Give Macros the Light of Day?

hey team! I understand the pressure that comes to macro building, but that doesnt mean we need them nerfed into the ground!

The 1 Second rounding slows down the cast times, and lowers overall DPS. I JUST WANT A CLEAN HUD! we should be able to use these macros for small strings, be it Cast Sequence, Cooldown Tier, or just a decimal Wait time!

If its such a big deal that people will use it as "Scripting", then lower the amount of lines you can use to 5! Ninjas need to be all the heck over their screen just to stay relevant. PLEASE LET US MACRO!

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Originally Posted by NightWolf04

Ninjas need to be all the heck over their screen just to stay relevant.

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What do you mean?

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Originally Posted by Rongway

What do you mean?

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I imagine mudras in particular, since it's fairly comparable to other jobs when it comes to DoTs and buff upkeep.

Though macro-ing that of all things would do nothing for a cleaner HUD. You regularly need Suiton, Katon, Huton and Raiton/Fuma. Right now you have Jin Chi Ten and Ninjutsu, so you'd have the same amount of HUD space taken up for 2 less ninjutsu at your disposal.

Maybe a cast-sequence of Kassatsu-Raiton? But that again doesn't save HUD space.

Macroing the combo ends to include the combo openers would save 2 slots. Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but I don't see how macros would save a lot of HUD space, only how they'd automatize inputs that aren't supposed to be automatized.

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Originally Posted by NightWolf04

hey team! I understand the pressure that comes to macro building, but that doesnt mean we need them nerfed into the ground!

The 1 Second rounding slows down the cast times, and lowers overall DPS. I JUST WANT A CLEAN HUD! we should be able to use these macros for small strings, be it Cast Sequence, Cooldown Tier, or just a decimal Wait time!

If its such a big deal that people will use it as "Scripting", then lower the amount of lines you can use to 5! Ninjas need to be all the heck over their screen just to stay relevant. PLEASE LET US MACRO!

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If you just want a clean HUD, perhaps you should trying to make everything as tiny as possible?

And every job has to manage 30-40 skills to stay relevant, NIN is no special snowflake in this regard. There is no need to make macros more accessable to combat or even allow scripting sequences.

Personaly i'm against every kind of automating any class/job mechanic like combos, ninjutsus, parallel pet GCDs etc.

qwq/ I started FFVIX and I'm 4 weeks in, the first advice I was given was to never never never use macros QAQ and I'm like whut???? qwq now I kinda wanna use them but have no clue because alot of people don't use it 0-09 but we can change this guys it was implemented into the game for a reason use it :3

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Originally Posted by KingWavy

qwq/ I started FFVIX and I'm 4 weeks in, the first advice I was given was to never never never use macros QAQ and I'm like whut???? qwq now I kinda wanna use them but have no clue because alot of people don't use it 0-09 but we can change this guys it was implemented into the game for a reason use it :3

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You are right they are implemented and can be used for fast communication with predesigned chat phrases or for complete rotations for crafters, but they are intentionally designed to not be usefull for scripting battle actions.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but I don't see how macros would save a lot of HUD space, only how they'd automatize inputs that aren't supposed to be automatized.

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Originally Posted by Legion88

There is no need to make macros more accessable to combat or even allow scripting sequences.

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I agree. When people request more refined macros for the purpose of NIN, the cause is almost always that their buttons are arranged Ten-Chi-Jin-Ninjutsu instead of Ninjutsu-Chi-Jin-Ten-Ninjutsu, and despite this requiring one more button (on a straight hotbar only; chotbar just needs Chi-Jin-Ten-Ninjutsu) it is superior in the input speed and accuracy that it allows.

Even when this is not the case, there is always a better solution that lies in the realm of improved button mappings or practiced input timings -- NIN players in particular sometimes benefit from slowing down so they don't skip or double their mudras.

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Originally Posted by KingWavy

now I kinda wanna use them but have no clue because alot of people don't use it 0-09 but we can change this guys it was implemented into the game for a reason use it :3

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Many of us who choose not to use them still know how to use them as effectively as they can be used; but the limit of effectiveness is quite low compared to the human alternative. This is intentional.

If you want to do brilliant thngs like automatically change buttons on your hotbar to the appropriate pet's attacks whenever you summon one, make a button that discards an arcanum without canceling a wanted buff by mistake, or drop all waymarks on a single point to emphasize a location, I and others would be happy to help you in the relevant role subforums.

However, native one-button skillchains will not likely, nor should they ever be, implemented to be as effective as human input.

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Originally Posted by NightWolf04

If its such a big deal that people will use it as "Scripting", then lower the amount of lines you can use to 5!

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Well, for one thing, a lot of crafters would be upset at that, since it would remove macros from crafting, which is one of the places they're widely used now.

Macros also reduce your effectiveness in crafting. In that case, it's not so much because of speed (though that's affected the same as it is in combat), but because they don't take advantage of changes in the material's condition. The result, though, is still that you're more effective crafting manually than through macros. The big difference between combat and crafting that makes macros more widely used for DoH is that crafters are frequently making things that are simple enough that they really don't need to be at their most effective. If you surpass a recipe far enough that you'll still HQ it even without the most effective skill use, then it's ok to macro it.

I suppose the same could hold true for macroing combat, if you limited those macros to only being for simple solo content and don't try using them in difficult content where you need to be more effective, or in group instances, where it's considered rude to deliberately gimp yourself (and therefore your team). If crafters are ok with having macros for simple recipes and still having all the individual actions for manually doing more complex recipes, I suppose you could do the same for combat jobs. Go ahead and macro your main combat rotation. Even though it's slow and less effective than doing it manually, you'll still generally win when soloing simple open world mobs. Just don't get too tempted to use it elsewhere.

People who can only see negatives to combat macros haven't played a game with a good system. Even WoW's macro system is miles ahead, and it is an amazing tool. Everyone uses combat macros, because they actually work. SE just refuses to give us a system without broken kneecaps.

Edit: as of when I last played WoW.

Alright, so as i thought, we have some elitists whining, and some fellow MMO players who have played well beyond FF14, and know the system im talking about
WoW uses cast sequence. A Rotation that goes through a list of skills, activating the next ability the next time you press it.
Rift uses Cool-down Priority, where it will go down a list of ability, and use the next one that isn't on cool-down.
Tera has the auto Combo ability. (Not even macro'd in) but you can macro different combos
and Aion Uses Macro Scripting, where you can script up to 4 abilities to be cast in sequence from a single macro.

FF14 implements NONE of these features, and has no real purpose for macros in the combat aspect of the game.

all I am suggesting is that they take at least one of these options into their macro system, to make it slightly more in depth, so that us casuals can enjoy the game more, and those who are willing to take the time to put the effort in, are rewarded.

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Originally Posted by NightWolf04

WoW
Rift
Tera
Aion

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This isn't one of those games, nor does it need to be.

Back to your original complaint, what do you feel is so difficult about NIN that you don't think you can do your job properly without having the game play itself for you?

I agree on the issue of macros, there are just so many buttons now they seriously need to allow us to employ them for no other reason than curing the button bloat - the irony here is ninja would benefit less from such a thing, and ast as well probably. Word is we won't be seeing any more come SB (to be honest, I am doubtful of that claim), but staying the same does not solve the issue either. You do not need to be stuffing about with 32+ buttons, that's just ludicrous.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

This isn't one of those games, nor does it need to be.

Back to your original complaint, what do you feel is so difficult about NIN that you don't think you can do your job properly without having the game play itself for you?

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You're right, it's not those games. But, you're allowed to take good ideas from other places. And a good macro system is a great one.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

People who can only see negatives to combat macros haven't played a game with a good system. Even WoW's macro system is miles ahead, and it is an amazing tool. Everyone uses combat macros, because they actually work.

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And that IS precisely the negative SE is trying to avoid — the fact that everyone ends up using combat macros. They have made a design decision that they don't want everyone to be using combat macros. This game's combat system isn't as fast as some, but it's more strategic instead. Automation limits that, and therefore detracts from the game's overall design. It's not that they (or those of us who support that decision) don't understand the alternatives and what they can do. It's that they don't want those alternatives.

The macro system here isn't weak because it was sloppily designed. It's weak because it was deliberately designed to be weak. The most obvious example is the /wait timing. That was originally developed with support for decimal numbers, but the macros were too powerful that way. So that decimal support was removed, making /wait work in whole seconds only, in order to make the macros slower. And that was done specifically to avoid having players use them for combat.

It's not as simple as just allowing .1 second interval wait times, as marcos still wouldn't work with the ability queue system (i.e. how you can press an ability half a second early and it will go off as soon as the GCD is up) and they're subject to lag, so short of re-building the marco system from the ground up, they are never going to be great for combat, and nor should they be...

While I do sometimes miss certain macro capabilities (and UI mods) from WoW, Rift, etc. I sure as hell don't miss the time it takes to set everything up just so I can play effectively... Are there some shortcomings in FFXIV that 'could' be fixed by awesome macros (and / or UI mods)? Hell yes, but I would rather they spend time making improvements to the abilities, combat, and UI that benefit everyone than waste time making a macro (or UI mod) system so that players can just automate everything and watch Netflix.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

You're right, it's not those games. But, you're allowed to take good ideas from other places. And a good macro system is a great one.

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You're right about taking good ideas from other places.

The problem with near every macro discussion we've ever had on the forums, however, is people arguing that we should have a better macro system with no better reason than "yyy game has a better macro system." Then when asked why we need a "better" macro system, they avoid the question by calling people whiny elitists and offer no argument beyond "XIV has too many buttons," and "it would be nice to have the button change to the next ability in the rotation."

The first complaint is really a complaint about the game's combat system, which, though it involve more buttons than some games, is a matter of design choice. This is not a two button shooter. Combat requires an elegant navigation of the keyboard or controller, playing chords, scales, and arpeggios, each trial or raid an arrangement of the fight in the party's key.

These two complaints in mind, surely people can see how requesting an immitation of the macro systems from other games just because those games have a more feature-rich macro system screams of either laziness or a lack of familiarity with one's job, neither of which can be fixed with a fully featured macro system.



In contrast, I offer this example from a different request thread

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Originally Posted by Alsar

Currently when using ground targeted skills you have to click them, aim them and then click again. This can be problematic as the game sometimes doesn't recognize it fast enough, especially when it's an oGCD like salted earth, when you're also clicking other skills in quick succession causing the skill not to go off.
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GW2 does this already as you can see here and it's extremly useful.

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where Alsar addresses what's wrong with the subsystem in question and shows how a different game's implementation eliminated that problem.



The macro system as it stands handles all the things it needs to.

• It can send quick canned messages: /p (Provoke)(Just used it.)
• It can accommodate different targeting styles: /ac (Aspected Benefic) <mo>
• It can swap in Pet- or Stance-dependent abilities: /hotbar action (Inner Beast) 3 3
• It can cancel specific status effects without risking right-clicking the wrong effect: /statusoff "Ewer Drawn"
• It can automatically activate DoL buffs that should be always on: /gs change 31 <wait.1>; /ac (Triangulate) <wait.1>; /ac (Truth of Mountains) <wait.1>; (Truth of Forests)
• At the cost of time effectiveness, it can select from a priority list of actions: /ac (Misery's End) <t>; /ac (Bloodletter) <t>; /ac (Heavy Shot) <t>
• At the cost of time effectiveness, it can perform series of actions.

Macro requests not in this list fall into two major categories: requests that address issues with a different subsystem (e.g., ground target abilities) and requests that address issues with players (e.g., one button gaming), and the latter category is far more populous than the former.

The reduced effectiveness of macro sequences is the price of convenience, and the devs levy this price with purpose.

In the other category, macro capabilities that allow us to work around the issues (such as the addition of a <ground> target) would be amazing, but ultimately they could be addressed better with changes to the affected subsystems instead (e.g., allowing ground abilities to activate on a second press of the ability button, so that nobody has to write a macro to take advantage of the feature).

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Originally Posted by NightWolf04

Rift uses Cool-down Priority, where it will go down a list of ability, and use the next one that isn\\'t on cool-down.

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Respectfully, the current macro system does this just fine if you set it up correctly. I use one for like buffs when tanking and the only issue is it only shows one icon, which isn\\'t a problem as I know what\\'s on it and in what order.

Fair warning, it would from HW, so it might need tweaking now and is not really ideal usage, but works for purposes of description:

/micon "Thrill of Battle"
/ac "Thrill of Battle" <me>
/ac "Convalescence" <me>
/ac "Bloodbath" <me>

This would let me use Thrill the first press, Convo on second press, and if Thrill is off cool down before I press it again, it goes again instead of bloodbath.