Battle Command Design -PLEASE FIX IT

[Natabant]

the battle system though... is not one of it's selling points... period
In fact... Macro heavy battles are part of the reason FFXI wasn't the hit it could have been.
That type of battle turned A LOT of people off....
You can say "SE should please the FFXI crowd" but for every ex-FFXI player, there are 10 RPG gamers that SE wants to appeal to, and Menu based, macro heavy combat wont do it

That's your personal opinion; and XI probably did poorly b/c it was originally released to console. If it had been released to pc, originally, w/ a "tapped out" graphics engine, it would probably have made it up there w/ the, alleged, "greats." Anyway, OP doesn't want to *replace XIV's battle system w/ XI's...he wants to have the option for either. It's not asking for much.

Lastly... on a personal note.... battle macros leave me feeling disconnected from battle.
Gone are the days when you "issue commands" to your character....
Now.. You ARE your character... down to every swing of the sword or spell you use
Menu based combat is as far inside the box as you can get....
Challenge your brain to think outside it

Change isn't always better...I dunno why ppl think that "change" automatically = "win." The action bar isn't really "outside the box" either. Like you said yourself, virtually every other MMO out there already does something similar. So, that's a moot point.

It absolutely toggles... There is a menu option that says... are you ready for this... "Toggle Macro Bar" under Configuration>system

You're Welcome

Thanks for that lol...they either added it later, or I didn't bother checking.