Combos

[AlphaBetaEpsilon]

Hi, I want the PvP hotbar in the PvE hotbar. I want to push one button for each combo chain. Read the rest for in depth job change potential.
For example the DRG job combo goes something like:
True Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, Wheeling Thrust, Fang and Claw, Raiden Thrust, Vorpal Thrust, Full Thrust, Fang and Claw, Wheeling Thrust.
Then Rinse repeat from Raiden Thrust.
So in buttons following the order respectively this can be 1-2-3-4-5-1-6-7-5-4

Instead we could have all these gcd's tied in 2 buttons. One for the Full Thrust combo and the other the Choas Thrust combo.
So in buttons this can be in 1: True Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, Wheeling Thrust, Fang and Claw
and then in 2: Raiden Thrust, Vorpal Thrust, Full Thrust, Fang and Claw, Wheeling Thrust

Here comes the important part.
Replace the empty buttons into skills for those jobs. that is 5 new skills for the DRG without having to add a whole hotbar for 5 new skills. Do this for any other job that has combos.
Here are some ideas: make the new buttons interact with other players. Dragoon tether was ok, but I mean a more unique approach. Let's have a combo field like Gw2.
Let's say one of the new buttons on DRG highlights to proc a fire field after using Dragonfire Dive. Party members in this lingering fire field will gain a potency buff to one gcd until the next use of Dragonfire dive. So people can plan around these fields for burst timings. The new button can be drop field then activate field on the people inside when they call for it until it disappears when the next Dragonfire Dive is off cd.
Think UcOB Neurolinks, but for jobs when using an Ogcd and that Ogcd coming off cd.

-Lightning Field, any jobs that use any type of gap closer will refresh their DoT's.
-Water Field, any job that uses a self sustain will be increased by 50% in this field.
-Smoke Field, any job that uses an AoE gcd will do so twice.
These don't have to be in the DRG kit these are just ideas for how much more interactive I want to be with people like I do with Gw2, and these are simplified variations from that game.

Doesn't need to be these, but it can make the game more fun. You can complain about balance later.

I don't think having the 1-2-3 button combo is more fun than 1 button counting 3 times in your head while having the 2 and 3 buttons do something completely different than x potency.

I know this is wishful thinking since most people associate tying the PvP 1 button combos as a bad idea without thinking about the potential behind doing so. Putting this out there anyways it's been bugging me for a long time.

[Ilisidi]

The PVP dragoon one button combo is something I absolutely don't want. It plays terrible in PVP and just turns into chaotic button mashing.
The current PVE infinity loop works awesome for me, because I don't have to pay attention what action the little icons is supposed to be and when I am supposed to weave my oGCD in and I can actually see what actions are next

[Ransu]

Why do you all want the game to be more boring?

[Brightamethyst]

Over the years the devs have explained several times why they don't want to use the single button PvP combos in PvE.

From an interview a while back:
Q: Can we have PvE skill combos like how PvP chains the skill combos? The number of skills we have to put definitely has been lesser since Stormblood but it feels like more can be done.
Y: If that happens, skill combo would be too simple and easy. Additionally, PvP uses simplified skill combos because we want to pinpoint the players’ focus on broader perspective of battle than using the skills in order. PvE combat environment is a lot different from PvP, where players need room in between combos to respond to various situations in the raids. That’s one of the reasons why we are keeping the the way of skill sets structured.

-Lightning Field, any jobs that use any type of gap closer will refresh their DoT's.
-Water Field, any job that uses a self sustain will be increased by 50% in this field.
-Smoke Field, any job that uses an AoE gcd will do so twice.
These don't have to be in the DRG kit these are just ideas for how much more interactive I want to be with people like I do with Gw2, and these are simplified variations from that game.

The devs go out of their way to specifically avoid abilities like that. This game has such a minimal meta in part because the jobs have such little ability interaction. Their goal is to avoid situations where you "need" certain jobs in the party. That philosophy might make the combat more simple, but it also means you don't see most players favoring or shunning certain jobs.

[ArianeEwah]

Gonna be the devils advocate and say that in a vacuum turning combos into 1 sequence buttons is neither good nor bad. It depends on whoever is working with it, and the actions, the jobs whole toolkit all around it - in this case SqEx.

And for the most part, I don't believe it's in the right hands. Over the last 6 years, I've seen them removing more actions/buttons than adding into the game (aside from PvP). Take MCH's removed actions e.g. Rapid fire, Reload, Quick reload, Blank, Heartbreak, Bishop, Gauss Barrel, Dismantle, Arm graze, Palisade (Refresh and Invigorate), and for that we got: Drill, Bio blaster (same CD, could as well be just 1 action), Chain saw, and Auto crossbow... MCH has one of the most empty hotbar of all jobs. SMN was another victim, but I don't think I have to list everything here, you get the point.

1 button combos in itself is a great idea, and would open up slots for more actions with more flavour or gimmicks. But I don't trust SqEx to put in enough thought to create something interessting! Ofc they don't wanna make use of it, otherwise it would make them seem incompetent. Remove 2-4 buttons, but add nothing of value.

However, I don't agree with their reasoning. If merged combo buttons would be too simple and easy, then why tf do healers (and SMN kek) have 3-4 damage buttons? 1 dot, 1 single target spell, 1 aoe spell, maybe 1 other for flair. (And yes, SMN is probably second just after healers with 2 constant pressed spells, 1 occasionally Astral Flow, and the rest is pressed once every minute) For most jobs, it would free 2 slots. On NIN e.g. I wouldn't mind having 2 free slots, on WAR or MCH on the other hand... not so much, they already feel empty as they are.

In a parallel world combo sequence buttons would be a hit, and a great addition to the game to fight button bloat. In this world however, we are struggling to even fill our hotbars.

[Brightamethyst]

If merged combo buttons would be too simple and easy, then why tf do healers (and SMN kek) have 3-4 damage buttons? 1 dot, 1 single target spell, 1 aoe spell, maybe 1 other for flair.

And healers almost universally hate it. Healers used to have more DPS buttons but SE removed them, and now "too boring when not healing" is the single biggest complaint along all healers.

[ArianeEwah]

And healers almost universally hate it. Healers used to have more DPS buttons but SE removed them, and now "too boring when not healing" is the single biggest complaint along all healers.

Of course they do, that's what I am saying. SE's response is contradictory to their design philosophy.
Combos skills? No, that would make it too simple!
Healer dps is too simple? Just wait until Ultimate!
...what?!

I repeat, I am not saying they should implement combo skills asap; in fact they should not!
What I am saying is that the idea itself is fine, while some here try to mark it like it's the plague. Combo skills wouldn't lower the depth of a job, they would reduce the necessary space on your hotbar only, that has nothing to do with complexity (*pressing the same buttons in sequence over and over isn't more profound than pressing 1 button). The root of the simplification-illness lies anywhere else, but not in combo skills. In FFXIV current state, they are not a great addition, on that I agree with you. Then again, neither is the current state of healers which has been going on for years. Time and time again we hear the same quote over and over: "wait until Ultimate!"
Those tackling and clearing ultimate content wouldn't mind having a more in-depth dps rotation. However, we are cursed to live with a water-down job design on 99% of combat content with casual engagement design.

That's why combo skills do not fit into the current state of FFXIV. They would if the combat design was more advanced, e.g. at least 3 combos per job plus gauge/CD/dot actions, and tons of buttons are filling the hotbar. Yet, looking back all those years of... "development"... I highly doubt, we will ever reach that point.
You don't have to burn it! Put it into a drawer, lock it up, and only open it in case of unexpected events.

[Seraphor]

Hi, I want the PvP hotbar in the PvE hotbar. I want to push one button for each combo chain. Read the rest for in depth job change potential.
For example the DRG job combo goes something like:
True Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, Wheeling Thrust, Fang and Claw, Raiden Thrust, Vorpal Thrust, Full Thrust, Fang and Claw, Wheeling Thrust.
Then Rinse repeat from Raiden Thrust.
So in buttons following the order respectively this can be 1-2-3-4-5-1-6-7-5-4

Instead we could have all these gcd's tied in 2 buttons. One for the Full Thrust combo and the other the Choas Thrust combo.
So in buttons this can be in 1: True Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, Wheeling Thrust, Fang and Claw
and then in 2: Raiden Thrust, Vorpal Thrust, Full Thrust, Fang and Claw, Wheeling Thrust

There's a big problem with this due to three of those skills.

Disembowel bestows a damage up buff which you need to refresh before it runs out.
Chaos Thrust inflicts a DoT that you need to refresh AS it runs out.
Full Thrust is your highest potency GCD and you want to time Life Surge to use on this.

Three skills that you need to time properly, and keep track of when you're using in order to play optimally.
If these were all on one button you would need to watch your hotbars like a hawk and memorise the icons, or keep a mental count of every single GCD you use. Both of which are vastly inferior to the current feedback system, muscle memory.

This would make PvE rotations much more difficult, and take your focus away from the mechanics of the fight itself.
Current PvE content is about memorising your rotation to the point where you don't need to watch your hotbars, this would make that impossible, you would never be able to get those training wheels off, they would be a permanent feature.

Dragoon is actually the worst for this, with Samurai coming in a close second as it also has two buffs to maintain via the second combo skills.
Monk literally cannot have it's combos combined because Perfect Balance requires that you can hit any of them at any given time.
Ninja only has one additional branch and buff upkeep mechanic tied to it's GCD combo, it would still be a setback, but it probably wouldn't affect it all that much, but the issue with Ninja is that outside of burst windows, the GCD combo is all it has. Combing these would turn Ninja into 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2... outside of Trick/Mug windows, and that's just boring as Healers can attest.

Reaper... is actually the one job this could work for. It only has a 1-2-3 combo system, similar to the tanks, and the only difference between these three skills is the potency, and it has no GCD modulating skill to weave like DRG's Life Surge. So yes, Reaper could have it's combo consolidated. In fact the rest of it's kit is sufficiently involved that this wouldn't make the job too boring, at level 90 you have so many procs to spend that you're hardly ever actually using your 1-2-3, it makes up about 10-20% of your APM.

Physical ranged have unique combos, Bard and Dancer each have a proc system, and MCH is similar to Ninja in that outside of the burst spam window there's nothing else to do.
Casters don't have combos, besides Red Mages melee burst, and if you turn that into one button spam they're going to rage.
Tanks are a no go, similar to Ninja and Machinist, or Healers for that matter, the 1-2-3 is all they have going 80% of the time, plus it can sometimes be important to track GCD due so some having an MP or HP regen effect tied to them.

So there you have it. One job out of 15 could have it's combos consolidated.

There are some skills that could be combined, such as Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw, which cannot be used out of sequence anyway, or things like Ley Lines and Between the Lines, so there's definitely room for button pruning, just not on combos.

[Kabooa]

The easiest way to quell the disagreement is just having it as an option, and not force it on everyone.

Easy.

Cheesy.

[Kleeya]

The easiest way to quell the disagreement is just having it as an option, and not force it on everyone.

Easy.

Cheesy.

That would work only if no new skills were added, so that people wanting to keep their 1-2-3 combo dont end up with way too much buttons to put on their bars. Which is not what the op is asking for when he say that the important part is to replace the empty buttons into new skills for those jobs.