Some suggestions, mostly quality of life, obvious things

[ninthfantasy]

Again, this has probably been mentioned, if so, sorry!

Are there any plans to implement allowing us to temporarily leave an instance? I can only imagine how this will be abused and cause havoc, but just the other day I ran a dungeon as CNJ, I forgot to equip my soul stone/job stone and didn't realise until we were half way through the dungeon. Although it didn't have much of an impact (apart from my mana...), it would have been really handy if I could have left, equipped stone, and reentered the instance... without having to leave it all together and re-queue. I'm aware the simple solution is to make sure I'm all set before I go, but another example is of when I ran with a group, and somebody forgot to repair before going (again, I'm aware this is something that should be checked before, but we sometimes forget!) and it got to the point where all their equipment was on 0%, which as a result seriously hindered their DPS and performance...

Of course, it was understandable, but even the person was wishing s/he could just leave, repair, and come back.
An alternative solution to this could be to allow us to make minor changes such as, allowing us to equip the appropriate job stone... not allowing us to change jobs entirely, but in the case of a CNJ in a level 35+ dungeon, wanting to equip their soul stone to change to WHM... something like that.

And as for repairs, maybe having an NPC who can repair items in dungeons. I know, I know, it should be something that we make sure we have done before entering... but as I say, there will be times where we forget. And in some cases, its not simple for everyone to leave and re-queue... especially if you're a DPS who has been queued for 30 mins+!

Again, sorry if it has been mentioned... I'm just curious about this, and sharing my experience (: - And if by chance, there is already something like this in place, tell me and I will swiftly delete this post!

[Haibel]

Please make it so we can indicate up to the second decimal place for macro /wait times.

From a technological standpoint, this is possible to implement. Actually, up until midway through the Beta Test, it was possible to indicate up to the first decimal place. However, for the initial phases of FFXIV: ARR's operation, we decided to lower the degree of accuracy on this.

The reason being that there was a concern that the convenience would exceed the purpose of the macro feature.

Here is the macro feature policy for FFXIV:

Do not make it so macros must be used.
Minimizing and optimizing actions without error beyond that of human control is not allowed.
Make it a support feature that can be used by people that are a bit shaky at controlling the game to ensure control, while not making it 100% optimized.
The player makes the execution decision. We will not be implementing a feature where the macros makes its own decisions. For example: We will not be implementing a feature that executes things based on certain criteria (player status, enemy HP, certain actions, etc.)

Due to the above reasoning, we limited the degree of accuracy for the wait times.

Of course, there are games where the policies outlined above differ*, but we felt that this policy is the best for the current XIV.

Naturally this doesn't mean that we keep it the way it is forever. We'll continue to make adjustments as we keep an eye on the situations happening in PvP and large-scale instanced raids, so please just keep the above policy in mind when offering feedback and making requests.

*For example, we won't be having a gambit system like what was in FINAL FANTASY XII. The aims between the automated strategy system for XII and the control support macro feature of XIV are totally different.

Add-on's can't get here soon enough then. This is totally the wrong approach. XI's macros were too limited, so in came windower
that took up for the slack. Something SE couldn't do anything about unless they wanted to ban 50% of the playerbase.
The macro lines are not so limited in this game, which is a good thing; However, this policy isn't even consistent across all classes in the game.
pug/mnk do not need to put in wait times because all their actions are dependent on other actions. they can just list their actions in series and
spam a button. The whole point for many of us is to consolidate actions, not automate.

[Ninix]

Adjustments had to be made as we're in a situation where we've already reached the display limitation, and we've made it possible to display this by temporarily hiding the experience points bar and basic HUD information (connection status, clock, etc. in the upper right) while the focus target information is displayed.

The fact that they're riding so close to the limit of their memory budget that they can't afford to draw even one more persistent UI element without removing some others is both impressive and terrifying. It really makes me wonder what they're going to do two or three years down the line as they add more and more features into the game.

[Hiiiro]

Hello,

We understand that a good amount of players are asking for more hot bar displays for the PS3 version.
UI lead Hiroshi Minagawa has a comment about this and would also like to explain about current development plans for the PS3 version.

Can we get this translated too?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1527142

[Kosmos992k]

The fact that they're riding so close to the limit of their memory budget that they can't afford to draw even one more persistent UI element without removing some others is both impressive and terrifying. It really makes me wonder what they're going to do two or three years down the line as they add more and more features into the game.

Each portion of the game that is resident has a memory allocation (or budget). The UI has a set amount, whether a new UI component can/cannot fit in memory at the same time as other UI components, doesn't affect the memory budget of other components in the game. If you add a new UI component that breaks the budget, then you have to selectively deactivate other UI components while that new component is active. That way you can stay within the memory allocated to the UI and not affect anything else.

[cearka]

text inventory instead of icons.

[Rustybicycle]

Are we ever going to get any content that requires us to group up outside of instances? It's pretty sad when I can kill any regular enemy in the game as a white Mage. I miss the challenge of FFXI where we had to team up to get our artifact armor and to complete quests. I've leveled WHM and BRD to 50 and for both artifact quests all I had to do was go pick the armor off the ground and put it on. This is by far the most disappointing quest line I've come across. I'm loving the main story and even the class and job stories but there just is no challenge.

[Reinheart]

Can we get this translated too?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1527142

Official one coming soon but in the mean time if you want to read the unofficial one > http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1528335

[Hiiiro]

Thank you. So it looks like L2+R2 is going to show a set of 8 buttons (either left or right side depending on settings choice) if I'm reading it right? I'm wondering if releasing it goes back to the normal previous set.

[Naunet]

Each portion of the game that is resident has a memory allocation (or budget). The UI has a set amount, whether a new UI component can/cannot fit in memory at the same time as other UI components, doesn't affect the memory budget of other components in the game. If you add a new UI component that breaks the budget, then you have to selectively deactivate other UI components while that new component is active. That way you can stay within the memory allocated to the UI and not affect anything else.

Never have I seen memory limitations play such a massive role in restricting what the devs can do with the game as I have seen in ARR.