Compact skills similar to PvP

[IceEyes]

What is the simplifed? Its QoL question, no diffucult or gamedesign problem.

My binds already overhelmed and I'm still missing buttons on some jobs, like astro.
12345 `Q E R T F G C V and +alt and that's not enough! If useless series like 1-2-3-4 can be crammed into one bind like in Aion, I will only be grateful to the developer. This is what I'm missing. FF14 is the only game where I can't afford to bind consumables, beacuse no place and binds for it.

[Carighan]

I mean people always think that having less buttons makes a combat system simpler, but really just look at other games. That's clearly not correct to assume, we have thousands of games of evidence how untrue that is.

It's not the size of your hotbar, it's how you use it!

That being said, there's so many easy "wins" to score in regards to compacting hotbars:

• Autocombos like in PvP. Too many skills can only be used in a specific sequence, so there's absolutely 0 reason to not have them on the same button, ever. This seems to be something even the devs have finally caught on seeing how virtually all new abilities in Dawntrail are done this way.
• As an extension from this, PvP-style autocombos for "usual" combos. While technically able to abort these, there is exactly 0 game reason to ever do this. A good example is the Paladin 1-2-3 (but not add 4-5-6 as there are reason you would want to press 1-2 again before using 6!). Warrior can have two buttons, one is 1-2-3, the other (4) only lights up after pressing 2. Stuff like that. More buttons saved at 0 loss of gameplay depth.
• Another good overall improvement would be to reduce all GCD to 2.0s base, modify all potencies accodingly, then drop a whole slew of oGCDs by folding them into others. A vast portion of our hotbar space are an array of oGCDs that serve no purpose other than to try fill the empty weaving slots we constantly suffer with tons of same-y effects. Fix it at the root: Remove the empty weaving slots whole!

Really, if Guild Wars 2 can create deeper combat from 10 buttons than you can with your 20-30 buttons, you know you need to prioritize a full combat + systems rework, ASAP.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

TL;DR for anyone picking up the thread about the key points of why it should be a thing (and under which circumstances):

• Make it optional (choose between Legacy individual actions and condensed combo actions)
• System for this is already in place in the backend since at least Stormblood.
• We already are using optional "combos" for certain actions that are used/available in certain order and offer the choice of keeping it separate or transforming buttons (example: High Jump -> Mirage Dive, ex.2: Ikishoten -> Zanshin)
• Main benefit would be freeing up hotbar real estate, especially on combo-heavy jobs like Samurai (has 3 single-target and 2 AOE combos using 9 action slots, which would be reducable to 5)
• "It would dumb down the game and make it too simple" is a strawman argument. Hitting the full combo isn't a challenge and even in the new system you can mess up your combo by inputting the wrong combo action (on multiple combo jobs).

[Carighan]

TY for the re-cap. There's also the added strawman issue that the whole strawman to your last point assumes that a "combo" being say, 1-2-3, inherently provides meaningful gameplay over just having 1 button that is not a combo (and hence 1-2-3 vs 1-1-1 would even be a thing compared to just having, well, 1).

Which in most cases its not. This is especially obvious for Samurai where the 60s CD even flattens the combos including all their effects down into single buttons, which means their effects aren't inherently needed on different stages of a combo. By comparison a meaningful combo is something like the Red Mage one, since it goes through actual stages: 3 short-GCD melee hits -> 2 ranged normal-GCD AoEs -> 1 ranged normal-GCD line-AoE. This is more than one effect, so while an autocombo could (and probably should) exist for it, it's inherently a combo.

Now of course the cool animations exist and I like them, but gameplay wise in particular most tank/melee combos provide no reason for them to be a combo to begin with, independent of whether it is on a single button or multiple. And hence the shift to a single button cannot dumb anything down, as there is nothing to dumb down.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

TY for the re-cap. [...] By comparison a meaningful combo is something like the Red Mage one, since it goes through actual stages: 3 short-GCD melee hits -> 2 ranged normal-GCD AoEs -> 1 ranged normal-GCD line-AoE. This is more than one effect, so while an autocombo could (and probably should) exist for it, it's inherently a combo.

The thing with Red Mage in particular, it already "has" an auto-combo existing for AOE. { Ench. Moulinet -> Ench. Moulinet Deux -> Ench. Moulinet Trois }. Therefore, the Enchanted Redoublement combo could be simplified in the exact same manner. Both cost the same amount of Mana as well.

Verflare and Verholy are naturally not going to be part of the combo chain, as they are inherently a choice. However, { Scorch -> Resolution } is essentially a 2-step combo after Verflare/Verholy, placed behind Jolt (II/III) and Impact. So, the system is already partially there, but they have been inconsistent. From personal experience I can say, I really like the condensed Moulinet steps and I'd appreciate if I could condense the Redoublement combo as well.

[Azurarok]

you could technically skip enchanted riposte and use enchanted zwerchhau/redoublement to go into the Flare/Holy combo with 45 mana, which has one extremely specific use case that I've never done before.

I have had times where the combo times out between downtime, and I've used an enchanted zwerchhau to open into Flare/Holy if I didn't have enough mana to do Riposte, like out on the open field zones

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

you could technically skip enchanted riposte and use enchanted zwerchhau/redoublement to go into the Flare/Holy combo with 45 mana, which has one extremely specific use case that I've never done before.

I have had times where the combo times out between downtime, and I've used an enchanted zwerchhau to open into Flare/Holy if I didn't have enough mana to do Riposte, like out on the open field zones

While I can see that it will give the the Red Mana stacks, going 3x E-Zwerchau for 45/45 is incredibly inefficient because at that point you are most likely wasting a ton of damage from doing uncomboed E-Weaponskills rather than spells. If you could not get a full 50/50 Redoublement combo off before a boss jumps away, then you should just be dualcasting and proceed to combo after the boss returns and you have 50/50 in your gauge at least.

[Azurarok]

While I can see that it will give the the Red Mana stacks, going 3x E-Zwerchau for 45/45 is incredibly inefficient because at that point you are most likely wasting a ton of damage from doing uncomboed E-Weaponskills rather than spells. If you could not get a full 50/50 Redoublement combo off before a boss jumps away, then you should just be dualcasting and proceed to combo after the boss returns and you have 50/50 in your gauge at least.

iirc it's only a gain when it's the end of the fight, and only if your last GCD would end up being Resolution. Again, extremely specific.

It's one of the only combos in the game that has any use case where it can be used out of order for a gain (the other being MNK's during PB or EW in scenarios where Demolish's DoT couldn't fully tick down), however uncommon it is, so it's not exactly the best one to argue for this topic imo

[Voryn]

It’s funny thinking about this as a tank player

Filler rotation: Other than 1 2 3, I just need to remember to press cooldowns and do a minor amount of resource management for each one (even though it’s basically just “don’t overcap”). If I was just pressing 1 1 1 during the filler then it’s going to be really really boring, and it already isn’t that interesting to be doing the filler

Burst window: every tank has at least one gcd that gets pressed multiple times (usually) in a row. It’s ok to me when I still enjoy doing the burst windows for GND and DRK because of all the other abilities to weave, but I can’t stand playing PLD or WAR because of their burst windows not being fun to me

I strongly prefer 1 2 3 over pressing 1 1 1, but 1 1 1 is tolerable if the job still has something else engaging in it, but I’m not optimistic since both of my favourite tanks already got made simpler in Dawntrail

“It would dumb down the game and make it too simple" is a strawman argument. Hitting the full combo isn't a challenge

You’re right that 1 2 3 doesn’t add much, but it sucks when we don’t have much else to do outside of burst windows.

Also, as a controller player I use the wide hotbars and also the ones that can be accessed by pressing both triggers, so I have more space than I need for each job and I don’t have to manually cycle my hotbars. But I see people who get to endgame while being unaware of these features and then having a hard time playing their jobs. There should be extra emphasis on these features so people don’t accidentally miss them.

[Valence]

Remember when every basic combo in the game used to have branches? All of them had, no exception. Then they started weeding out branches, leaving more and more of them just in their basic 1-2-3 form. They even reworked jobs to turn their proc based combo into a basic 1-2-3 (MCH). Those combos were not really reducible to pvp style buttons and the fact that this is now a possibility tells everything there needs to be told about the state of XIV job design.

But perhaps to move ahead the game needs to condense what's left of them and actually introduce engaging new abilities that actually require brain activity.