simple way to reduce button bloat without changing gameplay

[Rilifane]

FFXIV has honestly absolutely terrible hotbar slot economy.
All classes have several redundant skills with aoe versions of single target skills being the main culprit here but closely followed by skills that can only be used in sequence yet take up multiple slots (e.g. Ley Lines/ Between the Lines) and a couple of copy-pasted generic "a bit of extra potency on a cooldown" skills or "move HP to the right but with a different name".
And as angelar pointed out, any solutions through hotbar swapping, crime tools, just not using skills and so on do not mean anything from a dev standpoint as you can't guarantee players will use it so you need to plan with a "worst case" in mind and that worst case is that our hotbars are full and have no more space for adding skills without merging/ deleting others.

Whether they add a stance to swap between single target/ aoe or just make all single target skills aoe with a falloff, they need to find a better solution than pruning skills from lower levels and giving them back in the newest expansion with a different name. Low level gameplay becomes increasingly barebone and boring because of this and yet all the wasted hotbar slots on separate aoe rotations don't add anything that would justify blocking this many slots when instead of a simplified "just spam in trash pulls" you could instead have smoother skill acquisition and better low level gameplay and more interaction and interesting skills in your toolkit.
Do we really need "just like single target... but aoe!" or several flat potency, press on cooldown skills?
It limits skill design without adding anything to justify it.

Unfortunately it's not really as simple as adding the PvP single button rotations to PvE when jobs like monk and black mage exist.

Merge:
Blizzard III and High Blizzard II
Blizzard IV and Freeze
Fire III and High Fire II
Despair and Flare
Foul and Xeno
Thunder III and Thunder IV
Ley Lines and Between the Lines

7 buttons saved. Aoe rotations aren't inherently interesting because they are just simplified, shorter snigle target rotations so it's not like you would lose an exciting part of your gameplay.
Especially considering aoe rotations are exclusive to some casual content situations (and not even all, just SOME), like dungeon trash pulls, fates and treasure maps while polishing the universal rotation would mean more interesting gameplay in all types of content, from the MSQ progger or fate farmer to the Ultimate raider.

[Zebraoracle]

Merge:
Blizzard III and High Blizzard II
Blizzard IV and Freeze
Fire III and High Fire II
Despair and Flare
Foul and Xeno
Thunder III and Thunder IV
Ley Lines and Between the Lines

7 buttons saved. Aoe rotations aren't inherently interesting because they are just simplified, shorter snigle target rotations so it's not like you would lose an exciting part of your gameplay.
Especially considering aoe rotations are exclusive to some casual content situations (and not even all, just SOME), like dungeon trash pulls, fates and treasure maps while polishing the universal rotation would mean more interesting gameplay in all types of content, from the MSQ progger or fate farmer to the Ultimate raider.

While I agree AoE rotations aren't super interesting and merging them like that could potentially work, I was referring strictly to the PvP style of "press this one button that changes as you press it" single button combo rotation that people are suggesting. Unless Square is going to map out the absolutely OPTIMAL BLM rotation, I don't see that kind of system ever being applied in PvE lol.

But yeah, there are definitely skills that can be merged to reduce the bloat. There's also the idea of just... revamping the jobs as well, which will probably never happen, because Square is just so in love with the 2 minute burst window idea. As well as healers being button bloat: the role.