Fostering Skillful Play

[Rambus]

I would actually have to agree with the majority on this one. The macro system is messed up. Personally i never liked the idea of gear swapping in the middle of battle anyway, but SE has decided to move in that direction by creating tons of equipment with stats that serve for just that purpose.

But moving in that direction and then limiting macro's are counter productive of each other. If your playing legitimately, and you have a full gear swap, your looking at around 3 macros. Then a WS macro. Then 3 more macros to get back to what you had. Thats insain. It takes almost an entire book of macros to do a single action.

The botting argument for not wanting to increase macro space never made much sense to me either. (Unless you increased it to like 2000 lines lol) The macros are very simplistic. Its not like you can use an IF - THEN inside one. And if it were increased to 15-20 lines, its still not like u could press a macro and come back in 6 hours and see your character still at it. Alls that does is decrease the amount of times i have to press the key on my keyboard while I'm sitting here forever.

Last point is that the majority of the player base already uses some form of increased macros or spell casts. People that don't use them (like me) are very hard to find. Which means the only ppl really hurting from this are those that are 'playing by the rules'. And thats a pretty bad way to act towards those players that are paying for this.

That is what I do and if you want insane look at my blm. (keep in mind it was 75 game so no hmp rings)

Hit 2 buttons to rest, then two buttons to lower hp. then two more buttons to be in my nuking power set. (line 9)

Scroll down to line 4 for each element ( line 4 for level 4 spells) then next to the 6 spells is a "god gear" switch for substituting elemental skill and some over stuff the power set used in line 9. Of course in practice I got good at hitting all these buttons, as soon as i stopped resting i would hit my lower hp trigger and gear up macros, then hit the spell and then if i needed the god gear button I would hit that while the spell is casted.

There is a simple solution to fixing this. If SE does not like windower ( and I really hate that I am the only one on PC that does not use those 'cheats' and yet Se lets them get away with it (So why have the salavge bans? that was wrong to do since it is a hypercritical stance)

Sorry for the off tangent, the simple solution is STOP MAKING SITUATIONAL GEAR TO GET PEOPLE TO DO OUTDATED CONTENT. This game is not programmed properly to reasonably make it a necessary of changing 15 slots of gear.

Part of me likes the idea of having situational gear as it reflects the person knows what they are doing. FFXI is not programmed properly to fully support such an idea however.

[Rustic]

Sorry for the off tangent, the simple solution is STOP MAKING SITUATIONAL GEAR TO GET PEOPLE TO DO OUTDATED CONTENT. This game is not programmed properly to reasonably make it a necessary of changing 15 slots of gear.

Part of me likes the idea of having situational gear as it reflects the person knows what they are doing. FFXI is not programmed properly to fully support such an idea however.

Gearswap is indeed one of the primary reasons the FFXI-standard UI is considered flawed. Late-game play strongly encourages changing outfits on-the-fly. I can, however theorize a solution to this that would be doable under the PS2-level programming, and indeed would increase console player functionality.

Add a "dressup" button to the menu, similar to the macros one. Start it with 20 buttons, labeled 1-20 that can be renamed as the player likes. Dressup would be linked to macros- there'd be a "dressup" for each set. When a button is selected, you can either have it Copy, Paste, Delete, Gear, Show. C/P/D work like a regular macro. Gear takes a snapshot of whatever you're wearing at the time and saves it to the button in question. Show displays the saved equipment layout for that button. By this method, you would be able to save gear configurations for whatever you desire to go with a macro set and use them.

Then add the /dressup command. /dressup (number) will attempt to equip you in the gear saved in that button to the best of it's ability, skipping anything you don't actually have in inventory. This command can then be placed in macros, allowing you to macro in full gear swaps, just like people with extended-macro layouts for PC's can do.

Voila, you've just done wonders.

[Prrsha]

Add a "dressup" button to the menu, similar to the macros one. Start it with 20 buttons, labeled 1-20 that can be renamed as the player likes. Dressup would be linked to macros- there'd be a "dressup" for each set. When a button is selected, you can either have it Copy, Paste, Delete, Gear, Show. C/P/D work like a regular macro. Gear takes a snapshot of whatever you're wearing at the time and saves it to the button in question. Show displays the saved equipment layout for that button. By this method, you would be able to save gear configurations for whatever you desire to go with a macro set and use them.

Then add the /dressup command. /dressup (number) will attempt to equip you in the gear saved in that button to the best of it's ability, skipping anything you don't actually have in inventory. This command can then be placed in macros, allowing you to macro in full gear swaps, just like people with extended-macro layouts for PC's can do.

Voila, you've just done wonders.

The dressup idea has oddly enough been mirrored on the Japanese forums. It has gotten some feedback in the positive manner from the developers. It seems one of the main concerns of adding extra macro lines, is that RMTers will make elaborate bots with large strings of commands (or so the dev were saying there). A Japanese player mentioned the above solution, just like you and it got a positive remark from Matsui and the rest of the population.

Next on the list they are discussing now is the role of Dark Knight and zerging tactics. They want more skill to the bosses instead of the "kill it as fast as you can" mantra. Another topic under discussion is the exploitation of exp chains. Exp chains were meant to be a reward for players who through team work, killed mobs faster by pulling quickly and defeating them one at a time. They see the current AoE mass slaughter of gaining exp chains as an exploit to skillfull gameplay (be it by magic AoE spells or AoE WSes). They are debating ways to take that option off of the table.

[FrankReynolds]

The dressup idea has oddly enough been mirrored on the Japanese forums. It has gotten some feedback in the positive manner from the developers. It seems one of the main concerns of adding extra macro lines, is that RMTers will make elaborate bots with large strings of commands (or so the dev were saying there). A Japanese player mentioned the above solution, just like you and it got a positive remark from Matsui and the rest of the population.

Perhaps you could mention that no RMT in his right mind would choose to use the in-game macro system over spellcast anyways? I doubt that changes to the macro system would have any effect whatsoever on RMT activities.

Next on the list they are discussing now is the role of Dark Knight and zerging tactics. They want more skill to the bosses instead of the "kill it as fast as you can" mantra.

I'm fine with spending an hour killing one monster if that monster has an incredibly high drop rate. If they leave drops how they are now and increase the difficulty of content though, they might as well just turn the lights off.

Another topic under discussion is the exploitation of exp chains. Exp chains were meant to be a reward for players who through team work, killed mobs faster by pulling quickly and defeating them one at a time. They see the current AoE mass slaughter of gaining exp chains as an exploit to skillfull gameplay (be it by magic AoE spells or AoE WSes). They are debating ways to take that option off of the table.

That is a dumb idea on so many levels, but I know you're not going to tell them that I said that.

[Rustic]

The dressup idea has oddly enough been mirrored on the Japanese forums. It has gotten some feedback in the positive manner from the developers. It seems one of the main concerns of adding extra macro lines, is that RMTers will make elaborate bots with large strings of commands (or so the dev were saying there). A Japanese player mentioned the above solution, just like you and it got a positive remark from Matsui and the rest of the population.

I'm not surprised. A lot of thoughts on UI get mirrored between player groups- it's just the language barrier (and until FFXI had it's own forums, a lack of easy direct communication) that means we get good ideas thought up in different ways towards the same problems.

[Afania]

Sorry for the off tangent, the simple solution is STOP MAKING SITUATIONAL GEAR TO GET PEOPLE TO DO OUTDATED CONTENT. This game is not programmed properly to reasonably make it a necessary of changing 15 slots of gear.

This, seriously, if the game doesn't have this many jobs and situational gears, more than half of the content will be dead by now XD

[Caketime]

I would actually have to agree with the majority on this one. The macro system is messed up. Personally i never liked the idea of gear swapping in the middle of battle anyway, but SE has decided to move in that direction by creating tons of equipment with stats that serve for just that purpose.

I've always thought this was loltastic, they've even stated they were against it but have since moved in the opposite direction and yet refuse to address macro line limitations. I currently use 3 macros just to hit a 4th macro to use Ruinator, trust me when I say it's horrid. I play on Xbox though, so I guess I can't complain.

E: I didn't even mention my WHM macros. There are literally pages of them.

[Godofgods]

I've always thought this was loltastic, they've even stated they were against it but have since moved in the opposite direction and yet refuse to address macro line limitations. I currently use 3 macros just to hit a 4th macro to use Ruinator, trust me when I say it's horrid. I play on Xbox though, so I guess I can't complain.

Oh i no. I dont use windower so im stuck with the same methods. Some times it can rly take the run out of what ever you are doing.

E: I didn't even mention my WHM macros. There are literally pages of them.

Thats another reason i find it insulting that they said they wern't going to add two new macro books for the two new jobs. Saying that 'we have enough already' ><

[Prrsha]

Oh i no. I dont use windower so im stuck with the same methods. Some times it can rly take the run out of what ever you are doing.



Thats another reason i find it insulting that they said they wern't going to add two new macro books for the two new jobs. Saying that 'we have enough already' ><

The tone so far is: We feel that players have enough marco lines already BUT we are looking into a way to equip an entire armor/weapon set in a single macro. I don't know if the reasoning behind this is truly about RMT or it is being used as such as an excuse to say: We can't add more macro lines due to PS2 limitations but we are working a way for you to equip an entire set of gear in a single macro line.

I agree that something has to be done with the current macro system. It shouldn't take 4 macros to change an entire set of gear (making me invisible half of the battle). I am happy with the ideas floating around with the compromise they are making making to fix this thus far however.

[Mirage]

And that's why obvious gameplay enhancements should be part of the official client, so that people didn't get into a situation where "gameplay enhancement" is literally a key press away from "see through walls"