Using macros for combos

[Jeeqbit]

Hi there.Personally I don't find pressing 1, 2, 3 for a basic combo to be very engaging.
I've seen and played other games, where you automatically progress through each stage of a combo with the same button

This actually happens in FFXIV for PvP and quest instances to help people on consoles, who don't have time to setup a hotbar in these modes. It's not used otherwise because it does mean we are just pressing one button, and that makes you wonder why you don't just spam the same attack like healers do.

The combos we do in this game take some getting used to and I think a lot of new and casual players struggle to do them without breaking the combo or refreshing things efficiently, but if you commit to getting good with it and adjusting your settings so it's easier, you get used to it.

When I tried to make this work I noticed it's not possible to set a macro to your hotbar with a macro, you can only swap between different presets.

Yes, so you would need to use the hotbars on other classes and make use of the hotbar copy command to cycle through slightly different setups. It would be some kind of masterpiece to do it and you already know you are one of the few to ever expend the effort.

The cross-hotbar looks like an interesting way to make it simpler even on a keyboard, it's just hard to get used to as a keyboard player.

[MalitiasTT]

This actually happens in FFXIV for PvP and quest instances to help people on consoles, who don't have time to setup a hotbar in these modes. It's not used otherwise because it does mean we are just pressing one button, and that makes you wonder why you don't just spam the same attack like healers do.

There are a lot more skills than the 1,2,3 combos and those aren't affected by combining the 1,2,3 steps into one button.

The combos we do in this game take some getting used to and I think a lot of new and casual players struggle to do them without breaking the combo or refreshing things efficiently, but if you commit to getting good with it and adjusting your settings so it's easier, you get used to it.

Oh, I might have worded that unclear.
I find the combo system so easy and simple to do that it's not engaging for me personally, while still requiring a lot of buttons.
The relation between complexity and number of buttons is what I'm questioning and what I was trying to "fix" for me.

The cross-hotbar looks like an interesting way to make it simpler even on a keyboard, it's just hard to get used to as a keyboard player.

You can do the same thing with mouse and keyboard and you even have 2 more presets this way.
"/hotbar" and "/crosshotbar" have the same commands and functionalities, as far as I know.
(I don't reccommend doing this in its current state btw)