Please change combat style

[Dzian]

This reads like someone who never played 1.23. If you're referring to 1.17 and earlier, sure. But if by 1.23 you actually mean 1.23, then no.

I played right up till the servers shutting down and referring to many aspects withing the 1.2 era..

Again, combo openers negated the cost of the entire chain.

yes but they also had the positional requirements that actually mattered.. if you missed the positional on that co.bo starter you lost the entire combo.. that's impact.. compared to presently. Miss a positional you lose something like 2 potency per second for the next 30 seconds.
Insignificant. No impact no reward.

That was also the case in 1.23. The tertiary stat thresholds (e.g., MND on PLD, PIE on DRG) were all mathed out, almost entirely inconsequential, and came automatically with one's relic gear anyways. There was no choice, let alone any giving meaningful agency. There was more agency in ARR in PIE thresholds on BLM or even the ability to attach DEX/STR as a tank for the added parry chance / % mitigation than there was in 1.23.

There was actually quite a lot of choice to be had. The set of gear you had for taking down chimera for example was pretty different to these of gear you'd use for taking down garuda or ifrit. Ifrit or miser.

Tanks also. You'd take more defence and hp to chimera than you would to miser or ifrit. You'd probably trade for more str/acc for garuda who was squishy but evasive. Think I had 3 separate builds for my paladin.

Then you had healers where stacking vit instead of mind made a hefty bump to your stoneskiins regens and protects while stacking mind bumped your cures. So many healers would often switch builds. Doing g those sub 17min av runs a healer might stack vit while zooming through the poison rooms and prepping for miser. But switch to mind for coco and other rooms.

Emnity and stuff also mattered much more than they do know...

You auto-attacked until you could afford your Priority Combo. Then, with your Priority Combo on CD, you auto-attacked until you could use your Filler Combo. If the final step of either combo was on CD,

The difference being that when you pressed buttons you saw something happen.. that skill hits notably harder than your base auto damage... ARR and beyond. You just mash buttons endlessly and it's nothing more than an auto attack with shiny sparkly effects. You don't even see an auto attack go off.

The point being to have engaging jobs and an engaging combat system. You need engaging mechanics and systems to interact with.. and 1.2 had a lot more than we have now. Even more than we had when ARR launched

ARR concept art for the combat system we could have had.

[
All the art and the idea to expand upon the 1.2 battle system. with the way tp worked, combos worked, incapacitations, mob strengths and weakeness all that cool stuff. If I recall they even were considering restoring battle regimens.

[Shurrikhan]

but they also had the positional requirements that actually mattered.. if you missed the positional on that co.bo starter you lost the entire combo

You don't have a combo yet if you lose a combo-starter, because the combo hadn't started yet.

Which, again, is identical to how positionals worked in ARR combos until the DRG adjustments in 2.45. In 1.x, you could move to wherever the hell you wanted around a boss because bosses had virtually no mechanics to stack for or dodge. That hasn't been the case since. It's no longer just a game of auto-attacks until you can afford to use an ability (which then nullifies the entire cost of its combo, completely wasting its TP system).

Now, would I take a repolished XI-style TP system over nothing? Probably. But post-Yoshida TP was... nothing. You could blot out the gauge and you'd never know the difference.

The set of gear you had for taking down chimera for example was pretty different to these of gear you'd use for taking down garuda or ifrit. Ifrit or miser.

This was solely because of elemental resist and differing compositions (one fewer healers to try to kill before another wave of adds in CC, for instance; high melee, especially to abuse DRG's 15-minute CD in DFD; avoiding or stacking BLM because of this or that element; etc.), which we still had until Stormblood on the simple basis of Army and Ballad being branched spenders for Physical Ranged MP.

I would love to actually do what 1.x attempted -- allowing for different builds based on stat choice. That would be amazing. But it was a shoddy attempt that never went anywhere except perhaps as Bard when supporting open world grinds with higher Mind/Piety. For anything else, any alternate stats were inconsequential outside of their quickly-reached thresholds (generally for Accuracy soft cap).

Tanks also. You'd take more defence and hp to chimera than you would to miser or ifrit. You'd probably trade for more str/acc for garuda who was squishy but evasive. Think I had 3 separate builds for my paladin.

Differing accuracy tiers (Chimera was lower than Ifrit who was lower than Garuda, just as was the case in ARR), and the small chance of being autoed near-simultaneously with a special attack hitting. That was it. And we had those until Accuracy was removed. And Accuracy's removal was probably for the better.

Then you had healers where stacking vit instead of mind made a hefty bump to your stoneskiins regens and protects

Regen wasn't Vit-scaled, and Stoneskin didn't scale with the caster's/healer's Vitality, only the target's.
The more VIT you have, the more max HP, and therefore the bigger the Stoneskin on you, which could then prevent debuffs from afflicting you until the barrier is broken. You could have done the same thing with ARR Stoneskin (better, actually, given that in ARR CNJ got a trait buffing it by 80%) or Adloquiem.
Iirc, because Vitality granted a small amount of Defense (while DEX gave parry/block chance and STR gave parry/block strength, bot retained until HW), which Protect then raised, Protect had a faint, faint synergy with VIT, but that was it.

ARR and beyond. You just mash buttons endlessly

You're honestly going to say that the like of Monk's Optimal Drift rotation is somehow how more mindless than...

1.x's gameplay loop of... Combo A. Combo B. Combo A. Combo B. Combo A. Combo B. Combo A. Combo B. Combo A. Combo B. Combo A. Combo B.

that skill hits notably harder than your base auto damage

An AA back then would hit for up a 6th of your 15-minute CD's damage.

Do you want to compare a modern AA (<83p) to, say, Phantom Rush (1150p)? The difference hasn't shrunk; it's only increased.

You don't even see an auto attack go off.

Because they're not the point? It's the same animation, hundreds of time. It's not going to be exciting no matter what you do to it.

Now, if you just want them to be more visible, that's pretty simple. You retain their 33.3 potency per second pre-buffs but give them a lower minimum charge time ('auto-attack delay') and a higher maximum charge time apply an ICD after each other action during which time the AA can't go off so it doesn't get melded/absorbed into the simultaneous action that actually matters.

The point being to have engaging jobs and an engaging combat system. You need engaging mechanics and systems to interact with.. and 1.2 had a lot more than we have now.

1.17, in its own terribly unpolished way, maybe, but not 1.2. 1.2 had no Incaps, no Regimens, no weapon types, no raid buffs, little to no personal mitigation, no damage windows, no rotations beyond spam + DoT or alternating Combos A and B, no boss mechanics beyond hide at times X, Y, Z, and hold offensive CDs for adds. It made, by comparison, even ARR look wonderfully fleshed-out.

This is like someone giving you a pitch for a system of governance assuring that it'd be great, only to then say "You know, like {X dystopic moment in history}!" You'll have completely turned everyone off to the concept.

with the way tp worked, combos worked, incapacitations, mob strengths and weakeness all that cool stuff.

TP didn't work, incapacitations didn't exist at that time, mobs only variance in strength were their TP modifiers as defense was non-manipulable such that every boss had roughly even gains in eHP, and elemental weaknesses just decided for BLMs which combo they were allowed to use. Half of what you're saying did not exist and the rest was by no means cool stuff.

1.x, especially pre-Yoshida, had some fine intentions, sure, but implementations both pre- and post-Yoshida are in no way worthwhile examples to build from.

[Dzian]

but not 1.2. 1.2 had no Incaps

incapacitations didn't exist at that time,

Incapacitations existed right up till the servers shut down basically. they were even involved in ifrit extreme for the relic quest. released in patch 1.22c Source

Incapacitating Ifrit's horns is crucial for this fight, as it weakens his abilities. If no horns are broken, some of his abilities are completely unavoidable

Regen wasn't Vit-scaled

yes it was it scaled off enhancing magic which in turn scaled off vitality.
Source

≪Parameters and Their Effects≫

Strength
Attack Power
Damage dealt by puglist, gladiator, marauder, and lancer arms
Vitality
Damage taken
Enhancement Magic Potency
Maximum HP
Damage dealt by marauder arms

This second source also contains information on the 1.2 reforms and how which new skills impacted incapacitiations.
.

TP didn't work,

again see above link

≪Individual Combos≫
A system has been implemented wherein the majority of weaponskills and spells receive a bonus if certain conditions are met. Conditions fall into the categories listed below, the third of which pertains to combos.
Position: Striking the enemy from the direction specified, e.g., the flank.
Status: Avoiding or incurring enmity from the enemy in question and so forth.
Sequence: Landing the specified weaponskill or spell on the enemy immediately beforehand.
Not only will a successful combo grant you the bonus indicated; TP cost will also be waived for the weaponskill used to execute it. For a combo to be valid, however, the weaponskill in question must be used with the class or job to which it belongs.

Examples of weaponskills and their bonus conditions:

WS1
Weaponskill 1 Deal physical damage to a single target. Damage increases by 20% when executed from the front.
WS2
Weaponskill 2 Deal physical damage to a single target, increasing enmity.
Combo Action: Weaponskill 1
Combo Bonus: Enmity+50%
WS3
Weaponskill 3 Deal physical damage to a single target.
Combo Action: Weaponskill 1
Combo Bonus: Damage+20%
WS4
Weaponskill 4 Deal physical damage to a single target. Inflicts gradual HP reduction when executed from behind.
Combo Action: Weaponskill 3
Combo Bonus: HP reduction +25%
Individually executed, the above weaponskills will deal out only what is indicated in the first line of their descriptions. The bonuses granted by weaponskills 1 and 4 (Damage+20% and Gradually reduces HP, respectively) are dependent on positioning.

Weaponskills 2 through 4 each offer a combo bonus. For instance, performing 2 immediately after landing 1 will grant you Enmity+50%. Furthermore, the TP cost for performing 2 will be waived. In the case of the above weaponskills, the following two combinations can be identified:
1) 1 → 2
2) 1 → 3 → 4
Please note that all bonus conditions must be fulfilled for a weaponskill to be considered valid in a combo. For this reason, 3 → 4 alone do not form a combo, as 1 is a requirement for 3.

You're mistaken with some of your info as the links ive found will show. however at the same time i acknowledge my memory of some stuff may also be hazy / not entirely accurate. and i am admittedly too lazy to dig up information about every aspect.

i still think 1.2 had a combat system that had more depth and felt more fun and rewarding that what ARR has ever had. which has never felt anything more than just button bashing spam

[Shurrikhan]

Incapacitations existed right up till the servers shut down basically.

Perhaps we're using different terms here. What you link here and in the other source are item break-offs, rather than anything that directly debuffs the enemy (e.g., beheading a skeleton to leave it blind, removing certain special attacks from enemies). Darkhold and Great Buffalo runs before and after Yoshida, for instance, would show these CC options being removed.

yes it was it scaled off enhancing magic which in turn scaled off vitality.
Source

No part of your source classifies Regen as "Enhancement Magic" (a parameter/attribute buff).

again see above link

This merely proves my point. It was a non-resource. Once any combo opener (say, 500 TP) nullified the TP cost of the entire remaining combo (e.g., up to 5000 TP), TP no longer mattered. You could no longer freely use actions independently per their TP costs because Yoshida had them routed instead behind rigid combos where to use a 3000 TP finisher would be to simply waste 2500 TP and the potency and effect of all prior steps for zero advantage.

Yes. It moved up and down, but it was, again, even less worth having on your screen than of modern Darkside on DRK.

If gameplay is identical regardless of a resource's existence, such that there would be no impact from having that resource or not, that resource is dysfunctional.

And what you linked is the exact change (nullifying the cost of all combo skills despite all TP skills, at that time, being part of combos -- since Yoshida also removed casters' use of TP) that broke it. As I said, it worked until then. Just not since.

i still think 1.2 had a combat system that had more depth and felt more fun and rewarding

It was. Literally. A. B. A. B. A. B. A. B. Ad nauseum. Simply slowing things down to ~15 apm does not make it less repetitive, especially when that gets rid of all nuance otherwise available, atop that. Compare modern Monk to Combo-A-Combo-B 1.23 Monk, for instance.