I am downright out of room in Final Fantasy XIV. My characters have two sets of action bars packed to the gills along with some overflow, and I tell you, I need every single button on there. I don’t know how this could be consolidated with the next expansion, but boy, it’s going to need to be, because there is no more space for new abilities in there. There’s barely space for the existing abilities.
Having played World of Warcraft for a long while, I’ve seen lots of people complain about the game “oversimplifying” things, but I think a lot of that is missing the point. Sure, I miss the old talent trees, but I can certainly see how having those trees go 90 points down would be… problematic. The class rotations have been made a bit more straightforward, but that’s less about “ugh, it’s too simple now” and more about not forcing you to deal with 80-odd abilities just to deal reasonable damage.
But then, maybe you want that. Maybe you really would like to have a rotation that requires an intricate 40-button combination in normal content. I don’t, but perhaps I’m the minority. So let’s talk about that today, dear readers. How complex should playing a character be in an MMO? Should you have a huge number of buttons, a few, or should your action bars always be full at the level cap?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
