Why doesn't pve have pvp combo structure?

[Ultimatecalibur]

You might not consciously realize that, but for your brain moving the finger slightly before pressing another button is a bit more stimulating than just pressing the same button over and over and it helps with engagement. We can already see this issue on a smaller scale in how plenty of people dislike the "press this button 5 times in 10 seconds" buffs on many jobs

Part of the problem is that most of the jobs that are complained about for their "press this button 5 times in 10 seconds" burst buffs those burst use the same button that is already being hit quite regularly. There is a fair amount of difference in engagement between spamming Bloodletter/Fellcleave 5 times and casting Holy Spirit 5 times when you are already hitting Bloodletter/Fellcleave every 7th or so gcd.

and on a bigger scale with how many more people hate the new healer "rotations".

The healer dps spell spam is more the result of problems elsewhere. A button that was intended to be hit only on occasion is being spammed constantly due to disconnects between healer design and fight design.

[Satarn]

Part of the problem is that most of the jobs that are complained about for their "press this button 5 times in 10 seconds" burst buffs those burst use the same button that is already being hit quite regularly. There is a fair amount of difference in engagement between spamming Bloodletter/Fellcleave 5 times and casting Holy Spirit 5 times when you are already hitting Bloodletter/Fellcleave every 7th or so gcd.

Erm, and that is an argument against my point... how? The combos are the bread and butter of all melee rotations so they're an even bigger part of the gcd contribution than the gauge spenders like BS or FC. Some jobs don't even have gcd spenders or other "solo gcds" to break up the combo monotony at all.

With the example of DRK, right now Bloodspiller button is pressed about 6 times per minute while each of the combo buttons is pressed a little over 6 times per minute. That means a consolidated "Souleater Combo" button would be pressed over three times as much as Bloodspiller is right now and with way shorter breaks in between. If somebody's already sick of mashing BS, they'd be far more sick of mashing this new "combo button".
Even in case of jobs with branching combos, most would still end up spamming quite a lot, just with one or two other gcd buttons to press(also 2-3 times in a row) every now and then for the buff/dot upkeep - which is not much unlike how WHM will occasionally press Dia or one of their afflatus GCDs or how SCH will use Biolysis and Ruin II.

The healer dps spell spam is more the result of problems elsewhere. A button that was intended to be hit only on occasion is being spammed constantly due to disconnects between healer design and fight design.

The intention doesn't matter in the slightest - all that's relevant is the actual result and its conclusion, which is that many people don't enjoy spending majority of the fight spamming one gcd button over and over.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Erm, and that is an argument against my point... how?

It was actually an attempt to support your point and focus where the problem actually lies. Suddenly spamming the same button you are already pushing regularly is not very engaging unless there is something that makes it feel different.

With the example of DRK, right now Bloodspiller button is pressed about 6 times per minute while each of the combo buttons is pressed a little over 6 times per minute. That means a consolidated "Souleater Combo" button would be pressed over three times as much as Bloodspiller is right now and with way shorter breaks in between. If somebody's already sick of mashing BS, they'd be far more sick of mashing this new "combo button".

One of the biggest problems with DRK is that it only has 4 single target weaponskills. The 3 of the weaponskills are a single combo while the remaining weaponskill is both a gaugespender and spam button. If the only effect of combo compression was going from 1-2-3-1-2-3-4 to 1-1-1-1-1-1-2 that would be bad design.

Good design would do something like adding Scourge back in as a 15 second non-interrupting DoT and an alternative combo ender that applies or extends a Haste buff (i.e. a combined Skill Speed+Spell Speed buff) in addition to combo compression. 1-1-1-2-1-1-3-4-1-1-3-2-1-1-1-4 is much more engaging than 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4 even though it uses the exact same number of buttons.

Even in case of jobs with branching combos, most would still end up spamming quite a lot, just with one or two other gcd buttons to press(also 2-3 times in a row) every now and then for the buff/dot upkeep - which is not much unlike how WHM will occasionally press Dia or one of their afflatus GCDs or how SCH will use Biolysis and Ruin II.

Many games use single button progressive combos (often with branches) and they do not come off as boring mostly due to steps of the single button combo having visual differences. A fair amount of the complaints about Glare spam would likely quite down if it rotated through the visuals of Stone 3, Stone 4 and Glare.

The intention doesn't matter in the slightest - all that's relevant is the actual result and its conclusion, which is that many people don't enjoy spending majority of the fight spamming one gcd button over and over.

Actually it is fairly important, you don't actually fix a flawed design by focusing solely on the resulting effects. You compare the intended effects and the resulting effects and look for the causes of the effects you do not desire.

[Deceptus]

A lot of people here seem to hope that with less hotbar space spent on combos, devs could add more complexity in new skills, but to that I have to ask - have you paid any attention at all for the last four years? The current game direction is definitely not suggesting anything close to that, in fact SE is rather hell-bent on removing any sort of difficulty from the jobs and streamlining anything remotely demanding. It's already started to a degree with transition from HW to SB, but for SHB it's practically the theme of the entire expansion and it's doubtful that it'll change anytime soon - especially with all the blind praise and new players the expac has brought just because the story was great.
Many of us just don't believe at all that devs would use the consolidation for anything interesting and for a good reason, so we want to at least keep any tiny bits we have left.

I have. I've been playing since 2.0 and I am relatively intelligent enough to get the reason that the devs do certain things whether I agree with them or not.

1) Dots. Every job used to have some sort of DoT. SE removed the majority of them because mobs / bosses were hitting the debuff slot limit.

2) Like it or not, button bloat is absolutely a thing. And it's even more of a consideration in FFXIV when you have to have the limited buttons to map to a controller. There are only so many LB RB combinations, and not all of those actions can be used for attacks.

Why do you think that SE routinely takes abilities away, combines them and gives them back to the player at a later level.

The easiest example of this is the healer ability Divine Seal from White Mages. Pre-Stormblood this was a WHM only spell, then given to all healers as Largesse as a role action, then taken away again and given back to WHM's as Temperance.

Temperance is nothing more than Divine Seal combined with Protect (10% damage reduction).

WoW has done the same thing reducing buttons. Again, like it or not, there can only be so much "complexity" until a job feels bloated. The old DRG opener was a meme for a reason.

[Reksanden]

I think it's fine - if it's an optional thing. I could see it being implemented more as an extension of macros rather than a game-wide change, actually.

One could argue that it dumbs down the game for them - and be correct. Another will argue that it simplifies things in a way that makes it easier for them/others who might have difficulties - and be correct. It just feels like the most positive thing to do would be to add it as a feature for folks who want to/need to use it... And communicate how it's meant to be used properly, while not pushing it as mandatory for everybody.

Easier said than done, of course, but it can be done.

[Payadopa]

The developers said that the PvP combo system was implemented in that content to allow players to focus on the strategies of PvP environments rather than on a rotation.

Which is funny since in almost all content brute force > strategy. Kind of a moot point, if you ask me. :/

[Payadopa]

While pressing 123 vs 111 might not make some huge difference in "complexity"(although it certainly does some), the main thing is how it affects "engagement" - which is what actually matters 100% of the time when it comes to game design. When people ask for things to be more complex, it's not really about some stupid bragging rights and ego of "playing a harder thing" - it's about the difficulty providing a challenge and thus more engagement. Sometimes things can in fact be more engaging without being considerably harder, just like some difficulty might occasionally not be engaging but only annoying.

To be fair, I see where you're coming from.
I remember hating playing with a keyboard since pressing 1 2 3 isn't gaming for me (or using a keyboard at all). It feels like data entry.

I gave the console version a try and it [felt] like night and day so I gave it another shot and ended up tolerating the combat way more. So, I guess I agree? lol

I just don't want to see more skills being removed. Unkess it's one of these absolutely boring abilities you press like once every 30 seconds and that do damage and that's it. No positionals, no HP requirement (like for PLD) etc. These can get replaced.

[AnAverageAspie]

Can they at least do it with the Continuation gunbreaker combo? I know it's to weave a 1 second cooldown with the gcd skills but why not make the gnashing fang combo pieces 1 second cool downs? And stack the continuation actions/10 second buff on top of the actions so you press each button twice? So it removes one skill. It's hard enough weaving other skills like Bow Stock, Sonic Break in it without accidentally skipping continuation.

I used to place my gap closer on CH(cross hotbar) 1 LX(left side X) but with Gunbreakers Continuation combo being so important I had to move gap closers on all tanks in CH 2 LX

[Dogempire]

I honestly don't think it would be so bad if they consolidated combo actions, but made it optional and also made it so that we have the same number of skills at 80 now as we do in 6.0, while also adding some new ones.

I'm not going to hold my breath though since every expansion we seem to magically lose a lot of skills only to gain some back but have some lost forever.

[HotPixels]

You are about the 1000th person to ask this. And every time it gets answered with the same thing.... STOP TRYING TO MAKE FFXIV SO DUMBED DOWN ITS A ONE BUTTON GAME! It’s bad enough SE guts jobs every expansion, it’s bad enough jobs like mch which was once the most complex and a lot of fun Is now considered the easiest. It’s time to make the game a bit more complex not less.

I'm not sure what makes you think pressing 123 is more complex than pressing 1, 3 times lol.