Enemy Sign Functionality

In FFXIV we have been giving a wonderful system for marking enemies with symbols. Unfortunately it is incredibly restricted and useless outside of leves. Some things that I feel would make this system an integral part of combat:

1. Make it usable outside of leves. This one is a no brainer, why was this ever restricted to leves? There are many situations outside of leves (NMs with groups for one) where this would be useful.

2. Remove a mark only if the same person attempts to apply it twice. I've been in quite a few situations where the mark has been removed by separate people trying to mark the same target. This can lead to a bit of confusion or at the very least taking extra time to re-apply it.

3. Give us a macro command for targeting specific marks. This would help increase their effectiveness in battle. When their is a group of monsters, especially when they converge on a single target, it can be difficult to pick a specific one out of the group.

4. Add a more diverse choice of marks. A few more marks for things like bind, sleep, no WS, kill order, etc... would be helpful. Yes the group could specify that Diamond means sleep, Spade means no WS, Heart means secondary target but they're not universal symbols and can vary from group to group causing some unnecessary confusion.

All in all I believe the marking system is fantastic, it is just restricted to a point of being useless in most situations. With dungeons coming up soon we could really use this marking system.

Agreed. Personally, I haven't done any leves in over a month. They're just so boring that they forced me to take a break from the game for 2 weeks. Since I came back I haven't even bothered with them, and I'm having a little more fun now. Why they created the game to revolve entirely around leves is beyond me. Hopefully Yoshi-P recognizes this mistake and is willing to correct it.

Fixing enemy signs is a big step in the right direction. Also, I think I remember hearing something about an /assist macro a while back. What ever happened to that? The sooner we move away from leves being the main focus of the game the better.

I'm happy with it the way it is now.

The system is okay as is but it has room for vast improvements. Only being able to use it during leves severly restricts it being useful at any point. What happens when we get dungeons and can't use it there? That's a whole layer of strategy thrown out the window. The system exists, why restrict it like that?

Agreed. Marking should not only be available, but also integral to the success of certain fights once they add dungeons and the promised battles that require strategy to defeat.

Not to derail, but are there instances when you would not want weapon skills to be used?

They should do it how other games do it... You can mark whatever but only players in the party can see said marks.

Actually no, that seems too logical of a fix.

That's pretty much how it is now, except you can only use it in leves. That restriction alone makes this system next to useless.

Something else they can and should implement with the Enemy Marks and Player Marks as well, implement it in in the status icon section. Many times, the enemies bunch up together and even with marks, it's difficult to see if you are actually targeting the marked on. Placing the mark as a status icon would help out greatly.

Course, if we had /assist, we could solve alot more issues as wel...

I agree it is hard to see the target when they bunch up together. Having the marker show up while targetting on the status icon would help alot.

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Originally Posted by BlaiseLallaise

Not to derail, but are there instances when you would not want weapon skills to be used?

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Djiggas AOE counter weapon skills. An AOE WS--or just back-to-back WSs--that hits 3 or more djiggas is likely to kill someone.

Anyway, back on topic, I fully agree that there's no reason it should be limited to leves. I'm not sure if we actually need more signs, just because I rarely see some of them as-is, but I don't suppose it could hurt.

bump because I feel this should really be added. The enemy sign system is there, it's just severely restricted and it could really become a great system.

What a great marking system, and...... SE you make it useless by limit it to leve only.

Only the one mark the mob can cancle it, that is a very good idea.

Greetings!

I'd like to give you all an update on the status of the marking feature we have been working to revamp.

• Enemy and Ally signs will be combined into one category
• Only party leaders will be able to mark targets
• It will be possible to use these freely -- no more Guildleve or other content restrictions!

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Greetings!

I'd like to give you all an update on the status of the marking feature we have been working to revamp.

• Enemy and Ally signs will be combined into one category
• Only party leaders will be able to mark targets
• It will be possible to use these freely -- no more Guildleve or other content restrictions!

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Why only party leader? What if the party leader falls or is dealing with a different monster, requiring a second-in-command?

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Originally Posted by Yrusama

Why only party leader? What if the party leader falls or is dealing with a different monster, requiring a second-in-command?

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It's really best that only one person can control it. Otherwise you get two different people trying to mark 2 different mobs as the primary attack target or something. Eliminates confusion, and the leader is the natural choice for the one person since they're supposed to, yknow, be leading.

I kinda understand the logic behind only allowing party leaders to make signs, but it's flawed and you should reconsider. Typically, it works best if either the puller or tank marks the target and they may or may not be the party leader. Heck as a whm, you might not even be targeting the mob ever. I just ask that you test the practicality.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Greetings!

I'd like to give you all an update on the status of the marking feature we have been working to revamp.

• Enemy and Ally signs will be combined into one category
• Only party leaders will be able to mark targets
• It will be possible to use these freely -- no more Guildleve or other content restrictions!

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Can the party leader give people assist like in WoW? Because in WoW the party leader can pick people to be assistants and they can mark stuff as well.

Or the party leader could just give pt lead to the one who does the marking, you know?
It's not like it's such a big deal.

Not that I'm against the leader being able to appoint assistants.
It's just not really something so much-needed that resources have to be put into this now, in my opinion :)

Party leader only is bad :(

Sometimes it's nice to have multiple people being respondsible for their own signals:

Tank: focus on this target first.
Blm: I slept this mob, leave it alone.
Random party member: I need a heal!

Now in in small party, attacking a few mobs, it's still manageable by one person. But in bigger raids with complex strategies and/or a large amount of mobs (we are getting those right?!...) , that shouldn't all fall down to one person.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Greetings!

I'd like to give you all an update on the status of the marking feature we have been working to revamp.

• Enemy and Ally signs will be combined into one category
• Only party leaders will be able to mark targets
• It will be possible to use these freely -- no more Guildleve or other content restrictions!

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Thank you very much for the reply, I'm glad to see this being addressed. Now at least the leader can mark important monsters for the group. Works a lot better than just yelling "That slug over there!" lol

Party leader only is fine, it means the leader is actually an important role. If someone wants to mark targets then they should be promoted.

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Originally Posted by Myranda

It's really best that only one person can control it. Otherwise you get two different people trying to mark 2 different mobs as the primary attack target or something. Eliminates confusion, and the leader is the natural choice for the one person since they're supposed to, yknow, be leading.

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Maybe they could give the leader extra icons? This way any other party members can still mark mobs if the leader dies, but if the leader needs to direct people he/she can put up an icon exclusively available to leaders to prevent party members from muddling things too much.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Greetings!

I'd like to give you all an update on the status of the marking feature we have been working to revamp.

• Enemy and Ally signs will be combined into one category
• Only party leaders will be able to mark targets
• It will be possible to use these freely -- no more Guildleve or other content restrictions!

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It's definitely better if every party member is capable of setting icons. As one example, Cutter's Cry had you split up. Future situations like that may have a need for it.

Now if by "targets" we mean allies as well, I've been in a situation where I would use an ally sign in response to a certain attack being prepped if I couldn't stop it from landing to indicate to healers that they better prepare to knock an attached ailment off or it's pretty much game over. Optimally, the cast to remove the ailment would begin before the attack and the debuff would be ripped off right after landing. Players most assuredly need to be able to mark themselves.

Party leaders shouldn't be expected to micromanage everything.

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Originally Posted by Yrusama

Maybe they could give the leader extra icons? This way any other party members can still mark mobs if the leader dies, but if the leader needs to direct people he/she can put up an icon exclusively available to leaders to prevent party members from muddling things too much.

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You're on the right track. Perhaps icons set by the leader could have a differently colored outline for the sake of conflicts.

I agree with the others, the signs need to be usable by more than just the party leader. Preferably everyone, but at the very least the leader should be able to delegate sign users. In any scenario where your party has to split up its going to be necessary. On top of that, if the inability for the unconscious player to do anything stands, then no mobs are getting marked while the leader is taking a dirt nap.

And what about Ally signs? Will everyone still be able to use signs to mark themselves? I can't tell you how many times I used the "I'm out of MP" sign to gently indicate to my bards that Ballad needs renewed (or was thankful when someone else did when I was on bard.)

Hmm some valid points have been brought up and you've won me over. Having more than the leader able to do markings could be useful... it just needs to be done carefully so that the leader still has priority on certain markings.

For those asking specifically about limiting the ability to place signs by the leader -- our plan is to start out with this limitation in place. The main reason being that there is a concern that parties might get confused if signs are placed randomly on multiple enemies. However, we're considering opening this up to other members but would like to base this decision off of feedback after you try it out.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

we're considering opening this up to other members but would like to base this decision off of feedback after you try it out.

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Best solution to include the limitation to party leader, and allow party members to place signs is to leave it up to the PT leader who can place signs within the party (and Alliance if we ever get them for larger scale content)

This would help surpass the language barrier a few experience and would be greatly benificial for larger scale engdame events. If you want even more functionality place the party members #(Slot they show up in party screen to other players) beside the sign.

Let's say a giant Fist means (Attack this first!) put a 1. in the corner for the player in slot 1.

This allows for larger groups to help bring in newer members without lengthy chats before the fight, or at least dramatically reduce the length of these speaches.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Can the party leader give people assist like in WoW? Because in WoW the party leader can pick people to be assistants and they can mark stuff as well.

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Agreed. I think leader plus assist (for a total of two) would be ideal.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

For those asking specifically about limiting the ability to place signs by the leader -- our plan is to start out with this limitation in place. The main reason being that there is a concern that parties might get confused if signs are placed randomly on multiple enemies. However, we're considering opening this up to other members but would like to base this decision off of feedback after you try it out.

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Yeah... As Jynx pointed out, we really dont need to think about it. Other party members should be able to do it (when given the rights from leader).

We've seen the system before and this way is far more preferred.

I'd like to add a suggestion to create "Number Markers" instead of shapes or colors etc. It's much easier to explain things with numbers. Use a "1" to represent kill this target first, a "2" to kill second "3" for third target, and so forth. It's a lot more straight forward than, "kill blue circle, then red triangle, then green diamond ..." etc etc. I find that those kinds of markings can be just as confusing as not having markers at all.

Also it would be helpful to be able to mark multiple targets with the same marker. Sometimes you need certain jobs to target certain types of enemies. So it would be nice if you could mark those enemies with the same icon, and say, "archers please kill all the red circles, mages crowd control the green triangles, and tanks keep the blue diamonds away from healers"

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

For those asking specifically about limiting the ability to place signs by the leader -- our plan is to start out with this limitation in place. The main reason being that there is a concern that parties might get confused if signs are placed randomly on multiple enemies. However, we're considering opening this up to other members but would like to base this decision off of feedback after you try it out.

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Why not make it an option for the party leader to toggle on/off? You know? Make it so party leader can toggle whether or not other members can mark targets.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

For those asking specifically about limiting the ability to place signs by the leader -- our plan is to start out with this limitation in place. The main reason being that there is a concern that parties might get confused if signs are placed randomly on multiple enemies. However, we're considering opening this up to other members but would like to base this decision off of feedback after you try it out.

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How about allowing party leaders to flag other party members with certain rights?
Give others the ability to invite new members, mark maps, etc.

EDIT : And then I see Rex's post above mine. The flagging ability could be extended to more than just map marking though.

I think it is also important to give PT members a command to move their target to signed mob.
(In FFXI, we use /assist <PT_member_name> to target his target. I hope there will be a more smart implementation for XIV).

Agreed with all above. If you are unsure, give the leader an option in the party settings to "allow ally/enemy signs from party members". They will most commonly be used by people during a Free Company event, and most Free Companies will be in voice chat anyway.

The final alternative is give the party members the ability is to make the leader's signs a larger or more obvious appearance (different colour or a larger sign), that way there will be no confusion when 2 targets are specified.

Three things:
1. If we actually need "I NEED A HEAL" signals, etc, they should not be the same type of sign we're talking about; they should be pop-ups that disappear within seconds, as opposed to the "THIS IS THE TANK" or "DO NOT HELP ME, I AM KITING" kind of ally signs I'm imagining, which would have to be toggled on/off. On the other hand, the XI elitist inside of me just wants to say, "If you have to ask, someone's not doing their job."

2. If only one person in a huge group (i.e. Free Company) can control markings, that will be a mess--practically a job in itself (and a wasted party slot). That said, I'm in favor of restricted access over just opening access to enemy signals to everyone. If we really do see 30+ people working together, having more than one person with access seems logical, but having 30+ people marking makes them meaningless. Allowing leaders to allot rights per person seems to make the most sense.

3. I think the functionality of signals could be improved. Rather than simply pictures floating around, make them useful. Examples:

• If a mob is asleep and you don't want anyone to attack it, put a "DO NOT ATTACK" symbol on it; in addition to the icon, party members cannot attack it until the signal is removed.
  • Players should be able to disable/enable the effects of these "functional" symbols, i.e. if the party leader is a jerk/idiot and signals a mob that's attacking as do not attack, you could just type /sign (or something) and signals would just be pictures again. This is self-limiting, kind of--if a player frequently ignores real signals, they'll become undesirable, fast.
• For enemy targets, go with the numbered target idea. Then, allow /target <t1>,<t2>, etc. Allow mobs to be marked more than once. Then, half of a group can macro t1, the rest t2, and BLMs use t3, and the leader(s) can assign those groups to different targets or have them all on one.
• A kiter could be marked as no-help, so that no one could cure them while they build hate. Again, if a leader is being a jerk, just disable the effects of signals.

Also, there should be a failsafe in case of death or d/c. If no members are able to mark a target, all party members should temporarily gain access to add/remove the aforementioned marks.

Still, you know the best alternative to all of this? Everyone knowing what they're doing. >.>;

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Originally Posted by Arcell

3. Give us a macro command for targeting specific marks. This would help increase their effectiveness in battle. When their is a group of monsters, especially when they converge on a single target, it can be difficult to pick a specific one out of the group.

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Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease yes. Why do we not have this?!