Equipment swaps and blinking

[Hokori]

I can't stand that I blink every time I want to use a weapon skill. Your equipment should not be able to visibly change while you are engaged. Just in case someone enjoys their character blinking constantly, make it an option that can be turned on or off.

Also, if multiply equipment changes happen in quick succession, like what happens when switching equipment before a weapon skill, only one message should be displayed instead of the chat log being flooded by "Equipment Changed" messages.

I think the dev team has already addressed it, but I would love to be able to legally string different macros together so that I wouldn't have to hit 4 macros to switch into weapon skill gear and then back into tping gear.

[Mirage]

Totally agree. Saved equipment sets would probably be sufficient instead of macro stringing, though. If you can load an entire equipment set with a single macro line, 6 lines would be sufficient.

[Trisscar]

There's an aspect of the PvP island that penalizes people for gear swapping that I always felt should've been made a normal aspect of gameplay. This way people would weigh the consequences of swapping gear, and decide whether getting an extra 2% damage is really worth facing the penalty.

I have a feeling they would not.

[Alhanelem]

Blinking isn't something they put in the game because they thought it was cool. It's just a loading transition. We've also asked about a million times for this and they've said they can't get rid of it. The only thing they've done is give us more ways to work around it, e.g. <stpt> and <stal>.

Though trust me when I say basically everyone wants it to die in a fire. :p

[Arcon]

I have a feeling they would not.

Not surprised you'd think that, as you don't seem to get the point of gear swapping.

[Trisscar]

Not surprised you'd think that, as you don't seem to get the point of gear swapping.

I do get it, it's to keep on chasing that extra little bit of damage and bragging about how 'good' a player you are.

I did tests on gear swapping and it isn't as great as people make it sound, and the calculations are all garbage.

Spent nearly three straight months testing one of the merit weapon skills 5/5 without gear, with TP gear, with stat relevant gear and never saw the 'godly' results people talk about. There was perhaps 500 damage difference between naked and wearing stat relevant gear, and I'm pretty sure that was a result of a couple criticals.

[Arcon]

You're lying through your teeth.

[Trisscar]

You're lying through your teeth.

No, I am not. The only place that I avoided was Abyssea because I was worried about contamination of the results.

[Arcon]

Why? How does Abyssea contaminate the results? What exactly were your results? How could it have been a critical hit when no merited weapon skill can even be critical? What job, WS, what was your gear, how many samples?

[Mirage]

Blinking isn't something they put in the game because they thought it was cool. It's just a loading transition. We've also asked about a million times for this and they've said they can't get rid of it. The only thing they've done is give us more ways to work around it, e.g. <stpt> and <stal>.

Though trust me when I say basically everyone wants it to die in a fire. :p

Of course they can get rid of the blinking. Just stop the game from loading new gear while you are in combat, except for weapons. People have been able to do this through reverse engineering without even looking at the source code, of course SE is able to do it if they just want to.


I do get it, it's to keep on chasing that extra little bit of damage and bragging about how 'good' a player you are.

I did tests on gear swapping and it isn't as great as people make it sound, and the calculations are all garbage.

Spent nearly three straight months testing one of the merit weapon skills 5/5 without gear, with TP gear, with stat relevant gear and never saw the 'godly' results people talk about. There was perhaps 500 damage difference between naked and wearing stat relevant gear, and I'm pretty sure that was a result of a couple criticals.
I remember that time I scored a critical Cure 4 and healed for 60% more than I do when not wearing anything. I'm sure it had nothing to do with my gear.

and "only 500 damage". You say that as if it's an insignificant amount. How much did you do again, 10000 damage in total per WS? Cause if you only did 2000, 500 damage is 25%, and I have problems seeing how 25% is not a significant difference.

[Trisscar]

Why? How does Abyssea contaminate the results?

Because, and this is the rare case that Fantards are right, Abyssean mobs are weak for being high level. It could skew the results.


What exactly were your results?

Lower than suggested by the math in some cases, higher in others. This could be accounted for by one or more hits from the weapon skill in question missing, or a particular mob being higher level or lower than others in their group, double or triple attacks proc, phases of the moon, or any of a number of reasons not made apparent when the numbers are generated.

Such is the nature of dice rolling.


How could it have been a critical hit when no merited weapon skill can even be critical?

Ah, my apologies. I made a mistake on that.


What job, WS, what was your gear, how many samples?

At the time, Ninja was the only job in which I could reliably make the test on. That's because I lacked mind gear for Blue Mage, and still do. So I used Blade: Shun naked, single handed, dual wielding, TP gear, AF3, dexterity gear, and agility gear against a wide range of normal monsters all over the game. Hundreds of monsters taken each day, under different circumstances.

The results were disappointing, as I expected them to be.

All that work and that was it? It's square, trolling their paying customers. As usual.

[Alhanelem]

Of course they can get rid of the blinking. Just stop the game from loading new gear while you are in combat, except for weapons. People have been able to do this through reverse engineering without even looking at the source code, of course SE is able to do it if they just want to.
That doesn't get rid of blinking. It only changes when you blink.

Honestly, with <stal> removing most greif associated with blinking, I wouldn't settle for anything less than a redesign of the loading system such that you just change from one piece of gear to the next without blinking. All it takes pre-loading the new model before changing it, but obviously you can't do that on the PS2 due to lack of memory...

[Mirage]

That doesn't get rid of blinking. It only changes when you blink.

Honestly, with <stal> removing most greif associated with blinking, I wouldn't settle for anything less than a redesign of the loading system such that you just change from one piece of gear to the next without blinking. All it takes pre-loading the new model before changing it, but obviously you can't do that on the PS2 due to lack of memory...
Way to get caught up in unimportant details. It solves a lot of the problems. Alternatively, stop the a character from blinking when you have that character selected. This is also possible to make happen without even having access to the source code of the game.

But clearly, if a change only fixes 80% of blinking issues, it is completely worthless and shouldn't be added, right? It's much better to keep all the blinking in there instead of removing as many as you realistically can, am I right?

As for Tisscar, how large were your sample sizes? If you did a decent test, you should have all the raw data stored somewhere, right? If you're right, just show this to us and mathematics will prove you right. Unless you're wrong, of course, then they will also prove you wrong.

Or maybe this isn't as much about proof as it is about hunches.

[Trisscar]

As for Tisscar, how large were your sample sizes? If you did a decent test, you should have all the raw data stored somewhere, right? If you're right, just show this to us and mathematics will prove you right. Unless you're wrong, of course, then they will also prove you wrong.

The test size was frigging ginormous. Hundreds of monsters every day, except for weekends (had to preserve my sanity somehow), all the results written by hand and calculated to the most excruciating detail.

Unfortunately I no longer have the results around, but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. You choose any one normal mob outside of Abyssea and I will rerun the test.


Or maybe this isn't as much about proof as it is about hunches.

I had a hunch, yes. I designed a hypothisis from this as well as a way to test it, as well as defined what would convince me that i was wrong. I ran a series of tests looking to confirm or bust my hunch. The results confirmed my initial hunch.

This is science, not just believing "If you're not macroing you're doing it wrong" or "Macroing makes you a better player" without confirming it for myself.

Trust, but verify.

[Alhanelem]

Way to get caught up in unimportant details. It solves a lot of the problems. The devil is in the details, as they say.

<stal> solves the problems of not being able to target people that keep blinking. This isn't a problem that needs solving beyond finding a way to get rid of blinking completely, or finding a way to have the engine keep the player's collision box and name plate onscreen while the model is changing, so that there is still something to target.

Use a macro, and put <stal> in it. Target via the party windos. Some people don't realize this, but if you're one who types out spell/ability commands, you can do <stal> there too.

[Elphy]

The test size was frigging ginormous. Hundreds of monsters every day, except for weekends (had to preserve my sanity somehow), all the results written by hand and calculated to the most excruciating detail.

Unfortunately I no longer have the results around, but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. You choose any one normal mob outside of Abyssea and I will rerun the test.



I had a hunch, yes. I designed a hypothisis from this as well as a way to test it, as well as defined what would convince me that i was wrong. I ran a series of tests looking to confirm or bust my hunch. The results confirmed my initial hunch.

This is science, not just believing "If you're not macroing you're doing it wrong" or "Macroing makes you a better player" without confirming it for myself.

Trust, but verify.

Well yours is the only testing I know of that says gear swapping isnt worth the time, unless of course you are using an extremely small sample size. You literally need thousands of kills in each gear set to test this correctly and since it has been done and there are extensive test results online (google it, easy to find) there must have been a flaw or small sample size in your data.

Fact is if you dont like gear swapping just dont do it. But also dont complain when you are slower to kill or just not able to kill something that others are. And gear swapping doesnt just go for damage, there are alot of things that you can gear swap for that makes a huge difference, healing, enhancing, enfeebling, nuking, casting time, etc. It all makes a difference. If your a healer dont complain either, switch your macros to <stal> or <stpt>, it will make your life and your parties life easier. But if you wanna complain and not heal me because you are too lazy or stubborn to do such a simple rewrite to your macros, its going to get harder and harder to find groups to pt with.

If stats literally made no difference in damage/ws/magic calculations there would be no str +10 gear or enhancing magic +5 or magic attack +7 gear or really any heavily sought after gear. You could just run out with lvl 7 leather armor and slay ADL with the same ease and in the same amount of time as any other high lvl piece of gear.

You also cannot give a valid arguement against macros if you 'lost' your test data, that right there tells me your either a liar, one of these anti-macro crusaders or just dont understand the system and would rather complain than learn. You can tell me to trust you all you want but if you cant give me your sample sizes, test results and calculations your arguement goes quickly out the window.

[Mirage]

The devil is in the details, as they say.

<stal> solves the problems of not being able to target people that keep blinking. This isn't a problem that needs solving beyond finding a way to get rid of blinking completely, or finding a way to have the engine keep the player's collision box and name plate onscreen while the model is changing, so that there is still something to target.

Use a macro, and put <stal> in it. Target via the party windos. Some people don't realize this, but if you're one who types out spell/ability commands, you can do <stal> there too.

stal doesn't work outside of your alliance, and i dunno about other people, but I don't want to make a macro for every single spell in my list (not to mention that I don't know if I even have enough macro space for that if i want to do that for several jobs and subjob combinations). Some of the rarely used stuff, I just select manually from the list. Blinking screws this up, but if the client specifically delayed blinking for characters that are selected by you, all the problems would disappear. The blink could come after deselected them again.

[Mayoyama]

Sorry but I have to agree that without being able to show exact figures (with duplicatable method/instructions), its all just heresay. That is how real scientific/mathematical proof works

[Alhanelem]

stal doesn't work outside of your alliance,rare exception to the rule, and more and more content these days is not allowing outside help, making it less of a valid point.

[Helel]

The test size was frigging ginormous. Hundreds of monsters every day, except for weekends (had to preserve my sanity somehow), all the results written by hand and calculated to the most excruciating detail.

Unfortunately I no longer have the results around, but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. You choose any one normal mob outside of Abyssea and I will rerun the test.



I had a hunch, yes. I designed a hypothisis from this as well as a way to test it, as well as defined what would convince me that i was wrong. I ran a series of tests looking to confirm or bust my hunch. The results confirmed my initial hunch.

This is science, not just believing "If you're not macroing you're doing it wrong" or "Macroing makes you a better player" without confirming it for myself.

Trust, but verify.

Absolutely hilarious that you would call your testing science. If you really tested hundreds of mobs, as you claim, then you have effectively wasted your time.

Here is actual "science," or rather "mathematics" as we, people who know what they're talking about, call it:

Go to ffxi wiki, search for calculating weapon skill damage, plug in your shi**y weapon skill sets, then plug in a weapon skill set that actually makes sense, and compare the two. You are absolutely incorrect in your assumptions. It is a mathematical FACT that you are 100% wrong. Stop arguing otherwise.

[Yrusama]

Clearly the OP didn't play FFXIV 1.0. The characters blinked for each and every piece of gear changed in the macro.

/equip "Head" "Healer's Crown" *blink*
/equip "Body" "Healer's Robe" *blink*
/equip "Hands" "Healer's Halfgloves" *lag from previous blinks, so macro line fails. macro should be used a second time*
/equip "Legs" "Healer's Culottes" *blink*
/equip "Feet" "Healer's Boots" *previous blink is extended to include boots change*

In XIV 1.0, if you changed gear, you were animation locked during the blink. If you blinked in rapid succession (like the above example), you were essentially stuck struggling to move until the macro finished or was canceled. There was also a stat penalty for changing gear mid-battle.

Fortunately if you blinked in XIV 1.0, targeting would not drop (yay for healers), although people tended to stay in one gear set for the duration of a fight because of the animation locks. The rapid blinking also resulted in any characters targeting you to nod, their head's focus alternating between your normal height and (while you were invisible) the floor where you stood. I once had 3 Lalafell nodding creepily in unison while I changed gear.

Note that in XIV: ARR gear changing will happen quickly, arguably faster than XI's, with no noticeable blink. It's been shown in the alpha videos. If XI can achieve this speed of gear change, it would be perfect, as mid-battle gear changes are far more important here than there.

[Merton9999]

I'd be happy if SE removed blinking. I've used stpt and stal since their introduction, so within my party and alliance the target blinking hasn't been an issue since then. But it does bother me that I can't use the same set of macros to cure and buff people in campaign and besieged. There are a few miscellaneous circumstances outside the target loss problem, such as when a blink also removes an SC animation.


I do get it, it's to keep on chasing that extra little bit of damage and bragging about how 'good' a player you are.

I did tests on gear swapping and it isn't as great as people make it sound, and the calculations are all garbage.


I really hope you're only claiming that your apochryphal tests showed no benefit in swapping in mods for WSs, and only for the merit ones at that. That's still untrue, but if you're saying that all gear swapping isn't as great as people make it sound and that it's for an "extra little bit" of damage, that's just horrendously wrong.

I don't even have to be a member of the spreadsheet parser mafia to know that, as a mage, simply macroing in one gear swap between cures and nukes will make a 24% difference to my cures and a 35% difference to my nukes. And that's just one piece. Those aren't little bits.

BTW I had proof that the earth is flat, but I lost it.

[Alhanelem]

As much as I greatly prefer building a good all-around gear set personally, if you are willing to build sets of gear for every slot and situation, you will perform better. That's not really something that can be disputed. You can argue that the difference isn't as big as it is made out to be, but that's just an opinion. I am in no way a min-maxer, but if someone wants to do that, power to them. It does help, to argue that it doesn't is just silly.

I may be electing not to pursue the absolute maximum perfection, but I also recognize that people who make the effort to do so will be rewarded by parsing better than i do.


BTW I had proof that the earth is flat, but I lost it.
;)

[Mirage]

Hey can someone do some tests to prove that swapping to -pdt sets doesn't actually make you survive longer? It would free up so much inventory space for me.

[Arcon]

<stal> and <stpt> don't do it for me. They're horrible workarounds for something that should have never been an issue in the first place. As was mentioned, they don't help with outside alliance targeting. They also don't help with losing target on auto-following. They also don't help with unlocking off a target because you blinked while you used some JAs during the fight.

Blinking isn't even the real problem, characters can blink all they want. Why SE decided to mess with the target on blinking, that is the real problem. And I don't even know why. FFXI already allows targeting characters whose models aren't loaded, such as when you zone in and target someone before they appear on your screen. So why does target have to be lost when characters blink? I can't think of any sane reason for why that could be the case.

[Jaall]

At the time, Ninja was the only job in which I could reliably make the test on. That's because I lacked mind gear for Blue Mage, and still do. So I used Blade: Shun naked, single handed, dual wielding, TP gear, AF3, dexterity gear, and agility gear against a wide range of normal monsters all over the game. Hundreds of monsters taken each day, under different circumstances.

Am I the only one thinking you used NIN to test this? And with Blade:Shun... Quite arguably the worst merit WS available alongside mage ws's. I have never seen a decent number from it so if what you're saying is true and the difference equated to 500 damage then that's god-like for such a ws, meaning gear would make a huge difference. If you had said Masa Sam using Tachi: Shoha, or any DRK using Resolution then maybe I would have understood 500 damage to be insignificant.

I do agree they should stop blinking, would make the game so much easier for mages and even for dd's who want to stay locked on to a mob, but for the sake of getting better damage, which is definitely needed in this game to be seen as anything other than a "waste of space", it is very much worth the blink.

[Mifaco]

>dev team can't program out blinking
>several third party tools exist that can do it

[Zhronne]

Doubt they can get rid of it. Imho it's a way of programming things, they just don't care about it, because even in old FFXIV there were loading times when you swapped gear.


Anyway, in-combat gear swap in FFXI is something that I have always been torn about.
On one hand I love it. I love the fact of having situational gear to swap to boost this and that, also because this enforces and makes it possible to have a different itemization paradigm for developers to follow when they create items. Lots of sidegrades etc, compared to constant upgrades coming in tiers like in other games.
On the other hand I hate it. FFXI inventory sucks balls, no space, and way too many fucking situational gear that give you a minimal increase and have to be used inside particularly complicated macros (if you don't have stuff like spellcast).

So yeah, I wish FFXI could have been something in between the current situation and the opposite one (no gear swap at all).
Really hope SoA will give us at least another satchel-like thing, I won't be able to survive long :( The idea that soon there's gonna be a new bonanza kinda kills me

[zataz]

i've worked hard on getting all the gear i have and i like to macro in my stuff for my rdm solo and just because u don't like blinking u want to take away something i enjoy using.

[Byrth]

Ffxi lives and dies on its gear swapping. That is how SE was able to introduce minor upgrades for years. Another 1% cure potency, another 1% Fast cast. This is what gets us to do new content and keeps us doing the old content that has not been outdated yet. If there was only one armor set and SE released straight upgrades of it, only monks would care about Nidhogg at this point. I would not care about Skadi legs +1, etc.

This reduces costs for SE because it decreases power creep and generally keeps old events at a constant difficulty level. Ignoring changed to game mechanics and nerfs to the event, I do not expect Legion will get easier due to increases in player strength. This is because a samurai in a year will not be much better geared than one now.

Also, that mysterious thing you guys are talking about does just eliminate blinking. It does not "delay it." This is entirely within SE's capabilities and they choose not to do it for reasons that are wholey unclear to me.

[Alhanelem]

<stal> and <stpt> don't do it for me. They're horrible workarounds for something that should have never been an issue in the first place.Horrible workarounds? they are intelligently designed and a good way to cast spells., and one of the best things to have happened to the game at the time. Unfortunately, loading is an issue. It's not something you can so simply make "not an issue," at the time the game was originally built- And while it might be more technically possible now, who knows how much deep-rooted engine code would have to change to make that happen? The only thing <stal> doesn't help you with is helping a party as an outsider, and other than power leveling which is in decline due to how fast leveling is I can't think of many places where you'd truly need to do this.

[Sarick]

The garbage about them being unable to stop blinking is just that. GARBAGE. Why? You see the recent change where they allowed you to /showheadgear on/off? It's the same thing they could write a simple code to lock the appearance of your character with the set you have equipped until job is changed.

Don't go making silly statements it's possible to lock your appearance the same why we can lock the headgear off. Notice that when you change headgear with /showheadgear off does it blink?

Simple command.

/lockgear on

Bam after that every time you swap gear the game always sends updates that no changes have been made or the same gear remains constant until you change jobs. This would affect both you and others who see you. When you first appear to someone they'll always see you in that set you had equipped when you locked your gear. Technically this would benefit PS2/PS3 because the character display memory wouldn't updated as much.

All this would do is treat you your character as always having the same appearance gear when you turned it on. How hard is that to understand? Blinking isn't needed so why make excuses about bandaids when a fix can be made?

[Umichi]

Because, and this is the rare case that Fantards are right, Abyssean mobs are weak for being high level. It could skew the results.



Lower than suggested by the math in some cases, higher in others. This could be accounted for by one or more hits from the weapon skill in question missing, or a particular mob being higher level or lower than others in their group, double or triple attacks proc, phases of the moon, or any of a number of reasons not made apparent when the numbers are generated.

Such is the nature of dice rolling.



Ah, my apologies. I made a mistake on that.



At the time, Ninja was the only job in which I could reliably make the test on. That's because I lacked mind gear for Blue Mage, and still do. So I used Blade: Shun naked, single handed, dual wielding, TP gear, AF3, dexterity gear, and agility gear against a wide range of normal monsters all over the game. Hundreds of monsters taken each day, under different circumstances.

The results were disappointing, as I expected them to be.

All that work and that was it? It's square, trolling their paying customers. As usual.

your doing it wrong parsing isnt about seeing how much damage you do it's seeing where the problem is so you can adjust your gear accordingly for the maximum amount of damage increase with minimal gear adjustments. i do not support people who use parsing for anything other than that and min/max elitests with them ^^;

[Mirage]

You don't support people who parse for other things than that?

I mean, sure, go ahead, but that is kind of a strange thing to tell others. What is the point?

[Rustic]

>dev team can't program out blinking
>several third party tools exist that can do it

This. It's astonishing to see that third-party programs like Windower can come up with ways to remove blinking entirely via Blinkmenot, yet the actual program cannot.

FFXI, by it's nature of having so many sidegrades has made gearswapping mid-combat virtually required for optimum play- because they allowed it in the first place, it's no longer an "option" to do otherwise at higher levels.

[Umichi]

I just meant min/max elitests :) idk why i said it but then again i myself am weird.

[Jerbob]

In my opinion, far too much stock is placed in the capabilities of <stal>. If asked I would be the first to say that it is undeliably useful, but it has its flaws and it certainly isn't a fix, replacement or upgrade to standard targetting. It's slow, and in particular horribly succeptible to graphical slowdowns which can make it borderline unusable in bad situations. You also have no indication of how far away your target is (and can't target lock using it easily), and can't cast outside of alliances with it (minor but relevant issue). If you need to use <stal> then your role is likely one that requires excellent timing and fast reflexes, and here <stal> can cause problems.

I don't think SE quite understands that we want to maintain target lock on blinking targets, not stop them blinking altogether. That should be possible on ANY system - as people have already pointed out, we can already target people with no model loaded (zoning, invisible people) so there is no excuse. For the PC platform it should be possible to stop blinking altogether, but that would be less of a functional issue so I'm not so bothered about that I suppose.

In short - Fix the lagginess of <stal> and it'll be wonderful for alliance targetting, if nothing else - I love it for that alone. Fix the target loss of <t> targetting and the whole community will thank you - and perhaps we'll get rid of those insufferable people who've never played a job that necessitates the use of <stal> who have the nerve to rudely assume and broadcast that it is the solution to all woes - no-one here, thankfully, but we've all met them.

[Arcon]

Horrible workarounds?

They force you to play a certain way. They force you to go by the party list instead of looking at the battlefield. That way you can't judge distances and you can't tab from one person to the next, and alliance targeting is awful. That's a horrible workaround.


The only thing <stal> doesn't help you with is helping a party as an outsider [..]

That, and the other two things I mentioned in the same post you quoted: following and losing lock on a target when blinking in combat.

[Alhanelem]

They force you to play a certain way. They force you to go by the party list instead of looking at the battlefield. That way you can't judge distances and you can't tab from one person to the next, and alliance targeting is awful. That's a horrible workaround.So what? If anything looking at the party list is easier. It's not like you can't see the rest of the screen during the 2 seconds you're looking at it, either. Good workaround, not horrible. You have to look at it anyway when deciding who to cast spells like cure or refresh on.


If you need to use <stal> then your role is likely one that requires excellent timing and fast reflexes, and here <stal> can cause problems. FFXI is really not a game that requires "fast reflexes." You make it sound like this is a lot slower than other methods, but it's not- The only thing that's significantly faster is targeting a named person with a macro- and you don't need to be able to see them to do that either.

Now, don't get me wrong, blinking sucks balls- but the solution we were given was very workable. Calling it "terrible" when it's very functional and easy to use is just ridiculous. Changing the way data is loaded and displayed is a change to a core game engine function. You can't just spam your fingers and change it. I think people are trying to exaggerate the problem to compel SE to change it and well, good luck with that i guess- it's probably not going to work but you can waste your time if you want. I'd be happy if it actually does happen, but I'd still be using <stal> even if it did, because it's useful beyond working around blinking.

[Byrth]

I would say that <stal> and <stpc> are both failures in the sense that they take you out of the battlefield and bring you back to the foreground, a list of names and stats on the right side of your screen. Though admittedly it's hardly the worst offender, this clunkiness takes away from the general feeling of actually fighting and playing the game. A much simpler and cleaner solution would be to let people simply turn off blinking.

[Alhanelem]

I would say that <stal> and <stpc> are both failures in the sense that they take you out of the battlefield and bring you back to the foreground, a list of names and stats on the right side of your screen.If you're a healer and buffer and you're not already looking at these things, you're not doing your job. Try as you might you haven't ever been able to tell if someone needs a cure or not by looking at the battlefield. If you have a keen eye and memorize everyone's max HP you can go by the on screen damage numbers I suppose, but in a busy fight it can start to look like a random jumble.

[Byrth]

I haven't played a healer in any seriousness since the level 75 cap, but I know that I used to target them on the screen using the left left and right d-pad buttons. Obviously the log and HP bars are useful tools, but after a certain point you learn the readying time for certain TP moves and about how much damage they're going to do so you can get the cures on the way before the moves even go off.

[Alhanelem]

but I know that I used to target them on the screen using the left left and right d-pad buttons.But you still have to look at the party windows to know who has how much HP to decide who to cure, and pressing left and right on the dpad is not any faster or slower than pressing up or down on the dpad. :p

I understand what you mean about anticipating needs, but if a mob is spamming AoEs you're probably not just sitting there waiting to cure somebody.

[Arcon]

So what?

Forcing you to play a way you're not comfortable with to make up for a problem that shouldn't exist is as close to the definition of "bad design" as any example can get.


Now, don't get me wrong, blinking sucks balls- but the solution we were given was very workable. Calling it "terrible" when it's very functional and easy to use is just ridiculous.

It's not great for healing. But it's absolutely useless for the other two situations I mentioned, which you still haven't addressed. Blinking causes more than just one problem. How does <stal> help with following? How does it help with unlocking your target while engaged to it? It doesn't. That's why it's a bad solution for the problem, because parts of the problem are still completely unsolved.


Changing the way data is loaded and displayed is a change to a core game engine function.

I'm not asking for the way data is loaded and displayed to be changed. I'm asking for the target not to be dropped during that time. Blinking would be perfectly fine if the target wouldn't drop. We know blank targets can still be targeted. At any point during the blinking process, you can target a player, so the target isn't gone. That means there's no reason for the target to disappear when a person blinks, and I can't think of any internal mechanics for why it would. I'm almost certain they purposefully coded it this way. Maybe as one of their ridiculous safeguard mechanics which they needlessly implemented at every corner in the game, who knows. They've shown to be just like that, repeatedly.

Hell, even immediately retargeting your previous target would be a massive improvement and almost unnoticeable if implemented correctly and that would be a seriously minor change, completely unaffected by any data flow. The game knows when a character blinks (otherwise you wouldn't lose the target in the first place), so just retarget it when that happens, done.

Also, there's a significant difference in glancing at the HUD for information and focusing on it to navigate through it for actual gameplay mechanics. And you still have to look at the battlefield in the latter case anyway, to get a feel for positioning and distances, unless you're one of those mages who blame melee for not getting cured when they're out of range.

[Toadie-Odie]

The only thing <stal> doesn't help you with is helping a party as an outsider, and other than power leveling which is in decline due to how fast leveling is I can't think of many places where you'd truly need to do this.

Doesn't <stpc> still work? I seem to remember using that when I was an outside of the party healer.

Edit: but you're right about the need to power level, it is just about gone - and since Abyssea came out I can't think of a time I HAD to be a healer outside of the party.

[Alhanelem]

Doesn't <stpc> still work? I seem to remember using that when I was an outside of the party healer.I don't remember that one- I know there's <stpt> but that's just an inferior version of <stal> that only targets party members.


It's not great for healing.I don't know what you're "comfortable" with, to use your words, but it's the most amazing thing there is for healing. I can't think of an easier way to cure anybody in my alliance. What do YOU do? click on people with the mouse? the click detection in the game is so bad it's unseable, and if you tab through people, that's only effective if everyone is in front of you and visible, and still <stal> is faster.

So no, it's not in any way shape or form bad design. They made it as easy as it could possibly get. it's BETTER than curing with tabbing/mousing, blink or no blink. I would keep using it even if blink went away.


I'm not asking for the way data is loaded and displayed to be changed. I'm asking for the target not to be dropped during that time(edited) I want that as much as you do, but the nameplate's position (what you use to target) is relative to the model. I think if they were to do this, your name would drop to the origin position (the floor at the spot you're standing) during the change, which would cause your camera to change suddenly which could be very disjointing especially with taller characters. I guess it's better than target loss, but changing the way model data is loaded would solve both problems (but is most likely more difficult as well.

[Mookies75]

There's an aspect of the PvP island that penalizes people for gear swapping that I always felt should've been made a normal aspect of gameplay. This way people would weigh the consequences of swapping gear, and decide whether getting an extra 2% damage is really worth facing the penalty.

I have a feeling they would not.

Just no. This goes against everything this game is about.

[Arcon]

I don't remember that one- I know there's <stpt> but that's just an inferior version of <stal> that only targets party members.

It's not inferior, it's for a different purpose. It allows you to quickly get to the last person on your pt list, unlike <stal>. When you only have your party to cure/buff, it's certainly useful.


I don't know what you're "comfortable" with, to use your words, but it's the most amazing thing there is for healing.

Yes, it is. And it's still not great. That's my point. The best they have just doesn't cut it for everyone, hence it's not great.


What do YOU do?

On-screen targeting with the keyboard is very fast and efficient if done right. It can take only 3 key presses to cast on anyone in the entire party, and that includes hitting the macro. Hit the <stpc> macro, rotate camera slightly (this can even be done before casting to have the two most important people in front of you) then hit Tab or Shift+Tab.

I have to admit though, that that's not what I do, precisely because of blinking. I use commands for everything instead.


So no, it's not in any way shape or form bad design. They made it as easy as it could possibly get. it's BETTER than curing with tabbing/mousing, blink or no blink. I would keep using it even if blink went away.

Good for you, I wouldn't, and judging by what other people said in here I'm not alone. And I never said <stal> was bad. I said it was a bad solution for the problem, because it's not a solution to the problem. Offering <stal> instead of an actual fix, that's what's bad design, not <stal> by itself. <stal> itself should remain regardless, because of the people who like it or got used to it.


(edited) I want that as much as you do, but the nameplate's position (what you use to target) is relative to the model. I think if they were to do this, your name would drop to the origin position (the floor at the spot you're standing) during the change, which would cause your camera to change suddenly which could be very disjointing especially with taller characters. I guess it's better than target loss, but changing the way model data is loaded would solve both problems (but is most likely more difficult as well.

That's true, but that only applies if you're locked onto a target, and aside from locking onto enemies (which don't blink) and locking on in order to follow someone (in which case you don't care about the camera), I don't know why you'd lock onto your target. At least I can't think of any benefits for doing so during battle.

[Alhanelem]

Yes, it is. And it's still not great. That's my point. The best they have just doesn't cut it for everyone, hence it's not great.Subjective opinion. I think it IS great. You're probably just trying to make it sound worse than it is to add weight to fixing it...


Good for you, I wouldn't, and judging by what other people said in here I'm not alone.You're probably not alone. But neither am I.

Anyway, please don't get me wrong. I do want to see some more action taken to solve the blinking issue. But it's really hard not to be cynical these days. hell, we have a version update coming within the next 10 days but we really don't know anything about it beyond meebles and a few small things.

[Arcon]

Subjective opinion. I think it IS great. You're probably just trying to make it sound worse than it is to add weight to fixing it...

It's not subjective, because I listed the flaws. I don't think it's not great, I say it's not great because of the limitations that come with it. Just because some people aren't bothered by them doesn't mean they aren't there. <stal> only addresses one of the several issues of blinking, and even that one only partially.

[Merton9999]

Doesn't <stpc> still work? I seem to remember using that when I was an outside of the party healer.

<stpc> works to target people outside the alliance, yes. But the point is that people are using <stal> instead of <stpc> because <stal> doesn't cause you to lose the target when the target blinks. <stpc> will lose a blinking target. So currently there is no way within a single macro to be able to target anyone on the screen and prevent target loss from blinking.

This was the minor annoyance I mentioned with <stal>, but I also don't like that you can't judge distance with it. Ultimately I agree with Arcon. <stal> is bittersweet. It's better than the current behavior of <stpc> but it doesn't go far enough to solve a problem that seems like it shouldn't exist in the first place.

I'd rather SE just removed blinking altogether by creating a gearlock option that let me fix my appearance. Wouldn't they have to allow me to lock other players' appearance too or would we need to rely on that person locking themselves? This would not only solve my blinking problems but also prevent my character from being drawn with some ugly ass armor. Anyone that uses those horrible viking helms should be forced to gearlock when out of them.

Also, I agree <stpt> is not inferior to <stal>, in fact for me it is superior for party-only target spells. I use it in every macro for spells that are party only. It causes the party cursor to wrap instead of flow to the next party, so I'm always at most 3 clicks away from my final target.