New performance UI, your thoughts?

So with 4.2 out, I've only gotten a small session of trying out the new performance UI (as well as other things). I'm curious to know what you guys think of it. Here's a list of things that I've taken notes to (no pun intended). Note that all of this is still very new so things are subject to change.

Pros:
-Very responsive, no more delays between inputs (could use more testing). Playing faster songs are more accessible.
-4 different instruments to play (still playing the harp visually).
-No longer taking up slots in hotbar.

Cons:
-Octaves are separated so not all keys are shown like a keyboard would.
-Swapping octaves are locked with 3 keys: CTRL, Shift, and ALT.
-Still can't press keys simultaneously (not a real complaint for me).

Suggestions:
-Let us pick the keys that will swap the octaves.
-Have all keys in all octaves be key-bindable

I would like at least a basic animation for the new instruments. Always de harp is too boring.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

I would like at least a basic animation for the new instruments. Always de harp is too boring.

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They didn't add visuals for the other instruments? That's so lame..

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

They didn't add visuals for the other instruments? That's so lame..

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My roaming band fantasy is now dead... I am sad.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

They didn't add visuals for the other instruments? That's so lame..

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Yeah an inflatable piano animation would be neat. :D

Personally I find it sad that there is no option to display all 3 octaves at once. I find it very counter intuitive to press modifier keys.

I'm happy the delay is gone (I didn't notice anything about the lower octave delay, but perhaps I just can't tell). Forcing octave modifiers is super uncomfortable though. They should display all three octaves at once, or allow separate key bindings for each note, but let the UI still show only the one octave.

I was excited for a new UI, and knew that my old key bindings for songs I have memorized might need to be shifted around. I was even willing to try out the new UI entirely, but having to press shift, control, or alt all the time makes even easy music a slog.

You also have to be completely stationary while playing. Before, you could have notes in your hotbars and begin playing away at any time while having other menus open or when following a friend around.

So I play on PS4, and every time I open the UI I'm forced to see the controller scheme, when I want to play with the keyboard. I can temporarily see which keyboard keys are for which instrument keys, but when I close the settings it goes back to controller. I can technically still play with the keyboard, but I can't see the keys on the UI when I'm not in the settings. Does anyone know if I can change the default to show the keyboard UI instead of the controller UI?

I play Answers the way I did when I first learned it now.
I just gotta get used to the buttons.

Harp sounds like trash now.

I wanted the UI but I'm still having trouble getting used to it.

New UI is great, buttons will take some getting used to but it beats losing 35 hotbar spaces any day. I think my only gripe is that they should have made performance a main command rather than a separate tab so we could set performance to our hotbar and then select an instrument to play. As it is you have to take up 4 hotbar slots to set all instruments instead of just having one “performance” button and it will only take more space as more instruments are added.

Think the OP nailed everything here. It's a massive improvement, and only a few more steps to it will make it great forever.

Make the octave switching keybindable, multi-key possible (Might be a bit much tbh), unique animations would be nice but are far from necessary. The short keyboard ui is visually usable with some practice.

I think it's great. The delay is gone, and we have more instruments to choose from. Now we just need the actual instruments instead of using the harp animation for all of them :D

I hate the new change, this is much more cumbersome than the last implementation and the harp doesn't sound good anymore.

I like the instrument choices, but I'd prefer a full keyboard layout or the choice to continue using the UI I had originally set up for it. Modifiers don't feel comfortable for me so I was a bit disappointed to see all the notes on my custom hotbars had been disabled.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

I like the instrument choices, but I'd prefer a full keyboard layout or the choice to continue using the UI I had originally set up for it. Modifiers don't feel comfortable for me so I was a bit disappointed to see all the notes on my custom hotbars had been disabled.

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Yeah I do too, I don't like constantly remembering which octave to be in to play a song especially when they overlap with each other. It's not as troubling when it's only 1 or 2 notes every verse etc.

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Originally Posted by KokonoeAiyoko

I hate the new change, this is much more cumbersome than the last implementation and the harp doesn't sound good anymore.

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How is it possibly at all more cumbersome than the hotbar shuffle?

It's simplified, maybe a little too much so. But it's far easier for anyone to get into without having to follow a hotbar setup guide or not knowing how to organize several dozen buttons.

I really wish they had kept the old system where could configure keys for each note from each octave. Playing complex songs used to be something you could practice, but now it is impossible. I used to be able to play the Sweet Child Of Mine intro after a lot of practice, and now that is just impossible. I could even play the new Sigmascape theme (which is just the FF6 battle theme that I played for funsies, though it didn't sound that great since there was the speed limit), but again that is also impossible now.

Like I literally don't understand why they couldn't have made both systems work. Add the new UI with the the octave-shifting system, but keep the old Perform keys so that players who have practiced these last few months don't see all their efforts flushed down the toilet. This is one of the worst game design decisions I have ever seen.

It is so bad that it motivated me to find this forum, make an account and post about how bad it is
It's bad enough that I have given up on trying to play music until it gets fixed

Going from 12 buttons on your hotbar (Plus up to 12 above it) to 8 buttons (And 5 flats and sharps) on this new UI means your range of available notes at any time is substantially reduced. From up to 24 notes down to 13. That is almost half your possible hotkeys to play notes with just gone
Being locked to octaves and having to fiddle with an extra key to go up or down an octave is a massive pain, breaks the flow of your music, and renders playing even the simplest tune a massive pain in the rear section
Being unable to bind individual notes to any key means we can't even work around this, as rebinding one note will also rebind that same note one octave higher or lower

The only good things are new instrument choices. But what's the point of new instruments if you can't reasonably play them?

After thinking some time about the UI, which the design of I really do like, I came up with probably the best-case scenario that would solve the biggest issue: requiring the use of modifiers to hit the other 2/3s of notes available. The keybind window already allows us to rebind individual notes. Three tabs, one per octave, would solve this issue easily. People with crowded hotbars would be free to use their hotbars for gameplay, and then when performing, all keys are free to bind to specific notes (of course, you can't bind 1 note to multiple keys, like with hotbars, but I'm really trying to work with what we have). I'm not sure what each hotbar should be labeled with, but at least we could manage to play songs again.

That said, I still like the UI design of the octave keyboard itself. This change wouldn't deny the use of that, and in fact would function identically as it does now.

https://i.imgur.com/uQa2980.png

Maybe I'm just a bad musician, but in the absence of sheet music, the way I played by ear depended entirely on being able to SEE all the notes laid out in front of me, like this.

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...88434308ce.jpg

I didn't care that it took up four hotbars, and I didn't mind picking out the notes with my mouse, even if it slowed me down. I also had a fifth hotbar that was just F major with a few extra notes at either end, and I would swap that into my primary hotbar position, and I even had two empty slots on the bar above it for F sharp and B natural, which I could swap into the primary bar for easy access to four key signatures. Lag aside, I loved it. People walking by would ask me for random songs, and I managed it because I could hear the intervals in my head, and then look at those pretty rainbow buttons and judge how far away the next note was, and it WORKED. It worked with my messed-up brain that never really learned the piano properly. It worked.

And it's gone now, along with that beautiful, rich, full, glowing harp sound. I wish there had been a way to add this new interface as an option, as well as the three new instruments, instead of scrapping the 4.1 method entirely. I'm hanging up my harp, for now.

I'm glad there is an interface for it now and it works pretty well... But there were some nice advantages to the old system.

Placing a note on the hotbar meant you really didn't need to remember the order the notes needed to be played in, you could just set them up in the correct sequence and go. Make a macro to copy the hotbars to an unused class and one to bring the hotbars back, and you were good to go.

Now, you've got to put quite a bit of practice in to play something impressive, and pressing shift to change octaves feels weird...

Side note:
Can anyone confirm if this works with a midi controller?

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Originally Posted by WaffleFaerie

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...88434308ce.jpg

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Haha! That's exactly how I used to set up my hotbars as well. It was wonderful since I already knew how to play piano. It just took some practice because the keyboard was broken in the middle, so it ended on P and kept going on Z. But with a bit of practice I was able to transition nicely.

And now all that is gone. Though I do believe MIDI controllers work. Or like I saw on Reddit, someone mentioned keyboard profiles. Apparently you can set it up so that when you press a key, it does Ctrl+key. So you'd be able to play without having to worry about switching octaves. Not exactly sure how that works yet, but it does sound like it's worth looking into. :o

Yeah I had the rainbow piano too.

Still you can use hotkeys. So MIDI should be no problem, as long as the midi software can handle button combos as BluexBird said.

I'm...gonna hafta look up some newer guides, because back when I had an actual keyboard, it plugged into a MIDI box that plugged into a 386 clone PC running MS-DOS, so I'm a little bit behind the curve, as far as music technology goes. /blush