Why can't we just have combo chains?

[Arohk]

That's why I said it's not the best for healers. Because there is no chain. Just stone/stone/stone/dia/dia.

and you think if a healer had to use three buttons for dmg it would be better?
Stone>Stonera>Stoneka
instead of just using one button.
I have no problem with the healers, every ability does something different and is not useless on its own, so it is fine to have a separate hotkey for them, having more buttons for dmg is not making the game more interesting or fun, it just makes it more clunky, if reducing the buttons makes the game-play too "boring" then add something interesting to it, heck it can't be that difficult, the amount of buttons is just trying to conceal how slow the combat actually is.

[Rongway]

When you control Thancred during the Ran'jit fight, he has ONE button for all three attacks, but why can't MY character have the same thing?

RP fights use reduced or consolidated action sets because you can't expect every single player to know how to GNB properly, and they want you to succeed at the fight so you can continue the story.

Combos in the real game are Distractors, a mechanism by which you can do things wrong. You're expected to know how to play your job well enough that you don't press these buttons at the wrong time, but it can still happen.

There are a few places where certain changes should be made, but these are cases where we have multiple buttons for mutually exclusive actions (GNB Continuation steps; BLM Between the Lines, Enochian/Blizzard IV; SMN Phoenix/Dreadwyrm buttons, etc) or actions that are really just upgrades of base actions (WHM Solace and Rapture, MCH Heat Blast and Autocrossbow, PLD Atonement).

If you find yourself never pressing combo buttons out of order, congratulations, you're playing that part right. If you ever do find yourself pressing things out of order, your response should be "I need to practice this," not "This should be reduced to one button."

[Arohk]

If you find yourself never pressing combo buttons out of order, congratulations, you're playing that part right. If you ever do find yourself pressing things out of order, your response should be "I need to practice this," not "This should be reduced to one button."

It should be one button because there is no reason to use the skills otherwise, there are two abilities i can't use at all if not combo chained, so they just eat up two slots for nothing.(i literally can't use the skills, so there is no window for error!)
Instead of making it awkward or clunky to play the jobs, the bosses should be more difficult, have to put more focus on what skills i push in the right order than what the bosses are doing.
Why do you defend a badly designed and outdated system?

I tried to get two friend to play along with me, but they both quit because they found the combat so slow and awkward. , i pretty much continued because was interested in the story and all the nice easter eggs and Final Fantasy references of the games i played. The game often brings a smile to my face and this change would greatly improve the game.

[Rongway]

It should be one button because there is no reason to use the skills otherwise, there are two abilities i can't use at all if not combo chained, so they just eat up two slots for nothing.(i literally can't use the skills, so there is no window for error!)

You literally can use combo buttons out of order, but it's a bad idea. Having pressable buttons that are "wrong" is a valid video game concept.

It's the buttons that you literally literally can't use out of order that should be consolidated.

It's fine for GNB 1-2-3 to be 1-2-3. But its intercombo 1(1b)-2(2b)-3(3b) should just be 1(4)-2(4)-3(4) because the intercombo literally can't be used out of order.

[DPZ2]

Wouldn't combo chains break the ability to use OGCD abilities? You'd be locked into the chain for, what, 7.5 seconds?

[Esmoire]

PLD is a bit egregious, though sadly this solution would do little for its control problems. It basically has two DPS cooldowns for its magical and physical rotations, which is great and important to its flavour, though the designer got a little greedy with the buttons. You can only use Mom's Confetti in the Kitty Cat state, which is a minute CD, which means a button that is a minute CD has another button you can only use once a minute. Combine this with Atonement, one of the most dumb and unnecessary additions to the job this expansion, as if the designer went "Hmm, WAR and DRK get a buff that has them hit the same button five times in a row; we'll go with the digest version". Feels like one or both should be context-sensitive buttons somewhere if they have context-sensitive requirements and you'd never want to use Atonement during Kitty Cat unless you are utterly wasted. Though that's kind of just a PLD design problem more than something combo buttons could resolve.

Wouldn't combo chains break the ability to use OGCD abilities? You'd be locked into the chain for, what, 7.5 seconds?

No. You still have to press a button three times, but the state isn't lost unless the combo is broken like it would be in gameplay as it is now. You just weave them between the attacks as you would normally, like PvP.

[Kuroka]

No. You still have to press a button three times, but the state isn't lost unless the combo is broken like it would be in gameplay as it is now. You just weave them between the attacks as you would normally, like PvP.

Which would free up more slots for other stuff, imagine actually having more ogc moves or even chained moves like GNB has, you could make a 3-4 step base combo flavoured with just as much moves inbetween and even branch it out to use different skills, like, adding a buff at the end, a stack to your jobgauge...

Rly lazy ppl could just spam the combo and maybe some ogc, but skilled ppl could weave like crazy.

[ForteNightshade]

Which would free up more slots for other stuff, imagine actually having more ogc moves or even chained moves like GNB has, you could make a 3-4 step base combo flavoured with just as much moves inbetween and even branch it out to use different skills, like, adding a buff at the end, a stack to your jobgauge...

Rly lazy ppl could just spam the combo and maybe some ogc, but skilled ppl could weave like crazy.

Except they wouldn't add nearly enough to compensate. Dragoon only had two new buttons added yet with a combo chain consolidation, it'd lose six. There is no way they'll add six new skills; not to mention you press oGCD significantly less in most cases. Dragoon, in particularly, would devolve into 22221111 the vast majority of the time. Monk would need an entire rework since you constantly rotate combo chains. Ninja be arguably the worst; spamming 11111111 while hitting 2 once every 30-40 seconds to refresh Huton.

While no, pressing 1-2-3 isn't magically harder or more skillful, it does give a feel you're doing more. Spamming a single button repeatedly feels very boring to a lot of people, myself included. Personally, I would prefer if instead of new buttons come 6.0, they expanded the combo chain. So say, Disembowel could combo into Full Thrust which does something different.

[Brightamethyst]

Ninja be arguably the worst; spamming 11111111 while hitting 2 once every 30-40 seconds to refresh Huton.

Welcome to healing.

[Arohk]

Except they wouldn't add nearly enough to compensate. Dragoon only had two new buttons added yet with a combo chain consolidation, it'd lose six. There is no way they'll add six new skills; not to mention you press oGCD significantly less in most cases. Dragoon, in particularly, would devolve into 22221111 the vast majority of the time. Monk would need an entire rework since you constantly rotate combo chains. Ninja be arguably the worst; spamming 11111111 while hitting 2 once every 30-40 seconds to refresh Huton.

While no, pressing 1-2-3 isn't magically harder or more skillful, it does give a feel you're doing more. Spamming a single button repeatedly feels very boring to a lot of people, myself included. Personally, I would prefer if instead of new buttons come 6.0, they expanded the combo chain. So say, Disembowel could combo into Full Thrust which does something different.

I'd say, reduce global CD to 1.5 seconds, and reduce the cooldown of all skills as well. but thats another topic.