Hotkey Bloat

[Sealish]

Snip

You make a very good point about the ping and not one that I had thought of before. That alone is a good reason to not have this sort of change.

I figured that even with ping delay, the server would register the button press and associate it to whatever skill the button would be at the time and thus it wouldn’t be an issue, but if that isn’t how it works then yeah, it could be problematic.

Although I personally do not think that the colour coding of the base skills would be an issue, I did say that if the designers thought it was needed, it wouldn’t be hard to just change the colours of the AoE skill buttons. I was taking into consideration that even though the change did not seem important to me it may be important to others and I addressed that issue.

As for Fan Dance, the reason I included it is because it follows the same decision logic as the other procs. If you have Fan Dance 3 up, you never use Fan Dance 1 or 2. 1 is ranged single target with 150 potency, 2 is AoE with 100, and 3 is ranged 200 on a single with an AoE of 100. In all situations, 3 is better than 1 or 2. Adding to that, if you use 1 of 2 when you have a proc of 3 you may waste the proc of 3 all together if you re-proc it which would lead to lost potential potency. It is because there isn’t a situation where using 1 or 2 is better than 3 if you have 3 that I suggested it being another roll in skill.

This is kinda moot now though if the ping issue exists.

[TheMightyMollusk]

If anything, Dancer needs more buttons to push. You spend half of a fight hoping for procs so you're not just hitting a 1-2 combo the entire time.

[smol_cofe]

It doesn't feel bloated imo, the amount of buttons fits perfectly with feeling just active enough but not overwhelming so, and leaves you slightly hoping/wanting for more buttons to light up when you're not getting as many procs.

[Seraphor]

Procs do not interrupt combos, so you could, for example, do something like this:

Cascade (no proc) > Fountain (proc Fountainfall) > Cascade (proc Reverse Cascade) > Reverse Cascade > Fountainfall > Fountain (proc Fountainfall)

which in terms of buttons looks something like this:



Here's what that same sequence would look like with button consolidation (excuse the numbers):


Knowing the devs, I'd wager they think this looks confusing and consequently consciously chose not to consolidate these buttons. I'm especially inclined to believe this once you take into account Flourish, which instantly procs all flourishes. In the unconsolidated version, it's much easier to tell whether or not you have any procs that will be wasted because there's a clear difference between dimmed buttons and active dashed outlined butons. In the consolidated version, you have to exert more cognitive effort because there are never dimmed buttons. Is the second dashed outlined button a proc or just the base second step in the combo? It would take longer to learn how to screen for Flourish with that system.

And how would they transform into the four dance steps?

Dancer is already one of the jobs with the fewest buttons, and already consolidates four of it's skills into other buttons.

[Rongway]

[illustrated post explaining why Rongway thinks this is a bad idea]

And how would they transform into the four dance steps?

Dancer is already one of the jobs with the fewest buttons, and already consolidates four of it's skills into other buttons.

As my post was arguing that "this is not a change that would be made", I'll decline to answer that question.

Is there any actual downside to this that I am not seeing or have not already addressed?

Yes. Besides the points I've already argued, unnecessary changes affect everyone by reducing dev resources available for other things. Time spent modifying DNC to eliminate these five buttons could be spent doing something that's actually needed instead, like consolidating truly mutually exclusive actions. There are a few lists floating around in General history, as we've had this discussion several times. Among them are SMN's trance/demi buttons, BLM's Between the Lines and Enochian-dependent spells, a few buttons in PLD, and GNB's cartridge combo. Those jobs suffer from actual button bloat, and it would be a waste of time to reduce DNC's already small button count instead.

[Aluja89]

You should play Warrior, you'll be begging for buttons to press.

[Dogempire]

If anything, Dancer needs more buttons to push. You spend half of a fight hoping for procs so you're not just hitting a 1-2 combo the entire time.

Pretty much why I don't like playing rng heavy classes like Bard or Dancer outside of a more casual setting.

It's super annoying for your dps to dip or to get a proc drought simply because bad luck

[Tint]

And how would they transform into the four dance steps?

They could just consolidate the dance steps into 1 button I guess..?

[Rosenstrauch]

And how would they transform into the four dance steps?

Well, Dancer would still have four buttons for weaponskills at the level they gain access to Standard Step and Technical Step: Two single target, and two aoe. It wouldn't be ridiculous to have the aoe buttons turn into Dance steps in place of the missing single target proc buttons.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Sounds like the opposite of QoL to me, DNC is already streamlined, and doesn’t suffer from button bloat, I don’t mind some button consolidation, I can think of a couple examples(other jobs) I’d like to see, but I’d prefer we don’t go the pvp route with the combo actions.