Control Schemes

[Alderaan]

How about, don't fix what isn't broken?

I'd kill for an updated next gen FF game with fluid combat and controls.

I think someone said this earlier but, as bad at 99% of FTP games are, even they get the combat and controls right. Now just take that and mix it with the story, content, and group dynamic that SE is good at and you have yourself a game baby.

[Ketna]

I LOVED not having to use the mouse in FFXI and in some games like Lineage 2 I LOVE being able to use the mouse to target. They are different games, and there are different people who like either or.

Currently I am using a 360 game pad because I CANNOT use IJKL for the camera! It just feels WRONG to me.

I just want my "compact keyboard" setting from FFXI and I would be happy. Throw in an option to bind keys on the number pad to target team members and it would be even better.

I cannot wait to start playing and having my hand back on the arrow keys!

[Kylewhataru]

What is a software mouse?

And I thought this game has standard WASD+Mouse controls like any 3rd person PC game? FFXI's PC controllers were unplayable for me, I had to use a gamepad, hope I don't have to do that again.

[Kurokikaze]

Fuck the gamepad, makes for shitty players

Hey you, yeah you, fuck you.

[plue]

They should just port over the FFXI controls. Honestly, they've been riding the "we want XI players to feel at home in this game" train for so long, and even cheaped out on making new races, that it'd be a fucking joke if they didn't.

[SephYuyX]

As voiced over and over again.

Simple solution: Just make everything user customizable. Not really hard to make another menu with every action listed, and have the user specify the input they want

[jenasu]

moving camera as arrow buttons keeps getting me, ijkl..... wtf....

[Deadgye]

FFXI's PC controllers were unplayable for me, I had to use a gamepad, hope I don't have to do that again.

Most fluid gameplay I'd ever had was using a keyboard on ffxi. A nice thing for gamepad users is that it's incredibly easy to use them nowadays. Own a PS3? Use your PS3 controller! etc.

[lurtsman]

It's unfortunate mentioning wow has become attached to such negative imagery. Comparative posts lead to the ban hammer. However this topic (controls, moreover UI settings) has bothered me enough that after a month of lurking and thousands of posts read I felt it time to register.

We have two issues at stake here. The first, is that an MMO is similar to a car. There are now many different kinds of cars, however when cars were first being built there was less information about what features people wanted and what could be done. I imagine there were plenty of people who said "Lets not copy Ford, we'll make our own Car. We can completely re-invent it." However, anyone who attempted to invent a new car without a steering wheel had to meet the hard facts of unemployment. There are some features that become so basic as necessities that the absence of them dooms anything.

The next is that conversation is made more complicated by the grey area surrounding wow. It's obvious the mods want to keep conversation on track. If I wanted to focus on wow things, I'd be on a wow forum. At the same time, wow is like that first Ford that started bringing MMO to the main market. (Ford himself referred to this as the democratization of the automobile) To consider mentioning wow sacrilegious is tantamount to putting our heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge what we have all seen work. That reason I've chosen to assume that admonitions about other games are not saying "Do not mention them" but instead refer to preventing retarded threads that are the video game equivalent of "dragon ball Z vs pokemon", also known as a thread which deeply retards anyone who enters it.

Assuming we are free to have a constructive debate about features we would like to see in wow and use the clear front runner as examples of ways they can be done: We can have a constructive debate about what is valuable, and why, and what is not valuable, and why.

First and foremost, we should all recognize that SE has a history of doing things their own way. Sometimes it's good. Frequently it is bad. However at the time of FFXI, they were the best MMO on the market IMO. They dominated star wars. With this release they are dominating some other categories. The graphics are insane. FFXI is known for story lines. I'm hoping they can resume their role of leading the pack. However, they are missing features that I consider as crucial as the steering wheel.

Now, a short background on me. I preordered ffxi and took the day off from school to pick it up immediately. I played it until WoW came out. I heard how well WoW was doing and decided to try it. I never went back. In wow I joined a top end guild (currently ranked as one of the top 5 in the world), and raided there for 18 months as a core member of the progression team. I understand high end progression. I retired during WoTLK and have been leading pugs that are stronger than most guilds on the server.

Here's why I want FFXIV. Crafting system is difficult and people maxing trade skills is much more difficult and rare. I enjoy that part of the economy. I love crafting. It's become too easy in WoW. The bold/rapid/standard/wait system is great. I'd like to see the results displayed quicker though. What they did wrong -- I do like opening my profession tab. I don't want to select a crystal and manually add all the ingredients. That part of the system was fail. That leads to botting. We need to be allowed macros to perform recipes. Forcing extra keystrokes is fail. It's like taking the numbers off a TV remote and only giving "up" and "down" as options.

New class system sounds like it might be good. It'll be interesting and fun. I think the majority of players will fail horribly. That doesn't bother me, because I am used to seeing players at different levels of abilities. It makes success that much more rewarding. I'm concerned by how few abilities I see in the beta, but most classes are like that at low level. I hope it changes at higher levels.

The KB/M failure is representational of an overall UI failure. WoW allowed third party addons. It was a great choice for them. It would be wise for SE to allow this also, but they tend to have a stranglehold on everything related to the game. I remember the fuss about people having a "windower". I heard it existed and wouldn't stop searching until I found it--after that I never played an MMO in full screen again. Being able to tab to manage vent/browse wikipedia was great. The interface is blatantly designed for use on other platforms. I'm all for having those platforms. I love having variety in where are players come from and how they play. However, I have no love for carrying baddies. I regularly boot them and run with 24 or 23 people. This awful interface is going to be a real challenge for casuals that want into high end raiding. I'll be leading a top end guild (equivalent) for whichever server I go to. Players who are stuck in the UI will not be able to respond to fights as quickly to get out of the damage, or improve their effectiveness. That creates a large divide between the haves, and the have nots.

Here is my logic (Feel free to call me an ***hole, I don't care. I want this game to be awesome. I prefer reality to daydreams of utopia)

1. There will be high end raiding
2. Fights, at least initially, will be challenging
3. There will be rewards from completing the fight that make it easier for those players to progress.
4. The better organized and more talented players (with more time to play) will down it first. They will not go back to help others out of "duty" to serve other players.
5. The best players will focus on how to improve their characters--and one of the most crucial ways will be to improve the interface so there character can perform actions nearly as fast as they can think them. The worse the interface is, the more the average player will suffer with a delay. The average player must first say "what do I want to do" and then "how do I put that through the controls". The high end raider will re-vamp the command entry system to be intuitive. Then they will only need to decide what to do--this decrease in effective "lag time" between though and action will greatly widen the divide. The best way for SE to prevent the divide from becoming a gaping chasm is to create a UI system that is easy for players to use. They will not prevent top end raiders from fixing a bad system. By definition, these players are extremely resourceful and organized.
6. While I will not hide how to "redo" the interface to make it more successful, it will still become mandatory for anyone wanting to be in one of the top guilds on the server (unless the server is way below the average among servers) to learn how to update their UI. It will become a requirement--checked before inviting someone for a trial. Only in the case of someone we are convinced has exceptional potential will we make an exception--and provided we appear to be right--would we then spend hours teaching them how to rebuild their system.
7. Therefore--having a UI system that is not intuitive and does not correspond well to the most commonly known UI systems will put new players, less talented, or less available (Read: Has job + family) players at an obscene disadvantage. I don't want that, and they don't want that. It's unfair to them to make them suffer. It's less rewarding to me to lead a top end guild if it's a game no one else wants to play.
8. I have made an assumption that KB/M is the most common system among people who play games on computers. I don't have statistical evidence to back that up. I am not saying all console gamers are bad. I believe we have one in our pugs. If KB/M can not be salvaged, anyone hoping to compete in a high end raiding guild will have to acquire and learn a different system. I find this highly unlikely. Given the sheer number of people outside of SE working on making KB/M manageable, I am certain some will succeed.
9. It also seems worth mentioning in this discussion--and I don't want to sidetrack what has been a very long post already. Damage meters will be in the game. They will be used. Attempts to discourage them will not prevent high end groups from figuring out who is not contributing effectively. I do not enjoy failing on a boss because player 12 does not understand how to move out of the damage, or does not press his damage buttons well. I will determine who is failing, I will replace them, and they will not share in our success.
10. For this game to succeed--and by that I mean draw and entertain a large market (measured as in excess of one or two million) it will require that those new players find an acceptable experience. If they are completely blocked out by a bad user-interface which made leveling challenging and raiding virtually impossible, they are unlikely to remain customers. If a raid event is "possible" only when more talented players succeed to the level that can carry a player dealing with a significant weakness, then it is virtually impossible for that player. No one should have to be carried. The cost will not be legislated onto me to train those players. I may be an ***hole, but I want to see this game succeed also.

If you'll kindly excuse me, I need to get back to working 60+ hours per week until this game comes out, so I can afford to take time off for leading my guild. It has been a pleasure, with what I consider to be, the most intelligent ffxiv forum.

[Buddy]

That's a hell of a 1st post.

[Lucavi]

As voiced over and over again.

Simple solution: Just make everything user customizable. Not really hard to make another menu with every action listed, and have the user specify the input they want

The more options you have, the less people can whine about the options.

They won't stop whining in general, but they'll just then start flaming each other about who is casual and nub, based on what type of control they use, instead of whining to the company about having shit for options. At least, however, everyone can be comfortable with the control type they prefer.


The only problem that can come with multiple options is when one option is superior to the others, based on the design of the game.

I want to avoid WoW, but its a great example. "Keyboard turners" vs. "Mouse turners".
Keyboard turners are slammed as "nubs", because you can't spin you character as fast as you can with a mouse. In some boss fights, and in PVP, this is a liability, because you need to "GTFO" as soon as possible, and if you have to coast your player around to directly backwards instead of the insta-spin and run, you risk getting killed or, at the very least, taking unnecessary damage.

FFXI was never like that, though. Using one style over another didn't give any advantages, because you never really had to "run" in the game a lot. Maybe kiting, but kiting never involved instant turns on a dime and instantly going from forward to backwards. It was an afterthought in PVP as well, because all you were doing was running in and out of magic AOE range, typically.

FFXIV's movement feels mostly as flat as FFXI's, with some cool start-up/cool-down animations inbetween. I don't think there will be fights that pit you against the environment and the boss (like Diabolos) as much as in other games, so there shouldn't as much of a distinction between how you control your character. FFXIV should, for this reason, incorporate as many different, solid, and tested control schemes as they can, to please as many people as they can.

[Kawfee]

I felt it time to register.

Welcome



...ohgod he wrote like two fucking pages

I retired during WoTLK and have been leading pugs that are stronger than most guilds on the server.

Wow you're awesome

Forcing extra keystrokes is fail.

Excellent point, I really hate this design mentality. Please also write to blizzard and tell them to unfuck their wireframe casting (as in re-enable it). But I digress

Feel free to call me an ***hole

asshole



(but don't worry, you'll fit right in here)
(also why did you censor yourself, this is the internet. asshole)

wall of text about kb/m which means KEYBOARD/MOUSE which would have been nice if you said once so I knew wtf for the first 3 paragraphs til it clicked

I think it's a bit much to expect users to know how to hack their interface to get into a high-end guild (it's called a linkshell/company here btwfyi). It's not quite the same as requiring FFXI players to bot, as that generally cost money in addition to potential banning, but it's close. Now I can understand preferring it, but if you require it you are just a nazi and need to go outside for a while where you realize that being world-first at everything means...nothing, and surprisingly, will not allow you to have sex with attractive people more often (amongst other possible-but-ultimately-not-received rewards).

Still, though, I see your point. You shouldn't have to hack to customize your UI.

the most intelligent ffxiv forum.

At first I was like "Hey this guy actually made a good first post that clearly he spent time thinking about before going all aspergers on us" but then I saw this and you just undermined all credibility you had as being someone smart (we're all pretty retarded here).


Also to clarify I don't think you're an asshole, at least more than any of us, you just asked...


And to throw in my .02, I really don't understand why they don't just let you bind all your own keys. That's been pretty much a staple in PC games (oh wait I just realized the issue, SE doesn't make PC games) since 1992.

Also, fyi, for FFXI people were easily able to code parsers that would real-time check logs and pull together the same info as a damage meter, it was just an external program you then had to run outside the UI (which again, is not ideal), but I'm sure FFXIV will at least have that. (Sounds like you left FFXI before parsers were common).

[Boom]

Goddamn where's the tl;dr version? Hell I'll settle for cliff notes.

[lurtsman]

Goddamn where's the tl;dr version? Hell I'll settle for cliff notes.

TLDR version. KB/M is standard. Forcing players to use other forms is fail. Bad interface is fail. Separation between those who have and those who do not is artificially enlarged by establishing a system so fail that all the high end players go outside the game mechanics in order to create a system that is more effective.

Yes, I left before parsers were common. They were just starting to come around--but I was also a bad player at that point. I didn't learn to play well until I was going for server tops in damage at the start of TBC. (I rerolled a lock to be OP) That was when I started to change, that was when I started browsing all the forums and looking at what great players did and said and learning how to be more like them.

Requiring modification to game UI before allowing access to raids: This depends on how horrific the UI is, and how much the work around (which WILL exist if nothing in game is changed) improves the situation. It is largely possible that the work around could lead to a medium to good player with the change being more capable than an excellent player without the change.

As for requiring people to do it--I wouldn't require it directly. However I would enforce other standards that a large share of excellent players with work around could meet. If the player was good enough to do it without work around, they are welcome to join us. I'm just measuring the end result of how well their character completes the assigned task, not how they get there. I only interfere in the "means" if it is an atrocity. So far, this has never happened.

I censored because several of the professional forums I use request nothing be NSFW (not safe for work) so we don't create excess problems for anyone caught browsing from another job. When leading raids, I am loud and anything but censored. When tanking, I'd make a sailor blush and hide under the bed. I'm rolling as main tank for FFXIV It should be crazy fun. I've got about 15 to 20 people I'm bringing over. Do we know yet the size for end game raids? I'd prefer not to have to recruit heavily--and for several months it will be difficult for me to tell which encounters favor certain classes, which mechanics are at work, and when a player is simply bad. In wow, I can judge a player with 90% accuracy in one minute. (You can thank wow-heroes for that--I hope FFXIV will have a system similar to gems. Seeing players who don't know how to do gems tells me the players don't theorycraft. Those that don't read forums about how to do more damage almost always fall short in our runs. (The best DPS on the server is in my pugs, not in the highest ranked guild. Sidenote: The top guild on our server is not good.)

Blizzard doesn't listen to me since I'm retired. However you can thank me for warlock nerfs in wotlk-beta. I wrote the builds/cast sequences right after the trees were out that were used to demolish the meters in naxx testing.

Remember cast latency and quartz for stop casting macros? Good times. I predict there will be plenty of bugs at release, and it will take less than a month for a huge difference to appear. The best players will be comparing notes on forums (we frequently used elitist jerks as a basis for theorycrafting, though there were times in tbc when they failed to take a few things into account. All in all the modeling they do for DPS systems is incredible, and I hope we see an equivilant system spring up for ffxiv. If we don't, it will be harder for players hoping to join the ranks.

About sex: I'm already married, so I don't have to count on world firsts to get laid. My wife actually comes and talks on vent for a couple seconds during some of the raids. I really don't like competing for World Firsts any more though--I have other priorities. I lead because I love leading groups of talented players. I've become both beloved and reviled, depending on the person doing the rating, but certainly well known on the server for our groups. Generally speaking, telling someone they fail at the game and I'm too busy to teach them is a good way to anger them. It's true, but if I don't take a couple minutes to put it nicely, it frequently enrages them. Too bad we can't just tranq shot that and move on.

I don't think it's fair to say everyone on this forum is retarded. Only a few of the people--though I've certainly seem some posts that made me sigh

PS. I would not even consider requiring our players to Bot. Going into economics would take hours though I generally run the high end crafting and supply our raiding force with any consumables they are short on. (Most choose not to ask and supply their own)

PPS. That video in your sig is great.

PPPS. My wife is calling me to do anything other than re-edit this post. I fixed the most obvious fails in my writing. I'm sure there are others that escaped the quick glance.

[Lyle]

By the time I'm done reading your posts I barely have just enough stamina to reply about having barely enough stamina to reply.

Your topics are so random that it is nearly impossible to get what your driving at in this thread.

and that's coming from me!

[Kylewhataru]

I don't see why WoW keeps being brough up, it did not invent the control system it uses, it's standard 3rd person PC controls which are just a modified version of standard fps controls that have been around for 20 years.

Anyway, when I said I found the controls unplayable I meant the keyboard, it obviously works very well with a gamepad, you can tell it was designed around a gamepad too. I don't mind at all just attaching a gamepad to my PC if it controls as well as FF11 did, I'm just saying if it doesn't have standard 3rd person mouse+kb controls I will go with the gamepad, which isn't a bad thing in itself.

[Kawfee]

Wow you took my post very seriously.
Well kudos to you for addressing everything I said.


In terms of end game content, Tanaka recently said in an interview they don't have any endgame content ready at the moment for initial release, so no idea. I'd guess just from their current scale-able party structure it will be between 10-20 people though. One thing I did like in WOW was 10-man and 25 variants.

Also in same interview he acknowledged the mouse controls were poor at the moment, and that they were working to improve them both now and will continue to do so after release. However he also said that they don't really have plans to incorporate hardware mouse "right now", which seems asinine.

My main hope is that given the way they've run beta so far, massive improvements are already being worked on and will come in one huge patch rather than individual fixes the way other dev teams do it. For example, from alpha->beta huge changes to nearly everything and the engine itself were implemented. From P1->P2 of beta huge changes. From P2->P3 huge changes. Likely we'll see at least one more round of huge changes, then retail itself will likely be a huge change.
I hope.

[ascalon]

Max party size is 15 isn't it? AFAIK there are no Alliances or Alliance-like systems in FFXIV, so 16+ groups aren't possible.

[lurtsman]

Limiting to 15--with no swapping of players mid combat or OOR (out of raid) healing would be great.

What is the difference between software/hardware mouse. I understand the difference between software and hardware, I'm not dead. I don't understand the difference in how it interfaces the mouse into the game.

IMO. Initial release is the real open beta test. That said, I plan on getting CE so I can get a head start.

[ascalon]

Limiting to 15--with no swapping of players mid combat or OOR (out of raid) healing would be great.

What is the difference between software/hardware mouse. I understand the difference between software and hardware, I'm not dead. I don't understand the difference in how it interfaces the mouse into the game.

IMO. Initial release is the real open beta test. That said, I plan on getting CE so I can get a head start.

Out of party healing is allowed. I assume swapping out people is as well.

Hardware mouse is rendered separately by your hardware, just like it is in Windows. Software mouse is rendered by FFXIV itself, so if your machine is struggling to render stuff in game, it will lag behind on your mouse as well.

Hardware mouse, being independent, is much more accurate.