Complexity/Sensory Overload

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Not if the AoE can be anticipated, and still, extra damage. The fact it does damage alone makes it useful.

The fact it does damage doesn't make it useful. Fracture does damage, but it's still nearly useless. Repelling shot is pointless because it delays WM gcd's and costs more damage than gained by its measly 20 potency.

But you didn't factor in the damage. Repelling shot is a bad skill, but it's not useless. For example, Fracture is a bad skill but has a use, the way shield swipe used to be was a useless skill (no redeeming qualities no matter how much you stretched it).

Fracture's bad for every job except monk and Warrior. Repelling Shot is always useless for its primary function, which is the jump back.

[Lambdafish]

Faster and more reliable to Dodge AoEs by running normally.

But you didn't factor in the damage. Repelling shot is a bad skill, but it's not useless. For example, Fracture is a bad skill but has a use, the way shield swipe used to be was a useless skill (no redeeming qualities no matter how much you stretched it).

[Duelle]

I would like to also add that the problem isn't available hotbar space (some people always point out they have more space available) but rather ease of use for the player. The game in it's current form is incredibly cumbersome to play if you aren't using something like an MMO mouse or (sorta) a controller. Personally I'm not at all surprised so much of the player base has trouble playing their classes properly. I'd wager these people haven't gone out of their way to purchase extra tools to make the game playable and so they struggle.

Your average person is not going to get a gaming keyboard (which these days come loaded with neon backlighting and a bunch of stuff an average person doesn't need) or a gaming/MMO mouse just to play this game. The average person would more than likely just use a regular keyboard and mouse combo.

But you didn't factor in the damage. Repelling shot is a bad skill, but it's not useless. For example, Fracture is a bad skill but has a use, the way shield swipe used to be was a useless skill (no redeeming qualities no matter how much you stretched it).

The issue with Fracture is that it's standalone rather than offer some mechanical advantage to MRD/WAR. Shield Swipe attempted to go against the grain on revenge-style attacks (which hit hard but have a modest cooldown AND are off-GCD), which is why that eventually fell short.

I imagine the average player wouldn't care about skill bloat or the use of macros and just roll with the punches as they are thrown at them by the devs design decisions.

I disagree. The average person simply won't analyze stuff down to the involved mechanics, and instead will say "this used to be fun but they did something that makes it no longer fun".

That said, when the new expansion comes they might need to make choice between fusing existing abilities or only adding passive traits. Personally I think it should be a mixture of both. Fuse some abilities, remove the ones no one ever uses and perhaps allow less but more meaningful cross class skills. Also give a few cool new abilities and passive traits. But please do not go down the route WoW did. Their pruning was a freaking disaster and it's happening again. Some specs are unrecognizable because their defining spells don't exist anymore.

WoW took pruning overboard because they also removed side abilities that were there for the sake of concept (Divine Intervention for paladins) or for fun within context of the class (Eyes of the Beast for hunters). That doesn't make pruning inherently bad; It's just that the people involved went really overboard.

[Judge_Xero]

It probably doesn't matter what they add or change.

Muscle memory, innovation and skill always prevail.

[Gemina]

Hey, it could be worse...



In all seriousness though, I do get the frustration. I play on controller, and main SCH, and it is nothing short of playing Chopin's Op 28 No. 15 as nearly all abilities are consistently utilized. WHM is right on its heels with the demand, as not having a pet reduces the hotbars by 1.

I'm not going to tell you to "get better". I'm just chiming in to mention that I understand how advanced the UI and controls are. So much so that not only must you be practical, but you have to keep playing to maintain your skill level with the UI, and also get better with it. Try not to edit your hotbar/hotkeys too much, and let muscle memory take over.

[Alexftw]

Hey, it could be worse...



In all seriousness though, I do get the frustration. I play on controller, and main SCH, and it is nothing short of playing Chopin's Op 28 No. 15 as nearly all abilities are consistently utilized. WHM is right on its heels with the demand, as not having a pet reduces the hotbars by 1.

I'm not going to tell you to "get better". I'm just chiming in to mention that I understand how advanced the UI and controls are. So much so that not only must you be practical, but you have to keep playing to maintain your skill level with the UI, and also get better with it. Try not to edit your hotbar/hotkeys too much, and let muscle memory take over.

Exactly what I mean't. ^ (we don't need more skills anymore or controllers wont be able to play but we don't need less either).

[Vinceroth]

I've been a long time running MMO player, and I understand what the OP is trying to state...but...they are completely forgetting that the more you play a role the easier it becomes. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've played a DPS role and I rarely even look at the hotbars. Not even a full second would pass when I glance down or use the edge of my vision to notice I have a flashing proc. Poor UI placement and management would easily spell the doom for anyone. Before you start complaining about the complexity of the game you should spend more time researching and modifying your own UI to better fit your needs. I've managed to get my party list next to my hotbars so that I can see them both in one glance. Boss casting easy fix is to focus target and I've placed that next to my hotbars as well. SE added in the UI management for a reason and before you start going off complaining about the overload you should spend more time in the UI adjustment features.

[Bloodb]

Git Gud!


No but seriously the amount of difficulty from A realm reborn, to Heavensward, has drastically gone up. I feel like it's at a good spot right now where in a realm reborn all classes felt way to easy to play.

With new fights it's hard to play efficiently and do your best dps possible. But after you have mastered a fight it should get easier to handle the sensory overload.

[XiXiQ]

I have to agree with the OP, the bloat is getting silly, and it's simply not fun anymore. I have a lot of fun with ARR stuff, but the post-60 stuff is frankly just a pain in the backside - I do as much of it as I have to, and that's it. It's poor design when you are using a controller, there are far too many timers to watch, too much staring at the bosses cast bar (all of which are screwed anyway because almost every boss has phases with no way to target anything - or the "turn away and wait" thing that is becoming too common - for 9-12 secs).

If they are going to continue down this road, they'd better come up with a far superior macro system. The current one is all but useless.

[Snugglebutt]

I play on K/M and that's one hand keyboard and one hand mouse. Same goes for probably most people which cannot keyboard map all the specific class and cross-class skills, potions or macros for use with one hand in my experience so your eyes will be focused on the overly large amount shortcut bars because you will have to spend time positioning your cursor over the relevant skill across many shortcut bars to use the unmapped ones. It's more difficult on some classes while easier on others admittedly. My issue however is not about the difficulty of using rotations or skills itself as a single element of gameplay as some classes can rely on muscle memory more than others, it is not about the fight mechanics itself as a single gameplay element either. It is the combination of the class complexity, fight mechanics and importantly also the GUI micro management/information overload which detracts from the enjoyment of actually taking part in the content (all three elements together) which I think is becoming a problem.

If you play a more static rotation class which does rely on muscle memory then it would be less of a problem for you (bard for example is more muscle memory than machinist etc) and good for you if you play with controller but not everyone does. In my opinion if need to spend more than 10-20% of the time having to focus your eyes away from the content taking part in to micro manage your UI then it becomes an issue and on quite a few classes it feels to me like you need to spend 40% or more of your focus on UI elements and not the content itself tracking all the timers, buffs and debuffs on not just yourself but also the mobs/bosses and other players sometimes, keeping an eye on procs and GCD's/oGCD's alongside tracking chat windows, party windows, all the various bars and icons while also needing to keep an eye on your many shortcut bars for a multitude of reasons.

I reckon if had to guess actual breakdown of time I would on average spend in a 10 second period for example during combat maybe 5 seconds having to focus my eyes on GUI use (darting/dashing between mob/party and self buffs/debuffs/timers plus procs/shortcuts/icons/bars and windows), 4 seconds on tracking the other members/boss AoE's and positions (2 seconds on self positionals/member positions and 2 seconds on boss position and it's AoE positions), the remaining 1 seconds out of every 10 is having a brain aneurysm over the mental juggling of fight mechanics and trying to do as perfect a class rotation as possible, 0 seconds getting to actually enjoy being there or admiring what the developers have created. Like another person said, they might as well have just made the game a series of grey bland rooms and the bosses being just giant straw target dummies because so little time during combat do you get to look around or enjoy it in my opinion these days.

Everyone has different levels of coordination and everyone has different preferences as to how much bloating/complexity is too much or not enough. Not everyone uses controllers and not everyone plays same level of muscle memory classes. I admit this issue is subjective from person to person. I am just saying for me it is getting a bit too much overall when combine all three gameplay elements together. I think the class complexity is about as high as it should go, that there is plenty of room for more classes but keeping the current level of complexity for them including newer skills being higher level direct replacements for the lower level ones to reduce shortcut bloating, that SE needs to change their focus from class complexity to fight mechanic complexity/diversity since there is plenty of room there for improvement, maybe SE could improve macro creation adding if/and/or/else type depth which might help for some, the information/tracking as an element has gone a bit too far for my liking because it takes too much eye focus away from enjoying the content while also having too large an impact during the fight itself.

Anyways, I merely wanted to let SE know my opinion on this issue which I have now done by creating this thread and making my position fairly clear on it. Whether they take on board what I said or not is up to them, it's out of my hands but I hope they keep this issue in mind when moving forward with new content.