We are approaching a button bloat problem that can be solved

[Puremallace]

So I am not sure people noticed but we are up to patch 6.1 and are on the 4th expansion and up to level 90. Square Enix already realized we had a power problem when attacks were hitting far above 100,000.

Now as we trudge along to 7.0 the obvious next issue is going to be button bloat. Other MMO's have added more shiny buttons to press and WoW has tried borrowed power, pruning and revamped their talents so many times you cannot even count anymore leading to massive balance issues.

For 7.0 I think Square Enix has 2 options. Continue the approach of replacing existing attacks with new attacks that change as you hit X level.

Another option not considered is purely cosmetic changes. The Shadowbringers story allows for this because of the Aetherical changes that can occur when you absorb too much of one element.

What if we had Eureka type options that could imbue our attacks with different elements?

Just a thought as we move on through the expansion.

[MellowMink]

I truly don’t get why Square Enix hasn’t changed more 1-2-3 combos to share single buttons; they already had that in older PvP job design, and Gunbreaker already had this quality-of-life update with regards to a higher-level combo that’s done with Continuation, so why stop there? Seems a lot better than removing entire actions like a certain Samurai action that lots of players liked to use.

[DezereDawn]

i'd love 1-2-3 combos and conditional buttons to be consolidated, as long as they give me more interesting and unique abilities in their place, think that'd be a happy medium

[Evergrey]

I don't like the combined 1-2-3 button.
Even in PvP I slot 3 of those combo buttons so I can still manually press the 1, 2 ,3 keys.

I'm perfectly fine with skills that have a second prog (Like RPR's Shroud abilities or the DRK's Salter Earth) to change into the second prog.
But leave the 1-2-3 rotations as they are.
I'd hate to press 1 single key over and over while other skills are still on cooldown.

[DezereDawn]

I don't like the combined 1-2-3 button.
Even in PvP I slot 3 of those combo buttons so I can still manually press the 1, 2 ,3 keys.

well that means both ends can have their preference, not everyone has the same amount of comfortable keybinds they can allocate to a job, so consolidating unnecessary bloat is intrinsically a good idea, as long as it doesn't come at the cost of actual gameplay like Kaiten's removal removing Kenki management entirely

[QooEr]

i think the reason jobs get button bloated is because a lot of skills do one thing and one thing only. wether its just a damaging ogcd or just an aoe heal, the more they add things with a singular purpose and no internal synergy the more the jobs are gonna feel bloated if they try to give jobs new functions.


i am NOT a fan of removing a skill and adding it back a shiny "new" skill 10 levels later. it makes low level play feel awful and it doesn't add anything to the job.

instead I think traits are the way to go, and maybe merging skills together to have skills that do more than just 1 thing. for instance, the lv 78 trait for sacred soil added 0 skills but it gave a lot more depth of gameplay to scholar and it essentially made sacred soil have a new use. instead of discarding divine seal largesse and making it temperance, a trait that added mitigation + a new animation would've been so much better.

as for making room for the new, i believe merging is also a better answer than deleting. one of the very few decent things shb did for scholar was merging fey covenant with fey illumination. sure, its more restrictive to have them tied together, but its still preferable than straight up losing either.

[Evergrey]

well that means both ends can have their preference, not everyone has the same amount of comfortable keybinds they can allocate to a job, so consolidating unnecessary bloat is intrinsically a good idea, as long as it doesn't come at the cost of actual gameplay like Kaiten's removal removing Kenki management entirely

It's sad when characteristic skills get removed, yeah.
I still miss the dot the DRK once had.
The animation was also sweet.
So, yeah. It's not that we're approaching a button bloat for the first time.
We've had skill purges before to ease the bloat.

[DezereDawn]

i think along the lines of stuff like the recent change to wanderers minuette when i think of consolidation, minus the bug causing other bards to set it off, ofc

since pitch perfect is only usable while Wanderers is active anyways, i think it's a great idea to just have it replace it, since there's no reason to ever press pitch perfect otherwise

[Lecru]

How you people have absurdly disgusting filled rows confuses me. Mines clean, takes up 2.5 and that's for a FULL ROTATION on ALL my classes. And yes. I raid.

[Momo_Kozuki]

I truly don’t get why Square Enix hasn’t changed more 1-2-3 combos to share single buttons; they already had that in older PvP job design, and Gunbreaker already had this quality-of-life update with regards to a higher-level combo that’s done with Continuation, so why stop there? Seems a lot better than removing entire actions like a certain Samurai action that lots of players liked to use.

My guess, but they don't do it cuz it is not the time now. I think they have a certain number of button in mind, which has not yet reached in 6.0. Maybe in 7.0 or 8.0, they will do it when more buttons will be added.