Bring Back Kaiten

[Shurrikhan]

I mean this could be trivially resolved if we fudge with numbers a bit, and Kaiten comes back, costs 20, and actually adds a flat 240 potency to the next GCD.

Would it be at all worth doing that over just using Shinten? No of course not. But hey, if people are so insistent on Kaiten despite how it mechanically offers no gameplay improvement, might as well bring the flair back but make it exactly a wash in damage, then it can exist and whoever wants to use it can use it, the rest can just use Shinten instead.

That is not remotely worth doing. At least Eos/Selene skins now are pretty clearly cosmetic, but that's not going to be the instinctive conclusion about an actual combat skill.

[Carighan]

That is not remotely worth doing. At least Eos/Selene skins now are pretty clearly cosmetic, but that's not going to be the instinctive conclusion about an actual combat skill.

And yet if you hid the damage numbers from players, they would not even be able to tell the difference. /shrug

But at that point I got to wonder, what about Kaiten do people desire back? The gameplay? Well in that case my idea would be perfect, no? The change in fixed rotation from The Balance? Is that such a big deal whether you use a rotation someone else wrote down for you, or another rotation someone else wrote down for you? Or is it the damage, pining for a time when Samurai could easily outdamage other jobs by a mile "if played correctly"? (because then bad news, that is quite unlikely to come back, especially after the recent Picto debacle)

[Shurrikhan]

And yet if you hid the damage numbers from players, they would not even be able to tell the difference. /shrug)

If you hid damage numbers, nothing would make any difference. It's a non-sequitur.

But at that point I got to wonder, what about Kaiten do people desire back? The gameplay?

Yes, but most people like for optimization to have a reward. Imagine if every mechanic were purely cosmetic. How many Ultimate raiders would feel engaged therein? Hell, how many players who just aren't Netflix-and-Broil casual, even?

[Carighan]

Yes, but most people like for optimization to have a reward. Imagine if every mechanic were purely cosmetic. How many Ultimate raiders would feel engaged therein? Hell, how many players who just aren't Netflix-and-Broil casual, even?

But that's the thing, the vast majority are. The majority of 1-2-3 combos for example have no reason to exist. They could be cleanly replaced with a single button that first tries to cash in X stacks of a self buff for some effect, and if not adds 1 such stack on the player. Average out the damage, you just removed a combo at exactly 0 loss of gameplay and functionality. The combo is purely cosmetic, to support 3 different animations despite factually only having a single gameplay effect.

Effects such as Senei and Guren likewise only exist to support an extra animation and pretend the job is more complex than it is, plenty other games solve this via a CD-based proc. At no loss of gameplay, in particular because in FFXIV we are on a fixed schedule of 120s anyways, so deviation for optimization purposes is always a fixed affair where an optimal solution has been pre-computed and you just have to play the monkey and press the buttons in that order (modulo the fight mechanics but that again leads to 1 single static optimal solution for each fight at most, usually it's 2-3 for a whole expansion however).

I get what you mean, but what you describe as the bad hypothetical case is what we have. That's after all my big issue with the current combat system and class design, that 20+ buttons and so many lengthy tooltips all come together to achieve a gameplay depth of about a puddle and exactly 0 player agency. Even in the specific case you mention, player-agency wise knowing which skill to press Kaiten for and which not to is no different than knowing when to pool gauge and when not to. It's a simple rote memorization thing, not actual interaction or agency.

(edit)
I should add, I think the idea behind Kaiten or something akin to it is pretty damn cool, but it's previous incarnation is no better (but also no worse) than the replacement. Neither offers gameplay worth mentioning, in fact I'd argue neither are worse a hotbar spot and the whole gauge of Samurai serves no purpose and could be cleanly removed. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want gameplay focused around preparing enhancements for the next attack, after all Warlocks in DAoC were a fantastic idea and actually fit really well in the context of that game. The underlying idea is awesome!

[Shurrikhan]

But that's the thing, the vast majority are. The majority of 1-2-3 combos for example have no reason to exist.

They do as long as you're punished for not using them. And so long as console remains without access to xivcombo and xivcombo remains against ToS, we will be.

They could be cleanly replaced with a single button that... <snip>. The combo is purely cosmetic, to support 3 different animations despite factually only having a single gameplay effect.

It would be... if you actually made that change. But that change hasn't been made.

I get what you mean, but what you describe as the bad hypothetical case is what we have.

It's not. You're describing something with zero fail state and without even the ability to take on choice rather than simply lacking it in the content presently given. We don't have that, thankfully. Not quite.

It's a simple rote memorization thing, not actual interaction or agency.

And yet, so long as you're not the perfect cyborg computer, choosing what to risk drifting on for the simple fact that at some point you are almost certainly going to mess up on your execution of that rote-ly memorized thing in context still offers interaction and agency.

It could be better, aye, but for 99.9% of players it is still very much something.

I should add, I think the idea behind Kaiten or something akin to it is pretty damn cool, but it's previous incarnation is no better (but also no worse) than the replacement. Neither offers gameplay worth mentioning, in fact I'd argue neither are worse a hotbar spot and the whole gauge of Samurai serves no purpose and could be cleanly removed.

I disagree, for the simple fact that it'd be yet more dull without them than with.

Would I rehaul the job from scratch for greater cognitive load and button-density, both, if I had some dictatorial turn at the wheel? Absolutely. But I also wouldn't want to ignore that the simple rhythmic fun of APM and having to swap between buttons, sometimes hitting certain actions asap while holding others until just .5s + ping before the next GCD, all while executing mechanics perfectly, is also fun for seemingly a majority of players. Even if that cognitive load would add the keys and riffs of a certain job, it'd be the latter that adds provides the ear candy or by whatever other means brings the arrangement and mixing together, so to speak.