's failed to do what it should have -- as a ranged skill somehow there because... melee needed ranged skills? And so the trend goes forth -- melee shouldn't have ranged skills (duh), no matter how crisp and perfect they and other melee-downtime weaponskills can make mechanics feel when they're designed well.

Edit: We agree that PT needs a fix to stay. But we disagree on what PT actually means. PT to me is a way to make gameplay happen. That gameplay to me is not throwing a spear in a move called "Piercing Talon". That's its visuals, both the animation and its text. What does it actually let you think about and how does it pursue enjoyable gameplay within the job and among other jobs? That's what I care about. A PT off the GCD serves no more purpose than any of the several oGCD fluff-damage skills removed with Stormblood. It doesn't add gameplay unless, again, you conflate button count with gameplay.

The moment SE moves to combo consolidation is the moment it becomes their solution going forward. People who prefer unique key presses will simply be inundated with new abilities because they have no reason to prune or upgrade anything. Hence why there is so much push back whenever this topic comes up.

For the... fifth(?) time now... I don't care about combo consolidation. I care about whether changes are made reductively or in the interest of a fulfilling product. Pretending that we have more going on than we actually do through the UI by which we interact with those decisions protects non-options at the cost of options, non-gameplay at the cost of potential gameplay. And I find it absolutely bewildering that you would trim anything that is currently poorly implemented as if it suffered from fundamental flaws.

You act as if combo consolidation will be some sort of dystopia of (weaponskills in numbers, abilities in letters) A3BC1DE1FG1H1122I222, but it feels like you'd be fine with losing applications of Doomspike in high-movement ST combat or of Elusive Jump and receiving absolutely nothing new to your gameplay for the next 3 years so long as you get to spend the most buttons possible on the fewest unique/separable actions so you can shuffle down those weaponskill keys. If so, that's pretty well my worst-case outcome.

I am thinking. There's literally no reason why Fire IV and Blizzard IV need to be consolidated onto one button because you find pressing either one too much work apparently when you're pressing Fire IV more than you're pressing Blizzard IV anyways to begin with.

I bet you're a Black Mage that uses Freeze too.

It's not exactly hard to press Leylines first and then use Between the Lines if you move too far. Everything you need to use for Black Mage can fit on two hotbars securely and comfortably.

This guy has to be trolling, right?

It's not hard to have Inner Beast and Fell Cleave, Steel Cyclone and Decimate each bound to different keys either. It's just damned useless. Would you like an extra Confirm button after your every Confirm button? No?! These entitled, lazy players these days...

[Sigma-Astra]

This guy has to be trolling, right?

It's not hard to have Inner Beast and Fell Cleave, Steel Cyclone and Decimate each bound to different keys either. It's just damned useless.

No, it's not trolling. Not everything you see/read/hear is trolling just because it doesn't align with your opinion. People need to stop thinking that every time someone has another opinion that doesn't agree with their own is a form of trolling.

And I'm glad it works out so well with WAR. But, it's a pointless change that does nothing, absolutely god damn nothing towards Black Mage besides changing something that wasn't broken into something it never needed to be in the first place.

You consolidate Leylines and Between the Lines in one button, you do the same for Fire IV and Blizzard IV. Congratulations, you have two extra blank spots on your hotbar.....for what exactly? What new skills? Freeze? Come on...

There is no reason to take what they've done in PvP and throw it into PvE, literally none whatsoever other than pure laziness instead of focusing on what they should be doing first: balance issues with other classes and changing useless skills into something worth using in the first place.

Would you like an extra Confirm button after your every Confirm button? No?! These entitled, lazy players these days...

Oh yea, especially the ones who want to make rotations even more basic than they already are sometimes to free up extra safe that....isn't even needed and won't be used! Fancy that knowledge!

[Raldo]

You consolidate Leylines and Between the Lines in one button, you do the same for Fire IV and Blizzard IV. Congratulations, you have two extra blank spots on your hotbar.....for what exactly? What new skills? Freeze? Come on...

I assumed the extra space people are wanting is space for potentially new actions with the upcoming expansion. Personally, my BLM hotbars are full (36 actions), but I keep even the useless actions on the hotbar (Freeze, various role actions, etc.)

[Sigma-Astra]

I assumed the extra space people are wanting is space for potentially new actions with the upcoming expansion.

They talked in a recent Live Letter that the number of new skills that surged with SB should not be anticipated in the future. They would rather work on replacing or refining skills that are rarely used instead.

So, people are asking for consolidation on things despite new skills that may not even happen in the first place.

Personally, my BLM hotbars are full (36 actions), but I keep even the useless actions on the hotbar (Freeze, various role actions, etc.)

....You really don't need Freeze. I mean, problem solved. You can save one space right there.

[Shurrikhan]

No, it's not trolling. Not everything you see/read/hear is trolling just because it doesn't align with your opinion. People need to stop thinking that every time someone has another opinion that doesn't agree with their own is a form of trolling.

I don't. Its your warrant, that effort = difficulty --and, by converse, that being fine with unnecessary effort somehow makes you a player capable of managing greater difficulties-- that caught my doubt, along with your condescension towards anyone who -- god forbid -- doesn't think it's somehow better design to use more buttons than you have to.

It's bad design in an operating system.
It's bad design in a graphics art program.
It's bad design in a browser.
It's bad design on a web page.
It's bad design on a switchboard.
It's bad design in an action game.
But put it in a MMO and it becomes an oddly place measuring stick, apparently...

[Sigma-Astra]

I don't. Its your warrant, that effort = difficulty --and, by converse, that being fine with unnecessary effort somehow makes you a player capable of managing greater difficulties-- that caught my doubt, along with your condescension towards anyone who -- god forbid -- doesn't think it's somehow better design to use more buttons than you have to.

It's bad design in an operating system.
It's bad design in a graphics art program.
It's bad design in a browser.
It's bad design on a web page.
It's bad design on a switchboard.
It's bad design in an action game.
But put it in a MMO and it becomes an oddly place measuring stick, apparently...

Explain to me how having two extra spaces on my hotbar does me any good when there's nothing to put into those spaces. This all sounds like massive paranoia over a problem that doesn't even exist right now because we don't even have new skills. This may all sound good in theory, but just as much as you say it's useless to keep them as separate buttons, so too, is it pretty damn useless to condense them into one right now.

It's bad design to have excessive white space in a graphic and nothing to put it in.

Furthermore, excessive buttons are only, only bad design on a web page when they don't DO anything or GO anywhere. When they serve no purpose. The same can be said for all your other myriad examples. Wait...did you just use a switchboard? They're suppose to be like that.

[Shurrikhan]

Explain to me how having two extra spaces on my hotbar does me any good when there's nothing to put into those spaces. This all sounds like massive paranoia over a problem that doesn't even exist right now because we don't even have new skills. This may all sound good in theory, but just as much as you say it's useless to keep them as separate buttons, so too, is it pretty damn useless to condense them into one right now.

It's bad design to have excessive white space in a graphic and nothing to put it in.

Furthermore, excessive buttons are only, only bad design on a web page when they don't DO anything or GO anywhere. When they serve no purpose. The same can be said for all your over myriad examples. Wait...did you just use a switchboard? They're suppose to be like that.

Explain to me why spending two buttons on one available action does you any good? It's not paranoia. It's just common sense. The same kind as might say that "mate... adding 0 still gives you the same number... no matter how many times you do it."

Fire IV holds no purpose whenever Blizzard IV does. Blizzard IV holds no purpose whenever Fire IV does.

And no, a switchboard still does not apply a single toggle to separate switches. They simply switch the same switch from upward... to downward, "on"... to "off".

[Sigma-Astra]

Explain to me why spending two buttons on one available action does you any good?

I asked you for proof first, you can't just spin the same question around back towards me because you either can't answer it or you don't wish to. The burden of proof lies on you first, not me. Explain to me how it will help my gameplay now, currently, if we were to diminish those two buttons.

And no, a switchboard still does not apply a single toggle to separate switches. They simply switch the same switch from upward... to downward, "on"... to "off".

I'm not sure you and I are thinking about the same kind of switchboards here....I'm thinking of a telecommunication switchboard or telephone switchboard.

[Shurrikhan]

I asked you for proof first, you can't just spin the same question around back towards me because you either can't answer it or you don't wish to. The burden of proof lies on you first, not me. Explain to me how it will help my gameplay now, currently, if we were to diminish those two buttons.

You're asking that others not receive a QoL improvement because you do not want it.
You are asking for an intentionally worse design to remain forced upon others.

Yes, at present the two buttons are separate. But the existent trend is towards consolidation of unnecessary buttons and the developers have expressed a desire to continue with such quality and efficiency changes. You could already see this in WAR and SMN. The tech is there. The trend is there. It is ready to go. You are now asking it to stop -- to not go on as scheduled. You are asking for change. The burden lies with you.

There is zero effect on rotation.
There is zero effect on gameplay.
Efficiency is increased.
Quality is increased.
It is more in line with stated goals.

Not everything should have to be outright disfunctional before being fixed. You don't leave your business's window egged. You don't leave the water cooler dripping. Especially when it takes essentially zero time to do so and the issues -- however minuscule -- are already on the "to-do" list.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

The entirety of this rather pointless triad can be boiled down to will they fix Piercing Talon or equivalent skills like it. If yes, go right ahead—which is what I said. However... if they aren't going to do that for whatever reason than it remains a useless ability no matter how you attempt to spin it, thus becoming button bloat. How this assessment required several paragraphs to reach I'll never understand.

For the... fifth(?) time now... I don't care about combo consolidation. I care about whether changes are made reductively or in the interest of a fulfilling product. Pretending that we have more going on than we actually do through the UI by which we interact with those decisions protects non-options at the cost of options, non-gameplay at the cost of potential gameplay. And I find it absolutely bewildering that you would trim anything that is currently poorly implemented as if it suffered from fundamental flaws.

You act as if combo consolidation will be some sort of dystopia of (weaponskills in numbers, abilities in letters) A3BC1DE1FG1H1122I222, but it feels like you'd be fine with losing applications of Doomspike in high-movement ST combat or of Elusive Jump and receiving absolutely nothing new to your gameplay for the next 3 years so long as you get to spend the most buttons possible on the fewest unique/separable actions so you can shuffle down those weaponskill keys. If so, that's pretty well my worst-case outcome.

And yet you continue to partake in said arguments about it. Regardless, a poorly implemented skill that isn't being fixed serves no purpose. It doesn't matter how you imagine they could fix it, if they aren't going to, it's functionally useless. There's a reason virtually no melee DPS touches their ranged abilities. Put simply, unless they're changed to have a better implementation, it's better to cut them out entirely before anything else.

Really? I wasn't aware having a dissenting opinion on combo consolidation was somehow dystopian. Or did I even mention Elusive and Doomspike. In fact, I recall saying outright I'd rather they add nothing to current meta jobs and focus their attention on WHM, DRK and MCH who desperately need a rework. It's almost like this was a massive exaggeration you pulled out from thin air.