Why people still USE ACT knowing their breaking TOS ??

[Sythalin]

Seeing streamers using these on their stream and also non raiders (group parties/dungeons) maybe ffxiv need to add their own version of parsing to remove need of addons/plugins ???

I've also seen a lot of people use ACT to customize their UI info a bit better, the most popular seemingly being Special Spell Timers. TBH, this is something that should be implemented in the game itself (CD/proc icons, bar timers, etc.) but as they've admitted themselves they cannot easily implement while still being console friendly. Prime example of this is the horrible repair UI that still requires people to repair every category individually.

As others have stated many times, it's mostly overlooked as harmless until someone uses it to DPS shame people. At which point the jerk being reported is still not being suspended/banned for using ACT, but for the real reason: being a jerk.

[Barraind]

people use ACT to customize their UI info a bit better, the most popular seemingly being Special Spell Timers. TBH, this is something that should be implemented in the game itself (CD/proc icons, bar timers, etc.) but as they've admitted themselves they cannot easily implement while still being console friendly

14s lack of UI customization is as out-of-date as their lack of parses, or other mods which improve that aspect of gameplay (also the way macros work is downright awful at times even with enough pause buffering).


I just want to be able to not have awful group, target, and raid frames. And a customizable action bar. And a vertical text and duration only list of buffs and debuffs in a dragable frame. And more options like that.

[BluexBird]

And this is a constant thing! Black Mages that don't use Enochian, Dragoons that don't use Blood/Life of the Dragon, Monks that don't even do their positionals. Healers that never use a DPS spell, and Tanks that refuse to mitigate any damage. It's a huge problem this community has -- and its just as toxic as someone yelling at another person for low DPS numbers via a parse or something of that nature.

The other day I met a Black Mage that didn't know where to fit Despair into their rotation. They would legit go into ice phase once they didn't have enough MP to cast Fire IV. I'm sure their damage was probably still fine, but things like this make me wonder what else people might not know about their class.

[NoctusT]

If ACT wasn't in this game a whole bunch of players would stop playing overnight. This is speculation but I do believe that the hardcore community would be killed off too. In order to be successful, every game needs a hardcore community that develops guides, clears content quickly and gives the Devs feedback. Even animal crossing has a hardcore community.
Square is being smart about this. So long as you aren't harassing people in chat they look the other way. And if someone is going to be an arsehole in game, they'd be an arsehole regardless of ACT being a thing or not. The TOS exists to help them kick people doing that sort of shit.
To quote good old Zoof: FFLOGS is the game we play, FFXIV is just the third party app that helps us do it. (Jk)

[Awha]

In the end comes down, what reasons done have to not use ACT.

[Colt47]

14s lack of UI customization is as out-of-date as their lack of parses, or other mods which improve that aspect of gameplay (also the way macros work is downright awful at times even with enough pause buffering).


I just want to be able to not have awful group, target, and raid frames. And a customizable action bar. And a vertical text and duration only list of buffs and debuffs in a dragable frame. And more options like that.

Okay, I know the game has UI issues but there is a good reason for that. The original game was supposed to be more like FFXI-2 and have that sort of old school system where people had to mix and match different skills from different jobs to complete certain roles. When they revamped it they went with a system where we have to keep up a pattern of actions constantly on a cooldown using a queue. I'm going to be blunt that WoW did this way better because the system it grew out of focused on having a smaller number of strategic abilities. FFXIV they went with a longer GCD, which meant more time between actions than WoW and a need to have more actions to queue up to keep it interesting. The only problem with this is that humans only have two hands to work with and we got limited reach on the keyboard without losing the default position.

I don't think it's worth it to go into details, but this game has way too many jobs that induce repetitive stress injury and it seems like they keep finding new and inventive ways to keep making it a nightmare. On one hand, Samurai, warrior, paladin, redmage, and black mage seem fine, but then we get into Gunbreaker where it just has way too many abilities and cooldowns to fit safely on a keyboard / mmo mouse map.

And yes, maybe people have found a way to make it work, but part of game design is creating the input system for the user to use. FFXIV sort of slugs abilities onto a hot bar as you get them from levels and leaves them there unless the player sorts out where to have everything. Even if someone does provide another keybind, the player then has to rebind and learn how to use that key bind later.

[Wyakin]

Okay, I know the game has UI issues but there is a good reason for that. The original game was supposed to be more like FFXI-2 and have that sort of old school system where people had to mix and match different skills from different jobs to complete certain roles. When they revamped it they went with a system where we have to keep up a pattern of actions constantly on a cooldown using a queue. I'm going to be blunt that WoW did this way better because the system it grew out of focused on having a smaller number of strategic abilities. FFXIV they went with a longer GCD, which meant more time between actions than WoW and a need to have more actions to queue up to keep it interesting. The only problem with this is that humans only have two hands to work with and we got limited reach on the keyboard without losing the default position.

I don't think it's worth it to go into details, but this game has way too many jobs that induce repetitive stress injury and it seems like they keep finding new and inventive ways to keep making it a nightmare. On one hand, Samurai, warrior, paladin, redmage, and black mage seem fine, but then we get into Gunbreaker where it just has way too many abilities and cooldowns to fit safely on a keyboard / mmo mouse map.

And yes, maybe people have found a way to make it work, but part of game design is creating the input system for the user to use. FFXIV sort of slugs abilities onto a hot bar as you get them from levels and leaves them there unless the player sorts out where to have everything. Even if someone does provide another keybind, the player then has to rebind and learn how to use that key bind later.

Are you actually serious? As a controller player I can honestly say that if you don’t have enough buttons on a keyboard and mmo mouse then maybe MMOs aren’t your game bud. I can fit every single ability on every job comfortably on a controller with many many empty slots. I feel you need to optimise a little more

[Colt47]

Are you actually serious? As a controller player I can honestly say that if you don’t have enough buttons on a keyboard and mmo mouse then maybe MMOs aren’t your game bud. I can fit every single ability on every job comfortably on a controller with many many empty slots. I feel you need to optimise a little more

They did a far better job on the controller than they did with the PC stuff I can tell you that. Gunbreaker is a complete headache on a gaming mouse and keyboard because even if you have the button grid on the mouse, it's really hard to rope memorize all the buttons on the mouse and you end up with a lot of skills ending up on keys that are not reachable by hand, so you have to basically click them using the default layout. I managed to fix the issues by heavily modifying the hot bar layout and keybindings, but it's ugly. There are a couple of jobs that are survivable on the default horizontal bar layout like whm, warrior, paladin, samurai, and red mage.

[ForteNightshade]

They did a far better job on the controller than they did with the PC stuff I can tell you that. Gunbreaker is a complete headache on a gaming mouse and keyboard because even if you have the button grid on the mouse, it's really hard to rope memorize all the buttons on the mouse and you end up with a lot of skills ending up on keys that are not reachable by hand, so you have to basically click them using the default layout. I managed to fix the issues by heavily modifying the hot bar layout and keybindings, but it's ugly. There are a couple of jobs that are survivable on the default horizontal bar layout like whm, warrior, paladin, samurai, and red mage.

... what? No offense but this screams of being a "you" problem and nothing whatsoever to do with your mouse. MMO mice are typically designed where you can easily feel out the keys. For example, my Logitech 600 not only has extra bump on the two middle keys but all six middle keys are curved. It makes centering your thumb very easy. Pretty much every mouse has a similar design component and it simply requires practice to build muscle memory. It also helps that you should pick a job and build every hotbar layout in a similar fashion. My tank, DPS and Healer layouts are almost identical.

PC controllers are a breeze in this game. And that's coming from someone who started with a controller and wasn't even a PC gamer until FFXIV.

[Avidria]

They did a far better job on the controller than they did with the PC stuff I can tell you that. Gunbreaker is a complete headache on a gaming mouse and keyboard because even if you have the button grid on the mouse, it's really hard to rope memorize all the buttons on the mouse and you end up with a lot of skills ending up on keys that are not reachable by hand, so you have to basically click them using the default layout. I managed to fix the issues by heavily modifying the hot bar layout and keybindings, but it's ugly. There are a couple of jobs that are survivable on the default horizontal bar layout like whm, warrior, paladin, samurai, and red mage.

Are you using shift modifiers or anything at all? I play mouse/kb and don't even have a gaming mouse, and there are only really a few classes where I have trouble reasonably keybinding everything and needing to click. Even then it's mostly tanks and healers, which I don't play as often as dps, so I really just haven't sat down and taken the time to really organize my hotbars very well for those classes. I bind and use 1-6 and f1-f5, RTYZXFG, and three mouse buttons (I do have two side buttons, and the middle button to bind), and then I have shift 1-3 set up, and that pretty much covers me on most of the classes I care about.

Ofc I do have carpal tunnel and other issues so I'm usually playing with a wrist brace on and can't reach as far as some others could. I could probably have a better more usable setup if I didn't already have hand and wrist problems.

I wouldn't complain if they condensed some things where reasonable, maybe combined some abilities to one button where it makes sense, but I wouldn't actually say FF is too much worse than WoW in terms of hotbar usability. It at least has a better base UI (for hotbars, if literally nothing else) even if there are definitely some mods in WoW that give much more flexibility and a generally better experience overall.