Gnashing Fang Combo, one button?

[Quor]

And how long has it been since you hit the wrong button in a combo by mistake? A year? Three years? Let's leave out events that are less about your personal difficulty than whether your cat decided to jump on your desk.

Three days ago, during Black Smokers.

There is literally only two fears here worth considering: that there will eventually be no space for the difficulty-free yet nonetheless enjoyable "rhythm of keys", having taken up its space instead with too many varied tactical tools, and that those new means of skill-gap may make the game too hard for a number of players (at least unless coupled with in-game support such as better ways of teaching how to actually play well). If the prior is your position, I understand it, but do not try to convince me that the system as it stands protects difficulty or skill-gap. It doesn't. It quite frankly makes the experience easier for anyone who's spent any time on their jobs.

Of course it preserves difficulty. If Renzokuken becomes a single button you have halved the number of unique inputs necessary to correctly perform it. It would be akin to taking NIN Mudra's and instead of splitting them into Ten/Chi/Jin and Mudra buttons, you just have "Hyoton" or "Suiton" or "Doton" buttons that execute them for you. Having them as Ten/Chi/Jin both increases the skill necessary to perform them correctly while also cutting down on button bloat (since w/o T/C/J as unique skills to combine, you'd end up with 7 unique buttons to push instead of the 4 we get with T/C/J plus Mudra). But there is a fail-state in T/C/J usage, in that using too many or not enough will result in failure or a different Mudra than the one the NIN wants. Thus, when you pull it off correctly, you feel good because you've overcome a job challenge that now allows access to a powerful skill. Certainly better than if you just pushed a single button on cooldown.

On it's own, the Renzokuken combo isn't much different than any other 1-2-3 combo out there, but taken in the context of other stuff a tank is expected to do, it's fine as it is. Furthermore, even if the combo was consolidated down to a single button, this is another two buttons that may or may not be filled. You certainly can't add more damage to GNB because they're fine where they are now, and while their mitigation and utility may not be the best out of the tanks, it's certainly not lacking. So in other words, this change would do nothing but lower what little skill ceiling currently exists for tanks. Ironic, considering the calls in other threads for more "engagement" and "complexity" to be added for tanks, while this thread is specifically asking for a job to have some complexity shaved off.

Here's where I come from - personally speaking - when talking about many of the "issues" brought up on these forums.

1 - tank balance is the best and tightest it's ever been since ever
2 - any change to any part of a tank will disrupt this balance somewhat
3 - an argument can be made that tanks are not as engaging as they could be (or once were) due in large part to the overarching design of certain tank aspects (emnity being the most obvious) as well as the current state of encounter design
4 - arguing for increased tank engagement/complexity isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as:
5 - it respects the fact that balance between the tanks is rock solid as it stands now

Hence, any suggestion I see gets filtered through these criteria. I find it hard to square the circle of people complaining about a lack of tank complexity also advocating for a tank to be made less complex. Yes, there are accompanying suggestions of how skill consolidation will allow for "other" stuff to be added, but this - in the case of GNB especially - runs the risk of taking that delicate balance we have achieved and throwing it out the window. You can't add more damage to GNB without making it clearly stronger than the other tanks, and you can't add more utility/mitigation to GNB without making it clearly strong than the other tanks. Thus, consolidation of skills does nothing but lower the complexity of playing GNB for no other reason than to make it less complex. There is nothing that could be added in to replace said complexity to keep GNB at the same level, or improve it, because to do so would throw tank balance out of whack.

Of course, you could add stuff to the other tanks, but now we're no longer talking about "consolidating" a single combo on one tank and instead have opened up the entire can of worms that is intra-role balance. This is made doubly complicated by the fact that development resources are finite. We can all agree that GNB is in a pretty great spot right now. DRK and WAR are in far more (relative) need of help than GNB or PLD. Not to say GNB and PLD are perfect, but with the points above in mind, it would be better to focus energy where needed.

[Reynhart]

It would be akin to taking NIN Mudra's and instead of splitting them into Ten/Chi/Jin and Mudra buttons, you just have "Hyoton" or "Suiton" or "Doton" buttons that execute them for you.

It's completely different. The skill in using Mudras is weaving them into your rotation, so you had to think and act fast. Finishing your combo don't require any decision making and is not fast. The skill in performing rotation is keeping uptime and knowing what to weave between them.

I find it hard to square the circle of people complaining about a lack of tank complexity also advocating for a tank to be made less complex.

We're not. Imagine I save two slots as a DRK by consolidating SoulEater into one combo. Now, I can have a Power Slash combo on one of those slot, let's say, to apply a speed buff, and bring back Scourge on the other slot. Now, I have two more things to maintain in my rotation, making DRK more complex.

[Quor]

It's completely different. The skill in using Mudras is weaving them into your rotation, so you had to think and act fast. Finishing your combo don't require any decision making and is not fast. The skill in performing rotation is keeping uptime and knowing what to weave between them.

Which is exactly the skill needed for Renzokuken; you have a limited time frame (one GCD) in which to use Cont., and maybe another oGCD, before you can use the next GCD. You certainly don't want to miss out on using a Cont. ability, as the average raw potency from those oGCD's is almost as much as GNB's average ppGCD on their main combo, so dropping one is a significant damage loss. But you also don't want to delay your GCD, which has the side effect of making each step of Renzokuken feel sort of like a mini-Mudra. Sometimes you'll double-weave during Renzokuken, and knowing when and how to weave stuff while maintaining rotation uptime is what separates the good from the great.

We're not. Imagine I save two slots as a DRK by consolidating SoulEater into one combo. Now, I can have a Power Slash combo on one of those slot, let's say, to apply a speed buff, and bring back Scourge on the other slot. Now, I have two more things to maintain in my rotation, making DRK more complex.

You're not wrong, but again, keep in mind the balance of the tanks. Yes, I'd love for DRK to have some kind of haste buff back, and if it's on the PS animation then mores the better (I mention this in the relevant DRK thread). But I'm also concerned about how that would affect not just DRK but tanks in general. DRK has it's problems now, sure, but it's not terrible. It's boring, with most of it's challenge wrapped up in MP management (not a bad thing per se) and TBN usage (also not bad) but at the cost of some sorely lacking rotational value. Managing a DoT or juggling a haste buff alongside Darkside would be a joy, but I have yet to see any kind of compromise suggestion to account for the clear fact that this would be a damage buff to DRK. I also don't see most DRK's just shrugging and being happy with having to do an extra few steps to get the same damage they had prior to the addition of new skills. Increased complexity necessitates an increased reward, and in this case that reward would have to be more damage. It's hard to justify boosting DRK's damage when it clearly has the best overall mitigation suite out of the tanks right now, on top of still throwing out respectable numbers.

So again, while I'm not against the idea itself, I have yet to see anyone address the other half of the equation. It's all just "let's add cool stuff" and never with any accompanying understanding of how to maintain balance between the tanks, either via changes to DRK itself or something for the other tanks.

tl;dr: If literal hand movement alone is enough complexity for you to pride yourself over, and worth more to you than any of the possible things you could otherwise spend that space on, we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Isn't that what all of this is? Pushing buttons in the right order at the right times? Distilled down to it's most basic form, that's the entirety of this game, and really any video game. Take the most badass looking DMC5 boss rush you can think of, or the craziest Super Meat Boy speedrun, and it's all just hand movement, entering the right commands at the right time. That sells it terribly short of course, but you get the gist. Of course, we all know the devil is in the details, so it's disingenuous to say that it comes down to hand movement "alone."

[Reynhart]

Which is exactly the skill needed for Renzokuken; you have a limited time frame (one GCD) in which to use Cont., and maybe another oGCD, before you can use the next GCD.

Yes, but no one asked for Renzokuken to be different. What you describe would be the same wherever the "next GCD" is placed of your hotbar.

You're not wrong, but again, keep in mind the balance of the tanks. Yes, I'd love for DRK to have some kind of haste buff back, and if it's on the PS animation then mores the better (I mention this in the relevant DRK thread). But I'm also concerned about how that would affect not just DRK but tanks in general.

That's the exact same issue when you release a new expansion and add new skills. We don't really expect them to add those skills during ShB lifecycle. But the consolidation part could be done in a patch, since it wouldn't change the rotation at all in the end. And there are other types of consolidation that could be added without disturbing the balance, like Leylines and Between the lines sharing the same slot, since you can't use the later without the former being up, or Enochian/Fire IV/Blizzard IV, etc...

It's hard to justify boosting DRK's damage when it clearly has the best overall mitigation suite out of the tanks right now, on top of still throwing out respectable numbers.

Personally, I wouldn't mind doing the exact same respectable damage even if I had to apply scourge every 30s or maintain a speed buff, because it would make the job less boring. They'd just have to reduce some potencies on our GCDs to compensate. But like I said above, consolidating the combos can be enough for now, so that they won't have to remove more skills when the next expansion comes.

In the end, they already started that evolution, with skills replacing other ones under specific procs (DRG, RDM, ...) or the various roleplay duties.

Take the most badass looking DMC5 boss rush you can think of, or the craziest Super Meat Boy speedrun, and it's all just hand movement, entering the right commands at the right time.

In DMC, you do a combo with a single Attack button, weaving directions between two inputs. How is that different from comboing with a single slot while weaving oGCD in-between especially in a much-much slower battle sytem ?

[Shurrikhan]

Isn't that what all of this is? Pushing buttons in the right order at the right times? Distilled down to it's most basic form, that's the entirety of this game, and really any video game. Take the most badass looking DMC5 boss rush you can think of, or the craziest Super Meat Boy speedrun, and it's all just hand movement, entering the right commands at the right time. That sells it terribly short of course, but you get the gist. Of course, we all know the devil is in the details, so it's disingenuous to say that it comes down to hand movement "alone."

Not when all concerns except your finger moving from one place to another within the ~1.7 to 2.5 seconds are absolutely negligible.

oGCD order? That takes some determination. Any effect that will not sacrifice a measure of effect greater than its loss to uptime and sync from delay should be used as early as possible. That involves tactics.
AoE abilities? Further determination in fights with add phases. Just look at Dragoon in Deltascape 3S. Capitalizing on Nostrond is huge there. (Btw, you know didn't reduce it's complexity at all there? Consolidating Geirskogul and Nostrond.)

But a fixed combo? That's not complexity unless you're actively making meaningful decisions about whether to move your shoulder, elbow, wrist, or fingers to get from Key 2 to Key 3. Let me be frank -- you're going to have a hard time convincing me those decisions will be meaningful.

In DMC5, there are numerous answers with numerous levels of "correctness" because there are numerous ways to handle any particular fight. Many of those ways, if we ignore common sense and throw random combinations together, are bad. And, theoretically, one may be the best at any given time, but that's a job for Deep AI. The remainder are we actually play towards and around -- the entire point of gameplay.

Combos do not. They have one answer. They ensure that you can, as soon as you start a combo, only viably touch one normal weaponskill. The entire purpose of combos in XIV to reduce complexity, to reduce the number of options available to the player at any given time.

What complexity you find in any given combo are the few times they act least like a combo, and actually allow a branched action for once. Those are the surviving actions, and why Warrior still at least has effectively 5 GCD skills, Fel Cleave(+), Storm's Eye, Storm's Path, Overpower, and Tomahawk, though combos will then promptly lock out all choice for a further 1-2 GCDs at a time in 3 out of those 5 actions.

[Shurrikhan]

I find it hard to square the circle of people complaining about a lack of tank complexity also advocating for a tank to be made less complex.

Allowing for the consolidation of a single bonus combo, reducing the tank to the same 4 buttons (not skills) of PLD and WAR, does not reduce its complexity in any way. Gnashing Fang, Goring Blade, and Storm's Eye are already differed almost only in how they each interact with their damage CDs, PLD and GNB per minute and WAR per 90 seconds. Gnashing Fang is technically the least complex of the three because it can be woven in at any time where Storm's Eye and Goring Blade cannot. Instead of any manner of compromise, you simply continue to spam 123 and then remember not to hit Burst Strike if Gnashing Fang will soon come up before overcapping. Its sole claim to complexity is via a particular SkS capable of readying Solid Barrel before the nth No Mercy - Bloodfest sync. The rest is the exact same 123 you have on every tank, just shifted over to 456; that's not complexity. It's basic motor function that, in this case, literally cannot be failed. You've harped on about fail checks. This has no fail check. You cannot hit 6 without having first hit 5, nor 5 without having first hit 4.

Yes, there are accompanying suggestions of how skill consolidation will allow for "other" stuff to be added, but this runs the risk of taking that delicate balance we have achieved and throwing it out the window.

The reason there is simple: balance is easy when every mechanic (exempting non-mechanics like Darkside, which likewise have effectively no failchecks) is either shared by 75% of the role, has merely excused imbalance due to its infrequency (e.g. Living Dead) or is an inconsequential flavor variant.

When you actually make 4 tanks instead of 4 skins of a single tank, yes, balance gets harder.

That doesn't mean it isn't worth it. We should be able to expect more than just either a modicum of real gameplay difference OR balance.
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tl;dr: If literal hand movement alone is enough complexity for you to pride yourself over, and worth more to you than any of the possible things you could otherwise spend that space on, we're just going to have to agree to disagree.