Visual macro interface possible?

[Grey_Cain]

As I raise my 7th crafting class, a thought came to me while I was updating my macros.

Rather than have this text-based system that we currently have, why not replace the macro commands with icons from the Actions and Traits window instead and place them on a list similar to the required materials list in the crafting window or the Gear Set list? This would make macros more drag-and-drop and controller-friendly at the same time.

The User Macros window could automatically open the Actions and Traits window, allowing the player to assign abilities from the various categories (probably requiring a new category for Macro-specific commands like a modified Wait [see below] and Macroicon).

You can replace the Wait command by just performing the next step when the global cooldown expires or (in the case of instant abilities) when the animation is finished and the system will accept commands again. By removing Wait, you can cut it down to a window that'll take 8-10 commands, rather than 16 that Wait usually eats half of.

The Wait command can then be turned into a pause that allows you to make a decision on whether to let the macro continue or activate a new one at that step (such as what to do on an Excellent condition), rather than it being required (also unreliable and a waste of a line) just because the system needs to wait X time between commands for the animation/casting timer to finish. It should probably still be on a timer like 3 seconds, but a prompt would work as well, or just make a 'Wait for Prompt' and 'Wait X seconds' as separate commands.

Getting a total CP/MP/TP cost for all the given commands in it would also be nice, and so would a total potential quality/progress/potency if nothing out of the ordinary happens and everything succeeds.

Is that too much?

[Bixby]

Macros can accept any text command. There would be a massive overload of icons for all the slash commands that deal with settings, chat, social/search functions, target placeholders (<t>, <pet>, etc.)... Just the new inventory sort commands and /hotbar seem like they'd be a nightmare to represent graphically, and they'd have to do all this for every new command they added, too.

On the /wait subject, they've stated that it's intentional to not have it activate skills with perfect timing. It's a trade-off for the ease of use.

[Grey_Cain]

As unassigned macro icons themselves show (blank box with an 'M'), they don't need a graphical representation for everything. A simple mono-color brick with a letter or word indicating its category with the name written beside it does the job just as well (although they already do have a graphical icon for hotbars in the character configuration menu). Something like /macroicon, on the other hand, could be a simple checkbox when choosing the icon to represent the macro, asking to include the information for the related ability.

Target placeholders are valid, but that can also be really easily added with an extra column that would be probably be required anyway, since attack actions and craft actions alike generally follow the same pattern: the action to take and the target to take it on. Other commands that don't have a target per se might come with a drop-down menu that lets you choose the relevant sub-commands. And yes, sub-commands are where the real work of this would be.

On /wait, given that they don't allow for fractions of seconds, they can still have the actions wait an extra half-second or full second before implementing the next action, and they could do it with the text macros if they wanted to without having to force people to use up half their available lines. Animation lock on instant-cast abilities is the primary reason for extended /wait times, and while it varies from action to action and lag spike to lag spike, there is no reason the game can't set an arbitrary additional time limit between implementing commands that would make it still faster for a human to perform (a la the Quick Synthesis in crafting which is actually slower than a human doing the same job manually).