Job action combos one button

[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.

[hagare]

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.

huh. Decent BLM didn't use enochian. You learn something new every day.

1222111112?
I wonder what your rotation's like xD
Because if you're being real, you will always be moving your fingers across different keys.
an example. 1>2>1>3>4>1>5>1>c1> and so on and so on.
You won't just be pressing the 3 GCD combos alone. Ever.
Eh, it'll happen anyway. Somehow or the other.
With every expansion, streamlining will happen.
It happened before, it's happening now and it'll most definitely happen again.

[Shurrikhan]

huh. Decent BLM didn't use enochian.

REuse. Given Transpose (and later, Umbral Soul), there was no reason to drop Enochian, and therefore no reason to hit it more than once per instance.

The only exception was long in-fight CSs, by which time its CD would be back anyways and BLM merely joined a long line of "screwed over" jobs, and less severely so than some others.

[hagare]

REuse. Given Transpose (and later, Umbral Soul), there was no reason to drop Enochian, and therefore no reason to hit it more than once per instance.

The only exception was long in-fight CSs, by which time its CD would be back anyways and BLM merely joined a long line of "screwed over" jobs, and less severely so than some others.

No one said anything about reuse.
And now you don't have to use it all.
How, automatic. xD

[Shurrikhan]

No one said anything about reuse.
And now you don't have to use it all.
How, automatic. xD

A job that deals has a third the throughput of the second-worst job could be said to have "no" throughput. In that same sense, Enochian, as a button, was "not used" (with any frequency sufficient to warrant a button of its own) except by poorer players.

Automatic, if the button is otherwise to be spent on an only once-per-instance button, is preferable. Even combat pots offered more nuanced and meaningful use.

I'm sorry.
My brain seems to be a bit wonky today.
But can you explain what you're trying to say?

Out of daily posts, sorry.

Simply this:
- You've misconstrued what was at its most extreme an obvious case of mild exaggeration. (A skill used once per instance is one that goes practically unused. "Not needing to be reapplied" was also explicitly mentioned previously -- multiple times, iirc.)
- Turning Enochian into a trait was a good thing, and fits far better principles of button design that did having it as a separate action. (I'd even go so far as to say it was only ever made an action, instead of a trait, to better hype job trailers -- since the average player, especially back then, was shortsighted enough to think getting 5 new "actions" inherently more exciting than getting 5 new "actions or traits".)

hmmmm.... a button that you only press once for the whole instance. Like the tank stance button?

Due to tanks having reason, at least in 8-man content, to switch their stance off, there is at least some small point in having a tank stance button. There was none, however, for Enochian. The only punishment added to someone losing Enochian except in under 27 seconds from having used it before was that it'd require a half-second of weave time due to its animation.

Enochian's punishment, moreover, was ill-aimed. It could only worsen the experience for the few players we least wanted to constrain while existing as a non-mechanic for everyone else. Imagine a fee, for instance, for making little money per day; though applied to other systems of the game, such would make about as much sense as Enochian having a cooldown, requiring weave-space, and needing its own button. There wasn't a single thing good about it outside of button fetishism.

And I thought you like pressing buttons

You seem to be conflating my position with other camps. I do like pressing buttons at the rhythms, densities, and ranges enjoyable to me, but that range (or total button count) is only a part of the equation, and my preference falls between certain counts rather than simply seeing more buttons as better (especially if the same affordances could be managed with fewer keys).

[Shurrikhan]

That said, it's really time we got back to the larger topics:

• Can combo-consolidation be a QoL option (i.e., one that is not banked upon as a means, by itself, of avoiding whatever button counts the devs seen as a reasonable ceiling)?

  I've made the case that yes, it could be, so long as the same push for consolidation insists on its being an option, but I am wholly open to contrary evidence.

• If it can be an option, should that option be allowed to those who'd want it?

  Likewise, I've made the case that consolidating combos is a trade-off; some would prefer the button-efficiency of taking it while others prefer the tactile cues of the current system.

• Is it worth considering other ways of increasing efficiency and buttonflow-based engagement?

  If those are positives of allowing for or barring consolidating, how else might we pursue those benefits? And, is there enough to be had in either direction to be worth talking about or holding the job kits to harder scrutiny (in regard to buttonflow and button efficiency) for?

[ForteNightshade]

huh. Decent BLM didn't use enochian. You learn something new every day.

1222111112?
I wonder what your rotation's like xD
Because if you're being real, you will always be moving your fingers across different keys.
an example. 1>2>1>3>4>1>5>1>c1> and so on and so on.
You won't just be pressing the 3 GCD combos alone. Ever.
Eh, it'll happen anyway. Somehow or the other.
With every expansion, streamlining will happen.
It happened before, it's happening now and it'll most definitely happen again.

... What? Seriously. What... are you even going on about here?

I just laid out my rotation if combos were condensed on Dragoon. You'd have two "sets" of True Thrust, one leading into Disembowel; the other into Vorpal Thrust and so forth. This equates to the 1222111112 key press sequence I mentioned. Whereas currently, I press 1 -> ALT2-4 > 4 > 1-4 > Alt 4. Put simply, I'm pressing four buttons and a modifier instead of the same key four times.

They still have several other buttons that can be pruned or AoE equivalents that have even less reason to be on a separate button. So no, it really won't happen. Look at Dragoon this expansion. It got one button which replaced the one they removed. Every other skill was an animation update.

[hagare]

... What? Seriously. What... are you even going on about here?

I just laid out my rotation if combos were condensed on Dragoon. You'd have two "sets" of True Thrust, one leading into Disembowel; the other into Vorpal Thrust and so forth. This equates to the 1222111112 key press sequence I mentioned. Whereas currently, I press 1 -> ALT2-4 > 4 > 1-4 > Alt 4. Put simply, I'm pressing four buttons and a modifier instead of the same key four times.

They still have several other buttons that can be pruned or AoE equivalents that have even less reason to be on a separate button. So no, it really won't happen. Look at Dragoon this expansion. It got one button which replaced the one they removed. Every other skill was an animation update.

heh. Kaiten