Job action combos one button

[Terin]

I'll admit, if the "combos" are literally going to be "1-2-3" combos as most of them currently are, then I'd say they should be condensed just like in PvP.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing them do something more akin to the old (ARR) Monk combos. You GENERALLY used "1-2-3" then "4-5-6", however if you were REALLY skilled, there would be times you might deviate, because each part of the combo had a specific EFFECT.

So there might be times you hit 4-2-3 or 1-5-3, or any combination. You could totally get by just doing the two standard combos, but it gave the high-skill players a means to differentiate themselves.

Meanwhile, my DRK pretty much just spams a basic single-target combo, or occasionally an AoE combo. I'd happily condense those into just two buttons.

[Mapleine]

Agree with cutting down bloat, but no auto-combo please.

[Raikai]

Agree with cutting down bloat, but no auto-combo please.

They removed nearly every bloated action by now, everything we have and used in a rotational basis is useful... There's no bloat to cut anymore.

[ForteNightshade]

They removed nearly every bloated action by now, everything we have and used in a rotational basis is useful... There's no bloat to cut anymore.

No they haven't. They've introduced new bloat in this very expansion. Some examples? Shoha II, Orogeny, Crown Play/Minor Arcana and Abyssal Drain are all new EW buttons they have no reason to exist and could be baked into their single target equivalent with fall off percentage.

For old abilities they haven't yet pruned? Play/Draw, Senei/Guren, Shinten/Kyuten, Tsubame-gaeshi, Jump/Mirage Dive, Sonic Break/Bow Shock and Aetherflow/Energy Drain are all buttons they could be merged. Then you have abilities like Cure and Benefit which should just upgrade into their higher level equivalents as they're completely worthless above 50. On the newer side once more, RPR's Shadow of Death is essentially Heavy Thrust—a maintenance buff removed from Dragoon four years ago.

And yes, Samurai has a LOT of useless button bloat. As does Astro.

[Shurrikhan]

For old abilities they haven't yet pruned? Play/Draw, Senei/Guren, Shinten/Kyuten, Tsubame-gaeshi, Jump/Mirage Dive, Sonic Break/Bow Shock and Aetherflow/Energy Drain are all buttons they could be merged. Then you have abilities like Cure and Benefit which should just upgrade into their higher level equivalents as they're completely worthless above 50. On the newer side once more, RPR's Shadow of Death is essentially Heavy Thrust—a maintenance buff removed from Dragoon four years ago.

I'm not sure why we ought focus on removing AoE | ST options before combos. At least they provide a degree of choice (though less so when the ST option is only 10% stronger than the AoE, as per Bloodletter and Rain of Death, etc.), unlike separate combo GCDs.

But yes, they could certainly be replaced by conditional skills (defaulting to the AoE if shaped AoE check would include 2+ targets, and giving the ST animation and bonus damage if there's only one) with minimal (but still existent) loss to affordance, given that XIV so rarely has any use for focus damage over greater total damage.

Agreed on all other points.
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They removed nearly every bloated action by now, everything we have and used in a rotational basis is useful... There's no bloat to cut anymore.

Frequency of use doesn't determine bloat. Bloat is just a matter of (in)efficiency by which a function is afforded-- i.e., whether the given implementation offers decision-making of greater value than what would likely be possible if it used up fewer buttons (and something else, of average decision-making value for that kit, took up that space). If a given implementation offers zero further actual choices than another that would use up fewer buttons, that implementation is bloated.

If I made you do a 3-step mudra to cast Glare, you'd use up 3 additional buttons, but that Glare would still just be Glare and spammed just as repeatedly. (If the idea of using 4 buttons to do a single action attracts you, note that you could accomplish the same, right now, by binding Glare to 4 different keys and hitting those in order with each cast.) Those added buttons would be used very frequently -- each 23 times per minute -- but they'd still be entirely bloat.

Press 1-2-3 is inherently more fun than pressing 1-1-1. It doesn't matter if it's the same skill repeated or a combo of skills

Then bind Glare to 3 different keys and rotate, 1-2-3, through them. And just like that, your WHM play is "inherently more fun" now.

[Lilyth]

Then bind Glare to 3 different keys and rotate, 1-2-3, through them. And just like that, your WHM play is "inherently more fun" now.

If there's anything worse than doing a 1 button rotation is this argument. If I told you they were gonna give Savage loot for free the next patch upon talking to the NPC and people complained about it, do you think it's fair to say "Hey just pretend is still locked behind savage, and just like that nothing has changed, everyone is happy now"?

1-2-3 might not be the hardest most punishing thing out there, but it's something. At least it's a reason for three individual actions to still exist. You have a sequence of different commands and chaining them in a specific order gives you more damage. With 1-1-1-1-1, 3 different actions accomplish nothing, it's just visual padding. There to give players the impression your char still has some modicum of combat interaction when in reality replacing everything with an insta-cast generic "glare" would be the same thing.

I honestly rather keep my 1-2-3 over that.

[Shurrikhan]

If there's anything worse than doing a 1 button rotation is this argument.

Is there another way to read...

Press 1-2-3 is inherently more fun than pressing 1-1-1. It doesn't matter if it's the same skill repeated

? Either hitting more buttons than is currently necessary is thereby "inherently more fun," or it is not.

But, fine, let us assume that the claim (1-2-3 being inherently more fun than 1-1-1 even when they have the same number of separable actions) carries an implied parameter -- that this only works "if forced (to 1-2-3, rather than 1-1-1)." We'll adjust the analogy:

You have Glare I, Glare II, and Glare III. Glare I does 290. Glare II does 310 if comboed -- otherwise, 100. Glare III does 330 if comboed -- otherwise, 100. The combo cannot be broken by actions, thereby retaining the old functionality, and over time they amount to the exact same ppgcd as before. They also have the same animation, since "it doesn't matter if it's the same skill repeated."

Is that "inherently more fun" button-flow of now being obliged to go 1-2-3 worth the added button cost? Would you give up 2 existing actions, and therein kit control, for those extra two buttons to be spent on what still amounts to a single, inseparable decision?

That's essentially what's forced onto any combo-heavy kit right now.

At least it's a reason for three individual actions to still exist.

No series of actions as would be demarked by a PvP combo have ever each had more than one individual action, as there has never been any remotely viable reason to restart or rush a combo. But even consolidated, a combo still has just as many non-individual actions as before. Button count =/= action count.

Unconsolidated, a Chaos Thrust combo includes flat damage, a damage buff, and a DoT, flat damage, and flat damage with a Draconian Fire proc -- each on a respective action in its own GCD. Each action takes a button-press. The single path of action, however, takes 5 buttons.

Consolidated, a Chaos Thrust combo would include flat damage, a damage buff, and a DoT, flat damage, and flat damage with a Draconian Fire proc -- each on a respective action in its own GCD. Each action would take a button-press. The single path of action, however, would take only a single button.

Holding onto that pretense of complexity, as compared to actually making use of individual actions as per Monk or consolidating them as per the Gnashing Fang combo, is just bloat. Asking that every non-individual action, too, each get its own button is basically just giving the middle finger to anyone who wants more actual depth on a combo-based job.

Either make them individual actions (as on Monk) or make them individual decisions (as per Gnashing Fang).

[AnotherPerson]

Is there another way to read...? Either hitting more buttons that is currently necessary is thereby "inherently more fun," or it is not.

But, fine, let us assume that the claim implied that this only works "if forced." We'll adjust the analogy:

You have Glare I, Glare II, and Glare III. Glare I does 290. Glare II does 310 if comboed -- otherwise, 100. Glare III does 330 if comboed -- otherwise 100. The combo cannot be broken by actions, thereby retaining the old functionality, and over time they amount to the exact same ppgcd as before. They also have the same animation, since "it doesn't matter if it's the same skill repeated."

Is that "inherently more fun" button-flow of now being obliged to go 1-2-3 worth the added button cost? Would you give up 2 existing actions, and therein kit control, for those extra two buttons to be spent on what still amounts to a single, inseparable decision?

That's essentially what's forced onto any combo-heavy kit right now.

Combos that doesn't offer much isn't that much more fun. But, if you look at it from another perspective, say Lv 1-29:
Say you just have 1 button as your skill rotation, and only one button. From level 1 to 29.

Do you feel a sense of progression? Do you feel like anything has changed from Satasha to Hakkuke Manor? Nope. Now imagine you go to level 50 and your main rotation is still 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. All you're doing until then is just watching the enemy... dodging the mechanic... and then monotonously mashing the 1 key on auto-pilot until something new changes. You're not inherently have to spend brain power on the thought process - whether you're on the 2nd combo or whether you need to reset the combo because you're on the 3rd combo action. You just... press 1 until the fight's over.

Therein lies the difference between spamming Glare x100 and having a 3 button combo.

I completely agree with you - consolidating combo skills to create room for more INTERACTIVE skills and synergies will be great. However, that's not what was addressed on the thread. Nothing was mentioned about consolidating skills to make room for more interesting skills. In that case, it's more preferable to keep the current system with a 1-2-3 combo than without.

[Canadane]

But, fine, let us assume that the claim (1-2-3 being inherently more fun than 1-1-1 even when they have the same number of separable actions) carries an implied parameter -- that this only works "if forced (to 1-2-3, rather than 1-1-1)." We'll adjust the analogy:

You have Glare I, Glare II, and Glare III. Glare I does 290. Glare II does 310 if comboed -- otherwise, 100. Glare III does 330 if comboed -- otherwise, 100. The combo cannot be broken by actions, thereby retaining the old functionality, and over time they amount to the exact same ppgcd as before. They also have the same animation, since "it doesn't matter if it's the same skill repeated."

Is that "inherently more fun" button-flow of now being obliged to go 1-2-3 worth the added button cost? Would you give up 2 existing actions, and therein kit control, for those extra two buttons to be spent on what still amounts to a single, inseparable decision?

Yes.
As I mentioned, it's not the actions ingame, it's the actions IRL.

Multiple actions comboing off a single button makes it feel more like a smartphone game where it's just tap to win, or some other rudimentary simplistic system. It's not fun, nor is it engaging to play.
You could be doing sick flips and attacks and spark fire from the heavens, but if you're just pressing a single button to make it all happen, why not just go play one of those dime-a-dozen anime gacha games instead?

[ForteNightshade]

I'm not sure why we ought focus on removing AoE | ST options before combos. At least they provide a degree of choice (though less so when the ST option is only 10% stronger than the AoE, as per Bloodletter and Rain of Death, etc.), unlike separate combo GCDs.

Because the combos offer some engagement, albeit it mildly so. At the very least, they break up the monotony of spamming the same button. AoEs don't provide any choice? They're entirely binary. You press Orogeny at 3+ targets; Upheaval otherwise. Any other decision is wrong. The difference is you hardly ever press the AoE equivalents in content that matters. So they hardly see use outside dungeons.

I've said before, if I thought they would replace combos with something new, be it several additional combos, new sequenced buttons or something. I'd be a lot more open to the idea. If it's literally just reducing say, Dragoon, to a job primarily spamming 1 and 2, I'd much prefer the current system.