TBC UI Changes from BLizzards UI/macro forum.

Wodahs · 10/06/06, 10:23 PM

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...815451&sid=1#0

Hi there, this notification is meant to inform you of some significant changes regarding the way we're handling UI addons. Over the last few years, we've seen a number of awesome, gameplay-enhancing UI mods along with a fair number of UI mods that run counter to our philosophies regarding what addons should and shouldn't be able to do.

Essentially, we don't want UI mods to make combat-sensitive decisions for players and as such, we've made some changes that block functionality that we feel is counter to the spirit of these philosophies. As such, addons and macros will no longer be capable of casting spells or targeting units.

That being said, our programmers have implemented a host of new functionality in order to allow many popular and benign UI mods to continue to function (once those mods are updated to take advantage of the new functionality), and will be providing some follow-up information on these forums as to how to take advantage of the new functionality.

Big changes coming

Incoherence · 10/06/06, 10:26 PM

I was going to ask why we're having this thread again, but apparently it's official now.

The UI/Macros forum predictably exploded in rage. Are people really that reliant on Emergency Monitors, Decursive, click-healing, and so on that they cannot possibly fathom healing without them?

khalid · 10/06/06, 10:32 PM

Exactly how is click-healing even on par with the emergency monitors and decursive?

Thats the really the problem. They remove something that makes the game alot less tedious but isnt abusive at all, to hit decursive and other mods. It really blows.

panos · 10/06/06, 10:42 PM

Will it also mean we wont be able to auto-retarget after feign death/scattershot/fear etc? Or is it achieved through use of "target last attacker" function or something?

Can only imagine how much it wil hurt rogues at group pvp(arenas) if so ...

Pyros · 10/06/06, 11:07 PM

You can still press a key to retarget. The point is to remove most of the automated stuff. Automated targetting, automated spell casting, stuff like that. It gets rid of Click-healing stuff at the same time, but is it really that hard to click people and cast a heal(or cast a heal then click people)?

Eylirria · 10/06/06, 11:10 PM

I am worried about the fate of FastCast.

That mod is really a life saver when you're a spellcaster and you have 400+ latency.

Tzigone · 10/06/06, 11:20 PM

It seems that click casting will live on, thankfully.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...32314250&sid=1

Some of the new UI changes are very intriguing, particularly the ability to designate a "focus" target.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...1&pageNo=7#133

Krag · 10/06/06, 11:36 PM

Slouken confirmed that click-casting will be possible (to some extend at least - I never used it so not sure how advanced the addons are).

Originally Posted by Slouken

You can easily bind specific spells to modified buttons, but you can't have the addon intelligently pick the rank of the spell. For example, you can set up a row of frames representing the folks you want to heal, and then bind "medium heal" to click, and then "big heal" to shift-click, or right click. Or you could have a column of info frames showing raid member status, and then have a menu of cleanse/heal type spells that pop up when you click on them, etc. etc.

Keep in mind that our secure templates are still a work in progress and we're trying to make available lots of functionality in building-block style pieces.

I'm really interested in the focus unit stuff too.

Yep, it's basically a way to keep track of a unique target without actually having it in your raid or currently targeted. You could make the target you just sheeped your focus, for example, and go back to it and re-sheep it later. Or you could make the main tank your focus, go heal a bunch of people, and then instantly go back to it.

It gets even better. You can query information about your focus, just like any other unit, and you even get events when the status of your focus changes.

diospadre · 10/06/06, 11:46 PM

The focus stuff is great. Just as a tank who often has to have a non-boss mob targetted it's tough to tell what is going on regarding Razuvious or Anub, etc..

Also I can set priests as my focus targets in bgs and kill them repeatedly!

Zato · 10/07/06, 12:26 AM

Originally Posted by Incoherence

I was going to ask why we're having this thread again, but apparently it's official now.

The UI/Macros forum predictably exploded in rage. Are people really that reliant on Emergency Monitors, Decursive, click-healing, and so on that they cannot possibly fathom healing without them?

I don't think the main problem is people being reliant on decursive addons or emergency monitors, it's the fact that these kind of addons remove a lot of the tediousness from healing.

Now before you flame me with any 'holier-than-thou, back in the old days when I did the Molten Core' sort of arguments then realise that I'm coming from the same place. I was back there with you healing in the Molten Core without the assist of any helper addons. As a matter of fact I used to enjoy the whack-a-mole playstyle back in the day.

It wasn't until I played around with emergency monitors and decursive addons for a while that I realised what an absurd type of playstyle exclusively playing whack-a-mole is. These helper addons actually helped me pinpoint perhaps the most tedious part of healing for me.

Now I don't entirely 'rely' on these kind of addons today, but I do close to 50% of my healing directly through emergency monitors and a majority of my decursing. Neither of these kind of addons noticeably bumped up my healing efficiency and nor did they somehow make encounters any easier for my old guild to beat. They sure as hell made things less boring for me though. For example there's no way I'd ever go through the Molten Core again without almost entirely 'relying' on these sort of addons. It doesn't fly on progression nights though.

When it comes to things like Naxxramas I don't use those addons that much, at least not the emergency monitor. When I need to be at the top of my game I actually rely on myself and go back to the old whack-a-mole playstyle. I do much better that way and I bet the same goes for most healers if they actually tried it. It's way more tedious, but in my experience more effective if you really want to do your best.

So no, I don't rely on these kind of addons and I actually can fathom playing without them. It would simply make the game a lot more boring and tedious and sure as hell wouldn't make it more fun and exciting. I just can't see the point of removing these kind of addons in specific.

By all means remove all kinds of addons that turn the dumbest blokes into super-healers by pressing a single button through an entire instance, but don't go nerfing my decursive addons and emergency monitors. :ph34r:

[edit]
and yes, i can still easily go through the molten core manually decursing everyone. i can't think of any encounter not specifically balanced around decursive that decursive would make any simpler than they really are. it really is not hard for guilds to set up sane decursive assignements without the help of decursive addons. it is extremely tedious for the decursers though and i say that from extensive experience. it's not harder, just more tedious. i can't put enough emphasis on that.

[edit]
and no, i don't use any addons that pick spells for me. my emergency monitor is simply a miniature whack-a-mole. i need to click the name on the emergency monitor and then i need to click a spell myself to cast it. :p

Malan · 10/07/06, 12:26 AM

According to what slouken is saying this is going to effect mods that auto determine a spell to cast - things like lazy tank, lazy rogue, decursive/detox, any healer mod that auto picks a rank of spell to use... etc. Click casting in the sense of "I have a heal bound to my mouse button and click a name on the raid UI and it auto targets that person and begins the cast" will still work.

I'm a little confused about the part where it says that the "protected" ui frames for targets cannot be hidden, moved or altered though.

enshula · 10/07/06, 12:33 AM

If thats all they are taking out then set decursive not to pick ranks anymore. Heck for paladin it shouldnt even be using that logic anymore since the mana cost is the same for the low level and high level version now.

Possibly even cheaper with the high level one if you have the cleanse libram, something interisting to go check.

There has to be some additional change with targeting and that means we can still do the same damn thing its just going to be a heck of a lot more inefficient. And no i dont mean inefficient in picking the target yourself i mean inefficient in CPU usage.

Siddown · 10/07/06, 12:46 AM

You've got to admit, that Blizzard is kind of in a catch 22 with mods right now. If they balance the game around no mods (which they claim to do, but I really doubt), then simply adding a few mods would make the encounters easier (in some cases, by quite a bit).

By finally drawing a line in the sand, perhaps we'll see interesting Encounter design with limited necessary decursing/cleansing which would have been trivial in the past.

• Shalas · 10/07/06, 1:11 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

I'm a little confused about the part where it says that the "protected" ui frames for targets cannot be hidden, moved or altered though.

They can't be moved in combat to break emergency monitors. Also, via hide/move you could recreate Decursive by just moving the button that cures the relevant person to directly under the player's cursor (or just to a fixed place where the place clicks).

Resiana · 10/07/06, 1:39 AM

It wasn't until I played around with emergency monitors and decursive addons for a while that I realised what an absurd type of playstyle exclusively playing whack-a-mole is. These helper addons actually helped me pinpoint perhaps the most tedious part of healing for me.

Now I don't entirely 'rely' on these kind of addons today, but I do close to 50% of my healing directly through emergency monitors and a majority of my decursing. Neither of these kind of addons noticeably bumped up my healing efficiency and nor did they somehow make encounters any easier for my old guild to beat. They sure as hell made things less boring for me though. For example there's no way I'd ever go through the Molten Core again without almost entirely 'relying' on these sort of addons. It doesn't fly on progression nights though.

Heh, actually it's the opposite for me. I must play without stuff such as Emergency Monitor or to Decurse. If I do use them my healing or how fast I select/cleanse my target fall off horribly and I barely can heal anymore after a while.

So basically I just need to stick to the old formula, all the small raid windows up, select, cast a heal.

Can anyone explain what "click cast" is?