Combo Action Button

[Gemina]

Except, the only failure our combos allow is finger slippage, which is irrelevant except to the newest players, those most easily panicked, or the physically handicapped. It is not a difficulty that the vast majority of us face except mid-hectic-mechanic when progging when over-stressed in Savage content. At most, it adds exclusion. Generally, it's a non-factor.

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. Keeping up maximum DPS despite mechanics is a factor EVERYONE deals with. Mechanics are designed to disrupt you so you can't go ham like you do on a dummy. Regardless of how the combo was broken, it all boils down to disruption from one command to the next.

By your own definition, our "combos" are not combos. For a command to benefit from the previous, that following command must first actually exist outside of the given sequence. Otherwise you cannot have improvement. You can add something on to or in place of nothing, but you cannot improve on something that does not yet exist. And unless you're calling all combos skills in ubiquitous 100 potency and zero additional effects each as the actual skill, there's no improvement happening. Our "combos" are like a series of switches with electromagnetically sealed caps, each of which simply opens the next until you reach the final (read: actual) switch. You cannot viably hit C before B or B before A.

What are you on about? Combo bonuses are all over our tool tips. How on earth are just dismissing the 100 potency skill to start things off? And the sequential skills DO exist outside the combo. You're really confusing me here, because you're not really disagreeing with me, and everything you said in this block is exactly the reason why I say a combo button won't work.

Compare that to a good fighting game. There, failure is not limited to manual mishaps; it includes more significant memory, it includes prediction, and it includes strategy.

So does executing your combos in this game. You're making it sound like you can do difficult content in this game on auto pilot. Maybe you are that good, but I sure in hell's am not.

Each of in-range skills can see use in its own right and each do actually benefit others through the effects of the skill itself, rather than their merely unlocking each other in a decision-less sequence. In some, specific skills could only be accessed through specific sequences, but in every case every initially available action had course-viability and at every stage in every course you still had at least situationally viable choices. Those, therefore, are combos. XIV's are not. XIV's is a cycling system that reduces the amount of decisions one can make to every x GCDs. They are, for all intents and purposes, a way to dumb down gameplay.

Ok, now I'm starting to make sense of your post. I think your issue is that the combos in this game are static, so you just execute the same ones over and over again with little variance. By definition it is still a combo. Just one you use all the time. But cut it out with this 'dumbing' down game play. Get off of your high horse. I screw up all the time, and I'd be hard pressed to believe you execute your combos with surgical precision for each and every fight, for each an every mechanic. Again, maybe you really are that good, but the average PUG player is not.

[Shurrikhan]

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. Keeping up maximum DPS despite mechanics is a factor EVERYONE deals with. Mechanics are designed to disrupt you so you can't go ham like you do on a dummy. Regardless of how the combo was broken, it all boils down to disruption from one command to the next.

That "how" matters. Performing less than optimally due to an error of judgment does not feel at all like your performance being mangled because a sweaty index finger slipped one key too far left or right. Sure, the latter can similarly add intensity, but only to the same degree that visuals and audio each add intensity to a film. They are not the same. They do not feel the same. The "how" is not interchangeable and some means of that disruption are going to cause players to feel different balances of, say, ingenuity available (and other things positively felt) and punishment to be inflicted (and other things negatively felt), even at the exact same leniency, all because of how it's done. Food is not all the same thing just by nature of all having (one or more) calories per mouthful.

More importantly, perhaps, "combos" are not what's adding the difficulty there. CD sync, preemptive movement, resource banking, mechanical tracking, breakpoint awareness -- these are very real forms of difficulty, even if varying with job. Remembering to press 3 after 2 after 1 is not. If anything, it's helpful to your sense of cadence and thereby mechanical tracking.

What are you on about? Combo bonuses are all over our tool tips. How on earth are just dismissing the 100 potency skill to start things off? And the sequential skills DO exist outside the combo. You're really confusing me here, because you're not really disagreeing with me, and everything you said in this block is exactly the reason why I say a combo button won't work.

Then I ask, again, which to you is the actual Disembowel?
Disembowel itself --

Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.

Or Disembowel as available only after Impulse Drive --

Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Impulse Drive
Combo Potency: 240
Combo Bonus: Reduces target's piercing resistance by 5%
Duration: 30s

You will never use Disembowel without Impulse Drive first. If you can honestly tell me with a straight face that this

Delivers an attack with a potency of 150.
190 when executed from a target's flank.
Additional Effect: Increases damage dealt by 10%
Duration: 30s
____________________________
Delivers an attack with a potency of 200.
____________________________
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
_____________________________
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
_____________________________
<Unavailable>
________________________
<Unavailable>
_________________________
Delivers an attack with a potency of 160.
_________________________
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
_________________________
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
___________________________
<Unavailable>
__________________________
<Unavailable>

looks like an actual set of skills run in combination, then so be it -- I guess then we have combos. But I sure as hell can't see it as such. To me, our "combo" skills are not skills at all until they're proceeded by their prerequisite skill. That, definitely, can not be a logical combination of actions. It is purely a series, with in the majority of GCDs for combo classes, no options to combine. That is not a combo. It has nothing to do with being static, per se; it has everything to do with the fact that one does not form a "combination" from a single homogeneous item.

"Would you like the $10 combo, with the 1/4lb Angus burger, salad, drink, and side-order?" "What's the side order?" "Mac and cheese. Only Mac and cheese." "Can I just get a drink?" "No, you can only get that combined in the $8 combo." "The burger?" "Would you like the Angus burger and the double-decker BLT?" "The BLT." "Okay, that comes with a salad, drink, and side-order of mac and cheese for $9." "Umm, the Angus then?" "That's only available in the $10 combo." "Can I get... just the Mac and Cheese?" "Sure, but would it really be worth the GCD on its own?"

That's your Dragoon combos. And, though to a lesser extent, the way all our combo systems work. Their sole unique addition to the game is to reduce available choices. Multiple items per choice.

So does executing your combos in this game [-- "it includes significant memory, it includes prediction, and it includes strategy"]. You're making it sound like you can do difficult content in this game on auto pilot. Maybe you are that good, but I sure in hell's am not.

I'm not saying that I can do difficult content in this game on auto-pilot. But it's sure as hell not "combos" holding me back. If anything, they steady finger-rolling it enforces makes content easier (so long as progression is done in a way that allows for optimal practice rather than death-tripping through mechanics) by binding timing to muscle memory. When I feel my finger itching to reach for my third Higanbana, I know TA and CS are about to go off and I know how soon the next mechanic will go up. By the time you're doing any serious content, the combo system is more boon than risk except, again, to the most easily panicked of players or those with physical handicaps.

Ok, now I'm starting to make sense of your post. I think your issue is that the combos in this game are static, so you just execute the same ones over and over again with little variance.

Give me an actual XIV "combo" that you use with variance in continuous ST uptime outside of TCJ prep on NIN or pre-Meikyo/Haga on SkS Samurai. Bonus points if you can show me where "combo" string length is not mutually exclusive with that variance.

By definition it is still a combo.

No. It is a sequence or a set. Again, unless you honestly consider Kasha to be encapsulated by "Delivers an attack with a potency of 100", it is not a combination of existent elements to be arranged logically. Nothing exists outside of that arrangement. It is a sequence or a set.

Just one you use all the time. But cut it out with this 'dumbing' down game play. Get off of your high horse.

How do you not see the irony in this? The longer the "combo" extends the less often you are permitted choice. And a choice from a selection count of one is not a choice at all. It's very simple. The stricter the dependencies and more non-entity a choice is made outside of those dependencies, the less thought is required. I am not saying that XIV combat on the whole is dumb. But it entirely factual that our version of a "combo" system requires incredibly little thought compared to one that actually meets the definition of a combo system (i.e. has multiple real choices which combine in meaningful ways).

I screw up all the time, and I'd be hard pressed to believe you execute your combos with surgical precision for each and every fight, for each an every mechanic. Again, maybe you really are that good, but the average PUG player is not.

I screw up too. Sometimes I forget that my NIN lost uptime the TCJ TA will be late. Sometimes I forget to click off Riddle of Fire before my PB for my double TK into full GL. Sometimes I forget I can hold more Kenki for raid debuffs. Sometimes I waste 5 Kenki because I used Seigan too early and didn't deplete Kenki fast enough before Haga. Sometimes I overextend my Astral Fire during movement phases, thinking I can resolve my AM quickly enough to make it. Sometimes I even let my DoTs fall off just before Raging Strikes. But not one of those things has to do with moving my finger from button 4 to button 5 or E to R to T. I've scarcely if ever made a combo error outside of GCD-crippling lag spikes since I sprained my wrist, and it's not because I'm skilled at the game. It's because it's among the lowest forms of difficulty in XIV. Almost any other reason to misperform will strike you first even if not as obviously. Having everything else essentially grey out and the next viable button light up does not increase difficulty; it reduces it. Yes, replacing that with 1-1-1-1-1 would further reduce difficulty, but that entire concept is only applicable because our actual decisions available are already limited to 1-1-1-1-1.

[Kuroka]

I just wished stuff that needs a proc or is locked due stance (looks at DK) would be merged to one button, like on DK we never need powerslash and souleater at once, do we? Rdm's Impact is basically just a jolt III so why the botton bload for an basically dead skill? Or on BLM the leyline and between the line... or that super usefull freeze... we could free up some space without actually cutting much...

[Deceptus]

Some people want it (myself included) some don't.

Why not make it available and those that want it can use it and those that don't, don't have to?

[Sandpark]

Personally, I felt that Leylines should have been a circle that moves with you, but we all know the devs were never going to do that.

Or just actual Leylines. Cast Leylines, a overlay shows 5 different cast points on ground in the battle area spread out.

One grants reduced delay, the other magic potency boost, the other lowered MP cost, the other adds a dot to casted spells, the last one grants an extra sharpcast. Between the Lines would take place of Leylines until the LL cooldown is refreshed. BL used to cycle between the different leyline. Would still be a caster who has to stand to cast but at least you would be more mobile.

[Sigma-Astra]

Or just actual Leylines. Cast Leylines, a overlay shows 5 different cast points on ground in the battle area spread out.

One grants reduced delay, the other magic potency boost, the other lowered MP cost, the other adds a dot to casted spells, the last one grants an extra sharpcast. Between the Lines would take place of Leylines until the LL cooldown is refreshed. BL used to cycle between the different leyline. Would still be a caster who has to stand to cast but at least you would be more mobile.

That sounds kind of nifty, but also like something the devs would make excuses for about trying too.

[Ruinfeild]

Q: Can we have PvE skill combos like how PvP chains the skill combos? The number of skills we have to put definitely has been lesser since Stormblood but it feels like more can be done.
Y: If that happens, skill combo would be too simple and easy. Additionally, PvP uses simplified skill combos because we want to pinpoint the players’ focus on broader perspective of battle than using the skills in order. PvE combat environment is a lot different from PvP, where players need room in between combos to respond to various situations in the raids. That’s one of the reasons why we are keeping the the way of skill sets structured.

In other perspective, the development team already saw that the number of skills are reaching the capacity in terms of system limit. Instead of increasing the number of skills, we are planning to replace the skills or alter the skill that are rarely used instead. You won’t expect the number of skills surging back in the near future.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...mIIE64ca0/edit

[Raldo]

Yeah, I know what they said. I'll believe it when I see it.

[LalaRu]

With examples in the past of games with a rich and enjoyable pvp/pve with just 8 buttons (GW), I think being able to reduce our skills hotbar to something like 16 buttons may be nice. Not easy to do, sure, but a nice thing to have.

IMHO the difference and variations we can get on a single job does not rely on 123,456 different skills to cast, but in the multiple interactions between few of them. Look at BnS, there combos depends not only on what you cast, but also on what the foe replied with, and if the skill landed or not. That surely adds much deep gameplay than have to choose between tons of different skills, the latter ending, as you all know very well, to just the use of only the "right" skillset and anything other may also not exists.

[Ayer2015]

I'd rather not see combos reduced to 1 button each. That said, all jobs could use with reduced redundancy. Personally I'd much rather see fewer skills with a higher impact.