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

[strawberrycake]

The problem with healers pressing 1-1-1 over and over again is not that we're wearing out the "1" key on our keyboards. The problem is that one button is filler: it doesn't build up to anything, and it doesn't feel like it's finishing off some sequence of moves. It is as bland as bland can be.

Like healers, BLM also tries to maximize mashing one single button over and over again, but there is enough depth in managing timers and resources that it actually feels rewarding to press Fire IV repeatedly.

Unlike healers, the current SMN has more than one button in its damage rotation. That perhaps gives it a better tactile feel than healers, but conceptually, the job is no better because all of those buttons are basically filler.

I'm very aware of the fact that HEaler button spam is filler, but it doesn't take away from the fact that pressing 1 over and over again is a boring ass way to play any video game.

[Oizen]

FPS games are boring all you do is press m1

[Absurdity]

FPS games are boring all you do is press m1

A rather reductive comparison. The frequency and what you are doing in-between pressing the same button makes a big difference.
A majority of playing Greatsword in Monster Hunter is just pressing the same button for your charged attack but that basically never gets old, because getting that button press off in the first place and having it connect isn't so simple, the same applies to FPS games.

FFXIV however is a tab target mmo where you almost always have an ability connect at least every 2.5 seconds, there is nothing stopping you from hitting that GCD besides the boss just becoming untargetable.
To illustrate what I mean I took one of my old logs from Abyssos on Warrior. I only counted Heavy Swing, Maim and Storm's Path and ignored Storm's Eye since that's where the consolidated combo would have to branch off (unless CBU3 decides to just outright remove Storm's Eye for maximum boredom).

I had 44 casts of Heavy Swing, 44 casts of Maim and 29 casts of Storm's Path for a total of 117 casts of just my basic 1-2-3 combo. At 2.5 GCD that is almost 5 minutes (4.87) spent on just those in a ~9 minute fight, which I would spend on nothing else but hitting the exact same button after combo consolidation. Yes, I did ignore oGCDs in this because defensive oGCDs on tanks are as boring as can be and WAR doesn't exactly have a lot of offensive oGCDs.


Funny side note. Of the remaining time I also spent 2 entire minutes in GCDs on just spamming Fell Cleave, shows you how much of a joke the design for this job is.

[Grizzlpaw]

FPS games are boring all you do is press m1

Instructions unclear, mashed M1 and shot a hole through the wall. I think I'm missing critical information.

[CelestiCer]

FPS games are boring all you do is press m1

== Very accurate and fair comparison ==

A rather reductive comparison. The frequency and what you are doing in-between pressing the same button makes a big difference.
A majority of playing Greatsword in Monster Hunter is just pressing the same button for your charged attack but that basically never gets old, because getting that button press off in the first place and having it connect isn't so simple, the same applies to FPS games.

FFXIV however is a tab target mmo where you almost always have an ability connect at least every 2.5 seconds, there is nothing stopping you from hitting that GCD besides the boss just becoming untargetable.
To illustrate what I mean I took one of my old logs from Abyssos on Warrior. I only counted Heavy Swing, Maim and Storm's Path and ignored Storm's Eye since that's where the consolidated combo would have to branch off (unless CBU3 decides to just outright remove Storm's Eye for maximum boredom).

I had 44 casts of Heavy Swing, 44 casts of Maim and 29 casts of Storm's Path for a total of 117 casts of just my basic 1-2-3 combo. At 2.5 GCD that is almost 5 minutes (4.87) spent on just those in a ~9 minute fight, which I would spend on nothing else but hitting the exact same button after combo consolidation. Yes, I did ignore oGCDs in this because defensive oGCDs on tanks are as boring as can be and WAR doesn't exactly have a lot of offensive oGCDs.


Funny side note. Of the remaining time I also spent 2 entire minutes in GCDs on just spamming Fell Cleave, shows you how much of a joke the design for this job is.

Yay I don't find spamming Fell Cleave back to back ground breaking Job Design. Same with Confiteor and my Hissatsu: Shinten or however many times Healers can spam Glare/Dosis/Malefic/Broil in a fight or not. It's not appealing. Square can do way better then this that's the disappointing part about it...

The WoL being all powerful means the game has to feel like this for the sake of a power fantasy that doesn't make sense given how heros of the same caliber in other FF games still HAD TO FIGHT WORLD MOBS THAT COULD KILL THEM.

We. Need. Our. World. To. Scale. Properly.

Whatever is in Palace of the Dead & Heaven on High seems more dangerous then Dead Ends. How can SHB Alliance Raids feel more lethal then anything proceeding it? Coupled with terribly simplistic Job-Designs... Makes it awfully hard to appreciate the pushover Story content. Like I care very little on how much I can take a Story serious anyways? like plot-holes, but when I go through it and its supposed to be dangerous and I go through it like I'm on a Disney tour... that doesn't help it, mhm

[Valence]

Difficulty is indeed Subjective. After simulating the hypothetical compressed rotation for Samurai? It isn't harder or easier, but it feels terrible no matter how much more ( theoratically ) functional its supposed to be. I'd imagine it also homogenizes Job's further by copy pasting Combo Compression throughout our Roster of Jobs. Square could indeed make Jobs more intuitive with the space created through Combo Compression... Then again Square could have done this without Combo Compression, it is just never promised when we suggest to give up anything or when something is removed if we learned from History be it from Healers, to Melee, to w/e Square has done to MCH in SHB.

Using the argument of something being to easy and there for meaningless reminds me of that overused phrase... " It's just a button you press every-time ". Then again... in the grand scheme of things? we press every button every-time, and then we can argue everything away if we deem a button or feature to easy to execute. Look at my Job... 1/5th of my Gameplay is now spamming the same button over and over and that's just Samurai. Personally? I don't like this idea to be copy pasted of bashing the same button so frequently across my Kit even if the difficulty doesn't increase or not. We can look at healers on what they lost, which is the resemblance people make that we should learn from...

- Suggest to give up more in the hopes Square does something with it? Or...
- Suggest to give up nothing until Square give us something back first?

As for MCH specifically? I can't even recall how much they are hurting for hotbar-space compared to other Jobs to need something like Combo Compression. In my case? I can consolidate/fuse/merge at least 4 buttons on my Job while keeping my Gameplay / Rotation entirely the same before needing Combo Compression as the 1st go to solution so that Square can add... Well probably nothing again for 2 years i.e the last time they removed something.

At least we can agree that we want Job-Gameplay to improve, perhaps in different ways then we might agree. So... here's to hoping, mhm.

Well of course if we take SE's track record in the past couple of expansions and start making predictions, I'd also be extremely worried about what they could do if they compressed combos (aka, nothing in return). There is a clear divide between what I think is sane and logical into what could open possibilities, and what I expect SE to actually do. If anything, it's too depressing to think about because what's interesting has been removed already. I'm happy that some people still find meaning into pressing 1-2-3 combos, but I don't.

Also by the way, Samurai is not a 1-2-3 combo job, it's a branching combo job that has still kept this as a core of its toolkit, and it's completely not comparable to a 1-2-3 combo. It's the bare minimum of what every melee job used to have to play with.

Since you mention MCH on the other hand, there is literally nothing left to salvage on that job. It has a 1-2-3 combo filler that serves no purpose besides keeping you busy pressing the same loop until the next carpal tunnel hypercharge. MCH still has a lot of room left on hotbars for the very reason that ShB rework left it so barebones that 2 bars were enough to fit everything... Until they added chainsaw and brought back the wrench more recently. This on its own is telling of the sad state of the job considering not only there is a lot of room left, but the base combo could be compressed and we wouldn't even be losing anything... We would actually go back to a 2 hotbar job because that's essentially what the 1-2-3 combo is hiding.

[mallleable]

I would trade MCH's Clean Shot combo for Blast Charge from PVP, but heat, and battery generation would have to be redesigned.

[Valence]

Healers have everything thing to do with why pressing one button ad nauseam is obnoxious and horrid, asking any healer why pressing 1-1-1 over again for dps is the bane of their existence proves why a consolidated combo button being the norm would be ass and why Yoshida knows it would be ass. Secondly the burst meta mixed with having several unique burst phases made being able to up keep your combo(s) yes melee and tanks had multiple (and many struggled with mainting both let alone 1), as well as the mechanical design of each fight, doing hello world while keeping a perfect combo? Harder then most people give it credit for.

Also anything on a ranged dps is extremely long, they've all been gutted for dancer xD It would make melee and tanks unbearable to play and ruining this system further is just a huge no. And Yes, everything does revolve around the 2 min meta or you have no combat system to play in, literally, it's the math of HOW you do damage and HOW the fights are designed, without it you have no combat? This isn't something you can just not do. And if it is, you're allowed to not burst when the rest of your party does and see how far that gets you. You'll either be carried or you won't clear.

You're obviously not reading what I'm writing so I don't see the point in continuing this farce.

Maybe i'm not properly reading or understanding what you're writing either and it's clear we're probably talking about different things.

[CelestiCer]

Also by the way, Samurai is not a 1-2-3 combo job, it's a branching combo job that has still kept this as a core of its toolkit, and it's completely not comparable to a 1-2-3 combo. It's the bare minimum of what every melee job used to have to play with.

Oh ya you don't have to tell me. Some have suggested the PvP direction of Samurai to consolidate everything into a 1-1-1 onto Samurai PvE. Close friends also suggested this and you'll have to carefully read the suggestion...

- Delete Hakaze Jinpu Shifu
- Gekko Kasha Yukikaze is the new 1-2-3
- Then compress that into 1-1-1

Excessive pruning to make room for essentially zero suggestions as well with the notion that I would love it? because I get to cast Midare more, oh and speaking of Casting? then the suggestion to remove my Cast Times i.e Iaijutsu including yes my Midare... I am not joking, like I am not making this up... I hope you reading this Yona, this idea is stupid.

Even the other suggestion? to consolidate
- Jinpu turning into Gekko
- Shifu into Kasha
- Hakaze into Yukikaze

Turning 123-145-16 into 122-133-11 does make space, but it feels terrible. Probably cause I am fighting muscle memory. It functionally does make space for... there it is again, a big exceptionally large " if " to something new, mhm.

[mallleable]

Even in PVP SAM retains an interpretation of its branching combos so that tells me that branching combos is crucial to the job's gameplay.