Combo Action Button

[Shurrikhan]

The entirety of this rather pointless triad can be boiled down to will they fix Piercing Talon or equivalent skills like it. If yes, go right ahead—which is what I said. However... if they aren't going to do that for whatever reason than it remains a useless ability no matter how you attempt to spin it, thus becoming button bloat. How this assessment required several paragraphs to reach I'll never understand.

Here's your "saying that".

If they want to improve it, go right ahead—take it off the GCD.

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.

And yet you continue to partake in said arguments about it.

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.

Regardless, a poorly implemented skill that isn't being fixed serves no purpose. It doesn't matter how you imagine they could fix it, if they aren't going to, it's functionally useless. There's a reason virtually no melee DPS touches their ranged abilities. Put simply, unless they're changed to have a better implementation, it's better to cut them out entirely before anything else.

Yes. Obviously. We just have very different ideas on what being "fixed" means. Merely having an extra button to slap every 20-30 seconds does not fix what by common sense was supposed to be a tool for add-/mob-gathering and melee-downtime mitigation. Keys like it were removed for good reason -- not because they were unfunctional or provided little ppm, but because they offered nothing to gameplay.

Really? I wasn't aware having a dissenting opinion on combo consolidation was somehow dystopian. Or did I even mention Elusive and Doomspike. In fact, I recall saying outright I'd rather they add nothing to current meta jobs and focus their attention on WHM, DRK and MCH who desperately need a rework. It's almost like this was a massive exaggeration you pulled out from thin air.

I've never said a dissenting opinion was, itself, somehow dystopian. What in "you act as if combo consolidation will be some sort of dystopia" implies that?

You stated that any movement towards combo consolidation would create an quality-destructive outcome without seeming to have remotely considered the risks involved opposite that.

The moment SE moves to consolidation is the moment it becomes their solution going forward. People who prefer unique key presses will simply be inundated with new abilities because they have no reason to prune or upgrade anything.

To which I have disagreed because whether or not consolidation takes effect is entirely irrelevant to having reason to prune or upgrade, and because in MMOs statements which minimize expectations of additive work -- Yoshida saying they have no plans to create a further surge of abilities with 6.0 -- have far greater staying power than any decision which is merely technical and easily reversible. We are not getting that "inundating" surge of abilities either way. The majority of requests for consolidation in any form, be it Defiance<->Deliverance, a modified Shield Oath <-> Sword Oath, Jump <-> Mirage Dive, SSD <-> Mirage Dive, Doomspike <-> Sonic Thrust, Ley Lines <-> BtL, Fire IV <-> Blizzard IV, DWT <-> Deathflare, Summon Bahamut <-> Enkindle Bahamut are being made simply because it is simply a wholly obvious and logical choice, not IN PLACE of something else. We do not have a fixed maximum or minimum button count. No one is arguing for a fixed button count.

But when, in the instance that something does have to go, and you sacrifice real tools or decisions (which, for instance, a Piercing Talon off the GCD would not be; that's just pre-SB Leg Sweep in raids) in order to protect button count... something's wrong there.

If there is a slippery slope to consolidation, the opposite is true as well. When every skill is protected as its own entity just for splitting a given action across multiple inseparable GCDs with different labels each, and the only metric to a successful ability is the frequency with which it participates in a button cycle, then you eventually stand to lose the majority of gameplay that is not dependent solely on whether one forgets what comes after their button 4.

We agree that we shouldn't consolidate combos yet. (Even, again, if I don't care that much either way--I swap my binds all the time without issue so I have nothing at risk from--I understand that others may be inconvenienced by it just as others would be convenienced, and it seems the prior is either more numerous or more vocal.) But our reasons for that are absolute opposites, it seems. I want whatever gameplay a best-fleshed-out job can offer, efficiently and cohesively, regardless of how many or how few buttons would be involved, and when I look at a toolkit I see actions permitted and the breakpoints between them, not separate skills except wherein those skills may actually behave separately. That's probably why we differ here.

[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."

[Bourne_Endeavor]

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

Evidently not seeing you're still missing the point. Should they fix Piercing Talon? Yes. If they don't, it's a useless skill. I don't know how this is such a difficult concept for you to grasp. If they aren't going to fix it for whatever reason, there is zero purpose in it surviving another expansion because they clearly aren't going to make the changes people have suggested. Despite your insistence, I'm not arguing the concept. I only care about the implementation, which is currently flawed. You can cite any hypothetical scenarios you fancy, it boils down to a simple dichotomy. Either they fix it or they remove it.