Changeable skills

[Xyno]

Good day

I dont know how SE is going to change the skill system, but I have an idea how to make more skills for every class and it will NOT require more buttons

As example, I will take the Monk's Forbidden Chakra
When we have the 5 stacks of Meditation, we push the same button again and use the Forbidden Chakra. But what if will be able to choose what skill will be on the last place- Forbidden Chakra or another? For example, AoE

What will we have in the end?
- if in the fight a lot of mobs- Monk choose AoE attack as the last attack for Meditation
- if only boss- Monk chooses Forbidden Chakra

More skills, the same amount of buttons

[Zojha]

But what if will be able to choose what skill will be on the last place- Forbidden Chakra or another?

That's already a thing - you can choose between Forbidden Chakra or Purification. Except that Purification requires an additional button.

[Xyno]

That's already a thing - you can choose between Forbidden Chakra or Purification. Except that Purification requires an additional button.

Indeed, additional button and it is not good

[Shurrikhan]

Finding it better to necro than to replace existent threads, I'd just like to point out that whether something is or should be another button comes down primarily to the way the UI is "layered", or, in our case, non-layered.

In either case, though, reducing button count while retaining skill count means that choices are limited. Either a skill is chosen pre-combat, and the other one locked out, or a path is set for a given length of time (as in combos, if they were each reduced to a minimum key count when including native uncombo'ed skills). If the button count exceeds the number of actual viable decisions you have available at a given time (e.g. you're not going to give up a combo finisher to place an open DoT one GCD earlier), then you have button bloat. But if you tie key-paths together in ways that restrict the job's controls at intervals that abnormally disadvantage its gameplay, then you clunk (e.g. imagine if NIN could actually charge its ranged skill via combo progress, but combo progress then assumed the Throwing Dagger slot in order to allow room for Armor Crush in their third stage, forcing you to wait even if you wouldn't actually be able to reach the enemy in time with anything but TD). Similarly, it'd be difficult to optimally auto-path anything as complex as the weights between, as per your example, bonus TP (Purification) and bonus st potency (TFC), and even attempting to do so would probably reduce more enjoyment than it'd create.

That said, Purification and TFC aren't necessarily any more classic an example of bloat than just about any other skill. They're still both available, after all, just as alternatives of each other for each time you build 5 stacks of Chakra. The best examples are the mutual exclusives (FC/IB, Deci/SC, Def/Del; WT/F&C) and pathed skills (again, combos). The latter, if given freedom to such a degree, would be the basis for your "changeable skills", much like Mudras and Ninjutsu currently... though hopefully less clunky and prone to packet loss or queue-skipping. Just treat every weaponskill as, to some degree, an opener, bridge, and finisher in its own right, but vary the situational or rotational viability for different sequences of them; give each particular undermechanics to play on and subtle bonuses produced that the others, or even the same in certain allowable repetitions, can make use of. Use Gust Slash to burst movement before a vaulting dodge via Mutilate, landing on the target's back and rolling off the far side. Spinning Edge to center oneself and improve accuracy for a cumulative multi-strike attack like Shadow Fang. Etc., etc.

At that point you have, essentially, up to some 700 weaponskill variants, rather than 7. They just need to have enough impact on each other to feel distinct; that's the hard part.