Complexity/Sensory Overload

[Judge_Xero]

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

Muscle memory, innovation and skill always prevail.

[MagiusNecros]

I understand where you're coming from but using PS4/controller and switching through any more than a few bars is incredibly annoying. It makes it impossible to play fluently sometimes and even hinders players if they don't place their skills in the correct place (I've misclicked bars before and pressed the wrong buttons causing myself or others to die, simply by accidentally being on my DPS bar instead of heals).

Personally I just stick with the Bar 1 and Bar 8 wher I can just use L trig to R trig and vice versa to just access Bar 8 on the fly.

[WinterLuna]

Personally I just stick with the Bar 1 and Bar 8 wher I can just use L trig to R trig and vice versa to just access Bar 8 on the fly.

I use 2 or 3 bars depending on what class. Some are a lot worse than others though. Bard is really simple whereas something like Ninja just gets annoying for me. It just doesn't "flow" no matter where I put my skills.

[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.

[MagiusNecros]

I use 2 or 3 bars depending on what class. Some are a lot worse than others though. Bard is really simple whereas something like Ninja just gets annoying for me. It just doesn't "flow" no matter where I put my skills.

I'd just assign Mug and DWaD to have priority over say Gust Slash or if you are anal about only using those while DE is up put em on Aeo Edge but prioritize them first. Or just slap em on Jugulate.

Only thing I have issue with is I just macro the buffs like IR and B4B together. Since the Mudra's pointlessly take up space is likely the reason we controller players even me on PC have to scoff a little bit.

Honestl;y the whole Mudra thing is just hiding an Ogcd skill behind a 3 step sequence.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I can't tell if you're trolling but I'm going to go ahead and assume you're not. You use Repelling Shot in between skills, it doesn't affect anything. It's an extra bit of damage. You're not sacrificing damage by using it. It also has 80 potency, not 20.

You use a GCD, try to weave in Repelling shot between the second, and try to fire off another GCD. But wait, you hit it too quickly(Read:As soon as the previous GCD finished) and now you're spending more than half a second waiting for the interrupted cast to finish so you can get back to attacking, which caused a delay of +1 second in your GCD. That's what I mean by it delaying your GCD, either by delaying it manually by not firing off your next gcd when its up for aboit a second for the animation to finish, or by having a failed cast go theough whoch takes even more time out of your gcd, especially since you have to delay your gcd again to move in if you get no straighter shot prics. Especially painful if you don't have a straighter shot proc and Feint is a DPS loss in the long run due to the 90 tp cost.

[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.

[Sicno]

Besides you have 8 separate bars to choose from and switch to on the fly meaning you don't necessarily need macros.

Switching between hotbars constantly to access all your skills may (I repeat, MAY, not saying this will happen to everybody or all the time) make you either mess up ocassionally and do the skill from the wrong hotbar or do them more slowly because you're double checking. Besides, skill bloat may be different from job to job, some may not need that many binds, but think for instance of a tank job like WAR where besides using your attacking skills and CDs you also need to pop your defensive CDs on reaction and it has to be reliable (if you think of popping a CD then that exact CD has to pop, not some other CD or skill) and fast.

All I'm saying is the option is there and that before complaining and hoping for no more abilities that every player should at the very least explore all options available to them.

Yeah, because everybody should need to script macros in order to make up for the inconveniences in control design for regular play before voicing your opinion. Sounds like a lot of fun for everybody!