NO Addons please. There is another solution!

[SithMudava]

Having data about a fight is pretty helpful. Its nice to know more about what is going on so you can actually learn about what's happening in the game to make one's self a better player and even to help out guildies (contrary to the party line that its purely an elitist tool, plenty of guilds use these tools to help improve overall gameplay.)

 

The default UI just isn't very good at presenting useful information to players. For example, some classes have procs that need to be monitored so you can use free abilities or higher damage abilities. Tracking these basically means my eyes are fixed in a 2 inch section of my screen 100% of the time. I have no idea what else is really going on around me and I can't really enjoy the action of the game because I'm looking for a tiny little icon out of the way of the action. Here's a great spot for an addon that could give me visual feedback in the action area of the screen so I can continue to enjoy the visuals and animations in the game when fighting level appropriate content.

 

I'd also like to have some more visual data in the raid frames themselves. When PVP healing or tanking I'd like to know who has the huttball without having to dig through the pile of enemies to find that person to hit him with a heal or guard.

 

The challenge of the game should come from fight mechanics and coordinating the efforts of team mates. If part of the game's challenge comes from the UI or having data about what's going on then there is a fundamental issue with the game design itself.

 

If you want a purist experience then just don't play with mods. There are clearly plenty of you that seem to prefer this route so it stands to reason that you can get together and form a guild to clear content/play without them.

 

Our guild on the otherhand won't mandate mods but will always suggest a couple helpful mods that might make their gameplay more enjoyable. My goal is to get as many of my friends on board with this game as possible and making it more accessible is a step in the right direction.

 

I have procs as well and always make them...how you can't do that, beats me. On huttball it's easy...I've never had any issues with guarding the ball player.

 

Mostly what you request is the UI of the game to be changed...but please no dps meters, heal meters, tank meters, etc.

Edited January 3, 2012 by SithMudava

[DrDismemberment]

No I need my healbot!

[SithMudava]

No I need my healbot!

 

Then you don't know how to heal . Clearly you started playing mmos or healing with WoW.

[Makais]

You obviously don't even understand why people want the meter addons.

It's not really that people want to see it at the END of a flashpoint/operation.

People want to see the meters REAL TIME, while working on a boss or an encounter so that they can figure out what changes and improvements need to be made to defeat the encounter.

 

Seems like you are just too concerned with hiding your performance so that you can finish the flashpoint/operation at the expense of others.

 

I obviously do, opposite to you... I had DPSmeters for too long... It seems you got me all figure out m8...

 

This is the point where I troll off. I'm afraid I'm just going to get beaten by experience from this point on...

Edited January 3, 2012 by Makais

[blargness]

I have procs as well and always make them...how you can't do that, beats me. On huttball it's easy...I've never had any issues with guarding the ball player.

 

Mostly what you request is the UI of the game to be changed...but please no dps meters, heal meters, tank meters, etc.

 

I make use of them too.. I just have to constantly watch the most boring portion of my screen to look for them.

 

I also frequently guard the ball carrier but it'd be nice to not have to sort through the mess of lightsaber blades smoke and other game effects to try to click on him or even see his nameplate.

 

Hey I'm glad the game works out great for you though.

 

I'm still not sure what the fear of damage meters is. People who are going to be jerks are always going to be jerks regardless of the presence of damage meters.

 

Again it should be easy to make this game accessible to as many people as possible to ensure its continued success. This may mean having something parse a combet log in real time to find out if someone's just mashing the "saber strike" button while you're trying to beat an enrage timer on a boss. In other games (won't mention names here) we often check the logs to figure out what went wrong in a fight. In an ops group you've got a bunch of people all trying to work towards a common goal.

 

Without said data its going to become much harder to figure out what is wrong so you can correct it.

 

For example, in one specific fight in another game there is a phase with a LOT of AoE damage going around the group. We always died in this phase so we checked out what was happening on the "heal meter." As it turns out, one of the healers wasn't using the best AoE heal they had so we asked them to try throwing a few of those out. A couple of attempts later we'd downed the boss and moved on to the next.

 

Some people will argue "let me play how I want to play!" which is fine. I'm all for that, but when you've got 2+ people depending on how you play to kill something you've got 3 options:

 

1. give up on the content

2. the player changes how they play

3. replace the player

 

I suppose there is a 4th option which is outgear/outlevel the content and come back to it but now the challenge is gone.

 

Do 7 people in an ops group need to suffer because one guy wants to do nothing but the neat looking saber attacks?

[steevn]

as a raid leader, especially in hardcore progression dps/heal/death meters are in indespencible tool. its how YOU use them that makes the difference. its a fact that click to heal addons are more efficient, but if you really wanted to, you could do this exact mechanic with a macro (which should be coming out soon anyway)

 

addons like DBM (because lets be honest thats what a majority of you are talking about with raiding) shouldn't be allowed as they make encounters a series of watching bars going across your screen (7/7 HM fl and 6/8 HM DS and i have NEVER used DBM) it really makes the game more boring and i'd understand why you have issues with these types of addons.

 

DPS and heal meters can be abused by a d****bag but its up to you to put that person in their place. proper use of these addons is to analyse an encounter and your efficiency at meeting this requirements. as a raid leader i use the 4th EV encounter as our personal DPS meter, i start a stop watch and click it every time someone kills their miniboss then mob HP/time = (best case dps) this makes it easier for when we get to nightmare and calculate whether or not we have the DPS or if we need to shuffle things around/spend another week gearing out, it also allows us to look at the raid team and see who is pulling what is needed.

 

also deathmeters are probably the most important addon ever made for progression raiding, it allows us to understand why someone died and fix the issue, whether it be a mechanic, not catching a heal, or personal failure.

 

lastly if you use an addon that displays abitraty numbers to stroke your epeen and put others down F**K YOU, because you are misusing these programs for personal gain ontop of being a d*ck

[edenbass]

This game is better off without addons / mods. I feel sorry for you if you need a addon / mod to be a good player.

[AlistairC]

Guess the stuff below has been repeated ad naseum (couldnt be bothered to read all them pages).

 

If Bioware added customization to the UI it would be enough to quell most criticism. You dont really need boss timers since they already telegraph well and beyond what you should avoid (giant bullseye is kind of hard to miss).

 

All I want is:

- Bartender (IE moveable action, cast, party frames bars. I want it to fit my taste and field of view). I also happen to know that most healers want to place the bars differently and have bigger health bars.

- Better buff/debuff bars (duration, size and placement gotta be changable)

- More visible procs (I dont wanna stare at the damn hotbar. Doesnt matter if someone says they are fine with it. Good for you I guess).

- Target of target: It is really annoying as a tank to determine wether the mob is hitting you or the melee in the group while theres a bazillion effects and explosions being painted on the screen. I know theres a keybind for it.

 

Rest I dont really care about. Mods are usually not a bad thing or as Jeb of Minecraft recently said: there is no way I can produce and come up with as many ideas as the community. (well, something along those lines. The gist is there)

[Yoggs]

This game is better off without addons / mods. I feel sorry for you if you need a addon / mod to be a good player.

 

I feel sorry for you if you still think it's about being a good player. It means you haven't been paying attention to the entire thread.

[moosedog]

Yeah, no addons!!! if you don't want to use them. If you do, then go for it. That is the solution.

[ajjw]

The reason I become so against add ons is that it completely dominates the mindset of the players, we'd have a mage doing 30k dps at the start of the fight, then he wouldnt move out of the engulfing flames, so the healers would have to switch off the tanks to heal the mage, who would then also move the molten seed to close to the gather point when it spawns, and then he would drag the meteors through the tanks.... It would mean loads of wipes and it wasn't just him doing it, but the reason they were doing it is that they were just staring at their DPS meters and waiting for DBM to tell them what to do

No, your Mage friend was just f**king aweful.

Edited January 3, 2012 by ajjw

[MetallicaRulez]

People that use the "tunnel vision DPS standing in fire" excuse as a reason to disallow damage meters are funny. What you're describing is an awful player, not a meter whore. Most players who know how to play the game actually have the situational awareness to glance at a meter AND get out of the fire in a timely manner. Crazy, I know!

 

Damage meters are a necessity if this game is to prosper. I don't care if you think it causes elitism and abuse towards bad players. If you're getting called out by someone because of your terrible damage/terrible healing/standing in the fire, you probably deserve it. It's EXTREMELY important for end-game that we have a fast and accessible way to evaluate the play of the entire group.

[Yoggs]

People that use the "tunnel vision DPS standing in fire" excuse as a reason to disallow damage meters are funny. What you're describing is an awful player, not a meter whore. Most players who know how to play the game actually have the situational awareness to glance at a meter AND get out of the fire in a timely manner. Crazy, I know!

 

Damage meters are a necessity if this game is to prosper. I don't care if you think it causes elitism and abuse towards bad players. If you're getting called out by someone because of your terrible damage/terrible healing/standing in the fire, you probably deserve it. It's EXTREMELY important for end-game that we have a fast and accessible way to evaluate the play of the entire group.

 

To be fair, meter whores tend to be bad players, unless it's a Patchwerk style fight where they can't screw it up no matter how hard they try.

[nametakenz]

I personally hate those DPS/heal meter programs.

They ruined WoW for me. I played a ret pally from day one and I did pretty good except for solo, which was a PITA having no pulling ability.

But 5 mans, raids, did what I was supposed to do, what hybrids are meant to do. Fill in where ever there's a need. Very few wipes in any group I was in. I could be DPSing then stepping back and throwing some extra heals around, even off tanking when needed.

When ever some one had a look at the percentages I was in the middle for DPS, but same for heals. After BC it was "your a ret pally you should be putting out more DPS", etc. Playing became more of a formula with rotations, and burst damage, and less about paying attention and reacting as needed. H@ll a trained monkey could play a pally after awhile.

Those meters and PVP ruined playing a ret pally for me.

Isn't a game supposed to be about having fun? I've found most add-ons are for either the lazy (can't pay attention to who needs heals or buffs) or anal retentive (we all have to play this way) and they suck the fun out of playing a MMO.

 

 

This is point and case on why we NEED add ons.

Having a ret pally in the group occasionally healing, thinking its his job to help off tank and possibly taunting mobs and just period not doing the job hes there to do DPS. we would never know how low his dps is... without recount or logs.

 

Heres how it works, hardcore players wont play without add ons because theres no choice for the dev but to tune content down to an easy difficulty leaving hc players with no challenge at all.

 

I dont consider playing without add ons to be more difficult JUST WAY MORE ANNOYING. playing a sorc in either heals or dps spec i have tonnes of procs and i dont want to be staring at my buff bar everytime i channel innervate or lightning just to make sure the buff actually procs. nor do i want to be staring at the tiny debuff bars on the stock unit frames looking for debuffs or checking to see if my deionized debuff has fallen off

 

Boss's here do have enrage timers and when yo9ur stuck with a group dying to enrages do you just /roll between the 2 dps to see who leaves because you have nooooooooooooo idea which one was doing decent dps?

 

Without recount/logs etc a large part of the population will just mash random keys to no end result with a mob targeted and call it dps and NOT KNOW THEY ARE DOING ANYTHING WRONG, and yes they will still want to join your FP group i guarantee it.

 

The vast majority of the NOADDONSNOADDONS fan club is the casual player who occasionally uses a LFD feature. these people have the choice not to use add ons but by no means does their will need to affect our gameplay

[nametakenz]

And it is just TERRIBLE targeting someone to heal them, give me mouseover macros at the very least i can deal with your unit frames for awhile longer if needed

[Velthome]

Oh, no! The bad WoW bugaboo! It's hilarious how many ToR players are deathly afraid of anything that will "turn this game into WoW."

 

Addons don't make the game any easier; it isn't like turning down the difficulty. They simplify disseminated information for quicker and more intuitive plays on the part of the player. Some of this information is not even available to the players from any means--Damage Done/DPS, Threat, target of target, timers...

 

If people are so loathe against something like a DPS meter because they don't want someone to hurt their feelings when they're under performing, instead of embracing them to assist in their game play and contribute to the group, then this game's raiding is dead on arrival.

[Rawrie]

Oh, no! The bad WoW bugaboo! It's hilarious how many ToR players are deathly afraid of anything that will "turn this game into WoW."

 

Addons don't make the game any easier; it isn't like turning down the difficulty. They simplify disseminated information for quicker and more intuitive plays on the part of the player. Some of this information is not even available to the players from any means--Damage Done/DPS, Threat, target of target, timers...

 

If people are so loathe against something like a DPS meter because they don't want someone to hurt their feelings when they're under performing, instead of embracing them to assist in their game play and contribute to the group, then this game's raiding is dead on arrival.

 

^THIS! Whats wrong with addons? I dont get it

[Solaufein]

Addons make the UI customisable, i.e. it makes the game easier. See DBM, for example.

 

So the developers have to make the encounters more difficult to retain our interest. Keep it challenging.

 

At saturation point - in comes the boss "dance" mechanics. Those stupidly over-elaborate WoW raids.

 

No thanks.

[Velthome]

Addons make the UI customisable, i.e. it makes the game easier. See DBM, for example.

 

So the developers have to make the encounters more difficult to retain our interest. Keep it challenging.

 

At saturation point - in comes the boss "dance" mechanics. Those stupidly over-elaborate WoW raids.

 

No thanks.

 

DBM makes information more readily available to the player.

 

You still have to act upon it.

[TaraniaHeals]

I'd be happy with the ability to make macros and better raid frames.

 

Everything else I could probably live with. Looking way over to the left to check party health, on bars that are little, and having debuffs mixed in with buffs on the same tiny bar above the name plate is a pain in the butt. Not to mention all the other things everyone has to monitor and the fact that without macros healers take twice as long in their reaction times since they have to click on each individual person before they can cast a heal/dispel/whatever. I am capable of healing with the way swtor is set up now, and addons don't make me any better at my job, however they do make the game less annoying.

[Rawrie]

Addons make the UI customisable, i.e. it makes the game easier. See DBM, for example.

 

So the developers have to make the encounters more difficult to retain our interest. Keep it challenging.

 

At saturation point - in comes the boss "dance" mechanics. Those stupidly over-elaborate WoW raids.

 

No thanks.

 

damage meters keep it challenging! Addons are not only DBM, right?

Edited January 3, 2012 by Rawrie

[TheSpins]

Addons make the UI customisable, i.e. it makes the game easier. See DBM, for example.

 

So the developers have to make the encounters more difficult to retain our interest. Keep it challenging.

 

At saturation point - in comes the boss "dance" mechanics. Those stupidly over-elaborate WoW raids.

 

No thanks.

 

So you want to go back to the tank and spank, korean style, throw-warm-bodies-at-it-till-it-dies boss fights?

 

That's some great design there. Seriously top notch stuff. You should start your own studio.

[Sprockster]

The problem with WoW is that all the major boss fights are so tightly timed you need to have half those addons, like the boss mods for instance. Blizzard got better adding things of there own to help with this, but the boss fight difficulty is half the reason those mods were made.

 

I am fine with the TOR UI, I just wish I had some way to gauge what worked better as DPS. Right now it is hard to tell if it is better that I use a couple skills in a different priority/rotation.

[Sprockster]

So you want to go back to the tank and spank, korean style, throw-warm-bodies-at-it-till-it-dies boss fights?

 

That's some great design there. Seriously top notch stuff. You should start your own studio.

 

If a boss is balanced right it won't be tank and spank, but it won't be so tightly orchestrated that you need a DBM like mod to let you know the the rain of fire is starting in 2 seconds because it will kill you in half a second from full health...

[Innocentone]

If dps meters are allowed. Bioware needs to just allow the type that measures said players dps. Not enabling it to measure anyone other then themselves. Otherwise it would create unwanted drama and elitists jerks would start ruining the game for everyone.

 

UI add-ons, I am in favor of those .