Request: More Information in the Equipment Window

[Karbuncle]

With the Removal of the 999 Visual Cap, Its good to know SE is taking it in the right direction.

Is it possible to add Ranged Attack to the Window? Accuracy, Evasion, and Ranged Accuracy would be nice, But I'd settle with just seeing Ranged Attack Values.

Hell, Remove Elemental Resists and put Racc, Acc, and Ranged Attack in its place :D

Thanks!

[Economizer]

Hell, Remove Elemental Resists and put Racc, Acc, and Ranged Attack in its place :D

As someone who takes barspells very seriously, please consider the horrors that one deserves for making such a statement.

Adding accuracy and ranged values does not mean we should remove an important part of the UI.

-

In addition to adding Accuracy, Evasion, Ranged Accuracy, and Ranged Attack, we could also get total Haste (including all effects not just gear; the value would cap out at the current 80% cap but could also turn blue if total relay reduction caps it out), Subtle Blow (would show if it caps), Magic Defense Bonus, base Magic Attack Bonus, and Enmity modifiers (from gear and merits anyways).

These could all be on a separate page (if need be, as a Status submenu probably) that has all the information on the equip screen alongside the attributes view.

[Karbuncle]

As someone who takes barspells very seriously, please consider the horrors that one deserves for making such a statement.

Well, I think you're the only one i know :P. Theres Known mathematical formulas for determining how much Resistance you get for Barspell based on your enhancing magic.

For Racc, Atk, and Evasion... Those formulas are a bit harder as they involve a lot of Unknowns. But Mr.Econ I think you're kinda reading too much into that statement... I Don't really want the removal of anything.

http://boards.420chan.org/fo/src/1326328199974.jpg

I always liked the look on that guys face :o

[Economizer]

Some things shouldn't be said even in jest.


Theres Known mathematical formulas for determining how much Resistance you get for Barspell based on your enhancing magic.

When there is more then one person in a party capable of casting a barspell a well equipped White Mage gets very tired very quickly of other people casting their inferior barspells when you worked very hard to get a good set for it. Not everything is Perfect Fantasy XI either and formulas have changed at certain values before - something we wouldn't know without the all important display.

[Karbuncle]

Some things shouldn't be said even in jest.

Respectfully disagree.


When there is more then one person in a party capable of casting a barspell a well equipped White Mage gets very tired very quickly of other people casting their inferior barspells when you worked very hard to get a good set for it.

/p Hey guys, I'm putting up Barspells, I got a set for it, Please don't recast over mine

If they fail to listen to this, Remove them, Because they cannot function at even a third grade level. (Psst: You'd be doing yourself a favor).

Besides, this, Increasingly Idiotic person who would repeatedly overwrite a WHMs barspells with his inferior BS should be put in his place. No excuse for that level of incompetency.


Not everything is Perfect Fantasy XI either and formulas have changed at certain values before - something we wouldn't know without the all important display.

Yeah, But we know them now :3

[Camate]

Greetings!

We definitely understand how many of you would like to see other stat values displayed, besides just attack and defense. Unfortunately, at the current time it is a bit difficult. This information is not kept client side and in order for this information to be displayed it would be necessary to increase the amount of information that is sent from the server to the client.

Increasing this amount of information sent to the client means an increase in the amount of data traffic, so the reason it is difficult is due to the fact that we are considering the risk of lag this could cause.

The same reason holds true for some other requests we have seen, such as displaying party member’s status ailments and other information.

Again, we realize the necessity for these things, but please understand that at the moment it is very difficult to do.

[Byrth]

Some things, such as party TP, are already sent to the client and simply not displayed. It would be nice if you could display those.

[Ophannus]

There's like 70-80% less server traffic in FFXI than there was 8 years due to the ffxi population dropping from like 2mil to 300k, with that extra bandwidth couldn't they use it to display these?

[Juilan]

Greetings!

We definitely understand how many of you would like to see other stat values displayed, besides just attack and defense. Unfortunately, at the current time it is a bit difficult. This information is not kept client side and in order for this information to be displayed it would be necessary to increase the amount of information that is sent from the server to the client.

Increasing this amount of information sent to the client means an increase in the amount of data traffic, so the reason it is difficult is due to the fact that we are considering the risk of lag this could cause.

The same reason holds true for some other requests we have seen, such as displaying party member’s status ailments and other information.

Again, we realize the necessity for these things, but please understand that at the moment it is very difficult to do.

If it is stored as a variable server side... IT CAN EASILY BE DISPLAYED CLIENT SIDE. if you are really concerned about the amount of data being sent to the client, try to remember that 99.9% of the player base use broadband connections and stream things like hulu and nextflix without lagging their connection. based on the computer set up they may do it on the same device. So there is NO ISSUE with more data being sent to the clients. I'm sure if someone was bored enough they'd find a way to bipass the information void on the equipment screen by scanning the incoming packets to figure out the percentage on the acc and everything else we want, the "it is very difficult to do" is just "we don't feel like putting in the effect of rearranging the gui"

[Cowardlybabooon]

The game ran fine on my old 128k ISDN line. I can't imagine there are a lot of 56ks around. Just make the enhanced GUI optional. I imagine you can select which packets are sent to a person based on some criteria. Ultimately, don't care though, I would rather have more content.

[Unleashhell]

Greetings!

We definitely understand how many of you would like to see other stat values displayed, besides just attack and defense. Unfortunately, at the current time it is a bit difficult. This information is not kept client side and in order for this information to be displayed it would be necessary to increase the amount of information that is sent from the server to the client.

Increasing this amount of information sent to the client means an increase in the amount of data traffic, so the reason it is difficult is due to the fact that we are considering the risk of lag this could cause.

The same reason holds true for some other requests we have seen, such as displaying party member’s status ailments and other information.

Again, we realize the necessity for these things, but please understand that at the moment it is very difficult to do.


Even with everyone having high speed internet these days? I think it is just easier to say it will add more lag to the game to get out of having to change the interface and do more programming. Not for nothing but this information should have been implemented in the first place.

[Raksha]

I think they're more worried about sending out more data, not so much about us receiving more data.

[Karbuncle]

I think they're more worried about sending out more data, not so much about us receiving more data.

Thats what I'm thinking. I think their servers are still as crappy as they were when the game was released. They need to update those.

That said, What byrth Said. Party member MP/TP is already sent to us, Can we get that displayed?

[Kaisha]

Why not just have a separate menu that explicitly requests an update on the desired information from the server so it's not something being added to the routine data being sent every second?

The game already does a similar thing when you check your Status information, or waiting on player markers on your map to appear.

[Asymptotic]

Have you all considered only sending elemental resistance data client-side if it differs from 0?

[Helel]

There is no reason why "attack" should be displayed, and not "ranged attack." If it's really that much of an issue (in terms of lag), make a button in the config to display one or the other.

[Alhanelem]

There's like 70-80% less server traffic in FFXI than there was 8 years due to the ffxi population dropping from like 2mil to 300k, with that extra bandwidth couldn't they use it to display these?
It's increasing bandwidth required to play the game, meaning anything that increases data that it sent to the client has to be considered carefully, because technically, FFXI still supports dialup.

[Dazusu]

There's like 70-80% less server traffic in FFXI than there was 8 years due to the ffxi population dropping from like 2mil to 300k, with that extra bandwidth couldn't they use it to display these?

Hi, my name is Ophannus, I pull random percentages and numbers out of my behind then state them as fact.


It's increasing bandwidth required to play the game, meaning anything that increases data that it sent to the client has to be considered carefully, because technically, FFXI still supports dialup.

The data can be tagged onto existing packets which aren't already full, and are padded with null characters (aka wasted space). Not to mention the protocol the game uses could be compressed and cleaned up a hell of a lot.

In addition to that, the data only needs to be sent when someone opens the window to display such information. Such as when pressing CTRL+E. The data required to display such information would amount to less than 1KB (it's a bunch of integers -- or at least, can be sent as such and processed client side to show %ages if so desired.)

Sounds like a poor excuse not to add them to me.

[Duelle]

The game ran fine on my old 128k ISDN line. I can't imagine there are a lot of 56ks around. Just make the enhanced GUI optional. I imagine you can select which packets are sent to a person based on some criteria.This would probably be the best way to do it. I've never been fond of the amount of guesswork needed to measure accuracy and such, so any way the game can actually show us these values as part of the UI would be greatly appreciated.

[Asymptotic]

You guys need to learn to speak DEV-ese. What they're saying is they can't just flip a switch and implement it. It's something they realize that they need to implement, but the actual implementation is going to involve dealing with some low-level coding structures, so it's going to be a while before they can find a working solution.

I do agree however that having a moogle capable of telling you things like your Accuracy, Evasion, Magic Evasion, Magic Accuracy, Magic Defense, Ranged Accuracy, and Ranged Attack would be a great temporary solution.

[Economizer]

We definitely understand how many of you would like to see other stat values displayed, besides just attack and defense. Unfortunately, at the current time it is a bit difficult. This information is not kept client side and in order for this information to be displayed it would be necessary to increase the amount of information that is sent from the server to the client.

Even if for some odd reason you never manage to make it work would it be possible to at least have a display menu for this data on the test server?

Or for the game itself maybe a Moogle could tell you, or perhaps the Moogle's Almanack could tell players.

[RAIST]

Alternatively, they could have it computed client-side for display purposes only, based on our equipped gear and suck, but still run all the actual calculations for combat server-side. No more bandwidth required to display it in that instance--it would just consume the same bandwidth we currently use whenever we pull up our equip screen and swap gears.

That would still require some level of dev time though, but it is an option that avoids the additional bandwidth issue.

[Vagrua]

How about an option in the FINAL FANTASY XI Config.exe that lets you set if you want to have certain values sent to your client? This way, people that can't handle the lag, don't have to have the values displayed/sent to their client.

[Kraggy]

Some things, such as party TP, are already sent to the client and simply not displayed. It would be nice if you could display those.
We know why SE don't display this value, it's clearly only sent to the client so the client knows when SC/MB is allowed.

Lamers need a certain third-party app to be able to skillchain, there's no other reason to want to see other party members' TP.

[Arcon]

We know why SE don't display this value, it's clearly only sent to the client so the client knows when SC/MB is allowed.

Only the client doesn't decide that and can't do anything with that information.


Lamers need a certain third-party app to be able to skillchain, there's no other reason to want to see other party members' TP.

And why do you need to see your party's HP, when they could just as well say "HALP I NEED CURES"? Sounds like an excuse for playing with noobs, if you ask me.

[RAIST]

think you're underestimating the value of seeing such simple stats like hp/mp/tp...it potentially makes you more efficient.

If you are the healer, you know when it is best to cure without overcuring, maximizing your mp efficiency. Likewise, if you are the puller and your mages are having to squat a lot for mp, you can track how much they are using per fight and know when it is safe to pull.

Seeing your SC partner's TP would let you know when it's time to open a chain, or when a chain is about to open, so you don't miss the window by doing something else like casting or thumbing through a menu for something not macroed, or sorting through inventory to pop a quiver/pouch/toolbag/food/med etc. It can also let you know when some jobs are about to self chain so you don't WS in the middle of it, mucking up the chain. It also lets mages know in advance when chains are about to fire off, so they can be properly prepared to burst off it.

These simple things allow you to run a party without having to clog up the chat log with notices all the time, and simply put makes things run smoother in the end.

[Kristal]

It's increasing bandwidth required to play the game, meaning anything that increases data that it sent to the client has to be considered carefully, because technically, FFXI still supports dialup.

It doesn't just supports dialup, it caps at it. Only thing that can help here is smarter compression of data (which can only go so far, as that would put more demand on the PS2 CPU), or seperate the PS2 from the PC and 360.

[Muras]

I do agree however that having a moogle capable of telling you things like your Accuracy, Evasion, Magic Evasion, Magic Accuracy, Magic Defense, Ranged Accuracy, and Ranged Attack would be a great temporary solution.


Or for the game itself maybe a Moogle could tell you, or perhaps the Moogle's Almanack could tell players.

This. There is absolutely no reason at all to not add a Moogle that tells you this information while they look into finding a more practical way of handling it.

I also really like the idea of adding an option into the Magian Specs book so we can check those stats anywhere.

[Kavik]

think you're underestimating the value of seeing such simple stats like hp/mp/tp...it potentially makes you more efficient.

If you are the healer, you know when it is best to cure without overcuring, maximizing your mp efficiency. Likewise, if you are the puller and your mages are having to squat a lot for mp, you can track how much they are using per fight and know when it is safe to pull.

Seeing your SC partner's TP would let you know when it's time to open a chain, or when a chain is about to open, so you don't miss the window by doing something else like casting or thumbing through a menu for something not macroed, or sorting through inventory to pop a quiver/pouch/toolbag/food/med etc. It can also let you know when some jobs are about to self chain so you don't WS in the middle of it, mucking up the chain. It also lets mages know in advance when chains are about to fire off, so they can be properly prepared to burst off it.

These simple things allow you to run a party without having to clog up the chat log with notices all the time, and simply put makes things run smoother in the end.

You can see everything but TP in a party situation if you are paying attention to the other people's bars. If you are speaking about an alliance you need to say alliance, and if you are talking about an alliance killing all of these things are moot points because all you're doing is zerging the thing at that point. Even tp can be checked on with a very simple macro /p <tpp>. Skillchains also follow this: /p Skillchain in 3 hold ws please! if they don't and they mess you up, get rid of them. This also allows the mages to prepare to mb. Back when i was lvl 56 in the tree before we had all this easy mode play, we used to sc with the BLM calling for the melees to ws so he could MB freeze. It's called communication. It's called paying attention and listening, also this thread got off topic.

I would love to have my acc ranged acc magic def and such displayed in the GUI just because i've been curious for a number of years as to what they ACTUALLY are. All told though it is not that big of a deal. If you're not hitting the mob you need more acc which also varies depending on the kind of mob you're fighting. Obviously a thf type mob is going to need more acc type gear then a whm type mob.

[RAIST]

You can see everything but TP in a party situation if you are paying attention to the other people's bars. If you are speaking about an alliance you need to say alliance, and if you are talking about an alliance killing all of these things are moot points because all you're doing is zerging the thing at that point. Even tp can be checked on with a very simple macro /p <tpp>. Skillchains also follow this: /p Skillchain in 3 hold ws please! if they don't and they mess you up, get rid of them. This also allows the mages to prepare to mb. Back when i was lvl 56 in the tree before we had all this easy mode play, we used to sc with the BLM calling for the melees to ws so he could MB freeze. It's called communication. It's called paying attention and listening, also this thread got off topic.

I would love to have my acc ranged acc magic def and such displayed in the GUI just because i've been curious for a number of years as to what they ACTUALLY are. All told though it is not that big of a deal. If you're not hitting the mob you need more acc which also varies depending on the kind of mob you're fighting. Obviously a thf type mob is going to need more acc type gear then a whm type mob.

These simple things allow you to run a party without having to clog up the chat log with notices all the time, and simply put makes things run smoother in the end.
Selective Reading? The point is that by actually seeing the values in your UI, you don't have to rely on the spammed notices, people can see it in real time and know beforehand what is going to happen. And not everything is so easy you can just kill it without needing to manage mp pools, or plan/synchronize members' actions, etc.

[Tinuviel]

Ranged Attack, please. Come on, SE, this isn't like we're asking you to redesign the game...

[Zubis]

If they changed this, you know what would happen when FFXI's client pulls server side stats?

You'd get FFXIV's lagged out UI. So no thanks.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

If they changed this, you know what would happen when FFXI's client pulls server side stats?

You'd get FFXIV's lagged out UI. So no thanks.

Then build it around client side, yes it'd take a while but not completely impossible.

[Dazusu]

low-level coding structures

Absolutely. Sending a comma delimited set of integers from existing classes requires us to get right down to the ASM. (exaggerating, but you get my point.)

Really?

The truth is that this information is (probably) already readily available in their base structs, and calling it to send for display is no different than calling it to calculate the damage for a brand new spell/weapon skill that was just added or recently altered.

[Arcon]

I'm tired of people playing the bandwidth card. How much bandwidth would that actually cost? Let's calculate.

To bring the point across I'll choose a common battle scenario, a VW battle with 18 participants. The following data is transmitted constantly, often several times within a few seconds, from the server:
The entire alliance's HP, MP and TP. That's 18x3 numerical values.
Every characters position within a ~50' radius around you. In crowded areas that can include over 100 characters. The x, y and z coordinates are transmitted, so 25x3 numerical values (assuming 18 people in the alliance, 1 VW mob and 6 random objects around, NQ mobs or clickable targets or whatever).
Every character's percentual HP, as a numerical value. 25x1 values.
Every character's movement speed, as a a floating point value. 25x1 values.
Every character's current target, as a numerical ID. 25x1 value.
Every status effect a character receives and loses, as a numerical ID. Depends on how many status effects change, which can be pretty variable. But considering VW, where buffs and debuffs happen all the time, including buffs that give or remove several status effects, we can reasonably assume it's always more than one, in the same time as the other events described here. Hence, 19x1 values (one for the mob).
Every action performed and attack landed. This is probably the largest portion of all of the information, but as with status effects this is also very variable and hard to approximate. So let's floor this as well to 19x1 values.

That's 242 values that have to be sent to the client. Not once, but periodically, in a hectic battle several times within only a few seconds. I don't even think once a second is an exaggeration, but it's hard to say accurately and it is also highly variable. And note that this is still quite a conservative estimate, I could easily see this number doubled.

So you're telling me adding ten more values that are sent occasionally is costing too much bandwidth? Note that we don't wanna see them at all times, how about just sending them when we open the equipment screen? Hell, even now there's several things that are re-sent every time the equipment screen is opened, HP/MP/TP values plus max HP/MP values, attribute base and bonus values, gil amount, attack and defense values, 8 elemental resistances and up to 16 equipment items, that are all being sent whenever we open the equipment screen. That's already 46 numerical values sent every time we open the screen. Are you so desperate for bandwidth that you can't increase that to 56 values, barely a 20% increase of something that already takes up a very minor portion of the total bandwidth in the first place and in contrast to a vastly major part of it is only displayed sporadically, whenever a person checks their equipment screen, so rarely in fact, that the actual increase would be negligible to a degree that it would be indistinguishable from bandwidth noise during a battle?


Increasing this amount of information sent to the client means an increase in the amount of data traffic, so the reason it is difficult is due to the fact that we are considering the risk of lag this could cause.

Given what I just said, could you explain just how this would strain the bandwidth? I generally tend to believe that the devs know what they're talking about, but this does not make sense no matter which way I look at it.


The same reason holds true for some other requests we have seen, such as displaying party member’s status ailments and other information.

Those are often already transmitted to people in a different form, namely when it says in the chatlog who got paralyzed, petrified, etc. Why not rework it so that this isn't transfered, but instead the status effects themselves? The client could do all the translating work. That way, more sophisticated filter options would also become possible.

[bungiefanNA]

FFXI's servers are still limiting the connection to each client to 56 kbps, as if they were on dial-up. For most customers now, dial-up isn't their connection, you're dealing with broadband connections of at least several hundred kbps, and likely several mbps. It should be reasonable to raise that connection speed to each client, which would cure the lag problem in lots of events that have had it before, like Beseiged. Even the PS2 supports faster connections. We're not on Dreamcast here.

[Lokithor]

Again, we realize the necessity for these things, but please understand that at the moment it is very difficult to do.
Most people on this tread are not interpreting this response correctly. The correct interpretation is "here are a bunch of nonsense reasons but we will not do this because the 2 designers we have supporting this game have other priorities".

[Sarick]

I don't see how this could be a problem. Under the status menu have an option called detailed status. This would be the best of both worlds your normal stats would always be there. If you clicked the detailed status then it would download the stats to a full character sheet taking up most of the screen. An on demand download. It doesn't have to be a constant use of bandwidth.

This is already done in the status menu. We already have profile, job levels, combat skills, magic skills craft skills and merit points buttons. Why not add a new button for detailed status that downloads the information into a new popup or, at least echos it to the chat log.

Think outside the box, this isn't something to get worked up about. The data doesn't need to be stored on the client side. The server only needs to calculate it then send it to the a popup box or the chat box. This won't need much memory or any at all on the client side if it's sent to the chat box. It doesn't even need a menu option if the developers want to be really lazy about it. They can use a server command "/status" to get it sent to our chat box as a system message or text echo.

I assume this would work like the auction house, search feature, friend messages, and mog mail. This game information would have limits to how often it could be checked. Bandwidth shouldn't the issue if the data is called on demand for a detailed status. When you look at the region info it takes time to download. My guess is this would also take a few seconds.

The next question is, what stats etc. would you want in it?

[Camate]

I followed up with the development team about the possibility of displaying information that is already available on the client-side and they mentioned that they will be proactively looking into ways to display party/alliance TP, MP, and other information to coincide with the UI revamp timing.

[Economizer]

I followed up with the development team about the possibility of displaying information that is already available on the client-side and they mentioned that they will be proactively looking into ways to display party/alliance TP, MP, and other information to coincide with the UI revamp timing.

This is amazing news to an amount that is quite large, like the cost of a Kraken Club.

If it isn't too much to ask, was something like the Magian Specs or an NPC as a way to view extended stats as a temporary measure still unfeasible in terms of the limits of game data that can be sent?

Regardless of your answer I think I'm looking forward to more then the UI changes now, I suspect something is brewing and it doesn't cost 200,000 Cruor. Fun. Excitement.

[MarkovChain]

among "other information" HP% would be awesome as many mobs have they behavior change depending on their HP%. Ally TP/MP is over-information, and you should probably let users choose to display it or not.

[SpankWustler]

I followed up with the development team about the possibility of displaying information that is already available on the client-side and they mentioned that they will be proactively looking into ways to display party/alliance TP, MP, and other information to coincide with the UI revamp timing.

This is really positive news. Are you able to tell us if there is any chance "distance from target" will be included in the information shown?

[Tinuviel]

Ranged Attack

[Phogg]

This is really positive news. Are you able to tell us if there is any chance "distance from target" will be included in the information shown?

Seconded. Either make it so you cannot lose TP when attempting a ranged WS because you are an indiscernible yalm farther away than you can be to use the WS, or display distances from the target. Really one of the silliest things not in the game.

[AyinDygra]

Changes like this (link) (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/1535-Missing-Interface-Features?p=12751&viewfull=1#post12751) would be very welcome :) I'm not sure if it was ever seen, since it was posted so long ago, and got little feedback in the early days of the forum.

[Camate]

Alrighty! Just got this fancy list to share with you showing what we can have displayed information-wise since it is already sent to the client. This way there is no need for guessing!

Circles denote information that is already displayed in some way shape or form on your client.

1. Party/Alliance Member Information
○ HP
○ MP
○ TP
○ HP %
○ MP %
× Mog House invitation flag
× Mog House area that you are invited to

2. Information that is only sent to yourself pt.1
○ Max HP
○ Max MP
○ Main job
○ Main job level
○ Support job
○ Support job level
○ Experience points
○ Experience points until the next level
○ STR
○ DEX
○ VIT
○ AGI
○ INT
○ MND
○ CHR
○ Main weapon attack power
○ Defense
○ Elemental resistances
○ Title
○ Mission rank
○ Rank points
○ Home point
○ Home nation

3. Information that is only sent to yourself pt.2
○ Ability recast time
○ Battle skills
○ Magic skills
○ Synthesis skills

4. Information that is only sent to yourself pt.3
○ Limit points
○ Merit points
× Assimilation
× Flags for having at least one level 75 job
○ Status of experience points (capped or not)
○ Mode selection (experience points/limit points)


For all of the above, without worrying about the display location or method, it is in fact possible to display this information. On the other hand, information besides what is listed here would be very difficult to display.

As stated in my last post, the development team will be looking into displaying information such as MP and TP for party/alliance members to coincide with the UI revamps.

If you have any other feedback regarding what you would like to see displayed, please refer to the above list when making suggestions.

[SpankWustler]

Thanks for so much information!


○ Ability recast time

Out of all the things mentioned as possible in that post, this is the one I'd most like to see displayed more prominently and more constantly.

Yeah, I know "more constantly" sounds weird. I can't think of any other way to express the thought. I'd like to see that information all the time without any need to bring up a menu or hit a recast macro.

To avoid clutter, the recast for abilities that are ready to be used could vanish.

[scaevola]

A thousand times yes to ability recasts on the HUD.

I really believe that if you picked any ten Windower users at random and asked them which plugin they would pick if they could only choose one to use, at least seven of them would say Recast. The other three have not tried playing without Windower anytime recently.

[Eric]

Thanks for so much information!



Out of all the things mentioned as possible in that post, this is the one I'd most like to see displayed more prominently and more constantly.

Yeah, I know "more constantly" sounds weird. I can't think of any other way to express the thought. I'd like to see that information all the time without any need to bring up a menu or hit a recast macro.

To avoid clutter, the recast for abilities that are ready to be used could vanish.

I would much rather have this than the alliance tp/mp display, especially since nobody skillchains/runs out of mp nowadays.

That being said, I still really appreciate the fact that the dev team is working on more UI adjustments.

[JiltedValkyrie]

Yes to ability recast timers. They are in XIV and are great to have.

[Helel]

Don't care about the list. Display "ranged attack" if you are going to continue displaying "attack." No excuse other than being "jobist"--my new word.

[Keyln]

Pet MP and Pet TP would be nice to see without having to type "petmp" and "pettp".

[Calysto]

At least theses should not require constant information stream, only on trigger :
○ Main job
○ Mission rank
○ Rank points
○ Home point
○ Home nation
× Flags for having at least one level 75 job

This could easily be calculated client-side :
○ Experience points until the next level

[Sarick]

You can see everything but TP in a party situation if you are paying attention to the other people's bars. If you are speaking about an alliance you need to say alliance, and if you are talking about an alliance killing all of these things are moot points because all you're doing is zerging the thing at that point. Even tp can be checked on with a very simple macro /p <tpp>. Skillchains also follow this: /p Skillchain in 3 hold ws please! if they don't and they mess you up, get rid of them. This also allows the mages to prepare to mb. Back when i was lvl 56 in the tree before we had all this easy mode play, we used to sc with the BLM calling for the melees to ws so he could MB freeze. It's called communication. It's called paying attention and listening, also this thread got off topic.


I would much rather have this than the alliance tp/mp display, especially since nobody skillchains/runs out of mp nowadays.

That being said, I still really appreciate the fact that the dev team is working on more UI adjustments.


This just begs to add something that makes skill chains and burst useful. Take for instance a critical weakness to detonation on a high HP VW mob drops it's HP by 1/2. Tell me again we'd be just zerging if that was a reality? Until skill chains and magic burst are vastly superior to straight up zerging no one cares. This doesn't account for the lack of seeing TP in the alliance/party. Let's put this into perspective, it doesn't hurt the game more then it'll help it.

[Cowardlybabooon]

Everything I've heard windower can do, SE can do. Level the playing field and do it better than windower. Why does this require extra discussion? People will use windower until then.

[Shadowsong]

^ agree 100%

If you don't want people using 3rd party software, improve the game so we don't have to. It's the same argument with torrents, online streaming, and a ton of other things. Offer a better service, and people won't try and find backdoors.

[Xilk]

Showing Ability recast timers and party/alliance member TP would be fantastic.

That is, on the screen, w/out having to enter a command.

As far as how to display it....
Recast timers for job abilities/spells has a great model in many games. Show either the name w/ a countdown timer somewhere, or an icon w/ a gray clock hand animation revolving around it. I prefer the name w/ timer, but both might be cool also.

TP should be indicated probably next to party/alliance hp/mp bars. w/ some indicator of where 100% is.

[RAIST]

Both are very doable...already being done by one of those third party tools, found a screenshot:

http://lurish.org/anexia/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ffxi_2011.05.28_15.51.31.png

Note the number next to the hp/mp bars...that's their actual TP values, not a bar, in the party list, and on the target the number is % of HP.

[MarkovChain]

Your SS in an exemple of badly designed UI. Way to many information useless in there. Seing others TP as WHM is totally useless, you'd need an interactive way to allow/disable it. You'd want party member HP% as WHM, in the SSshot you don't clearly see what the appriate cure is required (III,IV,5,6 ?). The WHM is using q regen macro with /recast after it and has the recast on the screen. 4/6 status icon have timers that you don't care about (signet, bcnm status ...). You'd want them to appear when they are about to wear off. Also the timestamp is eating a way too large portion of the screen for something that is essentially useless.

So I'm asking SE not to copy this shit that "windower is" (only good for dualboxing) and have competent people design a UI. The UI must be interactively customizable and not be "stuff written on the screen". You can give infomation through blinking (like FFXIV) or pop up windows.

[Byrth]

A lot of the extra-information windower plugins basically just make clutter for someone playing on low resolution settings like that. Everything is overlayed and always exists in the top layer (so the recasts would be on top of the magic menu if it was opened. If SE chose to implement it, they could do it a lot better and the integration could be much more smooth.

Most of the windower problems you outline could be solved by that player, though. Nothing forces them to use outdated xmls, no customization at all, and double up with /recast commands.

[RAIST]

in case you guys didn't know, those are all seperate plugins and customizable to some degree--for instance, the recast trackers can be positioned anywhere on screen, and you can designate the font size as well. You can even turn off some things from being displayed with some plugins. More customization may be possible with further development.

The point of the SS is that it can and IS being done already. And by people who do this stuff in their free time, which seems to suggest it would not be rocket science to a paid staff of developers.....

[Edit]
you can also set tranparency of background for the overlays of most plugins (or not use a bg color at all). As for not being able to determine what cure is appropriate....then you just aren't paying attention. You can see the exact numeric value of someone's HP. So....you know what their HP is when full---just takes some simple math to know not to hit somone with a Cure6 when they only about 400 hp from full. Before you go tearing down the work these guys have thrown into these programs....perhaps you should read up on how they actually work, even if you have no intention of using them. If nothing else, do it out of respect for their dedication and so you actually know what you are criticizing.

[MarkovChain]

I'm not here to respect any third party, you showed us a SS of a UI that clearly has poor design. Almost as if you tried to show SE what they should do when they shouldn't do this. Not willing to play a command line game tyvm. I can give hints for a usable UI :

replace ctrl J with a single key to check JA recasts (much quicker, same for macros), and make it so that 'J' displays a pop up window, pressing it once more disable it. Do a similar popup window for the 5 previously used spels.

Just some ideas that won't pollute your screen.

[RAIST]

I'm not here to respect any third party, you showed us a SS of a UI that clearly has poor design. Almost as if you tried to show SE what they should do when they shouldn't do this. Not willing to play a command line game tyvm. I can give hints for a usable UI :

replace ctrl J with a single key to check JA recasts (much quicker, same for macros), and make it so that 'J' displays a pop up window, pressing it once more disable it. Do a similar popup window for the 5 previously used spels.

Just some ideas that won't pollute your screen.

um... no... the SS was to show that a small group of people in their free time already figured out a way to display all that information on the screen, and with a somewhat customizable interface. If I were posting an example for SE to look at for ideas, I would have specifically addressed SE to that end (as I did in a thread a while back with the link to the D3 UI changes). Note that most things in that SS are customizable to some extent, that is just how that particular user chose to configure his/her plugins. Most of them could possibly be even more customizable and streamlined if more resources were made available to work on it. From what I recall reading about some of those plugins in the past, in many cases each was designed by ONE PERSON, not a whole freaking team of developers familiar with and having direct access to the game's source code.

And command line game?? What are you going on about there? I've used a PS2 controller on my PC for ages....don't use command-line.

[Shadowsong]

Almost as if you tried to show SE what they should do when they shouldn't do this. Not willing to play a command line game tyvm. I can give hints for a usable UI :

Your suggestions suck. I do not want a keyboard command to check Job Abilities I want it on the screen.
My opinion > your opinion
You comment on Windower plugins, yet show you have zero knowledge about any of it. Nearly 100% of what you said is wrong (like that even had to be said lol).

Also, cool story bro critisizing a low resolution screenshot of someone not using windower properly to begin with. Way to keep it golden

[MarkovChain]

Note that most things in that SS are customizable to some extent, that is just how that particular user chose to configure his/her plugins.

Nah when you have to go deep in the source code to adapt to your own need, it means the UI sucks. The reason the guy let the plugins as is is because he loads the defaults one and doesn't configure further. User friendly UI, what is it ? You cannot expect much from people that don't have access to the game code. So stop explaining me I should not express criticism. All they did is display stuff on top of the game screen. We don't want that UI ty. Most people use windower for dual boxing and macros NOT for its poor UI ajustements.

[Shadowsong]

LOL
Just because programming is hard for you, doesn't mean it is for us.


We don't want that UI ty.

Speak for yourself, you are definately one of a kind lol

[hiko]

-for instance, the recast trackers can be positioned anywhere on screen, and you can designate the font size as well.

btw that's yarnball not recast


I'm not here to respect any third party, you showed us a SS of a UI that clearly has poor design. Almost as if you tried to show SE what they should do when they shouldn't do this. Not willing to play a command line game tyvm. I can give hints for a usable UI :

replace ctrl J with a single key to check JA recasts (much quicker, same for macros), and make it so that 'J' displays a pop up window, pressing it once more disable it. Do a similar popup window for the 5 previously used spels.

Just some ideas that won't pollute your screen.
I don't want keyboard shortcut because i play with gamepad (how FFXI was designed to be played).
I agree windower plugins UI is far from perfect but IMO having stuff displayed without need of any input is nice


All they did is display stuff on top of the game screen. We don't want that UI ty. Most people use windower for dual boxing and macros NOT for its poor UI ajustements.
YOU are not everybody!

[MarkovChain]

LOL
Just because programming is hard for you, doesn't mean it is for us.


Guy 1 made a badly designed program and distributes it. Guy 2 has to go back into the program to make it work. Guyz 2 explains everyones else that they are idiots for not willing to redo the program and use it for their own needs. Yeah we totally don't need your ideas in here. It's not even elitism from your part because the final result is probably craptastic. Show us your customed UI please.

[hiko]

Guy 1 made a badly designed program and distributes it. Guy 2 has to go back into the program to make it work. Guyz 2 explains everyones else that they are idiots for not willing to redo the program and use it for their own needs. Yeah we totally don't need your ideas in here. It's not even elitism from your part because the final result is probably craptastic. Show us your customed UI please.

go programm a better UI than windower or GTFO.

[MarkovChain]

Windower white knights. Facepalm.

[Arcon]

Windower white knights. Facepalm.

Get a clue, will you. No one is saying they should replicate Windower. Unlike the Windower team they actually have the resources and base code to make it better. All we're saying is that it's possible. If the Windower team can do it SE should be able to do it too. They don't have to do it exactly like it, if they can do it better I don't think anyone would complain. Now go away troll somewhere else.

[MarkovChain]

No that's not what you are saying. We already know what kind of info is available from the dev posts, so posting a pic of windower makes no sense at all. The only purpose was to advertise windower has an exemple of UI improvement which it is not.

[RAIST]

Nah when you have to go deep in the source code to adapt to your own need, it means the UI sucks. The reason the guy let the plugins as is is because he loads the defaults one and doesn't configure further. User friendly UI, what is it ? You cannot expect much from people that don't have access to the game code. So stop explaining me I should not express criticism. All they did is display stuff on top of the game screen. We don't want that UI ty. Most people use windower for dual boxing and macros NOT for its poor UI ajustements.


ummm....no. Users don't have to do anything to the source code. It's a bleeding config file. If I remember correctly, it was simple statements like X=300, Y=100, and Font Size=10, BGColor= 0 0 0 0 (each number represents an RGB value and an alpha value). Simple text files with .ini extension, some even had comments in them explaining how to configure them, or there was a ReadMe file or a web page that covers how to configure them.

Sounds like you've never even read up on the utilities, much less even used them.

Good catch on the yarnball vs recast hiko. I never got around to tinkering with that one--didn't know that it also put the recast list as well. All I ever looked at was Recast in the past, but that only listed the spell/abilites you've used and not the extra info like that one shows the user name in parenthesis in that screen shot.




Get a clue, will you. No one is saying they should replicate Windower. Unlike the Windower team they actually have the resources and base code to make it better. All we're saying is that it's possible. If the Windower team can do it SE should be able to do it too. They don't have to do it exactly like it, if they can do it better I don't think anyone would complain. Now go away troll somewhere else.

Bolded for emphasis.

[RAIST]

No that's not what you are saying. We already know what kind of info is available from the dev posts, so posting a pic of windower makes no sense at all. The only purpose was to advertise windower has an exemple of UI improvement which it is not.

No....it was not to advertise Windower at all. The name of the tool was never even mentioned in my post--I think YOU were the one that pointed out which tool was being used. I referenced it as ONE of the the third-party tools available.

The point was that users had already discovered ways to display the information a poster was requesting. The screenshot was just an example of one method used to that end. Go back and follow the actual conversation that was taking place, for heaven's sake:


Showing Ability recast timers and party/alliance member TP would be fantastic.

That is, on the screen, w/out having to enter a command.

As far as how to display it....
Recast timers for job abilities/spells has a great model in many games. Show either the name w/ a countdown timer somewhere, or an icon w/ a gray clock hand animation revolving around it. I prefer the name w/ timer, but both might be cool also.

TP should be indicated probably next to party/alliance hp/mp bars. w/ some indicator of where 100% is.


Both are very doable...already being done by one of those third party tools, found a screenshot:

(image link removed)

Note the number next to the hp/mp bars...that's their actual TP values, not a bar, in the party list, and on the target the number is % of HP.

***Note that the screenshot covers nearly every aspect the poster mentioned, and that it displays the info in real time without the use of a command line or anything.***

Simply put, it has been proven to be possible, and SE should have better resources and tools to develop a more streamlined way of doing what others have managed to cobble together in their spare time.

[Kristal]

SE could implement TP as a third colored bar below the name, with sub-bars colored black (no TP), blue (partial TP, 0-99.9) or green (100%,200%,300% TP)
████ ████ ████
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(Just a crude ascii representation :cool:)
This should work for PS2s as well.

High-res version of the menu could then (optionally) support full HP/MP/TP numbers for PC/360.

[Lokithor]

If it isn't too much to ask, was something like the Magian Specs or an NPC as a way to view extended stats as a temporary measure still unfeasible in terms of the limits of game data that can be sent?

This is an absolutely fantastic suggestion and one that totally addresses the concerns outlined by Camate in his post. The hidden player stats don't need to be known in real time but having an ability to query those stats would be very useful.

I'd even welcome a clunky command line style interface to query stats one by one, such as:

/query "ranged attack"

[Tassidaru]

yes yes yes and YES! something to get an idea of the hidden stats! I am so sick of being on COR and seeing like 100 attack because i have a staff equipped, and that's it, when what i really want to see in is my Ranged Attack! While i would like to be able to see acc Racc Ratk eva macc and the like with the same ease as i can atk and def, just having an npc would help tremendously when building for anything specific, like say slugshot, or enfeebles.

[Alhanelem]

Way to many information useless in there. Seing others TP as WHM is totally useless,It's not like you'd be forced to look at that information if you don't want to see it, not that I even agree with your notion. I want to know the state of the battle regardless of the job I'm on.

[Eric]

Distance, recast timers, and tp/targetHP%. (Ignore the FPS counter).
No clutter, nothing really looks extremely out of place, and still easily accessible. This sort of thing is completely do-able by SE.

And yes, while not pretty, the windower UI is an improvement from what we currently have, which is NONE of these things.

http://i.minus.com/jbnt64aiQ9C5Q7.bmp (http://minus.com/mot7uJFgz/1f)

[Mirage]

The third party windower does not look very good and it does not fit visually with the rest of the game at all, but this is understandable and to be expected when you do not have access to the game's code. However, it is showing players the information they want/need to know exactly when and where they need to see it. The plugins all use information that is already in the client's local memory, and therefore the implementation of these features in the official user interface would not lead to increased bandwidth usage or server load.

These screenshots are not posted to show the developers an example of a well-designed user interface, but to show them what sort of information it is easy to implement in an official user interface without it affecting system load anywhere outside of the end user's client.

You are being ridiculous if you think any of the windower users actually think the plugins look visually pleasing, Markovchain.


Anyway, it would be really, really helpful to see some of the statistics that are not currently shown. I really would like to see accuracy, ranged accuracy, ranged attack and total evasion at the very least. Ideally, I'd also like to see total double/triple/quadruple attack rate, total magic defence/-MDT values, resistance to status effects, magic accuracy, magic attack bonus, and probably a lot of other statistics that i can't remember right now.

If it really could lead to a bandwidth or server load issue, you could perhaps put a limit on how often we could request this data from the server. This information could be displayed in a separate window that wouldn't normally be frequently displayed, and you could limit the client to update it at most once every 30 or 60 seconds, and only when you have the statistics window open. Heck, I personally wouldn't mind if the update frequency was limited to even several minutes as long as we actually got to see this information.

Alternatively, you could store all the statistics of every item client-side, and have the client calculate all the statistics of your current gear set without additional server communication at all!

After all, your current marksmanship skill value is known by the client (displayed in combat skill window), the amount of ranged attack and accuracy from equipment is stated on the items, the client knows if you are on the ranger-job and it knows your level, so it should also be able to figure out how much accuracy you get from the Accuracy Bonus trait. It also knows your current agility, and you could tell the client how much ranged accuracy each point of agility would add. Of course, all this information might not be stored in a way that makes it easy to make the client add the values together, but it is possible to show this data without polling a lot of extra data from the server.

It would likely require a decent chunk of additional programming on the client, and items would have to have easily interpretable values added to them (not necessary visible to the users) for the client to base the total values on. Point is, it wouldn't require additional server load/bandwidth.

[Nala]

So when does P-chan get his posting privileges revoked? speaking of i keep forgetting to add him to my ignore list, rectifying that now.

[Afania]

Besides lack of information on character current stats, I also feel lack of information of many gears in this game. There are many Snapshot gear and snapshot roll value still unknown(at least I couldn't find any info on it on wiki). I'd be nice if every value is displayed, instead of having player base go test it. I mean, haste value is displayed, attack/def is displayed, but why not enhance dualwield/snapshot/fast cast value and so on? Def is not even an more important stat than DW/snapshot/fast cast in this game.

[Demon6324236]

Not only that but we have gear that enhances alot of things we either don't understand how, or we have had to test ourselves. Treasure Hunter is still not exactly understood, we have gear that enhances it, but we don't know just how, or how far it extends. We have pieces of gear that enhance effects of abilities like Berserk & Aggressor, gear that enhances spells where we think we know what it does, and gear sets with vague abilities such as the Mavi set with its "Occ. augments blue magic spells" that I still have no idea what it does, and can not find any info on.