Wife's reaction to the UI.
Let me start off by saying, I love FFXIV and the core changes that have been made will keep me playing. You guy have done an amazing job getting this game to an entertaining state for me.
Some background on Myself and my wife:
I work in IT and have been computer literate since i was 12. (some 18 years ago.) So I have been gaming since my earliest memories. Dealing with minor issues with a UI or other problems such as latency or Runtime issues give me generally no problems and i work through them quickly.
My wife on the other hand uses a computer strictly for a professional capacity as an accountant, she excells in excel and word, other formats of business related software. She has been playing MMO's since Ultima Online and generally takes long breaks between MMOs. She also doesnt get as excited as i do when new ones come out. I would label her as a Casual Semi-standard MMO player and myself as a Hardcore MMO player.
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The good:
The game is beautiful and entertaining, Chocobo'ing around and airship travel have made the game insanely easier, and the content additions for NPC's and Quests have turned it into an entertaining time to play. The battle changes and class balancing have also added alot to the game.
The Bad:
Latency Sever side hits randomly and although it could just be a router on the way, it was too random from my wifes PC to Mine to be something local and/or ISP related. (traces and pings out to each hop seemed to be consistant.)
Major Bad:
The UI. My wife could not stand how the UI works. The "hidden" hotkey bar was just horrible for her to deal with. The time transition between combat and rest was annoying but able to be dealt with. however add those three seconds, to the 1-3 seconds to cast a spell/skill, added to the few seconds it takes to get the right target with the mouse, to the different "target selection/Lock" modes, made it frustrating for her.
This was what she could not stand, It was too complicated to do something that should be as uncomplicated as possible. this is what keeps my wife from playing with me constantly.
on a final note, The only other 'Issue" that we came across during our play time together was Auto Follow. She could deal with selecting the target, even locking on the target, but then to hold down Run forward and then auto run seemed a bit much.
Even this could have been dealt with if not for the fact that if i stopped for a second to "let her catch up" on my screen, then went again my char would disappear from her screen and then she'd break auto follow and run off into the distance forcing me to go chase her until she'd come back to her computer and stop.
In towns this was just horrible to deal with as well, i'd run around her character for a minute before i even showed up, and if she turned the camera or moved her character i'd poof again.
Her machine is an Intel 960, with 6 gigs of ram, win 7 64 bit os and an Nvidia 560 GTX. Not a slouch in the gaming world and shouldn't have these issues.
We are on a cable connection and during the poofing there was no latency and have a 20 down , 7 up connection.
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I know you guys are making vast improvements to the back end, and i really do appreciate all the changes you have made and are making, but something as simple as creating an easier to use interface would go a very long way in getting the people like my wife to come back and play.