XIV EW Job-Gameplay is Terrible... Why?

[Valence]

Combo compression has the merit to leave room to introduce more abilities and things to bloated toolkits. While they can definitely make toolkits more engaging (they have been in the past after all), it's still a good solution not to have half the toolbar dedicated to a single combo. Combos are dumb to begin with anyway, especially if they're not branching or proccing.

Now, if SE is actually interested into shifting the balance back onto job intricacy a little, I'm not exactly on copium.

[Raikai]

Combo compression has the merit to leave room to introduce more abilities and things to bloated toolkits. While they can definitely make toolkits more engaging (they have been in the past after all), it's still a good solution not to have half the toolbar dedicated to a single combo. Combos are dumb to begin with anyway, especially if they're not branching or proccing.

Now, if SE is actually interested into shifting the balance back onto job intricacy a little, I'm not exactly on copium.

I agree. Combo compression is good for the game if they are able to use the vacant keys to introduce more complexity, preferably with other actions that interact with the compressed combo.

To me, the only reason combos could exist as separate keys are in the case of the branching ones, because that's the actual complexity of the system. A common 1-2-3 doesn't put your brain and decision making to work, it's just a test of your muscle memory.

[CelestiCer]

I agree. Combo compression is good for the game if they are able to use the vacant keys to introduce more complexity, preferably with other actions that interact with the compressed combo.

Exactly. Heavy Emphasis on " If ", cause Square's history of so many simplifications to our entire roster of Jobs? Combo-Compression would just be another big " If " to throw on the pile of past stupefied changes, mhm.

You can repeat this a million times and people are still gonna be making posts about blindly removing things, at this point I'm convinced most job change posts are just self sabotage, or trying to sabotage other peoples fun thinking they know better.

True. Lots vouch for streamlining Jobs they don't even play. Good recent example were Friends discussing Job-changes two days ago in Discord with our Healer main believing I would love Combo-Compression and Cast-Time removal from my Samurai... To quote on quote " Optimally clean up the Job's kit " with the assumption that Dishing out damage easier with pressing as few buttons to do so would be more Fun. It felt like sabotage, but I knew they meant it which is sad and worth every facepalm I did...

Feels out of touch to look at a Job's kit and only analyze functionality. This shoves away how a Job feels to play, paving the path to deem everything unnecessary and the conclusion to make it all erasable. Bloat is one thing but killing how a Job feels to play is another. Imagine Square removed all Caster Job's Cast times, BLM incl... Not living up to the role of Caster but hey! it's at least all functional, right?

Margin of Error of Jobs gives a Good feedback loop. No matter how easy or difficult Job execution is, the Game gives numerous ways for you to mess up and it feels good to perform it as perfect as you can? regardless of it all because we don't play Perfect 247 we're flawed Humans after all no matter how mapped out our rotations are. Be it...

- Fat Fingering
- Slide-Casting
- Muscle Memory
- Resource management
- Hitting all positionals 247
- Proper weaving & never clipping
- Feeding Raid-Buffs
- Even impossibly miss-pressing Combo Buttons

All of which surface level = Easy and Basic, Yes. But deleting all of it for the sake of Optimized Functionality and more with no promise of it being replaced with anything better? robs players of Job execution having an ounce of reward feel to it.

Optimized Functionality doesn't default to Optimized Fun, at least not for me. And removal of anything is no promise that we get anything in return that gives anything other then making Jobs that much easier to play both in functionality and how it feels to play. So I am not so much for opposing Combo Compression? as I am against making Jobs dumber and me drawing the line at " Somewhere " for how much dumber Square can make Job-Gameplay vs " Nowhere ".

[Valence]

I agree. Combo compression is good for the game if they are able to use the vacant keys to introduce more complexity, preferably with other actions that interact with the compressed combo.

To me, the only reason combos could exist as separate keys are in the case of the branching ones, because that's the actual complexity of the system. A common 1-2-3 doesn't put your brain and decision making to work, it's just a test of your muscle memory.

It's the whole thing isn't it? The game had literally no basic 1-2-3 combo until ShB came out. All melees had branching combos, literally all of them, even if just by a key. Tanks had branching combos as well (aggro combo vs dps combo). RDM had same-ish proccing combos, other casters didn't have any. All rphys had proccing combos (full 100% procs at that, which DNC can't even boast to do, only bard still does those days).

MCH now has a 1-2-3 combo, Tanks with the exception of WAR (funnily enough) have 1-2-3 combos, RPR has 1-2-3... That's a lot of jobs that got their procs or branches removed, and the new ones don't even seem to bother which is quite telling.