Compact skills similar to PvP

[Carighan]

Branches can still be condensed into fewer buttons anyways. They're right that old MCH's proc combos couldn't be, though.

It's also more intuitive that way, compare, oh I don't know, any fighting game ever or so.

If you got a 1-2-3-4 combo, but also a 1-2-5-6 combo, but also a 1-7-8-9 combo, you expect those to use just 3 buttons, and for the 5/6 and the 7/8/9 button to do something else entirely or flat out not be available before it's "step" in the chain (since most fighting games don't have hotbars we can't really say whether it should be lit up or not, in FFXIV's context I'd have it not lit up).

So for example, for Warrior:

* One button cycles Heavy Swing -> Maim -> Storm's Path
* The second button is just Storm's Eye, tooltip says "can only be used after Maim", and it's not lit up until after you used Maim (and that button cycles to Storm's Path), then it lights up until the next GCD is used (no matter which).

Upsides: Hotbar debloating, complexity removed at no loss of gameplay depth.
Downsides: None, really. Some jobs like RDM have utter edge cases for specific single GCDs near the end of a fight, there's be a very very small loss with those but ugh... fair enough. Fair price to pay to make everything else less silly and 20y less outdated compared to any other game.

Because if you look at the examples I gave above, what it actually says is A-A-A-A, A-A-B-B and A-C-C-C. In more normal notation usually done in beat'em ups or fighting games. Dragoon for example has just two main combos, A-A-A-A-A and A-B-B-B-A. It's just smoke and mirrors to make it sound more complex than it actually is with the way our skills are all on separate hotbar spots.

[Azurarok]

It's also more intuitive that way, compare, oh I don't know, any fighting game ever or so.

Like this is a fighting game, or any actual action game for that matter.
No real animation lock/recovery or forced movement, there's barely any combos that can be interrupted (i.e. from dodging/guarding), and hitting the target doesn't interrupt them either.

Some of that used to exist but they were all stripped away for 'reduced stress' and ddr fight design.

I'd associate whatever direction they're going with more with a bullet hell shmup, in which case of course everything looks like button bloat. I'd be surprised if the devs have a proper vision of what they want the game to be anymore.