The FF14 Devs needs to go play other MMOs

[Tenku]

Hi, I'm not trying to mock the devs at Square Enix. I actually love them despite how terrible the UI for FF14 is. I understand you are trying to make this game cross platform for the PC and PS3, but it's not working. Even your console games has a better UI than FF14. In all honesty, I think the Square Enix devs needs more MMO experience from other games besides FF11. With today's technology and software/hardware capabilities, there should not be any reason for such an unresponsive UI. I dislike games like World of Warcraft and RIFT, but there is no denying that the UI for those games are much better.

[Zenaku]

lol wont happen yoshi-p did play other game wow being one of them if i remember.

[Rowyne]

Yoshi-P's MMO experience:

Also, I myself am a hardcore MMO player with over 10 years of experience on MMOs. So, it's that combination of my knowledge, core knowledge of MMOs, as well as my skills as a developer that got me onto this project. They thought I would be perfect for the project. (Source)

4Gamer: I’d like to ask some questions about you yourself Mr. Yoshida. I’ve heard that you were in charge of the Dragon Quest Monster Battle Road series. Have you ever had experience working with online games, including MMORPGs?

Yoshida: Yes, I have even worked on their development before. However, my experience as a player is longer. I have a 13 year history with them. (laughs)

4Gamer: I was just about to ask about your experience with playing MMORPGs. Can you fill us in?

Yoshida: The first one I tried was Diablo and that lasted about a year. After that I played Ultima Online for about 2 and a half years. During that same period, I also played FPSs like Unreal Tournament. I still do play FPSs actually. After that came Diablo II and the expansion pack Lord of Destruction. I played that for about a year and a half. Then I played Dark Age of Camelot for 6 years. Of course, I spent some time in EverQuest and World of Warcraft as well. (Source)

[Betelgeuzah]

And if they did, the game would be suddenly fixed overnight, right?

[Zenaku]

Yoshi-P's MMO experience:

pretty much a wow player like i guess no wonder they adding dungeon/raids and jumping ok really it's final fantasy not final fantasy warcraft i don't give two s*** if they trying to make this game for the market today they said Final fantasy xiv was going to be diff from wow and was made for players who sick of other game to join something else. but w/e i guess it's not 100% like dam wow so am ok with that as long as they don't make this into a wow clone i be fine there many of them i could play for free right so why should ffxiv be one lol.

[Tiraelina]

Asking what MMORPG's he has played before and only 3 games listed are MMO's. Wow.

And if they did, the game would be suddenly fixed overnight, right?

They might get a generic idea of how bad the interface is for KB/M users and why making the entire system serverside is a bad idea.

If they don't want to scrap being able to use a controller on the PC version down the line we need at the bare minimum an entirely different UI setup that can be switched to that will be KB/M friendly. Nothing should be made easier by taking my hand off the mouse except for chatting.

[Betelgeuzah]

They might get a generic idea of how bad the interface is for KB/M users and why making the entire system serverside is a bad idea.

And why do you assume they don't already have a generic idea about it? What makes you think they're not aware of the shortcomings?

Again, because they have not changed it overnight. Changing the interface to clientside is an enormous task as-is, but obviously knowing why serverside UI sucks is half the battle. One snap of your fingers and everything changes instantly once you know what to do.

If anything, they aren't doing this already because a) it requires resources that are taken up by the million other renovations going on, or b) they are and it's taking a long time to complete.

[Tiraelina]

1 year isn't exactly an overnight change. If I have any problems with how they are going about this is that we are probably going to get charged monthly before seeing it in action.

We've yet to actually see any form of work done on this subject.

[GreyJorildyn]

My problem with the UI is that each widget is intended to go into in a very specific place. The first offender is the party widget where buffs run from right to left and party members add from bottom to top. I cannot feasibly place this widget on the left side of my screen because then I will not see my party member's buffs.

Second offender is the leve mission box. It was meant to go in that top-left spot because the frame is decorated as such.

SE, you need to lose the fancy framing crud and make a UI that is practical instead of pretty. I am serious. If you are going to make a UI with movable widgets, you can't design them to go in one place only.

Furthermore, give us a UI editing mode (see Rift for most recent example) and don't let us drag them around freely because if they're not "locked" in normal play mode, we accidentally grab widgets and drag them around when using the mouse. That is so frustrating; you have no idea...

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

Development on FFXIV is going pretty slowly as it is. Do you really want the devs to get addicted to some other game and lose all productivity?