Please stop inserting unbranching combos in new jobs

[Valence]

This has been a trend more and more whether it is with new jobs like RPR, or reworked jobs like MCH (please bring back ammo, you had literally no reason to remove reloads), and a lot of tanks.

The whole points of basic combos as far as I understood it has always been to have at least one or two branches to pick from after the first skill. Else you'd just be better served by replacing them with a single pvp like button for all that matters. Why do we even bother with combos if that's just always pressing the 3 same buttons in succession?

This is just depressing to think about.

[UkcsAlias]

The whole points of basic combos as far as I understood it has always been to have at least one or two branches to pick from after the first skill. Else you'd just be better served by replacing them with a single pvp like button for all that matters. Why do we even bother with combos if that's just always pressing the 3 same buttons in succession?

A lot of msq duties already showed that condensing a 3 button combo into 1 button can be done, without breaking the combo effect in it.

And tbh, for some jobs it would be a decent feature to exist, while still enabling chaining. We can even improve it so it becomes a lot more complex:
1 gets the 123 combo as we know (lets call these A,B,C)
button 2 gets a chain action for B and C, upon using B, this ability changes to D (and disables C -> which becomes A again), and the same with C (which turns this to E)
button 3 gets chains for both C, D and E (F,G,H).

Condensing a normaly 5 button chain into 3 buttons.

And for some jobs which basicly follow a 123 for single target, aeo, debuff in 3 seperate chains (using 9 buttons in total), this enables a lot of condensing without realy changing a lot in result.

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This could even work for a 2 button combo:
You start with A and B on btn 1 and 2. Upon using A, they change do C and D, and upon using B (or D), they change back to A and B. And upon using C, it changes to E and F, which both take it back to A and B again.
I think healers would benefit a lot from such mechanic to get their dps chaining a bit more interesting. As for debuffs/buffs just having a dot isnt the only thing that can be done. The healer can also boost themselve in these systems. ACE would then be the highest DPS, While B for example applies a % based damage boost, and D applies a boost towards healing output, and F adds some sort of stack which upon the next E cast is used for additional damage.

Button condensing is powerful, but we will need a basic numbers of buttons for it though, hence the 123 combo we have now is good to keep for that. But as now we can still put everything on 3 hotbars, condensing isnt needed yet, condensed buttons are after all a lot harder to read when new to the job.

[Rongway]

A lot of msq duties already showed that condensing a 3 button combo into 1 button can be done

The MSQ duties use single button combos because you can't expect every player who plays through the MSQ to know how to play every single job so that they can finish the story. For real jobs, the devs expect players to know enough basics not to press buttons out of order.

[UkcsAlias]

The MSQ duties use single button combos because you can't expect every player who plays through the MSQ to know how to play every single job so that they can finish the story. For real jobs, the devs expect players to know enough basics not to press buttons out of order.

Most duties barely even use 5 buttons. With a 123 that would be 7 buttons. That should be easily managable on its own.

But that wasnt my statement anyway, I only said that it shows it CAN be done. Not that it should. And that it can enables some flexibility in the combo systems for jobs. And its not even that strange anyway to have, note that dancer already has 8 double purpose buttons (normal use, and dancing). For dancer they even can combo into each other.

Double purpose buttons are a very efficient way of compacting abilities, and can themselve also feature more. And some jobs would definitely benefit from some of these features.

[Taranok]

The MSQ duties use single button combos because you can't expect every player who plays through the MSQ to know how to play every single job so that they can finish the story. For real jobs, the devs expect players to know enough basics not to press buttons out of order.

True or not, 3-step combos that don't branch could, and should, be reduced to 1 button if for no other reason than condensing bar space. If they want classes to have as many superfluous buttons as SAM or BLM have, nevermind AST or PLD, they need to condense redundant buttons down, and the best place is just to make 3-step combos 1 button. For most classes it wouldn't even make it harder or easier to play, it's just about not having useless buttons.

After that it's mostly about getting rid of redundant buttons like Shoha/Shoha 2, Foul/Xenoglossy. Basically mutually exclusive skills that have a single target and AoE version of what is otherwise an identical skill. But button bloat is another problem unto itself.

[CelestiCer]

True or not, 3-step combos that don't branch could, and should, be reduced to 1 button if for no other reason than condensing bar space. If they want classes to have as many superfluous buttons as SAM or BLM have, nevermind AST or PLD, they need to condense redundant buttons down, and the best place is just to make 3-step combos 1 button. For most classes it wouldn't even make it harder or easier to play, it's just about not having useless buttons.

Hard Disagree here. Specially when it comes to a Job " I play " that you don't.

First buttons to save up for SAM would be...

• Fusing Shoha I and Shoha II with fall off damage
• Fusing Guren and Senei with fall off damage
• Ikishoten turning into Ogi Namikiri

This saves 3 buttons before we ever consider Combo Button compression ( And what should have taken prio over Kaiten removal ) as this changes nothing about the difficulty/execution of our rotation. Leave everything else alone until they present me something better to replace whatever anyone is suggesting to remove.

This... idiotic concept... of suggesting to remove something to make room for something better in the foreseeable future? is imbecilic. My Kaiten got deleted April 12th, 2022 patch 6.1... for over a year replaced with " Nothing better ". Am I to expect any better when my Combo buttons get reduced to a singular button? Wait another year or two cause we made room for something new? that's rich.

The way I define " Button Bloat ", is when I require macro's or special equipment to play a class or job. Even before Kaiten removal? I had zero issues with SAM execution. Although SAM's non-existing Button Bloat issue, is another topic.

[Taranok]

Hard Disagree here. Specially when it comes to a Job " I play " that you don't.

First buttons to save up for SAM would be...

• Fusing Shoha I and Shoha II with fall off damage
• Fusing Guren and Senei with fall off damage
• Ikishoten turning into Ogi Namikiri

This saves 3 buttons before we ever consider Combo Button compression ( And what should have taken prio over Kaiten removal ) as this changes nothing about the difficulty/execution of our rotation. Leave everything else alone until they present me something better to replace whatever anyone is suggesting to remove.

This... idiotic concept... of suggesting to remove something to make room for something better in the foreseeable future? is imbecilic. My Kaiten got deleted April 12th, 2022 patch 6.1... for over a year replaced with " Nothing better ". Am I to expect any better when my Combo buttons get reduced to a singular button? Wait another year or two cause we made room for something new? that's rich.

The way I define " Button Bloat ", is when I require macro's or special equipment to play a class or job. Even before Kaiten removal? I had zero issues with SAM execution. Although SAM's non-existing Button Bloat issue, is another topic.

Samurai has branching combos. Why the hell are you responding to me? I was referring to Warrior, DRK, GNB, PLD, RPR. SAM has 3 separate branched combos, of course they shouldn't be 1 button.

Also don't forget combining Ikishoten with Guren. You have 4 damned 2 minute cooldowns that are used simultaneously under almost all scenarios. You can combine those 6 buttons into 2 and lose absolutely nothing of value by just having ikishoten get merged with Guren, which was merged with Senei, which turns into Ogi Namakure. 4 buttons for the cost of 1 oGCD.

[Shurrikhan]

This... idiotic concept... of suggesting to remove something to make room for something better in the foreseeable future? is imbecilic.

Putting aside that Taranok was referring specifically to combos like that of modern DRK and PLD (no more CD-less Goring Blade) and had already suggested the exact same kinds of consolidations that you later did...

getting rid of redundant buttons like Shoha/Shoha 2, Foul/Xenoglossy. Basically mutually exclusive skills that have a single target and AoE version of what is otherwise an identical skill. But button bloat is another problem unto itself.

...you can still have button-mobile gameplay even in consolidated combos... if we just stopped fetishizing (clear/obvious/forcibly) non-choices as if they were actual depth.

For instance, to take an old concept floating around from Stormblood, imagine if Dragoon simply had 3 buttons around which to "combo" in any of varying paths. At any given GCD step, until you complete the combo, you have access to...
A. a Surge skill,
B. a Flurry skill,
C. and a Stream skill.

First GCD / "Opener":
A - True Thrust (+% Potency Bonus, lingering for the whole combo or fixed duration)
B - Impulse Drive (+Potency per hit, flat, lingering for the whole combo or fixed duration)
C - Doom Spike (+Applies flat Armor reduction)

Second GCD / "Bridge":
A - Vorpal Thrust (Has bonus Suppression; multi-hits)
B - Disembowel (Has Armor reduction)
C - Sonic Thrust (Separate hits, therefore scaling well with flat potency bonuses)

Third GCD / "Finisher":
A - Full Thrust (Just a single big damn hit)
B - Chaos Thrust (DoT, with individual ticks therefore scaling about evenly with % or flat bonuses, in total; multi-hits)
C - [Coerthan Torment] (Magic damage, not affected by Armor)

Wheeling Thrust [two-strikes, the latter being a radial AoE] and Fang and Claw [now two strikes, with short, narrow linear AoEs with falloff] could then be held and would duplicate a portion of the prior finisher (CT duration stacking up to 30s). WT's the AoE portion of which then scales better with flat potency increases after CT.

Yes, Full Thrust will scale best off True Thrust and Sonic Thrust better off Impulse or Doom Spike, such that you ultimately just have 5-6 combos with best in-practice use cases, especially in sustained rotation... but that's still a lot better than 6 out of 7 GCD skills being effectively greyed out for 9 out of 10 GCDs in single-target combat.

And you could build off that base, too, to eventually have the individual skills influence what skills follow for fully conditional branching paths instead of paths based on synergies, etc., etc.
__________

Having fewer buttons doesn't have to mean any significant amount less button-movement, and very often forces greater total nuance. Of course, we wouldn't have ended up in a situation where consolidation would even look feasible if the devs hadn't mistaken button count (and its non-choice bloat tools like AoE|ST pairs) for our actual moment-to-moment gameplay or decision-making.

While I don't think there's any added gameplay value to be had in mere XIVCombo or PvP-style consolidation (though I wouldn't begrudge that becoming an option just for QoL, given slight accordant adjustments to those using redundant keys for parity), a rework of the game's "combos" (which are... not remotely combinations, but instead merely inflexible multi-button sequences for singular actions, akin to more constrained/bloated mudras) seems a very lucrative design space.

[Valence]

A lot of msq duties already showed that condensing a 3 button combo into 1 button can be done, without breaking the combo effect in it.

And tbh, for some jobs it would be a decent feature to exist, while still enabling chaining. We can even improve it so it becomes a lot more complex:
1 gets the 123 combo as we know (lets call these A,B,C)
button 2 gets a chain action for B and C, upon using B, this ability changes to D (and disables C -> which becomes A again), and the same with C (which turns this to E)
button 3 gets chains for both C, D and E (F,G,H).

Condensing a normaly 5 button chain into 3 buttons.

And for some jobs which basicly follow a 123 for single target, aeo, debuff in 3 seperate chains (using 9 buttons in total), this enables a lot of condensing without realy changing a lot in result.

---

This could even work for a 2 button combo:
You start with A and B on btn 1 and 2. Upon using A, they change do C and D, and upon using B (or D), they change back to A and B. And upon using C, it changes to E and F, which both take it back to A and B again.
I think healers would benefit a lot from such mechanic to get their dps chaining a bit more interesting. As for debuffs/buffs just having a dot isnt the only thing that can be done. The healer can also boost themselve in these systems. ACE would then be the highest DPS, While B for example applies a % based damage boost, and D applies a boost towards healing output, and F adds some sort of stack which upon the next E cast is used for additional damage.

Button condensing is powerful, but we will need a basic numbers of buttons for it though, hence the 123 combo we have now is good to keep for that. But as now we can still put everything on 3 hotbars, condensing isnt needed yet, condensed buttons are after all a lot harder to read when new to the job.

But... I never asked for condensing combo buttons like in pvp...

[Tint]

Why do we even bother with combos if that's just always pressing the 3 same buttons in succession?

This is just depressing to think about.