Quote Originally Posted by Carighan View Post
Whenever I bring up in a thread how many skills could be removed at 0 loss of depth to the gameplay, this is what I mean: we have so many rote buttons to press that require 0 brain interaction to decide when and whether to use them. There is no reason to press 5 buttons in 2 seconds to achieve X potency if the same could be done with 1 button if that sequence never changes. If there's no interaction. If your entire rotation is just a glorified DoT with animations, then you provide no more value (as a whole character) than a debuff on the enemy dealing damage every 3 seconds. Huzzah. Bemoaning skills lost that were nothing but this extremely flat and rote gameplay is wild to me: They are the very example of what the game needs to shed more of. All of!.
Despite being fine with the likes of Distraction being removed (and tank stances only if/since they weren't ever going to be made a real "dance-able" mechanic instead of a mere trap)... I think that's a bridge too far.

I like Continuation, for example, because I like the way my fingers move across the keyboard when using it, between the GCD and oGCD, and that I don't have to worry about accidentally delaying a defensive by an animation time's gap if I accidentally double-hit the action and they were consolidated onto the same key. But, that too is within limits to me.

The sweet spot imo is around the above, or Heat Blast -> Gauss/Ricochet. For others, though, it might well include having Gnashing Fang's combo each take a separate key as well (while I'd rather have all combos able to be consolidated via un-neutered macros and baseline removal of button-traps if combos are to remain just rigid sequences that bloat the number of buttons required per sequence despite enjoying that finger movement elsewhere, so long as the space saved isn't filled with other bloat).

Kaiten was the mid-point for me. It was bloat, but it was sexy and thematic and, alongside the previously varied Kenki costs formerly on Guren/Senei, was what gave any semblance of depth to Kenki. I could therefore actually miss that in ways I would never miss, say, old Power Surge (use on CD before Jump).

To me, some degree of bloat is okay, as long as it has bundles enough rule of cool to justify itself. It hurts a lot more when some else's failing to hit their bloat means your own damage gets capped, be that in the form of raidbuffs or especially Distraction (or, say, Lucid Dream, if healer MP were still more consistently relevant to your survival), but even then, some skills existing for the sheer buttonflow, animation, or over-subtle damage profile adjustments is okay. I just don't think I could ever miss it when it's lost.

While I could imagine a 4-button DRG that would have more cognitive load than the current one by having it shift between auto-battle schemas atop a couple timing-sensitive actives, that simply wouldn't be the game people signed up for or were ever fond of, and so it doesn't seem worth trying to pursue absolutely maximum cognitive load per button across all things. It's a damn good metric to keep in mind but hardly all-important.