QoL and reducing number of the buttons suggestion

[lilmoon]

It has been bothering me for the longest time.
Why assign individual keys for simple 1,2,3 combos?
Being repetitious is boing enough, but it takes away valuable 3 keys for braindead 1,2,3 combos.

Throughout the MSQ, we encounter events where we play as an NPC. SquareEnix made sure that the playthrough was easy and enjoyable by minimizing the buttons to press for combos and skills. Buttons change automatically when certain conditions are met.
Some of these concepts already exist in some jobs such as SMN and RPR.

I suggest that Square-Enix takes this idea further by combining single-target as well as multi-target combos into just one button each and letting it change automatically to the next combo as the previous attack lands the enemy. So much smooth gameplay and saves some previous button assignments.

I am not suggesting dumbing down the gameplay to a point that smashes down a few keys to win the game. I rather want to see the choices of certain button presses matter depending on the situation.

I believe this will be a great QoL change and also a great way to reduce the number of buttons in the game.

[mallleable]

I think condensing combos works for certain skills like GNB's Gnashing Fang combo, and perhaps could even work for RDM's melee combo, but I don't think it is necessary or even be good for job feel right now to condense basic filler combos. I think having the option to condense combos for accessibility would be good, but not as the default,

[Vrankyl]

This suggestion gets brought up pretty often, mostly ever since they did this in PvP. The problem with this is not all classes have a basic 1,2,3 combo. There are classes with branching combos that such a set up wouldn't work for at all. This would be all but impossible with the current design of Monk with Perfect Balance and Form Shift, not to mention that you can swap which part of the combo you are doing at any point with monk and sometimes have to. Then there are classes that are proc based that you wouldn't be able to do this with either like Dancer and Bard, or any of the casters really.

[Jeeqbit]

Why assign individual keys for simple 1,2,3 combos?

Using this logic, we can also ask why there are multiple buttons at all and why rotations aren't just 1 button like healers or in certain MSQ duties.

The answer is so that, well, everything isn't just 1 button.

I believe this will be a great QoL change and also a great way to reduce the number of buttons in the game.

They had to tackle the "too many buttons" issue as far back as the transition from Heavensward to Stormblood and they have tackled it in every expansion since, with features such as "upgrading", added effects, situational upgrades, high-level traits and removing unused actions/abilities.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

It has been bothering me for the longest time.
Why assign individual keys for simple 1,2,3 combos?
Being repetitious is boing enough, but it takes away valuable 3 keys for braindead 1,2,3 combos.

Throughout the MSQ, we encounter events where we play as an NPC. SquareEnix made sure that the playthrough was easy and enjoyable by minimizing the buttons to press for combos and skills. Buttons change automatically when certain conditions are met.
Some of these concepts already exist in some jobs such as SMN and RPR.

I suggest that Square-Enix takes this idea further by combining single-target as well as multi-target combos into just one button each and letting it change automatically to the next combo as the previous attack lands the enemy. So much smooth gameplay and saves some previous button assignments.

I am not suggesting dumbing down the gameplay to a point that smashes down a few keys to win the game. I rather want to see the choices of certain button presses matter depending on the situation.

I believe this will be a great QoL change and also a great way to reduce the number of buttons in the game.

Honestly, that wouldn't really do much for a lot of jobs. That's a button reduction of 2-3. Not very many.

[Colt47]

They definitely need to limit the total number of buttons dedicated to combos because they hit a hard wall with Dragoon. They also need more meaningful things to do in combat than to choose between AOEing targets or single targeting. We have zero CC requirements, the speed of all enemies was increased basically as a sign that they are no longer interested in kiting being a strategy, and we're stuck with the game now being about juggling combos in a rhythm. It's a simple system, but I will admit this is like tying an arm behind ones back dealing with content.

[mallleable]

Some other thoughts, there are absolutely ways to reduce button bloat, and clean up redundancies, but I think the condensing filler combos should be a last resort.

[Astrus]

[...]
Throughout the MSQ, we encounter events where we play as an NPC. SquareEnix made sure that the playthrough was easy and enjoyable by minimizing the buttons to press for combos and skills. Buttons change automatically when certain conditions are met.
[...]

This might just be me but 8/10 "Role Play" Duties where we play as an NPC with the neutered version of a Job available to the WoL feel like the absolutely worst mandatory content in the game for me. It doesn't do the Job justice, it doesn't do the character justice most of the time and it just isn't fun in any way.
The one outlier is the Thancred stealth mission. That one actually shook things up enough to be interesting but the ones that are plain combat? I'd almost rather watch that happen in a cutscene than suffer through the "gameplay".

[Kaurhz]

It wouldn't apply to all jobs under their current design... This aside though, and people are more than welcomed to disagree but personally...

For a base combo Pressing 1, 2, 3 is no more complicated than pressing 1, 1, 1, neither is 1 more engaging than the other.

[Post]

This might just be me but 8/10 "Role Play" Duties where we play as an NPC with the neutered version of a Job available to the WoL feel like the absolutely worst mandatory content in the game for me. It doesn't do the Job justice, it doesn't do the character justice most of the time and it just isn't fun in any way.
The one outlier is the Thancred stealth mission. That one actually shook things up enough to be interesting but the ones that are plain combat? I'd almost rather watch that happen in a cutscene than suffer through the "gameplay".

"In From the Cold" is my personal example of this system working because you're meant to feel powerless, so it fits the narrative.

But, this problem doesn't end with those solo duties. It's really dumb that I had fewer effective action options as a healer doing the MSQ for certain face-offs against long-standing antagonists than I had doing the level 20 quest back in ARR where I had some NPCs I could heal and crowd control I could use to turn the tide of the battle.

As for the 1-2-3 thing and why it was more engaging (beyond having various combo routes) than having them all on the same button, the time which your actions remained comboable was much shorter for a long time than it is today, something around like 7 seconds (it's like 30 seconds now), and there were often actions that you'd need to apply on a new target when you started attacking it, oh, and NEW TARGETS would show up to boss fights at every level of content (even solo MSQ stuff), so you'd have much more organic reasons to want to be able to just restart your combo whenever instead of being locked into finishing them. Obviously, that hasn't been the world we've played in for some time, so I don't think it's unlikely that they're drifting towards what OP wants, slowly but surely.

Having all the buttons on one button won't really make the jobs any less boring than those NPC duties, though, and they'll probably just give you more random oGCD 'deals damage) actions you have to press every 30/60/120 seconds once they 'quality of life' away the buttons. Or, all of our jobs will be drawn into the DNC/SMN singularity so we can quality of life our way through the MSQ and just hurry up and get back to afking in Limsa. Gameplay in my video game was such a drag, anyways.