Voidwatch - How about a visual perimeter?

[Kaisha]

With the introduction of Chapter 2 Voidwatch, I feel it's been an increasing problem with the lack visual feedback as to where the perimeter of your battlefield lies, especially on the Zilart path where you have to deal with multiple monsters at once.

The common strategy for that path typically involves pulling the additional enemies out of Area-of-Effect range (which can be very large on some of the new foes) of the main group and either holding or killing them off safely while the rest of the alliance focuses on the main foe.

That, coupled with now larger open areas to battle in (some of which that don't have any real good walls or point of references nearby) the battle may get repositioned a couple times due to hate management, the adds causing problems, or knockback attacks shuffling people around. Coupled with a busy chatlog (even with filters up), you may not even realize the game is trying to warn you that you're about to unintentionally walk off the battlefield due to being too far from where you initiated the fight.

As it stands, the rift animation disappears when you initiate the fight, removing any sense of where the 50 some yalms of distance of the battlefield is based around, and the game doesn't give you an ample amount of warning when you're nearing the perimeter, made worse if you're suffering from visual or network latency at the time due to how busy some of these battles can become.

One thing I've been thinking of that would work within the limitations of the system would be to place a small series of models or glyphs about the perimeter (since the game has a 50 display model limitation. Full alliance + upwards of 5-6 target enemies should leave lots of room for nearby wandering beasts and markers) to notate the point of receiving a warning message that you're about to leave the battle.

An example of what would be personally satisfactory is having a series of those glyphs used in Bastion surround the battlefield, as you can see in this picture from an update earlier in the year: http://www.playonline.com/pcd/verup/ff11us/detail/6023/6023_58.jpg





TL;DR: I have no sense of direction or distance and I need a visual representation of the border of the battlefield when participating in Voidwatch. Does anyone else feel this way as these fights get larger in scale and demand, possibly more-so come Chapters 3 & 4?

[Hashmalum]

It would be nice, yes. A FF12-style visible zone border would be nice too. Allow traditionalists an option to turn it off.

[Sparthos]

In b4 PS2 limits or "you're wasting the dev teams time with this shit - suck less".

P.S - I'd love to see visual boundaries.

[Alkimi]

Would be safely fixed if they extended the time between the warning and being ejected. As it stands if you get a warning that you are straying too far from the battle area then it's usually too late already.

[Atomic_Skull]

Remember the giant whirlpool around the swirling vortex entrance in sea? Replace the rift with something like that while you are fighting.

[Tamoa]

I have no problem with the OP's suggestion other than the fear of further lag. For some reason, my fps drops drastically when doing vwnm, worst case scenario I lag so bad my macros barely respond. It's at its worst in the more confined areas though, where visual boundaries isn't really needed. But still, I fear something like this lol ; ;

(And yes, I have tried everything I can think of to remedy this lag.)

[Atomic_Skull]

I have no problem with the OP's suggestion other than the fear of further lag. For some reason, my fps drops drastically when doing vwnm, worst case scenario I lag so bad my macros barely respond. It's at its worst in the more confined areas though, where visual boundaries isn't really needed. But still, I fear something like this lol ; ;

(And yes, I have tried everything I can think of to remedy this lag.)

My suggestion wouldn't increase lag because it would just be a texture on the ground like the vortex tetxure that's already on the ground around the rift already. It would just replaced with a larger texture like the one around the swirling vortex in sea.

[Kaisha]

A large texture would just be ugly as sin due to texture resolution size limits, and not all the battle locations have a completely flat ground also.

That swirling vortex thing was also part of the zone, rather than a model they can plug in.


Just gimmy a series of posts. What would be nice is a model that spawns on the rift that is just a big polygonal circle, but FFXI's rendering engine tends to not cull objects that you are not directly looking at its center with, so it'd be invisible when you're trying to look for the edge of the battle.

[Atomic_Skull]

A large texture would just be ugly as sin due to texture resolution size limits, and not all the battle locations have a completely flat ground also.

That swirling vortex thing was also part of the zone, rather than a model they can plug in.

The rifts use a similar additive texture on the ground though. Just increase the resolution and size and leave it visible during the fight and you'll have a reference point for the center of the battleground. You can mitigate the resolution problem by using a repeating cloud-like or "energy" effect texture and striping it from the center point of the effect out to the edge and then having it repeat radially around the circumference of the vortex effect. Fade it from the center to the edge and rotate the effect.

[Sparthos]

Couldn't they just have the mob draw everyone in if someone gets outside the battle arena?

[detlef]

Then you wouldn't be able to run away and reset.

[Alhanelem]

A large texture would just be ugly as sin due to texture resolution size limits, and not all the battle locations have a completely flat ground also.Not a big huge texture on the ground. I'd be thinking a little glowing aura around the perimiter. That would only require a small texture to be repeated around the edge of the battle area.

If anyone has seen the Primal Ifirit battle video for FFXIV, you'll see what I'm talking about. There's sort of a ring of fire around where you fight him.

[Hashmalum]

You know, I just remembered something. Wasn't it mentioned a few months ago that a WoW-style plugin interface for FFXI was being implemented? Because this is the kind of thing that we could get from a third party long before the dev team ever gets to it if they do at all.

[Kristal]

Wasn't there some change planned for the radar to stay visible during combat (like, move it to the right a bit)? What if it could also show encounter areas seen with FoV NMs and Voidwatch NMs as (part of) a circle? Easy solution that would work even on the PS2, has game-wide uses, and shouldn't cause any lag due to extra models on the field.

The regular map could show the location of the activated rift as a regular green marker, with the same circle around it to indicate the encounter boundary.

[Kaisha]

Wasn't there some change planned for the radar to stay visible during combat (like, move it to the right a bit)? What if it could also show encounter areas seen with FoV NMs and Voidwatch NMs as (part of) a circle? Easy solution that would work even on the PS2, has game-wide uses, and shouldn't cause any lag due to extra models on the field.
The radar thing was having it show during combat if you hit + (F on compact keyboard/Triangle on PS2) once. Was patched in months ago.



Because this is the kind of thing that we could get from a third party long before the dev team ever gets to it if they do at all.
Because that's totally useful for people like I that abide by the terms of service. </sarcasm>

[Alhanelem]

You know, I just remembered something. Wasn't it mentioned a few months ago that a WoW-style plugin interface for FFXI was being implemented? Because this is the kind of thing that we could get from a third party long before the dev team ever gets to it if they do at all. You're dreaming. They've mentioned no such thing. Maybe you're thinking of FFXIV, which would more readily support UI mods if the developers wanted to enable it (as my understanding is FFXIV uses XML/LUA for the UI)