Option to Remove the Circle Image on Skill CD

Honestly, I see no problem with it. It does help me know when something is cooling down. /shrug

My vision's a bit lopsided, so I find this to be pretty helpful. An option to toggle it on or off according to one's preference makes sense, though.

dear lord, yes this needs and option to be turned off. I didn't notice it too much when I was healing, but as soon as I switched to a dps or tank class, it was terrible. :( If it didn't flash for the short 2.4 or w/e recasts, MAYBE it wouldn't be so bad...

This is annoying af.

Whole friggin hotbar glowing ffs!

Toggle on/off option would be nice and should of been thought up of during this concepts planning phase.
However, I wouldn't mind the ability to select which hotbars it shows up for either. Seeing I am sure some out there use extra bars to keep track of oGCD abilities with long cool downs, but get screwed over on activation when said skills look ready, but had nearly 2 or so seconds left till ready <_<

But least give us a toggle at the minimum SE.

They could have easily left the circle out and kept the # timer. Thats all I needed to tell when I could use it next. Don't even need recast macros anymore.

Agreed that white circles are terrible.

It restricts the view of EVERY icon, making the whole bar just look like a mess of white flashy crap.

I'll never understand why developers make changes that take options AWAY from the users. Just give us the option to toggle it back to the old way please.

I agree for the people who don't like it there should be an option to turn it how. However I think it's really cool and added a more modern feel to the game. This isn't 2.0 or 1.0 anymore. Things are bound to change. But anything people don't like they're bound to cry endlessly until they get their way I suppose. But I do agree there should be on/off switches for most features in the game, as I feel they should make multiple options for AOE damage warnings on the ground and we can go to a list and choose which style/look we prefer; they've changed it so much because of people nonstop ranting that it looks :/ now.

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Originally Posted by KaiKatzchen

This. Honestly I don't have vision issues but I really like it - I think it makes it a lot more clear as to what is on cool down, and what isn't. My best friend didn't even notice it until I pointed it out. lol

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it's too bright, it annoys my eyes even if I don't look at the skill icons, it also make me feel like I am playing dark knight since all skill icons are now the same color and that is another annoyance.

Thank God I'm not the only one!! Please let us turn it off!!

I didnt see this nugget in the patch notes. What a pleasant surprise it was! I love it!

I would also like the ability to toggle this on and off. My eyes read it as a visual obstruction more than anything else, kinda like animated fluorescent tube lighting overtop of my icons. It's just a sea of rolling white lines that blots out all the colours, and it's the colours I look for to see what's ready and what isn't. The old gray shaded icons were just right for me.

That being said, I *love* the idea of the little numbers ticking down, but I just find the white clock circles so distracting that it's hard for me to focus on them. If I could get rid of the big bubbles and keep the little numbers, that'd be awesome. :D

The white circles hide the icons the bar is supposed to be showing us. I can usually handle that on my more frequently used jobs and classes, where I can rely on muscle memory at least for common skills, but trying to play a less familiar class is nearly impossible as I can't see which buttons trigger which actions. (There is the help text above the crossbar, but I learned the skills mainly by icon rather than name. If I can't see the icons, then I have a hard time figuring out which is which.)

And the countdown numbers, which we'd actually asked for and could have been useful, were instead turned into tiny little dots in the corner. Why? They already had it implemented perfectly in the tooltips that you see when you go to the Actions & Traits window. There it will show a skill icon with the countdown timer in nice big numbers sized to fit the icon. Why wasn't that version, which they already had designed for the tooltips, put on the hotbar versions of those same icons so that we could actually see the numbers?

I definitely want this to be changed to something you can toggle on or off. It's not completely awful, but I don't like the way it makes my skill icons look, and it's very distracting to have something constantly moving on that part of the screen.

I wouldn't mind if it were JUST skills with their own cooldowns, but to have it appear on every single GCD skill every single time you use a GCD skill is atrocious.

I appreciate that SE is trying to make the game more accessible for people with impairments; that's a great thing and definitely something they should do, but in every single case they just force the change out rather than making it an option, when a change that might be helpful for one person might make things much harder for another.

Hello, everyone.

The following is a comment from UI Lead Hiroshi Minagawa in regards to the new recast timers implemented in Patch 3.2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hiroshi_Minagawa

Greetings,

Thanks for the quick feedback!

During development, we had a long debate about whether or not to make design changes to the recast timer.

If there was an option which would allow you to choose between the new design and the previous design, there wouldn't be any issue; however, due to memory restrictions, we cannot hold data for two types of animation. Therefore, based on comments received during our testing, we continued to make improvements until 90% of the team was in agreement, and in the end, we decided to implement an improved version.

With that said, I would like to go into a bit more detail about this. The explanation involves some technical jargon and information, and it is primarily geared towards those of you who wish to know the finer aspects of this, as well as how the development team's decisions are made.

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The issue we wanted to resolve with this improvement
Since the display when an action's recast is nearly complete and when the action can actually be used again were the same, there were times where some actions with long recast times weren't executable even when it looked like it was possible.
(*We've been receiving comments on the forums regarding this since quite a long time ago--right after A Realm Reborn released, actually.)

For end-game content, a few seconds can result in a life-or-death situation, which can cause a large amount of frustration, so this was an issue we wanted to resolve.

Ideas for improvement

A) Change how the icon is presented when an action becomes available
Change how the icon is presented when an action's recast is near completion, so that users can tell right away when an action will soon become available.

Display the remaining recast time as a numeric value
*Since we cannot add more displays on top of existing icons (which is a measure to lessen display density), we therefore used the part of the display which was used for TP cost. There were comments from testers mentioning that they wanted the number to be displayed in the center of the icon; however, this would required preparation of a different part or the placement of a process which would check the situation to change the displayed position. This was rejected because it would increase the load.

Limitations related to the design change suggested in A)
Currently, we cannot increase the capacity for texture images on the UI (HUD) which are constantly displayed.
*The capacity limitations on video memory for the lowest spec environment
In regards to the textures for the HUD, in order to account for the stability of the memory status, it has been structured in a way where it does not re-read, therefore we cannot address this by preparing two types of animation patterns for the recast.

If we changed the structure so it can re-read, it will involve a large amount of programming resources, QA resources, and there would be a high risk of related bugs that would continue into future expansions.
*Considering the risks, to start out we have removed the possibility of re-reading HUD textures from our structure.

Having a structure that requires an engineer's time who can design this type of UI system, implement it, and maintain it (which is rare), would, in the long term, result in a reduction in the quality and amount of service we can provide. As a result, it would be a disadvantage for the players.

To prevent and increase in stress being placed on screen rendering, we had to change the design for the recast animation so that it maintains the structure of having one image animated in a pattern.

When considering these factors, we had to choose: use the previous design or use an improved design.

Development inspection for the design change

We made four large design adjustments and held a vote during play test sessions.
*There were many more fine detailed design adjustments.

We all voted to see if we preferred the previous design or the new design, and gave the reason behind our choices as well as our thoughts on it after trying it out for about a week. During testing, we had testers play it in a normal manner for about a week.

1st test - tested and evaluated the improved version with members from the UI team and other development team members.
2nd test - QA testing, vote ratio between old and improved version: 3:4
3rd test - QA testing, vote ratio between old and improved version: 1:2
4th test - QA testing, vote ratio between old and improved version: 1:9 (this is the version which has been introduced in Patch 3.2)

There were 50 testers, and comments were taken from both actual players and non-players.

Opinion as the UI lead
The design we have currently is something which received 90% approval from internal testing; however, you can also say that, 10% of the testers were against this design, which means
out of 10,000 players, 1,000 players would be against it.

If I decided to take the safest route for this matter, it would be to leave it as it was until now without announcing anything or doing anything at all. (Clearly this route is missing the bigger picture for the long-term.)

There have been comments mentioning that if the recast timer can be displayed numerically, it should be possible to keep the previous recast animation. During the 3rd round of testing, I also thought this (where one out of three was against this), and I was thinking we're not going to make any changes this time.

However, as a result from making further adjustments, we were able to reach a design which 90% of the group agreed on. *Leaving out the fine details, we also took into account bias from multiple votes.

We made a decision after looking at it long and hard, but because there were a lot of comments where people felt uncomfortable at first, but got used to in a week and like the improved version better, we decided to go with the new design.

*The majority of testers were private players, so their comments are based on alternatively trying the new recast design and the previous design.

While this improvement was only one UI task, we proceeded while considering our overall policy for future UI changes. Considering the many benefits that this change could achieve, we decided to implement it.

*I'm sure people will ask why we aren't trying to make something that everyone likes, but if we don't follow this approach, we won't even be able to come up with something the majority can agree on. ;_;

The future
I'm sure there will be other improvements in the future that we will not be able to prepare an option for. Though we will implement these kind of changes, we would like to receive comments from various view points. This time around, not only have you mentioned that you liked the previous display method, but you also explained which parts of the new display was concerning. This type of information is very useful, and I would like to thank you all!

From the comments we have received, there were many about the white border on the edge of the circle being too strong, which made it hard to see the action's icon.
*This was also brought up by the testers.

With these comments in mind, we'll consider lowering the white from the border by about 10 to 20 percent in order to tone down the contrast of the overall hotbar and to increase the visibility of action icons.

Is it impossible to add an option?
Cutting straight the conclusion, it's not impossible in the long run.

There are two types of images in the current UI: one which needs to be placed constantly in the memory and images which can be loaded when they need to be displayed. The recast display is something which needs to be constantly placed in the memory.

There is a large amount of UI images for this type, but we're arranging them individually as well as making optimizations to make room for placing two types of recast images. We would then be able to add an option for it.

However, arranging and re-stacking existing data like a puzzle may break those displays, so it requires various display size testing. To be honest, it's a lot of work, and we won't know the outcome until we try it.

The optimization work we do isn't something which can be seen by players, so this isn't mentioned in the patch notes, but it is something that is done continuously. We may be able to have enough room available in the future to have another set of recast animations.

That pretty much sums up what I can explain at this point.
I look forward to seeing everyone's comments!

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

Hello, everyone.

The following is a comment from UI Lead Hiroshi Minagawa in regards to the new recast timers implemented in Patch 3.2.

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so tl;dr : PS3 limitations?

An option to remove them is welcome but I definitely wouldn't use it because I love how the animations look and yes, it makes so much easier to see when the skills are good for use again!... :cool:

Thanks for the information , but I have to agree with others. Now there is too much animation happening with the hotbars, and for some like me, its become more distracting than helping.
This was done with near perfect execution back in v1.2 days, so it is a shame that similar results cannot be replicated here.

Also, please don't forget bullet 3 from an old presentation used...
http://gamerescape.com/wp-content/up...de-300x300.jpg

I love the new animations. The old ones were a lot harder to keep track of my Healer CDs, especially on controller.

It just looks like an issue of focusing on one point while ignoring others. There was indeed an issue that it was (in the former version) hard to see when exactly some of the longer cooldowns completed. And this change does indeed make that more obvious, so it's a win on that specific point.

Unfortunately, at the same time, it hides the icon itself which is supposed to tell us what skill is assigned to that button. If it comes down to a choice of not being certain when a button is available or not even being able to see what the button does, then I for one would like to know what the button does. Muscle memory can get a lot of it on familiar jobs, but if muscle memory was enough throughout, then we wouldn't even have icon hotbars display on the screen. It seems SE forgot what their primary purpose is.

I''m definitely having more trouble seeing the cooldowns with this new adjustment than I was before. Would love to disable it.

Need to remove the circles entirely. The greyed out boxes with the recast counter in the corner for me. would have been enough.

the circles block out the entire icons even more so on smaller ui scales. i'ts not so bad if I put my hotbars upto 110% or more but that makes them massive.

The numbers are great. It's just the circles that need to go. or be optional

also wonder how 90% of the testers approved the design if they also bought up the same issues?

oh come on remove the circle and put the CD timer in the middle instead.... i beg u!

https://nofuneral.files.wordpress.co...ellmewhen1.jpg

just using "that" game because more players know about it....but the CD timer on the middle has been a thing for what? 12 years?

some1 asked 2 years ago this on reddit..........the answer was : U CANT

http://i.imgur.com/8BxxKHz.jpg

now we have numbers....and are so small that u can barely see ....plus a circle moving that distract u from this cooldown timers...

im sad , the patch is awesome and im enjoying the game , but come on why everything needs to be so complicated or cumbersome in this game ? :(

I quite like the circle and recast numbers where they are. It's a huge visual improvement for myself and many of my friends and FC members.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

Hello, everyone.

The following is a comment from UI Lead Hiroshi Minagawa in regards to the new recast timers implemented in Patch 3.2.

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Yeah I am still not buying this explanation, which I otherwise love the info that went in the background.

Ok so the numbers counting down, are there on abilities without TP/MP. That info is just in the exact same spot. And we have a toggle to turn them off. So, adding a countdown timer, to abilities that had none before, uses ZERO additional memory or resources, over the previous UI where nothing was there? I remember an excuse on the TP bar was that having a number would not work, yet having numbers on those abilities were none were before DO work?

Accessibility Visual Alerts is a toggle, and that is a tremendous amount of bars bouncing all over on both side of my screen if I turn it on. So that is programmed in a way so that even if turned off, memory and resources are constantly drawing something that doesn't show up? How is that efficient? And if that is not the way it is, meaning no resources are being used, then why can't the hot bars be programmed the same?

Lessoning the white line would be an improvement. But, changing the circle, to the entire square (with the additional outlines), would be better. Having a different shape, with bright white, continuously counting down on all square abilities, especially on every single GCD, is extremely distracting.

Yeah I am either missing a lot about something, or something just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe both.


Edit: Warlax, that is perfect right there. We have UI memory and everything when we hover over an ability, but we can't add the exact same thing to the hotbar version of that ability? Yeah I dunno...

Appreciate the reply! May not have been the news some of us wanted to hear, but I'll do my best until (maybe) the brightness on the white circles gets toned down a little. :3

Unfortunately, designers have taken a very small problem (the icons look the same in the 1-2 sec before the skill is ready) and made a bigger problem with their "solution", justifying it by running the same test with the same group until they got the result they wanted. This is a case of tinkering with something and f*&^ing things up in the process.

Just admit you screwed up, go back to the original design and either go back to the drawing board or move along to other more important things.

Please make it go away.

I dont like those circles too e,e;; I searched almost an hour in options to find a switch to turn it off! >:o

And also: Why now PS3(No clue PS4, havent chacked) users have there Charackter(every clickable stuff on map) names, lifebars and Chat letters been shrinked by 50%? >->;

Theres no change optione ether!
Thats not good for our eyes!

There are people that will like the change and others that will not like it but they should of included a option to whether the user wants to have that feature enabled or disabled.

Ya this change has me confused.

The circle is obnoxious and strains my eyes actually as they are drawn to it constantly.

The numbers in the bottom left are too small. They should have made the numbers bigger and put them in the center of the icon, with the option to remove the circle.

I did not like the circles at first, but now after a bit of practice I got used to them. I would prefer the numbers to be larger, however. Seems its a PS3 memory issue, though.

I honestly don't understand how this got a fix but this is completely ignored amongst the graphic issues:

http://i1078.photobucket.com/albums/...psutedix5p.jpghttp://i1078.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4iq70n84.jpg

I agree...on that these features (like the new ouchie zones/red zones of doom).
Why not make them an option or give players the ability to set their own colors.
Destiny for example added in colorblind modes (of the few Good things Bungie ever did.) And it's awesome.
FFXIV could benefit from colorblind modes and say UI features for the visually impaired.

Edit:
The circle does NOT bother me. But I will never say no to having "options".
I completely missed the Dev post.
Well...an official response said making it an "option" is not impossible. So that's good enough for me.
In time it'll be addressed.

AGREED!!

just put the number from the tooltip icon onto the hotbar icon and get rid of that stupid circle crap = problem solved.
how hard can that be! the number is already there, just move it.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

oh come on remove the circle and put the CD timer in the middle instead.... i beg u!

https://nofuneral.files.wordpress.co...ellmewhen1.jpg

just using "that" game because more players know about it....but the CD timer on the middle has been a thing for what? 12 years?

some1 asked 2 years ago this on reddit..........the answer was : U CANT

http://i.imgur.com/8BxxKHz.jpg

now we have numbers....and are so small that u can barely see ....plus a circle moving that distract u from this cooldown timers...

im sad , the patch is awesome and im enjoying the game , but come on why everything needs to be so complicated or cumbersome in this game ? :(

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Why doesn't SE implement Add-Ons to this game yet? It have been promised since A Realm Reborn. So as of right now, whatever changed we have to stick to it. With Add-Ons it will please every user and let them customize how their UI want to be.

Every large MMO already have it like WoW, Rift, etc.

Too much motion and bright white on my hotbar now as drg. Its a bit harder to focus in fast paced raiding.

For something as important as this, you should have multiple options. It can literally affect gameplay. Were not talking about how pretty it is anymore, were talking about how distracting and focus disrupting it may be.

Ive gotten use to it. I like it. Its just a simple glance and thought of "do i see white circle still?" And thats that.

I agree on the numbers on the CD...."KISS" design
Why waste time and effort thinking so much when it can be resolved in a more straightforward way?

I'm not an expert on statistics, but I'm pretty sure you can't expand a finding like, "90% of our internal team approved it, so 1,000 out of 10,000 players won't like it" because not everyone had a chance to be "picked" to test it. That would be like asking only Republicans who they will vote for in an election, Democrat or Republican, and shocked to find that most are going to vote Republican.

It seems far too much time/effort went into the issue that could have been fixed with a simple adjustment: putting a CD timer on the ability like people have shown. It's almost like, "Man, I got a flat tire. Better replace the car."