Thanks man, I'm kinda new to this game and tbh i don't think i would've ever knew all this stuff otherwise. The sheer amount of settings you can change in this game might be a bit overwhelming and this really simplified a bunch of stuff, and now i feel like i have a good grasp on how i wanna customize my HUD. 10/10
been playing this game since 2.0 and i learned so much from this. I've played with m/kb for a long time and recently got an MMO mouse, so I've been trying to incorporate that into my hotbars. this video was very helpful! Thank you!
Thank you for this very well put together and up to date guide to the UI and keybindings! I've learned some neat new (to me) tricks, and you've given me some things to think about when it comes to improving my HUD. The G13 is looking pretty tempting, not gonna lie.
Coulda condense it down to half with a script written down but the visual presentation looks very cleanly put together, i learnt something new through this altho i had 5k hours in already. Thanks all the best for the channel.
@@FraylensXIV I actually would think it'd be a great idea to make a version of this that was pared down a more. The visuals are fantastic and maybe some rerecording since you won't have a deadline. This video is very well done and thought out, but I don't think a new player will want to watch the whole thing lol
This is one of the best explanations of the thought process behind customizing your HUD. I lovelove LOVE the G13. I've gone through two of them. I'm trying very hard to make the Razer Tartarus v2 work. I like the mechanical keys but there aren't as many keys, and yes, the joystick acts more like a d-pad. But I don't understand how people can use the thumbstick to move while using the 20 key for spacebar/jump.
i feel pretty happy with my ui and i've fiddled with it a lot over the years, but now i have the urge to change everything. awesome tips, still found out some stuff i didn't know that blew my mind (those hidden mouse wheel functions...)
This is great, I'm an artist who dabbles in design every now and then and have found that skillset very useful when making FFXIV work for me. Cause I'm also disabled in a few different ways and so my HUD, keybinds, and inputs are quite unique! I agree with other comments that a condensed version of this would be great to have on hand to throw at new players, or for current and old players who've outgrown their setup. You might find my setup interesting and I can send screenshots and pics if you want, the overlap between design philosophies like you mention and accessibility is big. I use a split ergo keyboard (Ergodox) and one of the newer Logitech G502. I play from bed, with my monitor on an adjustable arm that's got an angle adapter for facing it more downwards than ahead. So I'm laying down and looking up at the monitor essentially. I've taped an antislip mat to an ikea lap table, and put the keyboard and some macgyvered wristrests on it. Then I've clipped a mousemat to a literal clipboard for rigidness, and lay that on my chest. So, left hand on keyboard in my lap, right hand on mouse on top of my chest, laying down, looking up at monitor. My monitor is 27" 1440p and most of my HUD elements are at 200%. Physically irl (as a reference point that works regardless of screen differences) my party list is 14cm tall, minimap is 8cm tall, and the font in the chat is 0.5cm tall. I also have only about 30-35cm between my face and the monitor. My vision is garbage. The keyboard is programmable which is the key to how I set everything up. I can't really use multiple modifiers at a time, but I need access to a ton of keys on only 1 hand with a limited number of physical keys. So I've got 7 separate modifier keys. Ctrl, Shift, Alt making up the basic first 3. Ctrl+Shift, Ctrl+Alt, Shift+Alt making up the next 3. The last one is Ctrl+Shift+Alt on one key, which would be absurd if not for the fact it's still physically 1 key. My 3 basic job action hotbars use 4x3 layout and these keys: QWER ASDF ZXCV 1 is unmodified, 2 is a close thumb-key, 3 is a farther thumb-key. The normal question I'd get now is "but what about WASD?" I can't do WASD for movement, my hands just cannot. I've put it on the mouse by binding UHJK to movement in game, and putting UHJK on the mouse. Mouse front thumb button is forward (W/U), back thumb button is backward (S/J), scroll tilt towards right is right (D/K), scroll tilt towards left is left (A/H). For targeting I use 1234 party members 1-4 Ctrl+1234 party members 5-8 Tab next enemy Ctrl+Tab previous enemy G focus target Shift+G set focus target + the mouse thumb button as explained below Scrollwheel click / MMB is autorun, buttom thumb button is "target last enemy". I main healer and often target party members, so I enjoy "target last enemy" for jumping back to the boss. It also is one of the few targeting buttons that work regardless of whether or not the boss hitbox is within your cameraview! This is great for looking around for mechanics and not be limited in targeting. I have oddly specific camera angles during mechanic solving and often wouldn't be able to tab target any enemies as the enemies simply aren't on my screen in that moment. So this makes jumping between party members and boss possible even mid-mechanic in savage raids. I don't target my mouse clicking as I'm busy using the mouse for movement and usually can't see where my cursor is anyway. I use the column next to my hotbar keys with TGB for other basic functions like target nearest NPC/item on T, target focus target on G, confirm on B. All the letter keys mentioned (Q-T, A-G, Z-B) are used for many other things beyond the base layer and 2 modified hotbar layers. Firstly a fourth job-specific hotbar has Ctrl+QWER/ASDF on it, for things like food, items, macros, menus used in whatever im currently doing a lot of (like fate grinds or events), etc. Then for my odd multimodifier keys I have stuff like chat channel swapping, toggling HUD elements, and lots of menus on letter keys. If something makes me open the main menu more than three times per playing session, it gets a keybind. I don't use hotbars for that though, I use the "Shortcuts" tab in the keybind menu. My HUD overall is huge, and I have to look around a lot being so close to the screen as well, but it beats not seeing anything. I've banished my base hotbars small into a corner and use a GCD tracking one right under my castbar with basic combos duplicated onto it and a cooldown tracking one at the bottom of the screen below HP/MP and gauges. With job gauges included, I can usually fit everything I need to play my jobs in an optimised way on 5-10 hotbar slots. So that's waht I do. Less need to use vision and less problem fitting things on screen. My base hotbars 1-3 are too small to read for me anyway. So I just memorise everything! This is long but thought you might find it interesting! Thank you for this video I enjoyed it a lot.
This is amazing! Sounds like you put a lot of thought into your set up, I love that. That's what inspired me to make this video and pursue helping others like this. I just want everyone to have cool setups that feel great for them! Your setup sounds like a dream though, I would love to play in bed sometimes. Someday if I get a second computer and have the space I might do something similar. I also use a split ortho keyboard with a thumb cluster! The Dygma Defy. I've contemplated building a binding set for it and see the potential of having multiple modifiers easily accessible. But my G13 works so well for me I just keep using that! Thanks so much for sharing, and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. :) Cheers!
Great vid, sharing this with all the sprouts in my life! While I personally play with a UI/control setup that would probably make you sick based on this video (check my channel if you don't believe me), I think the biggest takeaway I've had in 10 years playing this game is that the best UI/control settings are the ones that work for you. If your controls get in the way of you playing the game, then there is something wrong, but the solutions everyone comes up with are different, and the way you present the tools and ideas is a great introduction to get people digging through those menus to find what works for them. I don't know how many times I've been in Satasha and seen the sprout tank doing the standard camera turn and back-step then face-pulling a bat while trying to figure out how to target it then complain in VC that the controls are confusing.
Great video! One note: rather than assigning mouse side button to shift, try ctrl. In the game it probably wouldn't make much of a difference (though some may find it easier to reach shift on keyboard and ctrl on mouse rather than vice versa), but in everyday computer usage its much more helpful (e.g. can open new tab with ctrl-click, more comfortably change IMEs if you use japanese, which im sure some people who play ff do, zoom in and out with the mouse wheel etc)
I have thought of that, in fact I've considered using alt on the mouse because it is arguably the hardest key to combo with others using your left hand. Thus, Ctrl and Shift are open to be used with that hand while the mouse manages the harder combo. But from what I've found through use is that it's nice to have redundancy with having shift in two easily accessible locations if in some cases I need to adjust my hand position on the mouse or am maybe taking a drink while playing and so my left hand can still access the shift commands easily. Of course, everyone is different and may find ctrl to be the preferable key! My suggestions here are just what I think works best from my perspective. Everyone can and should customize! My video's end goal is to just get people to start thinking about their config at all, rather than following what I do to the letter. :) Thanks for commenting.
Fantastic video! Do you any have thoughts about moving the character with the mouse, by pressing both left and right? I'm actually not used to move with the keyboard, do you think is that feasible? I prefer to have more skills on my keyboard.
@@DeboraRavaioli Thanks! And yeah, my thoughts on that are that it’s fine to use mouse for movement in non-combat scenarios if it’s comfortable to you. Personally I have auto-run on most of the time when just adventuring around, steering the auto-run with holding right click. But in high-level combat, you really need precise movement, specifically the ability to turn around completely and run while keeping your eyes on the target. This is only capable with WASD and the legacy movement mode.
I was gonna say when you stated that Hotbar 1 will change due to pet, mounts, fashion accessories, etc.. You can change the settings under Pet Hotbar Display Settings in Character Config so Hotbar 1 doesnt change when a mount or a pet like that, and leave all the change that is happening to the Pet Hotbar. That way you can still use Hotbar 1 freely.
I thought someone might spot this setting! I actually only discovered this myself as I was putting this presentation together and literally didn't have time to add that or change haha. But I still think it's a bit odd to deal with like that and keeping it on hotbar one I think is still best so you have access to it with your bound hotkeys. :) Thanks for commenting!
Damn wish this panel happened when I started playing. People tend to bash on ARR for many aspects but honestly the default UI specially on console takes the cake, turned me off really bad when I booted the game for the first time. Over 3 years of playing I’ve learned many of the customization options mentioned but there’s stuff here I just learned for the first time like the fixed tooltip help, that has been bothering me for a long while lol. Also really nice macros, will definitely make use of them.
Some will think it's ugly as sin but i've built eseentailly a little frame around the center of the screen with my character in the middle so i can track GCD's health casts and mechancis.
I mean, if it works for you! But you could do like, an adventure/chill mode where you have things more at the bottom and put away. Togglable with a couple macro hotkeys like this "/hudlayout 1" for your framed combat mode, "/hudlayout 2" for chill adventure mode.
The in-game convention I presented this to live via twitch required that I stream it at 720p. I wanted to go higher but for stability reasons I guess they chose 720p. Sorry :/
@@FraylensXIV Ahh. Lovely work otherwise! You highlight some of the strange UI/UX design decisions devs often make, that you wonder how it even made it through.
Is there links to a free visual heatmap tool. I would love to see how my eye is being affected by my setup and improve. Thank you for this vid. I customized my setup years ago but there were still points of improvement i found watching this.
Commenting just to say that I'm one of the weird players who prefers standard movement control over legacy. I don't think it's better, and I agree that it's weird that Legacy is not default. It may sound counter intuitive, but Legacy controls make it harder for me to deal with mechanics that deal with your character's facing. I've got a lot of weird habits now such that it would be hard to make the switch, but I did use Legacy for p7s specifically because standard control auto-facing made it hard to avoid falling off the edge sometimes.
HUD changes are nice but miss a major accessibility issue. Scale. If you're playing on console (or simply have poor sight), that layout and scale doesn't work.
@@Astralmess at the slides starting at 6:07 I mention screen sizes and specifically poor eyesight being a factor when considering the scale of elements. :)
this is why the hud is so configurable, so you can attune it to the screen you're playing on. i'm on a laptop so all of my hotbars and elements are huge relative to the resolution (80-100% depending on the element). i may be sitting like a foot and a half from my screen but my screen is still tiny enough to warrant it. items can be scaled anywhere between 60-200%, with presets. make it work for you!
The way you have explained these things in a clear and presentable manner is well done thank you. I say this as someone who has played for years.
Thanks man, I'm kinda new to this game and tbh i don't think i would've ever knew all this stuff otherwise. The sheer amount of settings you can change in this game might be a bit overwhelming and this really simplified a bunch of stuff, and now i feel like i have a good grasp on how i wanna customize my HUD. 10/10
been playing this game since 2.0 and i learned so much from this. I've played with m/kb for a long time and recently got an MMO mouse, so I've been trying to incorporate that into my hotbars. this video was very helpful! Thank you!
Thank you for this very well put together and up to date guide to the UI and keybindings! I've learned some neat new (to me) tricks, and you've given me some things to think about when it comes to improving my HUD. The G13 is looking pretty tempting, not gonna lie.
Coulda condense it down to half with a script written down but the visual presentation looks very cleanly put together, i learnt something new through this altho i had 5k hours in already. Thanks all the best for the channel.
Thanks! Yeah, I literally threw this presentation together in a few days. Didn't even practice it even once before going live on stream. 😅
@@FraylensXIV I actually would think it'd be a great idea to make a version of this that was pared down a more. The visuals are fantastic and maybe some rerecording since you won't have a deadline. This video is very well done and thought out, but I don't think a new player will want to watch the whole thing lol
This is one of the best explanations of the thought process behind customizing your HUD.
I lovelove LOVE the G13. I've gone through two of them. I'm trying very hard to make the Razer Tartarus v2 work. I like the mechanical keys but there aren't as many keys, and yes, the joystick acts more like a d-pad. But I don't understand how people can use the thumbstick to move while using the 20 key for spacebar/jump.
i feel pretty happy with my ui and i've fiddled with it a lot over the years, but now i have the urge to change everything. awesome tips, still found out some stuff i didn't know that blew my mind (those hidden mouse wheel functions...)
This is great, I'm an artist who dabbles in design every now and then and have found that skillset very useful when making FFXIV work for me. Cause I'm also disabled in a few different ways and so my HUD, keybinds, and inputs are quite unique! I agree with other comments that a condensed version of this would be great to have on hand to throw at new players, or for current and old players who've outgrown their setup.
You might find my setup interesting and I can send screenshots and pics if you want, the overlap between design philosophies like you mention and accessibility is big. I use a split ergo keyboard (Ergodox) and one of the newer Logitech G502. I play from bed, with my monitor on an adjustable arm that's got an angle adapter for facing it more downwards than ahead. So I'm laying down and looking up at the monitor essentially. I've taped an antislip mat to an ikea lap table, and put the keyboard and some macgyvered wristrests on it. Then I've clipped a mousemat to a literal clipboard for rigidness, and lay that on my chest.
So, left hand on keyboard in my lap, right hand on mouse on top of my chest, laying down, looking up at monitor.
My monitor is 27" 1440p and most of my HUD elements are at 200%. Physically irl (as a reference point that works regardless of screen differences) my party list is 14cm tall, minimap is 8cm tall, and the font in the chat is 0.5cm tall. I also have only about 30-35cm between my face and the monitor. My vision is garbage.
The keyboard is programmable which is the key to how I set everything up. I can't really use multiple modifiers at a time, but I need access to a ton of keys on only 1 hand with a limited number of physical keys. So I've got 7 separate modifier keys. Ctrl, Shift, Alt making up the basic first 3. Ctrl+Shift, Ctrl+Alt, Shift+Alt making up the next 3. The last one is Ctrl+Shift+Alt on one key, which would be absurd if not for the fact it's still physically 1 key.
My 3 basic job action hotbars use 4x3 layout and these keys:
QWER
ASDF
ZXCV
1 is unmodified, 2 is a close thumb-key, 3 is a farther thumb-key.
The normal question I'd get now is "but what about WASD?"
I can't do WASD for movement, my hands just cannot. I've put it on the mouse by binding UHJK to movement in game, and putting UHJK on the mouse.
Mouse front thumb button is forward (W/U),
back thumb button is backward (S/J),
scroll tilt towards right is right (D/K),
scroll tilt towards left is left (A/H).
For targeting I use
1234 party members 1-4
Ctrl+1234 party members 5-8
Tab next enemy
Ctrl+Tab previous enemy
G focus target
Shift+G set focus target
+ the mouse thumb button as explained below
Scrollwheel click / MMB is autorun, buttom thumb button is "target last enemy". I main healer and often target party members, so I enjoy "target last enemy" for jumping back to the boss. It also is one of the few targeting buttons that work regardless of whether or not the boss hitbox is within your cameraview!
This is great for looking around for mechanics and not be limited in targeting. I have oddly specific camera angles during mechanic solving and often wouldn't be able to tab target any enemies as the enemies simply aren't on my screen in that moment. So this makes jumping between party members and boss possible even mid-mechanic in savage raids.
I don't target my mouse clicking as I'm busy using the mouse for movement and usually can't see where my cursor is anyway.
I use the column next to my hotbar keys with TGB for other basic functions like target nearest NPC/item on T, target focus target on G, confirm on B.
All the letter keys mentioned (Q-T, A-G, Z-B) are used for many other things beyond the base layer and 2 modified hotbar layers. Firstly a fourth job-specific hotbar has Ctrl+QWER/ASDF on it, for things like food, items, macros, menus used in whatever im currently doing a lot of (like fate grinds or events), etc.
Then for my odd multimodifier keys I have stuff like chat channel swapping, toggling HUD elements, and lots of menus on letter keys. If something makes me open the main menu more than three times per playing session, it gets a keybind. I don't use hotbars for that though, I use the "Shortcuts" tab in the keybind menu.
My HUD overall is huge, and I have to look around a lot being so close to the screen as well, but it beats not seeing anything. I've banished my base hotbars small into a corner and use a GCD tracking one right under my castbar with basic combos duplicated onto it and a cooldown tracking one at the bottom of the screen below HP/MP and gauges.
With job gauges included, I can usually fit everything I need to play my jobs in an optimised way on 5-10 hotbar slots. So that's waht I do. Less need to use vision and less problem fitting things on screen. My base hotbars 1-3 are too small to read for me anyway. So I just memorise everything!
This is long but thought you might find it interesting! Thank you for this video I enjoyed it a lot.
This is amazing! Sounds like you put a lot of thought into your set up, I love that. That's what inspired me to make this video and pursue helping others like this. I just want everyone to have cool setups that feel great for them!
Your setup sounds like a dream though, I would love to play in bed sometimes. Someday if I get a second computer and have the space I might do something similar.
I also use a split ortho keyboard with a thumb cluster! The Dygma Defy. I've contemplated building a binding set for it and see the potential of having multiple modifiers easily accessible. But my G13 works so well for me I just keep using that!
Thanks so much for sharing, and I'm glad you enjoyed the video. :) Cheers!
I know there's a lot of thumbnails that talk about the ultimate guide but this is legitimately it
Visual parity is turning me into a MACHINE
Very solid video
Great vid, sharing this with all the sprouts in my life!
While I personally play with a UI/control setup that would probably make you sick based on this video (check my channel if you don't believe me), I think the biggest takeaway I've had in 10 years playing this game is that the best UI/control settings are the ones that work for you. If your controls get in the way of you playing the game, then there is something wrong, but the solutions everyone comes up with are different, and the way you present the tools and ideas is a great introduction to get people digging through those menus to find what works for them. I don't know how many times I've been in Satasha and seen the sprout tank doing the standard camera turn and back-step then face-pulling a bat while trying to figure out how to target it then complain in VC that the controls are confusing.
Great video! One note: rather than assigning mouse side button to shift, try ctrl. In the game it probably wouldn't make much of a difference (though some may find it easier to reach shift on keyboard and ctrl on mouse rather than vice versa), but in everyday computer usage its much more helpful (e.g. can open new tab with ctrl-click, more comfortably change IMEs if you use japanese, which im sure some people who play ff do, zoom in and out with the mouse wheel etc)
I have thought of that, in fact I've considered using alt on the mouse because it is arguably the hardest key to combo with others using your left hand. Thus, Ctrl and Shift are open to be used with that hand while the mouse manages the harder combo. But from what I've found through use is that it's nice to have redundancy with having shift in two easily accessible locations if in some cases I need to adjust my hand position on the mouse or am maybe taking a drink while playing and so my left hand can still access the shift commands easily. Of course, everyone is different and may find ctrl to be the preferable key! My suggestions here are just what I think works best from my perspective. Everyone can and should customize! My video's end goal is to just get people to start thinking about their config at all, rather than following what I do to the letter. :) Thanks for commenting.
Fantastic video! Do you any have thoughts about moving the character with the mouse, by pressing both left and right? I'm actually not used to move with the keyboard, do you think is that feasible? I prefer to have more skills on my keyboard.
@@DeboraRavaioli Thanks! And yeah, my thoughts on that are that it’s fine to use mouse for movement in non-combat scenarios if it’s comfortable to you. Personally I have auto-run on most of the time when just adventuring around, steering the auto-run with holding right click. But in high-level combat, you really need precise movement, specifically the ability to turn around completely and run while keeping your eyes on the target. This is only capable with WASD and the legacy movement mode.
I was gonna say when you stated that Hotbar 1 will change due to pet, mounts, fashion accessories, etc.. You can change the settings under Pet Hotbar Display Settings in Character Config so Hotbar 1 doesnt change when a mount or a pet like that, and leave all the change that is happening to the Pet Hotbar. That way you can still use Hotbar 1 freely.
I thought someone might spot this setting! I actually only discovered this myself as I was putting this presentation together and literally didn't have time to add that or change haha. But I still think it's a bit odd to deal with like that and keeping it on hotbar one I think is still best so you have access to it with your bound hotkeys. :) Thanks for commenting!
Damn wish this panel happened when I started playing. People tend to bash on ARR for many aspects but honestly the default UI specially on console takes the cake, turned me off really bad when I booted the game for the first time. Over 3 years of playing I’ve learned many of the customization options mentioned but there’s stuff here I just learned for the first time like the fixed tooltip help, that has been bothering me for a long while lol. Also really nice macros, will definitely make use of them.
Some will think it's ugly as sin but i've built eseentailly a little frame around the center of the screen with my character in the middle so i can track GCD's health casts and mechancis.
I mean, if it works for you! But you could do like, an adventure/chill mode where you have things more at the bottom and put away. Togglable with a couple macro hotkeys like this "/hudlayout 1" for your framed combat mode, "/hudlayout 2" for chill adventure mode.
Looks great, but why 720p?
The in-game convention I presented this to live via twitch required that I stream it at 720p. I wanted to go higher but for stability reasons I guess they chose 720p. Sorry :/
@@FraylensXIV Ahh. Lovely work otherwise! You highlight some of the strange UI/UX design decisions devs often make, that you wonder how it even made it through.
Is there links to a free visual heatmap tool. I would love to see how my eye is being affected by my setup and improve. Thank you for this vid. I customized my setup years ago but there were still points of improvement i found watching this.
I used the Tobii Eye Tracker 5. I don't know of any tool that could do it, especially for free. Sorry. Thank you for watching :)
Commenting just to say that I'm one of the weird players who prefers standard movement control over legacy. I don't think it's better, and I agree that it's weird that Legacy is not default. It may sound counter intuitive, but Legacy controls make it harder for me to deal with mechanics that deal with your character's facing. I've got a lot of weird habits now such that it would be hard to make the switch, but I did use Legacy for p7s specifically because standard control auto-facing made it hard to avoid falling off the edge sometimes.
I'm team mouse and gamepad.
HUD changes are nice but miss a major accessibility issue. Scale. If you're playing on console (or simply have poor sight), that layout and scale doesn't work.
@@Astralmess at the slides starting at 6:07 I mention screen sizes and specifically poor eyesight being a factor when considering the scale of elements. :)
this is why the hud is so configurable, so you can attune it to the screen you're playing on. i'm on a laptop so all of my hotbars and elements are huge relative to the resolution (80-100% depending on the element). i may be sitting like a foot and a half from my screen but my screen is still tiny enough to warrant it. items can be scaled anywhere between 60-200%, with presets. make it work for you!