Please consider the consequences of 3.4 facing changes, and other persistent issues

From the Live Letter:

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Changes to Face Targeting System
The face target feature will become inaccessible while moving. This is in order to remove difference between different platforms. For casters, if the enemy moves your character will face the direction of the target’s current position. However, in situations where you need to face away from the target, players will not be able to simply turn around due to the auto-attack changes, therefore, you would either need to sheathe your weapon, or cancel targeting.

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I think this is a good opportunity to discuss or address a number of camera and targeting system issues I have encountered during my time playing FFXIV.

"The face target feature will become inaccessible while moving."

Does this apply to the interface setting "Automatically Face Target When Using Actions"? If so, please consider the consequences of this change.

Compared to other similar games, FFXIV has an uncomfortably narrow facing range in which actions are accepted for execution.

In most games I have tried, strafing away from a target while executing actions is possible because the qualification for 'facing target' is wide — usually somewhere around the frontal 180° of your character's 'hit circle'. Thus, if you can see the target on-screen, you can attack it.

In FFXIV, this qualification angle is uncomfortably narrow. Even if you seem to be looking directly at your target, or it is clearly on-screen while you are moving around, facing errors will constantly prevent execution of actions, even while strafing to keep the target in LOS.

As well, the relative sluggishness of the engine makes an alternative solution learned in other games — jump-spinning while executing actions — difficult to execute, and prone to erratic and inconsistent failures.

This necessitates enabling Auto Face Target to have practical and consistent reaction times while also addressing other battle mechanics, because Auto Face Target compensates for FFXIV's very narrow facing qualification by simply having the game itself adjust angle as necessary to fix the 5 or 10° gap stopping execution of actions that results from turning even slightly off-center during combat.

Removing or preventing Auto Face Target, even if only while moving, will very likely have the unintended consequence of increasing the DPS and skill gap during combat far more than the Auto Attack adjustments will reduce it.

There is no HUD differentiation between Range Error and Facing Error.

An attack that fails because you are slightly off-angle from the narrow facing qualification will still produce error text indicating the target is not in range.

This is confusing and slows down reaction time: Are you actually out of range, or just slightly facing the wrong way, or both?

Auto-Face Target unintentionally attempts to kill the character due to its interaction with Standard Camera.

Auto-Face combined with Standard Camera will turn the character, and then refuse to update their directional heading until a combination of button/mouse actions that I have yet to clearly determine despite a lot of experimentation.

An example is executing a GCD attack while moving out of an AOE ground indicator. If the angle of movement is 'wrong' relative to the target's position, Auto-Face will spin the character sufficiently that Standard Camera will now result in moving straight back into the AOE again.

This is very frustrating, and is not an issue under Legacy Camera, because Legacy (for whatever reason) constantly updates your heading. Any turning is instantly compensated by continuing in the intended direction.

Again, this is distinctly different from other similar games, where executing actions while moving does not drag your character in unexpected directions (in addition to working much more consistently, because of the wider accepted angle of execution for facing requirements).

Auto Face Target does not differentiate between Enemy and Ally targets.

Friendly actions do not require * facing, yet Auto Face Target still spins your character toward allies when executing helpful actions. This is unnecessary, frustrating, and unintuitive.

Just a handful of examples:

• Regen on the tank while moving out of AOE → sudden unexpected direction change → back into AOE.
• Everyone is running from Leviathan's Spinning Dive! This is a good time to Goad the WAR tank that is low on TP. → sudden unexpected direction change → back into Spinning Dive.
• Running up to boss during a SMN opener to put up Miasma 2 before Contagion → Activate Rouse+Spur while moving → sudden unexpected direction change → Now running toward instance entrance instead of boss.
• Gaze attack on any 'Look away' boss → Party HP is low, let's throw out a Rouse + Whispering Dawn → sudden unexpected direction change → hit by Gaze attack.

(Resolved in 3.4?) Legacy Camera cannot execute spell casts on moving targets that exit the narrow facing angle without spamming a macro or the Face Target keybind.

I'm including this here to note a positive change — this issue is apparently going to be addressed in 3.4, based on the comments about targeting changes.

Thank you. Every small positive change forward helps the overall comfort and fluidity of the targeting, camera, and battle systems.

Legacy Camera cannot use Left Mouse Button to pan the camera while moving.

There is a 'Look Behind Me' keybind, however a 180° fixed camera flip is not the same thing as fluidly LMB mouselooking while moving.

This functionality works while standing still in Legacy Camera, but breaks when movement begins, or attempted during movement (instead only changing your direction, as RMB mouselook functions in Standard).

LMB mouselook while moving ranges from simply a QOL feature (admiring the scenery while traveling between quest destinations) to actually being mechanically important (for example, deciding where to run for Divebombs in Bahamut Turn 13).

Legacy Camera cannot choose to backpedal (walk backwards) without executing an awkward key combination.

Pressing the 'move back' key in Legacy Camera results in the camera spinning 180° and facing the screen.

Some players prefer this, because it allows moving directly out of AOEs. However, when tanking I find this frustrating, because it makes adjusting packs of enemies or otherwise making careful positioning adjustments difficult without exposing my back (risking loss of Block, Parry, and Evade).

However, backpedal is clearly capable of functioning in Legacy Camera, because the (extremely) awkward combination of Left Strafe + Right Strafe + Move Back will override the spin functionality and instead backpedal like Standard camera.

A setting to choose how Legacy camera interacts with the Move Back binding would be appreciated. I personally have no use for the 180° spin, yet other players prefer it or rely on it, so I think it should be an option and not a universal change.

Claustrophobic zoom distance

I understand that limiting maximum camera distance is a designer choice in many different ways: it controls the visibility of character details, it controls how fight mechanics and awareness are intended to be addressed, it controls overall aesthetic presentation — etc.

However, I find the maximum zoom in FFXIV frustratingly limited compared to other similar games. Especially when viewing recorded battles of players using ultra-wide or multi-screen displays (or other less-sanctioned 'methods') to gain visual access to more of the battlefield at once, significantly increasing awareness of positional elements such as Towers, Bombs, etc.

Please understand, I very much enjoy FFXIV and the world of Eorzea — and even most of FFXIV's combat system, which I find deeper and more satisfying than many similar games. I have few true complaints and believe the experience is very rewarding, overall.

That is why I wish to see small frustrations and details like these further improved. The more FFXIV can refine its combat/targeting/camera systems, and increase their fluidity and responsiveness compared to other similar games, the more players FFXIV can draw in, satisfy, and keep.

While my complaints and criticisms do stem from extensive personal frustrations fighting with the camera/targeting system, they also are formed by my desire to see the world I enjoy continue to grow and thrive.

I play with legacy camera and find it perfect as it is right now. I never knew there was an issue with the face feature, quiet surprised this needed a fix to be honest. And I kind of see this change with fear. As it is described, having to untarget or sheathe our weapon in order to avoid attacks like doom or terror, will only bring more nuisance. I know sometimes we stop auto attacking when we turn our character a bit away from the target, but imo paying attention to how your character is performing and locking the camera should get rid of this. I will have issues now if I have to untarget and then move, and then retarget trying to find the one I was actually on within a crowd of enemies. I'd ask at least to give us the option to toggle this new feature, rather than imposing it on us who are after 3 years acustomed to work a certain way already.

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Originally Posted by Bebekurenai

I'd ask at least to give us the option to toggle this new feature, rather than imposing it on us who are after 3 years acustomed to work a certain way already.

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This, seriously. As it is right now, using legacy works almost perfectly in a number of ways. These sort of changes are just going to be an irritation for a good number of people, and especially for raids or bosses that have gaze attacks.

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Originally Posted by Bebekurenai

I know sometimes we stop auto attacking when we turn our character a bit away from the target, but imo paying attention to how your character is performing and locking the camera should get rid of this.

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It makes a noticeable difference for melees on controller hitting positionals - using lock on makes dodging aoes more difficult, so optimal dps requires constantly enabling/disabling lock on. Plus dps loss when having to move the boss, even if you go chase it. I for one am looking forward to the change. Retargeting isn't that difficult.

To be fair: Legacy works fine because we played with it in 1.x
Most new players i talked with do like the normal one better

The Problem is that the combat system was designed more complexity - each class had its own "damage Advantage"

Legacy camera mode is something I've never felt comfortable on with controller, although it does allow easy strafing, it changes base movement and zoom.

It seems very few players seem to use it, as I very rarely catch anyone walking sideways or backwards despite it's utility in combat.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

Legacy camera mode is something I've never felt comfortable on with controller, although it does allow easy strafing, it changes base movement and zoom.

It seems very few players seem to use it, as I very rarely catch anyone walking sideways or backwards despite it's utility in combat.

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I think you misspoke? Legacy does not allow for strafing on controller. "Standard" under movement settings is what allows for controller strafing. I did use this for a considerable amount of time starting with T9 of coil because someone who played on KB/mouse gave me crap about not having as many auto attacks. I used this instead of locking on the target because I can't stand target lock, it does weird things with the camera and distances to a mob. And even though I used it all the way through T13 for fights I would always change back to legacy for other things. The main thing I didn't like about Standard is the slow back pedal. If you moved at normal speed I would use this more for fights even though I don't have to since brd rarely to never auto attacks. But still prefer legacy.

Maybe I'm mixed up, I'll have to check my settings later.

I am quite afraid of this change and I am not sure how much it will affect me but I felt like it was completely fine untill now and heard nothing even from people who use controller and raid.
Legacy movement user here. ^^

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

I am quite afraid of this change and I am not sure how much it will affect me but I felt like it was completely fine untill now and heard nothing even from people who use controller and raid.
Legacy movement user here. ^^

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A lot of players don't see the value of auto attacks. As a monk, it was shocking for me to be told that at least 25% of my damage comes from auto attacking.

The issues with casting against nearby moving targets apply to more than just Legacy controls. If an enemy passes through my hitbox, requiring a 180* or so turn, I cannot humanly hit Face Target quickly or frequently enough to prevent immediately interruption. Luckily, aiming the camera manually gives a little over a half second to re-aim before automatically cancelling the cast, which is what I'm then forced to use in these situations.

More broadly on topic:
This may be wishful thinking, but it sounds to me like we'll simply be playing with constant Face Target being active whenever we're stationary. Without that, I don't see how Dragon's Gaze or Doom eye mechanics, etc., would be an issue, if those were also mentioned. (I only remember hearing Blighted Bouquet mentioned in the LL, which I thought was triggered by performing any action, including movement or character turning, during the cast.) What I worry about is any lost functionality of the Auto-Face feature, imperative especially to attacking while moving out of a hitbox or away or at strafe from the target (usually mid-jump with the camera held down in my case, to prevent auto-turning). Even if I were the most avid of PvPers, vastly tired of seeing WARs auto-parry attacks from all sides during Raw Intuition even while running backwards (facing you and running away without the backpedaling speed penalty) via hardware macros, it wouldn't make up for what I'd be losing everywhere else — assuming PvP itself would still feel playable on my melee with latency already requiring use of mid-jump auto-faced attacks just to score a hit on someone running within my hitbox as a melee...

If everything somehow works out, I feel like this could be a nice aesthetic bonus. My ranged attacks will no longer be awkwardly facing away from the enemy during movement (or at any time I'm not spamming Face Target, really). But I can't help but think that if Face Target simply weren't automatically cancelled by any other action (except movement facing out of the 75 or so degrees to either side of the target) and a small internal cooldown were added to the Face Target command to prevent Facing 'exploits' in PvP, this could have been solved a lot more easily.

I dislike backpedal a great deal. It seems the only effect it has is to get people hit by aoe. It is not a useful feature and it should be removed from the character based camera.

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Originally Posted by Train88

I dislike backpedal a great deal. It seems the only effect it has is to get people hit by aoe. It is not a useful feature and it should be removed from the character based camera.

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I think backpedaling was there so that tanks can reposition mobs without showing their backsides.

I've tried both legacy and standard, and while they both have pros and cons, legacy just feels more natural to me in terms of game flow. With standard I like how you get strafe without locking on, but I hate the slow black pedal. With legacy, I love the quickness, helps with reactions, but dislike the fact I can't strafe with out lock on. Though as a BRD, I no longer have auto attacks, so I'm interested in seeing how this will actually play into my class.

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Originally Posted by Train88

I dislike backpedal a great deal. It seems the only effect it has is to get people hit by aoe. It is not a useful feature and it should be removed from the character based camera.

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As a tank, backpedaling is great, it allows me to be precises about boss positioning, and means that I can move about slightly without affecting the bosses movement. If you play on M+K and standard type controls, what I do to avoid backpedaling is I turn 90 degrees and strafe, meaning that I get the speed of the strafe, while also having a better view of what is "behind" me (i.e. the boss) without awkward looking behind me while moving forward scenarios. It also means that you can move forward and backward (in this case left and right from characters perspective) at the same speed (for mechanics like T5 divebombs).

didn't know people DIDN'T play with legacy camera/controls ...

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"The face target feature will become inaccessible while moving."

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Won't this impact casters? More cutting your nose off to spite your face would not hurt at this point.

These are the battle system changes we need! /s

how ppl can play ANYTHING but legacy is beyond me....with legacy there is no way to "backpedal" , u run at max speed no matter what...and can turn around just presing S ...is fast comfortable

0 issues as tank melee or anything ....and as ranged is awesome too (using autoface when using skills of course)

Removing this is making lots of players angry just because..... ???

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Originally Posted by madolyn

didn't know people DIDN'T play with legacy camera/controls ...

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After 16 years of MMO gaming on games that use the traditional camera, it's hard to get into "legacy"

I think it's kind of idiotic that we'll need to physically sheathe our weapon to avoid being hit by an attack... There has got to be a better way to do things that feels less clunky...? *looks at all the other tab-target styled MMOs*

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

how ppl can play ANYTHING but legacy is beyond me....with legacy there is no way to "backpedal" , u run at max speed no matter what...and can turn around just presing S ...is fast comfortable

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It's called strafing. No need to backpedal when not using Legacy controls.

Why wasn't this just an option, instead a force change on everyone?

So pretty much if X enemy cast(front fatal, petrification,etc) I can't just turn around anymore, I have to put away my weapon or unselect the target and turn around.

This change is all because of pvp glitchers

I'm fairly sure this change is both in part due to pvp as well as melee dps (like monks).

That seems like it'd be 100% counter to what they're going for though, which is to make it easier for people to dps. Why would they make Autos easier to hit while at the same time making it harder to hit your actual skills? There's no chance they're doing that, since it would mean all the classes would still have to face mobs 100% of the time or possibly end up delaying GCDs, so we'd be in the exact same boat we are now.

No, I personally believe it only applies to /facetarget because the other option wouldn't accomplish what they're trying to accomplish.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

how ppl can play ANYTHING but legacy is beyond me....with legacy there is no way to "backpedal" , u run at max speed no matter what...and can turn around just presing S ...is fast comfortable

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I can't handle legacy. I am too used to strafing at will. I never backpedal because I strafe left/right and turn the mouse to "back up" if needed. And I actually LIKE the slow backup for certain situations, like if I just need to take a step or two to move out of an AE, but the AE is smaller than attack range, moving slow will keep me in range easier.

Everyone has what works for them. Heck most people think I'm bizarre for having all my movement hotkeys on my mouse, because WASD was never, ever comfortable for me. But you wouldn't know it to see me in game, I can be quite nimble with how I have things set up.

The idea is it's making actual attacks far easier to accomplish.

I messed with this a bit last night, and simply hitting circle button was all it took to deselect a target to turn away on PS4. Is it that much harder on mouse and keyboard?

"you would either need to sheathe your weapon, or cancel targeting"

This is already true right now for gamepad user. If I'm targeting a boss while he cast a turn-away kinda spell I will get hit by it even if I'm not looking in his direction.

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Originally Posted by Naunet

I think it's kind of idiotic that we'll need to physically sheathe our weapon to avoid being hit by an attack... There has got to be a better way to do things that feels less clunky...? *looks at all the other tab-target styled MMOs*

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I'm pretty certain Bayohne messed up the translation. In several early translations of the live letter it seems that Auto-attacks were not going to effect how to dodge Gaze attacks while "stand still to dodge attacks" like Blighted Bouquet would now require detargeting/sheathing when they used to only require turning away to stop the auto-attacks.

I always felt that melee jobs not constantly having auto-attacks was just how it was balanced but they've made it obvious that's not the case.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

I messed with this a bit last night, and simply hitting circle button was all it took to deselect a target to turn away on PS4. Is it that much harder on mouse and keyboard?

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Nope, just push Z to put weapon away or mash the ESC key like I've always done.

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Originally Posted by Velox

After 16 years of MMO gaming on games that use the traditional camera, it's hard to get into "legacy"

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After 11 years of MMO gaming in which pressing S makes my character turn to the camera and run away at full speed in pretty much any MMO, it's hard to understand how anyone could want something different ;)

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Originally Posted by Naunet

It's called strafing. No need to backpedal when not using Legacy controls.

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Yeah, with all those circle AoEs all the way around the mob strafing will REALLY help me evade that AoE..:rolleyes:

No, I get it, everyone has different preferences (even if those are completely weird to me) and that's fine :)
And I like that now I won't have to worry about not hitting my auto-attacks on NIN when I run away. But it makes me worry about any and all "don't look at/attack the enemy now!"-moments .-.
Good thing I mainly play mages and BRD, which all don't have an auto-attack anyway xD

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Originally Posted by Atoli

Good thing I mainly play mages and BRD, which all don't have an auto-attack anyway xD

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Hoo boy, don't bring that up. I got laid into in another thread on melee range auto-attacking on mages for finding it ridiculous to require squishy characters to stand on top of mobs for the pitiful DPS it adds to keep auto-attack up, despite the simple fact you can't auto-attack while casting magic!

It was short of calling us names for playing it safe verses "moar deeps!" >.<


Also, I was leveling archer this weekend, and auto-attacked from a distance. Not sure if songs or, at least, WM turns it off. Might want to check that.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

The idea is it's making actual attacks far easier to accomplish.

I messed with this a bit last night, and simply hitting circle button was all it took to deselect a target to turn away on PS4. Is it that much harder on mouse and keyboard?

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It's not that it's much harder or anything, it's more the fact they're putting extra steps into a mechanic in order to avoid it. Having to detarget, put your weapon away, and turn around makes the whole process more cluncky vs the old way. And as people are saying, this change is related to issues in pvp, it's a nonfactor in pve, and as a caster, highly pointless because I don't even auto attack anymore.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

I got laid into in another thread on melee range auto-attacking on mages for finding it ridiculous to require squishy characters to stand on top of mobs for the pitiful DPS it adds to keep auto-attack up, despite the simple fact you can't auto-attack while casting magic!

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Any caster who stands still enough to even hit an auto-attack at all during any fight is bad anyway. Like you said, you can't do it while casting. Standing still and not casting is the worst that I could do.
So please, what DPS loss, my DPS is at it's highest when I never stop casting at all >->
(not to mention how many more casts need to be dropped or pushed back to evade additional melee AoEs...)
Some people are just weird and not logical in what they want from you...

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

Also, I was leveling archer this weekend, and auto-attacked from a distance. Not sure if songs or, at least, WM turns it off. Might want to check that.

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WM: "Increases damage dealt by 30% while ceasing auto-attack and adding cast time to all archer and bard weaponskills." :)