Revisiting the 10 year roadmap

[Shurrikhan]

Which is why this is a perfect example of SE's tendency to "overcorrect" on potentially-legitimate criticisms — outright-obliterating things, rather than first refining them.

Oftentimes, SE sees "A" is a problem, and then decides to Plunge straight from "A" to "Z" in one go.

Rather than something like:

A — Manually press a separate Kaiten key before every Iaijutsu.

M — Each Iaijutsu now automatically consumes up to 20 Kenki per use to increase its damage by up to 50%.

Z — Completely remove Kaiten, bake its potency into Iaijutsu baseline, and push all Kenki management onto Shinten.

...where "M" would accomplish everything that removing Kaiten supposedly did, while also still retaining an extra layer of Kenki reward and management, as well as the possibility of automatically performing the Kaiten animation that people are attached to.

That "M" wouldn't actually "accomplish everything that Kaiten" did, though, for a few reasons:

1. You need time enough for the Kaiten animation to go off (without delaying the Iaijutsu itself), if retaining whatever part of the appeal of Kaiten was its animation.
   
   
2. You're removing the ability to salvage a mismanagement. If one would need a Gyoten to cancel an otherwise-fatal knockback or to return to the eye of a 'donut' AoE in time after having burned Sprint early, now they have to actively avoid using Iaijutsu at all.
   
   
3. To many, part of the of Kaiten appeal was that actual key-slide from Kaiten to Iaijutsu, for much the same reason that many PC players fine with using plugins still nonetheless prefer to use separate buttons for each step of a combo, 'wasted' button-space though such may be.

This "A to Z" habit is a very strange, impatient design style, and probably a manifestation of too few designers having too many tasks under too much pressure... so there's a tendency to not want to keep too many long-term "plates spinning" in terms of wait-and-see observations.

On this general point, though, agreed.

[Eorzean_username]

That "M" wouldn't actually "accomplish everything that Kaiten" did, though, for a few reasons:

I am confused, because you quoted my statement, then responded to something that I didn't say.

...where "M" would accomplish everything that removing Kaiten supposedly did, while also still retaining an extra layer of Kenki reward and management, [...]

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...But while we're here anyway, for the sake of posterity:

You need time enough for the Kaiten animation to go off (without delaying the Iaijutsu itself), if retaining whatever part of the appeal of Kaiten was its animation.

Technically correct, but there are plenty of possibilities for adapting this to function, such as automatically performing "The Twirl" upon reaching 20 Kenki, or simply re-keying how the Iaijutsu animation itself progresses.

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You're removing the ability to salvage a mismanagement. If one would need a Gyoten to cancel an otherwise-fatal knockback or to return to the eye of a 'donut' AoE in time after having burned Sprint early, now they have to actively avoid using Iaijutsu at all.

This example seems ridiculous to me.

I cannot think of a situation in which any serious Samurai would not be mortally-embarrassed to have spent Kenki needed for Kaiten on a gap-closer, and in that case, it's an obvious misplay and lack of proper planning that "deserves" a rotational "slap on the wrist" — especially if operating by the standards of "skill expression" argued for so frequently around here.

Furthermore, in my off-the-cuff example of a mid-way compromise for Kaiten (which was not meant as an actual technical design document), it says:

M — Each Iaijutsu now automatically consumes up to 20 Kenki per use to increase its damage by up to 50%.

...Meaning that, in the situation of your example, the "M" method would actually be more forgiving and allow more salvaging of mismanagement, because if — say — you just had to Gyoten at, say, 25 Kenki to survive a mythical knockback and already blew your Arm's Length, then you could still gain a Kaiten bonus of at least 37.5% when you arrived back in range.

In the "classic Kaiten", you would be faced with an all-or-nothing choice — Iai for 0% bonus, or don't Iai at all. In which case, you're still "actively avoiding using Iaijutsu at all". (?)

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To many, part of the of Kaiten appeal was that actual key-slide from Kaiten to Iaijutsu

If we're now getting into "key-slides" being a justification for never editing anything, then the game's design has basically become paralytic and ossified.

Developers should not be held hostage to people wanting to press an exact number of keys (which, yes, works in both directions, and is an issue with excessive "bloat reduction" crusades as well).

If the "key slide" change is that offensive, create a pure-text macro that emotes, "/e <0> activated Kaiten!" and push it before each Iaijutsu.

That said, I'm aware that gaming is a complex experience from the user-satisfaction perspective, and I'm not trying to glibly invalidate that some people genuinely took satisfaction from this (or any other subtle detail that's been deprecated over time).

I'm just saying that, sooner or later, "something has to budge" when designers want to design, and while "non-destructive editing" is an ideal to follow in concept, it's not always going to work out in practice.

In that sense, "I lost my key slide" is going to end up pretty low on the list of potential consequences, and join a gigantic pile of other actions that have also gone extinct over time.

Like yeah, I personally miss my "key slide" of Cleric Stance into SCH DOTpocalypse and Dark Arts into... everything, but at some point I had to "Remember that we lived" and move on with the day.