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.