Did he say why? I wonder if it's due to technical difficulties or they just think that's more detail than they want made available.
I went digging for the post, but all I could find was 2nd hand people talking about how debuff ownership is one of the "challenges" or something of playing and that's why he wasn't going to add it.
Knowing when the debuff drops off is the part that seems hardest to me. I don't even know if there is an event for a debuff-fade, but presumably that event wouldn't give you ownership info anyway.
While there's an aura faded event, since it's non-targeted, like you said, it's kind of meaningless. There -should- be some event fired when you apply a poison outside of the standard chat message, but I can't find it for the life of me. I'll keep looking and see if anything comes up, because now I'm curious...
Your idea about keeping track of DP using the tic messages is a good one though, and something someone with more time on their hands than I will likely put together (I hope).
Thanks... I'm not very familiar with modding or I'd try it myself. Using the tick messages could easily tell you how many stacks a particular person has up at the time of a tick, but if I remember correctly, the combat log's message for applying a debuff is "Target is afflicted by Deadly Poison VI (5)," no ownership info. So this method would be a little late to update when you gain a stack (won't know until the first tick). Maybe one could use spellcast events to figure out that part.
Knowing when the debuff drops off is the part that seems hardest to me. I don't even know if there is an event for a debuff-fade, but presumably that event wouldn't give you ownership info anyway.
This was brought up in another thread a month ago or so I think. If I remember correctly the issue with a DP counter wasn't figuring out how to get it working, it was how to make it applicable. Without Shiv for the time being, a DP counter is pointless since it's impossible to control. With Shiv however, it would be extremely useful to know when your DP is about to run out. Here's the problem though. Re-applications.
There's no log message, or event that's triggered back to the client when Deadly Poison is re-applied. Also, if it's not re-applied once you've achieved a 5 stack of DP, after the duration runs out, the whole 5 stack simply drops off.
That being said, if someone did make a mod that shows when your DP gets a 5 stack, then starts a countdown timer of 12 seconds, it could restart the countdown of 12 seconds if you use Shiv in that time. You would be wasting charges of DP, and would be forced to use Shiv every 12 seconds, though that may come out as more damage over time.
I supposed you could toss an envenom in right before the 12 seconds is up, and if you don't have 5 CP's, just hit shiv to refresh it...hmmm.
There is no log message, but you can keep track of the current amount of charges of DP left on your weapon. Have a mod with a refreshing timer count down from 12 each time the charges change. And resists do not use charges, it should work fine.
There is no log message, but you can keep track of the current amount of charges of DP left on your weapon. Have a mod with a refreshing timer count down from 12 each time the charges change. And resists do not use charges, it should work fine.
Is there an event that fires when the charges change, or would you just have to periodically check the number of charges?
There is no log message, but you can keep track of the current amount of charges of DP left on your weapon. Have a mod with a refreshing timer count down from 12 each time the charges change. And resists do not use charges, it should work fine.
Is there an event that fires when the charges change, or would you just have to periodically check the number of charges?
Not sure if there is a trigger, but elkano's buffbar periodically updates it.
Is there an event that fires when the charges change, or would you just have to periodically check the number of charges?
No, after looking around, it seems not, but you can just refresh the thing every second or so, and it works fine.
The entertaining thing for me so far in doing this has been that after playing a rogue for going on 2 years, I never knew that crippling poison didn't have charges. I'm happily going along with my test mod and DP and MN are working fine, but for some reason, crippling refuses to show up... Then all of a sudden, "Oh, crippling doesn't have charges to count...." *shakes head*
It's like DiscoDice but more configurable. It can time Slice and Dice, Find Weakness, Rampage, the Holy Strength buff from Crusader procs -- basically anything that shows up as a buff. It doesn't do debuffs like Rupture or Deadly Poison, though. Timer bars will update accurately when you refresh a buff.
It also has cooldown icons like DiscoDice. They're totally configurable, and can do item cooldowns. They can be set to only appear in combat, or turned off entirely.
The modding community already asked Slouken for information about debuff ownership and they were told no, sadly.
Did he say why? I wonder if it's due to technical difficulties or they just think that's more detail than they want made available.
as another poster has said, slouken has commented that having that information available is not intended, and like aggro, is a challenge meant to be in the game. Mods make this challenge much less difficult do to creative ways of timing or measuring debuffs explicitly (onevent firings of your abilities) or implicitly (counting the charges of deadly on your weapon as someone else here suggested).
and NeedToKnow looks pretty sweet. As i'd indicated earlier, other people are devoting a lot more time and effort to making good mods that I dont plan or want to anymore. I only updated discodice for BC/WoW2.0 because i wasnt happy with the alternatives I knew of at the time.
Even as the author, I'll have no problem changing to NeedToKnow if it avoids some of the problems that other SnD-type mods have.
edit - i just saw the debuff comment. maybe I'll keep ddice for the rupture portion only (which is ironic since it was the feature of it i wanted to add least when writing it, but many people asked for it)
Well, does need to know put up a projected slice n dice bar, along with the countdown on the current slice and dice. tbh, that is my favorite feature of ddice.
RogueTimerFu also has problems with refreshing since there's no "You gain Slice and Dice" message if you use it while the buff is already up. I've fixed mine by having it constantly update the bar whenever the buff time on SnD changes, so I assume the same would work for FW.
The latest update seems to have solved this problem.
Well, does need to know put up a projected slice n dice bar, along with the countdown on the current slice and dice. tbh, that is my favorite feature of ddice.
No, it doesn't. So if you really like the projected-duration feature, DiscoDice is still the way to go.
I wrote the NeedToKnow timer bars with a kind bottom-up philosophy. The bars all work off GetPlayerBuffTimeLeft() and don't even try to measure durations based on combo points or talents or anything. All that gets handled automatically from the API call. The advantage in this is that it becomes trivial to reconfigure the bars to measure other buffs like Find Weakness or Rampage. It also gets around the no-combat-log-message problem when you refresh buffs while they're still active.
The disadvantage is that it doesn't look into the future to see how long buffs and debuffs "should" last, which is how many timer addons work. It seems like the projected-duration feature could be worked into SpellWatch pretty easily, since it already handles combo points and debuffs.
Personally, I never found a good reason to use the feature. Sure it's more information, but I could never figure out how I would use it to act differently. So then it was just a distraction -- more colors and moving things on my screen making it harder to focus on what was important. I'm more of the "less is more" mindset.
Im using ntk now, and it pretty much fills most of my needs, which is nice. I would ask for the ability to change the look of the bars, before I start hacking the code. I tend to use the bantobar texture for all my mods. This way, they all look the same. oCb, wigwigs, ora2, ecastingbar, necb, and many other mods support this texture, it would be nice to see.
Aside from that, tonight will be an abom/plaguewing clear in naxx and Ill see if I have any other needs.
Changing the look of the bars is on my to-do list, along with a simple GUI.
And thanks for the testing. Ideally, mod authors would have access to characters of all classes and specs to try out different ability-based mods. With my combat spec, I can only assume that Find Weakness works like the other buffs I tried (my Admiral's Hat came in handy with this :D). The most common problem I've noticed is that some buffs have very different names than the things that cause them -- Crusader and "Holy Strength", Zandalarian Hero Medallion and "Restless Strength", etc.
Well, does need to know put up a projected slice n dice bar, along with the countdown on the current slice and dice. tbh, that is my favorite feature of ddice.
No, it doesn't. So if you really like the projected-duration feature, DiscoDice is still the way to go.
I wrote the NeedToKnow timer bars with a kind bottom-up philosophy. The bars all work off GetPlayerBuffTimeLeft() and don't even try to measure durations based on combo points or talents or anything. All that gets handled automatically from the API call. The advantage in this is that it becomes trivial to reconfigure the bars to measure other buffs like Find Weakness or Rampage. It also gets around the no-combat-log-message problem when you refresh buffs while they're still active.
The disadvantage is that it doesn't look into the future to see how long buffs and debuffs "should" last, which is how many timer addons work. It seems like the projected-duration feature could be worked into SpellWatch pretty easily, since it already handles combo points and debuffs.
Personally, I never found a good reason to use the feature. Sure it's more information, but I could never figure out how I would use it to act differently. So then it was just a distraction -- more colors and moving things on my screen making it harder to focus on what was important. I'm more of the "less is more" mindset.
If you are just making the mod for buffs only, would it not be trivial to display the time remaining on the buffs similar to most buff mods? Elkano's buffbar and debuff filter come to mind. There is no need to search for talent specs etc using this method either.
If you are just making the mod for buffs only, would it not be trivial to display the time remaining on the buffs similar to most buff mods? Elkano's buffbar and debuff filter come to mind.
The bars do display time left. The screenshot with just the bars is the unlocked mode where you can move the mod and see what each bar is set to. The other screenshot shows the mod in action, with buff name and time left.
Or maybe I'm missing your point?
The problem with debuffs is when they're on other units. On the player it's trivial to get the time left, yes. But I don't think there's an API call anything like GetTargetDebuffTimeLeft(). You can get the number of applications (Sunder Armor, for example), but not the remaining duration.
If you are just making the mod for buffs only, would it not be trivial to display the time remaining on the buffs similar to most buff mods? Elkano's buffbar and debuff filter come to mind.
The bars do display time left. The screenshot with just the bars is the unlocked mode where you can move the mod and see what each bar is set to. The other screenshot shows the mod in action, with buff name and time left.
Or maybe I'm missing your point?
The problem with debuffs is when they're on other units. On the player it's trivial to get the time left, yes. But I don't think there's an API call anything like GetTargetDebuffTimeLeft(). You can get the number of applications (Sunder Armor, for example), but not the remaining duration.
Ah, I misunderstood your previous post. I thought you were more talking specifically about buffs and not using how much time is left, instead you were talking about debuffs such as rupture and expose armor etc.
On the topic of using something like: GetTargetDebuffTimeLeft(), or in the case of an actual API function - the BuffScanning on a player, it was a conscious decision i made *not* to do buff scanning for discodice and instead project the time left.
The reason is that I read a blue post (probably slouken, but i dont know) saying that buff scanning was on the edge of their comfort zone, and not something that they would necessarily continue to support through versions of wow.
BuffScanning is a lot nicer for the purpose of general-purpose mod-making, and you see the benefit of this in the flexibility of mods like NeedToKnow, but I sorta wanted to future-proof ddice in the event that they changed the way mods can interact with game data. That, however, was over 6 months ago and self-buff scanning is still fine and dandy, so it seems i made it a little harder than it needed to be for ddice.
Not sure why, but ntk kept dissapearing on me today in Naxx. At first I thought it had moved, and typed /ntk lock, and it showed up, unlocked, where it should be and tracked the buffs. It failed 6-7 times before I went back to debuff filter and discodice for snd/find weakness.
Not sure why, but ntk kept dissapearing on me today in Naxx.
Hrm. I'll have to see if I can can reproduce that and figure out what's going on. So it would work for a while, then everything would disappear, even the cooldown icons, and the buffs would stop showing up?
Edit: The timer bars disappear automatically when the buff gets dispelled. So if there's a boss or mob in Naxx that eats buffs like Garr does, that could cause your SnD or Find Weakness bars to disappear. But they should start up again after that when you re-apply. If they didn't, or the cooldown icons disappeared, too, then it's definitely a bug.
. . . I read a blue post (probably slouken, but i dont know) saying that buff scanning was on the edge of their comfort zone, and not something that they would necessarily continue to support through versions of wow.
GetPlayerBuffTimeLeft() is part of the Blizzard buff frame code, so I assume they're planning to support it for a while. With 2.0 they even made scanning for buffs easier. With many functions you can use buff names now instead of buffIDs of buffIndexes. And if the Blizzard buff code changes, mods could always just go with whatever they change it to. Buff timers are basically just taking information already shown to the player and repackaging it in a more useful way.
Now debuffs, there's definitely information hidden from the player. I can understand how GetTargetDebuffTimeLeft() would be sketchy. Right now, players can see is if a unit has a debuff, what rank it is, and how many applications it has. Perhaps an easy way to check for resists, debuffs falling off, etc would be to check that the unit's debuff list has what you're trying to put on it? It seems like many debuff mods try to only work off events.
Decided to switch to NTK last night from using DDice in a Mutilate build as well, everything is working great for me. I'd ask the same though, if you could add some bar texture support if you felt the mod worthy (I know I do, but I don't know a lick of script). I use statusbars along with Gonff bar in an array below my avatar, accompanied by NTK now. Blessed be the mod'rs who keep me from staring at buff/debuff areas and actually on the game.
I'd ask the same though, if you could add some bar texture support
No problem. The new version of NeedToKnow (1.1) has bar texture and color options, a GUI, and the icons will now show when reactive abilities like Riposte or Execute can be used.
Edit: I wasn't able to reproduce the disappearing bar problem, but I did fix a little bit of code that looked like it might have that effect under certain lag/latency conditions.
12/27/06, 7:54 PM
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