Combining some buttons into one

[MariaArvana]

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The thing is, immersion shouldn't get in the way of good game design, ever, or you're just asking for clunky systems. (1.0 with its 'rested exp' system trying to be immersive as an example...lol)

Also they kinda busted immersion for AST considering the cards no longer do the effects that they do in the lore (all cards give damage, where in the lore the Bole enhances defenses, etc), so they've shown they can violate it if it leads to more balanced gameplay. WAR also no longer uses its inner beast to protect others and enhance its defenses like in the lore, its just a straight damage move now.

I brought up the enkindles and deathflare because its just a simple exclusivity thing. You can't ever use enkindle bahamut without having first used and gone through Dreadwrym Trance. Thus Deathflare is just button bloat for the sake of it. I'd go one step further and say Dreadwrym Trance, Deathflare, Summon bahamut, enkindle bahamut, Firebird Trance & Enkindle Phoenix could all literally be the same button since you need to use the one ahead of it in order to reach the next. 6 skills that could literally all occupy the same space, and yet occupy 4x as many buttons than they need to.

If you want to go off immersion however, it makes sense on that front too. You start in Dreadwrym Trance, unleashing your aethertrail to use Deathflare, which then enhances your trance to allow you to summon bahamut, which in turn allows you to summon Phoenix. A natural progression of power. Since you also brought up fountain of fire & brand of purgatory, those two could also occupy the same button. brand of purgatory is stronger than Fountain of fire so there's no reason you're using Fountain of fire x2 in a row, so you could just make ruin 3 turn into fountain of fire, then have Brand of prugatory replace fountain of fire under hellish conduit instead of having to know where your outburst button is just to continue it. (Also since you can't even use Brand of Purgatory without using Fountain of fire first, its just clunky to put them on different moves.)

I won't comment on the last bit since that's just opinion based, but my opinion is that its just clunky. When I'm doing my rotation, I don't feel any special attachment or emotion to using some super skill, I see it as just part of the rotation and move on. the benefit here being that Confitteor on top of Req means I can move another ability to my first hotbar for a more relaxed and engaging flow of my rotation vs having to manage more hotbars than necessary due to uneeded button bloat.

[SamRF]

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You're defining immersion completely different here though and I might have used the word "immersion" wrong, and maybe I didn't do a good enough job of explaining what I meant in previous post.

Again, you are suggesting to transform buttons into an ability that is functionally different than the one before it. In that way it doesn't make sense for the "summon" button to be the same as "enkindle" button. Backstory and lore has nothing to do with this, simply the logic and structure of the abilities (I realize "immersion" isn't a good word for it). AST cards have absolutely nothing to do with ability design, it's lore, and that has nothing to do with my argument, I didn't mean that kind of immersion, more the type of immersion that makes your abilities feel more real, structured and logical (don't focus on semantics, but try to understand what I mean, maybe reread my previous post with this in consideration).

It will definitely come down to opinion and we'll likely have to agree to disagree in the end, but I just don't want there to be misunderstanding of what I mean.

[Jonnycbad]

Combining buttons means they can GIVE US NEW buttons. The only reason they have been removing buttons for others is because they said they want 24-26 job actions per job so people dont have crazy hotbars, for controller players. But if we merge some buttons like Ley Lines+Between the Lines, that opens a new space. Just how Nastrond isn't a new button but takes over Geirskogul, they could do the same thing for other skills

[FrejyaAthenes]

I like the Leylines/Between the Lines idea, but for SMN I'd prefer if they just combine Dreadwyrm Trance and Demi-Bahamut, like how Firebird Trance summons Demi-Phoenix.

[Morningstar1337]

With regards to summoner, I do think some simplicityis required and therefore that condensing all 6 buttons into one would have the effect of confusing everyone. I'd rather the Trances be one button, the Demi summons be a single button, the Enkidle attacks be one button (or hell be folded intot he original Enkindle ability) and the other demo buttons be 1 each, and that condensing everything into a single button would be like condensing the combos into a button but more convoluted.

[SomeRandomHuman]

Yes, that's what I tried to say! I'm just bad at explaining, and English isn't my first language. But with actions that belong together like that and can only be used after using another one, merging them will make space for more different actions without increasing button bloat.

It would also make it faster to glance over your hotbars with less useless actions. The game wouldn't be simpler, but more comfortable to play.

(I have to say I like that the Gnashing Fang combo is a normal combo though, it doesn't really need to become condensed into one button, as it functions as a full combo, not just some oGCD which enables another oGCD.)

So you want oGCDs to be combined but not the GCD stuff? Arguing for 1 side of the coin but not the other is odd. Why would you ever use a combo action out of combo order? Its actually MORE of needless bloat that leylines and in between is.

[SomeRandomHuman]

Oh dear god please no. I want more ways to end a combo, not less. This would be like merging every step of GF combo into 1 button, Continuation and all; you take away any sort of fun from the job.

Except that Continuation is an oGCD and is already merged. I'm merely saying take the GF combo and pile it together like continuation. You can't use the other 2 parts of the combo otherwise. so instead of 1-4-2-4-3-4 it would be 1-4-1-4-1-4.

And more buttons =/= more fun. As mentioned in previous posts, if they can condense things reliant on other skills they don't have to prune things to make room for new ones. Like imagen they removed continuation to make room for another skill. And you can't say they won't, because they've removed things like it in the past.

They also removed several handy skills over the years. Most jobs lost at least 1 DoT skill over the course of the game. They also removed some simple oGCD damage abilities to make room for newer skills as well as some smaller scale buffs. Monk used to have a skill called internal release that increased their crit chance and pretty much every phyisical job except tanks could use it yet they removed it in HW and basically gave drg the same buff in a party form.

If you're against freeing up space so adamantly then you're essentially supporting needless skill pruning. But hey, you do you.

[Shougun]

Maybe they can let people assign singular buttons to their bar manually but the game automates assigning the smart buttons (simple upfront but personal preference made available).

Like for dancer you can assign the dance moves if you wanted, rather than the smart buttons SE provides. Smart buttons being different than macros in that they're SE made and should carry the full features of being a button (like pre-loading).

I'd be more worried about collapsing if it collapses most of the job's activity, like bringing BLM ley lines into one button doesn't really make the job any less engaging but changing a job that is 80% combos into one or two buttons.. . . lol.

Of course if they bring down the button count they can consider other spells too, like if they brought down the combos into single buttons but then made those two button slots saved (assuming a 1 2 3 combo) into two more combos that interlink, you might have started something interesting (yet a bit complicated). 1 1 1, 2 2 2 (of course) but also 1 2 1, 2 1 2, etc. Have to be careful with factorial like math though... could easily make it super complicated lol. But it does allow a lot more spells.

Not looking for them to collapse every single thing possible 'just because' but certainly if they can make it feel smother and less finger spider without making it feel like 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 I would personally be okay with that.

[Yue_Amariyo]

to be frank i wish they make cure 1 into cure 2, and remove the freecure trait. I heard horror stories from my fc mates about people in level 50-80 content cure 1 spamming to proc free cure.

Im also of the opinion that more is not better, nor less= dumb-down. playing your job/role shouldn't be the difficulty or challenge, the content you play in should be where the challenge is. The dark souls games were/are considered pretty hardcore. Incidentally, the combat system is ultra basic, the boss fights, and game zones are where the challenge lies.

[Canadane]

TIL QoL changes makes jobs dumb :P

What was suggested was a downgrade of the current rotations.
It wasn't so much the one button aspect of it, but the idea of just alternating combos forward and back each time. That's not how they play at the moment, and tanks have only been getting lower and lower skill floors; cementing them into the basement is probably going to happen but I can imagine most tank mains will be kicking and screaming along the way.