Trust status icons

[Senumi]

Is there a reason we're not allowed to see status icons for trusts, as per human party members? (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/47871)

Playing any kind of healer/support class with trusts just feels weird, given the absence of this information.

[Sirmarki]

While on the subject - I think some need to be slightly altered too. For example, Petrify kind of looks like Paralyze and Stun and bound look the same.

[Senumi]

While on the subject - I think some need to be slightly altered too. For example, Petrify kind of looks like Paralyze and Stun and bound look the same.

During the dev diaries for the now cancelled PC UI there were updates regarding new, higher res and more differentiated status icons too.

(I am only a new player, but I cannot understand why all this was cancelled at at the last minute -- if they were indeed trialing it on test servers -- simply because a new producer took over. I hope the code for this is still around, even if it needs a bit of work, as the limitations of the original PS2 UI are not a controversial topic.)

[Alhanelem]

Is there a reason we're not allowed to see status icons for trusts, as per human party members? (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/47871)

Playing any kind of healer/support class with trusts just feels weird, given the absence of this information.

It's most likely a technical limitation. The Trusts have more in common with monsters than players and it may actually be that the game either doesn't send this information for their actor type, or the client, due to how it treats these actors, doesn't display them because that data isn't expected.

there were updates regarding new, higher res and more differentiated status icons too.

Many other icons in the game were in fact updated, largely for the same reason. Since the New UI was going to show these icons on the macro bar (i.e. making it look more like the hotbars of other MMOs, even though it still functions the same as normal for FFXI), the icons for abilities and spells needed to be larger and more descriptive rather than just the original colored balls and boxes with the letters "Ab"

There is an option to switch between the old icons and the newer ones; when you use the newer ones, it's obvious that they were designed to be displayed at a larger size than the game currently does. Unfortunately, it was only the spell icons and some but not all of the ability icons that got updated, and not the status icons.

When i saw that they updated the in-world text font and icons (that go over player's heads) to be higher res, I noted that the title logo looked really bad on higher res displays and they actually updated the title screen assets soon after. Man it was nice when they actually responded this quickly to this sort of thing.

[Senumi]

It's most likely a technical limitation. The Trusts have more in common with monsters than players and it may actually be that the game either doesn't send this information for their actor type, or the client, due to how it treats these actors, doesn't display them because that data isn't expected.

It's hard to really know, people with more understanding of these things than me seemed to work out that the client has info about mob statuses, so if them behaving like mobs was in fact "the problem" it would seem to be a superficial one (but I understand that you were just guessing at what the problem might be). Do you know if the scrapped PC interface ever included plans to show status effects on targets?

I suppose we could hope against hope that when some of the team finally return from "gaining experience outside FFXI" that it could mean some more significant UI/UX and QoL improvements to the client, but I realise just how hopeful that sounds.

It's just a bit sad to see that they cancelled that mobile 'remaster' of FFXI and this UI on top, because far more than any of the gameplay systems, I suspect the interface and control scheme being so alien is the biggest aspect to put off new players. (And such an audience certainly exists, I'm far from the only one that started playing this because it's a Final Fantasy game with Final Fantasy stories.)

Or maybe they think they'll have to redo these things eventually anyway when the game is somehow recycled into a singleplayer experience (because it would look poor to fully kill off a mainline FF game), and thus perhaps it's viewed a waste of time and resources, that that audience can wait. (A lot of wild speculation in this post, and I apologise for that, the erratic history of their thinking is just hard for me to understand.)

I suppose I believe that when it comes to priorities, Trusts could do with some QoL attention given how core they've become to the game.

[Alhanelem]

I just think that if there wasn't a technical issue, that this information would have been displayed with Trust from the get go. I mean, we all noticed this day 1 that the display of the target's buffs that it didn't work with Trust, and I don't think it's reasonable to assume they would have made sue that worked at its introduction if it was possible.

Just hypothesizing here, of course. We largely got this feature because it's something FFXIV and most other MMOs of today have had for a long time and they've slowly introduced some QOL improvements of this sort over time.


As for the UI, they really really should have kept developing it.... It would have helped a LOT to make the game more approachable to players of more modern MMORPGs and it also makes the mouse on this now PC-only game a lot more useful. The mouse controls in FFXI are an absolute joke and is the primary reason nobody uses it. While you can move and turn the camera using the mouse, it's really basically just pressing the numpad or IJKL keys depending on which direction you move the mouse, and it's all centered around the cursor's position relative to the character rather than simply being "move the mouse left, the camera turns left, move it right it turns right."

Fixing that would also help approachability. I know one exceptionally good Deep Dungeon Solo Challenge player in FFXIV who uses the keyboard only (Yes, it is possible to play FFXIV with only the keyboard), and he does this just because he was used to it from FFXI. And he's an absolute god with it, whereas I really really appriciate having the mouse for clicking on things and analog camera/movement control. And most players of modern games would reallly appriciate that.

[Senumi]

Fixing that would also help approachability. I know one exceptionally good Deep Dungeon Solo Challenge player in FFXIV who uses the keyboard only (Yes, it is possible to play FFXIV with only the keyboard), and he does this just because he was used to it from FFXI. And he's an absolute god with it, whereas I really really appriciate having the mouse for clicking on things and analog camera/movement control. And most players of modern games would reallly appriciate that.

That's pretty impressive -- they don't have any videos uploaded of them playing by chance, do they?

I play with a controller mostly, but I can manage just fine with the two-handed keyboard controls because I got used to certain roguelikes with no meaningful mouse controls whatsoever; but I know that's pretty damn rare, and that this is easily one of the biggest turn off for a lot of people.

I would've assumed that the new UI would've still supported full keyboard controls for those that don't want change; unless I'm missing something about that, I really do struggle to understand why that got culled at the last hour.

And to be clear, I didn't think it was a given that they would implement something were it possible, but even if it was "impossible" as things stand, it is still within their power to modify a system to enable better buff/debuff management for non-human party members.

[Alhanelem]

That's pretty impressive -- they don't have any videos uploaded of them playing by chance, do they?

he goes by Angelus Demonus on Twitch and streams his solo clear runs:
https://www.twitch.tv/angelusdemonus
He has beaten Heaven on High solo with all jobs (Healers are by far the hardest to beat it on), not sure about Palace of the Dead but he's working on the new one right now.

He plays with an on screen keyboard so people can see that he's only using it.

For me, it's one of a handful of things I regularly enjoy doing in FFXIV. I got my very first solo clear not quite so long ago (and almost effed it up bad lol) after literally hundreds of attempts =\
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1230645241

I really do struggle to understand why that got culled at the last hour.

As far as I understand, much like with Monstrosity, the person who was working on it left Square-Enix which basically left it dead in the water. We did get to try a very, very, very early version of it with tons of placeholder assets. But we never saw it develop beyond that. =\ It was very rough, but the new features it offered were promising. In particular it would have given us the ability to have multiple bags open at the same time. It was only recently we got the ability to switch between bags on the inventory screen without having to back in and out of menus constantly.

And to be clear, I didn't think it was a given that they would implement something were it possible, but even if it was "impossible" as things stand, it is still within their power to modify a system to enable better buff/debuff management for non-human party members.

No, you're right, I'm only saying that if Trust were internally treated as true party members, it probably would have worked with zero effort- it's because they are not that it doesn't work. =\

[Senumi]

Thanks for sharing the links, looking forward to seeing this person in action. ^^

And yeah, it just weirds me out that development at SE (or CBU3?) is so isolated / in silos that one person leaving could lead to such a massive change simply being abandoned.