Yeah unfortunately when I use other programs they also do not combine on themselves. I'm brainstorming also: other than classic start menu, I don't have any other mods running that affect the taskbar. Also, for my windows settings I have them set to combine when taskbar is full (I don't think this has any effect but thought I'd mention it).

Update:

Ahhh, the Windows setting was indeed causing the problem after all!! After changing the setting to "Never combine items" in the Windows taskbar settings, the items now combine correctly.

Thank you very much for your time and patience, Vinnie

Sure, no problem:

Okay, and no problem lol. So here are my settings, and here is my taskbar.

As you can see it functions almost the way I'd like it to if only the open tabs of the same application would stack on the first instance of the application (Pinned Items and Ope...) and not stack on the pinned icon, which I'd like to act as just a shortcut. 

Yeah, each firefox button is independent. But what I'm asking is for them to group but not on the pinned one. I want the open firefox windows to group on themselves and not the pinned shortcut (item), as they do in Linux (picture above). I tried what you suggested and my taskbar ends up looking like this: the pinned items are mixed with the open windows, which I think looks cluttered. I think what I'm asking is not available. Thanks for your help 

Here are my current settings:

What I'm hoping for is a way to make combined items combine not on the pinned icon, as they do in Manjaro Linux and other XFCE distros. (Notice the 3 sign on firefox). I know this may be a pipe dream and not possible, but I thought I'd ask anyways. Thanks again