Burning Crusade UI update (oh no!)

Durruck

Durruck

Pirate!
Blizzard has posted the following note regarding mod changes in the BC:

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
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Essentially, stuff like Smart/Autobuff, Decursive, etc, will become defunct. I would recommend that we start practicing our decursing by hand on trash bosses such as Luci....quick! We only have until Christmas to get pretty good at not having crutches like these.

What really stinks is my Flippiance ON Demand (FOND) will quit working... making my funny little rez, poly, buff macros break as well. booooo!
 
In all honesty, I like the change. They are making the game the way it was ment to be played. Good for Blizz.
 
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I disagree, Chris... This will totally break down a lot of raid dynamics, and I'm not talking decursive. I'm talking shoutouts...

<Esua> I'm casting Tranquilizing Shot on %t!

<Neirai>I've just Innervated %t! Watch the mana go back up!

<Seleleth whispers you>Great big heal coming in three seconds! hang tight!

Or my personal favorite now broke macro:

Currently, I have EHP's "Shadowbolt" and pet function 2 (Attack) bound to the same button. That won't work either.

Neither will Feralskills, but I'm willing to agree that Blizz prolly wants me to do without it.
 
Ahh, the original post has actually been modified. It is actually:

Tyrin said:
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 can't make decisions on who to target or what spells to cast.

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
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In other words, we'll still be able to cast spells by macro. Whew!! Callouts still work and I still don't need to learn how to REALLY command a pet.

In other news, they are adding functionality for click-casting and pet control. W00t!
 
Neirai the Forgiven said:
I disagree, Chris... This will totally break down a lot of raid dynamics, and I'm not talking decursive. I'm talking shoutouts...

<Esua> I'm casting Tranquilizing Shot on %t!

<Neirai>I've just Innervated %t! Watch the mana go back up!

<Seleleth whispers you>Great big heal coming in three seconds! hang tight!

Or my personal favorite now broke macro:

Currently, I have EHP's "Shadowbolt" and pet function 2 (Attack) bound to the same button. That won't work either.

Neither will Feralskills, but I'm willing to agree that Blizz prolly wants me to do without it.
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These are things that people can live without. I don't need to have a wisper sent to me that a big heal is coming. I need to trust the priest in that it is coming anyway. If an Innervate is coming, that's great, but someone probably already asked for it anyway in the raid over TS. If Esua is casting Traq Shot, that's cool, but the raid really doesn't need to know about it. These are things that we have come used to seeing, but not really a necessity.

The raid doesn't need to know that I'm sheeping the level 48 Male Shadowcasting Humanoid do they? Not to my knowledge. Mark the mob with a color diamond and I'm on my way to sheeping.

What it may hurt is if they take off the function so we do not know when bosses are healing, etc. We may not know when to dispell the renew, etc. Well, it just looks like we are going to have to work a bit harder now. The only thing that has really changed is how effective we now need to be. No more sitting back, relaxing, and clicking one button without targeting anyone to remove a curse. We now actually have to "play" the game and decurse correctly. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
 
Reason said:
If Esua is casting Traq Shot, that's cool, but the raid really doesn't need to know about it.
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Once you hit BWL, they resist about 1/3 of the tranq shots... the callout is for feedback, it has a check built in to say "I missed!" or "I hit!" so that the next hunter knows whether or not to spam his or wait.

However, I'm happy to know that the "no spells cast from macros" was an error. Blizz is only concerned about targetting... and I assume assist will still work, so perhaps we'll just have to go to a main assist system.
 
I also hope the informative features of some mods are not removed. Even decursive does not make cleansing choices for me. I am able to watch the list and remove what I feel is necessary to remove. It is also able to filter out the stuff that I cannot remove. I trust that this feature is not taken away, otherwise an already difficult job will become crazy.

In 25-man raids it may be less necessary, but sorting through 40 is difficult enough withtout something like decursive or emergency monitor. These mods do not make the casting choice for me but are very informative for me to be able to make sounds cleansing and healing decisions.
 
As some of you know, I have been involved with WoW for some time and perhaps give a bit of perspective on the changes.

It may be daunting to think about trying to heal or decurse 40 people without some of the addons out there, but one thing needs to be known is that each and every encounter is designed AND play-tested internally by the devs with the default interface. No Decursive. No CTRaid. When designing each encounter, they do not assume that the player base will be using particular addons. Their design philosophy is that the base UI must be adequate for each encounter.

So what does this mean? It means that over the past near 2 years, the player base has learned bad habits on how to take on each encounter. Unlearning bad habits is hard, but it seems Blizz is going to force a cold-turkey regimen. The changes are coming, and I do not see Blizz changing it's mind. The devs have always disliked Decursive.

In reality, the way the game was designed even for 40 man content was that each 5-man sub group is supposed to be self-sustaining. Healing and decursing it's own members.

We shall see how it all plays out. But the changes are coming and will be here to stay, like them or not.

My 2 cents :)
 
I have done a lot of reading in numerous forums and there is a big stink in the healing community over this change. The issue is not with lazy healers but healers who want to aviod serious eye strain looking at 40 health bars and the wrist strain of having to move a mouse over 40 frames for long periods of time. The vast majority of healers use some sort of mod to help sort out those needing healing from those who do not.

For those who do heal "the old fashioned way," the issue for them is decursing. How much will the Spider Boss in ZG be healed by the time someone discovers that life-drain is in effect, who is being life drained, that person be targetted by someone who can remove it and the appropriate spell be cast? That in the midst of the multi-target poison that she shoots out. And that's only in a 20-man raid. Durruck brought up Luci as an example. How much funner has Blizz made the game for classes that can decurse/cleanse when 40 people all need to be cleansed every time she AEs.

So, now for my assessment. It comes down to this: if Blizz is going to take out this functionality, then the burden for compensating does not rest wholely with the healing classes. Using Luci as an example, all but those who are melee-only must stay outside the 40-yard curse range. Coordination by the raid leader must include having a space sufficient for ranged to stay outside the 40-yards so that healers only have to remove the curse from about 10 melee class players. Effective raid paladins will have to invest in improved aura so it is increased to 40-yards. Hunter and mages will have to invest talents in increased range. Melee classes will have to take a little ownership of being within healing/cleansing range of healers instead of just assuming they will come within ae range of the boss mob. Strategies will have to shift to allow healer classes to not have to deal with so much decursing.

All classes have to respond to this issue, not just healers. All for one, and one for all.
 
Osk posted while I was working on mine and I just wanted to respond to one point.

In reality, the way the game was designed even for 40 man content was that each 5-man sub group is supposed to be self-sustaining. Healing and decursing it's own members.
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While a decent concept, it is not totally playable. This would mean that each 5-man group needs one main healer, one main tank, one main dps, and two whatever. Does the raid need 8 tanks? Can you get 8 tanks and what does that do to class-balance? Ok, so you don't have 8 tanks and group 7 has a priest, a pally and 3 ranged dps. Group 1 has the main tank and the priest is oom. As a self-sufficient unit, let the group wipe because all the othe units are self-sufficient even thought the priest in group 7 has most of his mana left and could save the main tank while that group's priest gets an innervate or something.

I will admit to being resistant to this change and I have not played without some sort of reporting mod, without some sort of help in highlighting those needing healing and decursing, this looks like anything but fun. Maybe I'm just not designed to be a healer class because I know that I would have a tough time tracking 40 frames for five minutes let along five hours. I hope Blizz adds in or continutes to allow for some functionality for highlighting those needing healing and decursing, even if it doesn't sort them in some sort or priority. In the Garr fight I don't care much about the magma shackles but I am quick to remove the immolate when I see it. I just want to be able to see what I need to see - I can work out the spot healing and cleansing.
 
Here is my 2 cents about the post from the dev. It does not stop the addons from working, for the most part. It does stop them from being an automated process.

What it means is this. If you have a list of people that need to be healed/decursed and you hit one key and it happens this change will break that. But if you have this same list and have to select the person this change will not affect it. Now, what might occur now is that besides selecting the person you might have to select the spell also. This is not that big of a deal when you have a premade list right in front of you.

Also one thing to note, they are making new commands that will help aleviate some of the issues with this change.

As far as healing in a 20/40 man raid. It takes a special person to heal in a 20/40 man raid. There are not to many of them out there from what I have seen. Fortuneately the SGA I beleive has the majority of good priests out there. We will be able to work out new healing strategies for those that heal by point and click.

I also would like to point out that the healers that I have had the chance to party with in TF are great healers. I hope I have the chance to party up with the new ones we have gotten recently.
 
They have also stated that they are adding alot of new functionality to the game interface to replace the functionality that we are losing with Decursive and Healing monitors. They are still working on things but it sounds like there will be an indicator for debuffs that debuffers will be able to watch for and you will be able to set a user's frame to blink red or something like that if they need immediate healing. What you will not be able to do is have an addon figure out how much healing the target needs and cast the appropriate level spell for you.

I live on Group Buttons for healing as a druid but I total understand the reasons for these changes and I will be learning to play without these types of addons before the expansion hits.
 
No Group Buttons :eek:

Can I go cry in my corner now..... I can see lots of deaths in the beginning as we all learn how to function without group buttons. sniff, sniff

That is the one thing I use the most. If that doesnt work, it will take a bit of adjusting for me, that is for sure.
 
Elwood said:
Effective raid paladins will have to invest in improved aura so it is increased to 40-yards. Hunter and mages will have to invest talents in increased range. Melee classes will have to take a little ownership of being within healing/cleansing range of healers instead of just assuming they will come within ae range of the boss mob. Strategies will have to shift to allow healer classes to not have to deal with so much decursing.

All classes have to respond to this issue, not just healers. All for one, and one for all.
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I agree. We'll have to change our strategies. That's why I suggested we start learning now.

However, one note - mages can only increase the range of their damage abilities (Frostbolt, Fireball, Blizzard, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold) via talents. There is no talents that will let us cleanse at a larger distance. So it will be completely up to timing to move in-and-out of range. Some fights (Luci: very predictable, curses are on a static timer) will be easier than others (Spider Boss: unpredictable, random poison spews)

And I agree - removing magma shackles is a huge waste of mana, but Immolate is rather important. Spider boss poison is much the same. The poison volley isn't worth the mana it takes to remove it, but the lethal poison(?) is a HUGE problem... and needs to come off right away
 
I was doom and gloom about this change, but now I'm not worried at all. Here is that will change:

1) No dynamic list of players that are debuffed or low on health. (Emergency Monitor, Decursive) Add ons will not be able to move player frames up and down and all around while in combat, which is what those two add ons do essentially.

2) No add ons that automatically choose the rank spell to cast. I know there are add ons out there that will choose the appropriate rank heal, but I don't know their names.

Those seem to be the only real changes. I do use emergency monitor, but only in 20-40 man. I only have it set to show my group. I use it to help let me know when a Prayer of Healing will be useful. Other than that, I do whack a mole click healing on CT Raid frames. Of course, I use decursive but I can switch back to using color changing CT Raid bars to let me know who needs to be cleansed, and just bind a mouse button to it. And remember, new instances are going to max out at 25 man, so that should make things a lot easier.
 
Here is a question, Decursive and Emergency Monitor create their own player bars. How is tha effected? I can understand moving player frames, but bars that they create themselves?
 
I don't think they create their own. They do a fancy copy of the existing frames provided by Blizzard. At least, that's what I gathered from the elist jerk's forum.

I guess the way around this would be to make an addon that sends health information over an in-game channel and truely generates the bars from scratch. (Think DamageMeters, ThreatMeter, etc)
 
Last I saw though, damage and threat meters just generated data by watching the combat log, then sending sync messages when appropriate (threat meters tend to send data much more frequently... damage meters only sends data when someone specifically calls for a sync.)

However, I'm happy to hear that they're releasing more info about what's going to be broken. If the generated data portion is correct, than the CT version of decursive could be used, as the mod transmits data to tell everyone else when you are cursed/diseased/poisoned, etc.

Here's hoping they buff the functionality of CTRA or modify DCR :)
 
I'm rather limited in my experience of mods of this kind. What mods do you (in the plural) know of that would seem to be along the lines of what we will be expecting? Pure conjecture, I know, but it would help in the preparation without having to resort to no highlighting at all. If I am to prepare without going crazy, then I need to have some mod that does what they have proposed to work with now.
 
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