Quote Originally Posted by Satarn View Post
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.