Battle Command Design -PLEASE FIX IT

[Brigandier]

i dont think its clunky, i think its fine the way it is. either that or players who are complaining dont have enough experience using their skill bar ( not to point fingers but maybe those who are getting power leveled ) or they have poor organization of their bar.

oh and im a controller user ( razer onza tournament Edition controller ).

and at first came out of 1.20 it was horrible to be a controller user, but after spending 30 minutes organizing all the skills for every job, it became very easy. ( like putting WS in order next to each other that does combos )

I also have my action bar very "optimized" and it does help, but it would still be worlds better with the option to expand it so all 3 bars are shown at once and move the macro bar to another location. Having it expanded gives you all cooldowns in view, the gamepad navigation would be exactly the same, and macros would be much more usable when they aren't hiding critical information.

[Buddhsie]

Guess I'm the only person that used echo /recast, an already in game function.

Yes, you are. That system was horrible.

[Answa]

i just wish they would take some action bar UI functions from aion. when you use the initial action to start a combo, the next action in the combo would pop on the same slot. so you could do a 3 hit combo by mashing 1-1-1 instead of say 1-2-3 so you can set 2 and 3 as other abilities if you want. and, reaction ability's would light up after you met the conditions. i.e.: if you parry, the ability that needs a parry would flash up a bit to let you know you did. instead of trying to pick out the text.

edit: i don't know if aion came up with these or anything like this, they just used it and i liked it

I feel that with the combination of action queueing and positional criteria, this would be too annoying in our current game.

[Khal_Drogo]

I hated menu bar in FFXI, scrolling through so many spells. I prefer action bars as long as they are not as clunky as what we have currently.

I'm not saying that they should do away w/ action bars. I just think they should AT LEAST give the option for both. I don't think it would take much effort, since it's mostly just an aesthitic adjustment. The slots from the equip menu could all stay the same; you would just need to change the way your equipped actions are displayed.

There is no winner and loser in this "argument." It'd be a win-win. No need to hate on the idea lol

[Khal_Drogo]

I can't see how a menu-based skill library would be easier to use than this, which is literally just scrolling through three lines of ten icons... But I do loves me the traditional RPG menu and would not mind it.

The main reason it would help is b/c there's no practical way to figure out what you're looking at. I don't want to have to memorize pictures and icon designs. I don't want to rely on some black paragraph pop-up with .5 font to tell me what i'm scrolling past.

It feels like some primitive matching game. "K, green w/ an axe = big boom;" "Blue w/ a fist = heal;" "Yellow w/ a sword = me take hits long time," and so on... It's ridiculous.

And again, why does it have to be either/or? You said yourself, like so many other people did...Who doesn't like traditional FF RPG menu? It's win-win!

[Answa]

The main reason it would help is b/c there's no practical way to figure out what you're looking at. I don't want to have to memorize pictures and icon designs. I don't want to rely on some black paragraph pop-up with .5 font to tell me what i'm scrolling past.

It feels like some primitive matching game. "K, green w/ an axe = big boom;" "Blue w/ a fist = heal;" "Yellow w/ a sword = me take hits long time," and so on... It's ridiculous.

And again, why does it have to be either/or? You said yourself, like so many other people did...Who doesn't like traditional FF RPG menu? It's win-win!

Hey, I'm not against it. I was just wondering, as it seems our current system would be the quicker one.

[Khal_Drogo]

Hey, I'm not against it. I was just wondering, as it seems our current system would be the quicker one.

Well, I hate to "beat a dead horse" or w/e that hick saying is..but! FFXI had a pretty flawless battle system for consol players. The macro system was set up really, REALLY, well; and they were able to keep the traditional FF menu display, which went a long way in capturing my interest.

I think it's safe to say that a pretty strong majority of the complaints out there are based from comparisons to FFXI. So, why not, at LEAST, try to appease both crowds? -Modern MMO players, AND "traditionalists" who usually favor XI > XIV.

[Natabant]

I am not entirely sure why anyone would hate the UI that's currently in place. I find it MUCH easier than XI, and I'm on a controller. (always)...

In XI, yes. You did have the Attack/Magic/etc. But really, did you actually play with this? Chance are, you probably didn't. You likley had macros for everything (I absolutely did) which if you think about it... looks ungodly similar to the action bar we have now. It has... 10 actions, and you can push a button and boom, it goes off. We also can use macros too...

If this was a turn-based game, I'd feel differently.

I get where you're coming from; I sorta feel the same way too. But, I don't think the OP is really trying to say that he wants the action bar replaced. He just wants the option to substitute the traditional menu style... Not to mention, we have to keep in mind that there are plenty of ppl out there, especially future ps3 players, that will not like this UI.

I agree that ppl probably didn't use the menu list much in XI, except to examine (/c) ppl; and maybe to do a ranged attack. But that still doesn't change the fact that the current one seems clumsy. There's lots of scrolling back and forth, up and down, button-smashing, and so on.

[Dreadnought]

menus are inferior to a well designed action bar and key bind system.... THE END.

[Natabant]

I dunno, i don't have any problem with the current design.... I actually like the action bar, it's not hard at all to select actions even with a controller. There is ample time between skills to navigate and select what you want. It's not like XI where you had access to tons of magic spells and such. There's no need for a menu choice of weapon skills etc when you have so few to choose from anyway. And if you did have many to choose from, wouldn't most ppl end up making macros for using their skills anyway?....

At least with XI, when you entered a certain category, you wouldn't accidentally hit something completely random, like a 2-hour or something while trying to cure or "weapon skill." I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally hit Rebirth w/o Chainspell up cuz I was trying to scroll through and hit something else.

And as for the ease of access, honestly, XI was much more accessible -both in terms of macros and random selections.

The current macro system doesn't toggle, so you can accidentally hit some other action, while you're trying to hit a macro, if you don't hold down the L2/R2 triggers very well. And it blocks the action bar, which is really annoying.

Categories make it easier to access whatever action you have equipped...and 30 slots is a pretty substantial list of actions. And the only issue I ever had w/ XI's macros was the 7-line limit per macro.