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We'll use this thread to consolidate any helpful hints, tips and strategies to make the most out of macros, traits and actions. This topic will focus on the Actions & Traits and Macros menus of the UI. For clarity and to better serve readers, all discussions will be solely focused around these topics. Any other parts of the UI should be discussed elsewhere in separate threads.
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So, I decided that I'd write a post on macros and such, mostly because I think this is one aspect of the game that has gone largely ignored by many players, FFXI veterans and non-FFXI players alike. What is quite striking is the complexity and depth of the system and I can only imagine that this became possible with the development around the PS3 and I mean this in both a good and bad way. The limitations are still there due to the game being developed around a console system while trying to broker a compromise with PC users.
I'm no expert with FFXIV's macro system and will appreciate any input from other players to correct, update and add to a (hopefully) growing topic.
Note: While using macros is a personal discretion, this game seems to require some mastery and competence in order to facilitate a more convenient and pleasant experience. Time and time again I've experienced and witnessed more than my share of issues with the UI and have lent my ears (and eyes) to complaints and rants from other players.
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Actions & Traits
This menu can be accessed via the Main Menu (Main Menu > Actions & Traits) The window is shown below.
There are 5 sections to this menu: Actions, Traits, Abilities, Description and a drop down menu. Navigating around the 3 areas of Actions, Traits and Abilities will change the options that will appear under the discipline categories in the drop down menu on the right hand side. Descriptions of abilities are displayed below and will update on mouseovers. Each of the 3 aforementioned areas have bars of 10 slots in length with Actions having 3 bars and Traits and Abilities having 1 each.
Actions
These are abilities which you have learned from gaining experience in each discipline or have purchased from guilds. There is a numeric value for this section which limits the number of actions you may place into the corresponding bars. These bars appear when your character targets something and any abilities that you call from a macro must appear on these bars or the macro will ignore that command. Please note that you can also switch between the bars by clicking on navigational arrows at the beginning of each of the bars (or scrolling up or down with directional keys or gamepad keys)
Every ability has an associated action cost and these can range from zero and up. The tally of the abilities in which you place on the 3 bars must not exceed the current maximum that is displayed in the section. Changing to a discipline of a lower rank will automatically remove any abilities which goes over the sum of the actions so care must be taken before engaging in any activity after such a change. All abilities will also have corresponding information describing the action cost, cooldown, duration and TP and/or MP costs (if applicable) These are displayed in the description field at the bottom of the window.
Traits
Similar to Actions, these are passive abilities which do not require manual input from the player to activate. There is an associated action cost for this section which is independent of the other two sections. As with Actions, Traits are subjected to the same policies of action costs and care must be taken when changing between disciplines.
Abilities
Abilities are basically actions that are strictly associated with the disciplines of Hand and Land (crafting and gathering) and they are not active (although they may be displayed as active) if you are currently as a Discipline of War or Magic. This section also has a cost governance and care must be taken when changing between disciplines. Because disciplines are changed through the Gear menu or initiated with a gear change command through a Macro, a player will not notice actions being removed from these 3 sections. Always make sure to visit the Actions & Traits menu whenever changing disciplines to insure that you are not without abilities or actions required for the new discipline.
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Macros
This menu can be accessed via the Configuration menu (Main Menu > Configuration > Macro) Macros are a collection of text commands which initiate actions and abilities in various combination as determined by the player. The menu is divided into 2 sections consisting of the macro list and the macro editor, as displayed below.
The macro list is subdivided by the keyboard commands of Control (CTRL) and Alternate (ALT) These are the keys that when pressed will display the corresponding active macro bar. As with the Action & Traits bar, you're able to scroll up and down to switch between active bars. There is a maximum of 100 macros that can be created with 50 each for the CTRL and ALT keys. The macro list displays the macro as 5 rows of 10 macros each which corresponds to keyboard bindings of 1 through 0. Swapping the active bar does not change the associated keybinding and custom keybindings for macros are not allowed (as of this writing)
The macro editor features fields for the macro label (Name), icon to represent the macro (which is a separate 4 page menu when clicked on), Copy and Paste functions and 10 lines beneath for which you can create your macro. Every macro can hold a maximum of 10 lines worth of commands, abilities and actions for a total of 1,000 lines.
As with any macros, how you write the commands and in what order can make a difference in a macro performing to expectation. You should always test your macro (if possible) before engaging in combat or in any group event in which your associated role or task is important to the overall success of the group. The following link takes you to Lodestone and the official designation of text commands.
FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
FFXI veterans will find many similar aspects of the macro system to the game while new players may have a bit of trouble getting adjusted. The most important thing is to always experiment to insure smooth operation. Hopefully I can update this section in the future with examples of macros or provide discipline specific macros that can help players. Here are just a few of my own.
Accessories Unequip Macro
(Useful to strip your character down of accessories so you won't have to incur durability loss while crafting or gathering)
Gear Equip Macro
(Note that I've chosen to have mainhand swapped before offhand and that's because the system will not allow anything in the offhand that does not directly correspond to the currently equipped mainhand aka discipline)
---------- Post added at 01:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 AM ----------
Tips Section:
-If you want to completely wipe out a macro, copy a blank macro and then paste over the macro you wish to delete.
-You can copy and paste to and from any text editor or word processor. If you find it easier to prepare your macro outside the game (or copy and paste from an online source) then this makes it convenient.
-Ammunition/Ranged weapons must be equipped after the Main Hand is equipped. While the rest of the gear is unaffected, weapons and ranged items are usually discipline specific and will have the most issues when the macro is not written properly.
-Take extra care when using the /aoe command as not having the macro written correctly (either placement of the command within the macro or having it fire off multiple times) can spell big trouble for you and/or your group.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, I decided that I'd write a post on macros and such, mostly because I think this is one aspect of the game that has gone largely ignored by many players, FFXI veterans and non-FFXI players alike. What is quite striking is the complexity and depth of the system and I can only imagine that this became possible with the development around the PS3 and I mean this in both a good and bad way. The limitations are still there due to the game being developed around a console system while trying to broker a compromise with PC users.
I'm no expert with FFXIV's macro system and will appreciate any input from other players to correct, update and add to a (hopefully) growing topic.
Note: While using macros is a personal discretion, this game seems to require some mastery and competence in order to facilitate a more convenient and pleasant experience. Time and time again I've experienced and witnessed more than my share of issues with the UI and have lent my ears (and eyes) to complaints and rants from other players.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actions & Traits
This menu can be accessed via the Main Menu (Main Menu > Actions & Traits) The window is shown below.
Actions & Traits
There are 5 sections to this menu: Actions, Traits, Abilities, Description and a drop down menu. Navigating around the 3 areas of Actions, Traits and Abilities will change the options that will appear under the discipline categories in the drop down menu on the right hand side. Descriptions of abilities are displayed below and will update on mouseovers. Each of the 3 aforementioned areas have bars of 10 slots in length with Actions having 3 bars and Traits and Abilities having 1 each.
Actions
These are abilities which you have learned from gaining experience in each discipline or have purchased from guilds. There is a numeric value for this section which limits the number of actions you may place into the corresponding bars. These bars appear when your character targets something and any abilities that you call from a macro must appear on these bars or the macro will ignore that command. Please note that you can also switch between the bars by clicking on navigational arrows at the beginning of each of the bars (or scrolling up or down with directional keys or gamepad keys)
Every ability has an associated action cost and these can range from zero and up. The tally of the abilities in which you place on the 3 bars must not exceed the current maximum that is displayed in the section. Changing to a discipline of a lower rank will automatically remove any abilities which goes over the sum of the actions so care must be taken before engaging in any activity after such a change. All abilities will also have corresponding information describing the action cost, cooldown, duration and TP and/or MP costs (if applicable) These are displayed in the description field at the bottom of the window.
Traits
Similar to Actions, these are passive abilities which do not require manual input from the player to activate. There is an associated action cost for this section which is independent of the other two sections. As with Actions, Traits are subjected to the same policies of action costs and care must be taken when changing between disciplines.
Abilities
Abilities are basically actions that are strictly associated with the disciplines of Hand and Land (crafting and gathering) and they are not active (although they may be displayed as active) if you are currently as a Discipline of War or Magic. This section also has a cost governance and care must be taken when changing between disciplines. Because disciplines are changed through the Gear menu or initiated with a gear change command through a Macro, a player will not notice actions being removed from these 3 sections. Always make sure to visit the Actions & Traits menu whenever changing disciplines to insure that you are not without abilities or actions required for the new discipline.
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Macros
This menu can be accessed via the Configuration menu (Main Menu > Configuration > Macro) Macros are a collection of text commands which initiate actions and abilities in various combination as determined by the player. The menu is divided into 2 sections consisting of the macro list and the macro editor, as displayed below.
Macro
The macro list is subdivided by the keyboard commands of Control (CTRL) and Alternate (ALT) These are the keys that when pressed will display the corresponding active macro bar. As with the Action & Traits bar, you're able to scroll up and down to switch between active bars. There is a maximum of 100 macros that can be created with 50 each for the CTRL and ALT keys. The macro list displays the macro as 5 rows of 10 macros each which corresponds to keyboard bindings of 1 through 0. Swapping the active bar does not change the associated keybinding and custom keybindings for macros are not allowed (as of this writing)
The macro editor features fields for the macro label (Name), icon to represent the macro (which is a separate 4 page menu when clicked on), Copy and Paste functions and 10 lines beneath for which you can create your macro. Every macro can hold a maximum of 10 lines worth of commands, abilities and actions for a total of 1,000 lines.
Macro Sample + Icon Menu
As with any macros, how you write the commands and in what order can make a difference in a macro performing to expectation. You should always test your macro (if possible) before engaging in combat or in any group event in which your associated role or task is important to the overall success of the group. The following link takes you to Lodestone and the official designation of text commands.
FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
FFXI veterans will find many similar aspects of the macro system to the game while new players may have a bit of trouble getting adjusted. The most important thing is to always experiment to insure smooth operation. Hopefully I can update this section in the future with examples of macros or provide discipline specific macros that can help players. Here are just a few of my own.
Accessories Unequip Macro
(Useful to strip your character down of accessories so you won't have to incur durability loss while crafting or gathering)
Gear Equip Macro
(Note that I've chosen to have mainhand swapped before offhand and that's because the system will not allow anything in the offhand that does not directly correspond to the currently equipped mainhand aka discipline)
---------- Post added at 01:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 AM ----------
Tips Section:
-If you want to completely wipe out a macro, copy a blank macro and then paste over the macro you wish to delete.
-You can copy and paste to and from any text editor or word processor. If you find it easier to prepare your macro outside the game (or copy and paste from an online source) then this makes it convenient.
-Ammunition/Ranged weapons must be equipped after the Main Hand is equipped. While the rest of the gear is unaffected, weapons and ranged items are usually discipline specific and will have the most issues when the macro is not written properly.
-Take extra care when using the /aoe command as not having the macro written correctly (either placement of the command within the macro or having it fire off multiple times) can spell big trouble for you and/or your group.
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