Using macros for combos

[Shurrikhan]

Thanks a lot! I rarely talk in english and I also don't give presentations very often, so I wanted to "level my speech skill".

It's just a theory, but maybe the combo system in its current state is the result of when the game was completely revamped and they didn't have as many skills.
So in order to make people hit different buttons they decided to make this combo system.

We've only really had two versions in XIV.

The pre-Yoshida version involved freeform combos that, sadly, lacked sufficient synergy at the time to really necessitate hitting different buttons except based on differing geometries (linear piercing AoE, diminishing linear AoE, ramping linear AoE, conal AoE, self-radial AoE, target-radial AoE, donut AoE, skillshot ST, regular ST, etc.), focus target requirements, or enemy resistances (to slashing, piercing, or blunt damage for physical attacks or the various elements, which also included Umbral, Astral, and Blood back then, iirc).

The post-Yoshida version had, essentially, only rigid AoEs and ST combos (essentially, a single action or decision that just gets upgraded upon with each further GCD you can attach to it), and the STs would be rotated in priority order (resource maintenance if needed > damage buff > DoT > direct, etc.).

So, before we had individual decisions per button-press, but they didn't quite have enough momentum or interaction between them, and later we had very few actual decisions compared to our number of buttons required on heavily combo-driven classes/jobs.

A more "honest" implementation of the second (i.e., current) version would just be, for instance, one button each to run the whole of a DRG's buff+DoT (Chaos Thrust+) combo or direct combo (Full Thrust+), but I'd have much preferred we go back to when the skills themselves felt more independent, with enough momentum or interaction between each to influence order, but in a way that's open enough to pick from multiple branching paths, including differing combo lengths. Just my two cents.