I think one area many of us take for granted in an MMO is good UI design. I know personally I don’t typically think about it until it’s doing something I don’t like, such as a poor layout or what it’s trying to communicate is unclear.
Final Fantasy XIV’s UI is, like many other MMOs, complicated to say the least. From Job specific UI elements to the different hot bars, depending on whether you’re using a mouse and keyboard or a controller, there is a lot that goes into its design.
UI is also just one part of the user experience, with many elements such as control scheme, artists building beautiful assets for panels or skill buttons, and so much more going into the final product. We had the chance here at PAX West 2024 to talk to Square Enix’s Kei Odagiri about developing not just a user interface, but a bit about its controls, challenges when designing these elements, as well as some of the skepticism the team faced internally about one of the MMO’s standout features, Group Pose.
MMORPG.com: How did you get into UI development, and in general, the full job you do at Square Enix?
Odagiri-san: The start of me becoming more cognizant about UI design started out kind of separate from Final Fantasy XIV Square Enix used to handle contracting jobs. And there was an assignment where we were working on this set top box. It was an assignment that was given to Square Enix for the team to design UI elements for an external company. And I just happened to join that team. So that's when I started becoming interested in the sort of world of UI.
And then things happened, and when I came back to game development, I had this desire to continue working with UI, and so I was on a different project. There was a different online game that was going on at the time, and there was a PS3 - PlayStation 3 - port of that game, and so I was helping with the UI on that project. And then Final Fantasy XIV announced that they were going to revamp the title and aim towards a relaunch. So that's when I actually joined the Final Fantasy XIV team, and then since then, I've been with Final Fantasy XIV, working on the different UI elements.
MMORPG.com: So how do you think Final Fantasy XIV's UI and control scheme and everything that goes into that has evolved since those early alpha stages all the way through to where we are today, with Dawntrail?
Odagiri-san: It’'s difficult to put into words, considering I've been part of the process the entire time. So looking at it from an inside perspective, I know when we first talked about designing the structure of how we want the controls to be available for A Realm Reborn 2.0 is that we wanted to make sure we're giving a consistent gameplay experience to those who play on a mouse and keyboard versus those who play on a gamepad or controller.
But of course, I think at the beginning, we were still kind of getting used to it, and so it did feel at points that we leaned a little more towards one or the other, or it made it feel like the player had to choose if they wanted to play with a mouse and keyboard or if they wanted to use a controller, but throughout the years, I think we've received a lot of feedback that we took into consideration and we strive to implement as much as we can, to a point where some players might enjoy playing with a controller in their left hand, but still have a mouse on their other hand.
So I think we've made different changes so that it's very user-friendly and intuitive for our players, so we continue to listen to what the players [want]. So I think from my perspective, it feels like there wasn't any sort of major change, but I think we built upon all the experience that we built throughout the years, and then looking back at it, we can tell that there's been some kind of like advancement.
MMORPG.com: I'm one of those people who came into playing Final Fantasy 14 through controller, and so the idea of playing this behemoth of an MMO on a very restrictive gamepad. You know, going from a large keyboard, we have so many buttons, you can do so many different combinations to something very small and compact and, you know, limited was kind of a challenge for me, but I feel like it's the best controller support on an MMO, full stop. When you approached developing for gamepad, what were some of the unique challenges you had to overcome to make sure that it felt as good as, well, mouse and keyboard?
Odagiri-san: With a mouse and keyboard, you can assign one function per each key, and there's so many keys you can assign, whereas the controller, the gamepad has (starts counting each button), if you could your analog stick pressing down on the analog stick, we only have 16 buttons. So yes, it is very limited, and it was a challenge to figure out. So how do we condense all that functionality into such a limited number of buttons that are available?
And I think I owe it to Mr. Minagawa, Hiroshi Minagawa, who was the initial lead UI designer who came up with the idea of the cross hot bar, where we can assign the different actions to the different buttons and just his concept of allowing for the buttons to be assigned per or depending on what situation you're in, and being able to switch that allowed for such a broad range of functions being implemented into these different buttons. And he was able to organize what functions are needed for specific situations. I think that also helped with streamlining it as well.
So, for example, the triangle button would allow for the character to jump if you're out running in the field, but if you're in combat and say you're like a caster, it would stop the cast if you hit the Triangle [button on PlayStation] while you're casting.
MMORPG.com: I only play Caster characters, and I never knew that. (A PR team member also, as shocked as I am, didn’t either)
Odagiri-san: (Laughs) I mean, if you move, it’ll interrupt it anyway, but Triangle also stops the casting. So I mean that that's an example of where the button functions in a different way based on the situation your characters put in. So being able to sort of specify and toggle between the different situations is definitely helpful, and I think that's what led to our system allowing for players to play this MMO using a gamepad. So it was definitely a challenge, but I think, yeah, we're very proud of what we were able to achieve through that.
MMORPG.com: So to go back to just a general UI type stuff. Is there kind of a golden rule, an overarching philosophy that you have for what makes good UI, and how do you make sure that that is always guiding the direction that you're going for future updates and anything you might work on?
Odagiri-san: I'm sure there's something in my mind that drives me to develop my UI and to determine that it's a good UI, and I think, yeah, that's why we're able to bring a gameplay experience that's no different between using a mouse and keyboard or using a controller. But it's difficult to put it into words, but I think it also boils down to experience.
There's a lot of trial and error in implementing UI. I would go in and sort of build a prototype before I even go into actual implementation; I would try it using a prototype tool, or maybe put it on to Figma tool and try to practice, not practice, but, like, experiment if the UI works well, and determine, ‘No, it's not working,’ or ‘Yes, I can move forward with this,’ and just continuing to iterate on it and exploring different means. So yeah, it's quite a manual process and manual labor.
MMORPG.com: It does sound like a lot of trial and error.
Odagiri-san: For sure, a lot of trial and error. But then also I have to consider the patch update timing. A major patches come every three to four months. So, although I would love to iterate and continue iterate, I don't have that much time either. But I do experiment. I try to toe the line just enough so that I can always revert back if needed.
And if it were an offline title or a standalone game, the development team might suddenly decide that something is not working and they might just overhaul it, because they have a bit more leeway, like they might be able to take a year or two in their development, but in the three to four months, and you realize you only have two weeks left and, yeah, we won't have time to overhaul something, so we try to figure out, ‘okay, so how close can I go without having to, have to revamp everything but still have enough wiggle room to experiment?’ And I think that's the kind of balance that I'm working with.
MMORPG.com: Well, that kind of leads me to my next question because UI in this game could also be very artistic. So, how do you balance the artistry of UI development with also the technical aspects that are under the hood?
Odagiri-san: So with Final Fantasy XIV, our UI team is comprised of not just UI designers, but we have UI artists. So we do have that sort of perspective, different perspectives that are brought in whenever we're discussing UI elements. So I personally lean more towards the design, as in, like the technical side of it, versus I will let my artists handle the more artistic side of the UI design.
So I would come up with the functionalities of UI, user experience, UX-related elements, and then I would have a sort of vision of like, this is how I want the thing to function. And then I discuss with the artist to see, okay, so what would be a happy medium for us to meet where it's esthetically pleasing but also functionally working? That said, of course, the artists have their perspective and the functionality side, the tech side has their functionality. So sometimes there's a little bit of clash in between. Sometimes the artists might say, No, we like this design. It looks cool. We want it this way, whereas, from a functionality or controls perspective, it's not good UI. And so there might be a little bit of clashing there.
MMORPG.com: How closely does your team work with the developers designing the abilities as new Jobs are being developed?
Odagiri-san: We actually work quite closely. I think we would have, say, a new Job being produced, and details are required. So we typically have the job designer sort of put it into writing what this new job is going to detail, and all the details, and we call that like an upstream specification document.
And by having that sort of fundamental documentation, it becomes smoother in terms of communicating what this job is about, what kind of functionalities we're looking for, how this is going to work in an in game setting. And then we start to talk about, okay, so the UI team would probably need to design this new job HUD based on the information that was provided to us from the Job designer, and the UI team would kind of let their creative juices kind of flow, so to speak, and decide on, like, okay, so if we're looking at this functionality, what kind of UI do we want?
And then we would actually go back to the job designer, and talk about, okay, so we would like to propose this kind of design, and it's a two way conversation. We're not specifically like creating what we're told to do, but we get the chance to listen to what they want to do and then provide options as to how to accommodate it. And so I think it from that way. Sometimes we might even have a suggestion that would affect how the game design is structured as well. So from that aspect, too, I think we work very closely with each other to make sure that things are smooth.
MMORPG.com: So my Final Fantasy XIV columnist, Victoria, would probably be very angry with me if I didn't ask about GPose. So, could you talk a little bit about how that initially came about, how the conversations started, you know, the idea of doing this feature and what some of the challenges you had to overcome when designing it?
Odagiri-san: So this is going to overlap with some of the content discussed in [Saturday’s] Panel, it might not be as glamorous as you hope for, but it all started when one of the engineers on the team came to the UI team, or to me, suggesting this new function that they created. It was where multiple characters can simultaneously do the same emote, so that it would make it easier for them to take screenshots. So that was the impetus of it all.
So that engineer continued to work with me as we sort of developed and expanded upon group pose. So we're still kind of tweaking it as we go along. Some of the challenges that we had we faced when developing group pose was how we need to not interfere with existing content. So for example, if a player was in combat and they suddenly activated GPose, we didn't want it to interfere. So it was a bit of a challenge to make sure we have a system in place that manages or controls how that's triggered and trying to make sure that we're making things make sense in that aspect.
We're fortunate now that a lot of players enjoy using group pose, but back when we first started developing it, even within the team, they were a little skeptical with a function that allows for players to take screenshots inside or like photos inside of the game, and so it was a whole lot of reassuring them that it won't affect your content. Don't worry, we're not going to get in your way and trying to convince them that way too.
MMORPG.com: That's really interesting to hear because like that, Victoria specifically, on almost every single article she writes for me, uses some sort of GPose photo, and in fact, there was one point where she was challenging herself to make sure the entire game page we had every article had her character's face on there somewhere.
[The room laughed at this]
Odagiri-san: I think it might have been a personal preference, because there are some developers who lean more towards on that. This is a game you should enjoy. The gameplay and battle content are a very major part of Final Fantasy XIV.
But with me, in having experienced other MMOs, I feel that MMO is a place where you can kind of have a life. That's it like you live inside the game, not just the battle content, but there are other elements that you can enjoy. So taking cool screenshots, some people might really enjoy that. So having that sort of element and [those] sort of quality of life features is something that I like personally. Maybe that's why I'm in UI, because I like those elements so much. But yeah, on the other hand, there may be some people who prefer the more content-driven, like Battle driven, things like that. And there are less of those people nowadays, thankfully. So, in the beginning, it was just in the beginning where we had to sort of reassure our other teammates that it was okay. So I think it's just more of like a personal preference.
MMORPG.com: So hearing you describe MMO players that way really assures me that the developers that are making this game understand the player base, because I think for so many of us, it is kind of like a second life. Even though there is a game called Second Life, it is kind of like a second life, because we put so much time and energy into these worlds that being able to express ourselves in any way we can is like the end game for a lot of us. Final Fashion for real.
Odagiri-san: I appreciate those kind words, because sometimes, when we're building things that are more, that sort of second life elements, you know, we worry about players that are more into like Battle content and more combat focused content, thinking that, Oh well, taking screenshots is more of like a sub-content. That's kind of meh, but it's really nice to come across players who do enjoy those elements, and it's really encouraging to hear such kind words about the elements that we create in the game. So yeah, thank you so much for that, and we'll take that as like a good thing, and we'll continue to work hard to implement more of those elements.
