Each expansion I get hyped and also worried about more skills.

[Nyarlha]

I don't think we'll actually get that. The battles where we're playing as other Scions they have super simplified hotbars so you know what to do without people going 'oh god what icon is that' so that anyone could really do it.

Some skills branch, and some can be used in reverse order, ect.

Branching skills are always a false excuse, it's still pretty easy. Say you have a job that has 2 combos : 1 2 3 and 1 2 4. Just consolidate 1 2 3 and leave 4 separate, so that you just need to do 1 1 1 or 1 1 2(previously 4). That already cuts down hotkeys from 4 to 2. Hell, there may even be some plugins that do just that already.

As far as "reverse order", i have no ideas what you'd be talking about, do you have any exemple?

The only extremely niche thing it'd change is that you couldn't just spam 1 2 on some jobs in very specific situation (such as PLD where you could spam Fast Blade -> Riot Blade for more mana regen) and you'd have to commit to the full combo.

[Bacent]

Branching skills are always a false excuse, it's still pretty easy. Say you have a job that has 2 combos : 1 2 3 and 1 2 4. Just consolidate 1 2 3 and leave 4 separate, so that you just need to do 1 1 1 or 1 1 2(previously 4). That already cuts down hotkeys from 4 to 2. Hell, there may even be some plugins that do just that already.

As far as "reverse order", i have no ideas what you'd be talking about, do you have any exemple?

The only extremely niche thing it'd change is that you couldn't just spam 1 2 on some jobs in very specific situation (such as PLD where you could spam Fast Blade -> Riot Blade for more mana regen) and you'd have to commit to the full combo.

Dragoon has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 that can also end up being 1, 2, 3, 5, 4. Would you suggest that become 11123 or 11132 instead

Also the combo being 1, 1, 1, or 1, 1, 2 would just feel kinda wrong? I would rather skills get upgraded as you level up, personally, like how they've been doing for a decent bit of them

And what you call a 'false excuse' is literally based on peoples' preferences. I honest hate the PvP combat. I need my skills laid out how they are now for me to actually register them mentally, so if they reduced the skills like how you're suggesting, I would honestly hate combat in the game and possibly start moving away from the game if it's handled any way I personally can't handle. Saying it's a 'false excuse' is literally shutting down what someone thinks about it.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

I need my skills laid out how they are now for me to actually register them mentally, so if they reduced the skills like how you're suggesting, I would honestly hate combat in the game and possibly start moving away from the game if it's handled any way I personally can't handle. Saying it's a 'false excuse' is literally shutting down what someone thinks about it.

Easy, just make it an option. You wouldn't need to enable it.

[Nyarlha]

Dragoon has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 that can also end up being 1, 2, 3, 5, 4. Would you suggest that become 11123 or 11132 instead

Also the combo being 1, 1, 1, or 1, 1, 2 would just feel kinda wrong? I would rather skills get upgraded as you level up, personally, like how they've been doing for a decent bit of them

And what you call a 'false excuse' is literally based on peoples' preferences. I honest hate the PvP combat. I need my skills laid out how they are now for me to actually register them mentally, so if they reduced the skills like how you're suggesting, I would honestly hate combat in the game and possibly start moving away from the game if it's handled any way I personally can't handle. Saying it's a 'false excuse' is literally shutting down what someone thinks about it.

It's definitely preference but the false excuse is saying "it cannot be done because of branching combos". Yes, it can be done.

If having to change your muscle memory is too much for you in the case we get this kind of changes, I hope for you none of your jobs are actually ever revamped like some have been so far from expansion to expansion.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Dragoon has a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 that can also end up being 1, 2, 3, 5, 4. Would you suggest that become 11123 or 11132 instead

This is wrong. The Dragoon combos are 1-2-3-6-7 and 1-4-5-7-6. Effective consolidation would be to make them 1-1-1-3-4 and 1-2-2-4-3.

Monk on the other hand, not so much because of perfect balance which lets you hit any combo skill. I think SAM has something similar? So these two jobs have mechanics you'd have to strip away in order to do this.

Perfect Balance is the only thing really in the way of consolidation and that could easily be replaced by a more engaging burst mechanic. You could then have 3 buttons that change their action based on current form and revert Form shift back to its form cycling effect to consolidate the current 9 weaponskills (6 ST, 3 AoE).

Samurai would only really requires Gekko to apply the Jinpu buff and Kasha to apply the Shifu buff during Meikyo Shisui. You could then consolidate the ST combos into 3 buttons (Hakaze/Yukikaze, Jinpu/Gekko and Shifu/Kasha) and 2 AoE buttons (Fuga/Mangetsu and Oka) with Meikyo Shisui activating the final steps of the combos.

[Fland]

Branching skills are always a false excuse, it's still pretty easy. Say you have a job that has 2 combos : 1 2 3 and 1 2 4. Just consolidate 1 2 3 and leave 4 separate, so that you just need to do 1 1 1 or 1 1 2(previously 4). That already cuts down hotkeys from 4 to 2. Hell, there may even be some plugins that do just that already.

As far as "reverse order", i have no ideas what you'd be talking about, do you have any exemple?

The only extremely niche thing it'd change is that you couldn't just spam 1 2 on some jobs in very specific situation (such as PLD where you could spam Fast Blade -> Riot Blade for more mana regen) and you'd have to commit to the full combo.

What if I just want to do 1-2 and then go 1-4-5? you can't do that if the 1 button already turn into 3.
Example if I just want to refresh disembowel, but not do chaos because I know the DoT won't fully tick.
So I just want to do TT -> Disembowel -> TT -> VT -> FT.
You can't do this in your case.