QoL and reducing number of the buttons suggestion

[TheDustyOne]

Done this conversation before and what I did? was hit the striking dummy with the hypothetical rotation. It feels more bland to me and that's coming from a person that nearly only plays Samurai.

A lot of simplifications hit my Job that made it easier and easier and easier while giving nothing in return for complexity, depth, nuance to just make it more bland. So my point is more towards I draw the line at " Somewhere " at how much more bland/flavorless and dumber Square wants to make Job-Designs vs " Nowhere ". And this is just Samurai topic ( I am passionate about it... or was... ) I haven't even brought the topic of say Healers into the conversation... so I respectfully disagree. I will agree to do away with combo buttons? sure... If they give us a lot more flavor/flare and depth, which Square still has not done they have no track record of doing so not even as optional Skill-Ceiling, mhm

Part of the problem with testing out a hypothetical rotation is the lack of feedback from animation changes. I've done similar when trying out my healer rework ideas to get a quick "feel" of it and it's not good at all. It's very much a agree to disagree thing with us, I'm not super attached to the combos one way or the other, but if I had the choice of removing potentially core parts of a kit to "make room" for more skills in the future vs condensing the combos and keeping the same depth for less space, well I'd rather lose out-of-combo Jinpu than Kaiten.

RDM is one of the jobs I love to bits, back in SB it used to have dedicated buttons for Verholy and Verflare. Going into ShB they instead condensed the 2 buttons behind Veraero and Verthunder, the result was more or less that nothing changed in gameplay, they just gained 2 slots. 1 of those slots was used for a new skill; Reprise, a skill dedicated for movement and realigning our Dualcast windows with oGCDs, so we gained depth for less buttons, that's the main thing I'm concerned with really for jobs; more depth overall, button count is irrelevant to that. GNB is another one that condensed buttons and it more or less worked, Gnashing combo is only 1 button, but outside some initial complaints, people got used to it and they found more important things to complain about with that job.

I do agree that Square doesn't have a good track record around adding extra depth. As much as I can argue in favour of condensed combos for more skill space, I don't expect Square to make good skills in those spaces.

[CelestiCer]

The only way to combine those would be if you just gave the AoE version the potency of the single target version... Which for most bosses wouldn't matter but if there was ever any fight where you had adds or even a second boss, they'd become rather powerful.

The biggest thing for pruning extra buttons is more that you have skills that require a different skill or a buff from a different attack to use... Like for SAM, you can't use Tsubame without Iaijutsu, or Namikiri without Ikosihoten.

Essentially turn the suggest skills all into AoE, have the 1st target hit full damage with everything else hit after with fall off damage. This can be done in some way shape or form ( even if I personally don't like it aesthetically ) with the skills I named for the sake of going to lengths to prune Bloat. ( I see Reinhardt responded already as I was typing this =u= )

Part of the problem with testing out a hypothetical rotation is the lack of feedback from animation changes.

True. This is why I did it with my Eyes closed. I don't look at my hot-bars anymore cause I don't have to... Even when I do this it feels terrible.

I also feel like an outlier. While on the Balance and Raiding Discords with so many Samurai's? no one complains about Bloat, even on Controller. The main complaint is of course Kaiten needing to return. I know we all meme it but we won't get it back cause many don't have hope that gameplay Job-wise will ever improve. " Square doesn't seem to care so why should we care? " attitude. Where as the Forums? I mainly see players who play Samurai as a side Job with the main complaint being bloat to which we already have so many clear obvious solutions that aren't being implemented vs the suggestion being to compress Combo Buttons to solve I guess annoyance? fat-fingering? Making the Job comfier? Controller-Issue? We already have players openly admitting to using XIVCombo, but I guess were going that direction to make that the norm?

The contrast is uncanny, I see Healer players who wish to do a bit more even a slither... and ironically we have others wanting something like DPS Melee's be more towards what Healer players are complaining about...

I really want to love Job-Design like I used to, but Combo Button removal won't do that for me. And if it does happen? it's just another simplification we can throw to the pile of homogenizations while probably again... getting nothing of Depth/Nuance or any optional Complexity in return for it. Just making the Jobs easier for the sake of making it comfier, which can improve the experience for others I guess... It does nothing for me to help me fall in love with my Job again, mhm

[TheDustyOne]

True. This is why I did it with my Eyes closed. I don't look at my hot-bars anymore cause I don't have to... Even when I do this it feels terrible.

Sound design is also another major factor when it comes to feel, it's hard to really get the feel of condensed combos without either using 3rd party or using a job in PvP, which plays so radically different anyway that's it still not a good comparison.

I also feel like an outlier. While on the Balance and Raiding Discords with so many Samurai's? no one complains about Bloat, even on Controller. The main complaint is of course Kaiten needing to return. I know we all meme it but we won't get it back cause many don't have hope that gameplay Job-wise will ever improve. " Square doesn't seem to care so why should we care? " attitude. Where as the Forums? I mainly see players who play Samurai as a side Job with the main complaint being bloat to which we already have so many clear obvious solutions that aren't being implemented vs the suggestion being to compress Combo Buttons to solve I guess annoyance? fat-fingering? Making the Job comfier? Controller-Issue? We already have players openly admitting to using XIVCombo, but I guess were going that direction to make that the norm?

Comfort mostly. When I play any kind of action game, I don't need to have the entire controller mapped to some kind of attack, designers can build long combo strings with different effects using only 2 buttons dedicated to attacks, usually a light attack button and heavy attack button. In comparison, XIV is just wasteful. I think the ideal would just be to have combo condensing be an opt-in feature.

The contrast is uncanny, I see Healer players who wish to do a bit more even a slither... and ironically we have others wanting something like DPS Melee's be more towards what Healer players are complaining about...

Trust me, as someone who frequents the healer forums and used to enjoy SCH before ShB butchered it, if condensing combos turned a job into what healers are now, it's already in the same state as a healer. The only difference between WHM Dia and DRK Bloodspiller is 5s.

I really want to love Job-Design like I used to, but Combo Button removal won't do that for me. And if it does happen? it's just another simplification we can throw to the pile of homogenizations while probably again... getting nothing of Depth/Nuance or any optional Complexity in return for it. Just making the Jobs easier for the sake of making it comfier, which can improve the experience for others I guess... It does nothing for me to help me fall in love with my Job again, mhm

I can more or less agree. Combo consolidation is purely for comfort and extra hotbar slots, that's it, alone it doesn't actually add depth.