Still no auto-combo for 123 on old jobs.

[ForteNightshade]

It's bad players trying to remove as much friction as possible so they can parse high.

Except none of these changes are for parse players. They didn't gut Dragoon's oGCD spam to make parsing easier. That's just a "happy" benefit. And it's really not if you're in any of those discords. They did it for Casual Timmy who they perceive wasn't playing Dragoon because it was too "busy". In fact, there was a thread over on the JP forums complaining the changes prior to 7.1 weren't enough. Hence why we got this watered down "update."

If making it easier for parsers was their goal, they'd have killed off the two minute meta years ago. That, and the high potency "finishers" they keep tacking on are far bigger sources of friction for a parse than TCJ or oGCD ever were. Didn't crit Double Down and Lionheart in your pot window? Might as well run to the wall, you're not getting 99 no matter what you do.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The only reason I could see them consolidating combos into one button would be to save a bit of action bar space... Which is probably more of a gamepad issue than a Keyboard and Mouse one...

But the way the game is going, they likely wouldn't even add anything into the newly opened space and MNK kinda still needs all 9 of their attacks to be available for Perfect Balance.

[Valence]

What is exciting or engaging about pressing 30 buttons in a fixed rotation that all do nothing but damage? It doesn't make a game that has maxed out it's core complexity more compelling to play. There is an exact reason why it's possible to clear the games hardest content with 1-button-hacks. What is ''fing braindead'' is not removing mundane/nonsensical buttons but the game design itself. Open world basically doesn't exist and all the mainstream instanced content is ''dodge orange/watch arms + gimmick mechanic X'' inside a tiny box. So either you are like me and found your love in side content or really good friends keep you logging on or you probably already left for greener grass elsewhere.

I mean, if you, others or Yoshida himself really feel like that a job must be stuffed with 40 clockwork-like skills, no matter how nonsensical and 'dial a combo' mechanics for the game to not enter mobile territory then something is fundamentally wrong.

I do agree with that assessment. They could make the 30 buttons interact better with the kit as they used before for sure, but the fact remains that they nuked the whole battle system after HW so it's not like there is a lot of variables left for the kits to actually interact with beyond damage. But it also goes to show the differences in expectations between players: some do like muscle memory rotations and following a scrip and take pleasure in doing it without mistakes (like playing an instrument in a way), while some want to make choices as they go. The problem being that not only the current battle system and encounters are exclusively designed for the former, but the latter also requires a lot more brain power at any given time during an encounter which required a different kind of balancing between encounter and job design.

As I said before, I'm fine with optional combo consolidation as OP asked for, but SE has shown to be very all-or-nothing, so if they do implement combo consolidation, there's a very real possibility that they'll force it for everyone and give you no way to reset your combo, hence 'loss of flexibility'.

Remember when they consolidated Minuet and Pitch Perfect on BRD and if you didn't already have Pitch Perfect on your bar you're just out of luck because they no longer allow you to set it to the hotbar?

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm concerned about loss of flexibility, and why I will continue to voice out this concern.

To be frank I wouldn't care about losing that tidbit of "optimization" that is almost always shooting oneself in the foot anyway in this damage meta, for something more interesting and less niche. A newer system with actual meaningful choices, not that kind of micro choice.

On Pitch Perfect, that was a very dumb decision back then that annoyed me and I was fortunate to have kept the PP button on my hotbar, but on the other hand, you could still drag Minuet to replace the old PP button where you wanted to have PP, and keep Minuet as a duplicate elsewhere on your hotbar where you wanted to have Minuet. Virtually, it was the same, you had Minuet in one place, and PP in another. The main drawback was the icon changing.

[St0rmy]

As I said before, I'm fine with optional combo consolidation as OP asked for, but SE has shown to be very all-or-nothing, so if they do implement combo consolidation, there's a very real possibility that they'll force it for everyone and give you no way to reset your combo, hence 'loss of flexibility'.

Remember when they consolidated Minuet and Pitch Perfect on BRD and if you didn't already have Pitch Perfect on your bar you're just out of luck because they no longer allow you to set it to the hotbar?

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm concerned about loss of flexibility, and why I will continue to voice out this concern.

I'm so glad I still have my pitch perfect on my hotbar. That change was absolutely unnecessary. I'll never take that button off my hotbar.

[BigCheez]

Except none of these changes are for parse players. They didn't gut Dragoon's oGCD spam to make parsing easier. That's just a "happy" benefit. And it's really not if you're in any of those discords. They did it for Casual Timmy who they perceive wasn't playing Dragoon because it was too "busy". In fact, there was a thread over on the JP forums complaining the changes prior to 7.1 weren't enough. Hence why we got this watered down "update."

If making it easier for parsers was their goal, they'd have killed off the two minute meta years ago. That, and the high potency "finishers" they keep tacking on are far bigger sources of friction for a parse than TCJ or oGCD ever were. Didn't crit Double Down and Lionheart in your pot window? Might as well run to the wall, you're not getting 99 no matter what you do.

The problem here is that casual Timmy will be bad regardless of how easy you make the jobs because he doesn't engage with battle content or care about how he's performing. Why tf would you design your battle content to cater to people who don't care about it?

[honest_psycho]

Fuck no, this game is already easy as it is.
Stop it.

[Asari5]

123 does take brain power. everything you do does. is it a lot? certainly not. but it is a tiny little bit which adds up with other stuff.

and what is outside the buff windows? we will have a complete 1111 situation there.... looking over to healers... that didnt end well

[AmiableApkallu]

If a combo can be reduced to 1-1-1 with no loss of decision making and flexibility, then it's already functionally the same as healers' 1-1-1. It's just a matter of tactile feel and…

I keep track of where I am in a combo based on what button I've pressed, and condensed combo buttons like PCT and VPR's makes it harder to do that. I tend to overcap on gauge far more often on those two because of it. It's also what I use to know which positional I need to hit with Melees as well.

PCT is halfway there to lulling me to sleep the same way healers' do. I have to will myself awake to pay attention to the white paint stickers that I'm collecting.

[BigCheez]

123 does take brain power. everything you do does. is it a lot? certainly not. but it is a tiny little bit which adds up with other stuff.

and what is outside the buff windows? we will have a complete 1111 situation there.... looking over to healers... that didnt end well

The "123 isn't hard" argument is one of Xenosys' bad takes that people love to parrot and this argument simply fails to understand what it is that makes the game engaging.

Pressing 123 isn't hard.
Not letting your buff fall off isn't hard.
Refreshing your DoT isn't hard.
Pressing your oGCDs on cooldown isn't hard.
Spending gauge to avoid overcapping isn't hard.
Hitting a positional isn't hard.

When you take any one of these things in a vacuum they seem like something insignificant that could be discarded without much impact. The problem is that the game is only interesting because you need to keep all of these little plates spinning at the same time. The number of things that you need to keep track of to execute your rotation properly gets lower with every patch and the game becomes less engaging as a result.

[mallleable]

I feel like lot of people are missing the point, it isn't about whether or not pressing 3 different buttons in sequence is harder or easier than pressing 1 button 3 times in row, it's that combos, and spam are mechanically different ideas. BRD, BLM, and to an extent WAR are spam jobs, while MNK, SAM, and DRG are combo jobs. So in the way that turning a spam jobs into a combo jobs would detract from the job's gameplay, I think turning combo jobs into spam jobs could be as inappropriate as well. PCT as "combos" but it effective plays like a spam job where every time you cast an Additive or Subtractive spell, it just changes color, and ramps up in damage a little. It's a pseudo combo.