Combo Action Button

[Kuroka]

I wonder if like 80% of those against it play on keyboard... like, my controller has 4 buttons on one each side, Pressing B-X-Y or B-A-Y but with pressing the L first is basically the same work but one unnecessary layer swich more... IDK where that "we end up pressing only 1111111111" comes from, its not like anyone wants everything in one button but some combos would make space and things easier - I cant count how many times i messes cause my controller or game lagged and didnt swich the layer or didnt register an button, fun on RDM.... which brings me to the next point, i wished some skills would only work if their combo is done properly...

[Shurrikhan]

It's not really broken, but okay, that's your personal pet peeve with the job then.

Depends on your definition of broken. If your car's fab takes two now clicks to start to unlock the car when it used to take one, the thing on the whole might not be broken, but something in that button is.

[Rongway]

It's not really broken, but okay, that's your personal pet peeve with the job then.

It is broken, in the same way that a door that is a fully functioning door is broken if it has a pull handle on the push side. Unusable controls distract from usable controls and negatively affect user experience. But I'm only a computer science professor, what do I know about UI/UX design principles.

[Avenger]

I am in favor of having an optional common enochian/fire4/blizz4 button for BLM. It is very rare that I would recast enochian rather than just keeping AF/UI up, so it would save two slots on my main cross hotbar.

[Tempest222]

I wonder if like 80% of those against it play on keyboard... like, my controller has 4 buttons on one each side, Pressing B-X-Y or B-A-Y but with pressing the L first is basically the same work but one unnecessary layer swich more... IDK where that "we end up pressing only 1111111111" comes from, its not like anyone wants everything in one button but some combos would make space and things easier - I cant count how many times i messes cause my controller or game lagged and didnt swich the layer or didnt register an button, fun on RDM.... which brings me to the next point, i wished some skills would only work if their combo is done properly...

I play with keyboard and one of those 12 button mmo mice, and I’ll occasionally mess up a combo due to inadvertently having my thumb slightly too far one way or the other, and fat fingering the button next to the one I’m aiming for. I’d imagine occasional misclicks probably happen to most people. Personally I am for consolidated combo buttons. I’m in the faction that doesn’t feel pressing 123 makes for any more challenging, in depth, or complex gameplay than pressing 111. Consolidation will only free up some space and de clutter hotbars, which to me is a good QOL adjustment. People will make occasional accidental mistakes with either system, so I don’t see “but my muscle memory” as a legitimate counter argument. People could just map the button multiple times if they are really dead set against change, but I think the vast majority would quickly get used to the new way and in fact feel they’ve been benefitted. They are always slightly changing things up, and people always adapt to the new way, and move on. To me, there is no way de cluttering could be considered a net negative.

[Avenger]

Now that I think of it, I wonder if a macro of f4 + b4 + enochian would work...

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah it wouldn't change anything except maybe that you don't have to learn any rotation anymore. The funny part is that all the combo button "fanatics" think that the skills and combos would stay the same, you can bet they won't.

How about SE does it in another way? Integrate 1 button and i mean 1 button only which lets all the poor souls who are overwhelmed with all these evil buttons have their complete rotation including OGCD on this single button and the rest of the players keep their buttons how they like?

How would anyone not know that WT comes after F&C which comes after FT which comes after VT which comes after TT by level 70? Do you honestly expect that those underperforming are doing so for THAT reason?

Here's your usual consolidation scheme applied to the least consolidated job.

• F&C and WT, mutually exclusive abilities, are combined.
• Sonic Thrust, which cannot viably be used without using Doomspike first, is now a second stage from Doomspike.
• Mirage Dive now replaces Jump for the 15 seconds it's available after using Jump.
• Mirage Dive now replaces Spineshatter Dive for the 15 seconds it's available after using Spineshatter Dive.

That's it. GCD skill as numbers, oGCDs as letters, with changes in brackets, your opener is now: A 1 BC 2 DE 3 F[e] 4 G 5 [G] [5] 6 7 8 5 [5] instead of A 1 BC 2 DE 3 FG 4 H 5 G 6 7 8 J 9 6 5.

"Oh no, our 14 separable actions now require 20 buttons, down from 23! All those noobs will be all up in my percentages!"

Now that I think of it, I wonder if a macro of f4 + b4 + enochian would work...

Can't queue macros, sadly. It's doable with a good deal of button spam and error spam, but the DIY consolidation probably wouldn't be worth the frustration.

[Rongway]

Now that I think of it, I wonder if a macro of f4 + b4 + enochian would work...

"Yes", but no.

/ac "Fire IV"
/ac "Blizzard IV"
/ac Enochian

would do what you want, but you would have to press the button after the GCD finished, so you would lose 0.1~0.5 seconds per cast, which quickly adds up to multiple Fire IV spells lost over the course of a battle. And if you mashed the button trying to get it to fire ASAP, you would at some point trip the Enochian line in the middle of a GCD, which could potentially delay your next GCD by as much as 0.7s if Enochian comes off cooldown just before the GCD finishes.

So "yes", but no.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Why did I not take that as agreement with my sentiment that they should makes fixes in such a way that doesn't sacrifice the amount of gameplay available to a job, both parts currently functioning and not? Because it doesn't. Piercing Talon as an oGCD would fill no purpose more than pre-SB Leg Sweep did in raids. You are still thinking of it as just a button, and not a component of gameplay. I can slap on another 6 oGCDs to weave through and it would change nothing about gameplay past the first sorting for ppm by opener order and desync breakpoints -- which occur entirely prior to combat.

Operative word being "if".

Did you actually read my argument. I literally said if they're going to fix it, they should. If they aren't—which they haven't done in six years—remove it because the current implementation renders it useless. It doesn't matter what purpose it could fulfill or how useful it could be. If they aren't going to change it, then abilities like Piercing Talon are button bloat because they serve no functionality. Comparing to Leg Sweep only epitomizes that. CC abilities are generally useless in this game outside Eureka—to the point I'd wager very few people bother with them. You keep arguing in a "could be" scenario.

Because you continue to apply slippery slopes fallacies to the very idea of it. We are not at a point yet where consolidation is wholly necessary, let alone combo consolidation, but we have both addressed the hypothetical. IF it came down to it, I would sooner protect the amount of gameplay a job has available to it, because to me that is the only purpose the buttons have. Individual skills do not need protection of their individual buttons when they cannot function except in sequence. At that point the only gameplay you have is sequence. So, yes, IF it came down to it, I would protect gameplay over button count, button-to-action correspondence over button-to-skill correspondence. That is all we've been disagreeing on.

It isn't a slippery slope fallacy to posit combo consolidation will result in less skill pruning. Or that they aren't add enough abilities to compensate for it. The entire purpose of such a change is so they wouldn't have to make any others. And it's the primary concern many people have with the feature even being optional. It removes any incentive. After all, if DRG went suddenly had six extra slots. What reason to the devs have to remove other abilities that aren't useful? Likewise, they aren't going to add a slew of new abilities or it defeats the point of removing any to begin with outside of a new flashy animation. You go on to mention abilities that are almost all oGCDs and/or you typically press sparingly. Defiance/Deliverance for example is two buttons you'll virtually never touch except during your opener. These aren't the same as a combo which you'll spend the vast majority of your time executing. Hence why there is much more pushback about combo consolidation than making Shield/Sword function like Grit.

As for PT and gameplay. I hardly call it compelling gameplay to use a garbage range attack on a melee DPS even if they did make it so your combo wouldn't break.

Nonetheless, we'll have to disagree on that because you seem to find it more interesting than I do.

[Shurrikhan]

Operative word being "if".

Did you actually read my argument. I literally said if they're going to fix it, they should. If they aren't—which they haven't done in six years—remove it because the current implementation renders it useless. It doesn't matter what purpose it could fulfill or how useful it could be. If they aren't going to change it, then abilities like Piercing Talon are button bloat because they serve no functionality. Comparing to Leg Sweep only epitomizes that. CC abilities are generally useless in this game outside Eureka—to the point I'd wager very few people bother with them. You keep arguing in a "could be" scenario.

I read it. You clearly didn't read my response.

Going back and fixing less-used abilities is the primary stated goal of development time to be spent on 6.0 toolkits. "Well they should do that, then!" Yes, they said this is exactly the kind of thing they intend to fix.

The question is "how" they fix it.

When you look at a skill as just "something you press", then Leg Sweep as a 30s damage-fluff skill would seem like a good idea. I did not compare the current Piercing Talon to Leg Sweep. I did not compare any way Piercing Talon could be fixed except your own to Leg Sweep. Your suggestion, the one you agree to be the metaphorical "Leg Sweep", is the one way one could "fix" Piercing Talon (make it a button we press) without fixing its functionality or giving it real purpose or augmenting gameplay in any way. We agree that as it stands it's a dead skill. 6.0 will be revising or replacing dead skills. But I certainly don't want to see it replaced with yet more bloat -- the largest contribution SB has made to our hotbars despite stated goals to the contrary -- and I certainly don't want to see the functions it can and should fill, under its current name or otherwise, scrapped completely -- chapter closed on that section of gameplay, despite it working well if just designed well, with those good examples soon to follow. Simply pressing buttons does not make gameplay.

Buttons are a means, not an end.

Read through any of the times I've mentioned the skill. Not once have I praised the skill as it currently exists. I have pointed out where melee-downtime mitigation skills have worked, why they are useful, and what its current issues are outside of those few cases where it currently works. You look at it done right, figure out why it works there and not here and then you decide whether or not a DRG should be able to align its rotation to downtime (which a ranged skill currently is, and yet it feels really good when that bit of extra player skill pays off).

Nonetheless, we'll have to disagree on that because you seem to find it more interesting than I do.

Because my repeatedly calling it a broken skill shows my tremendous interest in the skill? How many times must I remind you that concept is not the same thing as implementation? That's like saying I like a shit gun in some game just because I said "it'd be nice if this single-load rifle was worthwhile, rather than just having the whole class of weapons removed from standard play due to going unused for being undertuned." I don't. I like what it could be if designed with an interest in gameplay (in the decisions that can be made, effect on skillgap, and the discussions that can surround learning a fight because of its being there) rather than just "I need to hit more buttons."