Suggestion to Improve Action Bar Organization and UI for Better Overview

[Ryuichi_Kato]

Hello!

Due to an issue I encountered today, a few abilities were missing from my action bar, so I had to manually drag the missing abilities back onto the bar.

My main issue, however, was keeping track of which abilities were already on the bar and which ones were missing. I know most of the abilities for my main job and where I’ve placed them, but not for my other jobs. It took quite a bit of time to reorganize the action bar for each job.

There was an improvement to the UI in the past that allowed us to change the view (which I’m very grateful for), but it still required a lot of effort.

So, in a nutshell, here are my suggestions to make managing the action bar even easier and to provide a better overview:


1. Visually indicate which abilities are already on the action bar and which are missing – perhaps by graying out the ones that are already there or offering a filter that can be toggled when needed.

2. Highlight abilities that can be used as shortcuts – maybe with a line or icon to prevent accidentally dragging the same ability twice onto the bar (or an option to hide them when the shortcuts are enabled).

3. Add a search or filter function to make it easier to find specific abilities, such as buffs, AoEs, heals, aggro actions, etc. Alternatively, you could introduce special categories or lightly highlight them with different colors.


Same for PVP actions, we don't have a lot of actions there but to see which one you need to pull in the action bar and which not would be good as well.

I believe these changes would help many players maintain a better overview of their abilities.

Some Additional Ideas:

- Additionally, a search function in the settings could be helpful to quickly find the feature you're looking for (but this is a different topic).

- I wonder if it is also possible to share their layout / action bar with different player (with a unique code, maybe you can copy and paste)?

- A friend of mine also came up with the Idea to have a button which instant clear the action bar (ofc with a pop-up warning for people with slippy fingers like me lol).

IDK how much work it is to implement something like that, but I would be very grateful when we will get such an QoL Update!

[Crafoutis]

WoW already does this with its spellbook and I love it. Highlighting what's not on your bar is a godsend and FFXIV should definitely follow suit.