Use of crosshair/cursor to improve targeting accuracy.

[MysteryFaceX]

I've been giving FFXIV a fair shake and I'm in love with cross hotbar system. That said, I'm still bugged by the arcane "tab target select" mechanic. Of course this wouldn't be an issue with a mouse, but then I would be faced with another bugbear I have: the old-fashioned "click and drag the mouse" to turn the camera.

Some recent action style online games have taken to incorporate a crosshair and the camera would move with your mouse like in a shooter. The mouse cursor is toggled on with a button press or when you open a menu. Even though FFXIV is not an action style oriented mmorpg, I believe such an option for a crosshair and camera control might be preferential for some players.

However, my major concern is not for the mouse, but for the gamepad; adding a crosshair and using it as a means to select a target could be incredibly useful for quick, accurate target selections. The tab targeting will still be there to fall back on.

A sort of temporary simulation of what a crosshair system would feel like on a gamepad is to place the virtual mouse cursor on where you would like the crosshair to be and use it to select a target. Unfortunately, the cursor disappears after selecting a target and you'll have to turn the cursor back on afterwards. The crosshair could basically be a cursor that is perpetually on.

You've already done plenty of good work SquareEnix and thank you for already providing players with so many options to fine-tune the game to their preferred experience.

[Underlord]

I use game pad (ps4)... I typically never have issues with targeting. I have it at when my weapon is sheathed, I can target anything pretty much. When it's unsheathed, left or right on dpad to select mobs, up and down on dpad to cycle through party members. Also upon first targeting, it always targets closest mob.

[MysteryFaceX]

I use game pad (ps4)... I typically never have issues with targeting. I have it at when my weapon is sheathed, I can target anything pretty much. When it's unsheathed, left or right on dpad to select mobs, up and down on dpad to cycle through party members. Also upon first targeting, it always targets closest mob.

Yes, I know about the target filters. I'm just looking for something even better than that and more suited to my play style.

[MysteryFaceX]

Speaking of which, what's with the camera auto-adjusting to behind my character with the gamepad and I can't turn that off if I'm not using a mouse?

After finding out about mouse over macros, this crosshair suggestion could be used with those macros as well!

[Niwashi]

How would a crosshair work with a controller? Currently we've got one analog stick controlling character movement and the other controlling camera position. I don't think we'd want to give up either of those two things.

[Rongway]

Speaking of which, what's with the camera auto-adjusting to behind my character with the gamepad and I can't turn that off if I'm not using a mouse?

The camera will stop snapping behind you if you turn on Legacy movement.

/characterconfig
Control Settings
General tab
Movement Settings: Legacy Type (Camera-based)

After finding out about mouse over macros, this crosshair suggestion could be used with those macros as well!

Mouseovers don't generally need precision, though. The party list, the enemy list, the arrays for the other two parties in an alliance, your target health bar, your focus target health bar, and your target of target health bar are all valid mouseovers, and they are fairly large stationary objects.

[MysteryFaceX]

The camera will stop snapping behind you if you turn on Legacy movement.

/characterconfig
Control Settings
General tab
Movement Settings: Legacy Type (Camera-based)


Mouseovers don't generally need precision, though. The party list, the enemy list, the arrays for the other two parties in an alliance, your target health bar, your focus target health bar, and your target of target health bar are all valid mouseovers, and they are fairly large stationary objects.

Legacy makes it so that your character always faces forward and your character would back pedal instead of running towards the camera.
Oh, so you're saying that people use mouse over on the list over to the left side and not actually on the characters on the screen?

How would a crosshair work with a controller? Currently we've got one analog stick controlling character movement and the other controlling camera position. I don't think we'd want to give up either of those two things.

If you've played any shooters, where they have a crosshair or a dot usually in the middle as an indicator.

[Rongway]

Legacy makes it so that your character always faces forward and your character would back pedal instead of running towards the camera.

Other way around: legacy movement makes it so the direction you press is the direction you go on the screen, while the default movement setting make it so your movement will be based on which direction your character is facing. In Legacy, you will only backpedal if you move back while using the Strafe keys; for this reason, in legacy mode you should unbind "Strafe Left"/"Strafe Right" and use "Move Left"/"Move Right" instead.

In terms of a QE-WASD setup, the binds would look like this:
Move Forward : W
Move Back / Walk Backwards : S
Move Left / Turn Left : Q
Move Right / Turn Right : E
Strafe Left : Unbound
Strafe Right : Unbound
...
Move Camera to the Left : A
Move Camera to the Right : D

Then, despite the misleading naming of the keybinds, when you want to "turn", you move the camera with A/D and then move forward/backward with W/S. The Move/Turn binds will be for strafing.

(Tangential: the strafe keys should be mapped to Move Left / Move Right instead of Strafe Left / Strafe Right because the other major purpose of legacy mode is to be able to move at the same speed in all eight directions, instead of backpedaling. If you bind to Strafe instead of Move, you will backpedal if moving back and to the side simultanously. Binding to Move avoids this.)

Oh, so you're saying that people use mouse over on the list over to the left side and not actually on the characters on the screen?

In re: mouseovers, character models move a lot, and aren't great targets for mouseovers because they might move, or someone else might move on top of your intended target. You can avoid a lot of mistargeting by mousing over the stationary hud elements instead.

[Dzian]

Sounds incredibly clunky. There are so many targeting options already for game pads the thing you want is rarely more than a couple of presses away. You have filters you can predefined.
L1+x I have to engaged enemies l1+square =box objects. (For when you have to activate that shield generator surrounded by mobs Or target the tomes npc)

One that seems lesser known is if you hold l1 and press up and down it scrolls targets in the enemy list.

I wouldn't want a cross hair tagged to my right stick for example as the camera is usually looking around the arena for mechanics.

You can already use mouseovers with the touch pad. But that's clunky as hell

[MysteryFaceX]

Other way around: legacy movement makes it so the direction you press is the direction you go on the screen, while the default movement setting make it so your movement will be based on which direction your character is facing. In Legacy, you will only backpedal if you move back while using the Strafe keys; for this reason, in legacy mode you should unbind "Strafe Left"/"Strafe Right" and use "Move Left"/"Move Right" instead.

Oops, you're right. Sorry!

Sounds incredibly clunky. There are so many targeting options already for game pads the thing you want is rarely more than a couple of presses away. You have filters you can predefined.
L1+x I have to engaged enemies l1+square =box objects. (For when you have to activate that shield generator surrounded by mobs Or target the tomes npc)

One that seems lesser known is if you hold l1 and press up and down it scrolls targets in the enemy list.

I wouldn't want a cross hair tagged to my right stick for example as the camera is usually looking around the arena for mechanics.

You can already use mouseovers with the touch pad. But that's clunky as hell

I just thought it would be faster to aim with a reticle. I still find myself backing out of target to reacquire a closer target instead of tabbing through to the one I want. Maybe I'll just have to get used to looking at the list of enemies to the left. I mean, I think it's as easy as just leaving the mouse cursor perpetually on in the same spot. Of course, it would look better if it wasn't the mouse cursor, but a reticle.
Btw, how did you get the touchpad on your DS4 to work? The game recognises my DS4 as an Xbox controller.