The Rogue UI: Your Silent Partner - Page 9

amele · 03/30/09, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by Moxi

I thought I would mention to you that while Classtimers will not scale bar length as you specify, it can be configured to order bars by time: example here(in red square) showing duration top to bottom. I personally find this useful as I can see bars nearing the end of their duration at a glance. However I can see some people preferring static placed bars in order not to 'search' for information (even though this setup does the searching for you, in a way.)

If bar length is absolutely your thing, I suggest you try event horizon posted by Vulajin. Its timeline-like bars may fit your needs.

For Slice, Rupture, and Hunger for Blood specifically, I can't recommend cutup enough. Bar length can be customized individually, each can be positioned individually, and bar filling is always a function of max possible duration and not the max duration of the current application (i.e. a 3pt rupture starts at 80% of the rupture max bar length.)

The addon also comes with some other nice features (some error message spam control, autohiding the loot panel for pickpocketing etc.) and is very small and easy to customize.

Rhoy · 03/30/09, 10:25 AM

I'm using 2 different macros for Tricks of the Trade :

/cast [target=XXX] Tricks of the Trade
/w XXX GO !!!

This one because we have the same ToT rotation.

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [help] [target=focus, help] [target=targettarget, help] Tricks of the Trade

Using focus target (to use it one different MT's)

Im using Autobar to see trincket CD and swap easely mounts/potions/ ....

Joigahdenn · 03/30/09, 1:35 PM

Originally Posted by amele

For Slice, Rupture, and Hunger for Blood specifically, I can't recommend cutup enough. Bar length can be customized individually, each can be positioned individually, and bar filling is always a function of max possible duration and not the max duration of the current application (i.e. a 3pt rupture starts at 80% of the rupture max bar length.)

The addon also comes with some other nice features (some error message spam control, autohiding the loot panel for pickpocketing etc.) and is very small and easy to customize.

I agree, Cutup is a great addon if you're interested in customizable timer bars for HfB, SnD, and rupture. It has a poison module that supposedly pulses at each DP tick as well, but I haven't been able to get that to work (maybe because I run on a mac, i don't know anything about writing/editing addons). However, there are 2 larger problems I see with this addon that need to be accounted for using either another addon or peeking at your target [frame] debuffs. Often when you hit the button to refresh rupture, the cutup timer (the "bleeder" module) will refresh even though you haven't actually refreshed rupture yet, for example if you hit rupture before you had enough energy this can happen. Also the timer doesn't expire when your target has died, which isn't too big of an issue, but it means to need to keep an eye on which target you actually have rupture on.

That being said, I used Cutup for a long time and really liked it, and as long as you have your UI setup to account for the discrepancies in the rupture timer, it works great.

Aarcani · 03/30/09, 8:48 PM

After a lot of tweaking since TotT came out I've finally come up with a pretty good macro that gets rid of needing two macros.

/cast [modifier:shift, help][modifier:shift, target=focus, help] [modifier:shift, target=targettarget, help] [target=ROGUE_NAME] Tricks of the Trade
/script if(not IsShiftKeyDown()) then SendChatMessage("Tricks on you.","WHISPER","Common","ROGUE_NAME") end

So if you hold down shift it'll cast on your target if it's friendly, on your focus if it's friendly, and finally on your targets target it that is friendly. If you don't hold shift it casts on the player name you enter and also whispers that person. The script was really the key to the whole thing. Without the script you'd have to have two macros if you wanted to whisper your tott target. With the script the whisper function only happens if you are not holding shift, the tank doesn't need to know you're giving it to him, but if you're trading with another rogue the whisper can help remind them.

If you wanted flexibility to cast on anyone if the named person died or whatever you could add, after the /cast command [modifier:ctrl, help]. If you hold the control key it'll try to cast tricks on your target, but if you have an enemy targeted it'll cause your pointer to glow and you could then click your pointer on another players unit frame to cast it on them. I don't have this setup, but the way the script is it'd cause the whisper to go out. You could always leave the script off, I went a long time without that part.

Another option would be to just add [help] right after [target=roguename, exist]. that way if your named target is dead or whatever it'll either cast on your friendly target or give you the click to cast glowy effect.

I'm not really very good at scripts, is there a way to also make the whisper script check that the target is alive, or in range?

winst · 03/30/09, 11:20 PM

Originally Posted by Rhoy

basically awesome ui

Sorry, Rhoy, could you post a list or screenshot of all your addons? This looks much like the old setup I was comfortable with but never managed to re-establish after wrath.

Ztil · 03/30/09, 11:42 PM

It's great o see a thread like this on EJ. Usability and interface design are two interests of mine both in-game and in my studies. I'd like to focus the discussion a bit more on the general usability aspects of Rogue GUI design rather then going in to the specifics of which addons to use exactly.

When talking about a system like World of Warcraft it often has to do with how we understand the program and how it works. The more we understand of it the more likely are we to start using addons or modifying how we work with a system. Or rather how we think we understand it and how we think it works, this is called mental models. In WoW/EJ terms this has in some to do with the theory crafting going on here. The more we read up on different theories and in-game tests of theories the more we evolve our mental model of the game. The basic standard UI of WoW is pretty straight forward and very general. A new player doesn't need much information from the game to get going but as we understand more and more of the game we also need more and more information from it to better our own performance and at the same time we no longer need some of the information that used to be essential to us when starting the game 3 years ago.

One such example is the error messages "ability not ready yet", "not enough energy", "not in range". After having played the game for so long we know how and when these things happen without actually having to read the error messages. There are two ways around this, either write a macro for every single spell that turns off the error ui, or download an addon that filters out the red error messages. One such example is ErrorMonster.

The easier, and quicker we get relevant information however, the more likely are we to better ourselves and improve our own performance. So this is where UI-design comes in as well as what sort of information we choose to display with addons. I'm going to focus this post on where and how we place the objects of our UI to get the shortest response time.
Len did go through a lot of the basic ideas about this on the first page of this thread. Such as placing important objects in the middle of the field and placing similar items together. I'd like to go into a bit more on placement of objects and the background behind why we place elements in the center and where in the center of the center we place them.

Eye-Tracking
Traditionally most eye tracking studies have been done on people reading online news or other forms of textbased interfaces and usually these studies show us that the most important zone of the screen, "priority zone", is the upper left corner because that's usually where the eye goes when first seeing something. A major part of the standard UI in WoW is focused around the upper left corner.
Recently some studies have been done on eye-tracking in gaming and 3D gaming in particular. One such study was made at the Department of Cognitive Science, Lund University. They show that a person playing a 3D game, for example a third person shooter like Counter Strike often behaves similar to how he would behave in a real life situation. His eyes are focused on where he believes the threat to be biggest. For example when rounding a corner the eye tends to focus on the inner side of the corner, very similar to where the eye is focused when driving a car. However when the test person was moving through a "corridor-like" environment his eye sight was focused on the floor and about one third up on the walls and floor coming in front of the character. In other words on the lower center part of the screen and up to the center.

Visual Fields
Center
The center field is the the most important one, not only because of the eye track studies, but also because traditionally the center of a picture or a workspace is where the main task is done. This is where the essentials of the game is going on and this is where our eye sight is going to be focused most of the time. So we should place objects here that we need to look at continuously during a fight without loosing focus on what is going on around us. In other words, we want as little eye movement as possible to not loose focus. Placing objects in the center of the screen also means that we should be able to see them with our peripheral sight without loosing focus on our target. As the OP said in some earlier post this is a balancing act between not getting the close enough to our attention field and cluttering up the screen so we don't see what is going on.
So only place information here that is essential for solving the task but without blocking what is going on in the game. In my opinion you can scale down objects and still easily see them in your peripheral so there's no point in oversizing addons or meters unless it fills a purpose. Based on eye tracking it is also a good idea to place important objects centered below the characters feet rather then above his head because your eyes are more likely to be focused on the lower center part of the screen than the upper.
One tip is to place boss alerts with a long duration in the peripheral right and another timer with the short duration centered under the character to definitely awake your attention.

Peripheral
Objects placed to the left and the right of the screen are to function as support elements to the center. These objects are placed in our peripheral sight and we should rarely have to focus on these elements in mid fight. It's alot like not having to look at the pedals or the gear stick when driving a car but you still use them. You know the information is there but you really don't need to look at it to solve the task. Generally things we expect, such as party/raid frames are recommended to be placed to the left and new information such as long-duration-buffs, -debuffs and -boss alerts are placed on the right side of the screen.

Aarcani · 03/31/09, 12:11 AM

So my previous post got me thinking about the TotT macro and I've come up with a simpler solution.

/cast [mod, help][mod:shift, target=focus, help][mod:shift, target=targettarget, help][target=ROGUE] Tricks of the Trade
/stopmacro [mod]
/w ROGUE Tricks on you!

[mod, help] Is at the beginning and doesn't specify which mod key to use. The following conditions specify which modifier to use. This way you can use shift pre pull with your tank targeted to cast on them, later in the fight you can use shift to cast again on the tank or a different focused target.

If you use a modifier other than shift it will try to cast on your target, if your target is an enemy it won't proceed to the focus or targets target conditions but will simply activate your pointer for click casting on a unit frame.

If you don't use a modifier the macro will proceed to the named target and whisper them.

Quickshiv · 03/31/09, 5:58 PM

There is some great information in this thread and I am going to make a few changes to my UI. I am a minimalists and I firmly believe you shouldn't have anything on your screen unless it is helping you. Which brings me to my first question.

Why display SCT? I don't display any SCT; damage out, damage in, or healing. To me it just seems like a lot of information that I can't use to help me. I could see the usefulness of displaying parry/block as an indicator of positioning but on a boss fight that shouldn't be a problem since they are huge. Is there any other reason to display this information that I am not considering?

I don't have any of my buttons displayed. This becomes a problem for vehicle fights and with 3.1 around the corner this is going to get worse. I am going to play around with dominoes and see if you can get a custom bar to show up for vehicles only. This way I can see the abilities. Does anyone have a more elegant solution?

For cooldowns I use coolings2 but this thread has convinced me to switch back to having the cooldowns I care about on a visible bar. Coolings sorts the cooldowns in order of time. I think one of the major flaws in a lot of timer mods like coolings or classtimers is the randomness of where the timer is. I think it is very important that each bar or cooldown indicator has a specific spot that it appears in every time.

I also use IceHUD. There are some features that haven't been mentioned that are key to why I use it. The aggro bar is much easier to read then omen and seems to get the job done. It will change color as you gain more aggro. You can change the opacity based on if you are in combat or not. The SnD timer is filled to a proportion based on how many combo points you used and it also gives you a translucent indicator of how full the bar would be based on your current number of combo points. The SnD and HfB timers flash when they tick down to a certain point which I believe you can change. This has saved me from dropping HfB more times than I care to admit. It really grabs your attention. The HfB bar changes colors based on how many stacks you have from blue to white when you have 3 (not that useful after 3.1 I know). It also provides combo points in numerical form which I find easier to track. The last thing is the target frame. Your targets name is directly below your feet and right over the name is where the raid icon will display if the target has been marked. It makes tab targeting very fast.

Aarcani · 03/31/09, 6:09 PM

There is a way to make a hidden dominos bar show up only when you're in a vehicle.
Set one of your bars as the possess bar, go to "show states" in the config window for that bar and enter [modifer:alt][bonusbar:5]

The bars will remain hidden unless you hold down alt, I put that in so I could easily move buttons around, or the possess mode becomes active, like in a vehicle.

Quickshiv · 04/01/09, 1:46 AM

Thanks for the tip that worked great.

Kemistry · 04/01/09, 5:17 AM

I love "move anything." It will literally move almost anything in your UI where ever you want it - click and drag. I was able to move my CP's right in my field of vision with my timers from Cutup, the boss' cast bar is now larger and also in my field of vision (no excuses for missing an interrupt while also trying to avoid a void zone), moved my minimap and made it smaller...... everything I was unhappy about in the default UI I was able to move/fix using this one mod.

Feist-Mok · 04/01/09, 9:11 AM

Originally Posted by Quickshiv

There is some great information in this thread and I am going to make a few changes to my UI. I am a minimalists and I firmly believe you shouldn't have anything on your screen unless it is helping you. Which brings me to my first question.

Why display SCT? I don't display any SCT; damage out, damage in, or healing. To me it just seems like a lot of information that I can't use to help me. I could see the usefulness of displaying parry/block as an indicator of positioning but on a boss fight that shouldn't be a problem since they are huge. Is there any other reason to display this information that I am not considering?

It's INSTANT feedback that something is going right or wrong.

Yes, I could look at my health bar dropping, but by then, it's dropped too far. Seeing the color (type) and magnitude of incoming damage is often what I need to know to know whether I should expect heals or get the hell out of the fire.

Similarly, when my outgoing damage is slow or stopped, or I see dodges or parries, it's my cue to adjust my positioning - raid bosses are big, but with how mobile fights are, it's easy to get caught on the wrong corner of a dragons leg and eat parries, etc.

Is SCT the only way to get this information? No.

Is it my preferred way to get it? Yes.

phantomhitman · 04/01/09, 9:33 AM

Is there any way to get needtoknow to track dual berserking? I am trying it out in place of Rogue Power Bars but I cannot seem to get it show two procs of berserking properly. Thanks in advance for any help.

TheXo · 04/01/09, 10:00 AM

The only way to track dual berserking i have found is with ElkBuffBars. You get different Bars for each proc.

Quickshiv · 04/01/09, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Feist-Mok

It's INSTANT feedback that something is going right or wrong.

Yes, I could look at my health bar dropping, but by then, it's dropped too far. Seeing the color (type) and magnitude of incoming damage is often what I need to know to know whether I should expect heals or get the hell out of the fire.

Similarly, when my outgoing damage is slow or stopped, or I see dodges or parries, it's my cue to adjust my positioning - raid bosses are big, but with how mobile fights are, it's easy to get caught on the wrong corner of a dragons leg and eat parries, etc.

Is SCT the only way to get this information? No.

Is it my preferred way to get it? Yes.

You have some good points. I am going to re-enable sct but filter everything but dodge/parries.

I am going to head over to the UI forum and see if anyone knows of a mod that will alert you if you are standing in crap and a mod that will alert you by sound if you are out of range. I know you can get the out of range message in the standard UI but I have a hard time seeing those errors do to red/green color blindness.