Does FF14 have a button bloat problem?

[Sotaris]

Some jobs, maybe. I don't think it's such a big problem. It used to be worse.

[Saefinn]

IMO as a controller play, no, I don't think there is.

And I think they've been throwing in smarter solutions to keep the number of buttons down whilst having more abilities to use.

But as somebody who uses the Expanded Crossbars on controller, I feels I still have room for more. Though how much room varies from job to job.

However, I feel like with anything that gets mixed views like this, the true beauty of having multiple jobs per role is that they can satisfy different types of people and what they like.

[Helgarm]

I would settle for being able to keybind any button on my keyboard. For example wow and elder scrolls you can keybind caps lock. In FFXIV you can not. That is a key that I don't use that I can't keybind. It is really close to were I rest my left hand on the keyboard.

Also right clicking on abilities instead of only being able to left click would be nice as well

[midnitdragoon]

Yes it does have a skill bloat problem. It's basically Street fighter button presses. Honestly, they should have gone with a battle system similar to final fantasy 11 or final fantasy xiv 1.0. The game could have benefited immensely from a slower paced battle in the long run, yes you'd have less abilities but they would have more impact

[Yasminou]

In Endwalker, BLM could remove 4 buttons, without affecting the playstyle whatsoever because some spells can only be cast in Astral Fire or Umbral Ice and so could be on the same key that switches depending on the buff:
- Fire IV and Blizzard IV (this could already be the case in Heavensward);
- Despair and Umbral Soul (same but with Shadowbringers);
- Freeze and Flare (UI/AF requirement is new starting in Endwalker).
Furthermore, there is no reason for Between the Lines not to replace Ley Lines when it is on.

[Ayche]

I think FFXIV handles the amount of actions it has by letting you dictate your level of engagement yourself.
I am pretty sure all jobs can be reduced down to core 10 actions or so that lets you pass most content in the game.
Sure, hardest content requires everything the job has, but that is something you take upon yourself and have to accept the challenge.

[Jeeqbit]

The developers are aware of button bloat and aim to keep it at what it is now when adding new actions by upgrading them.

There are a lot more in this game than some other games, but if there were too few actions then people would complain about that too.

You can enable a third hotbar to help.

[Kohl]

Is it just me, or does this game actually have a skill bloat problem, mainly with dps classes. Having pushed a healer to 80 now and messing around with DPS and boy, everything feels like I’m playing a WoW 5.0 sub rogue….

Like with RDM for example, I need to have Verfire and Verstone on my bar, two skills which can’t be used without procs whatsoever, instead of them temporarily replacing veraero and verthunder when it’s actually time to use them.

And from what I’ve seen while glancing over most jobs’ skill book, RDM is even on the “easy” end of the spectrum. I’m bracketing easy because for me personally, bloating a spec with skills will only add pseudo-difficulty in form of it being tedious and tiring to play.

Especially since all these buttons don’t change the fact that in this game there is still only one intended and hardcoded way to play a class, so you’re just adding and adding to the robotic sequence while not adding any actual choices or gameplay enhancement.

Like take the ‘14 summoner for example, I think this might be the closest thing to a WoW warlock. In WoW I can either DoT, nuke, go heavy pet, shadow or fire based, or a weird combination of all. Well here I run around and DoT mobs and guess what? It doesn’t work, because they won’t die and there is no way to specialize a job into a direction. So here, I put my 2 dots up, send in my pet, draw ether, execute the 2-dot-up nuke, pet specials, various CD based skills and then spam my ST spell, repeat. This is what I mean.

This might just be me, or not, but I’d definitely like to see some pruning in the coming expac.

I feel it more with specific jobs rather than a role. But that is just me and my insisting on playing on a controler.

[Ronduwil]

Is it just me, or does this game actually have a skill bloat problem, mainly with dps classes. Having pushed a healer to 80 now and messing around with DPS and boy, everything feels like I’m playing a WoW 5.0 sub rogue….

I think it's a matter of perspective. I personally prefer no more than four buttons in my rotation, but I guarantee that there are players who are still dissatisfied with their eight button rotation because they've been at this game for 10 years now and those eight buttons no longer pose a challenge for them.