Having leveled through VPR, I was a little confused that the whole combo is literally on autopilot, showing you the next move with a glowy button. Initially at release the only choice was on the first step of the combo to re(apply) the debuff or not. Now it's been changed and the combo is on full autopilot. As a casual MNK enjoyer, I was actually surprised/shocked to see that the basic combo filler is also on autopilot now as the game shows you which is the correct next skill to use depending if you have gauge stacks to spend on that form or not.
And it made me pause, because if we're designing all those nice and intricate moves for jobs, but the game just turns the button into the next one, or makes the correct ones glow, isn't this a little on autopilot somewhat? Or perhaps all of what matters now is the decisions the player makes in the burst every 60/120s? Filler between bursts has been consistently maimed over expansions in order to be an afterthought on most jobs?
And then it got me thinking, isn't it still better than a base, bland, boring 1-2-3 combo? Doesn't it introduce a different kind of patterns that make the base sequence a little more interesting? And yet, something feels... greatly unsatisfying to me with this. I feel that I have no agency whatsoever.
What do melee mains actually think about this?
Continue reading...
And it made me pause, because if we're designing all those nice and intricate moves for jobs, but the game just turns the button into the next one, or makes the correct ones glow, isn't this a little on autopilot somewhat? Or perhaps all of what matters now is the decisions the player makes in the burst every 60/120s? Filler between bursts has been consistently maimed over expansions in order to be an afterthought on most jobs?
And then it got me thinking, isn't it still better than a base, bland, boring 1-2-3 combo? Doesn't it introduce a different kind of patterns that make the base sequence a little more interesting? And yet, something feels... greatly unsatisfying to me with this. I feel that I have no agency whatsoever.
What do melee mains actually think about this?
Continue reading...