This game badly needs mods and macros.

[Jett-Rinn]

I'm sorry..

 

I hear "MMO", "Competitive" and "Skill" all in the same phrases and I can't stop laughing.

 

Yeah I know....I can't wait until the uber hyper competitive types figure out this isn't that type of game.

[Holden_Dissent]

It's funny because bad players actually think this.

 

Mastering usage of macros to outplay your opponents increases the skill of the game immensely. I'm sorry if you can't grasp that. They are tools that increase you skill, not crutches. If you cannot use mods or macros effectively then that is because you are bad.

 

Mods that improve the UI are a quality of life thing. You can't honestly say you can pay attention to the buffs/debuffs on the current UI, you basically have to take a wild guess on how long its going for, and squint at the tiny little icons. Likewise for the health/energy bars, they are tiny.

 

Skill doesn't come into this sorry. Mods and macros are a staple unless BioWare is prepared to have a fully customization UI with all of those features that players enjoy.

 

 

 

 

But...but...do you even realize how badly you just contradicted yourself?

 

You are living in a fantasy world. Mods and macros trivialize the game. FACT

[Skywagon]

I can live without macros, but for the love of all that's unholy - the UI needs some serious work, be it from devs allowing community mods to it, or adding some serious customization options themselves (and if the current state of the UI is any indication of their grasp on functionality, I'd rather take the former).

 

I play a shadow, a proc based class, and it's a real pain in the backside (or eyes, as the case might be) ... because there is no effective way to track what has procced, and you can absolutely forget about tracking the duration of said buffs/procs (same goes for debuffs on opponents), it's flat out non-doable with these miserably tiny buff/debuff icons! There isn't even an option to display the remaining duration in seconds (of course there isn't, numbers can't fit on those tiny frames), only the obscure and pointless progressive "graying out" of the tiny icon.

 

Then there is the lovely chat window which really doesn't fit 'anywhere' on the screen - it's always out of place, even despite the fact this is the one UI element you can move ... because there is nowhere to move it to, as the rest of the UI is locked in place. WTB more channels (customizable!) as well, so I can filter out all the useless spam of what items I picked up and that my crew skill increased by 1 ... maybe then, despite it's inconvenient location at the upper left corner, it might become possible to follow the chat with at least minimal form of comfort. Player messages scroll past fast enough as it is, even without being cluttered by needless system messages.

 

Action bars on sides is horrible. The UI uses the space inefficiently enough as it is, without even MORE stuff on the sides obstructing the "gameplay" part of the image. Sadly there is no way to move them/enable more bottom action bars, and you need them because all your abilities and items can't fit just on two bottom bars.

 

"Not enough force" "out of range" "etc". No way, never would have figured that without you! Wait, what are you doing in the middle of my screen, stating the blatantly obvious in red letters of a font size that beats any other font on the UI ? Information ... more like bloatformation. WTB an option to disable this non-constructive spam.

 

 

I could go on, but seriously ... the gist is, this thing needs some massive improvements, one way or another. Style over substance is way the current UI is designed, and the substance end turned out quite thin. It's almost impressive how much space the UI manages to take up without accomplishing much at all with it.

 

Yes, it's functional ... in the sense that you can play with it and interact with the game through it, but it's primitive and lacking practicality to a fault. Almost none of the critical information is presented in a readily accessible format, and what little there is requires you to squint cross-eyed at tiny icons at bottom of your screen, not exactly compatible with anything more complex than fighting regular mobs without drastic loss of efficiency (and headache inducting either way from all the intense staring). Seriously, has the one who designed this UI even played a MMO before ...

 

 

I love the game, I love the looks of it, I love the voiced and frequent cutscenes, I love it for being a Star Wars setting ... what I hate is the way I am forced to interact with said game world, and while it's enough to get buy, this is by far the most experience degrading "feature" of the game. It won't make me stop playing it, but I will be grinding my teeth all the way to the point where the UI finally becomes customizable. And I'd rather it happen sooner than later.

 

Oh, and fix the ********n camera from staying zoomed-in whenever environmental obstacles force it to zoom in closer than my original preference, and make it return to the customized orbit instead. It's getting bloody annoying having to scroll back out to my preferred elevation each 20 seconds. Seriously ....

 

/rant

Edited December 17, 2011 by Skywagon

[Jharex]

(Reposting this here, missed this thread somehow.)

 

I can handle a locked UI in the sense that the minimap is the same for all players, the actionsbars are the same, you can't move or make anything smaller, etc. That's all well and good -- I'd like to change it, but it doesn't alter my gameplay experience in any way.

 

But there are a couple things that are unacceptable:

• Operations Frame. In the middle of a fight, I don't need to see who has my Mark of Power buff. Speaking as a healer, the current health -- and possibly debuffs -- are the only things I need the Operations Frame to show. I can buff everyone before the fight and be confident buffs are still up. Moreover, even if you're going to show buffs, they should not be be emphasized more than the person's health, which they are by being larger than the health bar.

• Target of target. Not showing target of target is patently unacceptable. A Sith Inquisitor has a 60s CC that is broken on damage; if 1 damage class hits it with something while trying to figure out what the tank is tanking, that CC is broken and can't be used again for another minute. In organized grouping, this isn't an issue, we'll learn to wait -- but in PuGs (which you heavily emphasize in the leveling experience) that isn't possible.

• HoTs+DoTs. Currently, I'm completely unable to tell when my buffs/debuffs wear off from my target when there are other classes using the same abilities on my target. Affliction is an example of this for a Sith Inquisitor. There's no emphasis of MY affliction from anyone elses. If we have a 16 man Operation, it's going to be impossible to know when to recast affliction unless we all just get in the habit of using it every 15seconds. In this case, what's the point of showing debuffs if we're just counting in our heads because the debuff bar is that bad? This just isn't acceptable.

• Macros (mouseover) or better targeting needs to be implemented. Without clickable nameplates ala WoW, in a Warzone, I'm unable to quickly switch between targets taking damage without focusing on those terrible Operation Frames. JediKnight over there just got to 40% and needs a quick heal: now begins the process of either trying to actually click him or find his name among ~a dozen people and hoping the heal gets off in time to save him. Relying on Operations Frames is a bad design for PVP healing, although permitting mouseover healing would be a stop gap from entirely changing your targeting system altogether.

 

If you don't want to take the approach WoW took and permit addons to literally hold your hand through the entire thing -- which I would applaud -- you need to fix these errors and/or limit what addons are capable of doing. The problems I've pointed out are just ones I've had while leveling, and it's only going to get worse from here. I doubt you have the time to seriously devote to a UI overhaul to appease everyone, but that's the value in having an unlocked UI and enabling mod support. The community: we are going to be able to design and maintain a much better UI support system than you are capable of -- hamstringing us is only hurting this game.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Jharex

[lorienthyll]

I sorely underestimated just how poor the UI would turn out. It is so uncustomizable it isn't funny. Health bars, buffs, debuffs, and the power bar are all WAY too small. You can't move or resize anything, I HATE having the chat box up the top.

 

Not having a damage meter or even a freaking combat log is ridiculous. Why shouldn't we even know how much damage we're doing? I want to know what the best rotation is for my character and I have absolutely no way of working that out.

 

Macros are a staple in every MMO, how can you just not have them? There's a nice focus target but it's practically useless without focus macros.

 

These should be top priority for the next patch.

 

if you read instead of wine. u see that bioware posted exactly they ware fixing UI and mods in a new patch

[Jharex]

if you read instead of wine. u see that bioware posted exactly they ware fixing UI and mods in a new patch

 

Where did they say this? I've been looking for something like this, but the only thing I can find is are comments that are months old saying something along the lines of, "It won't be in for launch, but it's something we'd like to do someday." Which is like saying, "I'm not President now, but I'd like to be someday," at least in terms of commitment.

[Zeldias]

I like customizing the UI. Making things easier to see and such.

 

I dislike add-ons and macros. As someone accurately put, if we want to talk about skill, then if one player has all these tools suggesting to her/him what action to take next, while another player doesn't, isn't the playing field already to uneven to convey any actual level of skill? This is the reason no worthwhile fighting game tournament allows people to play in simple mode where you hit one button and your character performs a combo; the point is for you to execute, not have mechanical assistance.

 

To me, a customizable UI is like allowing different kinds of controllers at EVO (major fighting game tournament); some people like different sized arcade sticks, different button layouts, different parts, some folks don't like sticks at all and prefer pad, or mod something like a Dreamcast controller to use. Macros are macros: one button performs multiple actions. Add-ons are more like things that display inputs but during an actual match or show you frame data or the next move to take in a string of combos.

[The-Xandroz]

It's funny because bad players actually think this.

 

Mastering usage of macros to outplay your opponents increases the skill of the game immensely. I'm sorry if you can't grasp that. They are tools that increase you skill, not crutches. If you cannot use mods or macros effectively then that is because you are bad.

 

Mods that improve the UI are a quality of life thing. You can't honestly say you can pay attention to the buffs/debuffs on the current UI, you basically have to take a wild guess on how long its going for, and squint at the tiny little icons. Likewise for the health/energy bars, they are tiny.

 

Skill doesn't come into this sorry. Mods and macros are a staple unless BioWare is prepared to have a fully customization UI with all of those features that players enjoy.

 

 

 

 

But...but...do you even realize how badly you just contradicted yourself?

 

 

Macros in Pvp LOL? Last game I played(Star Wars Galaxies) anyone that used macros in PvP failed hard( except commando mines)

[Supersomething]

While the current UI does not make it impossible to play, I would agree that availability of mods and macros should be included at some point. The way the screen is presented at the current moment is not exactly ideal for a raid situation, in that you have to look at the bottom of your screen for procs or see what the enemy is doing. This in turn takes attention away from what is happening in the environment and could potentially hinder effective raiding processes.

 

It would be nice if we could something more noticeable when a certain proc hits. I know on a sorcerer it is almost impossible to tell when you have a quick Force Lightning proc up because you have no graphical effect for it.

 

Macros provide tools for classes that have a multitude of skills that are fired in a rotation. They provide a means of streamlining the process down to fewer hotkeys, opening up other hotkeys for other abilities so you aren't having to go all over your keyboard or gaming mouse.

[Ganiccus]

It's funny because bad players actually think this.

 

Mastering usage of macros to outplay your opponents increases the skill of the game immensely. I'm sorry if you can't grasp that. They are tools that increase you skill, not crutches. If you cannot use mods or macros effectively then that is because you are bad.

 

Mods that improve the UI are a quality of life thing. You can't honestly say you can pay attention to the buffs/debuffs on the current UI, you basically have to take a wild guess on how long its going for, and squint at the tiny little icons. Likewise for the health/energy bars, they are tiny.

 

Skill doesn't come into this sorry. Mods and macros are a staple unless BioWare is prepared to have a fully customization UI with all of those features that players enjoy.

 

 

 

 

But...but...do you even realize how badly you just contradicted yourself?

 

lol? Excuse me? How in the WORLD do macros "increase the skill of the game"?? All that causes is for people to bind several abilities to one key and they proceed to roll face across keyboard.

 

Where did he say he "can't use mods or macros"? What he said was, he isn't dependent upon them (as you seem to be).

 

And for the record, using a macro isn't hard, I don't know what you're smoking.

[tehmoose]

So much misplaced anger and rage. Seriously, macros, and even mods really aren't going to make botting or cheating any easier.

 

The slash commands and AddOn API are limited to what the developers of the game want to allow.

 

If they don't want a macro to be able to execute more than one command per button press. It simply won't. Bots and cheaters use actual third party programs to run their characters. Look up WoWGlider. That's a Botting program. The functionality you think the LUA interface has just doesn't exist.

 

MMOs have had slash commands and macros since the beginning of time. They're not inherently bad. Someone that uses a macro effectively isn't "cheating" or "bad". They're doing things that the game allows in an efficient manner.

[Ramonez]

This was taken from the SWTOR site.

 

 

UI customization – You like choice. We hear you! SWTOR is all about choice. Being able to choose how you interact with an online game is something we feel is very important. We are going to be giving more control over the UI as an ongoing effort. This is a very big priority for us.

 

 

You can all **** now. Thanks.

[Colobulous]

Not quoting, just describing: A lot of stuff in mixed colored text

 

I'd like you to know that you could make your post legible if you didn't pick such an unpleasant color to reply to, and you could just use quote tags so reply to you would be easier.

 

Since you didn't, I won't even bother trying to read your words, since you are so opposed to using available tools that you use the wrong ones instead of the ones deliberately made for the task.

[scrynen]

This was taken from the SWTOR site.

 

 

UI customization – You like choice. We hear you! SWTOR is all about choice. Being able to choose how you interact with an online game is something we feel is very important. We are going to be giving more control over the UI as an ongoing effort. This is a very big priority for us.

 

 

You can all **** now. Thanks.

 

Ill **** when it's fixed.

Edited December 18, 2011 by scrynen

[Colobulous]

I don't think the UI is terrible at all. I don't know why people think it's so bad. Having said that... no macros... please. Just a good way to ruin the game. A really good way. Quickly automate everything so that I don't even have to play the game! :/

 

Macros are not about automation, but I want to know why you don't know why people think it is so bad when there have been numerous postings and threads discussing the problems people have with the UI?

 

Did you not read them? I understand the pre-wipe threads are gone, but there have been several since, though it may take some work to find them with the forum search engine disabled, when it comes back, you can use it.

[Colobulous]

Odd, I'm playing the game with a couple of friends and there has not been one complaint about mods or macros. Perhaps it's a WoW-bred entitled/lazy mentality? None of us played WoW that much.

 

And people who have never eaten quality food might not protest when they're swerved swill, but once you experience the better world, sometimes you learn, hey, I don't have to be satisfied with less palatable offerings.

[Rammur]

no people need to learn to adapt to new game play and get outa that OTHER game phase sheesh.

[Colobulous]

It's no worse than many other standard UIs out there. People have been spoiled with add ons.

 

Yes, people have realized how much better things can be, they have no reason to put up with something when they can seek genuine satisfaction elsewhere.

 

That's not to say that I wouldn't like to see some customisable UI mods, because I would, but over-reactions like "I'm not buying this game because the UI sucks" is a bit childish.

 

The UI isn't ideal, but it isn't horrendous either. It's just basic.

 

And people saying "Hey, this is basic, I don't want to pay 60 bucks and a recurring subscription for it" is childish?

 

I consider that adult and prudent.

[kingnoobe]

I agree the Ui isnt great,but adding mods and macros to the game could be dangerous. DPS meters are the devil. Its prety much ruined wow

 

It didn't ruin WoW in the slightest. It simply gave whiners more reason to whine when they were called out for doing 1/10 of the dps everybody else was doing. I can only come to one conclusion people that hate dmg meters are the people who never learned to play, and used the excuse "I play to have fun". Guess what we all do, and when we wipe because a boss didn't go down because the fight simply lasted to long guess what.. That's no fun for us because you were on auto-attack.

 

And just because a boss died doesn't mean your dps was fine it could very well mean somebody else dps was outstanding and carried your scrub butt through the encounter.

 

Also to the people that say, "but everybody will become a cookie cutter spec". Guess what geniuses it's gonna happen anyways. Somebody much smarter then me will figure out what is best for certain things.

 

There maybe a few individuals who say, "they hate the spam". That's what ignore is for.

 

The only mods I would like not to see are deadly boss mods. Make people be aware of their surroundings and not just listen to when something tells them "run away little girl" lol.

[Baaddare]

the ui needs work... but if you need mods and macros to play then you simply are bad and need a crutch to make up for lack of skill.

 

well said

[Colobulous]

no people need to learn to adapt to new game play and get outa that OTHER game phase sheesh.

 

The problem isn't with the game play.

 

It's with the common factors that are shared across games, and when they're poorly implemented, well, sorry, but people aren't going to adapt. They're going to walk away.

 

Why do you expect people to behave otherwise? It's a game. People need comfort and entertainment from it, not struggle and frustration.

[Colobulous]

You must be running the game on 800 x 600 resolution if you think the UI is that awful. I can understand not liking it to a point as we all like different things, but it's better than a lot of stock UIs.

 

Actually, it's people at high resolution who think the UI is awful. And being better than crap is not being good.

[Obbu]

Basic UI does need some work, particularly from a healer's perspective.

 

No mods though.

 

No macros.

 

They are a slippery slope leading to progressively worse outcomes.

[kevlarto]

the ui needs work... but if you need mods and macros to play then you simply are bad and need a crutch to make up for lack of skill.

 

agree and UI changes are coming,

[Colobulous]

all the things monitoring the inside of a racecar keep it from exploding. Addons and macros are not a necessity. The game wont explode without them. That was a TERRIBLE metaphor

 

Uh, no, you don't know anything about in-car telemetry, or their safety protocols.

 

But the game may collapse without them. Which is much like exploding in terms of impact.