Thoughts on Level Squishes

[Ammokkx]

People just don't want to, but I mean, plenty of people don't want to press more than five buttons so...

I genuinely don't understand why people like you want more buttons than there already are.

No, don't get me wrong, I don't think there are too many buttons to press. I think there are enough and that the mentality of "let's not add more" is entirely justified.

I'm not sure if you know this, but keeping track of around 24 individual combat skills + about 8 utility things you use less often isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world for the average person. I find myself often fucking up a rotation not because I don't know what my buttons are, but because muscle memory only carries me so far before I accidentally tap something next to the thing I actually meant to press and mess up my whole rotation. I don't think small missteps like this are a bad thing inherently, but the more buttons you're going to add, the worse this problem is going to get.

Not only that, but forgive my candor if I'll say I find a lot of the things in XIV a bit redundant. The 1-2-3 combo exists almost entirely so you wouldn't be mindlessly spamming one button, which is good, but there's no real reason for it to be there other than player engagement. PvP shows just how many buttons you can cut down on while still having a functional kit, because once you're up against real players with a bit of lag, suddenly it doesn't seem like a good idea to not be able to quickly access your combat skills. Something like Samurai makes the most creative use of having a lot of buttons because it has branching combos that adapt based on the order you decide to do things in. It's overall a very dynamic class and one of the few in the game I see truly justifying the space it takes up on the hotbar- and even SAM has garbage skills that don't deserve a spot.

Adding more redundant skills for the sake of just having more stuff to press isn't exactly the sign of good design to me. I find XIV at its best when I have to haul ass and pay attention to what's happening around me, adjusting my play as I go. Actually getting to pull off any of my rotations is satisfying not because I can press buttons gooder, but because I managed to position myself in a way relative to the boss where I got the time to lay down the big deeps. In order for it to not be mindnumbing I do think a good 20 or so buttons you're switching between 24/7 is a fine number so you always have something different to press, but that's because I don't see a good reason to have any more for the sake of just having more. Keep in mind movement and targeting are also button presses you constantly have to keep up. The dexterity required to play an MMO isn't so much high in terms of reaction time, but simply being able to memorize so much shit.

Having a million buttons to cycle through at blazing speeds while also having a lot of game knowledge is exactly the reason not a lot of people are good at RTS games. Shit's hard, and I think XIV does "hard" well enough by just making fights more punishing (savage) rather than upping the bar for entry required to enjoy baseline content. This game isn't even as easy as many people would like to complain, seeing as how I still routinely wipe in Labrynth. While I don't agree with using a controller for an MMO, I find it fantastic this game managed to make it work and be that much more playable for a larger crowd. I think that's a good philosophy, and that the skills tested by XIV are in a good spot as they are for many kinds of players.

[Vyrerus]

I genuinely don't understand people like you

It's not really a matter of wanting more, it's a matter of not wanting a reduction. Every time they do a reduction in this game, it's mildly upsetting. They don't even let us have a say on what they prune. They just remove whatever and change whatever, and then let us adapt to the new skill situation. It pretty much always simplifies the classes it affects.

All melees have branching combos. Nothin' special about Samurai, other than having to slide cast on a melee, occasionally.

You wipe in things like Labyrinth because people are lazy and/or tunnel, because what they are doing is simple. This game has plenty of difficulty, but this is a poor example. It's also a case for why too much simplicity and paring down is a bad thing. People never maintain a constant effort level as things get simpler. They usually see it as allowance to be even lazier lol