You may have noticed Final Fantasy XIV Online allows players to create their very own custom macros. If you’re new to the world of using/creating macros in video games, don’t worry, using and creating macros are not considered cheating in most MMOs. There are of course limitations and restrictions depending on the game. Usually macros are also prohibited in pro-level competitive PvP, but unless you’re shooting to reach the worlds stage, fear not, macros are acceptable.
In fact, some of the macros I’ll demonstrate below are more Quality of Life enhancements rather than stringing together combat actions for optimizing (min-maxing) your gameplay. Let’s jump to it!
If you already know the basics behind creating macros, feel free to jump down below directly to view some of the best macros for every Final Fantasy XIV player.
How to Create a Macro
Most macros are quite simple to create. There are however some rather in-depth crafting/gathering macros that are used to make a larger “rotation” of skills/abilities simplified to just a single click. For now though, let’s start with the basics.
The User Macros Interface
You may access the User Macros window via two locations. Either by first, hitting the ‘esc’ key on your keyboard and choosing User Macros from the listed system menus. The second method is by clicking on the System menu icon within the Main Menu hotbar. By default the main menu bar is located in the bottom right corner of your game screen. The System menu is the last (furthest to the right) of the 7 circular quick access menu icons. The icon to the right is the System icon you’re looking for.
With the User Macros window open, here’s what you should be seeing as a new player. You’ll notice there’s 6 macros already created to serve as an example!
Just above your listed macros, there exists the Individual and Shared tabs. Each tab comes with enough space to house a whopping 100 macros! Any macros created within the Individual tab is restricted to the character you’re currently playing. If you have multiple characters or may some day make more, that’s where the Shared tab comes into play. This tab allows your macros to be accessible from any characters on your account!
There isn’t a lot of reasons for creating different characters in Final Fantasy due to the multi-job/class system. Even though you may not currently have any plans to ever make more characters, there’s no reason not to start off with creating them under the Shared tab. If you run out of space you can begin to fill out the Individual tab next.
To create a macro, simply click on one of the empty macro slots represented by the slot number, you’ll notice a golden bracket will appear around the selected number. From there you can name the macro, assign an icon, and add the text commands in the textbox all on the right side of the window. There’s no need to save your edits, just close out by clicking the ‘X’ in the top right (or by hitting the ‘esc’ key).
Two Different Methods to Assign an Icon to Your Custom Macro
When it comes to choosing an icon for the macro there are two methods. The first method is done by clicking on the blank square icon just to the left of where you named the macro. A new smaller window will appear with 84 different icons to choose from. If none of them suit your needs there’s a more secretive second method! You’re actually able to make use of any Mount icon, companion icon, emotes, or skill icon, along with a few other categories you can pull from as well.
To use an icon from another skill/action, type the following command into the macro’s text box on the very first line. The command (/micon) should always be entered on the first line, so it is called before any other commands. In the below example, you would want to replace skill_name with the name of the skill/emote/mount/companion that has an icon you want to use. The quotes are mandatory. You’ll need to keep the full name of the action in quotes.
Command used to assign a skill/mount/emote etc.’s icon as the icon to be used by your macro.
/micon "skill_name"This example sets the Company Chocobo mount’s icon as the icon to be used for your custom macro.
/micon "Company Chocobo"The list of icons available is quite large, if you want a perfect fit I suggest searching for an image that shows all the possible icons. Some players have created such cheat sheets, otherwise you can always sift through a wiki or the Eorzea Database viewing skills to get a glance at the icons they use.
Building Your Macro Using Text Commands
A macro in Final Fantasy XIV Online, is simply put, a single user inputted command given to execute a list of Text Commands strung together with the goal of completing multiple actions at once or in sequence. There is of course some further in-depth restrictions when it comes to stringing together these text commands, but because this guide is a more simplified version for general purpose QoL (Quality of Life) macros, I won’t go into too much detail here. There are quite a few guides online that detail the various rule sets and use cases for the much more advanced macros, such as combat macros that work within the game’s combat mechanics. For example if you’re interested in using macros for combat, there are guides that explain how to time skills used one after another and to assure them being used the moment they’re available rather than before the global cooldown has reset, which would cause the text command to fail and continue to the next command.
With a new name and a fancy new icon, all that’s left is to add in text commands that run when the macro is activated. Compliments of the Eorzea Database, an official Square Enix source of all things in game, check out this List of Available Text Commands. Within the collapsible menu on the left side of the page there are a few subcategories under the Text Commands category. Macros often include shorter, abbreviated versions for the command itself. Click on, or hover over, the blue name of a text command to view more detailed information regarding abbreviations and what the command does.
Each command begins with a slash [ / ] and should receive receive its own line of text. The macro will fail if another text command is entered on the same line immediately following the first. Here’s a useful Text Command that is often required when building a sequence of text commands that require time before a follow up command is executed. Replace the [wait time] with any amount of allocated time between 1 and 60 seconds.
/wait [wait time]A macro command for adjusting the pause between commands. A wait time amount of 1 equals one second. The maximum wait time allowed is 60. If the wait time amount is over 60, it will be counted as 60.
Eorzea Data; Square Enix
Macro: Open your Character Sheet/Equipped Gear & Armoury Chest at the same time
This is the firs macro I created after finding it a bit of a nuisance to open two menus for one objective. When I first started playing FFXIV I wasn’t even sure how to open the Armoury Chest. Instead of accessing the main menu hotbar I was opening my character sheet and grabbing hold of an equipped piece of gear, which in response opened the Armoury Chest beside it. I’m truly enjoying this macro! One thing to note is if just the Character window or just the Armoury Window is already opened when you use the macro, it will close the currently opened window and open the alternative one. For it to work you would want both windows to already be opened or closed, which is the case nearly 90% of the time.
The first command opens our Armoury Chest and the second opens our Character Sheet to view our equipped gear. That’s it! Just as we wanted, both windows open immediately even though they’re entered one after the other in a sequence within the macro’s text editor. I personally put this macro on my hidden hot bar and assigned it to the ‘B’ key for easy access.
/armourychest
/geaMore Quick and Simple Macros to Be Added Soon
Extra Non-Macro Tip
Stop wasting your time scrolling through the hunting log, hovering over each monster’s name to view the popup that display’s the location, hoping to find the possibly non-existent/already completed logs for the area you’re currently in. This quick tip has easily saved me more time than you can imagine. When it comes to MMORPGS like FFXIV that offer enough content to take a lifetime, quick tips and similarly used macros like this one let you progress that much further!
The Main Menu hotbar has quite a few options. Sure, it’s true the more time spent navigating these menus, the more familiarized you’ll become with the sub-menus’ location among their respective lists, but did you know you can click and drag on the text showing the sub-menu/window’s name to create its own actionable skill to be placed on a hotbar? Try it out with this one first!
Drag the Recommendations option to any empty hotbar slot. When you begin to click on and drag away from the text “Recommendations” you’ll notice it create an action skill. I personally moved it to my hidden hotbar (un-hide this hotbar first of course) followed by binding a hotkey to the slot it was placed in. After once more setting the hotbar to not be displayed, I’m free to use the assigned hotkey + hotbar slot on demand.
The smaller Recommendations window includes a drop down that changes the category of recommended content to display. The neat part about this, is it rememebrs what category you previously had selected and respects this when it is opened again, making opening and closing via the new hotkey quick and simple. Set the recommendations window to display your Hunting Logs and it will show an abbreviated version of the hunting logs. Only monsters that you still need to slay to finish the log and are within the zone you’re currently in, are displayed via their name and the name of the smaller subzone they’re found in. No need to hover over their names to view location details at all!
Give it a try and if you come to love it as much as I do, drop a comment below and share the tip!
