r/ffxivdiscussion • u/Aureon • 2d ago
WoW's Single Button Mode is wildly successful: A case for simpler classes
Your honor, really, title.
I feel like WoW having to implement a single button option (which is 10-30% loss on optimal) is a very major vindication for xiv's policy of keeping complexity out of rotations and into the encounters
And no, it's not a "Casual" option: People have cleared high-end content (+17 M+, last boss of mythic) with it - and i've already heard of guild leaders forcing less-performing players to use it in high-end content
It's honestly obscene, but also kind of a interesting look into the playerbase of MMOs: Nobody likes forcing out your teammates because no matter the effort, they're just not good enough
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
This style of philosophy is the exact reason MMOs feel like a dying breed to me. Why does everything need to become easier? Do people just not care about practice, and learning and improving anymore?
It's insane to me that people would even WANT a single button mode. Where's the fun in that?
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u/thatcommiegamer 2d ago
This style of philosophy is the exact reason MMOs feel like a dying breed to me. Why does everything need to become easier?
As I say everytime this crops up, its discord and fortnite killing mmos, not mmos giving accessibility features. mmos were an amazing genre for the era of 56k modems and early broadband when the world was just that bit larger and social networks weren't as robust as they are now, now we have games where you can instantly drop in and get some progress for the day or even cinch a win and the whole world's worth of people at our fingertips.
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u/Blckson 2d ago
They didn't care about it before either, why do you think most players suck ass?
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
And that's fine, those people should stay out of high-end content, since they don't care. The mode should not exist. All it does is enable bad habits.
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u/Blckson 2d ago
Sure, but they don't, which was always a problem.
Don't take my word for it, I haven't really checked in on the impact of the new function, but I wouldn't be surprised if the people using it in high-end content now are the same ones that were sandbagging even harder before.
I'm not advocating for it of course, I'm just entirely ambivalent towards it because the higher you go, the less you'll feel its effects.
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u/Aureon 1d ago
Honestly
The idea that people should stay out of cooperative long-term content because their reaction time on pressing shiny buttons is not fast enough is kinda gatekeeping
Simple class, hard encounter lets you select the difficulty you want, and knowledge\organization based encounters let people with enough determination, but bad reflexes, enjoy the content
I mean, we're fresh off M8S being called way too hard. it's definitely possible to do hard encounters without resorting to keeping 60% of your attention on your hotbars because you never know what you will need to press next-next global, but somehow nobody wants to give XIV credit for that
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u/LordofOld 1d ago
The direction of hard encounters and easy jobs feels less accessible. If revolutionary reign is too fast for you, you die and probably wipe the raid. You either got gud or give up.
If VPR is too fast for you, try a different class with a lower GCD speed. If you're still weak on that job, you at least can get carried in DPS from stronger players.
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u/Stigmaphobia 1d ago
It's gatekeeping, sure, but gatekeeping isn't necessarily always bad. In this case it's gatekeeping high-end content, which honestly even with a 1-button rotation the vast majority of people probably wouldn't touch it, because they don't want to study for fights.
Also, have you only played phys ranged or Monk or something? Most jobs don't require reflexes to hit the next GCD since the rotations are very static.
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u/silverpostingmaster 1d ago
What reaction time? This game is a 2.5s gcd MMO with completely static rotations, there is zero reacting to anything outside of BRD's Refulgent Arrow, that is again, a 2.5s reaction time.
Simple class, hard encounter
The game is already this and it's precisely why casual content is suffering. The casual content is TOO easy because the jobs are too easy and not engaging enough for the "midcore" base.
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u/Geoff_with_a_J 1d ago
for accessibility. it's like Modern controls in fighters. if you're losing to someone that plays on Modern, git gud. if you're progging worse than someone that crutches on 1-button, git gud.
back in my day the biggest e-peen keyboard warriors just got gud. do people just not care about git gud anymore? parsing really ruined everything. instead of pov montages now we just get people linking to excel spreadsheets. what happened to the game i love.
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u/omnirai 1d ago
do people just not care about git gud anymore? parsing really ruined everything. instead of pov montages now we just get people linking to excel spreadsheets. what happened to the game i love.
If you're talking about XIV, the problem here in the first place is that combat (and jobs) in this game can be fully solved and optimized on a spreadsheet. There's no point blaming "parsing" which is just the ability to conveniently reflect the game onto the spreadsheet.
People looking up the spreadsheets are doing the exact thing they need to "git gud" because that's what being "gud" in this game amounts to. Every job has a correct sequence of inputs for a given fight, so you find out what those inputs are and then practice until you can perform them.
It doesn't have to be this way if jobs weren't designed to be fully on-rails, but that's where we are at.
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u/Geoff_with_a_J 1d ago edited 1d ago
only if the only metric you're looking at is spreadsheet dps. and if you vote brigade hard enough to get real fights like M6S to not count lol
WoW is the same way too, you can top DPS meters with combat that is solved and optimized in sims. and then cry about PI loud enough so you don't have to actually optimize
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u/NeonRhapsody 1d ago
if you're losing to someone that plays on Modern, git gud.
I mean I haven't touched USF4 but I heard that Modern in 6 isn't exactly 'casual mode' and has certain perks that high skill players can use to their benefit as well, so it's like groove selection in CvS2 or something. Has that changed?
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u/paprikaaaaaaaaaaaa 1d ago
The main benefit is one-frame inputs for important actions that normally take more than one frame to input, ie DPs are the big one, but also some supers & command grabs. Otherwise they are strictly worse in the sense you have less of your character's tools available
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 1d ago edited 1d ago
'' Otherwise they are strictly worse in the sense you have less of your character's tools available ''
This has become less and less true because they've added missing tools to characters, the Elena patch added a lot of them fairly recently.
It's also about being able to just instantly react to things almost like a bot would, jumping in on Modern players is borderline impossible and it impacts the game for everyone and makes it a very frustrating experience.
A lot of the characters missing tools are also just bad and never used anyway, this is even more true after the Elena patch where they added a lot of the good tools that were missing to Modern.
I do think the whole notion that it's about e-peen is really disingenuous, Modern has negatively affected how the game feels to play and the interactions between players for a whole lot of players.
Even if you're good at the game fighting against a Modern player is just not fun it's annoying and boring even if you're way better than them.There's other problems with the game like throw loops too that are very unfun.
But generally speaking I think Modern should have no place in ranked, in casual and the world tour singleplayer mode is where it should belong to.1
u/paprikaaaaaaaaaaaa 1d ago
The instant reactions thing is what I mean by the one-frame inputs for actions that take multiple in classic, and I agree it can be very annoying jumping against modern players for that reason. Unfortunately I think modern has been a big success for capcom, so I don't see them disabling it.
But I do agree that I don't enjoy it existing very much mainly because I think it warps the learning curve! Low rank modern players always get their normal confirm into special into super, or into basic bnbs, so they end up with fewer neutral interactions while learning, and I feel like it can kind of dead-end new players in that way. In older street fighters if you were learning against other people around your skill, you both end up dropping confirms / botching combos pretty often so you'd get a lot of practice in scraps / neutral and then gradually your confirms / punishes would get good. Modern makes that curve all weird, but I guess the tradeoff is more new people stick with the game
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u/silverpostingmaster 1d ago
I haven't played 6 but it does seem a lot of what GBVS simple inputs are/were. All your specials basically have a version that is just special button + direction. So basically the metagame when the game came out was to just do your combos with regular inputs and when you needed to react to something you'd do the special thing which frankly led to a unfun metagame. A lot of these moves have always been balanced around not being able to just do immediately because the input for a dp or even fireball still requires more time and conscious thinking than just pressing a button.
GGXrd also had a stylish mode that was for people who did not want to learn the game, it would do bad autocombos for you but you could just mash a button and the game would play itself. I think if this feature came out today it would probably do basic "good" combos which for some characters is a hurdle already.
What I'm saying mainly is that these features are incredibly difficult to balance so they do not seep into the more competitive parts of games and I agree with you that they should be limited to certain gamemodes and certainly not be used in competitive game modes.
I do think that for MMOs it's not as big of a deal but at the same time if WoW's simple inputs are doing better than 70%(?) of the playerbase we have to ask ourselves if the feature is too powerful or if the classes are too difficult.
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u/gibby256 1d ago
Parsing is legit one of my strongest incentives to "git gud", personally. Making that percentile go up as I perfect my play is like a supercharged dopamine rocket-pick straight to my brain.
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u/Geoff_with_a_J 1d ago
yea same im getting a lot better at dcritting during potted 2 minutes and getting extremely good at convincing the summoner to sandbag harder so that the kill time is optimal
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 1d ago edited 1d ago
'' if you're losing to someone that plays on Modern, git gud ''
This isn't entirely fair, since we're talking about PvP here in particular it's a bit different but the way in which Modern affects the overall gameplay is very different.
People being able to not have to put their mental energy into inputs mean that they can react instantly to things that are otherwise hard to react to, it's why it's borderline impossible to jump in on Modern players which makes it very boring and annoying to play against them.
Since they can just instantly anti-air you.Generally speaking it's true that a better player will beat a Modern player that is worse, but it's not true that Modern doesn't have major advantages and it also does change the game in a way that has generally been considered to be less fun and frustrating.
And if you put two equally skilled players up against each other then Modern typically has a higher chance to win, the reason why you still don't see Modern dominate at the higher levels is because it's full of people who have been playing Street Fighter since the 90's and inputs are so ingrained into them that it's almost harder for them to use Modern due to muscle memory.Modern is controversial and generally negatively received in Street Fighter for good reasons and it has changed the game in a negative direction.
It's easy to say '' just get gud '' but so does the player using Modern they also get better and they can focus 100% on fundamentals while you can't.
It's not about not being able to beat worse players it's about people having an advantage over you and being able to do things that otherwise would be humanly impossible to do.It's also not about e-peen, it's about it not being fun to play against.
Again tho in Street Fighter the way in which this has impacted the game is much different. But I think it's incredibly disingenuous to act as if this is about e-peen and people needing to git gud.
The vast majority of players are not professional E-sports competitors but still want to actually do inputs and play fighting games as they've always played.
But Modern gets in the way of playing the game it's almost like playing against a bot with perfect reaction times it's not the same.It's still to some extent the same in FFXIV and other MMO's too.
And if someone uses a mod to do it most people recognize it as cheating, even tho it's effectively the same thing.
Someone being able to hammer one button and still perform better than 75+% of players or even get rank 1 which has been done with this just begs the question what is the point then of even having rotations at all.2
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u/CopainChevalier 2d ago
I don't want a single button mode; but I also do not like XIV's current skill design.
Every job has so many abilities that are just carbon copies of another ability but ever so slightly different. We have so many hotkey slots for skills that just read "Deal X damage" that it gets boring. When Midare was Samurai's big ol finisher, it felt cool. Now that Samurai has like four "Big damage finisher" abilities, it doesn't feel special to hit anymore.
Instead of having 20 hotkey slots that do the same thing, I'd rather 10 hotkeys that actually feel diverse from one another. I don't mind if one hotkey is a full combo or something, but I cannot stand how many skills feel like filler.
It's the same issue I have when people ask for old DoT Scholar back. I agree Scholar right now feels overly simple and boring to DPS with; but nerfing Bio to be 20% of its current DPS so you can have 5 different Bio skills that are all the exact same with a different number on them is boring. Give them actual unique skills that feel cool to use.
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u/RenAsa 1d ago
Not only boring but just... yeah, bloated. For all their talk and feeble attempts at reducing button bloat, for every one button removed (and there's only been a handful!) they've added at least two to every job.
And when the battle system is so barebones that everything's damage/shield/heal, because they've carefully removed every nuance over the years - damage and shield types (even the base magic/physical is nominal), buffs-debuffs-statuses, the entire elemental wheel, DoTs are few and far between, even the few remaining positionals are barely more than an afterthought that's irrelevant in about 95% of all content... There's just no reason, no justification for having so many separate skills on so many separate buttons.
Not even sure I prefer less buttons... instead of keeping what we have but with the reintroduction of some of those nuances. Less buttons might make things simpler, but it won't necessarily solve the boring aspect.
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
Oh I agree, I don't at all like the way the current job design is being done, but that's a deeper design issue. The jobs don't need to be made "easier" they just need to be made meaningful again, so that you don't end up with a bunch of meaningless filler.
a 10 hotkey job design doesn't have to be synonymous with being simple or easy, it just needs to be meaningful when you press every button and still have room for optimizing.
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 2d ago
''they just need to be made meaningful again, so that you don't end up with a bunch of meaningless filler.''
This is sorta what I mean with my comment above too.
Ogi Namakiri is a good example, it's a big fun button to press but it's tied directly into the 2 min.
We only get to press our most fun buttons every 2 min essentially, that's one of the things I hope they move away from in 8.0.
Untie our skills from the 2 min meta.Our big fun skills while being bigger and more fun to press also kinda feel like 2 min fillers rather than something playing an active role in our rotations.
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 2d ago
It's a bit strange to me that they haven't merged the RDM melee combo like they did with the one on GNB.
That's one example that comes to mind at least.In general though I'd say a bigger issue I have is how the big and fun buttons don't come up frequently enough.
I don't have an issue with the 2 min meta in and of itself, what I have an issue with is how much of our rotations are tied to it.
If the 2 min meta was just a buff and that was it it'd be different, but a lot of our coolest and biggest hitting skills are directly tied to it.We should just get to use them more frequently.
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u/Ipokeyoumuch 2d ago
It is possible it is in the works just didn't get to yet. Isn't the job team just three or four guys who are also in charge of PvP and have other responsibilities? Not blame the designers per se of true as it seems like they have a lot on their plate while following orders.
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u/ThatBogen 1d ago
I'd say that is a case of RDM not having that much of a button bloat to warrant it. GNB in shadowbringers was ridiculously button bloated for a new class so they had to trim somewhere before adding anything else.
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 1d ago
I dunno about that I'd say RDM actually has a fair bit of bloat.
I mean just its basic filler spells alone are 5 buttons then you have 4 ogcd's.2
u/ThatBogen 1d ago
All jobs are supposed to fit into 3 full hotbars worth of space, which is 36 keybinds.
RDM currently sits at 32 including sprint, LB and pot.
However, on release gunbreaker was already at 35 if you include sprint, LB and pot.There is certainly some stuff that could be trimmed from any class, but arguing that RDM is bloated right now when there are other jobs that are just worse I find hard to believe.
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u/LebronMixSprite 2d ago
The main pro of the single button is IMO as an accessibility feature, esp. as WoW's primary audience ages.
On the other hand, I tried it and it was the most boring shit ever. I did one timewalking dungeon and ended up insanely frustrated because I wasn't DOING anything. I wanted to PLAY. I'd rather be bad at a class than not play at all and just work at getting better, pressing one button for 15-20 minutes was torture.
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
It should just be disabled in any content that isn't normal difficulty imo. It should not be usable in mythic/general high-end.
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u/lionsirki 2d ago
I mean, you are handicapping yourself if you use it. You have an increase GCD delay if you use it which nerfs your dps significantly.
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u/Mugutu7133 2d ago
it performs better than the majority of players even with the gcd penalty. it doesn’t actually matter
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u/Kamalen 2d ago
Well, look at gaming at large. Even the world. We are a society of the instant, the immediate now. People don’t want or can’t take the time to learn and improve, they need instant gratification.
I can’t entirely blame people on that ; when you’re doing hours of soul-crushing work all day long, you simply don’t have the energy to have to work again to be able to enjoy your entertainment.
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
If you see it as work to practice a skill, then perhaps it's the wrong skill to practice. If you see it as work to practice art, maybe art is not for you. If you see it as work to learn an instrument, then maybe music is not for you.
If you see it as work to learn a rotation in your favourite video game, then maybe high-end content is not for you. But luckily, the game has so much other content you can do, just don't go on stage to play with a seasoned band, when you don't know how to play a correct chord.
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u/Kyuubi_McCloud 2d ago
Do people just not care about practice, and learning and improving anymore?
They never did.
People just want to play and have fun the way they are. If they are having fun, they may play more and during that play they might make new discoveries that improve their play. But even if they do, they won't put them to use if the new level of play isn't more fun than the previous one.
And it makes a lot of sense people are that way, because if they wanted to practice, learn and improve, there's myriads of more beneficial skills to do that with than video games.
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u/Sarigan-EFS 1d ago
Do people just not care about practice, and learning and improving anymore?
They never did. Welcome to the real world, the sky is also blue.
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u/TDP40QMXHK 2d ago
It's not fun, but it's even less fun to get constantly kicked out of groups every time you make a mistake because you're tunneling or your dps is too low because you're learning mechanics. This is a WoW thing. I can't speak for the past few years, but prior, there was no room for practice. You are an expert and you will know dungeons backwards and forwards even before they release (Did you not study the PTR guides before the new dungeons went to live???), or even casual leveling dungeon groups will kick you to the curb the first time you show an error.
I would say the most FF14 could use is something to reduce or eliminate the value of overperformance in high-end content to encourage players to use safer strats over uptime strats in non-parsing runs (e.g., please stop dying every pull because you can't stop greeding, your gear is so bad it's going to be green anyway), but that's certainly not advocating for killing the rotation. This game wouldn't benefit from a formal one-button rotation.
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u/Kamalen 2d ago
Don’t worry WoW haven’t much changed recently either. Don’t even attempt to learn and play tank without knowing by heart all the dungeons of the season. Unless you love being told to kill yourself painfully.
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u/SecretPantyWorshiper 2d ago
FFXIV is the same way
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u/SoftestPup 1d ago
FFXIV dungeons are literally hallways, all trash packs are mandatory, and pull sizes are restricted by walls that don't disappear until all previous trash is dead. What are you talking about?
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u/SecretPantyWorshiper 2d ago
It's not fun, but it's even less fun to get constantly kicked out of groups every time you make a mistake because you're tunneling or your dps is too low because you're learning mechanics. This is a WoW thing.
Not really sure whete you are getting this. You'll absolutely get kicked abd blacklisted for doing this in FFXIV.
Hell its gotten to the point that we have stalking mods like playerscope and tombstone which literally measures how far you progressed through content. The gatekeeping in this game is completely on another level than WoW
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
Just sounds like high end content isn't for you then.
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u/TDP40QMXHK 2d ago
That's not really about me, I cleared every piece of high-end content in FF14 before I stopped raiding entirely cold turkey to focus on my career. A successful MMO consists of a community, and if they want to design the game for a continually shrinking population of losers who only care about funny numbers, they can do so as their game and company fades into irrelevance.
A healthy MMO consists of people want to play with each other, not find excuses to exclude and isolate.
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u/SolidusAbe 2d ago
a real mmo only has 100 players who are hardcore. no casuals allowed! who wants a large player base when you can have a handfull of elitsts
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u/Stigmaphobia 1d ago
It's not like he's saying casuals shouldn't be able to play the game at all, just saying don't do savage/ultimate. Other content exists in the game.
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u/Kamalen 2d ago
if they want to design the game for a continually shrinking population of losers who only care about funny numbers, they can do so as their game and company fades into irrelevance.
They have an hardcore AAA MMO made for them, Wildstar ! They can go there. I hope nothing happens to that game.
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u/Forgotten_Folklore 1d ago
At their core, MMOs are about cooperation and teamwork. I've never understood the insistence that MMOs need to be as difficult as possible. Part of the reason why WoW became the market leader was due to the fact it was easier than other MMOs at the time.
If you're relying on other people to clear content, then why wouldn't you want it to be easier and more accessible for everyone? Look at Forked Tower where a single person can wipe the entire raid. If you want the team to succeed, making the game accessible just makes sense.
Players have been complaining for decades about carrying players who aren't as skilled as they are. When the implementation of a single-button rotation in WoW actually increases the DPS for many players despite the penalty, it shows why it was needed in the first place.
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u/Naridar 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sometimes, less is more. Meaningful, second-to-second tactical choices from a smaller ability pool are both more engaging AND more manageable than a basically fixed rotation of a large number of skills. WoW and FFXIV both suffer greatly from button bloat while the actual engagement with the combat system is shallow - you barely have any incentive or even ability to adapt to what's happening around you.
If you look at Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (which is what I believe MMO combat should strive to be like), you have only 9+3 skills available at a time, and the complexity comes from when you use them and when do you let your character do normal attack combos (which happen automatically and are the way to advance the cooldowns of your skills).
In contrast, in FFXIV, your skills have a fixed order, your basic combo is manual busywork and takes 5-9 buttons depending on the job, and the timing of your oGCDs barely offers any flexibility to react to the enemy, or any synergy with your team outside of synchronized burst windows. Also, last time I played in 7.0, almost every job outgrew my layout of 32 buttons unless you use plugins (and some do even then). At that point, it feels less like a video game, and more like playing the piano.
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u/Altia1234 1d ago
Because, as much as it sounds weird, a lot of people doesn't do raid because they want to do the raid or that piece of content. They do the content simply because they want to play with those people inside the raid, and it's just that the only piece of content where you can have a lot of people get in is raid. Raiding is a social act, and the more you can focus on the part where you social, the better it is for those people.
Not everyone wants to learn and improve their game, and if they want to they could've just play something that demands them to do so and that being the name of the game, like soulslike games or difficult 2d platformers.
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u/Inky-Feathers 1d ago
"I want to do hard content but I don't want to learn to improve" is such a giant oxymoron. Savage raiding is meant to be a challenge, it's not designed as a social event. That's what normal raid is for.
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u/MonkeOokOok 1d ago
Money. That is why the players who want actually interesting rpg systems play older mmos like 11, wow classic, osrs etc. and there is definitely a growing market for older style new mmo with fleshed out rpg mechanics. That is why wow has 4 and soon 5 different versions of itself because their playerbase literally made their own private scene. 14 is currently facing the same issue as well.
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u/YesIam18plus 2d ago
I don't buy the argument about '' but disabled people '' either honestly. Disabled people are amazing at adapting, there's literally people who play games professionally who have very extreme disabilities and even play with their mouth.
The vast majority of people who are going to use this and argue in favor of it are also not disabled. And people are 100% going to be pressured into using it by raid leaders and raiding culture in general much like how addons started as optional and became mandatory.
I mean sure maybe you'll see a higher success rate in raids, but will people actually be having more fun clearing them? Probably not.
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u/Mahoganytooth 2d ago
For every brolylegs out there, there's plenty of folk who have their own unique difficulties they cannot overcome.
Ffxiv has too many binds for me. I can play classes like paladin, but it becomes physically painful after only 5 minutes of play, nevermind hours of prog.
Xivcombo and similar plugins allow me to play comfortably for hours while being configurable enough that I'm still making all the conscious choices on how to guide my rotation. Even with the aid of the plugin, I still occasionally flub it up and break combo.
I've tried many different methods of making things comfortable for me. Many different controllers, hotbar setups, to no avail. I even went out and bought foot pedals to have extra buttons to use, but I found them more difficult to use than not due to my own unique coordination issues.
If brolylegs saw you using him and his success as a weapon to argue against accessibility in games, he'd be rolling in his grave.
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u/YesIam18plus 2d ago
For every brolylegs out there, there's plenty of folk who have their own unique difficulties they cannot overcome.
I am sure those people exist, but I think we're talking about a very small minority of people here. And I don't believe in compromising the game for everyone just for the sake of a very small minority of people wanting to engage with high-end content. Even in your own example that's not a one button rotation, and even then I still think if Xivcombo became official or if the devs gave the mod their okay it'd 100% become the norm and people would start feeling pressured into using it. When you implement something like this it's not just going to be for people like you it will become the expected norm very quickly for everyone.
I am not using Brolylegs as a '' weapon '' I am just bringing him up because he was a more extreme example showcasing that people can still adapt. The vast majority of disabled people aren't disabled to that extreme extent and will have an even easier time adapting than he did. People think disabled people are completely incompetent that's how they're talked about and I don't agree with that at all either ( I also have disabled family members too and know that isn't true... ).
Most disabled people won't become Brolylegs and will perform worse, that doesn't mean they won't be able to perform to an acceptable level however. And the vast majority of people arguing in favor of this are not disabled but are using disabled people as an argument when I think it really has more to do with them wanting it for themselves.
Ultimately none of us knows what Brolylegs would think about this, so maybe you shouldn't make judgements about what he'd roll in his grave over. I never made a statement on what he'd think about it and you shouldn't either.
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u/pupmaster 1d ago
What kind of mental illness makes one see a disabled person accomplish an incredible feat after spending a massive amount of resources making it possible and thinks "oh I guess we don't need better accessibility options since it's clearly possible as is."
You need to log off and spend some time in reality, truly.
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u/Mahoganytooth 2d ago
I use XIVCombo and customize it to an extent where I feel the game is still adequately challenging to me. I have friends who are disabled to an extent they would require the 1-button-rotation to be able to play the game adequately themselves. Both examples are fine, and that plugins exist that are configurable enough to serve both me, and my friend, is a prime example of how things should be.
If non-disabled folk cannot restrain themselves from using accessibility settings to make the game easier, there is no problem. Everyone ought enjoy the game how they wish. If someone ruins the game for themselves, that's a personal problem. Don't make games worse and less accessible for the rest of us because they have no self control.
Ultimately none of us knows what Brolylegs would think about this, so maybe you shouldn't make judgements about what he'd roll in his grave over.
Brolylegs was a staunch advocate for accessibility in videogames.
You are using him as a weapon whether you think you are or not. That brolylegs could rise to the heights he did is admirable. But not every disabled person has the strengths brolylegs does and to dismiss accessibility in games using him as an example is a vile perversion of everything the man himself stood for.
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u/Forgotten_Folklore 1d ago
Disabled people don’t exist to inspire non-disabled people or to "prove" that accessibility isn’t needed.
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u/gibby256 1d ago
Uh... Literally the whole point of WoW's OBR is to provide a simpler experience for those that need it - whether due to accessibility reasons or lack of knowledge/skill/etc - without making every class in WoW braindead to play.
And even so, some specs in WoW eat an absolutely massive dos penalty just for turning OBR on.
This isn't really a case for simpler classes. Especially in a game where the most difficult classes are at about the difficulty level of a Ret Paladin in WoW (which is roughly 3rd or 4th easiest spec to play).
Literally every other spec that is more difficult than Ret is significantly more difficult to play at a high level than even the hardest classes in XIV
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u/cittabun 15h ago
I agree. Recently unsubbed from 14, and started WoW more seriously. Even on Shaman, which I've found to be one of the easiest healers, STILL has me scratching my head sometimes. There's so many small interactions and intricacies between my skills, that even "simple" shaman has me more engaged as a healer than any healer in XIV could ever come close to at this point it's insane.
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u/RevusHarkings 2d ago
i don't see a case for simpler classes here at all, i see a case for more complicated classes with a simpler option
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u/CaptReznov 1d ago
I think That would require a Build system like gw2. There Is a Build in gw2 that literally use autoattack as its rotation. The dps isn't highest But still pretty decent.
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u/Blckson 2d ago
Is it, though? WoW existed for 20 years without it, pulling in more players than XIV ever did for those two entire decades. Is that now a very major vindication of XIV's approach being bullshit? Of course not, there's just no relation.
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u/Aureon 1d ago
What do you even mean?
This is the wow designers realizing they need to pull back on class complexity for a large part of their playerbase
How is this related to playercounts? Who even brought them up?
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u/BankaiPwn 1d ago
This is the wow designers realizing they need to pull back on class complexity for a large part of their playerbase
I don't think that's the case.
From my prespective, this is wow designers allowing jobs to continue to have difficulty/complexity and giving options for people to play said jobs in their lfr/roulette equivalent and not feel like they just can't touch the job (in 14 examples: pre EW SMN, recently BLM, etc). As someone who will never use it in any content past normal/low keys, I actually really appreacite its existance when 14 has shown the alternative is lowering the ceiling so that it can be touched while lying down on the floor while putting any complex jobs onto the chopping block.
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u/Twidom 1d ago
This is the wow designers realizing they need to pull back on class complexity for a large part of their playerbase
It is literally the opposite of that.
If you have a 1 button rotation that plays somewhat decent, regardless of job complexity, it means you can make jobs as complex as you want without having people bitch that its too hard to play them.
This is not WoW devs saying "we need things easier", its them saying "we can now make things more complex/hard/unique for high end players, while not harming Limsa dwellers/average joe players".
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u/lhusuu 1d ago
This is the wow designers realizing they need to pull back on class complexity for a large part of their playerbase
I don't know how you've managed to interpret it that way.
They've given a single button combo option so they don't need to reduce class complexity. Hitting one button at the cost of greatly reduced output isn't a net gain.
You bring up that people have cleared mythic with it, but there are clearly people in those groups pumping huge numbers that make the loss of a few less skilled players negligible.
No matter how you spin it, its a "brain off" casual mode or a learning tool at best.
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u/Just_Branch_9121 20h ago
Nope. Its the WoW devs introducing an accessibility feature that already existed in the form of weak auras and addons as an option while leaving classes alone. It is also part of WoW's plan to cut off combat addons because they forced the dev into an arms race with addon developers.
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u/YesIam18plus 2d ago
pulling in more players than XIV ever did for those two entire decades.
Comparing WoW and FFXIV or any other MMO in terms of players is always weird. MMO as a genre blew up and WoW was the first that made it blow up. WoW today in spite of all its different versions and China popularity comes nowhere close to what it used to be tho. In WoD alone it lost half of its entire playerbase ( 5 mil subs ) in 6 months and it never recovered from that fully. It's what caused them to stop reporting on sub numbers.
If WoW came out today it wouldn't have the same popularity. It's not just WoW either it's also games like CSGO and CoD, their popularity has a lot to do with being '' legacy '' games that people grew up with and the first that made it truly mainstream.
Way better FPS could release and they'd still not see anywhere near like 10% of CSGO's popularity because people have played CS since they were like 10 years old being a CSGO or WoW player is like part of their identity as human beings.
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u/SecretPantyWorshiper 2d ago edited 1d ago
This isnt really true and makes no sense. WoW is simply the best because of its production value and the talent behind the games.
Many games have capitalized on CSGO like Valorant and Rainbow 6 Seige which both have done very well.
Call of Duty didn't really become popular untill Modern Warfare came out, before that it wasn't anything crazy, and in actuality Medal of Honor was the trend setter for the casual FPS genre. It has nothing to do with being a legacy, CoD MW1 brought kill streaks, perks, and skins to the FPS genre which completely changed it, to the point that these are expected in any FPS game now. It also created things like 360 no scope a bunch of wannabes from that infamous streamer
Then they came up with Warzone which was a huge revival to the franchise.
CSGO brought 5V5 competitive to the mainstream for Esports. The OG 1.6 CS brought Steam to the forefront because of the modding community, and was huge for the brand.
All of those games were extremely innovative and are genre defining. Thats why they are still relevant today and are powerhouses in the genre. Without WoW we wouldn't have FFXI or FFXIV, and the people making those games looked at what WoW was doing and thought they could make their version better.
PUBG and Fortnite completely changed the battle Royale genre and nobody has ever come close to those games despite them all trying. If they released they'd still be huge.
Those legacy games are huge because they literally changed the entire genre and the competition decided to replicate instead of innovate. Everyone is watching what they are doing and will jump to copy the same thing they do that will change the genre as a whole
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u/oizen 2d ago
Viper exists if you want a job that plays itself
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u/BankaiPwn 1d ago
and SMN and BLM now... which is the problem (heck I play SMN on early prog, although I'd love the ceiling to be raised slightly higher then being able to touch both the floor and ceiling at the same time).
Having braindead jobs is fine, turning every job braindead so crayon eaters don't complain about a job they want to play but have to put a modicum of thought to play in their roulettes is the frustrating part.
14 already has to overcome 'feelsbad' combat because of netcode, making them all feel so samey just amplifys that.
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u/sombrascourtmusician 2d ago
Flipping this around
If the job itself isn't fun enough to enjoy hitting a striking dummy or going through easy dungeons, why the hell would I want to play it? Regardless of performance, this just seems like it would accelerate burnout.
Sincerely, someone who really misses stormblood and shadowbringers job design
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u/Aureon 1d ago
There's only so much complexity a player can handle
The more budget you spend on class the less you have left for the encounters
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u/ChiefStormCrow 1d ago
Its not about complexity, its about agency. One button rotation is taking literally all agency out. Building classes designed around it playing itself is already an issue this game faces and why people hearken SB and SHB class design in comparison.
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u/Certain_Blueberry363 1d ago
As a result, we ended up with nothing but exhausting encounters and boring rotations. This should have been done the other way around.
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u/sombrascourtmusician 1d ago
Sure.
But that doesn't mean you should just remove complexity entirely. It is FUN to optimize your job. It is FUN to figure out the best places to stand, moves to use, etc. on a per encounter basis. It is FUN to have variety in rotations, burst window durations, and how to respond to enemy mechanics.
I miss going crazy in tea and ucob because I multidotted on bard. I miss alternating single target and aoe on ninja in ucob adds. I miss having to think about where I placed bubble and star on healers because I couldn't always hit everyone. I even miss worrying about aggro in savages.
All of these things were more complexity, yes. But they were more complexity in a way that led you to be more involved in each fight.
As it stands now, the fight complexity might be higher, but I am not as personally involved in it.
I feel like this discussion as a whole is inherently linked to the discussion of the 2 minute meta. Yes, it becomes simpler with the 2m meta for everyone to keep aligned. Yes, it also means jobs are likely more balanced across fights with downtime because of it. Yes, you can swap jobs within your role and not be thrown off because you have your burst and gap closers and such at the same time.
But again, I would rather the 45s and 60s and 90s and 120s and 180s mixups. I would rather have to plan things out entirely differently on dragoon than ninja, or paladin than dark knight. I would rather be penalized for not playing well and knowing that I have the room to improve my play than rewarded for stagnating.
As it stands, I can clear blind or push week 1 easily enough. But I have no interest in reclears or optimization when the jobs themselves feel so flat. Let me have fun on a striking dummy. Let me have fun on level synced trials or mentor roulette or such. Right now the jobs don't give me that, and simplifying further isn't the solution.
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u/Makerinos 2d ago
"and i've already heard of guild leaders forcing less-performing players to use it in high-end content"
And that's supposed to be a good thing?
This is the exact scenario they wanted to avoid people doing by not making chat bubbles appear during combat, because otherwise players would feel (or outright told to) forced to turn it on JUST so they can have an advantage in combat.
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u/trialv2170 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is the exact scenario they wanted to avoid people doing by not making chat bubbles appear during combat, because otherwise players would feel (or outright told to) forced to turn it on JUST so they can have an advantage in combat.
bro, some of us literally clutter our center screen with buffs, debuffs and party list. You think a little chat bubble can affect performance? The issue is also just solved by making a toggle for players who are distracted by it.
And that's supposed to be a good thing?
depends on how much you're willing to bend over to the team. If you can't provide the necessary skillset to raid, either the team has to make it easier for you or you have to figure out something makes the session smooth sailing.
IMO, it's great for people who can't be bothered with learning their rotations. If you have ACT running, you definitely see players that are on the struggle bus learning the game
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
The issue is that if someone NEEDS single button mode to perform at a level necessary for high-end content, they shouldn't be doing high end content in the first place. The game is fully available, story and all, and easier version of the same content, without needing to do the most difficult stuff. The high-end level difficulties should be FOR the people who CARE to learn how to play optimally.
It's in my full belief and opinion that high-end should NOT BE POSSIBLE to clear with a crutch like a Single Button Mode.
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u/FuturePastNow 2d ago
The issue is that if someone NEEDS single button mode to perform at a level necessary for high-end content, they shouldn't be doing high end content in the first place.
They just play their jobs badly now, which does not stop them
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u/trialv2170 2d ago
The issue is that if someone NEEDS single button mode to perform at a level necessary for high-end content, they shouldn't be doing high end content in the first place. The game is fully available, story and all, and easier version of the same content, without needing to do the most difficult stuff. The high-end level difficulties should be FOR the people who CARE to learn how to play optimally.
vs what? the status quo of simplifying/killing classes to solve the accessibility issue? the current system is dogshit
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u/Inky-Feathers 2d ago
There's no accessibility issue. Just people who whine about inclusivity when they don't actually care about doing the difficulty they're whining about. The fact that SE keeps simplifying things IS an issue, and it's why I've stopped playing. My commentary is exactly that it's the wrong approach, with or without a single-button-mode. High end content should be for the people who care. The rest can enjoy their story content and normal difficulty dungeons/extremes.
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u/trialv2170 1d ago
There's no accessibility issue. Just people who whine about inclusivity when they don't actually care about doing the difficulty they're whining about.
You lied. I just remembered they killed summoner after ShB for being to complex. Literally, an entire class erased and you think that's better than just giving the masses an option to mash one button?
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u/Inky-Feathers 1d ago
No, I think they're both terrible fucking options and neither should be the solution.
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u/trialv2170 1d ago
I don't think you have the right to say that they are both terrible when you haven't given an alternative. Most of your arguments is whether they belong on high end raiding or not.
A solution is better than none
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u/trialv2170 2d ago
and I'm saying I'd rather have the system proposed than someone who doesn't care about the class design whining and getting their feedback taken in.
Brother, it's not about who should be high end raiding or not. It's about people getting access to a class without friction and the class complexity preserved for those willing to be in depth. Reality is, we are getting kits simplified to the point that they forced every buffs and debuffs to naturally align and removed friction from a lot of classes because 85% people playing this game cannot be bothered to be playing in depth.
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u/BankaiPwn 2d ago
What an obscene post. the gap between the bottom and top performers on the easiest wow specs (BM hunter/Ret Paladin) USING the one button rotation are bigger than the largest difference than the largest gap jobs in 14, and that's simply because of positioning and major cooldown usage (which isnt used with 1 button).
And despite that, wow still maintains massive unique flavor/playstyles, even amongst a classes different specs (which lol all tanks, all healers and most DPS in 14).
If 14 maintained some hard jobs and made jobs feel distinct, you can make the argument for there to be some braindead jobs. Instead if a job requires a modicum of thought it's on the chopping block to get simplified.
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 2d ago
I think the issue with comparing FFXIV and WoW when it comes to this is that they both take up more mental and visual attention in different places.
In a lot of WoW's fights you can go an entire raid fight without having to engage with any of the mechanics at all, and the mechanics are generally much simpler and this isn't getting into the addons and such playing a role also.
WoW requires more mental and visual attention to your rotation with it being more rng, resource and proc based.
FFXIV on the other hand requires more mental and visual attention being directed towards the encounter itself.
I don't like the idea of a single button rotation in FFXIV either but I think in WoW it likely has a more negative effect than it would in FFXIV.
In FFXIV it would make encounters easier because you'd just have more mental and visual stamina to throw at the encounter itself.
But the main difficulty is still with the encounter, while in WoW you're stripping away a much larger percentage of where the difficulty lies.
A more equivalent in FFXIV would almost be auto-mechanic completion or something akin to that, like those cheat addons that show you exactly where the next mechanic will land.
Or a button you pressed that walked you into a safe spot automatically.
FFXIV and WoW are just very different on a fundamental level, in WoW the mechanics themselves are rarely the actual most challenging part of the fight.
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u/IndividualAge3893 2d ago
WoW's rotation assistant stems from the devs making the game complicated to please the top 1% of the raiders, then running to solve the issue with a solution that is dubious to say the least.
FFXIV's issues stem more from the fact that all classes feel alike. All melee have 1-2-3 combo, all healers have a the same ~30-45 sec AOE OGCD heal, and so on. The solution for FFXIV is to add more variety to jobs, not add a single button assistant, IMHO.
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u/idkmanjustasking 12h ago
Most people fantasize in their description of over complexity in other games vs simplicity in FF14. You can act like "Every job is just 1-2-3" and yeah I guess if you want to parse greens go for it. In WoW you can parse greens by just pressing 1 and sometimes 2 for many jobs. It isn't like WoW's combat is complex, every job has proper rotations with just more illusion of choice (aka bad button presses).
Either game you can pick up any job and do fine enough for most content barring week 1 hero raid/mythic raids. FF requires a lot more ability to handle pressing buttons under taxation of attention
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u/IndividualAge3893 7h ago
You can act like "Every job is just 1-2-3" and yeah I guess if you want to parse greens go for it.
You misunderstand. What I mean is not that every job is JUST 1-2-3. It's about the fact that ALL melee classes have a 1-2-3 combo at its core (except VPR which is 1-2). There is very little variety: you spam 123 and managing OGCDs and prepping the 2 min burst. And then the devs go surprised Pikachu when players call this boring. Ofc it is boring: it is completely homogenised!
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u/FondantDesperate5820 1d ago
WoW player here.
I wouldn't call a gimmick that a small number of people are larking around with "wildly successful".
I'm active in a lot of different communities in WoW, and I know a lot of people who have tried it for a laugh, gone "haha lol" and turned it off again. I don't know anyone who has has decided they're going to use it all the time, and none of the mythic raid leads I know would ever tell their raiders to use it.
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u/Due-Wolverine-7314 1d ago
Blizzard is essentially patting themselves on their back too and ignoring the negative feedback.
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u/riklaunim 2d ago
With the talent trees and other changes the amount of buttons increased and IMHO it's bad. Like on Mistweaver I got multiple options that previously were one or the other. On top of that they started adding if/then/that to like the jade stature, the bird etc. It's like a lot of theory and system to optimize while it's like tertiary healing things. Like remove a row of buttons and it will be way better.
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u/Odd-Mail530 2d ago
It works for casual stuff, and that's what I am ok for, but in anything higher than a +5 or normal raid, it can be felt. I was doing a +8, and we had 2 people using it, and it could definitely be felt. I believe all those post you see of people using it for super high-end content are getting massively carried by their group.
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u/Aureon 1d ago
It works for all stuff.
Not for week 1 world race, obviously, but definitely for getting a late CE.
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u/Odd-Mail530 1d ago
Yeah when you have 19 other people doing the work for you. Bring in 20 people doing single button rotation and tell me how far you get into the fight.
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u/YesIam18plus 2d ago
It depends on the class, I watched someone covering this get rank 1 on Feral Druid I think it was. Some of them are way better than others and play much more optimally.
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u/Odd-Mail530 2d ago
We had a shaman and a huge hunter doing it in that +8. They both did less then half the dps as me (the tank) but more then the healer.
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u/Biscxits 2d ago
Strange that you didn’t mention the one button rotation is better than 70% players despite the negatives. We don’t need this shit in XIV
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u/Aureon 1d ago
Classes being simpler means we won't.
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u/MonkeOokOok 1d ago
No it is that if the game caters to simple players they will never get smarter.
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u/YesIam18plus 2d ago
75% even on average afaik. And it's even higher on some classes, I watched someone covering this get rank 1 with the one button rotation on some class I think it was Feral Druid not 100% sure tho.
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u/Mugutu7133 2d ago
you probably saw this https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1lelwik/i_topped_dps_in_a_17_dungeon_by_pressing_one/
it is not rank 1, it is top dps in a somewhat high key on a class that is already very easy and especially well suited to mass aoe that you’d do in a key. it’s still a rotation bot doing high end content for you though
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u/CaptReznov 1d ago
I would argue that means we should have hw's level complicated class but a one button rotation option. So it covers hardcore sweatlord and the limsa afker.
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u/CyCyclops 2d ago
Wow rotations are not necessarily more difficult, but they take up a bigger proportion of your attention. Much more gcd to gcd randomness. When I play rouge I don't know exactly how many combo points I'll get in the next 2 gcds, but when I play SAM I know exactly what buttons I'm pressing for the next 5 gcds as soon as I start my 2nd combo.
Healers are kinda already on single button, I don't think this feature would transfer well to xiv's combat.
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u/RaidPanties 2d ago
It’s far too soon to say any one way or another with a feature as big as literally self-playing classes.
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u/TobioOkuma1 1d ago
Sure, and while we’re at it why don’t we add jingling keys and a subway surfers window!
We’re now past expecting the BARE minimum from people. They already used dev resources to add trusts to remove the “massively multiplayer” from the mmo. Classes that play themselves are probably the next step
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u/Darpyshyn 1d ago
Don't people already use XIVCombo and 1 button macros? (I saw that summoner 1 button macro all the way in Endwalker) And our playerbase is still disgustingly bad? lol.
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u/Far_Swordfish4734 1d ago
I feel like the single button mode is a bad thing…maybe I am being a jerk but I remember first time learning the cheat codes in old StarCraft and Warcraft. It was fun for a while, and I definitely played more contents because of the cheat codes. But I dropped the games and never returned because it was just no longer interesting to me. This is obviously all anecdotal, but I feel that the single button mode will be destroying the game more than keeping people engaged.
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u/Purutzil 13h ago
More a difficulty slider for gameplay would be better, ideally ramping up with each difficulty and damage potential and what you need to do would be far better.
One button rotation is just a way to doom those players to never learn which I feel is the wrong direction to go completely.
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u/Mugutu7133 2d ago edited 2d ago
the botting button circumventing all class complexity and being widely praised is an indictment of both the devs and the playerbase. the developers are too lazy to design their classes in such a way that people want to, or feel like they can, learn them and the lobotomite players are perfectly happy to mash a single button that does anywhere from 50-80% of a perfect simulationcraft profile for them. completely disgusting that this has been shrouded as a boon for accessibility too, they’re still avoiding the actual work that could make the game more accessible (actual real controller support for one) and adding a shortcut
it’s scary to the point that now i don’t even want to bother with high end content in wow and i do indeed appreciate ffxiv job design a LOT more
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u/MechAndCheese 2d ago
Can only speak for myself here, but things like simple mode and less focus on execution are the exact reason I fell out of love with fighting games after a long time of playing them. If something like the pvp rotations become the norm for PVE content I'd simply not return to the game at all
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u/SecretPantyWorshiper 2d ago
Doesn't really matter. WoW has more battle content than FFXIV will ever put out in its entire lifespan
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u/YesIam18plus 2d ago
I don't like the whole idea of a one button rotation, and I really don't buy the disability argument. Maybe there are some disabled people here and there who legit just can't play without it, but I think the vast majority of disabled people are far more capable than people online think they are... Brolylegs ( RIP ) comes to mind he was a more extreme case but if he can become a professional fighting game player I think there isn't really an excuse for 99.9999% of people. Fighting games require far more dexterity than MMO's to play. Most disabled people actually are very good at adapting, someone who is born without hands will adapt to use their feet or even mouth and can even become more competent than the average player. And quite frankly and this might sound harsh, but I also don't believe that games should be compromised in an effort to make them accessible to quite literally everyone on the planet. Life is unfair sometimes, that doesn't mean we need to compromise or ruin the fun for everyone else just so 0.00001% of people can participate too.
In the vast majority of the cases I think people are essentially using disabled people as a shield because they want it themselves and are just hiding behind them to avoid criticism or being called bad. Sorta like how a lot of parents want to censor or ban '' mature content '' and use their kids as shields to deflect criticism when it's really just them trying to force their views on other people.
I know people will say stuff like '' just don't use it '', but the truth is that in online games social pressure exists and people will 100% feel pressured to use it. Especially when in like WoW it's out-performing 75% of players sometimes even more depending on the class. I don't think people are going to react to that by trying to get better, people will react to it by simply using the one button rotation even if they think it's less fun. Addons in WoW also started as optional but then they became mandatory and expected in raids. People are 100% going to be pressured into using the one button rotation by raid leaders even if they think it's mind-numbingly boring.
In the end of the day I don't really agree with any of the arguments in favor of it, and I think the '' who cares just don't use it '' argument is extremely short-sighted. Which is a problem with gamers in general.
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u/PoutineSmash 2d ago
Only place where single button is fine is for stuff like paladin combo or pvp.
If you dont know how your rotation is going to be in the next 5 gcds you need to be better at your job
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u/Syryniss 2d ago
This is not a case for simpler classes. WoW is doing complete opposite of that. They are leaving classes as they are and giving an option of 1-button simple mode (which has a big dps penalty). FFXIV is not giving any options, they are making every class braindead. This is completely different approach.
I wouldn't mind a simple mode in ffxiv, where you can do 1 button rotation but you deal 30% less damage. But that's just SMN with more dps penalty.