Option to Remove the Circle Image on Skill CD

I am content with it how it is now. However the perfect cooldown timer for me, has always been a darkened icon about 65% darker than normal colorization. Then a big numbered countdown in the center.

All I really wanted was a completely grayed out icon until the ability was actually off cooldown. I'm ok with the timers as is but the circles on everything is a little much.

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Originally Posted by zeth07

All I really wanted was a completely grayed out icon until the ability was actually off cooldown. I'm ok with the timers as is but the circles on everything is a little much.

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Not little... it's extremely too much to distract you on the screen.
First looking - cool, quite like it.
During battle - shit... all circles, and more circles on ground to dodge...
After 2 days - this circle better can be off... too annoying to have on screen...

When I read on Hiroshi's replied... Memory Limitation? Memory on our PC or his PC ? I don't get it... then... I stopped reading further on the wall of text. >.>;

Took me a bit, but about <Looks at watch> two days into the patch I can already ignore the "Circle Swoops" and have started focusing on the numbers themselves since, to be perfectly honest, I have as much trouble seeing the swooping animation in the new UI as I did in the old one. So the Cast Timer Numbers are the biggest help to me.

Now if there was just something that could be done about the "Color Blind Unfriendly" parts of the HUD and UI it'd be perfect. (I know, I know, always something. But hey, even if it'll never be "perfect" good enough is still an option)

I don't like the circles at all. They're distracting and straining to the eye. I like the little number countdown in the corner, but as has been already mentioned, would prefer a simple overlay in the center instead.

It's also interesting you had a 90% approval on this when, given the responses here, it would seem the opposite to be true. I know we can't go off the forums to reflect a majority of players, I'm just saying.

Funny about limitations, when you mouse over any skill and have active the item/skill tooltip you have a number countdown that tells you how many seconds you need to wait before the skill is ready to use again. You just had to apply that countdown, not this whole flashing circles.

Also logically when something isnt available why do you make it flashy? it should be the other way around, turned off, not flashy with a circle spinning. Oh man these UI designers nowadays..

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

so tl;dr : PS3 limitations?

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Like I said before. Just about every problem this game encounters you can almost guarantee it'll get stonewalled with one of three of their favorite excuses: PS3 limitations, server limitations, or SE won't let us use our own money.

It was an interesting read, but even knowing the effort being put into it the circles are still quite annoying. The little numbers in the corner are okay, but I'd really like to be rid of those circles.

Whoever your testers are.... they need to be replaced.

This is horrible UI design in general. Too much going on, circle, Greyed time animation thing, and countdown..... ffs. Could have just made the original cooldown animation darker and put the countdown in the center. Everyone would have been happy.

Did anyone even ask for these horrible circles ? Are they giving in to maybe 0.1% of the population? I have eye problems too and other problems that make this really bad on the eyes. Remove it to make it an option . UGH

Are people having this much trouble adapting that a dev had to step in and explain the decision making behind this all the way to it's technical aspects? Holy f... how about we all give it a few days to even try adjusting to it first?
Who knows, maybe the current design benefits new players more than appeasing some of us who refuse change because it's the easy way. As anyone who has worked a bit on his UI weeks after playing on default can tell you: even small changes which will definitely improve the experience later on will make it harder to play... for a while. Give. It. Time.

tl;dr: Get good and stop saying 4:3 is better than 16:9.

I'm in the camp of liking the new design. On the old design I would often click a skill, then click again thinking I missed click just to realize it wasn't ready yet. In this new design all I have to do is make a cursory glance across my bars to see what is ready, and in the case of a full circle just a quick glance to see how much time is left for it to be ready. My eyes are free to pay more attention to the the party bar for skills and spells to help the party as well as watching the enemies' cast bar. This design has really freed up my eyes for other use and allows me to plan my skills better during fights.

I really like the circles, but based on the responses here, my opinion isn't a popular one. This should become an option.

Getting good has nothing to do with this.
Motion and light changes can literally draw unwanted attention and disrupt focus for some people. This was for all intentions and purposes, feedback, even the dev was welcoming it. I doubt anyones refusing change...
Git gud and stop making assumptions.

Here's what I love about this debacle:

1. They wanted to make things easier to see, esp. for people with visual problems so they added the white circles.
2 But now the white circles flash a lot...which makes it harder on some other people with other visual problems (like problems with strobes).
3. They added a toggle countdown timer anyway...

...so why didn't they just keep old icon w/ new toggable countdown overlay as an option?

I skimmed the dev post...look I get everything eats up resources...but could you maybe consider, if you can't change it otherwise, making the circles NOT WHITE? I'm not 100% sure what color would be easy to notice, but not taxing on the eyes...maybe even just shade them gray a bit...but part of the 'flashy-ness' is the white color.

-Signed

Someone that doesn't do well with constant strobing effects.

I'm in the "10%" (in quotes because I have a feeling it's more than 10% who don't like the change). I absolutely hate the new recast timers. It's very distracting. If given the option, I'd want it to return to the way it was before. Now it's just convoluted and confusing.

As a healer, I was able to keep track of what was on cooldown before, because they were the icons that looked different than the rest. Now everything is just moving with circles on them and I can't see because of all this garbage in the way.

I like the circles and numbers, would it have been nice to have it in the middle? Sure. Do I need it? No.

"It's really distracting" If circles spinning at the bottom of your screen is distracting, you should probably think about controlling your ADD.

"It hurts my eyes" Its white and grey, and on the side of the screen, pay attention to the middle.

"It makes it hard to see what skill it is" You put it on the hotbar in that spot, but you don't know what it is?!?!

It took me a while to get used to the new design with cooldowns, but i like it now and am fine with it.

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Originally Posted by IAmPotent

you should probably think about controlling your ADD.

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Control that ADD! Heard him guys?! TAME THAT ADD! TIE IT DOWN! SHOW IT WHO'S BOSS!!....lolwat?

Personally I really hate the change. I really don't think there would have been threads being made after the patch asking why a change like this wasn't implemented. It's pretty unneeded, but the fact that this change was made isn't really the problem. The problem is not being able to revert back to not having those circles.

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Originally Posted by IAmPotent

"It makes it hard to see what skill it is" You put it on the hotbar in that spot, but you don't know what it is?!?!

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There are 12 battle classes, 8 crafting classes, and 3 gathering classes in this game. Do you have all their abilities committed to muscle memory?

Anything that makes elements of the UI harder to see is not an improvement.

Personally, I find the circles raaather obnoxious.

I don't know about you guys, but my attention tends to be instinctively drawn towards things that move and things that are bright, something I'm probably not all alone with, considering modern age advertisements like to use bright flashing lights to draw attention and most games darken skills on cooldown.

That said, I'm okay with circles on principle - but make them dark circles. As it is, skills on cooldown draw more innate attention than skills that aren't and that is, uh...a little bittle counterintuitive.

I don't find it annoying personally but I find it's not necessary. More than the circle countdown, the numeric timer on the skill icons themselves is a massive improvement. The skills already used to turn grey when on cooldown and the image would cycle back around until usable again. I don't know why they didn't just keep that and make the number for the timer bigger.

I thought the issue in the first place was that anything apart from a numeric value was not accurate enough to be useful. Why did they make the number so small? That's the most odd thing to me.

I would like the option to change the color of the Circle. The new Recast Timers are awesome and makes it very easy to know when an ability is almost up. I would've been fine with 1.0's recast timers but this is good enough for me.

The perfect solution has been suggested back in 2013. It boggles my mind that they still don't get the hint. Here is the opening post to a great thread. The third bar shown combines clockswipe motion and big numbers, making it look intuitive and accurate at the same time. They could even put a clockswipe behind the countdown. Please fix it SE. I'll give up idle camera, autoattack marker and group pose to free up memory for this.

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Originally Posted by Kikosho

I would like the option to have numbers displayed for all abilities on the hotbar to make it easier to know when the ability will actually become available. As it is right now, the clockswipe doesn't actually tell me when a skill will be ready, only that it isn't available and it'll eventually be ready.

Another issue with the clockswipe is that on certain abilities, Raging Strikes being the prime suspect, whenever the ability is close to becoming available, the clockswipe becomes indistinguishable and the ability looks like it's actually ready when in fact it still has 10 secs or left to go. The numbers for cooldowns already exist ingame as we can see when we hover our mouse over the skill:

http://i.imgur.com/LnpusAs.png

I would like something similar to the below picture. Top hotbar is how it is currently, middle hotbar is the option I would like to see implemented. The third hotbar shows how GCD skills keep the clockswipe while long cooldown skills use numbers.

http://i.imgur.com/v40r9aW.png

FFXIV 1.0 had the numerical cooldowns along with clockswipe as well.
http://i.imgur.com/6ku8D2Q.png

Edit: Adjusted the image a bit.
Edit2: Added 1.0 image

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Personally, I find the circles raaather obnoxious.

I don't know about you guys, but my attention tends to be instinctively drawn towards things that move and things that are bright, something I'm probably not all alone with, considering modern age advertisements like to use bright flashing lights to draw attention and most games darken skills on cooldown.

That said, I'm okay with circles on principle - but make them dark circles. As it is, skills on cooldown draw more innate attention than skills that aren't and that is, uh...a little bittle counterintuitive.

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You are not alone with it, but the reason we are drawn to bright moving things isn't because of advertising. It's vice versa: the reason why advertisements have bright moving things are because we are naturally drawn to it. Test with any baby. To draw our attention with 20 white circles when we can't use them is stupid. Just look at the hotbar in the picture I quoted. What do you look at first? I would expect the brighter colorful icons, which is good because they are the ones available.

Main reason why people find it distracting is because it's new and unfamiliar. Like the first time you see a white mage cast holy, RIP eyeballs.

I can get behind toning down the circles a little by fading them further. But it upsets me to see the overeaction towards something that will very likely feel like a natural upgrade if you give it a chance. Like some are saying this new method allows you to scan the status of long cooldown skills with a glance or from your peripheral vision.

And if you think the general opinion is that this new feature is bad just by reading this thread keep in mind that people against something are always the most vocal. If you think my opinion is harsh consider it the coinflip to those who say "It's bad! Burn it".

Edit: I can get behind what Reinha is showing. Though it seems centering the numbers is a no go, but maybe increasing the current fontsize would be ok. Still, I find the current change better than nothing.

I see no reason to not have it be a toggle in the menus like the rainbow sound bar things for the deaf. I love the addition of the numerical timers for cooldowns but agree the circles are a bit annoying.

I like new circle animations. Made much easier to keep track of ready to use skills.
WHM and SHC from my FC like them too..

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Originally Posted by Reinha

You are not alone with it, but the reason we are drawn to bright moving things isn't because of advertising.

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I didn't mean to imply that, but thanks for clarifying either way :P

+1 for hope...

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

There are 12 battle classes, 8 crafting classes, and 3 gathering classes in this game. Do you have all their abilities committed to muscle memory?

Anything that makes elements of the UI harder to see is not an improvement.

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And I don't see how having a big number above a grayed out icon make it easier to read either.

I like it the way it is now, but if I would want a change, it would be to make the white circle a little less bright (as proposed by the dev) and bigger, so the circle is nearly tangent to the icon border.
This way, we could have a better vision of the skill "behind" the circle.

EDIT : missed the quote.

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however, due to memory restrictions, we cannot hold data for two types of animation

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Really? Memory restrictions preclude you from having one OR another animation in use at any given time? If you change the setting and remove one from main memory you can then load the other. Only one needs to be in main memory at any point in time. I don't think people who don't like the new animation want to mix-and-match so a all or nothing swap would suffice.

Now, if you meant "storage" then tell the PS3 kids to get bigger hard drives.

Judging by this thread, it doesnt seem that 90% of players enjoy this.

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Originally Posted by MrTherm

Judging by this thread, it doesnt seem that 90% of players enjoy this.

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There's always threads about something new added to the game. Look at when TP bar was added... It's best to let people get it out of their systems and vent now.

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Originally Posted by MrTherm

Judging by this thread, it doesnt seem that 90% of players enjoy this.

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The forums are a small minority. Plus people who are enjoying it aren't going to come here to comment, they are most likely probably just playing the game.

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

The forums are a small minority. Plus people who are enjoying it aren't going to come here to comment, they are most likely probably just playing the game.

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exactly this.

I hate the change, but - I'm not hearing much dissent regarding it in general, linkshells, etc. It seems to only really come up if someone mentions it, and while most people will agree it's not ideal, most people just sort of deal with it. Just like when SE changes AoE circles, there's always a set of people who disagree with it, but eventually we get used to it.

I think it's a cute change. At first I was like wtf but I came to like it.

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Originally Posted by Aura_Shurifon

And I don't see how having a big number above a grayed out icon make it easier to read either.

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http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31ox3RPiJFL.jpg

analog. or digital is the thing

when u are looking at TIMERS ,in FFXIV case u are dealing with lots of cooldowns, what u do prefer?

is way faster and simple to use digital than a circle...im fairly sure that more than this "10%" would prefer watching digital numbers instead....

example:

http://brgprecision.com/phpinclude/t...0indexpage.jpg

http://webscripts.softpedia.com/scre...ocks-26223.png


in the game we have the CD timer small in a corner and a big white circle in mid , the same thing kida happened in swtor at release , the cds were distratcing , they even included the GCD on all the skills it was so annoying, that devs was forced to give options to players to remove the gcd animation, and for timers (dark background-light CD , light-dark , dark-dark , light light) , plus digital numbers on mid.

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Originally Posted by FallenArisen0990

There's always threads about something new added to the game. Look at when TP bar was added... It's best to let people get it out of their systems and vent now.

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The majority were disagreeing with that person from what I can recall, not the case here.

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Originally Posted by sanosuke001

Now, if you meant "storage" then tell the PS3 kids to get bigger hard drives.

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By 3.2 the low capacity release PS3's are already screwed unless updated. Mind that the PS3 has a meager 256MB of both system and graphics memory. That wasn't much a decade ago, and still isn't much. This option might just be the drop that spills over.

Wait a second ! If they can make a slider bar for the lighting in the houses , Why can't you make a slider for the lights in the dang horrible circles ?????