The User Interface - Mouse and Keyboard Users

[Maverick_Hawkeye]

Having the bar up would be nice to view CD out of battle...

But in terms of displaying all your abilities you have equipped... FFXIV is a much slower game than WoW.. you don't need to be mashing all of your buttons at once, hitting hotkeys and abilities on the fly....

The stamina bar and cooldowns both reduce the speed of battle significantly...

[Rowyne]

This has been one of my biggest issues with FFXIV. I am a PC gamer and a keyboard/mouse user.

I don't like using controllers. I haven't been a console gamer in a number of years, and controllers feel large and unnatural in my hands.

When I played FFXI, I played exclusively with my keyboard, only because the mouse was pretty much unusable. All MMOs since then, I've played with a keyboard/mouse setup.

Anyone who played FFXI will most likely tell you it feels like a console game, since it was first released for PS2 and then ported to PC. This time around, FFXIV was released first for the PC, to be later released on the PS3. Out of the box, FFXIV does feel more keyboard/mouse friendly than FFXI. To me, that was a very welcome change.

From what I understand, the fact that SE creates MMOs with consoles in mind is a cultural difference. From what one Japanese friend tells me, they have gaming cafes with consoles set up and often play by the hour, whereas we come home and boot up our computers.

Still, getting SE to fully understand that the majority of the NA MMO market are PC players hasn't been easy. Watching mouse improvements evolve through beta was painful, and was something people complained about daily. We almost didn't get a hardware mouse (which would have been a gamebreaker for many).

Yet, there are many who will play on PS3 or even on PC with a controller - people play in different ways, so the idea of a dual UI has been kicked around for a while to stop trying to split the middle with a one-size-fits-all setup. I'm personally in favor of this. In fact, after the battle system is sorted out, I think it needs to be a top priority. No longer will the UI feel clunky if it's tailored to your playstyle. You have an option to choose one of two UI layouts - Keyboard/Mouse or Controller.

As a Keyboard/Mouse player, these are the top things that are missing for me:

1. All action bars showing all the time. I don't want to use my arrow keys to flip through them. It's awkward, and precious time lost. They should all show on my screen.

2. Drag and drop functionality. I should be able to drag and drop abilities to/from my action bars. The extra clicks not only take extra time, but they're not intuitive. People used to ask all the time, "How do I put abilities on my action bar?"

3. Complete key bindings. I want to be able to fully bind everything. Even if it means putting the camera controls on my arrow keys and using the escape key to open my menu.

4. Mouseover tooltips. Everything should have a tooltip pop up when you mouseover it so there is no guessing what something is/does. This has improved with time. Keep going.

5. Right-click functionality. I should be able to right-click on an NPC to get him to talk to me, not double-left click or hit enter. I should be able to right-click on an aetheryte, not go through an interaction menu.

6. Mouse camera tweaks. The mouse could use some sensitivity tweaking. It's still not as responsive as it could be. Plus, it's still not a proper mouse look. Left-click-drag should pan the camera. Right-click-drag should actually pivot your character.

[Ilethius]

I believe (although not 100% sure) that in one of the Yoshi-P updates he said something about have two UI's running in tandem, one for mouse/pc users and one for gamepad users. I do think the current UI is more geared to gamepad users the biggest gripe I have is constantly having to double click to perform one action so I would click on the ! when near an Atheryte crystal which would open up the right hand menu and then I need to click on the ! in that menu to access the Atheryte.

That kind of double clicking is only a small issue but when you have to do it lots of times in game it does get annoying!

[Nephera]

hit I, open inventory

hit J, open journal

hit e, use whatever you're at when the (!) bubble appears

etc etc.

and another hotbar would be nice too, optional of course for people who cannot stand one more addition to the UI

also maybe two more buttons on the existing hotbars, I really just dont have enough room for everything I want on my primary bar on gladiator when i have a shield.

[Caimon]

I have been begging for the OP's mentioned tweaks since I began playing the game. It has always been the most lacking feature in the game, imo. I have never played XI, so playing an MMO with a gamepad is completly foreign. My r/l friends are used to XI and and play with both hands on the keyboard. I can't wrap my head around doing it this way.

Please, as others have said, give us keyboard freedom!

[Sirrush]

I agree with alot of whats being said here but i would also like to mention the fact that the action bar only allows one icon to be used for each ability, while there are many times i wish i could have an ability on two different bars, so that the issue of only being able to see one bar at a time would become less of an issue.

[LuciBlack]

I came from 6 years of XI on PS with my gamepad and keyboard.
Now in XIV i play with my Board and hardly ever my mouse.

I find the board very easy and helpful for me to be able to do anything I want.
I like having a lot more buttons than a gamepad.

And i too sometimes think we have too much crap on the screen, i try to hide a lot of it behind my textbox. I want to see what my character is doing, not just the icons for the things he can do. I find one bar of actions just fine, and i push one button to get to the other bar's.

What I want to see is a way to change the size of all the stuff on screen, not just the textbox and hp bar, but the size of the action bars too and the map would be neat. I memorize the keys i asign them to, so i dont need a huge button in my face saying "im over here". And being able to toggle them on off easily... togle my mp gage off cause im not a mage, toggle my map off cause i already know where i am. Toggle my textbox off cause im not speaking to anyone.

Thoughts.

[Caimon]

I'm all for the customization of the UI. Everybody has their own tastes and we should be able to tweak the UI freely, imo.

And as long as they open up key mapping, I dont care what else they do to the controls, just let me control what button does it.

I would like to use the buttons on the side of my mouse for common functions as well as middle buttons. I have a very expensive gaming mouse that is useless in this game. And there is no substitute for the turn speed and freedom of a mouse, imo.

[Smashington]

Customize. Customize. Customize.

Just keep working on the UI until everyone has what they want AND the option to turn it off. Expand to 3 visible action bars, click to minimize to one. Option to remove each UI component 1 by 1. Maybe a list of UI components and you just check boxes for what you want to see right now.

Hot keys for everything! Don't set them if you don't want to.

You want to make the the game awesomely awesome? Add everything anyone asks for in a UI - and the option to turn it off. You can't go wrong.

PS: THIS is basically the way to make your game universally enjoyed. Let everyone control it how they are want, fully customizable. Focusing on Jumping or Maps before UI is questionable at best.

PS: A separate UI for controller makes a lot of sense.

[Kroguys]

It is my belief that no keyboard was ever touched in developing the UI. As a result, it is the worst UI that I have ever seen in a MMO. There are lots of stuff I would like to see add/changed with the UI. But let me start with one thing, then we go from there.

Hot Keys. I'm only using 3 out of 7 buttons on my mouse because I can't assign keys. I'm only using 1/3 of the keys on my keyboard for the same reason. when I goto a harvest nod, I wanna be able to click a mouse button and start harvesting. Why do I need to go into the main menu???? Many many actions in game are like that.

Give me my hot keys and I promise I will stop complaning for a month.