Controllers, hotbars, cycling... Worried for the future

[Lan_Mantear]

The problem with using Macros, is that rare occurrence where your action is not triggered. Which, more often than not, occurs at the most inopportune time.

[Rawrz]

A better macro for a few classes is one that fills the appropriate slot when level synced, instead of macroing all of the different variations. Example: Stone, Stone II, Stone III.

If your Stone III is on hotbar 1 on slot 1. If on PC type hotbar instead of chotbar.

/chotbar action Stone 1 1
/chotbar action "Stone II" 1 1
/chotbar action "Stone III" 1 1

A Scholars Ruin and Broil, a Black Mages Thunder II and Thunder III, an Astrologians Malefic and Malefic II are some examples of where else this is applicable.

The /chotbar command has many uses. It even helped me easily switch Stoneskin and Blizzard II in my cross class and place it on my bar.

/Macrolock
/echo You are switching your cross class skills. The following skill will be disabled:
/recast "Stoneskin"
/recast "Blizzard II"
/aaction "Blizzard II"
/aaction "Stoneskin"
/aaction "Blizzard II" on
/chotbar action "Stoneskin" 1 1
/chotbar action "Blizzard II" 1 1
/echo Your current cross class has been changed to the following:
/recast "Stoneskin"
/recast "Blizzard II"

[Naria]

On sch and smn I use three hotbars. My third hot bar hotbar (extended) has actions on it that I don't need to use as frequently, like summons, a few pet commands like obey/sic/away, the limit break, and buffs like protect. I have a few macros like combining Rouse with Spur on smn or Heel and Place. I use /chotbar action swaps in my summon macros to swap my pet's abilities depending on which pet is summoned. I micromanage my pets on obey most of the time. Honestly it is not that bad, but I am a bit worried about what will happen in the expansion. I'm also a bit annoyed that we are getting "dead" skills like Stone 2 or Ruin that rarely have a use except when synced. I'm one of the ones hoping that we get traits to power up old abilities next expansion.

EDIT: I do have a fourth hotbar that has chocobo commands/potions and sprint on it, but that is shared across all classes.

[Souljacker]

The problem with using Macros, is that rare occurrence where your action is not triggered. Which, more often than not, occurs at the most inopportune time.

That's not the only problem. You're losing DPS if you use macros because you can't queue abilities with them.

I can't use a controller in this game because of the skill bloat. I used a controller exclusively in FFXI and really love the feel of controlling my character in that way, but every single battle task is 25% (at least) less efficient than on keyboard and mouse, hands down. 2.0 wasn't so bad, but 3.0 performance suffers so immensely from skill bloat that there's no way I'd ever even consider using a controller in actual content. Right now I use it only when out gathering or *maybe* in a low level dungeon where performance isn't as important.

I do agree that either they need to reduce the sheer skill bloat, or they need to figure out some better way of making macros work. Controllers will not be viable if they continue this current trend with abilities.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Hey all this is my macro set up that really helps save space.

/micon harda slash
/ac hardslash
/crosshotbar set spinng slash 1 Ral
/crosshotbar set power slash 1 RAU

/Micon Syphon strike
/ac syphon strike
/crosshotbar set souleater 1 Rau
/crosshotbar set delirum 1 Ral


So this set up switches out certain skills in my hotbar depending on what action Im going to do. So if im going for a SE combo then power slash is removed and replaced with SE and spining slash replaced with del. This savea alot of space.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

Hey all this is my macro set up that really helps save space.

/micon harda slash
/ac hardslash
/crosshotbar set spinng slash 1 Ral
/crosshotbar set power slash 1 RAU

/Micon Syphon strike
/ac syphon strike
/crosshotbar set souleater 1 Rau
/crosshotbar set delirum 1 Ral


So this set up switches out certain skills in my hotbar depending on what action Im going to do. So if im going for a SE combo then power slash is removed and replaced with SE and spining slash replaced with del. This savea alot of space.

This can be problematic if you happen to miss.

You'll not progress your combo, but your skills will change anyway.

[raela]

I'm kinda curious how people who play summoner and scholar and maintain full control over there pets actions with a controller. I could not do it on scholar and ended up leaving the pet on full auto when I tried playing it.

Rather than use the hotbar swap, I have each pet summon command also place the pet-specific skills on my hotbars. I also keep a horizontal hotbar above the crossbars to keep track of CDs (including pet CDs). SCH is my one special case where I do not fit all onto two full hotbars (using expanded controls) - I have a cleric stance macro that swaps me from a "mainly healing" hotbar to a "mainly dpsing" hotbar. My extended bars on SCH are pet skills and CDs that are useful for both situations. I hurt for space on SMN.

[AskaRay]

I know for me with SCH, I use 3.5 crossbars...
1 = dps
2 = healing
3 = fairy
Extended (the .5) = a few other skills.
Somewhere on one of those healing threads there's a screenshot. There's a lot of overlap (Like on each of my cbars I have Adlo, Physick, and Ruin) and I know it wouldn't work for some people, but it works for me so I'm fine with it.

If you hold RB and press the D-pad or ABXY (or the symbols), it changes to a specific bar. IDK how often people use that (I know people use quick change with just pressing RB) but it's quite fast once you get used to it. I can quickly cycle through my 1, 2, 3, back to 1.

[Teraluna]

The problem is that controllers were never originally designed to play mmo's. That was the domain of PC/Keyboard.
Now before people start thinking this is a controller bashing post - it's not. It's just how game hardware has evolved over the years.

So when SE make a traditional multi-bar mmo, which is no problem for PC players, the origins of the controller game play come to the fore.

Other mmo game companies don't take the controller beyond it's possible limitations - simply by calling themselves an 'action' mmo, (whatever that means) and just having 7 or so skills active at any one time.

SE have tried to accommodate both - the 'as many bars as you like' pc players, together with the 'we are keyboardless'

And may possibly run into problems.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

The problem is that controllers were never originally designed to play mmo's. That was the domain of PC/Keyboard.
Now before people start thinking this is a controller bashing post - it's not. It's just how game hardware has evolved over the years.

So when SE make a traditional multi-bar mmo, which is no problem for PC players, the origins of the controller game play come to the fore.

Other mmo game companies don't take the controller beyond it's possible limitations - simply by calling themselves an 'action' mmo, (whatever that means) and just having 7 or so skills active at any one time.

SE have tried to accommodate both - the 'as many bars as you like' pc players, together with the 'we are keyboardless'

And may possibly run into problems.

To be fair, they've done a damn good job with the controller options they provide.