Action condensing options

[Wolwosh]

If they turn combo's into 1 button they'd better add new combo's or skills to make up for the buttons that were lost.
If they don't guess i'll finally have to look for another mmo, but I hope op's suggestion never happens tbh..
How hard is it really to press 3 different buttons for most combo's?

[Shurrikhan]

I'm all for a fine tuned approach of changing jobs, a sledge hammer approach solves nothing. You accuse me of going to extremes but then do it yourself, I suppose we're both guilty of it if we're being honest.

My intention there was to question your specific warrant, not your overall conclusion. Again, my preference is actual combos, as compared to the fake crap we have now.

I'd just sooner give players the option to consolidate them since the existing "combo" system works disproportionately to punish impaired players. Intended or not, that's the primary result, the place where "succeeding" at hitting 12345 actually differs from "failing" at following the yellow-glow road or from being able to hit a single button for a single decision (a single inflexible combo).

But fair enough; I apologize if I overemphasized the slippery slope there by not bounding your warrant nearer to just the difference in our conclusions.

For example I didnt mind the cartridge combo collapse on gunbreaker. Why? Because you already couldnt misclick the combo. As it is on the jobs that have it, combo steps require you to pay attention that would be freed up otherwise. If you look at logs that arent particularly high, combo breaking is happening a lot so it absolutely would change balancing as a whole. Combo collapse isnt a just tiny QoL thing.

Right, but should "I can misclick this" be considered a worthwhile reason to force every player to spend, say, 10 buttons on a mere 3 decisions (DRG) for which there is zero viable use-cases for mixing outside of starting a new combo after having started the wrong one?

7 buttons just for the purpose, if you are correct, of setting traps that will matter almost only to those with impaired dexterity. Is that worthwhile? Is that good design?

Yes, that cost is less on other combo jobs (just 3 for NIN, 4 for SAM), but that is the fundamental design difference at play in terms of "mechanical complexity" for giving or refusing players the option for consolidated combos: trap buttons. That's it.

There is already the option to not engage with standard combos: it's called playing a job that doesnt use them.

Which is why I mostly play Monk, and why I preferred SAM when there was at least some slight reason to have each button separately available (such that one could want to use Shifu or Jinpu during Meikyo, even if only very rarely and after having already messed up somewhere prior).

Likewise, I'd certainly rather see Bard be able to bank Refulgent Arrow / Shadowbite procs than see those consolidated. But there ought to at least some use case for the separate buttons. Especially if we're to frame its being there around "mechanical difficulty" as opposed to just "I like my fingers to move around more" (a very real but entirely subjective point of merit for having separate buttons).

I like the tactile feel, the button-flow, of unconsolidated combos, but I see no reason (as I do not believe mere intentional trap buttons to be good design) to deny a consolidated option to the players who care less about that than a more efficient or (to them) intuitive layout.

[Saraide]

My intention there was to question your specific warrant, not your overall conclusion. Again, my preference is actual combos, as compared to the fake crap we have now.

I'd just sooner give players the option to consolidate them since the existing "combo" system works disproportionately to punish impaired players. Intended or not, that's the primary result, the place where "succeeding" at hitting 12345 actually differs from "failing" at following the yellow-glow road or from being able to hit a single button for a single decision (a single inflexible combo).

But fair enough; I apologize if I overemphasized the slippery slope there by not bounding your warrant nearer to just the difference in our conclusions.



Right, but should "I can misclick this" be considered a worthwhile reason to force every player to spend, say, 10 buttons on a mere 3 decisions (DRG) for which there is zero viable use-cases for mixing outside of starting a new combo after having started the wrong one?

7 buttons just for the purpose, if you are correct, of setting traps that will matter almost only to those with impaired dexterity. Is that worthwhile? Is that good design?

Yes, that cost is less on other combo jobs (just 3 for NIN, 4 for SAM), but that is the fundamental design difference at play in terms of "mechanical complexity" for giving or refusing players the option for consolidated combos: trap buttons. That's it.


Which is why I mostly play Monk, and why I preferred SAM when there was at least some slight reason to have each button separately available (such that one could want to use Shifu or Jinpu during Meikyo, even if only very rarely and after having already messed up somewhere prior).

Likewise, I'd certainly rather see Bard be able to bank Refulgent Arrow / Shadowbite procs than see those consolidated. But there ought to at least some use case for the separate buttons. Especially if we're to frame its being there around "mechanical difficulty" as opposed to just "I like my fingers to move around more" (a very real but entirely subjective point of merit for having separate buttons).

I like the tactile feel, the button-flow, of unconsolidated combos, but I see no reason (as I do not believe mere intentional trap buttons to be good design) to deny a consolidated option to the players who care less about that than a more efficient or (to them) intuitive layout.

It's not just a matter of impaired dexterity, it's in many many cases a matter of lack of attention stemming from not knowing mechanics well enough.

[Shurrikhan]

it's in many many cases a matter of lack of attention stemming from not knowing mechanics well enough.

Then, is that a meaningful fail condition worth forcing anyone and everyone to spend almost a fifth of DRG's native toolkit buttons on?

Is the ability to accidentally hit 132 instead of a 123 worth refusing anyone and everyone the ability to save a 15% of one's job buttons in making sequence-fixed/singular decisions take only a single button slot?

7 buttons, a fifth of a job kit, spent to make sure there's extra punishment if one doesn't follow the lit-up abilities. Is that good design?

[UkcsAlias]

removing the 1-2-3 combos will just lead to people saying "game boring all i do is spam 1 over and over"
if pressing 3 buttons in sequence is hard... i dont know what to say

Hud management is harder the more abilities are wasting a slot :P

While modifiers like CTRL and Shift allow a lot of buttons to be within easy range, 3 button combos can take up a lot of space here, Condensing makes this part easier.

I generaly notice that mispresses start happen when buttons are going outside of that range (which for me is usualy beyond the 6 button). And on that i generaly put abilities together which i know do not matter that much upon a mispress (using heal A or B doesnt change the result of a target being healed, it might at most waste a cooldown). But i can imagine that for some classes this result can be a bit more harsh because some combos do take some time to build as they rely on 2min CDs (this is for me already the reason i never put those in the main bar).

Condensing can help a lot here, and therefor make a class easier. But i think that this is just a bad argument to use as its just artificial difficulty. I would not be surprised if a macro can condense these abilities for you anyway (you can already make a macro that falls back on cure 1 if you lack the mp for cure 2).

[LittleImp]

If they ever make condensed combos mandatory, I will probably find another game to play or use third party addons to bring multi-button combos back. The extant condensed combos like the Blades combo on Paladin feel awful.

I am not interested in spending 90% of my time spamming a single button, hence why I almost never touch healing jobs these days.

[LeonKeyh]

Playing as a healer this suggestion every time it comes up makes me cringe. "Good" news is that it sounds like they may make it an OPTION. But, since some people won't use that option, they wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the "Extra" hotbar space.

How about instead we:

1. Make AoE versions of _most_ Single Target abilities (if they don't already exist)
2. Make Single Target versions of _most_ AoE abilities (if they don't already exist)
3. Give everyone an AoE stance that replaces your single target abilities with the AoE counterpart when you turn it on (or, all attacks just cleave)

Biggest problem (IMO) is that jobs' "anemic" AoE kits are used way too much compared to their "real" single target rotations. This change would make gameplay the same between trash pulls and bosses and help people perfect their rotation. Not all abilities necessarily need to change since there are some AoE abilities that are used in single target and vice versa already.

Hell, just changing most OGCDs to be X Potency and XX% to enemies around the target would clean up some of the messiness. Especially on Samurai:

Have Shoha upgrade to Shoha II with a high potency plus AE fall-off damage

Combine Shinten and Kyuten into 1 ability with high potency plus AE fall-off damage

Have Tsubame replace Iaijutsu after using Iaijutsu

Combine Guren and Senei into a single attack with high potency plus AE fall-off damage

Combine Gyoten and Yaten into an ability similar to Icarus/Thunderclap that just takes you to a target

Have Ogi Namakiri replace Ikishoten

[dspguy]

They should bring back accuracy or maybe cap it at 95%. Make those combos landing mean something instead of just being a "given." Have players improvise on the fly. I know that's an unpopular opinion though. While we will have some players that don't want a 1-1-1 combo since it is "braindead" how is it any different than us monkeys hitting a set key sequence that we have memorized?

[Ransu]

Why do people keep asking for this? It gives me a strong "I want to roll my face on the keyboard and collect my rewards" vibe

Because they don't bother to use keybinds.

[BrokentoothMarch]

Why do people keep asking for this? It gives me a strong "I want to roll my face on the keyboard and collect my rewards" vibe

Because some of us have more brain capacity to realize that the difference between 1-2-3 and 1-1-1 is skin deep when all the abilities do roughly the same exact thing with the main difference being "Is it AoE or ST?".

If they won't bother making interesting kits, at least stop pretending it's interesting by making it more buttons. I still don't understand why Kaiten had to die for "button bloat" when Ikushoten and Ogi Namikiri have no business being different buttons. This is all flash and no substance and the flash is getting boring. (That's a lie. I know exactly why. So we can focus ever harder on 1-2-3).

Also this game is already "Roll my face and get rewards". That's the entire loop. Just because this community ends up being atrociously bad at basic tasks doesn't mean said task is hard.