Hotkey Bloat

[Sealish]

Of all of the jobs that actually have button bloat, you go with Dancer, one of the jobs that has the least amount of buttons.

I went with Dancer because while playing it I specifically thought "Huh, I feel like there are 5 keybinds here that could be entirely done away with without changing how the job plays at all", and while there are other classes with this problem too, I felt it immediately upon unlocking the class. It may not be the worst class with button bloat, but the feeling was immediate.

I get what others here have said about how just because there is never a reason to not use the proc, you can still make the choice to not use it or not see it, and making that decision to use it is part of learning to play the class well. That is fair. I guess I just personally like to have my skill bar as optimized as possible and see it as a bit silly that something should take two buttons when the two skills are not only linked, but also mutually exclusive (in that when the upgraded one is available, there is absolutely no situation where you would choose to use the normal one which you will only use when you literally cannot use the upgraded one).

And I think that although this change would make lower skilled players make less mistakes, it is true, those mistakes are ones that they would stop making relatively quickly anyways. I don't think it would make the class any "easier" for a mid-high tier player to play, it would just make it more physically comfortable hand-wise.

As for being able to tell if you have a proc, you know that you get all 5 with flourish and so it is easy to count if you have used one or not. If you need to look, the skill icon will have changed. If you need more than that, they could always just make the outline for a proc and a combo a different colour.

I don't think the class NEEDS this change. It is admittedly pretty easy to play as is... but I do think that it would be a nice QoL change. For other classes with this same situation as well.

[Rongway]

As for being able to tell if you have a proc, you know that you get all 5 with flourish and so it is easy to count if you have used one or not. If you need to look, the skill icon will have changed. If you need more than that, they could always just make the outline for a proc and a combo a different colour.

I don't mean for after activating Flourish. I mean, you want to use up all your procs before Flourish comes off cooldown so that you don't overwrite them with Flourish. Your goal in the last few seconds before Flourish becomes available should be to make sure you have five dimmed buttons. This would take more concentration if the buttons were consolidated.

[Sealish]

I don't mean for after activating Flourish. I mean, you want to use up all your procs before Flourish comes off cooldown so that you don't overwrite them with Flourish. Your goal in the last few seconds before Flourish becomes available should be to make sure you have five dimmed buttons. This would take more concentration if the buttons were consolidated.

This could easily be fixed though if they used (for example) a green outline for procs and a yellow for combos. You would just need to make sure that you had no green outlines.

[Vyrerus]

This could easily be fixed though if they used (for example) a green outline for procs and a yellow for combos. You would just need to make sure that you had no green outlines.

What becomes of the dance buttons then? Currently the hotkeys for the procs turn into two of the dance steps. Part of dancing is dancing in a randomized order between the four. They're also color coated to match. You could have the AOE skills turn into the other two dance steps, but then they won't be color coated any more for easy learning.

Seems like an awful lot to change just to suit your personal whim.

[Sealish]

snip

The AOE skills are what I was thinking myself. Given that the actual skill icons change when you dance, the colour coding would remain. Yes the base skill icons match the colour of the dance moves, but this is more of a nice optical thing than an actual utility thing. Tinting the Windmill and Bladeshower skill icons Green and Yellow wouldn't be much to do if need be.

It isn't really an awful lot to change. The only Dancer Specific changes would be:
1) Rolling the Procs for AOE and Single Target Combos, plus Feather Dance 3 in to the basic skills. On proc, the skill icon would change to represent the proc. For new Dancers, this would be easier to learn than the current dancer system of separate buttons. It would not reduce decision complexity, but it would reduce mistakes from new players being distracted while learning the job. For current players, this would be easy to adapt to and would not increase their overall proficiency. For everyone though, it would make physical execution of abilities cleaner and more comfortable because you would have five less buttons you would need to place on your keyboard to reach. For anyone with small hands or a physical disability this would be a very welcome change.

2) Changing the colour of two skill icons (if needed). This could very easily and quickly be done, but since the skills actually change anyways while dancing it isn't all that necessary. I'll still put it here though.

This would also require an overall game system change:
1) Procs would have a different outline colour than combos. This would be welcome across the game anyways because it would be nice to be able to see at a quick glance what exactly that lit up border means. Usually a proc is more important to pay attention to than a combo que. I know that combos can be though of as procs themselves, but they are their own class of proc.

This may all be a personal whim, but I still don't really see how anything about it would be a negative change for anyone beyond maybe requiring veteran Dancers to relearn some minor muscle memory, something that they may have to do after any balance patch anyways. It would make new Dancers more effective in Duty Finder without changing the effectiveness of mid to high tier ones (better for the community as a whole), it would reduce the number of keybinds necessary which would make physically playing the class more comfortable and make it more accessible to people that have physical limitations that make having to stretch your hand across the entire keyboard difficult or painful, and it would reduce visual clutter that may lead to confusion by stacking the procs on top of the combo indicators (the fact that you have a combo active doesn't matter if you also have the proc active. You will always want to use the proc so that you don't end up wasting it by refreshing).

Is there any actual downside to this that I am not seeing or have not already addressed?

[Shibi]

Is there any actual downside to this that I am not seeing or have not already addressed?

Is that level of mind numbing boringness really needed?

[Sealish]

Is that level of mind numbing boringness really needed?

It isn't really any more or less boring than the class already is. Though I guess that this is definitely a personal opinion.
I look at complexity and how interesting a class is to play by how many decisions you need to make while playing it. With or without this change, the number of button presses and number of decisions doesn't change. You will never be in a situation where choosing to use the base skill is a better decision than using the proc. You loose a lot more potency by not using a proc (or by missing out on having used it by procing it again while you have the proc available) than by not using the combo. So if you have the proc, you will always press that button instead of the other button. When first learning the class, this may be a decision that you have to think about making, but after a day or two it no longer is. It is just automatic.

The decision complexity that keeps the class interesting and which allows you to optimize your play of it is making sure that you are using both dances (and your other cooldowns) on cooldown, making sure you use enough feathers so as not to overcap on them but saving enough for your burst phase, and making sure that you pick the right time to use Saber Dance before hitting 100 Esprit. The physical dexterity component comes from making sure you double weave your feather procs when possible, and managing to keep up with using everything during your burst phase. Occasionally pressing 2 or 4 instead of 1 or 3 on GCD because it is always optimal to do it when you can doesn't really add in any meaningful way to either decision or dexterity complexity once you spend the initial couple days getting used to the pattern and doesn't really make playing the class funner (again, an opinion). Removing that component would let new players focus on learning the fun part sooner and would make them more effective in group play as well.

But I will definitely admit that all of what I just said is a personal opinion. I think though that if you are someone that would find dancer boring with this change, you are also someone who finds dancer boring as-is. It isn't a very big change and doesn't change the rotation at all, it just changes what buttons you have to press to do the exact same thing.

[Vyrerus]

this is more of a nice optical thing than an actual utility thing.

For a lot of people, I'm sure it isn't. As rolled up combos are nice for you, "nice optical things" are nice for other people.

Also, stop acting like rolling Fan Dance III into Fan Dance I and II is a good idea. That's a proc for double weaving. and they have completely different attack types. Fan Dance II is centered around the Dancer, like your general AOE, Fan Dance I is single target ranged, and Fan Dance III is AOE radial around the target. Rolling them together creates issues with that, and also for people with high ping, you come into the Geirskogul/Nastrond thing where ping delay causes the action to roll back/not execute properly. For every skill consolidated like you suggest, this becomes an issue.

Most people with disabilities have workarounds already, and many of them play with controller instead. Most jobs in this game were already far more button intensive in years prior, and the game has already been heavily praised for being accessible. If anything, mapping all your skills to the same buttons could also be said to cause repetitive strain, not just on people but on the hardware too.

Again, what's nice for you personally isn't necessarily what is nice for everyone.

[Rongway]

[illustrated post explaining why Rongway thinks this is a bad idea]

And how would they transform into the four dance steps?

Dancer is already one of the jobs with the fewest buttons, and already consolidates four of it's skills into other buttons.

As my post was arguing that "this is not a change that would be made", I'll decline to answer that question.

Is there any actual downside to this that I am not seeing or have not already addressed?

Yes. Besides the points I've already argued, unnecessary changes affect everyone by reducing dev resources available for other things. Time spent modifying DNC to eliminate these five buttons could be spent doing something that's actually needed instead, like consolidating truly mutually exclusive actions. There are a few lists floating around in General history, as we've had this discussion several times. Among them are SMN's trance/demi buttons, BLM's Between the Lines and Enochian-dependent spells, a few buttons in PLD, and GNB's cartridge combo. Those jobs suffer from actual button bloat, and it would be a waste of time to reduce DNC's already small button count instead.