Why All the One-Button Mechanics?

[Shurrikhan]

Every single one of those things apply also to Arm's Length and Surecast. Those skills that are already parts of our kit just don't also require an extra button of (arguably) bloat.


But, again, is that a good thing? Is a "your mistake doesn't matter (as long as you use this otherwise useless thing)" good design?

I'd say it avoids ticking some people off, so yes.

Wait, how is that a decent reason, though?

Having to follow a rotation doubtless ticks some people off. Yet we don't give it a nullification button. Nor, if an ability had been given by which to prevent the need to optimize one's sequence of weaponskills or spells for a time, would we protect it absolutely just as to "avoid ticking some people off."

A fight mechanic bugged and was therefore far easier than it should be, even if only part of the time or under rarely-known conditions? Nope, can't fix that; it might tick some people off.

[Garten]

Since they removed the aggro reducer from lucid dreaming i Always found the ability a bit stupid.. i mean.. It Is a Button that doesnt interact with anything.. why they cant Just increase mp regeneration to match the use of LD so i free a space from my hotbar. I mean, its not an ability that require skill or wathever, maybe the only real utility Is After you hot ress but still.. i think mana shift was way more fun an rewarding to use

[DrWho2010]

Wait, how is that a decent reason, though?

Having to follow a rotation doubtless ticks some people off. Yet we don't give it a nullification button. Nor, if an ability had been given by which to prevent the need to optimize one's sequence of weaponskills or spells for a time, would we protect it absolutely just as to "avoid ticking some people off."

A fight mechanic bugged and was therefore far easier than it should be, even if only part of the time or under rarely-known conditions? Nope, can't fix that; it might tick some people off.

Does it have to be a "decent" reason?

[Shurrikhan]

Does it have to be a "decent" reason?

Generally, yes.

• X has opportunity costs (limiting the complexity available to job kits and the timings available to certain mechanics and, indirectly, thereby the cohesion available to said kits and the designs available to boss fights.
• X diminishes the value of previous opportunity costs (the mechanics in the given fight designs and their relevance to job kits themselves).
• X obfuscates issues of quality to the detriment of said quality (greatly reducing incentive to make job kits more cohesive, unique, impactful, or the like and, indirectly, likely costing us a degree of cohesion, impactfulness, or diversity in job kits).

Should X not require at least a decent reason for its presence?

[Jandor]

I mean, its not an ability that require skill or wathever, maybe the only real utility Is After you hot ress but still.. i think mana shift was way more fun an rewarding to use

Mana shift instead of Lucid would be better I think. Casters mostly MP self-sufficient, with shift there if someones pool needs boosting a bit to patch up some mistakes.

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I also agree with the basic proposition that if these buttons need to exist then they also need a bit more depth to them, something to make you think about when to use them.

The tank gap closers are definitely the most interesting of the "ignore mechanic" buttons because how you use them to maximize your DPS is affected by your own knowledge of the encounter. i.e. used during your burst window for direct damage or held until needed for a knockback to maintain uptime.

[Raikai]

It's not even that I think Lucid Dreaming is actually a bad designed ability, but it was much meaningful before when healers actually had to pay attention to their mp pools - back when they had to use more GCDs for healing, and LD usage was very strategic. Nowadays you always have oGCD mp-less tools to heal available. Mp - might - only an issue if they have to chain rezzes back to back.

This kind of ties in with other stuff. I find positionals kind of weird to how the encounters are designed as a telegraph memory game. I really think that a positionals-heavy job like Monk is kind of misplaced, and even, what's the point again? Between True North and that new iteration of FoE, there's not even the need of a Monk to worry about positionals anymore - It's kind in the same place as Greased Lightning.

If positionals would be a must-have, they all should be at the level of a Ninja - relevant just for 1 or 2 actions. A monk could probably have other mechanics to make up for it, maybe something interesting and that resonated more with the fantasy of a combo-fighter.

[Shurrikhan]

It's not even that I think Lucid Dreaming is actually a bad designed ability, but it was much meaningful before when healers actually had to pay attention to their mp pools - back when they had to use more GCDs for healing, and LD usage was very strategic.

While I did find Lucid Dreaming's predecessors more bearable just due to MP feeling less of a pretense back then (despite those skills still watering them down and precluding more meaningful mechanical tie-ins), consider:

If you end up using more MP or all the more constantly over time, that only makes it all the more important to hit your MP-granting CD as quickly as possible (reducing any space for nuance).

Lucid Dreaming or its predecessors would only have that kind of attention to timing if they, say, returned a portion of missing MP (encouraging you to make expensive casts just prior, and to hold if your portion of missing MP will increase by more than the portion of CD for which you hold it), or had other timing-affecting effects bundled with it.

This kind of ties in with other stuff. I find positionals kind of weird to how the encounters are designed as a telegraph memory game.

My very anecdotal and subjective $0.02:

Positionals only really become all that interesting (rather than mere APM bumps with no additional button cost, though such are still enjoyable and, as far as blatant APM bumps go, well designed) in those very contexts of positional telegraphs and some degree of rotational flexibility.

:: If I do A and thus arrive at position X at time Z, I get hit and burden the healers. If I instead do B, altering slightly from my normal sequence, I'll instead arrive at position Y at time Z and be fine. That said, if I do B, then later on...

Such applies a fair deal of enjoyable complexity. It's for this reason that you saw so many Monks, for instance, so annoyed by the loss of Fracture and Touch of Death, as they not only granted positional-less GCDs every 18 | 30 seconds' time, respectively, but allowed for rotational adjustment at many SkS tiers.

[Arcane1]

New player here, just came over from that other MMO and what the OP is talking about is what I think is a major mistake the devs have made. I think its going to cause a lot of the new players like myself to eventually quit. The devs have mistaken complexity for depth of play. As near as I can tell a "simple" rotation in this game is about 10 or more abilities. Thats kinda insane.

[Jandor]

The long rotations are fun, finding the best way to execute them in the various encounters is one of the foundations of the combat system, it's like combining playing an instrument with a game of dodgeball. I personally think it's great and have no desire to change the fundamentals.

A lot of the extra-rotational abilities kind of suck though, the ones that just sit on the sidelines waiting to be pressed on cooldown to do 'the thing' with no thought.

[Grimoire-M]

While I did find Lucid Dreaming's predecessors more bearable just due to MP feeling less of a pretense back then (despite those skills still watering them down and precluding more meaningful mechanical tie-ins), consider:

If you end up using more MP or all the more constantly over time, that only makes it all the more important to hit your MP-granting CD as quickly as possible (reducing any space for nuance).

Lucid Dreaming or its predecessors would only have that kind of attention to timing if they, say, returned a portion of missing MP (encouraging you to make expensive casts just prior, and to hold if your portion of missing MP will increase by more than the portion of CD for which you hold it), or had other timing-affecting effects bundled with it.


My very anecdotal and subjective $0.02:

Positionals only really become all that interesting (rather than mere APM bumps with no additional button cost, though such are still enjoyable and, as far as blatant APM bumps go, well designed) in those very contexts of positional telegraphs and some degree of rotational flexibility.

:: If I do A and thus arrive at position X at time Z, I get hit and burden the healers. If I instead do B, altering slightly from my normal sequence, I'll instead arrive at position Y at time Z and be fine. That said, if I do B, then later on...

Such applies a fair deal of enjoyable complexity. It's for this reason that you saw so many Monks, for instance, so annoyed by the loss of Fracture and Touch of Death, as they not only granted positional-less GCDs every 18 | 30 seconds' time, respectively, but allowed for rotational adjustment at many SkS tiers.

This is also why I'm going to miss Egi Assaults and Further Ruin management (and to a lesser degree Aero on AST), as they fit the same context through a caster lens. When can I afford to hardcast and how do I squeeze the most I can out of Phoenix so that I can align as many of these stacks with Bahamut as possible?

Charge actions in general also open up a lot of flexibility. If major raid cooldowns got the same treatment we could do fights where the major 'burst' windows are shifted around all over the place to account for mechanics, without sacrificing the casual player's ability to manage them or just go ham till they get the basic rotation down. It's one of the core things that makes NIN so engaging in a general melee uptime context. It's also why I wish we had abilities that started partially charged (Ideally with less than maximum stacks, Lilies would be an example of this), and that SE would implement some kind of buff that keeps those actions from ticking till we start a pull in any instanced content. Thereby allowing SE to swap the 'can only be executed while in combat' lines on most skills to 'cannot be used while Preparing for Battle'.