My personal ui improvement Megathread

[TheElvenQueen]

I'm gonna dump anything and everything I can here, as I progress through the game.
No intro but let me say this:

I like the game, but there are a lot of things that could be, and need to be improved.
I might do another post later on actual gameplay/jobs etc., but trying to keep this
only related to ui issues. There's no logical order or importance of things, I'll just post whatever annoys me that very day.

Today on the menu, the search option:

Instead of giving us the blank "google it yourself?" page, when looking up rarefied or abnormal misc items,
why not 1) tell us what they are exchanged for, and 2) where?



You could have a mini npc icon (like a wind-up doll) next to the location.
Clicking on it should open that npc's page, allowing us to browse and preview all they have to offer, from where we are.
If we want to actually trade stuff, we naturally have to go visit them.

Would save everyone a million years of google surfing around, each time they loot some misc item, making them wonder
why does it have no use for any crafting recipe, can't be crafted, can't be harvested or mined or fished... wtf is it for??

With this new in-game result, all that stress is gone.
A reasonable request.

[Rongway]

Any item that begins with "Rarefied" is a collectible and its sole purpose is to be turned in to a Collectable Appraiser for scrips.

Anything else that doesn't have an obvious use is for a quest that you would ostensibly be on and therefore actively looking for those specific items, or is a fish.

[TheElvenQueen]

Faster Aethernet.

Not the prettiest thing but you get the functional concept,
use your imagination to make it look good and animate it.

How often do you need to use the sub menu of
"visit another world/register favorite/register free/set home"?
Very rarely. Hide that stuff under a right click on the center icon.

How does this new Aetheryte work?
Click the stone as usual, the flower menu pops up over a faded town/area map and all mini aetherytes, with location names. Selected icons (mouse over) are highlighted.
Undiscovered nodes are dimmed/grayed out.

The "other" category gate locations are squeezed in as smaller icons,
next to the main node icons. Not in the image, too lazy to do them.
Their position on the flower wheel is respectful to their real world orientation; north, south, southwest, east, northeast etc.

So now you don't even need to read where you are going, because it's far easier to memorise a connection between a image (icon) and its location + direction.
Pop pop. You are where you want to be. All a optional alternative ofc, nobody forces you to use this new ui feature. I would still guarantee 95% of all players would use this over the current clunky ugly system.

You could also make the background active upon clicking it, drag and move, to read more details about locations. Also naturally: straight connection to the "housing areas" like firmaments etc. No more sub menu from sub menu to main aetheryte back and forth surfing through maps and saved location histories.

This would be a visual and functional 10/10 improvement.

[TheElvenQueen]

Any item that begins with "Rarefied" is a collectible and its sole purpose is to be turned in to a Collectable Appraiser for scrips.

Anything else that doesn't have an obvious use is for a quest that you would ostensibly be on and therefore actively looking for those specific items, or is a fish.

Prime example of people being 10 years in the game; you just know it all.
You can't even understand a new players perspective, or even older ones, who doesn't want or cares to remember every single item.

Cracked dendrocrystal, stellacrystal, mchachi demimatter, cracked crystal, planicrystal, alexandria and other raids..
gordian, midan, alexandrian, shaft, pedal, plate, lense, this and that literally 500 misc mcguffins, which say NOTHING about ANYTHING if you right click them.

Letting out an unbelievable sigh, but this is so expected still.
No new or old player should have to remember any of these mega lists of misc items and what they can be exchanged for and where.
There's simply too much stuff. It's a given that any game provides in-game info, I mean literally ANYTHING, any info... and not just a completely blank page of "lol go figure?".

I know everything I'm gonna post here will trigger all the fanboys, just let it go.
Don't take it personally, don't get defensive, don't try to help me.
When I point something out, I am right about it being a huge flaw.
I don't need anyone telling me how to do something in the game, I'm here to tell you all, that it is done badly in the game, and then tell you how it can be improved.
Embrace problem solving suggestions. I'm not here to take a dump on your beloved game like "lul gaem bad" as if it was a extension of your very being or self worth.

It's a game, and I want to make it better.
That's why I post these hoping some devs would eventually pick up on it and actually add more QoL to the game, so I and many others could enjoy it more.

[Rongway]

When I point something out, I am right about it being a huge flaw.
I don't need anyone telling me how to do something in the game, I'm here to tell you all, that it is done badly in the game, and then tell you how it can be improved.

I'm not here to take a dump on your beloved game like "lul gaem bad" as if it was a extension of your very being or self worth.

If you feel a personal need to point out that you're going to trigger all the fanboys and you are always right, it sounds like taking a dump on the game is exactly your goal.

If you can't read people's replies to your posts without getting unhinged, maybe reconsider posting on a public forum in the first place.

You are not infallable, and unless your name is Don Norman or Jakob Nielsen you're not some UI/UX god who automatically gets the benefit of my confidence.

Don't take it personally, don't get defensive, don't try to help me.

Don't take it personally, don't get defensive, and don't patronize me.

[Rongway]

Faster Aethernet ... would be a visual and functional 10/10 improvement.

The Aetheryte proper would benefit from opening the aethernet window immediately and hiding the home point, etc., options behind a button in the aethernet window.

But Endwalker already brought a visual and functional improvement to the aethernet that eliminated the worst problem of the old system by providing a clickable map so that people wouldn't have to memorize shard names and locations. Your map suggestion would at best be a marginal improvement over the new system and not worth the dev time.

[Deveryn]

Cracked dendrocrystal, stellacrystal, mchachi demimatter, cracked crystal, planicrystal, alexandria and other raids..
gordian, midan, alexandrian, shaft, pedal, plate, lense, this and that literally 500 misc mcguffins, which say NOTHING about ANYTHING if you right click them.

cracked crystals and the like indicate they can be traded for materia. You can generally find a materia vendor in any expansion city.

Normal raid items don't say much, but once you find out about one item, you find out about them all. There is always at least one vendor mentioned in the patch notes.

If you ever need to find something, you don't have to google, just shout in a city or ask in novice network. It would also be good to make a habit of exploring every city to see what they have to offer.