Final Fantasy XIV Producer Live Letter 89 - Quick Control Panel

This morning (North America time) Yoshi-P presented his Producer Live Letter 89 (Part 1) for Final Fantasy XIV. I watched a couple of streams along with following along with the translations on the Discord server for the FFXIV sub-Reddit. One of the streamers, MrHappy, said for a part 1 PLL today's presentation was unusually detailed.

One of the advanced features of setting up the game is customizing the heads up display (HUD). I shouldn't refer to modifying the user interface as advanced as just placing and altering the layout of one's hotbars is simple. But gamers tend to take simple things and make them complex. 

For example, in order to save space I use a layout that results in collapsible hotbars. I have a macro that allows a hotbar to appear, and then I have macros in that hotbar to make other hotbars appear. A very tedious process and sometimes I forget how to add the hotbars for other classes and jobs.

Overview of the command panel

One of the issues my collapsible hotbar setup solves is freeing up space so I can actually view the game. The command panel looks like an easier way to solve the same problem.

A cluttered UI

The command panel has four pages that can hold 25 actions (macros, emotes, etc) each. In the example above, Yoshi-P took his macros to change classes and moved them to a single page.

Filling up the command panel

He then did the same with his emotes. One thing I should point out is that his layout used two action bars to hold what went onto one page. Freeing up action bars is a good thing.

Four hotbars condensed into two buttons

Finally, players will have the ability to create a button to call up a single page. Kind of like what I have in my collapsible hotbar setup now, except my setup can only call up 12 actions to select from with a single button instead of 25.

I'm really looking forward to the quick control panel coming in patch 7.4. My issue isn't with emotes or calling up different classes. My big issue is with my crafting macros. I can see putting up my normal crafting macros on one page and my Cosmic Exploration macros on another. Right now I keep my macros page open while crafting in the Cosmic Exploration zones because 12 slot hotbars don't offer enough options. But the 25 slots in the command panel are really going to open up some options.