Shrinking the gap by raising the floor | brainstorming skill incentives

[Ayuhra]

The idea of pruning buttons would be more akin to lowering the ceiling than raising the floor.

I'll grant I don't play every job flawlessly but when I try to think of buttons that could just go away entirely I can only come up with Cure and Benefic really... like what other abilities are entirely redundant and pointless?

There is talk of the consolidation of combos into single buttons and I'm not necessarily opposed to that but that's really the only other way I can see to reduce buttons without also pruning skills that have uses.

The idea would be harder encounters which would now be accessible through fewer buttons.

And as far as consolidated buttons a few I can think of off the top of my head are things like:

-abilities that become useless at high levels but are kept on bars for synced content
-Blizzard IV/Fire IV
-Summon X/Enkindle X (in order to enkindle, the thing needs to have been summoned)
-certain combos

[Veis_Alveare]

-abilities that become useless at high levels but are kept on bars for synced content
-Blizzard IV/Fire IV
-Summon X/Enkindle X (in order to enkindle, the thing needs to have been summoned)
-certain combos

Okay but like what are those abilities that are only on your bar for synced content? I'll grant you could consolidate some things like you pointed out when you got specific but like... what does that first statement in the list refer to?

I guess I'm just saying I dont think this would really be much of a meaningful change, it doesn't seem like theres much potential for consolidation outside of some combo buttons.

"well, if you have jerks who are already thinking about throwing spitballs, we don't need to also hand them paper to make the spitballs with".

Well the paper is already out there. Plenty of people are able to parse right now and never speak up about the straight up dumpster fires that are out there in DF.

I just seems like a good trade to me. If it makes the occasional mean person show their true colors and catch a ban for it... alright, that's not really someone I'd want around anyways.

The good that it would do would far outweigh the bad, and I feel like I've got to reiterate just because it often isn't said enough - harassment rules exist now. If someone says to that BLM that they're doing awful dps now and tells them to learn to suck less they're getting a GM visit for their attitude no matter how they came upon their info about the BLM.

[Packetdancer]

The good that it would do would far outweigh the bad, and I feel like I've got to reiterate just because it often isn't said enough - harassment rules exist now. If someone says to that BLM that they're doing awful dps now and tells them to learn to suck less they're getting a GM visit for their attitude no matter how they came upon their info about the BLM.

I'm generally inclined to agree with you, as I said. I just can also see why people would hold the opposite opinion, even if I don't actually think it would be the level of a problem those opposed to an in-game DPS meter fear it would be. But I can see why they're also hard to convince; we see people—even here in the official forum—occasionally wield log output from The Tool Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken, as uploaded to the Site We Dare Not Acknowledge, to try to invalidate someone else's argument in a thread.

And unfortunately, without actually implementing a meter and seeing the results, both sides of that debate are just opinions and theory, so it's not super likely either side is going to be able to definitively prove whether or not it would be an issue.

(But I also think it's possible to find a middle ground and create a tool that can help people improve their own performance without being also wielded like a blunt object by the bullies that any game community has. Thus, one would hope, addressing both sides of the argument.)

[Darsien]

This why I am glad that less 1% of my runs in this game show up on said site. I look to improve but I am also not aiming to min/max. Since I dont touch savage I feel its my business alone how well I do. But playing to a level that your not a flat carry, I can say is not hard.

"Not doing anything for 40% of an instance," compared to having 90-95% uptime, is not min/maxing. It's playing the game. Surprise, surprise. Another healer main with this awful mentality. The only job that can literally go afk for 10+ seconds at a time and have ignorant people defend them.

[DPZ2]

"Not doing anything for 40% of an instance," compared to having 90-95% uptime, is not min/maxing. It's playing the game. Surprise, surprise. Another healer main with this awful mentality. The only job that can literally go afk for 10+ seconds at a time and have ignorant people defend them.

And this is a prime example of why you can't have nice things.

[kaynide]

I’m not against making jobs more interesting to play, but adding complexity for complexity’s sake is just foolishness.

Eg Guildwars has a lot of skills, but you only have 10 at a time (depending on job), with a lot of 1 button rotations. And it’s hella fun.

FF’s most basic rotation for..let’s say Samurai..is 1-2-3, ctrl1-2-3, alt 1-2 (I have the same ability on my bar 2-3 times).
This could easily just be 1-1-1, 2-2-2, 3-3 (much like pvp rotations)

GW would be more 1-1-1, 2 to make a fire area around you, 3 to jump through it, getting fire buff, 4 to spin AoE fire sword damage since your on fire. And if a friend nearby makes an ice area, or lightning, or whatever..you can house 3/4 on that to do the same thing but those effects.

..then again Ff doesn’t even really have status effects so......

[Veis_Alveare]

And this is a prime example of why you can't have nice things.

And this is a prime example of people acting as if something isn't true just because they don't like the delivery.

It's true that healers get way too many passes from people who think it's okay for them to literally just stand still between their (let's be real, probably unnecessary) heals.

Someone "not touching savage" doesn't mean their poor play doesn't still negatively impact other players. When it comes to healers specifically the ones with atrocious uptime are virtually always the same ones who don't understand their kits, can't perform mechanics properly and can't even heal through big damage usually because of those first two issues.

If their rewards for the completion of instances were on the line perhaps people wouldn't play as if what they were doing didn't matter since they would have some skin in the game.

[Darsien]

And this is a prime example of why you can't have nice things.

Because I feel that someone should be playing the game in the instance they specifically queued for? That we shouldn't carry players who make no effort to try?

Nah. You're the prime example why we can't have nice things. Nice things are too complex. They require too much of a lazy playerbase. Then the problem is defended by the problem's makers. Pathetic.

[Brightamethyst]

And yes, just being a jerk and harassing someone is grounds enough to get in trouble, which you'd think would be enough. But I suspect the developers are thinking "well, if you have jerks who are already thinking about throwing spitballs, we don't need to also hand them paper to make the spitballs with".

And to be fair, I can also see some percentage of existing jackasses thinking, "Well, the game tells me how much damage the black mage is doing, so calling them out on it is obviously fair game. If they didn't want me pointing out how much others suck, the game wouldn't tell me that they do!" I don't think it would be a massive number that would shift the feel of the community, but I do think it would be a non-zero value.

Pretty much this. While the vast majority of players won't act that way, there is a 100% chance that some people will, and SE understandably doesn't want to open that door.

[NanaWiloh]

The level of assumption that if you dont have 95% up time your being lazy!! Do yourselves maybe learn how the site you praise so highly actually works. A low parse does not equal lazy. Its that mentally why we dont have parses end game. How actually running with someone before firing you mouths off about them??? I know to hard a concept for you.