What would you guys think about getting more Dynamic, "Combo" abilities?

[ForteNightshade]

Honestly, I would *ADORE* an addition like that. Especially on my DRK; between his core rotation, and his AoE 2-button combo, that's 5 freaking buttons I have to have bound. Imagine condensing that to only 2!!!

Believe me, I have. I would absolutely hate it. Reducing the buttons sequences down to two would make the jobs feel boring. It essentially means I'll spam 11112222 on say, Dragoon endlessly. If this were an active game with more advanced combos, you could justify a system like that since many characters/classes will have 10+ combos. But with FFXIV, it'd just feel stale. Now if they're going to add a plethora of new abilities to compensate, I could maybe be convinced; like Dragoon getting a third full combo. I sincerely doubt they would as that defeats the entire button bloat "problem."

Which, speaking of, really isn't that big a deal. Controllers have more than enough hotbar real estate if you don't litter them with pointless clutter like emotes, mounts and minions.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Believe me, I have. I would absolutely hate it. Reducing the buttons sequences down to two would make the jobs feel boring. It essentially means I'll spam 11112222 on say, Dragoon endlessly. If this were an active game with more advanced combos, you could justify a system like that since many characters/classes will have 10+ combos. But with FFXIV, it'd just feel stale. Now if they're going to add a plethora of new abilities to compensate, I could maybe be convinced; like Dragoon getting a third full combo. I sincerely doubt they would as that defeats the entire button bloat "problem."

Dragoon would likely work best with 4 buttons for its primary melee combos: 1 for the Full Thrust Combo, 1 for the Chaos Thrust Combo, 1 for Fang and Claw, and 1 for Wheeling Thrust. The rotation would go from 1457612367 to 1224311134.

[Terin]

Believe me, I have. I would absolutely hate it. Reducing the buttons sequences down to two would make the jobs feel boring. It essentially means I'll spam 11112222 on say, Dragoon endlessly. If this were an active game with more advanced combos, you could justify a system like that since many characters/classes will have 10+ combos. But with FFXIV, it'd just feel stale. Now if they're going to add a plethora of new abilities to compensate, I could maybe be convinced; like Dragoon getting a third full combo. I sincerely doubt they would as that defeats the entire button bloat "problem."

Which, speaking of, really isn't that big a deal. Controllers have more than enough hotbar real estate if you don't litter them with pointless clutter like emotes, mounts and minions.

I think that's a good point. I haven't played a Lancer to high level before, so I can't really speak to it that much. I know for DRK, though, I basically have two "main rotations" that I would love to condense down. The difference is, I suspect, is that my gameplay wouldn't feel "stale" because I also have all these more situational abilities to manage.

I kind of feel like these combos would work for any basic bread-and-butter combos. I used to play a Monk, and theirs had a little more nuance, where like every third rotation, you would actually change it slightly (in order to keep a certain DoT up). That, coupled with repositioning your character for each attack, made the gameplay a little bit overwhelming with a controller, but with something like this, I think would strike that perfect balance between "simplicity" and "engaging".

Of course, to each their own! I just feel like maybe this wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe it could even lead to more interesting combos being added.

So the DRK, for example, instead of having a "Single-target combo" and "AoE combo", I might actually have like *three* combos to choose from: one that's a "threat/enmity combo", a second that's a "self-healing combo", and a third "MP-regen combo". Maybe every subsequent hit in a combo increases the effects of the other two combos, so you get more choice? So instead of "just do this combo on repeat", I would be asking myself "do I want to JUST focus on self-healing? or do I need to bump up my threat? oh, I'm low on MP, should I use that as my finisher?".

[Penthea]

Believe me, I have. I would absolutely hate it. Reducing the buttons sequences down to two would make the jobs feel boring. It essentially means I'll spam 11112222 on say, Dragoon endlessly.

This is what dpsing on a healer feels like and a huge amount of people hate it because it's so bloody boring. If OP looked beyond the offensive class's experience with rotations they would realise that making the experience closer to how healers dps would not be well received.

[Goji1639]

This is what dpsing on a healer feels like and a huge amount of people hate it because it's so bloody boring. If OP looked beyond the offensive class's experience with rotations they would realise that making the experience closer to how healers dps would not be well received.

If having 123 instead of 111 for your basic combo is the only thing making a DRGs rotation not feel like a Healer, then DRG already basically has a Healers rotation. The problem is something more fundamental with the class that should be addressed.

Plenty of the classes I play would feel better without the pointless button bloat; I'd personally love to free up a few buttons for some QoL things.

[Penthea]

If having 123 instead of 111 for your basic combo is the only thing making a DRGs rotation not feel like a Healer, then DRG already basically has a Healers rotation. The problem is something more fundamental with the class that should be addressed.

I did not say that having a 123 combo is the only thing that makes drg not feel like a healer so I really don't know why you're correcting me on a viewpoint that I did not express.

Anyway to have such a point of view would mean ignoring that playing a healer in a situation where a lot of healing is needed is nothing like playing a dps in the same environment.

I merely wanted to point out that there is such thing as oversimplification. I used the healer dps kit as an example because its state was something that needed to be addressed but SE went too far in one direction and a huge amount of healers now find their offensive kit excessively boring to use. Button bloat is indeed an issue for some classes and definitely more so for controller users, but the way to fix this is not to take away the brain power needed to execute your combo, but instead change or tweak mechanics so that they are interesting without needing to rely on a large amount of unique abilities that each need their own slot on the hotbars. This can be done with abilities changing what they do or even what they are when certain conditions are met such as a proc or something related to a class gauge, which is something we already have in the game. Perhaps more use of it would be good for certain classes.

[Frosthaven]

I've sampled a tool that accomplishes this to figure out how I actually feel on the matter, because I'm someone who constantly hopes for more engaging combat.

For me, personally, there is no difference in difficulty or execution between 1-2-3 and 1-1-1 on set in stone combos.

Ideally, I'd like to move into more thought provoking combos and job play and away from brainless 123. Short of that, I'm ok with combining these actions together to make action bar organization better.

[Jirah]

Im sure SE are happy to make all jobs just pressing a single button...jesus the game is already a cake walk lets not make it force to wear the handicap sign

[LittleImp]

Pressing a bunch of unique buttons in a particular sequence and the muscle memory around being able to do it skillfully is a large part of what makes the gameplay appealing for me and many others. It's the same kind of satisfaction you get out of mastering a rhythm game or fighting game combos.

I do think accessibility is important, but there are ways to implement it without significantly altering what has been the core gameplay experience. Trusts, solo-duty difficulty settings, the lack of enrages in normal mode, and the availability of jobs that require less hotbar space for execution are all decent ways of tackling the problem.

[MariaArvana]

I've always been in favor of button condensing for one main reason: It opens up more button slots so the devs are less trigger happy with removing actually fun abilities each expansion to keep a job's button count within a certain range.

1-2-3 is just as mindless as 1-1-1. Anyone who's even paying the tiniest, sliver of modicrum of attention will never fail that sequence; made even more redundant with abilities like GNB where you can't even hit Gnashing Fang skills out of order by accident, as it literally locks each ability sequentially. It's the absolute smallest amount of depth you could ever possibly have. Compared to much more interesting options like extra OGCDs which are rotation changing and actually make jobs less dumbed down.

Gnashing Fang could literally be one whole button like Continuation and literally nothing is lost, except you gain 2 button slots.

Condense combos to open up room for actual interesting and depth-adding abilities next expansion while keeping everything we currently have. I've played oher MMOs that have roles/jobs/classes/etc with more depth with only like 7-8 buttons total in their kit, half of which are OGCDs.