Addons – Combat Logs – Macros (Why SW:TOR needs it)

[zootzoot]

Combat Logs are coming.....

 

I have no problem with players min-maxing. I’m min-maxing myself. We do have pretty good… the tooltips are pretty good. The information on the items I think is pretty good. We’re right now lacking a bit is in the evaluating your performance or your group’s performance. Umm what I can tell you is there’s no conspiracy where we’re like we’re hiding this so people aren’t discriminating against other players. If you want to, you know, run a very competitive operations group and you wanna improve, having this data is certainly interesting. Umm and we’re not against it, it’s just right now not in. Will it make it in for launch? We don’t know at this point but it’s very high priority.

Edited January 6, 2012 by zootzoot

[Valyrius]

As a very long time raider from EverQuest and WoW, there's a lot of reasons why I like or dislike addons, and for the most part I'm neutral... except one thing tips me in favor of missing them, and that's the fact that addons enable to me to better myself as a player. Recount can be used for a lot of elitism, sure. And I imagine most of the people against the use of Recount have suffered at the hands of the meters before. But I used recount as a measurement of my own performance, a way to analyze how I did, and a way to figure out how to do it better. It was the cleanest way to determine whether method A or method B was superior for my performance, and it allowed me to see where my mistakes were.

 

Not having that is disappointing, and I wouldn't mind if at the very least Bioware implemented some form of self-only combat performance feedback in game.

[Senul]

I'm not against addons or anything, i like to play my class to the best of my Ability, and right now, we can't really test that, all we can do is spreadsheet out of game and hope its right. But at the same time, i don't think BW is ready for addons yet, they still have enough QQ to deal with from other things they don't need to deal with Nerf x class because x class beat me on x fight quite yet. They would be nice in the future though.

[DarthTreize]

Personally, not to get to involved in this conversation considering how potent the topic is. SWTOR since its conception has been concieved and percieved in a way where people will inherently compare it to another game of size and luster. Some people love this game as it is and others seem to have doubts and disappointment which is fine. In a way its much like communism and capitolism (yeah I went there). I won't mention other games (mmos or the like) but my point is I think people have extremely short memories.

 

This game's official release was the 20th of december 2011, it's the 5th of january or 2012. Some franchises are celebrating 15+ years of working in the industry, half of that time working on MMO's that are highly successful. Surely they were never "perfect" at first but have had time to develop things. As it stands SW:TOR has done a decent job in developing a highly anticipated game where the competition is not only formidable but is acknowledged by a fan base of incredible intelligence. What I mean is that event though games such as these have tons of people who are absolutely incapable of anything significant, there are some who tend to have degrees and intelligence and are willing to scrutinize games (for their benefit or otherwise)

 

Thus, we have a game that is expected to be perfect since its birth (well if WoW did it, it should automatically be used in SWTOR right?-exampe argument).

 

Now to this post in particular. I agree, their should be some sort of customization of interface, it makes the experience more personal. However, I think (much like WoW and other MMO's) should focus on mechanical issues of the game. For me those are 1. Server issues/lag 2. PvP Brackets 3. Server interactions. Once the assets that allow the game to function properly are fixed then I am sure they will work on is other aspects of the game.

 

If you disagree, let me ease your pain and anger. World of Warcraft, Wotlk expansion, January of that year (excuse me if I can't remember release dates properly). Blizzard suffered from one of its largest server blunders wherein raids and dungeons were destroying serveral US server/battlegroups causing massive wipes and disconnections and this issue persisted for no less than 4 weeks. Progression (although for many was pointless in early Wrath because let's face it Naxx 2.0 was a joke).

 

SPOILER WARNING

 

Hence the point of this rant. SWTOR for what is is worth is a decent game as it stands. Developers themselves say they are planning on adapting and adding things as time progresses. The problem is that people are impatient. There will always be issues in MMO's as much here as there is in "perfect" games such as WoW. I hate using WoW as an example but that is where my MMO experience stems from and of course where much of the community tends to take their rants as well. May the Force be with you all, and to those of you wanting to be pandas..."Ska-douche" (lol @ jackblack voiceacting)

[Aethyriel]

If someone wants to customize his/her UI he/she should be able to do so, there is srsly no argumment against it. I play an annihilation marauder and when Jaesas out I have three bleeds on the target, no time, minimal icons and the best part? They all look the same so I can guess which dot belongs to which skill.

I also have fury which is being displayed as a tiny icon above my characterportait with a healthtext I can barely read because dark red on red is not the smartest thing to go for to make something visible somewhere inbetween all other buffs while still having a rotation of 12 skills with different cooldowns that I can't effectively monitor while watching out for all the stuff flying around my character because I don't have timers in the skills, just bars that go down and that I can guess how many seconds cooldown are still left on them.

 

So that is very awesome.. only that it's absolutely not. I also have other skills that I need to use in certain situations like interrupts, defensive cooldowns, ae styles, trinkets, adrenals, medpacs but at least I got a bar all the way to the left and aaaall the way to the right to put stuff in.

 

What is the problem with just allowing to customize stuff like that? It's not impossible or particularly challenging to play with the standart UI but it is so unbelievably unneccesary that I can't have a smaller charportait, target of target portrait so i actually know who the hell the tank is currently tanking, a clearer visual on all my skills/debuffs/buffs where I want them to be.. simple stuff like that. I can't even have the goddamn chatpanel in the lower left corner like in any other game I've ever played because my companionportrait is glued on to that spot and I can't move it. Same thing with the map, never wanted it down there but I'm stuck with it.

 

It's 2012 now, for a game that talked oh so big about choices I really miss the option to have a visual on the game the way I want it to and that I can work best with and it'S just really lame porgramming to have such an outdated UI that is even less customizable than WoW vanilla which came out.. ehm 7 years ago?

 

The other thing is the combatlog.. got killed by something? Missed the flying tiny number around your character because you were staring at the giant buttons down there? Well, you're out of luck then. No way to tell precisely what happened, especially to other players in your party. It's all just guessing, same goes for DPS, I play DPS, so I care about DPS, I don't have many other things to care about but I can only guess if I acutally do well and if I find out I don't there actually isn't even something like a training dummy to practise on.

 

People who played WoW just got used to those kind of things. Rift didn't have dps meters n stuff in the beginning but they changed that pretty soon, did the same thing with other addons, didn't ruin the game though, some didn't use the addons, some did, but nobody really cared either way although people actually liked the dps meters, even the casual players, some found out they were way behind other player that had the same spec, they improved by looking at the rotation, adjusting their own and were happier performing better with their toon.

 

Of course there is always the risk of addons doing too much for you (in woW there was one addon where the raidleader could paint circles/lines and you could see it which was just ridiculous.. so they forbade it.. big deal..), but it's just not hard to handle/stop these things.

 

You can talk about "the game has just launched" all you want but the fact remains that the developers just don't say anything about any of the problems the community has brought up. Nobody knows where this is headed and I guarentee you not many people will just play along after the first month expires to see where the game will be after 3/6 months, they will just go back to the primus where everything they missed here already is. Yeah, many people are fed up with WoW because they played it for soo long with no alternatives so new games are always hyped, but if the game does not live up to WoW people will just go back to WoW, you only know how much you miss something when it's gone, true for games, too.

 

Leveling in SWTOR was really the best leveling experience ever in an mmo but that does nothing for you anymore once you've been through it and the FPs where you just constantly skip through all the talking is not helping, it's just annoying after you've seen them all 1-2 times. I really can't understand how they could release a game this unfinished in the first place, but now they just embrace silence and idk what they are thinking.. problems and complaints won't just go away, community won't wake up one day and be like "aaah, you know what BW? Screw all the bugs and missing things, I'll just happily continue paying you".. it will not.

 

Of course some players will stay, probaly enough to still get profit out of it but all those who like mmos, raiding or pvp will go back to GW/WoW or something else., I know I probably will, although I really like the potential of the game, but potential does not satisfy right now, best thing BW could hope for then is that some people will give it another shot after a major improvement in all aspects but that costs money and money comes with subscribers... they should at least let us know what awaits us, red the interview about the whole Lgeacy thing that I have lv 11 in and don't even know why and all i heard was "it will be cool, can't say if you can eat it or not but it'll be cool, we have plans".. srsly, like somebody is gonna wait to see what magical plan you had or anybody gives a damn about, just speak the f.. up, what do you see is wrong with the game and how will you adress it?

 

Alright... long text ends here, my episode of happy Endings should be ready to watch right now so the ranting ends and the hope lives on SWTOr with all it's potential won't be just another stepoverandgobacktowow title like aion/rift that had very cool idead but made nothing of them, I'd hate to see it happen here, too.

[SlickDevlan]

I agree with most of it, although DBM should never be allowed into another game.

 

That being said..."need", I don't think that word means what you think it means.

[Lordkonst]

Finally an excellent post in my opinion whether you agree with it or not. Good job OP.

 

And by the way, I completely agree.

[Obiwansghost]

Mods - Hm okay, I'm really not against them per say, just in my opinion and experiences they are not needed in anyway.

 

Combat logs - Flytext and cast bars give me all the information that I need. Again, not really against them, just not a critical addition to the game.

 

Macros - I'm still on the fence about this. I never really used them in SWG for combat because well it really wasn't needed and I don't see a need for them.

 

If all three are never added to TOR, life will go on and these threads will pop up quite often.

[Darkfailz]

Wow people don't like to read the Dev blogs do they? All of these features will be added within the next month.

[Rayvonuk]

I think the combat log is definatlry needed, but i am not too sure about stuff like recount and gerscore.

It is wrong to differentiate between players by the amount of damage they do or how good their gear is, these sorts of add ons do more damage than good in my opinion and these were basically a smack in the face for some poor people in WOW.

I would rather TOR did not go the same way as wow did with the elitism and hardcore raiders, it was fun at times but it did not do the MMO community any favours at all in regard to public relations. Nowadays i just want to play with people that are fun and friendly and contrary to popular belief, it is possible to do all the end game content without strict guild rules, written applications, and checking peoples performance.

[lunabaguna]

Great thread, added it to the macro suggestion on my suggestion thread list.

[Xcore]

I think the combat log is definatlry needed, but i am not too sure about stuff like recount and gerscore.

It is wrong to differentiate between players by the amount of damage they do or how good their gear is, these sorts of add ons do more damage than good in my opinion and these were basically a smack in the face for some poor people in WOW.

I would rather TOR did not go the same way as wow did with the elitism and hardcore raiders, it was fun at times but it did not do the MMO community any favours at all in regard to public relations. Nowadays i just want to play with people that are fun and friendly and contrary to popular belief, it is possible to do all the end game content without strict guild rules, written applications, and checking peoples performance.

 

I think a Hardcore Community is a sign of a healthy endgame environment, healthy meaning competitive as well.

[ToliverGrey]

I think a Hardcore Community is a sign of a healthy endgame environment, healthy meaning competitive as well.

 

Wow's precipitous decline in Cataclysm (over 2 million subscriptions lost in 12 months) is proof that catering to the hardcores is indeed not the way to maintain a healthy game.

 

Wrath was much more casual friendly and was WoW's peak in terms of paid customers.

[ToliverGrey]

Wow people don't like to read the Dev blogs do they? All of these features will be added within the next month.

 

People keep claiming this and yet are unable to point to any post on the Dev blogs saying so. Indeed, the Dev blogs haven't been updated in months except for one saying "Thanks for buying the game."

[Xcore]

Wow's precipitous decline in Cataclysm (over 2 million subscriptions lost in 12 months) is proof that catering to the hardcores is indeed not the way to maintain a healthy game.

 

Wrath was much more casual friendly and was WoW's peak in terms of paid customers.

 

This is off-topic but I believe WotLK's success is only due to TBC popularity which if you recall was not very casual at all. Cataclysm's failure is due to WotLK failure in effect.

 

That is my belief anyways, or at least I believe this is a contributing factor.

 

 

Most will agree that TBC was WoW's Prime

 

 

 

I see nothing but failure for Mists of Pandaria... sadly...