What Are Some Easy Wins for Improving Combat Content?

[Shurrikhan]

I agree with this, though I want to add to it:
This may be covered by what you already wrote about traps, but for example, I would want BLM's Despair to be the same button as Blizzard III. In 99% of cases you would never want to cast Blizzard III when you could instead cast Despair; that remaining 1% edge case only exists because the BLM goofed and didn't leave themselves enough Astral Fire time to cast Despair, so they're casting Blizzard III to mitigate their mistake.

Whether my wording would cover your wants is admittedly ambiguous, largely because I didn't want to overstate Marxam's suggestion in my paraphrasing it.

There is another in the hidden box, though, that would cover this, in a fashion mentioned in your macro thread: Just un-neutering the macro system, by having it perform, with queuing, one action per button-press (as plugins can already do, by just undoing the flag telling it not to queue macro actions).

Add to that conditionals like range and movement and voila, you can have Thundercloud > Scathe > Thunder III all in one button, Fire IV > Despair > Blizzard III all in one button, etc., per user preference in button-flow.

Redundant buttons should be removed or consolidated.
Bard has some great examples of this, though most classes have something in this vein:
Empyreal Arrow and Sidewinder are both just cooldown damage oGCD's (and depending on your perspective, so is Bloodletter). This is just the same skill 2 (or 3) times with 2 (or 3) different buttons. Rather than adding redundant skills, just adjust the damage or cooldown of existing skills that are the same, so that players get the experience of using oGCD's more often without button bloat.

True, but they both could be and have been distinct. Sidewinder used to require having one's DoTs up, back when they were 18s a little less reliably maintained. And EA, moreover, has the potential to overcap gauge or be more desirable if held a second to be used in the upcoming song instead (though, yes, simply weaving the song a second early instead is usually preferable).

As such, it would be, to my mind, and equal or better solution to simply reinvigorate those abilities if/when/where possible.

Similarly, Venomous Bite and Windbite are the same skill.

They are, now that no context could ever make TTK difference matter, but for a moment... consider Iron Jaws. IJ itself is... almost negative gameplay, in its current form (increasing BRD's filler/proc_filler casts from 8 of 9 to 17 of 18 casts). If we consolidate VB and WB, we're still stuck with their being dead buttons due to Iron Jaws, whereas if we remove Iron Jaws, we're stuck only with 2 overly-alike DoTs that each see use... for which the best solution is just to, again, diversify them. Which would probably do BRD a lot of good.

Which is a verbose way to say I'd rather not have consolidation preclude improvements to the actual kit, and therefore would rather not lock in boring-ass abilities by consolidating them before even giving them a chance not to be so dull.

Similar BRD example: Refulgent Arrow. We just key-swipe (just hit button 1->2 together so that Refulgent goes off if possible, Burst Shot if not) that shit right now, making it so we don't even have to deal with what little "depth" it has by being a "hit when glowing" mechanic. But if could stack? If it had any time-sensitive synergies?

Add an accessibility setting to hold buttons for fights with button-mashing mechanics
This is unreleated to button bloat, but it should be incredibly easy, and it's kind of stunning that this wasn't done long ago. Just a given if you care about your disabled/aged players. Easy win.

Given that we only see this in, what, at most three fights, and none of those uses are remotely interesting... I almost wonder if it'd be better just to remove those bloat QTEs entirely.

For Controller perhaps better party targeting support rather than just cycling through the list?

How about, say, Compass / Party-Wheel Targeting?

Steps:

1. Un-neuter macros and allow [st] / [soft] / [softtarget] as targeting options for abilities. Additionally, allow targeting procedures (such as [on-release], [@cursor], [@mouseover], [@UI, etc.] to be attached directly to skills via the Actions and Traits Pane.
2. Allow players to simultaneously hold a Soft Target and "Hard" Target, perhaps with a UI component added for said Soft Target.
   
   
3. Allow for a "Party Wheel", with a fair few sub-options. This places a radial display at the bottom of your screen that allow you to select, via joystick or D-PAD (but using Top, Top-and-Right, Right, etc., instead of having to list-cycle), the target of your next soft-targeted ability from a wheel of party members. What else is displayed in your Party Wheel is highly configurable, but let's say there's at least contextual display of icons (e.g., cleansable effects, who all has shield HP greater than what you could produce with a non-crit, and highlighting Melee DPS and, in a more subdued color, your tank when drawing a Melee Card) and compact option for HP display either as a compact bar, section divider bar, or as a background.
   
   Optional center section (no D-PAD selection / no joystick nudge) into which you can place self, hard target, focus target, or a trickle-down through them in custom order (casting Malefic with hard target > self > focus would cast it on the Focus; casting Asp. Benefic with hard target > self > focus would cast on self if target isn't friendly; etc.).
   
   
4. [OPTIONAL]No longer require a target to be set before beginning a cast and give the option to swap to new targets mid-cast if/when applicable (yes, this greatly helps prehealing against random-target mechanics, but that doesn't seem so awful).
5. [OPTIONAL]Allow for a "prevent movement while holding button on casted actions" option, so that people can use their movement key to aim while they cast.

Better tab targeting.

This one is harder, as there's almost always going to be some conflict here, especially if you try to have tab-target always prefer the nearest target. Honestly, having modded the hell out of tab-targeting every which way in other TT-MMOs my recommendation here would be to not conflate the Cycle Targets (left-to-right) key with Target Nearest Relevant Unit key and instead make use of both. That said, an option to control that would definitely help.
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EDIT (Due to Daily Post Limits)

Though I'm not sure if you could really make a good "Fire IV > Despair > Blizzard III" macro regardless, because depending on circumstances, there are times when you can cast Fire IV but if you do then afterwards you won't have enough mana to cast Despair, which means you should choose to cast Despair instead of the Fire IV. But I'd love to be able to pair Despair and Blizzard III without any loss!

I could have sworn that was damn near impossible with the current MP values unless skipping B4 or casting Flare in what is otherwise an ST rotation? After three casts of F4 under Umbral Hearts, you're left with 7600 MP, which is only enough for 4 Fires (leaving you at 1200 MP out of the 1600 needed for F4) and a Despair (costing at least 1200 MP), no?

But I haven't touched BLM at lv90 in a couple weeks, so I may have forgotten.

[LilimoLimomo]

True, but they both could be and have been distinct. Sidewinder used to require having one's DoTs up, back when they were 18s a little less reliably maintained. And EA, moreover, has the potential to overcap gauge or be more desirable if held a second to be used in the upcoming song instead (though, yes, simply weaving the song a second early instead is usually preferable).

As such, it would be, to my mind, and equal or better solution to simply reinvigorate those abilities if/when/where possible.

They are, now that no context could ever make TTK difference matter, but for a moment... consider Iron Jaws. IJ itself is... almost negative gameplay, in its current form (increasing BRD's filler/proc_filler casts from 8 of 9 to 17 of 18 casts). If we consolidate VB and WB, we're still stuck with their being dead buttons due to Iron Jaws, whereas if we remove Iron Jaws, we're stuck only with 2 overly-alike DoTs that each see use... for which the best solution is just to, again, diversify them. Which would probably do BRD a lot of good.

Which is a verbose way to say I'd rather not have consolidation preclude improvements to the actual kit, and therefore would rather not lock in boring-ass abilities by consolidating them before even giving them a chance not to be so dull.

Oh certainly, I'm not familiar with the history of Bard but replacing "redundant" abilities with something that actually breathes life into the kit seems great. So changing a redundant skill so that it does something novel and interesting that changes the way a player thinks about their class, rather than adding yet another button to unload during unload times...that sounds smashing.

And as for Iron Jaws, yeah...it's only purpose is to "simplify" the already needlessly complex DoT game. So it's prime to just be removed. Or alternatively, have Venemous Bite just become Iron Jaws when you're aiming at a target that has 2 stacks of poison or whatever. Lots of similar solutions to this issue.

Given that we only see this in, what, at most three fights, and none of those uses are remotely interesting... I almost wonder if it'd be better just to remove those bloat QTEs entirely.

Wouldn't oppose this!

There is another in the hidden box, though, that would cover this, in a fashion mentioned in your macro thread: Just un-neutering the macro system, by having it perform, with queuing, one action per button-press (as plugins can already do, by just undoing the flag telling it not to queue macro actions).

Yeah if macros could do something along the lines of trying every macro line in sequence until an action triggered or 0.5 seconds expired, that would be great!

Add to that conditionals like range and movement and voila, you can have Thundercloud > Scathe > Thunder III all in one button, Fire IV > Despair > Blizzard III all in one button, etc., per user preference in button-flow.

Oh my god, if macros could intelligently cast a charge spell if I'm standing still but instead do an instant-cast if I was moving, that would be amazing. That would solve some of my biggest issues with my BLM setup.

Though I'm not sure if you could really make a good "Fire IV > Despair > Blizzard III" macro regardless, because depending on circumstances, there are times when you can cast Fire IV but if you do then afterwards you won't have enough mana to cast Despair, which means you should choose to cast Despair instead of the Fire IV. But I'd love to be able to pair Despair and Blizzard III without any loss!