Arrow keys, the action bar and targeting

[Frein]

Being a keyboard only kind of player, I'd like to streamline the act of targeting a monster and initiating combat. As it stands, having to target your intended target with Tab, F10 or T, then hitting enter to "engage" the target and then hitting enter again to lock the reticle and making sure your weapon is drawn with F seems like a bit much. I'd like to tab to my target, hit enter to engage and draw my weapon at the same time, and possibly use another key to lock my reticle, like the (*) key in FFXI. Having only really played Gladiator, I don't know how this would affect other classes, but having to walk myself through a checklist of commands before I can hit a target with my swords is a bit clunky.

The * key locks the target just like in FFXI. You don't actually have to press "enter" to engage, either. Simply mash an attack move and you'll initiate auto-attack even if you're too far away or the ability is on cooldown.

[Efrye]

May you forgive the necro bump, but... is there still no way to change ability bars without targeting something? There have been a lot of great changes to the keyboard configuration in 1.19, but I can't see anything about ability bars.

I died at least once during Ifrit because I was on the wrong set when he teleported to use hellfire, and I couldn't switch to my first bar in time to use sentinel. Sure, there are macros at cetera, but that's beside the point!

If it's indeed still not fixed, it would be really really great to get some information about when this is going to be addressed. Since it should be a really really REALLY easy to let us assign our own keys to switch bars!

[Nayt]

you can set the ability bar to be "always active" in the config menu ingame. I always run with it on nowadays

It doesn't let you switch active bar with a key, but at least you can see which slide you have active and the button to change it is always up

[Aleczan]

Well, when I do "/actionbar on" command, I can select action bars up or down without having to target anything. But I have not tested if this would work during battle (like, when you're busy and engaged to an enemy, or have your target lock) or not.

[Efrye]

Oh, that seems to work indeed. Switching the action bar to always visible and removing "arrow up/down" from whatever it's bound to in the keyboard config lets me switch at any time. Visually not too pleasing to have the bar displayed all the time, but it's a start.

Thanks for the help ~

edit: Err, actually, that doesn't seem to work at all. I guess I had something targeted without noticing.
I can press up/down all I want - if I don't target and lock on to something, the bar won't move an inch.

[Abauge_Goga]

• Allow us to cycle through actions with arrow keys at any time, without having to first target something and "activate" the action bar. (The only exception here is when we have a menu open, just like it is now.)

This.
I hate it when I have to click an action before I can scroll down to my second line. It slows things down big time.
The action bar should have an option where it's active at all times. If I click 1-10 I can cast/action whatever I have there without the need to "activate it".

[Aleczan]

Oh, that seems to work indeed. Switching the action bar to always visible and removing "arrow up/down" from whatever it's bound to in the keyboard config lets me switch at any time. Visually not too pleasing to have the bar displayed all the time, but it's a start.

Thanks for the help ~



edit: Err, actually, that doesn't seem to work at all. I guess I had something targeted without noticing.
I can press up/down all I want - if I don't target and lock on to something, the bar won't move an inch.

I figured just now....

First hit ESC all the way out of everything and don't target anything.
Then use command "/actionbar on" and the action bar pops up.
When it pops up, your cursor will always highlight something in the action bar, thus you can arrow key up or down to change between action bars all right.

BUT if you move your mouse or cursor, or hit TAB key, or maybe something else too, the highlight goes away from actionbar, and now you can't do anything with it anymore =_=;;

But you can still point at any action bar button and click on it, that will again select the action bar and allow you to use arrow key to go up and down on action bars again.

I think they should add an option to make the toggle between target types (friendly, party, enemy, all) and the toggle between action bars easier. Now it's a bit hard yeah. (But I got used to it and now can manipulate both thing with ease.)

[Crux]

This is what makes people quit FF14. The targeting and combat is frustrating and causes needless deaths because it is still over complicated.

[xhyperx]

This is what makes people quit FF14. The targeting and combat is frustrating and causes needless deaths because it is still over complicated.

I feel the pain as well Crux! Unfortunately, its hella complicated to try to give everyone with so many different play styles and combinations a not-so-complicated interface. I think they might do it better with modes, such as they have with the Targetting modes. Mixing styles has produced an interface that pretty much forces the use of macros, but then there arent even enough macro slots... considering that Macro barss arent remembered with Class as are the Action bars.

And then macros are gimped by the lack of support for naming your target. EG: /target "name"