[Suggestion] Can we get a “Hide All Players” option?

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Originally Posted by MagicPeanut

I seriously doubt adding a button to hide things on screen would take more time than modeling multiple hairstyles and faces or revamping a whole Job. Probably wouldn't even take a day.

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then you seriously have no idea how software works.

this mythical button has to differentiate between player and npcs for one. your experience would take a dive in the dirt if suddenly all the npc's went away too. then they have to test to make sure it covers all areas, and that all required on screen assets do not disappear as well. your "simple button" would take more than a day to design and implement and quality test to make sure it doesnt break anything. so yes, it would take away from something else, like more multiplayer content for instance (not that you mind that right?)

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

then you seriously have no idea how software works.

this mythical button has to differentiate between player and npcs for one. your experience would take a dive in the dirt if suddenly all the npc's went away too. then they have to test to make sure it covers all areas, and that all required on screen assets do not disappear as well. your "simple button" would take more than a day to design and implement and quality test to make sure it doesnt break anything. so yes, it would take away from something else, like more multiplayer content for instance (not that you mind that right?)

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- the game already fully knows how to differentiate between players, NPCs, minions, chocobo, and any number of other models. There is literally a setting already that limits the number of characters and unnecessary objects displayed on screen for people with low end PCs. Also, you can already turn off names selectively for all kinds of targetable models.
- a third party plugin already exists that can do this, although I don't use it. it is not so difficult to implement that XIV couldn't possibly do it officially, it just ISN'T
- the devs are overhauling lighting and making all instanced duties soloable and furthermore are looking to make the whole experience solo-friendly, which totally undermines the argument that the devs are/should be focused on the multiplayer experience
- also, afaik, the team that would be handling this feature isn't the team that handles designing multiplayer combat. The development resources don't overlap. "Your suggestion would take away from combat designers making more multiplayer content for us" isn't a valid argument. Your apple tree won't make apples faster by you trying to stop someone else from having an orange.

I truly don't understand why you're all taking such hostile, patronizing tones about this.

Hiding all players should be easy to implement. Aion is the game that can do this with a single press of the Scroll lock button.

I love the feeling of seeing a bunch of peple on screen, but it gets annoying especially when you're trying to click on NPCs. I have to say that I do wish this feature existed sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Tinder

Hiding all players should be easy to implement. Aion is the game that can do this with a single press of the Scroll lock button.

I love the feeling of seeing a bunch of peple on screen, but it gets annoying especially when you're trying to click on NPCs. I have to say that I do wish this feature existed sometimes.

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Aion's ability to reduce what was displayed from other characters w is a "semi-good" example- the reason that I say "semi-good" is that the only reason that I ever used it, or that I ever heard the vast , vast majority of people using it was because of people who had issues displaying the large number of other people's characters and their skills typically all together in one area - sometimes hundreds of people - so you could select to hide their names for example, and tone down other effects. so that your FPS would not drop to single digits. So it was really useful when used for that purpose. For myself, I hid this bound to Shift-F12 whenever I went into sieges so I kept my FPS up.

In this game if other people are hiding NPCs, you don't need to look anywhere for a solution, just use Ctrl-X and voila- there you go, you can see the NPC.

I've been wanting a feature like this for awhile in this game as well. You would think we'd already have one so people can get really immersed into the story and have no surprises ruined simply because others are going through the same story and happen to spawn a fight randomly in the distance. A handful of older games had a feature like this and it did wonders for many players in the past. Cut down on lag, allowed you to see tiny quest objects, actually be able to see an npc that wasn't swarmed by players (especially when the npc would be emoting to further express their thoughts).

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Aion's ability to reduce what was displayed from other characters ... you could select to hide their names for example, and tone down other effects.

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No need to look to another game

FFXIV lets you reduce the complexity of what you see other players, NPCs, and enemies do in System Configuration -> Graphics Setting, in the Shadows and the Movement Physics settings.

FFXIV also allows you to control the display of names in Character Configuration -> Display Name presets, which has tabs for Own, Others, NPCs and General. This includes the options to never show non-party non-alliance PC names, to only show them when that PC is targeted, and so on. Whether the full name is displayed or it is full or partially initialized is also controllable.

Other mmo's already have this ability, even mobile mmo's. So I don't see any reason to be against this.

You can already hide players in gpose. It's not that big a stretch. It would be nice to do this in Leap of Faith :)

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Originally Posted by MagicPeanut

For me, it's a Final Fantasy first, MMO second. I'm not a social person in general, so I'd just like the RPG part of MMORPG to be available as an option to me. I don't believe this request is that out there or unreasonable.

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It is entirely unreasonable. It's an MMO. A social genre. One of the points of it is talking to people, removing that from the equation so people can't even attempt to talk to others is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard.

We can already blacklist people, though, which mean not seeing what they write into chats. Within our own experience, we shut their message because it does not interest us.
I mean, to chime in for this "we are playing mmo and people ARE content! even those displeasing glamours by legion!"
My blacklist at least is shamefully crowded. I don't even have anything personal against most of those people, but spamming shout irks me to no end and I have determined to spare myself from that.
Thanks, if I start feeling unsmotherable feeling to visit all these nightclubs, I will seek you out on discord.
And if/when I have learned fr/ger/nl/?? I'll consider joining your FC.
But until then shoo.

Is this a yearly thread or something?

You think SE would make a version of XIV that's single player completely when this game dies? And if they did, would they keep the CC so you can still make your own WOL?

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

It is entirely unreasonable. It's an MMO. A social genre. One of the points of it is talking to people, removing that from the equation so people can't even attempt to talk to others is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard.

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My two cent on this topic :

Indeed it's a social genre, but bear in mind that it doesn't enforce you to be social (or only the bare minimum). Just you hang out with people from time to time (dungeons etc) or on the overworld, and you can talk to them, not have to (with some exceptions, aye). At best, it encourages social interaction.

I understand all too well why this request seems confusing and contrary to the genre. I feel the same.

But I also understand that some people playing the game for the gameplay, story and universe would want to avoid contact with other people because they are not comfortable around them.

Never hurts to ask if one feature could be implemented to ease ones experience, without impeding the others ?
I understand that some of us might feel like "some players just want to erase me from their experience" by rendering you invisible to them. Being ignore, or knowing that some people can ignore you completely, can be unpleasant, and I feel like this might be one cause of refusing this request (along with the "but it's MMO, not Solo")

In any case, I think it only boils down to "how many players will actually use this feature ? for how long ? and how much time and effort will we have to put in to implement it? and compared to the other features, is this a priority ?"

Play singleplayer games then. Resources are better used elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

Why do people always jump to this conclusion? "Oh you want to be left alone for a small amount of time while participating in activities that you can do on your own? Go play a single player game then."

If MMOs didn't want people to have options like these or privacy options to hide our online status, then they wouldn't include content in-game that players can play through own their own. It's not the end of the world just because someone decides they want some alone time.

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Exactly, peoples just have to be polarized no nuance allowed ! Because how dare you partially agree/disagree with me ? it's 100% or nothing !

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Originally Posted by MagicPeanut

For me, it's a Final Fantasy first, MMO second. I'm not a social person in general, so I'd just like the RPG part of MMORPG to be available as an option to me. I don't believe this request is that out there or unreasonable.

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Out there? No. Unreasonable? I mean, not really, but I do think it's a little bit stupid to play an MMO and then ask for a feature to take away what is literally the entire point of an MMO, exploring a world with other players. FFXIV does this whole MMO aspect pretty poorly imo, but it is still undeniably an MMO and you do agree to play the game with other people every time you log in. There is solo content, that's true, but it's all still within the larger context of an MMORPG. Also, like, seeing other people running around in a VIDEOGAME isn't you somehow being forced into being "social" lol. It's like, the absolute lowest form of social interaction possible. Not to be rude, but I really feel like it says something about you if you consider that to be too social

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

People emoting and otherwise trying to chat you up or interact with you. Do we not deserve a way to play without all of that if we choose to?

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I'm not saying you're lying, but I've been playing this game for like 5 years and I don't think I've had somebody try and start a conversation with me or interact with me more than once or twice in all of that time completely unprompted. Maybe if it was somebody I've interacted with before? Or if I was typing in shout chat or something, or MAYBE if somebody wanted to know where some glamour piece I'm wearing came from, but seriously, how often is that happening to you that it significantly detracts from your experience? Not to mention the fact that hiding players from your view wouldn't do anything to stop them from interacting with YOU, it's not like you'd disappear from their view as well lol. You'd still see the little chat notification that some dude blew a kiss to you or whatever awful thing you're terrified of experiencing.

Having an option for hiding players near important quest npc's will not magically make this game singleplayer. You people are reaching.

OP: People are resistant to ANYTHING that might take away their capability to force others to deal with them. Their excuses are about community and social feel.. but I haven't heard one good reason why someone shouldn't be able to customize their own experience and remove everyone else from it.

If someone doesn't want to have you around or "experience" your company they really shouldn't have to. The excuses about IRL you cant do this are pointless.. that's why this is a video game, real world concerns aren't valid.

If someone wants to play this game and can weather the forced instances and co-op elements along with the influence of others insofar as market board prices and competition for limited resources but does not wish to interact with the rest of the playerbase in any way, shape, or form otherwise? What does it take away from anyone elses experience?

This is an even more minor and non-impactful request than the glamour toggle thread that is getting blown out of proportion by zealous purists and narcissists.

I think if I want to turn off every other PC character in an area I should be able to for my own experience, PC performance, and convenience.


And to those who would rather the development time be spent on other things, YES.. same to all the junk I never use that y'all asked for and it happened. It's really always going to be a given that yes, others would rather have things they'd like worked on.

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Originally Posted by Derio

Honestly I would only use this option when a new patch drops so it doesnt feel bad when there are hundreds of people surrounding the quest NPC.

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I was coming there to post exactly this.
This feature would be great when doing the MSQ, imo.

The rest of the time I love seeing other players living their lives on Eorzea when I do my daily activities ^^

Depends on how they hide other player with said feature.

A couple of other MMO that I played in the past had a similar option:
- Aura Kingdom = Hides virtually every players from your view. They can see you if you’re around, you just can’t see them with this toggled on. The advantage is it reduces load time & the fps lag it imposes to most of lower end PCs at that time. Party members remains visible. In the 40-man raid, this also hides any non-party member and their skill effects.
- SMT IMAGINE Online = when toggled on, both sides can still see each other. But instead of seeing their character along with their clothing, what you’re seeing is replaced by a generic placeholder model. Like the former, it reduces load time & helps immensely when traversing through highly crowded zones at server peak hour especially. The only time you get to see the actual model is when the area is not too crowded or they are your party member.

Personally I’d love such feature, keep it as an option.

They are in dire need of this feature for Leaps of Faith GATE.

It's beyond comedic levels of ridiculous to allow that many players in such a small space.

Why even play an mmo then? This game is already borderline single player with how little it gets you to do things with other people.

There's so many games out there with a better story, SP experience, or even RPG elements than this game for cheaper. The thing that's supposed to keep you interested is the mmo part.

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Originally Posted by Restonance

Why even play an mmo then? This game is already borderline single player with how little it gets you to do things with other people.

There's so many games out there with a better story, SP experience, or even RPG elements than this game for cheaper. The thing that's supposed to keep you interested is the mmo part.

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I like to encounter people playing the game in an ordinary way on an ordinary day; if it's not new content, I like to see one or two other people doing the same content I'm doing by sheer coincidence. Even just people who are farming the same gathering nodes as me! That is the pleasant feeling of community I like to have from playing an MMO. But I do not like the massive crowds that make it extremely difficult to even target NPCs, especially because I'm one of the people who likes to talk to every NPC who doesn't progress the quest and see what they have to say. I want to be able to see their animations, too, which can be really hard on launch day! I also do not like to be unable to participate in jump puzzles because it's hard to see exactly where I'm standing and exactly where the edge of the next platform is during Make It Rain.

February live letter, YoshiP outright said they are trying to make it fully solo playable and allow people to enjoy the game either way. You can enjoy it as an MMO totally unimpeded by other people enjoying it however they want. I can see where it wouldn't make sense to some people, but it really doesn't impede your experience of the game as a multiplayer game at all, and it wouldn't be a difficult feature to implement.

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Originally Posted by Restonance

Why even play an mmo then? This game is already borderline single player with how little it gets you to do things with other people.

There's so many games out there with a better story, SP experience, or even RPG elements than this game for cheaper. The thing that's supposed to keep you interested is the mmo part.

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"wHy EvEn PlAy An MmO tHeN?" People are free to do what they want, dress how they want, but you people draw the line when someone wants some alone time. Let's be honest. A lot of people aren't very good company to begin with.

In this case, people just want to be able to see and enjoy the scenery better. There are very practical reasons for this, among them having fewer distractions when attempting something like Leap of Faith. I know I'm not alone in finding it irritating when I can't see what's in ahead of me through the very distracting crowd of people. Obviously, it's not something you want everywhere. You want to be able to see and be seen in any combat content.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Depends on how they hide other player with said feature.

A couple of other MMO that I played in the past had a similar option:
- Aura Kingdom = Hides virtually every players from your view. They can see you if you’re around, you just can’t see them with this toggled on. The advantage is it reduces load time & the fps lag it imposes to most of lower end PCs at that time. Party members remains visible. In the 40-man raid, this also hides any non-party member and their skill effects.
- SMT IMAGINE Online = when toggled on, both sides can still see each other. But instead of seeing their character along with their clothing, what you’re seeing is replaced by a generic placeholder model. Like the former, it reduces load time & helps immensely when traversing through highly crowded zones at server peak hour especially. The only time you get to see the actual model is when the area is not too crowded or they are your party member.

Personally I’d love such feature, keep it as an option.

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That is precisely what I was alluding to in my example, and that is why it was used in that other MMO - to reduce load time and FPS lag on lower end NPCs. Now imagine instead of a 40 man raid, you're in an area with 400 or 800 PCs or even higher, and they aren't static, they have battle effects plus environmental effects as well. The ability to easily toggle or save specific display settings and save them for specific occasions e.g. siege, single-player, raid, really improves QOL.

Would probably help people on decade old potato PC's not having to render other players too. I don't see anything against the option. I still want a toggle to default other players into their job gear so I don't have to see the jokey glams in serious cutscenes etc.

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

Would probably help people on decade old potato PC's not having to render other players too. I don't see anything against the option. I still want a toggle to default other players into their job gear so I don't have to see the jokey glams in serious cutscenes etc.

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That's what unending story is for. ;)

I would like such an hide player option macroable. So I can turn them off easily and on the fly when I see there's too many people on the same quest I'm on and can turn other players on again once I'm done talking to every NPC and looking at every piece of scenery I want to.
Even better if it were targeted similar to gpose, so I could turn off people (and their minions and mounts) not in my FC or friends or in my group.

It's nice seeing other people around, but not when there are ten people atop the NPC I want to talk to and see how they react or I react.

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

Would probably help people on decade old potato PC's not having to render other players too. I don't see anything against the option. I still want a toggle to default other players into their job gear so I don't have to see the jokey glams in serious cutscenes etc.

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You.. Don't want to have that discussion here. People have some INSANE arguments.

I wanna say there is a mod for that...but we all know that is all that can be said about it.

Some player's characters really fuck with my immersion, nothing to do with "Don't play MMOs then".

Why would you ever want to pay a subscription for a single player game? Thats literally what youre asking for. Removing all the other personal opinion stuff aside and looking at this from a business perspective im sure square would love to have you pay a subscription for their single player games but no self-respecting / Player-Respecting dev would ever allow that to become a thing.

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Originally Posted by TreuV

Why would you ever want to pay a subscription for a single player game? Thats literally what youre asking for. Removing all the other personal opinion stuff aside and looking at this from a business perspective im sure square would love to have you pay a subscription for their single player games but no self-respecting / Player-Respecting dev would ever allow that to become a thing.

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It absolutely is not what people are asking for. This is a change primarily proposed for parts that don't really matter and don't involve much play. Things like Leap of Faith, where it really is just a single player encounter, but you're stuck observing an unnatural flood of people streaming all over the place.

You don't even interact with the majority of these people on a regular basis, so what difference does it make? Why do you people have such an attitude about this idea which has nothing to do with being anti-social and everything to do with moving around more smoothly?

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

OP: People are resistant to ANYTHING that might take away their capability to force others to deal with them. Their excuses are about community and social feel.. but I haven't heard one good reason why someone shouldn't be able to customize their own experience and remove everyone else from it.

If someone doesn't want to have you around or "experience" your company they really shouldn't have to. The excuses about IRL you cant do this are pointless.. that's why this is a video game, real world concerns aren't valid.

If someone wants to play this game and can weather the forced instances and co-op elements along with the influence of others insofar as market board prices and competition for limited resources but does not wish to interact with the rest of the playerbase in any way, shape, or form otherwise? What does it take away from anyone elses experience?

This is an even more minor and non-impactful request than the glamour toggle thread that is getting blown out of proportion by zealous purists and narcissists.

I think if I want to turn off every other PC character in an area I should be able to for my own experience, PC performance, and convenience.


And to those who would rather the development time be spent on other things, YES.. same to all the junk I never use that y'all asked for and it happened. It's really always going to be a given that yes, others would rather have things they'd like worked on.

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Videogames can't and shouldn't cater to literally everything somebody wants, if you choose to play an MMO you choose to play a game where you will see other players, that's just how it works. I don't think you should be able to play an MMO with the MMO aspect turned off, it doesn't make any sense and ultimately adding a feature that makes the game less social will make the game worse over time. People complain about MMOs removing social aspects all the time, when you play an MMO you will be "forced" to interact with people to some extent, doesn't mean you need to talk to them, or interact with them in some meaningful way, but it's quite literally the entire point of the genre. Imagine playing a single player game and then complaining you can't click a box and see everyone else playing it.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

It absolutely is not what people are asking for. This is a change primarily proposed for parts that don't really matter and don't involve much play. Things like Leap of Faith, where it really is just a single player encounter, but you're stuck observing an unnatural flood of people streaming all over the place.

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I don't have a problem with them adding it for minigames like Leap of Faith, but I really don't know why you bring it up and then act like people are against it when that wasn't what the discussion was about in the first place.

To the people saying that hiding other players is literally asking for a singleplayer game, I do hope you have other player's battle effects on. After all, hiding things is anti-multiplayer!

From a business standpoint - If i told myself about a certain franchise that was made mobile recently and heavily monetized i would have laughed and said that would never work and people wouldnt play it. 10 years later thats exactly whats going on. Never underestimate a companies want to make more money off you if they can. In an MMO im not for hiding people because it leads to the idea of single player games having a subscription fee long term; we already saw that with googles attempt at a console - And if you think that idea is crazy and unheard of then once again all you need do is look at the lowest scored game via userscore right now as an example of how ideas that are unheard of become reality

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

Videogames can't and shouldn't cater to literally everything somebody wants,

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People are asking for an option that would effect nobody but themselves. If a feature can be added and not change the game for anyone else and in the process actually make the game run better, what reason is there NOT to consider it at least?

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

if you choose to play an MMO you choose to play a game where you will see other players, that's just how it works.

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Nnnope. I play several other games where my interaction with others , even so much as SEEING them, is very much under my control. An MMO isn't an MMO because you HAVE to interact with people, it's an MMO because many people are playing and you CAN interact. It's however it works and there is no law or accepted requirement that an MMO forces interaction at all times. This isn't all or nothing either. If I choose one day to be social but the next I want to take videos of strolling in populated areas but I don't want "buttnugget" the lala chicken-suiting around behind me because that's what he's decided to do today, why do I HAVE to have him there? There is no valid reason I should HAVE to deal with them.

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

I don't think you should be able to play an MMO with the MMO aspect turned off,

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you are welcome to think what you like, but it's akin to making other people eat steak on tuesdays because you think that tuesday IS cow-day. I.E. You are welcome to have your personal preferences but foisting them on others is not great.

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

it doesn't make any sense and ultimately adding a feature that makes the game less social will make the game worse over time.

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Why doesn't it make sense? I listed about 3-4 times it would make perfect sense with valid use. How would it make the game worse? Because you need people to be FORCED to interact with others? Because people who don't want to see you HAVE to see you so they'll interact with you?

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

People complain about MMOs removing social aspects all the time, when you play an MMO you will be "forced" to interact with people to some extent, doesn't mean you need to talk to them, or interact with them in some meaningful way, but it's quite literally the entire point of the genre.

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There is no law of MMO other than it needs to be multiplayer and a LOT of them at the same time. That is the NAME.. it is not a universal truth. Now considering what's being asked for here is an OPTION to turn off other players appearances when no interaction is normally necessary anyway and in fact would be detrimental to the experience (what benefit is there to the experience when on release days I basically hop from giant player clump to giant player clump and thank god that controller targeting picks NPC's first?) WHY MUST people experience that inconvenience?

I ask you in a TL: DR

What good reason do you have for objecting to this besides your personal value of "MMO= HAVE to play with others at all times"?

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Originally Posted by Kuritzkale

Imagine playing a single player game and then complaining you can't click a box and see everyone else playing it.

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Ahem.. souls games.

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Originally Posted by Lihtleita

im not gonna say you cant ask for this but its like ordering a cheeseburger and then asking if they can peel the cheese off for you

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More like asking for a cheeseburger with part of it having no cheese and then someone on the next table proselytizing to you that omg you can't call that ordering a cheeseburger.

im not gonna say you cant ask for this but its like ordering a cheeseburger and then asking if they can peel the cheese off for you