What are your thoughts on FFXIV's combat?

[PyurBlue]

I'd be a lot happier with combat if we had a few basic GCD combos with the rest of the skills being utility/use at will rather than a two minute chain rotation that has to be rigidly adhered to.

I feel the same at this point. I want to move away from scripted combat and rotations to something more free flowing and dynamic. Skill effectiveness would ideally be determined by how well they are timed or how good a player is at reading a situation rather than just how many times they are used.

[UnrealTai]

I think it's pretty damn good when it comes to trials & high end raids. But for more personal touches like job roles specifically, its bland AF.

Combat outside of those 2 things is lacking on any role, all healers, melee ranged mage tank types overall feel the same, as if there are only 5 roles in the game. If you have 1 melee role, you may as well have all the others. I only level one role from each overall category because it "feels" like there is no point doing the others, I tend to pick the one role that does best in endgame, except when it comes to ninja, ill level it regardless.

XI really nailed job uniqueness, XIV on the other hand, has done everything in its power to take that away over time. You used to be able to at least do minor tweaks to make "your" ninja, different from soneone elses Ninja, that's been so many years ago now though. Like in PVP even, when Materia used to actually apply & matter.

The only reason I even re-sub is because when I think of XIV, I remember how good the trials and high end raids were, and the music from them, outside of that, nothing really. Housing is fun if you enjoy the Animal Crossing type of play (Which I do), but really nothing else, PVP is about the only filler we have as well.

[Ralphe2449]

FF14 combat at least from the dps perspective is fun mainly due to the design of having so many dps related skills to keep track, at least for some classes and the very fitting animations that enhance the class fantasy tremendously, you feel like you are playing that class.

It lacks utility which is kind of a negative but there's barely any content that requires utility anyway so it matters less.

Some classes can be a bit boring though, summoner feels dreadfully boring and meh to play, RDM is extremely simplistic, reaper/samurai looks badass but again quite simplistic which gets a bit boring when it is so easy to play effectively.

[Voltyblast]

I think it's fine. Too bloated with unnecessary skills, but otherwise it's fine.

[EnigmaticDodo]

I think it's fine. Too bloated with unnecessary skills, but otherwise it's fine.

Can you name some???

Just ask because this game tends to remove more and more skills. Do you want it to be purely 1,2,3 for everything?

[Shurrikhan]

Can you name some???

Just ask because this game tends to remove more and more skills. Do you want it to be purely 1,2,3 for everything?

There's a large gap between the likes of "Having separate buttons for Flare and Freeze, and Anatman in general, feel kind of bloated" and "I only want 3 buttons".

But, yeah, some examples wouldn't hurt.

[Ralphe2449]

Can you name some???

Just ask because this game tends to remove more and more skills. Do you want it to be purely 1,2,3 for everything?

Huraijin, why did they add a button solely in the case someone screws up and loses huton, it is extremely situational, if you fail you are meant to be punished for that failure so creating an entire skill just to lessen the punishment is kinda weird

[EnigmaticDodo]

There's a large gap between the likes of "Having separate buttons for Flare and Freeze, and Anatman in general, feel kind of bloated" and "I only want 3 buttons".

But, yeah, some examples wouldn't hurt.

I'm a little concerned that people think it's still bloated when we've had 2 expacs that have been simplifying the holy hell out of the game. I seriously do not know if they can go any further without it becoming a 1,2,3 fest. They'll find a way though.

[Ayche]

FFXIV is not only a classic tab-target MMO, but it is also small scale tab-target MMO.
That is such a narrow design space to occupy, it is no wonder the combat has not drastically changed in so many years.

[KageTokage]

The normalizing of burst to two minute windows feels kind of...bad, and I'm hoping they'll address it somehow in the future.

I suppose in an ideal world there would be multiple "correct" ways to do your rotation but the current rotation design means that any mistimed cooldowns are going to cause a permanent misalignment and potential gradual loss of DPS for the entire fight as a side effect.