Button Bloat: Data for discussion

[Renathras]

One thing to not overlook is how extremely niche quite a few actions within the healer kit are.

True, but this is true of other Jobs and Role Actions in particular.

Repose is useless in most content, but so is Low Blow and MOST of the Ranged Role actions. Leg Graze/Foot Graze getting any play these days? Hell, we don't even have interrupts in most content, so neither Interjection nor Head Graze have a use, and Pelaton's use is just because walking speed is slow and has no in-combat use. Sleep is like an AOE Repose, and AOE as useless. Leg Sweep is in a similar position. Bosses being immune to Stun and Sleep effects, as well as not having spells you can Interrupt makes like 1/3rd of all the role actions useless outright. The only Stun effect that's really useful is Holy, because it's an AOE stun that can be used for Tank mitigation for wall-to-wall dungeon pulls (which are common occurrences). Sleep doesn't work this way because unlike Stun, Sleep breaks on damage and so has only extremely niche uses by comparison. And single target Heavy or Root effects (or Sleep effects) aren't even useful in 4 mans since they're AOE fests so they will get broken quickly anyway, and if you used them on the first of the wall-to-wall double pulls, all you do is split up the enemies the Tank is pulling and reduce the effectiveness of the AOE spam of the party. Esuna and Rescue are "special" since they technically DO have uses, but they generally...don't.

When we look at specific Jobs, most of them have actions that aren't used or needed under most situations. NIN's Huraijin could be removed and just let Armor Crush apply it for all the ability's actually used. It's only there if the NIN dies or there's extensive downtime (and you can't outright cast Houton and and have 20-40 sec to refresh the charge before the boss is targetable again) and feels bad to use. PLD's Shield Bash gets no play in modern encounter design, and FoF/Requiescat/Goring/Confetior could all just be one button considering you never DON'T use them together. Same with Circle and Spirits WithExpaciation. GNB has a similar issue with Sonic Break and Bow Shock and Double Down and Blasting Zone. At least unlike PLD, Bow Shock and Blasting Zone have different CDs so Blasting Zone justifies itself as a separate ability.

BLM has Scathe. SCAAAATTTHEEEE!! Also Blizzard 1. "But you might need Blizzard 1 for syncing low level content, so it has a niche use!"; Cure 1 can say the same thing, though. Transpose becomes completely pointless in fights for BLM after you get Fire 3 and Blizzard 3. And even for running between combats, Umbral Soul can be used to upkeep Enochian as long as you end combat in Ice. Oh, and Enochian isn't a thing anymore. You need to keep it between pulls if you finished a pull with 1 or 0 Polyglot stacks, but the penalty for dropping it isn't what it once was.

...and, seriously: SCATHE.

With boss hitboxes the size of planets, the Tank and Melee ranged attacks are next to useless at this point, and particularly in the case of PLD (Holy Spirit) and NIN (Ninjutsu x2 + Phantom)

Most Jobs have abilities that are pretty close to useless. You picked WAR, but it's the Tank with the fewest extra buttons. Look at PLD and, as I showed, it has more. WAR also has some in the form of Role Actions, as I also pointed out.

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Now, I can agree with your last point. This was more a "For the record...Healer is actually the role with the highest 'fewest' button amount". I'm not sure on the averages, but it's not the lowest there for sure, Ranged and Caster would both have a lower average than Healer, and Melee is probably comparable.

A good thing to keep in mind as well in conversation about button bloat is "how many buttons can one comfortably reach?"
...
So even on controller there's still room for more, especially considering what Sebazy said in useless or niche abilities just straight up not being bound at all. Should we push to hit that limit? I'd argue no, but also that we're far enough from that limit that its fine as-is.

I feel like your post somewhat contradicts itself? You're saying only the face buttons are comfortable to reach, but then say there's room for more? o.O

For me, I consider two crossbars to be a soft cap limit. You can quickly swap between them with a single bumper tap. Any more and you either have to scroll through them with multiple taps, hold the bumper and press another button to access that tab, or do the "press and hold" dual triggers business, which a lot of people don't find comfortable or intuitive.

It's why I use 32 as a good measure of bloat.

1) 32 is two full crossbar sets, so the most you can very easily access, and

2) 30+ is A LOT OF BUTTONS. Many games give you 10-20, and 30 is already 50% more than that. I've never seen a good argument that an MMO needs more than 30 buttons or it's "braindead" or the like.

Healers feel like they have fewer buttons because most are redundant or have a very specific niche use-case that isn't applicable in most cases to see general use.

This I agree with, though again, this is also the case of Jobs and Roles besides just Healers.

I do disagree with barriers in casual content, though. The one place in the game I consistently find people needing barriers are in the 24 man Pantheon raids. XD

For keyboard, the grids are in sets of 12, so three hotbars for a total of 36 slots covers almost every job by your methodology.

Was wondering that (I remembered WoW being 12), but it doesn't change the point that >30 buttons is already a lot of buttons. Nor does it change the fact that having some Jobs with less is probably good since not everyone plays on keyboard.

^and controller cross hotbars have 48 not 32

How do you figure?

Crossbar sets are 8 on the right trigger and 8 on the left. That's 16. Two pages can be accessed with the tap of the right bumper. That's 16x2=32.

48 is if you add another set, which is what I said wasn't counted as the measure for that reason.

And I also mentioned press-and-hold, in case you were wondering. So I addressed that as well and don't consider that part of a standard hotbar since it requires another set.

If the perception of WHM is that it has the least buttons in the game, but the data shows that it actually has middle of the pack numbers...

Surely the issue is that WHM 'feels' like it has the least, due to how much redundancy is in the kit? Cure 1, Medica 1, Regen to an extent, half the role actions, can all be removed from the hotbars and you'd never notice in 99% of the game, I think that's the real issue for the class

Other healers, it's kinda the same deal in some regards. I'd say SCH is the one that bucks the trend, as the only thing I can come up with for consolidation that doesn't lose some of the 'versatility' of the class is making Physick upgrade into Adlo. SGE would be atrocious without Eukrasia, but at the same time, it's only used on three buttons.

I'm not even sure it's redundancy PER SE since they have different use cases. "When would you ever use Cure 2?" "When you've used Tetra and your available Lilies and you have a Tank that pulled too much, has crappy gear, and isn't using mitigation." You may say that's a fringe case, but I've literally healed this before - WITH Cure 2, mind you. I've also had cases where the Tanks weren't total drooling zombies, but made mistakes. I remember a Paglthan run in late ShB where the Tank apologized in /party during the last pull. "I screwed up", she said. "I used the wrong CDs last fight and all my defensive are on CD. Sorry for the wipe." Moments later, though, in /party, said "Oh, right, Cure 2". I popped Thin Air and started spamming Cure 2, salvaging the pull.

I've also used Cure 1 before when someone needed a quick heal but I was out of oGCDs (one of those "Lord help me with this one /JudgeJudy" memes of a run), where the Cure 1 hit and saved them from the immediate damage that a Cure 2 or other ability would have been too slow to address.

I've also healed MORE THAN ONE Aurum Vale (and not all just in ARR and HW, mind you...) where I had to alternate Cure 1 Cure 2 repeat due to how much damage the Tank was taking and how few other tools I even have at that level. Having only Cure 2 would have gone oom (and probably overhealed) unless Cure 2's MP cost was dropped to Cure 1's amount. It's also the only times I've ever found Freecure useful. It actually DOES have a purpose...in level 40-50 dungeons when Tanks are often not geared, have few CDs, don't realize Arms' Length is a CD, and don't use the CDs they have anyway.

"But that's rare/niche!" So are Cure1/Medica1 spammers, but we talk about them all the time as if they're common enough to be part of the discussion, so fair's fair.

Point is, I think those abilities actually have a use (other than AST's Benefic 1 since Benific 2 is literally the same but better in every way other than costing SLIGHTLY more MP on the one Healer Job that has an infinite well of the stuff), they just aren't used OFTEN or by high end players, and so they feel redundant to the people that don't run across those situations. It's why I don't ever say to remove Cure 1 but rather have it work into either Eukrasia OR Cure 2 with the caveat that Cure 2 have its MP and cast time reduced to match Cure 1's as a straight upgrade. IF our MP pools got bigger as we level, more expensive spell might make sense (that was true once upon a time), but we don't now, so that doesn't work.

I do agree with SCH. SCH is the weird one because it simultaneously has the most buttons AND the buttons all are pretty useful. There are a lot one could argue are somewhat niche, but they still have value for the overall kit, various tricks you want to try to do, or optimization. Physic upgrade into Adlo or Leeches is the only thing I can think of to really combine other than maybe Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination if the CD was cut, but that would make it more powerful overall, probably. Oh, and Lustrate if it could be tooled to upgrade WELL into something else, but even so, Excog (the nearest option) works somewhat differently. And Aetherpact and Dissipation, but those are less "This is useless" and more "This isn't enjoyable to use".

This is going to be subjective.
...

It is, but I more or less agree with you.

There are a lot of buttons in the game that are like "Okay, so...that's there. Why?"

They don't do anything particularly exciting, and it seems weird to take a button spot for that. Most of the "increases damage by X%" buttons that DPSers love are really pointless in the grand scheme of things since it's just "press this every 2 mins to do the damage you should be doing". Is that worth a button? In the pre-2 min meta, when there were different burst windows on Jobs, it might have made since as you might move it around to key times where you could get the most use out of it, but now? They could just flat increase the damage of all Jobs by 10%, balance boss HP to that, and get rid of all those button effects. The only time "burst" is useful as a thing you control the timing of is doing stuff like solo PotD runs and trying to burst down a Mimic before it slaps you with the Infatuation debuff. Yet pretty much every DPS Job has one of these, some have more than one (MNK has Riddle of Fire and Riddle of Air both). At least the party ones like Searing Light or Embolden feel like they have something to them since they affect others besides just your own rotation and wouldn't be addressed by just a flat damage increase since it varies by comp (every MNK has Riddle of Fire, not every party has a RDM).

But they often feel like just another button to weave. Honestly, I feel like they're relics. Relics of ARR when we didn't have that many buttons - I don't remember the exact number, but I think the average number of buttons in ARR was closer to 20-25). With far less oGCDs, having things like that as "filler weaves" to make the Jobs more interesting made sense. But now we are drowning in oGCDs, so many of them feel kind of like redundant relics more than useful hotbar fillers.

Same with the "soft-combo" buttons. And I think the Devs have somewhat realized this, as is the case with Confetior doing 4 buttons in one.

RDM in ShB felt amazing on controller when I first swapped to it after the 5.0 patch. It was weird at first seeing so many copies of my Thunder/Aero spells (since Holy/Flare now were just the same buttons), and I think there were a couple other buttons that did that, but the overall effect is that RDM has some of the best hotbar economy in the game given the number of abilities it has. And this is even while having some "But why?" stuff, like why Jolt even exists as a button (it's entirely so they can have the proc business, but they could just make the procs 100% chance and remove Jolt entirely and it would play MOSTLY like it does today considering how high the proc chance is and abilities gained over the years like Acceleration plus a higher frequency of the burst combo which SHOULD always end with a proc if you're keeping your Mana imbalanced correctly).

SMN has the best hotbar economy in the game by far, but if you list out its abilities as individual things (e.g. List out all the buttons Gemshine, Ruin 3, and Astral Flow turn into), it's a LOT of buttons. They're just extremely efficiently mapped. And as you say, it still has the Energy Drain/Fester Energy Siphon/Painflare weirdness going on (which, other than Painflare, don't even thematically fit SMN anyway).

I do somewhat disagree with you with the 1-2-3, but I think that's more personal taste. I'm okay with that if there are no cast times attached, but as soon as they have cast times, it's a hard nope from me.

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As you say, Healers are a bit different. Though there is still room to compact buttons. Offhand, I think WHM could combine Cure 1 with Esuna (have Cure 1 trait up to where it has the cure and gains the Esuna effect and 1 sec cast time) and have Medica 1 trait up to Medica 2, just lower Medica 2's MP cost to be equal and have the first tick combine with the application. Right now, it does a heal then ticks, but the heal + first tick is the same healing as Medica 1; 400 vs 250 + 150 per tick. Just make it 400 and remove one tick from the end. Or hell, leave the tick, who even cares? But those are two things I think could be logical upgrades. Medica 2 is EFFECTIVELY a direct upgrade to Medica 1. Same cast time (no slower), coomparable-ish MP cost, same initial healing (within the fist 3 sec), larger overall healing via the HoT, and 5y longer range, 20y vs 15y. Indeed, with Cure 3 going from, what, 6 to 8 to 10y, it already is coming close to stepping on Medica 1's toes, so making Medica 1 upgrade into Medica 2 would just make sense. Just drop Medica 2's MP cost to 900 and merge the first tick with the application heal to make it 400 potency.

I do agree that SGE's Eukrasia is a nice potential system. I'm not sure it would work for everyone, but it does allow potentially fantastic hotbar economy for abilities. For example, suppose SGE had a Eukrasia Dyskrasia ability that did an AOE DoT with a 15 sec CD or something. They could conceivably add more abilities without needing to take up a lot more hottbar real estate. NIN does this with Ninjutsu, having 4 hotbar spots for effectively 9-10 abilities, and they could add even more without any new buttons by allowing other combinations, like ones that have more than one of a given button, 4 button combinations, or actually having the order matter (right now, it doesn't; ABC and BAC are the same result, with only the last ability and the total number being relevant).

...and yet NIN still has 3rd most buttons and most for the Melee, somehow. XD

[ForsakenRoe]

I'm not even sure it's redundancy PER SE since they have different use cases. "When would you ever use Cure 2?" "When you've used Tetra and your available Lilies and you have a Tank that pulled too much, has crappy gear, and isn't using mitigation." You may say that's a fringe case

I've also used Cure 1 before when someone needed a quick heal but I was out of oGCDs (one of those "Lord help me with this one /JudgeJudy" memes of a run), where the Cure 1 hit and saved them from the immediate damage that a Cure 2 or other ability would have been too slow to address.

Having only Cure 2 would have gone oom (and probably overhealed) unless Cure 2's MP cost was dropped to Cure 1's amount.

Point is, I think those abilities actually have a use (other than AST's Benefic 1 since Benific 2 is literally the same but better in every way other than costing SLIGHTLY more MP on the one Healer Job that has an infinite well of the stuff)

I do agree with SCH. ... Physic upgrade into Adlo or Leeches is the only thing I can think of to really combine other than maybe Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination if the CD was cut

- Note I did not mention Cure 2. I acknowledge there is occasionally the situation of 'the tank is taking lots of damage, I've burned all my lilies on Solaces and it's only barely keeping up'. In this situation, rare as it may be, Regen is not going to be the play, as the tank will likely evaporate before it even ticks once. Despite it's higher total healing AND better MP economy, it's the 'wrong' choice in that particular case. Which is why I mentioned Regen in the list of 'questionable levels of usage', and not Cure 2. I'd probably sooner watch Regen get pruned than Cure 2, as crazy as that sounds, because if the tank needs healing NOW, then Regen isn't gonna cut it. But I can cover the situations where Regen shines, by using Cure 2. And the MP cost isn't quite as big a deal when you have Thin Air to help with it

- The difference in cast time between Cure 1 and Cure 2 is 0.5s, you're telling me you analyzed the situation, came to the conclusion that Cure2 wouldn't land in time, factored in that Cure 1's potency would indeed be enough to save the guy and that not using anything would have left them dead, all within 0.5s? I don't think I'd be able to think that fast that's crazy

- I have said on multiple occasions that yes, this is what I'd do. Have Cure 1 and Cure 2 both be 500mp, and 1 upgrades into 2 at level 30. Look at older FF games, once you have Curaga, you ain't using Cura or Cure ever again. Well, I guess in the super old ones where you have limited uses of 'each rank of spells' like FF1, but that got revamped in the remake anyway. MP economy isn't a thing because you can chug Ethers like they're Gatorade, and if you're going to overheal because of the power of the spell, you don't downrank, you just use your turn on something else until you need the full power of the spell. Or you just send it anyway, because older games do not have an overheal % value to make you feel bad about. Ironically, even with this change, Freecure can still exist, just that it becomes 'Your Cure 2 has a chance to trigger your next Cure 2 to cost 0MP'. You're welcome devs, I know you have some infatuation with that blasted trait

- Benefic 1 into Benefic 2 can be the exact same thing as above. Change MP cost to 500 for both, have 1 upgrade to 2 at... whatever level 2 is learned at. Also, said job does not have an infinite well of MP until level 50 when it gets Astrodyne. Luckily, unlike WHM who gets Medica 2 at 50, AST gets their equivalent at 42, so they do have it for Aurum Vale, which is nice

- Physick into Adlo requires a little more than just an MP cost change (though, yeh we should get an MP cost change, why tf are Regen and AspBenefic 400, but the shieldhealer equivalents of Adlo and E.Diag 1000/900?). As previously posted, I'd do this:

Currently:
Physick: 450 healing
Adlo: 300 healing, 180% shield (540p)

Proposed:
Physick: 450 healing
Adlo: 450 healing, 120% shield (540p)

Before level 85, the shielding % is 125%, or 375p of shielding. To try and keep this kinda close for the sake of old content balance (not like SE gives a damn but I'm trying), pre-level 85 would have Adlo's shielding power at 100%, and the heal at 400p, giving a shield of 400p too. This is because the 85 trait currently boosts Physick (so it boosts the heal here) and the shield% of Adlo (so, the shield% here).

Thanks to SE having exactly zero original ideas with healing in recent years, the exact same maths works for SGE as well, because the healing/shield% values are currently the exact same.

I don't think combining Dawn and Illum is a good idea, since one's a 1min and one's a 2min, it'd lead to questionable balance decisions. Do you let the combined version be 60s, 120s, 90s in the middle? Having more access to the mit buffs SCH, having less access to the regen nerfs it. Not worth the headache. It's more likely you see Illum rolled into Seraph as a 'when you summon it, it grants the effect ala Phoenix and it's regen', but even that change would have some people up in arms because 'oh I used them separately here and now my whole mit plan is ruined thanks SE'


Can't put HB tags in HB tags, this is a tragedy

[Supersnow845]

snip [/hb]

Because there is also the extra easily accessible set by holding L+R or R+L giving 16 more, you can’t just ignore them, if you exclude them for an arbitrary reason then your point makes no sense because those 16 (or at the bare minimum 8 if you put the same actions on L+R as R+L) are valid hotbars, excluding them is like saying “I don’t like pressing 3 so I excluded M+KB 3rd hotbar.

console does not struggle with buttons on any class, it only struggles on soft scrolling which really only affects AST

[SaberMaxwell]

My post comes off a bit contradictory because I was adding a bit of nuance to the discussion. Supersnow is right in that there are 48 easily accessed buttons and I even detailed how to use them in my post. Honestly, 48 easily reached including l, r, lr, rl, and that can be increased to 56 from ll and rr giving you access to 8 more buttons. You can map things to l3 and r3 even, as I stated I map sprint to l3 and focus target to r3.

If you experiment the controller has a TON of space for buttons. Go to your options and make sure expanded crossbar and w crossbar are both enabled.

I feel my first post highlights that of all those buttons, half can be easily reached while moving because the right thumb is unrelated to moving the left analog stick, though movement with dpad actions isn't impossible, just more difficult, so some thought is needed in where actions are assigned.

[Shurrikhan]

So, button-bloat has two impactful ways of defining it. First, there's having so many buttons as to be physically uncomfortable / less responsive for many players. Second, there's unnecessary convolution (like a CD that is the sole means of access to another action having a button separate from that action).


For the first, especially, I feel like button-bloat counts ought to consider separately the actions that have no likely use or no use in instanced content. That trims Repose, basically axes Shirk and Shield Bash, effectively axes Cure, Physick, and Benefic, etc., etc., to give a slightly clearer picture of what all this means in terms. There's also arguably the matter of whether the less used actions even need to be particularly easy to reach, but let's save that for later.

In either case, I do think it's worth being mindful of multiples of 4 (a controller palette), 8 (a controller crossbar), and 12 (a keyboard row), and maybe not going one over their nearest common multiple if that extra button offers very little additional gameplay value, as per definition #2 below.


For the second, well, we probably ought to be looking at which buttons provide very little increase in available complexity relative to their button cost ("I press this button for Ikishoten, but I press this button for Namikiri! ...Nevermind that the latter can only even be used after Ikishoten...").

it only struggles on soft scrolling which really only affects AST

Soft-scrolling is definitely a place where some "micro-AI" or "smart-targeting" could do a ton of good, as could other tangential improvements like being able to simultaneously hold a Hostile Target and a Friendly Target, removing the inability for macros to queue and allowing them additional targeting settings (such as @st or @soft-target), etc.

Examples of "smart-targeting" (or, smart-snapping") might be something like an option to have, when you Draw a Melee Card, your soft-target snap to the last Melee DPS or Tank that you buffed with a Card (perhaps even with a set priority order for the snap that you could set in the macro [rehauled slightly for greater accessibility]). Other potential improvements could be something like the option to have, once you hit Play, your UI highlight via Soft Target indicators all Priority and Other applicable recipients, and you just nudge your stick to the angle and (relative) depth of the viable target you want to affect with Play.

I suspect there's a ton of little tweaks that could make the controller experience feel far better. Button count isn't something they struggle with, but there's plenty of room for improvement where a lack of mouse is concerned.

And sure, right now it only particularly affects AST... because there's very little extremely urgent healing required. But could you imagine if you actually needed to ST oGCD heal two people (not next to each other in the party list) in the very same GCD-gap to prevent their deaths? I could do that on mouse (though far more easily if mouseovers weren't penalized unless playing with plugins), but I'm not confident I could do so reliably on controller. And I'd love for that situation not to be just a pitifully unrealistic spitball, but not so much if there would be players who'd face a very obvious technical limitation just from not having a mouse.

Can't put HB tags in HB tags, this is a tragedy

I could

have sworn that

you could?

It seems to work just fine, regardless of placing the HB brackets on the same line or separate ones.

TECHNOLOGY!

[PercibelTheren]

Cure I, Benefic I and similar buttons just need to go. Just make them upgrade to their better versions at higher levels, please. Nobody uses the weak versions anyway. The slightly shorter cast time is a non-factor unless you're falling asleep at the wheel. Move the Freecure, autocrit heals and similar passives to te healer's DPS spell instead.

[fulminating]

True, but this is true of other Jobs and Role Actions in particular.

Repose is useless in most content, but so is[sic] Low Blow and MOST of the Ranged Role actions. ... The only Stun effect that's really useful is Holy, because it's an AOE stun that can be used for Tank mitigation for wall-to-wall dungeon pulls (which are common occurrences).

I disagree, even on warrior I use low blow a fair amount because it makes life easier for the dps and healer if I can erase a trash mob's aoe. Sure it probably won't kill them even if they get hit, but it's not uncommon to see people running away to avoid them. Ironically holy's stun is something I find more annoying than helpful when I tank most dungeons.

I'll also just throw out that upheaval and wide upheaval may as well be the same button in their current state (ideal situation would be returning onslaught, upheaval and wide upheaval to the beast gauge, removing shared cooldown and reducing onslaught back to 10s, also unstacking the inner release thing so it doesn't feel as bad in general and especially stq areas.

[UkcsAlias]

SCH
Job: 27
Role: 6
Total: 33
Adjusted Total: 36

Technicaly there are 6 more due to the fairy you can control, but nobody uses that. On pc that is a seperate hotbar, but dont know how that is handled on console. But even here 2 abilities are potentialy usefull: place and follow (place at center during boss, follow during movement). Its niche just like some of the role buttons, but still worth to consider.

[ForsakenRoe]

For the second, well, we probably ought to be looking at which buttons provide very little increase in available complexity relative to their button cost ("I press this button for Ikishoten, but I press this button for Namikiri! ...Nevermind that the latter can only even be used after Ikishoten...").

Soft-scrolling is definitely a place where some "micro-AI" or "smart-targeting" could do a ton of good, as could other tangential improvements like being able to simultaneously hold a Hostile Target and a Friendly Target, removing the inability for macros to queue and allowing them additional targeting settings (such as @st or @soft-target), etc.

Examples of "smart-targeting" (or, smart-snapping") might be something like an option to have, when you Draw a Melee Card, your soft-target snap to the last Melee DPS or Tank that you buffed with a Card (perhaps even with a set priority order for the snap that you could set in the macro [rehauled slightly for greater accessibility]). Other potential improvements could be something like the option to have, once you hit Play, your UI highlight via Soft Target indicators all Priority and Other applicable recipients, and you just nudge your stick to the angle and (relative) depth of the viable target you want to affect with Play.

So my solution for SAM would be this: You're at 0 Kenki, you use Iki, you're at 50, you Senei or Guren and you're at 25. So, the overall 'gain' from this is that you dealt big damage, and gained 25 Kenki. So rather than having a cost of 25, just delete Iki, and make Senei and Guren generate 25, and provide Namikiri Ready. If Iki sucks that much, I'd rather we just deleted it so we don't have it as a weave we still have to do, even if it does turn into Namikiri on the bars. Plus, it turning into Namikiri would have the same potential issue as Jump>Mirage Dive had, and that got rolled back pretty fast

For targetting, here's an idea, though I've not thought it through much: when you press Play, you get a small radial ring somewhere (maybe on the job gauge), with each of the 8 cardinal/intercardinal directions mapped to a party member. Press Right Stick in that direction to instantly throw the card on that party member. Like the Monster Hunter quick-item wheel. By making it so you can press Play during the Malefic cast to bring this wheel up, then selecting a target while still in the cast time, you'd effectively 'queue' up the card to be used at the end of the cast time, akin to how we can 'buffer' an OGCD now.

something like this:



And yes, it would be rescalable in size. And yes, it could be used on other jobs for things like Dragon Sight targetting, or other healer skills like Fey Union or Taurochole or whatever

(ideal situation would be returning onslaught, upheaval and wide upheaval to the beast gauge, removing shared cooldown and reducing onslaught back to 10s, also unstacking the inner release thing so it doesn't feel as bad in general and especially stq areas.

Wide Upheaval (I assume you mean Orogeny) should have been 'slam foot down so hard that lava erupts around you', and Upheaval should get a trait to upgrade it's damage, which changes the animation from uppercutting the enemy, to grabbing them with one hand and headbutting them really hard

[Shurrikhan]

So my solution for SAM would be this: You're at 0 Kenki, you use Iki, you're at 50, you Senei or Guren and you're at 25. So, the overall 'gain' from this is that you dealt big damage, and gained 25 Kenki. So rather than having a cost of 25, just delete Iki, and make Senei and Guren generate 25, and provide Namikiri Ready. If Iki sucks that much, I'd rather we just deleted it so we don't have it as a weave we still have to do, even if it does turn into Namikiri on the bars. Plus, it turning into Namikiri would have the same potential issue as Jump>Mirage Dive had, and that got rolled back pretty fast.

Iki doesn't, imo, suck. It just sucks that...

• Namikiri needlessly takes a separate button,
• its CD was doubled to 120s, making it add little to gauge management so much as just one more step in a bloated 15s per 120s burst, and
• Senei/Guren were also moved from per 90s (off-rhythm with Iki) to 120s, defeating the point of Iki's former contribution to gauge management.

The solution? To just revert it, and separate Namikiri. The obvious, though imo inferior alternative: to just have Ikishoten turn into Namikiri after use, since EVERY Iki opens up Namikiri and Namikiri can ONLY be used after Iki.

I'm fine with Namikiri being a separate button... if it has reason to be a separate button. It just currently has no such reason.

For targetting, here's an idea, though I've not thought it through much: when you press Play, you get a small radial ring somewhere (maybe on the job gauge), with each of the 8 cardinal/intercardinal directions mapped to a party member.

Would love this option. Just set it to [@cardi] on the macro, and, again, remove the intentional sabotage of at least the first actionable line of each macro, and allow players to set up targeting schemas to act on all [relevant] skills without needing a macro (a trickle-down of targeting procedures, skipping over those not applicable, that can be set by skill type).

changes the animation from uppercutting the enemy, to grabbing them with one hand and headbutting them really hard

But then players might remember that the game has basically zero physics.