Combo Action Button

[Vahn]

A trend I've noticed whenever we start to near a new expansion is hot bar bloat. It's something I've noticed to be a problem with some classes right now as they've allowed all ten Role Actions to be utilized at once. We have a solution already in the game and I'm not entirely sure why it hasn't been extended to regular game play. I am referring to the Combo button we have access to while in PvP. If that was added to regular game play it would make things a lot cleaner for our hot bars. Looking at Dragoon for example, you would reduce 8 buttons to 2. Paladin and a number of other jobs would reduce 6-7 buttons down to 3. No more would we (maybe it's just me) fat finger our Red Mage enchanted combo if those three buttons were neatly sorted into one! Is there any chance we could see this added to regular game play by the time Shadowbringers rolls in? Sometime after? Does anyone else think this would be great? If not, please elaborate why you think otherwise. Thanks for your time reading this!

[Seraphor]

The reason this works in pvp is because of how much theyve simplified the jobs.
For example DRK doesnt have Dark Arts in pvp.
This would greatly effect the way you use your combo, you'd have to pay real close attention to know which part of the combo you're on in order to know when to hit dark arts, you won't be able to rely on muscle memory, you'll have to watch your hotbars all the time.
Same goes for using Blood of the Dragon, or Duality, etc.
So in actual fact consolidating combos would make things more complicated, because outsude of pvp combos dont exist in a vacuum, they all have interactions with other skills.

[HyoMinPark]

They've already said they aren't doing consolidated combos in PvE. That's strictly a PvP thing. In the same breath, they said they're aware of button bloat (which doesn't exist for every job), and want to focus more on upgrading/enhancing current skills going into ShB rather than giving us 4~5 new ones, which I prefer anyways.

Consolidated combos wouldn't work for half of the jobs anyways, since they don't have combos, but priority systems (physical ranged, casters, and healers).

[Reynhart]

Consolidated combos wouldn't work for half of the jobs anyways, since they don't have combos, but priority systems (physical ranged, casters, and healers).

Casters and healers already have their own way of reducing button bloat, with the various masteries.

For combos, they could very well fuse most of the first and some second steps. For example, DRG could very well go True - Vorpal - Full and True - Vorpal - Chaos, it wouldn't change much, especially since removing the piercing debuff would shift the meta away from DRG + BRD + MCH.

Also, enmity combo for tanks are mostly useless now.

[HyoMinPark]

Casters and healers already have their own way of reducing button bloat, with the various masteries.

Which they said they’re going to focus on upgrading current skills via masteries over adding new ones. I’m assuming this is going for all jobs, not just casters and healers. Ironically, it’s a caster and a healer that have more button bloat than most other jobs (SMN & SCH)—with a few exceptions—due to the pet actions. I’d like to see them get rid of the unnecessary ones, or—in the case of SCH—have the fairy actions toggle depending on which fairy is summoned (much how WAR actions toggle depending on the stance they’re in). Though, Selene is mostly kept on Sic and used for Fey Wind anyways in high-end settings... it would be nice to see her get a revamp, though.

This could probably work on SMN as well, assuming that Sicfrit will change in 5.0 (I believe, when one is using Garuda, you keep her on Obey).

Also, enmity combo for tanks are mostly useless now.

Then remove them? This doesn’t have much to do with skill consolidation. If they’re useless, and if the developers are going to insist on keeping enmity generation a joke in XIV, then remove the unecessary skills. Same goes for all the jobs, really, as I think every one has at least 1 or 2 skills that are useless outside of extremely niche scenarios (e.g., RDM’s Tether—only ever seen it used in Eureka to tether high-level mobs from chasing after someone).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Casters and healers already have their own way of reducing button bloat, with the various masteries.

For combos, they could very well fuse most of the first and some second steps. For example, DRG could very well go True - Vorpal - Full and True - Vorpal - Chaos, it wouldn't change much, especially since removing the piercing debuff would shift the meta away from DRG + BRD + MCH.

Also, enmity combo for tanks are mostly useless now.

Actually, it would. Not only will it miss align buffs due to pressing less buttons, this makes it impossible for Dragoon to double weave. Simply put, it would be a significant impact on the job. Not to mention, this turns it into an off-shot of Ninja. The whole point of Dragoon is a simplistic but long combo sequence. Combining half its combo together defeats that purpose.

As for the topic itself. No.

The combo consolidation reduces every job effected by it to essentially spamming a single button more often than not. While it may seem subtle, I much prefer having to press different buttons for each combo. Furthermore, it's actually more likely to fat finger your abilities as you wouldn't be able to rely on muscle memory. All in all, not only does Dragoon not have a button bloat issue at the moment. We simply don't need a bunch of new abilities anyway. I would much prefer they focus on the jobs dying off than try to shoehorn in new abilities to ones who don't need them just to say "look at the new shiny".

[MidnightS]

There are a couple buttons they could get rid of for certain abilities. Impact (RDM) doesn't really need it's own button (have it replace Jolt II), nor does Enkindle Bahamut (SMN) (have it replace Summon Bahamut).

[Reynhart]

Actually, it would. Not only will it miss align buffs due to pressing less buttons, this makes it impossible for Dragoon to double weave.

No, it wouldn't change anything, you'd still use two 5-step combos. Pressing True - Vorpal instead of Impulse - Disenbowel don't change anything about how many buttons you will use.

Then remove them? This doesn’t have much to do with skill consolidation.

No, but it would reduce button bloat. And could put more emphasis on the tank stance or proper usage of Shirk.

[XiXiQ]

They definitely need to keep the lid on the button bloat, I don't care how they do it in the end but juggling 30+ odd buttons is ridiculously complicated for no particular gain. Add content like Eureka and they're giving everyone nothing but cramps.

[HyoMinPark]

No, but it would reduce button bloat. And could put more emphasis on the tank stance or proper usage of Shirk.

So would removing skills that are useless?

For the enmity combos, they could literally just put enmity generation on the more frequently used combos. It doesn’t require skill consolidation at all, really.