Job action combos one button

[ForteNightshade]

what I'm expecting will happen.
more passives.
more changing skills like egress + regress, reaping etc etc.
either way, consolidation WILL happen after a time. If not out of convenience, out of necessity. Or the cooler term, streamlining.
Hell, story characters like Thancred and Hien already has it when we play them.

And both are some of the most horrendously boring gameplay experiences in the entire game. Personally, I've long found the whole "playing as the scions" novelty having long worn off and dread every time we suddenly switch to them. Granted, this is purely from a gameplay perspective. Storywise, I genuinely like several of those segments.

Nevertheless, we won't necessarily ever get to that point even with combo consolidation because of oGCDs unlike the very limited action suite Thancred and the like have. If we did, I'd likely not be playing.

It doesn't have to happen ever though. Look at jobs like Dragoon, which have simply upgraded long old animations ala Full Thrust and Chaos Thrust. Not to mention, several jobs have far too many throwaway abilities that still haven't been pruned away. It all depends on the direction they go and how many new abilities are actually added. Endwalker didn't really add much of anything for a good number of jobs. Although, ironically, it bloated others. Suffice it to say, they've been rather... inconsistent.

There is no version where you get more buttons of actions and retain a given button count cap (as the devs themselves have said constrains them) without pruning or consolidating. Given that, Hagare is right that consolidation may be necessary if we are to avoid losing further key abilities and further squelching the leveling experience. One might even, quite reasonably, say that being anti-consolidation without expecting further actions or specifically contesting the devs in regard to button count caps will generally be, in effect, pro-pruning.

To be fair, the leveling experience being so abysmal has more to do with them refusing to readjust when jobs learn their abilities. Bard, for example, wouldn't even benefit from any consolidation as it (like all the prange) have a barren hotbar suite. And yet, the leveling experience borders on healer levels gameplay with the sheer amount of Straight Shot spam you do. Bard doesn't even get it's main song until 52. Frankly, I'd been fine doing without new abilities entirely if it meant cleaning up the existing jobs come 7.0. Or at the very least, simply sticking to animation upgrades like the aforementioned Dragoon example.

how have you not quit?
We've already lost skills.
just in 6.0:
PLD Enhanced Requiescat
AST lost sects and sleeve draw
BLM lost enochian and sleep
SCH Bio, Summon, Miasma, Egi Assault, Summon II, Bio II, Bane, Summon III, Egi Assault II, Enkindle, Tri-disaster, Aetherpact, Devotion, Bio III, Miasma III, and Firebird Trance
DRG dragon blood
SAM Merciful Eyes and Hissatsu: Seigan
WHM Fluid aura
SCH Sic
MNK Fists of Earth, Fists of Wind, Shoulder Tackle, and Fists of Fire

Almost none of these are good examples though. Blood of the Dragoon and Enochian were essentially nonexistent for decent Dragoons and Black Mages. They only impacted inexperienced players who weren't yet accustom to the job. Likewise, you even cares about Sleep, Sic or Fluid Aura? All were completely worthless. Seigan was little more than a meme.

Really, the only major examples here and Monk and Summoner. However, they didn't so much as lose abilities wholly redesigned from the ground up. It really isn't a fair comparison. You'd have been better off mentioning DoTs or Bard's loss of Foe's Requiem. Stuff like that actually impacted these respective jobs. What you listed largely did not.

[hagare]

And both are some of the most horrendously boring gameplay experiences in the entire game. Personally, I've long found the whole "playing as the scions" novelty having long worn off and dread every time we suddenly switch to them. Granted, this is purely from a gameplay perspective. Storywise, I genuinely like several of those segments.

do remember that they don't even get the full set of skill their class. Only the necessary ones to clear the fight.

and an extra stealth one for Thancred xD

[Ransu]

how have you not quit?
We've already lost skills.
just in 6.0:
PLD Enhanced Requiescat
AST lost sects and sleeve draw
BLM lost enochian and sleep
SMN Bio, Summon, Miasma, Egi Assault, Summon II, Bio II, Bane, Summon III, Egi Assault II, Enkindle, Tri-disaster, Aetherpact, Devotion, Bio III, Miasma III, and Firebird Trance
DRG dragon blood sigh. I'm gonna miss blue aura on demand
SAM Merciful Eyes and Hissatsu: Seigan
WHM Fluid aura
SCH Sic
MNK Fists of Earth, Fists of Wind, Shoulder Tackle, and Fists of Fire

I don't have a problem with removing redundant or useless abilities. I just don't want to go through what both WoW and SWTOR have done. I have no interest in the concept of condensed actions into a single button. Pressing 1 a thousand times isn't appealing to me. I like have 20+ keybinds, its why I play these games and its the same reason I quit WoW when they turned my ret pally into a 3 button spam fest zzzzzzzz.

Enochian being built in made sense.

Blood of the dragon was pointless. I loved the animation, but it was a pointless button. You literally pop it at the start of the fight and you never press it again because your rotation kept it refreshed.

MNK stances were stupid....sorry, not sorry. Shoulder tackle I don't consider much of a loss because my mobility literally tripled with the new gap closer where as shoulder tackle I never had it available for actual movement because it was weaved in for damage.

SMN got a complete rework. It is what it is. I don't think it was a good idea to make it as simplistic as it was, but old SMN was clunky and horrible to play. It needed a rework.

SAM.....again, two useless skills that really only got used on rare occasions. I prefer 3rd eye giving kenki now and the new aoe is much appreciated.

I can't really comment on the rest as I don't play healer and my Pally is only 79.

[Shurrikhan]

To be fair, the leveling experience being so abysmal has more to do with them refusing to readjust when jobs learn their abilities. Bard, for example, wouldn't even benefit from any consolidation as it (like all the prange) have a barren hotbar suite. And yet, the leveling experience borders on healer levels gameplay with the sheer amount of Straight Shot spam you do. Bard doesn't even get it's main song until 52. Frankly, I'd been fine doing without new abilities entirely if it meant cleaning up the existing jobs come 7.0. Or at the very least, simply sticking to animation upgrades like the aforementioned Dragoon example.

Heavy Shot*. It was too much to ask, prior to Burst Shot, for more than a 20% chance to get to hit another button more often than twice per 45 seconds, after all.

I jest, and I see what you mean and agree on the whole. However, that wouldn't be such a concern if they hadn't already axed so damn many 1-60 abilities. A ton of what made lower-level Monk interesting, for instance, (and provided a much more nuanced form of positional freedom), for instance, were Fracture and ToD, while optimizing tank damage around stances --say, via Sword Oath, which was originally given 10 levels earlier than Shield Oath-- made for considerably more interesting tank leveling (even if the effect was much diminished in 8-man content).

Enochian being built in made sense.

Blood of the dragon was pointless..

Agreed. They were, unless all went wrong, once per instance buttons. They were 100% bloat. Likewise, Kenki generation from Third Eye, though reducing the maximum oGCD potency we can bank for burst, makes far more sense, as we can then leverage Third Eye towards any Kenki spender (and its typical potency gain was more than doubled). (And Merciful Eyes seemed little more than a natural per-3s HP tick.)

Meanwhile, I can disagree on Monk stances as a concept, and indeed would prefer interesting stances over the likes of Enlightenment, Anatman, Form Shift requiring a separate key, but I can see why they were removed: we'd had 3 iterations by them of them being next to worthless except as a bloated means of access to Riddle of Wind (back when that was a GL generator and allowed for, imo, a more meaningful Tornado Kick mechanic than the late-ShB free oGCD or EW Blitz versions).

:: I'd offer that if you had opportunities to use Shoulder Tackle as a gap-closer but had already burned it on burst, that's on you and most certainly cost you more potency in uptime than you gained in damage multiplicity, but that's a mere nitpick.

[hagare]

3 button spam fest zzzzzzzz.

Almost none of these are good examples though.

that's the whole point of the thread isn't it.
Removing bloat and meaningless buttons.

lmao. ah well.
Redundancy eh.
Nothing is more redundant to me than a combo of 3 buttons with nothing in it but increase in potency.
I want buttons with actual meaning to it and not just an increase in potency and nothing else.

[Shurrikhan]

Nothing is more redundant to me than a combo of 3 buttons with nothing in it but increase in potency.
I want buttons with actual meaning to it and not just an increase in potency and nothing else.

That "increase in potency" can itself be meaningful, though, so long as that potency is higher than what is included among the more constrained combos.

The direct potency combo might be a "filler" relative to a DoT combo or buff combo, but you could easily think of it as being "unlocked", for that greater ppgcd in itself, by the buff and DoT combo (and, obviously, the one which best synergizes with the likes of Reassemble or Life Surge).

[hagare]

That "increase in potency" can itself be meaningful, though, so long as that potency is higher than what is included among the more constrained combos.

The direct potency combo might be a "filler" relative to a DoT combo or buff combo, but you could easily think of it as being "unlocked", for that greater ppgcd in itself, by the buff and DoT combo (and, obviously, the one which best synergizes with the likes of Reassemble or Life Surge).

yeah. but it doesn't mean much if it's 123 or 111.
Because the only thing to "unlock" potency is that you press a req button.
it gives the illusion of a combo only because they're separate. When truth is, they aren't really.
Because you will 123 all day.
The APM doesn't change.
The way you play don't change.
The way you weave don't change.
What you weave don't change.
The class doesn't change.
The only really noticeable change is more freed space on the hotbar.

[ForteNightshade]

Heavy Shot*. It was too much to ask, prior to Burst Shot, for more than a 20% chance to get to hit another button more often than twice per 45 seconds, after all.

I jest, and I see what you mean and agree on the whole. However, that wouldn't be such a concern if they hadn't already axed so damn many 1-60 abilities. A ton of what made lower-level Monk interesting, for instance, (and provided a much more nuanced form of positional freedom), for instance, were Fracture and ToD, while optimizing tank damage around stances --say, via Sword Oath, which was originally given 10 levels earlier than Shield Oath-- made for considerably more interesting tank leveling (even if the effect was much diminished in 8-man content).

Ahh, Heavy Shot. I always mix the two up. And yes, that... was a very silly change.

Many of those abilities were axed not out of perceived button bloat but in the name of simplification. Yoshida outright said Heavy Thrust and Straight Shot buffs were removed because casual players weren't keeping them up and it caused too large a gap between them and experienced players. I have to disagree on tank stance. I found very little interesting about it. Paladin, in particular, was especially bad given it was more optimal to simply go stance-less than switch to Sword Oath due to the GCD requirement. The devs also seem to despise DoTs nowadays.

that's the whole point of the thread isn't it.
Removing bloat and meaningless buttons.

lmao. ah well.
Redundancy eh.
Nothing is more redundant to me than a combo of 3 buttons with nothing in it but increase in potency.
I want buttons with actual meaning to it and not just an increase in potency and nothing else.

Your comparison still doesn't work because at least those combo actions had a function. Blood of the Dragon literally did nothing for any average Dragoon. You put it up once and never touched the button again unless there was a cut scene. It was functionally useless. Say what you will about combos but you're still pressing them. Nearly every single one of your examples didn't have that luxury. Some, like Fluid Aura and Sleep weren't even worth putting on your bar.

I'd like for buttons to mean something too. Alas, they aren't going to give us anything. So in the absence of nothing, I prefer the current system to spamming the same key endlessly. Tanks are already simplified. I'd rather not spam my 1 key 100 times. 123 isn't anything special but it's something.

[hagare]

Say what you will about combos but you're still pressing them.

and you're still gonna press them.
What? you think it's gonna be automatic?
it's 123 vs 111
you still press a button, either 1x3 or 3x1
But you're still gonna press buttons 3 times. *shrug*

[ForteNightshade]

and you're still gonna press them.
What? you think it's gonna be automatic?
it's 123 vs 111
you still press a button, either 1x3 or 3x1
But you're still gonna press buttons 3 times. *shrug*

Please don't quote me out of context. That was in response to your comparison combos to abilities like Enochian that weren't pressed whatsoever by decent Black Mages.

As for combos themselves. A good number of people prefer the feeling of actually having to move their finger across different keys than spam one. You may find there's no difference, I, on the other hand, would hate Dragoon going from what it is now to 1222111112.