Suggestion for NIN ability Huraijin

[Arohk]

I would really love to hear your definition of button bloat to have a good laugh.

Dark Knight VS Summoner.
DRK = Button Bloat.
SUM = Fine

[Shurrikhan]

But I'm not sure about conclusion. On one hand, if FFXIV had singificantly less skills, devs will probably try to distinquish each job more. On the other hand, current depth of FFXIV's combat doesn't really offer much creativity. No stuns and other CC, no special effects.

At some point, we get into a sort of chicken | egg spiral here.

Kits are simple because the game lacks any depth/breadth of undermechanics | the game lacks undermechanics because the kits are simple anyways.

As such, the most powerful constraints of kit design boundaries is a matter of what undermechanics can be added without breaking or devaluing existing content.

(Though, this is also where XIV breaks from other game's design philosophies regarding additions. Where another game might see the addition of Ninja as an available excuse to create undermechanics each for elements, Enmity, and stealth for the entire game, the addition of Astrologian as a means of adding manipulable gravity and ragdoll effects, Samurai as elemental-buffs-as-granularly-and-variably-spendable resource, etc., XIV tends to go "Oh, well now we can't have X, Y, or Z, either.")

Of course, an equal-sized half of that swamp is simply that XIV approaches the question of whether it wants to be alt-job-friendly and whether jobs should be interchangeable more with an eye on time played metrics / grind hours than on what it wants from the player experience in content.

If jobs were meant to be distinct but not quickly swapped for progression, for instance, then they should have high enough ceiling in both skill and progression (with alt-jobs never quite matching one's main but being easy to second-tier) that even a skilled player is worth taking even on a job less than optimal for a given fight, and what each job offers should not be so easily quantified (e.g., unlike when each comp still forms/sources the exact same strategies with no noticeably different twists). If meant to be distinct and quickly swapped, then we wouldn't need to so worry about parity on a basis of each individual minute/fine capacity, since one would main a role or armor class, not just a single job. But instead, we have nearly all the grind (short of job-by-job gearing) with none of the distinction.

To get to even half the things I'd want to see from XIV's jobs, both areas would have to be addressed: Rather than being content with what is (or, worse, pruning anything that wasn't implemented as well in practice as was hoped), job design would have to be willing to go beyond what content mechanics are available AND then the content would have to move to match it, or vice versa. And, we'd probably have to either drop the grind and/or drop the over-fine assessments of parity.

That being said, I have zero doubt that one could design with just 12-16 buttons kits that would have far, far more depth for each job than is currently the case. And the different ways they have to integrate those skills together under those button constraints would almost certainly make those jobs feel more distinct, not less.

[Ilyn]

NIN has always felt great with controller and I don't feel it's bloated especially if done right , even Aoe I just have to double tap L2 to switch my aoe WS's/HFM and Katon/GM using the 3 same buttons .

https://imgur.com/6CuYLDr

hell it didn't really change much since my Shb setup , in fact I use 1 less button in my ST rotation since we lost assissate

https://imgur.com/Zl06VVu



I'm glad Huraijin is nothing more then what it is and I have it tucked away in a seperate hotbar when I press R2>L2 with food, Lb, leg sweep and throwing dagger with 5 free spots to spare for things like potions or w/e

https://imgur.com/9VYjBtP

[Deo14]

Dark Knight VS Summoner.
DRK = Button Bloat.
SUM = Fine

Comparing DRK and SMN doesn't really back up your words when you said that NIN is "I's the most bloated job of all.". Yes, there is a lot of pointless oGCDs for DRK, because it's terribly designed job which doesn't have any job mechanic/minigame like NIN and others have. Devs instead of making one, opted to just make it bland job all about oGCDs. Because of that, NIN is by no chance worse than DRK. At the same time, why do you call SMN "fine"? I can clearly see a Physick in there. It scales of mind, meaning that it's utterly useless and it's probably worst example of button bloat in the game. Sure, DRK's Carve and Spit, Shadowbringer and so on are just bland oGCDs, but at least they have some meaning. So this leaves me confused and wondering about your worded definition of button bloat, because those 2 pictures and 9 words didn't tell me much.

snip

This seems about right. You need more creative space to make more distinct jobs, but game has some philosophies, like jobs which are easy to freely swap in between, that limit this.

My personal problem with this approach is that enjoyment is reliant on encounters. If boss is striking dummy, then you're stuck playing half interesting job. If boss does some mechanics, then combination of it can make for some good gameplay. But then again, we find another problem, which is that anything below EX is breeze and too easy. And I bet that if we wanted to go deeper, we would eventually even find a loop in all of this.

[Arohk]

this leaves me confused and wondering about your worded definition of button bloat.

The Amount of hotkeys is what matters, not the amount of abilities.

i never play Summoner so i dont know why i even have physik in there to be honest(to heal in low level dunegosn perhaps?), i just wanted to give an example of the amount of buttons required.
The Summoner has a most of his skills consolidated instead of having seperate hotkeys for each summon and the related spells.

When it comes to Dark Knight, i really have not much of an idea how to reduce the bloat ther ebecause it is a lot of different skills that don't even combo of each other.
Just a quick idea:
Carve and Split can merge with Delirium. (Carve and Split gives 3 Stacks of Delirium)
Salt and Darkness can merge with Abyssal Drain.
That would already free two Hotkeys, but for how the Job is designed there isn't much to consolidate really.

Ninja suffers mostly from he same Problem, a lot of oGCDs that require a seperate hotkeys.

then you have Fleeting and Forked Raiju, which is simply terribly designed. Why would Raiton chain into TWO seperate abilities, remove one Raiju and combine both into one skill.

[Deo14]

The Amount of hotkeys is what matters, not the amount of abilities.

If those buttons can be consolidated without destroying the job, then yes. Iki should go into Ogi, but Kaiten should not be removed because it was fundamental part of toolkit.

i never play Summoner so i dont know why i even have physik in there to be honest(to heal in low level dunegosn perhaps?), i just wanted to give an example of the amount of buttons required.
The Summoner has a most of his skills consolidated instead of having seperate hotkeys for each summon and the related spells.

I mean, why should there be a button that is not worth assigning to a button? Plenty of people don't even know that it doesn't scale with th right stat, so they waste keybind on it, therefore, it's button bloat.

When it comes to Dark Knight, i really have not much of an idea how to reduce the bloat ther ebecause it is a lot of different skills that don't even combo of each other.
Just a quick idea:
Carve and Split can merge with Delirium. (Carve and Split gives 3 Stacks of Delirium)
Salt and Darkness can merge with Abyssal Drain.
That would already free two Hotkeys, but for how the Job is designed there isn't much to consolidate really.

My idea - remove garbage like Carve, Shadowbringer, Salted Earth etc. and add real GCDs that have some more in-depth mechanic than just building a one sided resource. I really don't think DRK should be oGCD oriented, all basic animations are very slow and it makes DRK look very goofy when he does 1/4 of animation and then it gets canceled by another.

Ninja suffers mostly from he same Problem, a lot of oGCDs that require a seperate hotkeys.

Which exactly? Mug and Trick Attack have different cooldowns, and I doubt they want to touch Trick Attack again after 6.1 backlash. Same with Kassatsu and Meisui. Dream Within Dream could be put into Trick Attack. After this single change, I might see something done with Huraijin and them merge ST and AoE. But other than that, NIN seem very good in comparison with other jobs, and it's definitely not "most bloated" as you claim.

then you have Fleeting and Forked Raiju, which is simply terribly designed. Why would Raiton chain into TWO seperate abilities, remove one Raiju and combine both into one skill.

It was like that in 6.0, but people hated it and wanted it separated. You can just use one if you want.

[Arohk]

It was like that in 6.0, but people hated it and wanted it separated. You can just use one if you want.

no, that were two raijus but as a combo.

What i mean is ONE Raiju that does the dash only if you're not in melee range, but no dash if you're close enough (if that is even possible in Ff14)
I only use Forked Raiju by default, i don't mind the dash animation because i am used to it from tanking.

[Shurrikhan]

My idea - remove garbage like Carve, Shadowbringer, Salted Earth etc. and add real GCDs that have some more in-depth mechanic than just building a one sided resource. I really don't think DRK should be oGCD oriented, all basic animations are very slow and it makes DRK look very goofy when he does 1/4 of animation and then it gets canceled by another.

Why remove when you could just... make them not terrible? DRK is pretty iconically interested in its busy, bursty opener, and has always been the oGCD-heavy tank since its inception. Simplifying its opener by 5 casts is... not great, especially if you're truly interested in consolidation "without destroying the job".

Take Refulgent Arrow, for example. At present, it's "optimization" is as little as just swiping your finger across the key for Refulgent to the key for Burst Shot. If RA's available, it'll be used; if not, BS will be. So, we may as well remove it, right, since we can't actually do anything extra with that button? ...Orrr, we could just actually let it be banked with a second charge, and give BRD further means of exploiting GCD burst.

Allow ground-targeting effects to be queued and to be placed mid-GCD and mid-animation lock, and to 'snap' to target, return that to Salted Earth, and maybe give it a draw-in and maybe a DR-less snare effect for a bit of added functionality. Let Carve fill either of two purposes, generating up to 3k MP or spending up to 3k MP based on one's current %MP while dealing more damage the less MP it generates / more it spends; pair that with something like Dark Arts and it'd have utility, too. As for Shadowbringer, just give DRK some manner of nuance-capable damage amp window, into/with which any big burst damage cannot help but synergize.

Hell, just let people macro what they will if the hotkeys become a slight issue for some. By all means, leave /wait times dysfunctional, but allow each successive action to be appropriately queued, with all due conditionals.

The bloat affecting tanks is primarily the athematic garbage of the Role Actions. Shirk is pointless, as it's been since Stormblood. Reprisal is insignificant. Rampart looks like crap and its value would be better given over to a second charge, some cooldown reduction, and a further effect on each of the tank's mid-CD defensives. Even Tank Stance could easily be removed without loss, by just manipulating tank enmity in a few ways (modest flat multiplier, on engage multiplier, and a hefty enmity-theft multiplier that depends on positioning).

It was like that in 6.0, but people hated it and wanted it separated. You can just use one if you want.

This pretty clearly means a conditional Dash on whichever among Fleeting or Forked Raijuu survives. The downside is that you then would have to wait until being knocked back out of that minimum range in order to cancel a knockback with the dash. Granted, Shukuchi is available frequently enough to make that pretty well a non-issue.

Personally, I'd slightly prefer to just un-neuter macros and let people put those together with a range conditional if they so please.

[Deo14]

Why remove when you could just... make them not terrible? DRK is pretty iconically interested in its busy, bursty opener, and has always been the oGCD-heavy tank since its inception. Simplifying its opener by 5 casts is... not great, especially if you're truly interested in consolidation "without destroying the job".

I understand my own hypocrisy, but the thing is, that is seems like that many people agree that DRK is badly designed. My philosophy is don't fix what isn't broken (aka revert that 6.1 SAM bullshit, who tf approved that). Veterans miss the HW DRK, and current players label DRK as Walmart WAR and similar, so I do think that some rework is warranted there.

Take Refulgent Arrow, for example. At present, it's "optimization" is as little as just swiping your finger across the key for Refulgent to the key for Burst Shot. If RA's available, it'll be used; if not, BS will be. So, we may as well remove it, right, since we can't actually do anything extra with that button? ...Orrr, we could just actually let it be banked with a second charge, and give BRD further means of exploiting GCD burst.

Sound idea.

Let Carve fill either of two purposes, generating up to 3k MP or spending up to 3k MP based on one's current %MP while dealing more damage the less MP it generates / more it spends; pair that with something like Dark Arts and it'd have utility, too. As for Shadowbringer, just give DRK some manner of nuance-capable damage amp window, into/with which any big burst damage cannot help but synergize.

Problem with Carve, Shadowbringer and other damaging oGCDs, is that they're always used on CD, so I don't think there is much space for creativity. Your ideas will add little more depth, but that's about it. At best, it will make order of oGCD more relevant, instead of current optimal order, which realistically doesn't need to be used. Just double weave all your oGCDs and use that same order in next burst and you'll be fine.

The bloat affecting tanks is primarily the athematic garbage of the Role Actions. Shirk is pointless, as it's been since Stormblood. Reprisal is insignificant. Rampart looks like crap and its value would be better given over to a second charge, some cooldown reduction, and a further effect on each of the tank's mid-CD defensives. Even Tank Stance could easily be removed without loss, by just manipulating tank enmity in a few ways (modest flat multiplier, on engage multiplier, and a hefty enmity-theft multiplier that depends on positioning).

10% mit is significant. It adds more depth to the jobs because you it rewards specific fight knowledge, just like every mitigation. Rampart does look like crap, problem is that it has 1 animation for 4 tanks, all with very different aesthetics. If we keep current aggro mechanic, we should keep tank stance. Sure you could just make it passive for tanks, but now you're fighting for aggro. Generating more enmity depending on positional might make sense - if tank is in front, you get more. What about wall bosses though? Tank stance is super simple yet fully functional in current system.

This pretty clearly means a conditional Dash on whichever among Fleeting or Forked Raijuu survives. The downside is that you then would have to wait until being knocked back out of that minimum range in order to cancel a knockback with the dash. Granted, Shukuchi is available frequently enough to make that pretty well a non-issue.

This sounds like possible nightmare depending on implementation. If you're at 1yalm away, will the dash trigger? Probably not. If you're far away, will it dash you right at the hitbox? It should, just like every gap closer does. What if you're at max melee? Quite a few AoEs can be dodged if you're at max melee. So if you're at 2.9y, it probably shouldn't trigger, right? What if you misstep and now you're out of the max melee range? Now it dashes you right into incoming AoE. If it did dash you only to max melee range, than it would break consistency with every gap closer in the game. What about all the possible server shenanigans? This has serious potential to behave the way player didn't want. Consolidating buttons should be done for convenience, if it makes sense. But if you try too hard to put every button on some other, you can end up in situations where it might be seem unnatural and confusing. Someone here suggested to put Raijus on Aeolian Edge and Armor crush. It makes sense, since you don't use those button when you have Raiju ready, but does it make sense that regular GCD turns into Raiju? If we needed to remove one Raiju, just remove the one with gap closer and don't overcomplicate things, NIN has Shukuchi anyways.

[Shurrikhan]

Problem with Carve, Shadowbringer and other damaging oGCDs, is that they're always used on CD, so I don't think there is much space for creativity.

I don't think this is as strong a limit as you suggest. You just have to move it from a single, rhythmic point of optimization to a priority conflict:

Frequency is good, but the actual goal is potency per fight (assuming as short a fight as your party is capable of, of course). Create another means besides "use as often/quickly as possible" by which to generate more potency within the span of the fight and its being used on CD can help situate depth instead.

And that doesn't even have to be contextual, such as via Ravana-esque damage windows or add spawns to favor banking AoEs. It can instead come from the job itself.

10% mit is significant. It adds more depth to the jobs because you it rewards specific fight knowledge, just like every mitigation.

And what did that 10% miti from Reprisal, shared across all tank jobs, replace? The 10% mitigation unique to each kit and which did not require a separate button for that purpose.

There are more than enough buttons that can more choicefully take up that %mitigation duration*intensity per minute, be that the likes of Intervene & Circle of Scorn, Oblation, Burst Strike & Fated Circle, or WAR's gauge spenders and/or some external element added to Infuriate or Thrill of Battle, etc., offering a higher ceiling and more interactive and varied skill use than just hitting Reprisal on CD or by the boss-script-schedule, all without that button cost.

Generating more enmity depending on positional might make sense - if tank is in front, you get more. What about wall bosses though? Tank stance is super simple yet fully functional in current system.

Omnidirectional enemies still technically have a front, flank, and rear; they just guarantee positional bonuses regardless. There's no need to have it to the same for an Enmity trait, though. And so long as Provoke still exists, it'd make no difference anyways.

This sounds like possible nightmare depending on implementation. If you're at 1yalm away, will the dash trigger? Probably not. If you're far away, will it dash you right at the hitbox? It should, just like every gap closer does. What if you're at max melee? Quite a few AoEs can be dodged if you're at max melee. So if you're at 2.9y, it probably shouldn't trigger, right? What if you misstep and now you're out of the max melee range? Now it dashes you right into incoming AoE. If it did dash you only to max melee range, than it would break consistency with every gap closer in the game. What about all the possible server shenanigans? This has serious potential to behave the way player didn't want. Consolidating buttons should be done for convenience, if it makes sense. But if you try too hard to put every button on some other, you can end up in situations where it might be seem unnatural and confusing. Someone here suggested to put Raijus on Aeolian Edge and Armor crush. It makes sense, since you don't use those button when you have Raiju ready, but does it make sense that regular GCD turns into Raiju? If we needed to remove one Raiju, just remove the one with gap closer and don't overcomplicate things, NIN has Shukuchi anyways.

No, it's really stupidly simple.

Can the non-dash skill reach? Yes = Non-dash skill is used. No = The dash skill is used instead.

I.e., slap them together in a macro (in any game where macros haven't been purposely sabotaged to keep them from queuing and where failed lines proceed to the next), non-dash before dash. Done.