Raid frames for Healers

I started out raiding as a Scholar back when the game hadn't been out very long and the one thing that made me absolutely hate playing as a healer was being forced to use the standard archaic party list as my only option.

I'm a keyboard and mouse player and my preferred input method for healing across any mmorpg is to mouseover a raid frame of whoever I want to heal then just hit my <mo> macro to heal them up. With the party list right now how it is in ffxiv, not only does it greatly block your view, but it also increases the travel distance from one party member to another if you're a mouseover healer like myself.

Please, for all that is holy.. Give us RAID FRAMES! (not just for healers!)

I really wish I could use a variation of the alliance frames for my party frames; though status effects and resources would need to be visible.

Otherwise, I'd be happy if I could just split my party frames. I would rather have two columns of four that I could place side by side than one column of 8.

This would be a great thing for mods to handle, if SE had ever delivered on that promise >.>

My idea for raid frames in FFXIV:
*Available for 4 person and 8 person content alongside your standard party list.
*Offer a few basic variations of how you can choose to show these raid frames along with resizability.
*Allow full debuff and peronal buff icons along with full <mouseover> support.

*If those things are a stretch for the development team and/or if it would take alot of resources and time to add such a feature then simply allow us to use the Alliance frames for our 8 person content and shave off 4 slots to that exact UI element for 4 person content.

I personally don't need to see debuff icons and buff icons on my raid frames, I just want something with full mouseover support that I can discretely place near the center of my screen while keeping the standard party list all the way in the top left corner or to hide it entirely if I just want to use my filtered battle log instead.

Please give me some confirmation that my extremely important feature request will be personally delivered to YoshiP himself because it's single handedly the most important QoL improvement that can be possibly made and it will benefit every single job in the game. I sort of feel like a fool for even trying because I know in the back of my mind that this post will be ignored. Given my post isn't the best in the world but the desire for raid frames is too much to stop me.

Too add to this, it would be great if they could come up with some easy way to target alliance members using a controller... maybe when in 'raid frame' mode (with various options for when it is on / off) the d-pad (up, down, left, right) could be used to navigate it, as you would still have R2+R1 / L2+L1 for targetting enemies.

I'm a controller user in this game, but I used mouseover healing in WoW and it worked well for me. If it would be possible for the devs to put it in, it should go in. FFXIV generally does a fantastic job of creating player accessibility and this would only further enrich that reputation.

Raid frames are going to be extremely important in Stormblood for every single mouse and keyboard player. There's some awesome feedback thus far like even allowing gamepad users to have great uses for such an UI element along with control options on how they would access them.

I say this because most, if not every job in Stormblood is getting an ability that targets a party member like Goad for an example. The easiest possible method to target party members with such abilities is to have a small, out of the way raid frame somewhere near the middle of your screen that won't obstruct your view of the battlefield at all so we can quickly mouseover and use a beneficial ability on a party member.

I mentioned before that I would be okay with having Alliance frames for 4/8 person content but of course,. fully fleshed out raid frames with buff/debuff icons would benefit the largest amount of players. Best solution? slowly work on awesome raid frames and just enable the use of an UI element that's already within the game: Alliance frames.

I play as a Ninja and if I want to Goad, Smoke Screen or Shadewalker a party member I have to use a macro to target a certain party member because mousing over a party list all the way in the top left hand corner of my screen just isn't practical nor could I accept destroying the clean look of my heavily modified UI to move the party frame closer.

My macros:
*(Ctrl hotbar slots 2-6) Goad<2>, Goad<3>, Goad<4>, Goad<5>, Goad<6>
*(Shift hotbar slots 2-8) Shadewalker<2>, Shadewalker<3>, Smokescreen<4>, Smokescreen<5>, Smokescreen<6>, Smokescreen<7>, Smokescreen<8>.
With the addition of Crutch, I guess i'll probably have to make a macro that switches my Shift hotbar so I can use Crutch <2-8>. (Razer Naga user)

As you can see, I have no problem whatsoever targeting party members in this way but I wish all the time that I can just delete all these macros and use mouseover targeting instead to free up my hotbar space. I also want to play a healer at some point but this wouldn't be practical unless I use a bunch of different hotbars to have 7 macros for each healing ability as I refuse to use the standard party frame for targeting, raid frames are the only way.

Thanks to everyone who read and/or put feedback into this thread., There's not very many replies in relation to the views but i'm still hopeful that this feedback will reach YoshiP himself directly.

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Originally Posted by Adelaide3

With the party list right now how it is in ffxiv, not only does it greatly block your view, but it also increases the travel distance from one party member to another if you're a mouseover healer like myself.

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I must say I do not have this problem. Could you not just shrink the party frame? That would decrease the travel distance for a cursor.

Not saying I don't agree that some improvement can be made, just saying I don't have that particular problem.

As a healer I have two main problems with the ui.
1: the inability to change the number of rows and columns in the party pane
2: the focus target pane does not show the target of your focus. I used to heal in WoW and being able to see my focus target's target made me able to quickly react to unannounced tank swaps or a dps ripping aggro from the tank.

I played as a Scholar during Twintania era and shrunk my party frame and moved it closer. It was functional at a very basic level and I only used it to <mouseover> everyone besides my two tanks becuase the tanks got their own special macros for Lustrate, Physick and Adloquium. The entire time though, I never stopped thinking how stupid it was that there still wasn't raid frames in the game because it's simply one of the most important healer UI elements in any mmorpg.

This is something i've wanted in this game ever since the remake happened and I wanted and still want to play a healer again but I just can't bring myself to do it without raid frames.

For the unannounced tank swaps you can just move your target bar down a bit and see who's being attacked but it would be nice indeed if this functionality was added to the focus target bar too as not every healer uses <mo> so that's very good feedback.

It's been a year since I posted this thread and we still aren't even allowed to use the Alliance frames for 8 person content.

GG Yoshida.

A world of yes to this. I've just about got used to it for 4-8 man content but Alliance raids are still needlessly awkward.

I don't think it is a problem. Because you could <mo> and heal on party list even without click on them. The only difference is that it is slight longer than the one that WOW has. But given to the GCD is 2.5 seconds which you have more than enough time to play it upside down several times, so it is not a problem at all.

While I understand the issue, I figure the UI design team is a bit in awe of how to implement it properly. What we need to keep in mind is that HP, MP, TP, status effects and job icon need to be clearly visible and available in UI sizes from 60 to 200 %.

Alliance frames only displaying HP, job and main aggro is a design choice resulting from being unable to use abilities like refresh, tactician, goad, manashift, shirk etc on other alliance members.

Meanwhile I wonder why the parameters ( hp mp tp ) are still not splittable like how they did with status effects and target ui.

i think its just pc player problem, maybe but for someone, my problem is with controller to res anyone from other alliance, it would be better to be able to point player even if i am in battle stance because with touchpad on ps4 ... :D lol .. but it willl be nice these list with more wide desing

I don't even understand why this hasn't been adressed yet, we get QoL improvement every patch, and I'm grateful for that but very often they include stuff I didn't even know were an issue.

However this is something that has been requested since what? ARR?

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Originally Posted by Priya

I really wish I could use a variation of the alliance frames for my party frames; though status effects and resources would need to be visible.

Otherwise, I'd be happy if I could just split my party frames. I would rather have two columns of four that I could place side by side than one column of 8.

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Please dear lord, I need this. I just started this game as a healer (love it). But in 8 man dungeons I really want a 2x4 party list. And the ability to delete their MP and TP bar. I'm not interested in those. Maybe I will in Stormblood but right now they're clutter I never look at, taking up a big portion of my screen.

I'm really disappointed in the amount of UI customization there is in this game.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

This would be a great thing for mods to handle, if SE had ever delivered on that promise >.>

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I'd honestly rather just see one clean and wisely crafted (I know, our UI thus far doesn't have the best record in this regard) official version. I realize there's a long slippery slope between adding some mobs and WoW's complete dependence thereupon, but... I'd rather not even take the first step down it.

TP is basically not a thing anymore. So long as everyone AoEs and no one is under weakness or has their armor broken, our TP is sufficient for 99% of AoE packs we'd face. In single-target combat, it's a thing only for SkS-Samurai. That's it. Either XIV needs to make it a thing again, or they may as well remove it outright.

Apart from PLD (for whom TP is barely a thing), there's also no job that requires both an MP bar and a TP bar. So why are we bloating our party lists with that info? Split PLD's bar into two halves, and limit everyone else to just the one bar.

A 2x4 arrangement or split sets of 4 and 4 would also preferable to many.

Personally, I'd rather have my Alliance lists as further - though tiny - party bars, showing just job, HP, MP/TP, and maybe a tiny indicator showing how many enemies they're holding enmity on, flashing on a tank if they're losing control or on a non-tank if they're drawing aggro. Small icon similar to that of boss FATEs on whichever tank is holding the main boss.

And finally, I'd like to see in-line DoT, HoT (predicted for next tick and for total amount remaining in red for DoTs and blue for HoTs) and Absorb/Shield (in white) indicators. Between all that, I'd be plenty satisfied as far as the raid/party bars are concerned.

Past that, I'd just love to be able to be better able to see who's who or who's where on the minimap when in raids, though Wounded, Tank, and maybe Healer are probably the only additional additive color states you'd need.

EDIT: Actually I'd really like to be able to choose the direction of growth, too... (e.g. expand upward, rather than downward). That will be the actual last thing. Probably.

GRID will forever be my favorite style of raid frame.

Simple, to the point, customization for priority information.

Within a single box you can quickly tell (with some settings)

A) Health. The box fills according to health percent.
B) Incoming heal. (I set this in a corner)
C) Has a HoT on them (I set this in another corner)
D) Afflicted with a debuff. (In a corner for generic cases, BIG ICON on the box for important stuff)
E) Has agro (Red box in the corner)
F) Mp levels. (Frame around the box, color changes based on MP thresh holds)

It made keeping track of the status of 25 people real damn easy. Granted, you don't really need that in an 8 man, but I still miss the simplicity, especially as it took up so little real estate on the screen.