Guess I'll put in my own $0.02.
Although things have trended in this way for a while now so maybe it does meet every criteria for a "change", it feels like this trend has sharpened even more with Dawntrail:
Falling back on simplifications to forgot the need for technical advancements or even basic UI polish.
Let's take Monk for example. Let's start from the a couple potential issues that the dev team has, apparently, taken issue with: unnecessary barriers to accessibility, button bloat, and action bloat.
- Let us also say that, due to frequent player complaints about tracking DoTs or buff timers, that difficulty could be considered an unnecessary barrier to accessibility.
- Next, let us define "button bloat" as any button(s) the control or gameplay from which could be provided without loss with (fewer or) no buttons used.
- Finally, we'll take the former examples of old Power Surge (buffs next single-target Jump or SSD, meant to only ever be used on every third Jump and only ever Jump and therefore providing no real further thought beyond hitting it when it's available since Power Surge was on a multiple of Jump's timer anyways).
Given these issues commented on in the past and the opportunities, therefore, to address them, which of the choices below would seem to do the greater general good and least harm to job design?
OPTION ONE:
Improve the combat UI gamewide through simple but effective changes, thereby making essential (de)buff tracking a non-issue; revitalize lackluster actions; trim unnecessary constraints and buttons without opening rotation to ill or degenerative effects; and, in doing so, inadvertently make Monk more open to nuance and unique.
Click below to expand for details:
- Status Effects can now be placed separately and/or at separate sizes for one's own debuffs and Target Status Effects may now similarly be customized into chosen layouts of icons per row / total number of rows, left or right aligned. You may now customize the order of different types of status effects, including separately by self, party, and others.
- By default, timers for core debuffs, specific to each job, are now tracked directly below or to either side of enemy nameplates, with an icon, faded icon, small icon, or just the timer; said timer may be given as a bar beneath the enemy health bar, a number, or both. You can customize this to remove these timers or permit more effects to be tracked. Enemy nameplates may be further customized to reduce seemingly unnecessary information and now carry further information by default, such as interruptible casts, stunnable special actions, level of threat, and whether one is out of range, etc.
- HUD Layout has been revamped to include Gauges, Targeting, and Groups as separate categories. Additionally, many more pieces of UI have become separable and show this by default; UI elements with separable parts, including these new ones, now list each potentially separable element indented below the name for the combined form of that UI element.
- Most gauges and parameter bars are now separable in this way, including the Mana Bar, Song Gauge: Codas, Soul Voice, and Song Progress; Beast Chakra Gauge: Blitz Progress, Nadi, Forms, Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, Demolish, Perfect Balance Stacks; Balance Gauge: Black Magic, White Magic, Mana Crystals; Elemental Gauge: Elemental Timer, Elemental Counter, Umbral Hearts, Astral Soul, Polyglot Timer, Polyglot Counter, Paradox; etc.
- Twin Snakes and Dragon Kick potency reduced by 20 and True Strike, and Demolish potency increased by 20. This significantly increases the punishment of using simplified Dragon Kick rotations (from about 92% to ~86% of regular damage).
- Riddle of Wind now, for 10 seconds, increases you auto-attack and movement speed by 40%, allows auto-attack critical strikes to generate Chakra, and causes the use of single-target and multi-target attacks with Form to replace The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment, respectively, allowing you to use that skill again as an ability. Brotherhood and Riddle of Wind now both allow your Chakra to overcharge, up to a total of 10 Chakra.
- Anatman now grants 1 second of Riddle of Fire, Riddle of Wind, and Riddle of Earth for each second it is channeled. These durations do not begin to fade until the channel ends.
- Greased Lightning has been returned in a rehauled state. It now reads, "The damage of your Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl skills are increased by 20% and their recast times reduced by 20%. Outside of Perfect Balance, each Form that benefits from these effects cannot benefit again for (3 GCDs' time)." Moreover, all Form Bonuses have been removed, their benefits rolled into the original abilities, but the bonus damage from Leaden Fist has been reduced to 80 potency and Snap Punch potency has been increased by 20 in its stead.
This causes optimal play to follow the same rotations as before, as one can only get full value out of the form every but makes Form Shift unnecessary.
- Revamp the default Beast Chakra Gauge, having it instead by default show the three forms, Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl, from left to right, with each losing its glow and shrinking upon consuming the effects of Greased Lightning, gradually restoring to normal size and glow over 3 GCDs' time to mark when it will again have full power. By default, the remaining time on Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish (on your current target) are shown as a radial timer around and a numeric timer below the Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl nodes.
While in Fluid Form, all are shown again at full size and glow (since Fluid Form guarantees the effects of Greased Lightning) regardless of recent progress, and a stacking chevron appears above reused forms.
This, in effect, maintains the same general rotation as before, but without need for windup (beyond Disciplined Fist), a single direction of progression (O->R->C->), or the bloat of Form Shift in order to begin from a different point in that set order. Essentially, for fewer buttons, you get a Monk who is more uniquely Monk, and by removing the need for set Form bonuses, you more nuanced use of Forms is now available.
- (Steeled/Forbidden) Meditation (and Inspirited/Enlightened Meditation) has (have) been removed, though Chakra spenders remain and can now be used at three or more Chakra for a fifth of their current potency per stack. Instead of needing an active button-press, you generate 1 Chakra per half of a global cooldown's time that you have not been under the global cooldown. Progress towards this the next Chakra granted in this manner is saved and accumulated and is now tracked just above your Chakra counter by default (and is separable).
This provides roughly the same Chakra generation over time but without the need for a separate button press, therefore allowing more flexibility among Chakra spending and reducing the chore of use between fights.
OPTION TWO:
Make players look at their job gauge, instead of their more customizably placed (Conditional Buffs portion of the) Status Effects bar, to see whether they should use Dragon Kick or Leaden Fist, Twin Snake or Raptor Strike, Demolish or Snap Punch; remove Monk's GCD nuke, replacing it with a much more rarely pressed maintenance buff; remove any interaction between surrounding rotation and Blitz; remove any rotational interaction with downtime; rather than giving Anatman any purpose (again), remove it entirely.
For details, play Dawntrail Monk or even just review its job guide.
Originally Posted by Yokubo
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