Does FF14 have a button bloat problem?

[Xirean]

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.

Have you considered playing MOBAs?

[Ronduwil]

Have you considered playing MOBAs?

I don't like PvP. I used to play and create custom WC III scenarios that acted pretty much like a single player MOBA. I really liked the first Guild Wars because I could build my own custom OP specs that could decimate stuff with a handful of buttons. I was even sharing some of my builds for a while until I won a Guild Wars PvP template contest on the IGN forums only to see my favorite skills nerfed into oblivion. Sadly, modern games don't provide that kind of flexibility because crowd-sourced OP builds became too prevalent. Now, everyone worked around that issue by providing fixed rotations, so of course players complain that there's no challenge to be had. They have to create challenge in some way, and now that building your own optimized rotation is no longer an option, button bloat seems to be the way to go. I'm lamenting the situation, but I'm not complaining about it. I understand why it is the way it is. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

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.

I like 4 button rotations too. Jobs like Bard and Paladin feel really good early on in my opinion. By 70 many start to feel pretty overwhelming. More abilities need to be baked in as passives I think.

[Xeltoris]

The main thing is, particularly with your example of Veraero/Verthunder and Verstone/Verfire, the way the job functions requires you have access to all four of these actions. Removing that removes rotational agency entirely, because they're separate for a reason. You're allowed to override your procs in part because only one thing actually guarantees a proc.

Now: Verholy/Verflare temporarily replacing Aero and Thunder? Scorch temporarily replacing Jolt? These things make sense. Similar in the vein to how Gunbreaker is going to have its 3-part cartridge spender condensed to one changing ability, it's something you're not rotationally actively hitting *that often* compared to your bread and butter filler.

I think the jobs don't need pruning as much as they need intelligent condensing of abilities, which seems to be a theme. Some new abilities are functioning similar to Verholy/Verflare (Gunbreaker, any job getting an AoE rotation upgrade rather than another ability such as Dragoon), some jobs are having dead or mandatory buttons baked in passively (looking at you, Enochian and Life/Blood of the Dragon), etc. The development team has also already addressed the issue, so I don't think we need further pruning as long as additions continue to be added in this manner.

As to your comparison of Summoner to Affliction Warlock: the thing to remember is that jobs in FFXIV are not classes in WoW. A Job in FFXIV is a complete kit built to a particular playstyle and theme. You're not intended to hyper-focus on one part of any Job's toolkit, you're intended to use the entire toolkit for what it is. Coming at this from a perspective as a former Mythic raider, I understand why this isn't particularly palatable to some people, but I find I personally infinitely prefer a static toolkit with a lot of options to the way toolkits work in WoW.

[Lexis]

Some jobs feel like they have the perfect number of buttons while others are a bit overwhelming. I gave up on Ninja at lvl 70 because there were just more abilities than I could conveniently keybind so playing it felt like a game of twisters with my fingers (and with some early sings of arthritis developing in my hands, that's not a good thing). I decided to try machinist instead since it has less buttons overall and I've been having a blast. White Mage is also in a good spot for me button wise.

Part of me wishes all the jobs had an equal number of abilities similar to that of MCH or WHM, but I also understand how a greater variety can appeal to a wider audience. Ninja seems to be an incredibly popular job so I imagine those who enjoy the class as it is wouldn't be too happy to see it pruned.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

Some jobs feel like they have the perfect number of buttons while others are a bit overwhelming. I gave up on Ninja at lvl 70 because there were just more abilities than I could conveniently keybind so playing it felt like a game of twisters with my fingers (and with some early sings of arthritis developing in my hands, that's not a good thing). I decided to try machinist instead since it has less buttons overall and I've been having a blast. White Mage is also in a good spot for me button wise.

Part of me wishes all the jobs had an equal number of abilities similar to that of MCH or WHM, but I also understand how a greater variety can appeal to a wider audience. Ninja seems to be an incredibly popular job so I imagine those who enjoy the class as it is wouldn't be too happy to see it pruned.

I hit 71 last night on my MCH and got the green AOE DOT ability. The name escapes me. I just felt like "really? another Aoe? I already had four."

[Reimmi]

Nah i think the buttons in this game are just right actually, other than a few having not enough (MCH, dancer, red mage to name a few)

[Lexis]

I hit 71 last night on my MCH and got the green AOE DOT ability. The name escapes me. I just felt like "really? another Aoe? I already had four."

I'm assuming you're talking about Bio Blaster, which is a lvl 72 ability. Either way, I feel like each of the Machinist's AoE ability serves its own purpose as opposed to playing whack-a-button where you just mindlessly poke everything that comes off cooldown. Bioblaster is a DoT, Flamethrower a stationary channel (that you have to try and time so that you won't have to move and interrupt it), Spread Shot is the spamming button, Ricochet the OGC button and then there's Auto Crossbow, the one you can only use when Overheating. They all feel satisfying to use in their own way to me but, of course, mileage may vary from one individual to another

I guess I'm still in the honeymoon phase when it comes to Machinist, just can't get enough of it ^^

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

I agree, there are a lot of skills that do the same thing and don't add anything. Yet another oGCD, yet another AOE, yet another single target nuke/hit. I'm all for builders/spenders and balancing the system, like BLM back in the day, with occasional procs, or combos you alternate, but then, the skills involved need to be unique in what they do.
White Mage is a perfect example of this. Tons of buttons that do the exact same thing.

[Deceptus]

Yes and it could easily be solved by traits.

BLM: Why does Blizz 2 and Freeze both exist? Just have B2 trait into Freeze. Same with Fire 2 and Flare. Once you get flare, there's no reason to ever use F2 again.

Almost every job has some example of this.