TBC UI Changes

[gorgeth]

Originally Posted by Benea I don't have an issue with them removing decursive. I always felt uncomfortable using it, it was too close to botting (in my opinion). I love raiding, and it's why I play this game. Losing the emergency monitor (I use Squishy) will impact my enjoyment of the game, unless some alternative form is put in. I asked myself if I want to go back to staring at 40 healthbars (25 in TBC), and I can't see myself doing it--I can see the healer burnout looming at this point, if I have to take a step back. If any of you have used Squishy it doesn't work like CTRA's EM. It mainly just sticks the hurt people into one box together--it doesn't sort it according to health at all--it does give you information on who is actively being hit however and who is receiving a heal from another healer. I don't use clickcasting, so I choose who to heal by clicking, and I choose the spell (and the rank) to cast. My spells are all casted by keybinds. What in my actions here is considered "automated" by Blizzard is my question. I have no macros except my tell macros for whispercast (which I believe won't work either, yay for manual buffing, not) for my buffs. Slouken's post (see the quote above) makes me imagine 25 people, and to heal them, I mouse over the name, right click, pick a spell from a menu, left click. Choose the next person, right click, pick a spell from a menu, left click. This is SWG style UI. I absolutely hated this system. Overall, from reading posts, I'm pretty disappointed at the direction the game is going. I'm hoping the positive additions (are there any?) will alleviate the immense tedium and increased button pushes and mouse clicks that radial and drop down menus will introduce. I'm definitely going to take a close look at the PTR when the UI changes go there, and decide whether I still want to support this game with my time and money.

If you have been riding the emergency monitor as a healer, you should just quit the game now.. you are hurting your raid more than helping it.. of all the changes this will force.. getting rid of that evil construct is the best of the bunch..

You cannot heal efficiently or effectively using the emergency monitor, this is why you have 5 people dying in a raid, and 1 low priority target getting 15k in heals at the same time.

[gorgeth]

Originally Posted by limdul click casting should still work since so you should be able to bind a button to remove magic on party member 2 and a nother button to party member 3, you just can't have the button select which party member to cast on or which despell spell to use. So you'll have to set up a button / mouse combo for each type of despell spell you have on each party member

And you have 80 spare keybinds for that for raids? Lets go back to reality a bit folks shall we?

lets arrange 40 bars pleasingly.. and then set *at minimum* 2 different remove curse binds (sometimes 3 depending on class) now lets talk heals and ranks.. at least 3 different heals some classes have 5-6 in BC.. most of those need to be downranked at least to 2 other levels to fit various situations..

Just how many fingers/keybinds DO you think people have? or are you looking at strictly 5 man content in this glorius salute to blizzard incompetence?

I for one do not have enough key modifiers/mouse buttons/keys on my keyboard to bind all of that nevermind remeber all of it in the heat of battle.. and I only have 2 decurse, 1 utility and 3 heal types

[Talonclaw]

As a druid I hate this already. I can't imagine doing anything efficently/effectively with the sheer number of either bindings or bars i'm going to have to have up at all times....and I HATE the idea of the "SWG" style context menus - click for menu, select rank from menu, rinse, repeat. Unless some new alternatives come up i'll be hard pressed to keep healing - which is already a really boring thing to do most of the time anyway >.<

[JIM the Inventor]

Before I say anything else, I'd like to support all the points made here - even the ones that contest mine - as reasonable. There is however a background rumbling of "Lern2Play" that I don't particularly care for. To those expressing that point: Shame on you.

Of course, this issue pivots around what is "fun", and what is "balanced". I think most of us can believe that the matters Blizzard bring under consideration are put into contexts both informed and well-intentioned.

Allow me to suggest that the problem occurs - and will always occur - solely at the hands of those that are not well-intentioned, NOT considerate of balanced play. As some have already stated, these are the people that use [Decursive: replace with any AddOn you like that is applicable] to tip the scales in their favor, and the rest of us be damned.

Let me emphasize, too, that modifying the program may discourage these people, but it will not eliminate them. They will come back, and by inventive or underhanded means, they will modify the game as they see fit. Blizzard does an amazing job eliminating the accounts of such folk, but they can only do so much.

Look at a game as a microcosm that imitates life. The people that succeed over you may do so because they are criminal, inventive, or a combination of both. To stop the inventive ness of criminals, would you call for the banning of invention? (Yes, I ask a lot of rhetorical questions.)

Now we have seen positive steps in the removal of distance and angle checking functions, so ultimately, the next steps may not be so bad - as Belladonna said, people will adjust. On the other hand, it is possible for too much lockdown to kill the fun in a game, as wmrojer aptly reminded us.

~*~*~

If the worst of the imbalance occurs in PvP, official programming can deal with that. Blizzard, make the changes that you are suggesting, but put them in effect when the PvP flag is on, or a certain PvP zone is entered only. Is that not reasonable?

I do ask that non-rhetorically.

[limdul]

Originally Posted by gorgeth And you have 80 spare keybinds for that for raids? Lets go back to reality a bit folks shall we? lets arrange 40 bars pleasingly.. and then set *at minimum* 2 different remove curse binds (sometimes 3 depending on class) now lets talk heals and ranks.. at least 3 different heals some classes have 5-6 in BC.. most of those need to be downranked at least to 2 other levels to fit various situations.. Just how many fingers/keybinds DO you think people have? or are you looking at strictly 5 man content in this glorius salute to blizzard incompetence? I for one do not have enough key modifiers/mouse buttons/keys on my keyboard to bind all of that nevermind remeber all of it in the heat of battle.. and I only have 2 decurse, 1 utility and 3 heal types

Nope I was planning on using my mouse like I do now, and use to players frames to pick up the click.

so for each party member / raid member:

Left click = select
Right click = Heal (right now auto select heal, but will change to just fire the biggest heal you have, a minor set back)
Shift Left click = Flash Heal (again largest rank)
Middle Mouse = Renew
Shift Middle Mouse = Remove magic
Ctrl Middle Mouse = Cure disease

only thing not bound to a button now that I will use in raid is party heals and since that wont need a target I can use one key button for that.

only thing new in this setup from how I have it now is the lack of selecting rank of heal so you might wanna add some shift+Right click crtl + right click if you wanna use different size heals. And I now have to have a bind for cure magic and disease.

and if you say you use 2 decurse, 1 utility and 3 heal types then you have to remember 6 combos where of now you have to remember 3. I agree decursive was nice and easy to use but it's not the end of the world to see it gone.

[Benea]

Originally Posted by gorgeth If you have been riding the emergency monitor as a healer, you should just quit the game now.. you are hurting your raid more than helping it.. of all the changes this will force.. getting rid of that evil construct is the best of the bunch.. You cannot heal efficiently or effectively using the emergency monitor, this is why you have 5 people dying in a raid, and 1 low priority target getting 15k in heals at the same time.

You didn't read my post. Kindly read it again on how Squishy works. Also, one healer in our mostly casual player guild uses the stare at 40 bars system. Apparently something works since we've been progressing.

[Cairenn]

I think this is a good time to re-iterate my opening post:

Originally Posted by Cairenn As always, the rules of the site apply. Keep it civil folks. No hysteria. No freaking out. Thoughtful rational discussion. Read the changes. Take time to understand them. And realize that it still isn't live, Blizz is no doubt still working away. There are probably more details yet to come.

[Dhargo]

A few things that people are forgetting -

1, The new TBC encounters are being designed with this in mind. Slouken flat out said that, one of the motivators for this change was so that the encounter designers didn't have to take decursive like mods into account when designing encounters.
2. You won't have 40 players to look at - you'll have 25
3. Downranking is taking a hit - spells below level 40 will see far less benefit from +heal gear.
4. Player HP is scaling faster than any other factor in the game - this should give some breathing room for spot-healers.
5. While a clickable emergency monitor is not doable anymore, you can always have an emergency monitor (sortable) that has bright glowing pointers to the unit-frame of the affect person (meaning no hunt and peck). I'm already working on the animation code for something like that.
6. Slouken is looking into implementing a combo keys approach to keybindings (using the menubuttons) based on a lot of our feedback. Take a druid healing a single group for instance (this scales, btw) using just the keys 1-5. Pressing a key opens the UnitFrame's menu button and remaps the keybinds to those newly opened buttons (which are your heals), pressing another key casts the spell, collapses the menu (optional) and resets the binds.

1,1 = rejuvenation on you
1,2 = regrowth on you
1,3 = healing touch on you
2,1 = rejuve on party 1

and so on. Many of us have requested the functionality, and slouken wants to put it in. Slouken's been pretty good in the past about getting us things like this.

Now, some of this may take some time -- but the 2.0 client will be on the PTR (slouken has said so), even though we won't get to test the new content, we can test the new UI and write new addons to make healing better.

Before the "oh, you play a DPS class, you don't know squat" stuff comes up - My first main was a paladin (for the year between release and 1.9). All my first mods centered around staying aware of my party's (and then raid's) condition and simplifying executing the proper actions on them.

Along with smaller raids, and the fact that 44% of the classes are now healers, a different approach to assigning spot-heal responsibilities would reduce the amount of staring at health bars (and overhealing IMO) -- but that's not a programming discussion, that's a process analysis discussion.

I think the idea that so many healers should be watching an entire raid is misplaced - it contributes to healer stress and to overhealing. There are ways to reduce the number of people a healer is paying attention to that leave massive redundancy in coverage, and flexibility for when a healer dies.

[Beladona]

Originally Posted by Dhargo A few things that people are forgetting - 1, The new TBC encounters are being designed with this in mind. Slouken flat out said that, one of the motivators for this change was so that the encounter designers didn't have to take decursive like mods into account when designing encounters. 2. You won't have 40 players to look at - you'll have 25 3. Downranking is taking a hit - spells below level 40 will see far less benefit from +heal gear. 4. Player HP is scaling faster than any other factor in the game - this should give some breathing room for spot-healers. 5. While a clickable emergency monitor is not doable anymore, you can always have an emergency monitor (sortable) that has bright glowing pointers to the unit-frame of the affect person (meaning no hunt and peck). I'm already working on the animation code for something like that. 6. Slouken is looking into implementing a combo keys approach to keybindings (using the menubuttons) based on a lot of our feedback. Take a druid healing a single group for instance (this scales, btw) using just the keys 1-5. Pressing a key opens the UnitFrame's menu button and remaps the keybinds to those newly opened buttons (which are your heals), pressing another key casts the spell, collapses the menu (optional) and resets the binds. ......

Well written IMHO

[Cairenn]

Something I'd like to point out here. It's still not even in beta yet, let alone on PTRs, I doubt that a) they are finished and b) all the information is actually out yet.

[yutt]

I think it's a terrible decision. The reason such mods exist, is not, as some claim, because most players are bad. It's because removal of debuffs is not entertaining. People play the game to have fun. Most non-masochists don't enjoy staring at 40 bars (or even 25) the entire fight.

This is why healing classes aren't popular. The healing game is based around the UI instead of the game environment. Havng a robust UI made this bareable for players like myself (a Priest). Instead we've again taken a step 20-years back in gaming to whack-a-mole.

It's not fun Blizzard. If you have a problem with Decursive-esque mods being required, then implement it into the default UI. Don't do something that emphasizes the most tedious and annoying aspect of the game.

[Benea]

Originally Posted by Dhargo A few things that people are forgetting - 1, The new TBC encounters are being designed with this in mind. Slouken flat out said that, one of the motivators for this change was so that the encounter designers didn't have to take decursive like mods into account when designing encounters. 2. You won't have 40 players to look at - you'll have 25 3. Downranking is taking a hit - spells below level 40 will see far less benefit from +heal gear. 4. Player HP is scaling faster than any other factor in the game - this should give some breathing room for spot-healers. 5. While a clickable emergency monitor is not doable anymore, you can always have an emergency monitor (sortable) that has bright glowing pointers to the unit-frame of the affect person (meaning no hunt and peck). I'm already working on the animation code for something like that. 6. Slouken is looking into implementing a combo keys approach to keybindings (using the menubuttons) based on a lot of our feedback. Take a druid healing a single group for instance (this scales, btw) using just the keys 1-5. Pressing a key opens the UnitFrame's menu button and remaps the keybinds to those newly opened buttons (which are your heals), pressing another key casts the spell, collapses the menu (optional) and resets the binds. 1,1 = rejuvenation on you 1,2 = regrowth on you 1,3 = healing touch on you 2,1 = rejuve on party 1 and so on. Many of us have requested the functionality, and slouken wants to put it in. Slouken's been pretty good in the past about getting us things like this. Now, some of this may take some time -- but the 2.0 client will be on the PTR (slouken has said so), even though we won't get to test the new content, we can test the new UI and write new addons to make healing better. Before the "oh, you play a DPS class, you don't know squat" stuff comes up - My first main was a paladin (for the year between release and 1.9). All my first mods centered around staying aware of my party's (and then raid's) condition and simplifying executing the proper actions on them. Along with smaller raids, and the fact that 44% of the classes are now healers, a different approach to assigning spot-heal responsibilities would reduce the amount of staring at health bars (and overhealing IMO) -- but that's not a programming discussion, that's a process analysis discussion. I think the idea that so many healers should be watching an entire raid is misplaced - it contributes to healer stress and to overhealing. There are ways to reduce the number of people a healer is paying attention to that leave massive redundancy in coverage, and flexibility for when a healer dies.

1. I'm really not holding my breath that they won't have encounters post TBC that won't need the furious clicking of dispel/cure disease. Mass dispel will alleviate some of this with prior organization of when to clump within 15 yards and when to spread out. I have no idea what druids and mages will do. I suppose you can use shaman totems for some, but then in a raid of 25, you'd need 5 shamans (which will affect raid balance quite a bit).

What will happen is probably some poor sots will become the primary dispeller/decurser/depoisoner and just do that the whole raid, and they get to stare unblinkingly at 25 raid bars.

2. Thank goodness for this.

3. I can adjust to this, I'll just use level 40+ ranks of spells.

4. Haven't heard of this one except from you. This will help if true, I agree.

5. The emergency monitor you describe will be more of an encumbrance to me than help, and more likely, I just won't look at it. Just use the main raid frames then, why have 2 things you have to stare at and 1 additional frame to clutter the screen?

I think what will happen is what Maia is planning on doing (Grid), or the whole raid frame will become the monitor (meh) where people who don't need heals fade and you'll have a visual aid on who's the lowest on hitpoints (like a giant static EM). I'll probably end up using Grid, which, ironically, looks like a whack-a-mole setup. Someone's already suggested, that Maia should animate moles popping out of them as the person loses hp.

6. I'll have to try this to see if I like it, if implemented. Hitting 2 or 3 button presses to cast one spell seems like a lot of steps to do one thing.

One thing I won't use are the menus (drop down/radial) they are planning. I hated it in SWG. I just hope it won't be required for me to use them to be competitive.

[JoshBorke]

The changes to SpellCasting events really seem like they answered all the questions we asked for. We no longer have to pass around the spell targets through the addon channes and we will be able to get cast information for all members in our raid/party (woohoo!). I have no idea how UNIT_SPELLCAST_START and UNIT_SPELLCAST_SENT differ and what exactly they are going to be used for. This change will also eliminate a TON of combat parsing. No longer will I (as the author of HealWatch) have to scan for 'Bob heals Fred'. I am curious why UnitCastingInfo doesn't go ahead and return target information, but that's easily doable from cating UNIT_SPELLCAST_START and saving a variable.

I'm not exactly sure how we'll use UNIT_TARGET event because we'll be able to get spell target information from the other event, but I'm sure someone will think of something.

I don't understand why scripts cannot complete trades while out of combat. I think that it sucks to be a mage handing out water at the start of raids. Anything to make your life easier i'm all for .

that's all i have for now...

[Lichbane]

Not happy. Not happy at all. Playing a healer will be just that more difficult.

But that's not to say mod authors can't adapt. Could you, based on the target selected, color-code your healing buttons (Red through to Green to represent "Too Low - Target will Die!!" to "Overheal") to visually aid the caster? Could you make your cleansing buttons turn purple if the target needs a debuff removed?

If you can't have the client decide, can you look at making it easier for the player to decide?

I'm just throwing some ideas around ....

[Pane]

Originally Posted by Dhargo 1, The new TBC encounters are being designed with this in mind. Slouken flat out said that, one of the motivators for this change was so that the encounter designers didn't have to take decursive like mods into account when designing encounters. 2. You won't have 40 players to look at - you'll have 25

that might be the case for new content, but what about the old content? It's easy enough for me; for the cleaning tools I have I can use a totem. I'll just deprioritize other groups and stomp poison cleaning; and be on my merry way.

mages, druids and priests aren't so lucky. manually selecting people (pick from 40) and then manually clicking a decursing spell in a 40 man raid (yes they'll still exist after wow 2.0) to get rid of Impending Doom or such will NOT be fun. not to mention that it will take a long time to do, to the point of people dieing.

Heal size selection I can live without. It's decursive that has me worried

[Flarin]

Originally Posted by Pane that might be the case for new content, but what about the old content? It's easy enough for me; for the cleaning tools I have I can use a totem. I'll just deprioritize other groups and stomp poison cleaning; and be on my merry way. mages, druids and priests aren't so lucky. manually selecting people (pick from 40) and then manually clicking a decursing spell in a 40 man raid (yes they'll still exist after wow 2.0) to get rid of Impending Doom or such will NOT be fun. not to mention that it will take a long time to do, to the point of people dieing. Heal size selection I can live without. It's decursive that has me worried

I totally agree. I plan on leveling characters such as BE's - the old content written with mana conservation in mind will be impossible.

As a priest, I just do not understand how I will be able to heal without spell rank scaling mods. With all the different ranks of my healing mods, plus the healing bonuses from gear, even in a 5-man raid how can you conserve mana?

This is a horrible change and will make the "game" - because that is what it is - less enjoyable or even impossible to play for some classes.

All of the work I have put into making scripts to fire spells off for my rogue at the right time- all that time spent- gone.

This may drive me to look elsewhere for my gaming entertainment. Good job Blizz- way to stick it to your paying customers.

[tralkar]

Why let us customize anything then? just make there game us there own ui and stop this bullsheot...

[kogepan81]

My mind tends to wander so I'm sorry if this doesn't seem too coherent.

You know, a lot of these new mod ideas seem to already be covered by PerfectRaid.... the way it shows debuffs and whatnot will be perfect already. Someone said something about big glowy arrows on the raid frame itself for emergency monitor.. I think that would work with raid lists like PerfectRaid as well but honestly I don't see why assigned healing can't be implemented more... I know when I've healed on my shaman I typically ask for a healing assignment just because emergency monitors DO lend themselves to overhealing and wasted mana. I looked at the Grid thingy but I didn't get it :\
but then again I am blonde. As far as not having mods choose rank for you... this is a good thing. How can you have a formula anticipate damage for you? In sensitive battles where damage spikes are varying and typically extreme (using warlocks for Twin Emps, for example) if you're using a rank selecting heal mod to heal that warlock he's gonna die because you never know if that shadowbolt is gonna go unresisted. If you start your heal early and you're using some little rank2 heal because he's only down a little health by the time it goes off it wasn't enough to catch up to how much he's hurting at that point.
Healers in my guild don't use heal mods at all. Tuller and Cladhaire have the right idea on the future of mod programming when it comes to TBC.. and for crap's sake can we please stop treading the expansion like it's the end of the world?

Thank you, that is all.

[Benea]

The grid's main goal is to reduce screen real estate occupied by UI elements, so one can see the game. Instead of having 40 or 25 health bars plastered all over your screen, it's reduced to small box, filled with smaller boxes :P

It looks so much like a whacka-mole game (that blizzard is turning the healing game into again), that it tickles my humor. There's already a whacka-mole addon being developed for us too. I also chuckle that if you look at the Grid, no one's names are on there. I don't know who you are, I only know that the rogue in column 2 position 4 is 50% health.

In their quest to stop automation, they've made the healing game more impersonal and robot-like.

[sid67]

They are making a mistake.

The #1 thing that seperates WoW from any other MMORPG is the customability of the UI. I've played other games (and been good at them) that forced me to micro-manage every little button and every little thing. Frankly, I would rather enjoy the game content then be a micro-manager.

For me, these changes would suck the enjoyment right out of the game and make WoW no different than half a dozen other games. Worse, actually. There are other games that have more interesting content and much better graphics. But they dont have the UI. The UI is what makes WoW special and they are nerfing it.

That's why I am going on hiatus for 1 month when WoW launches BC. Rather than pre-order or fight the lines for the game, I am going to buy a different game and give it a try for a month. I'll take a look back at WoW after 1 month and see how clever people are adjusting (meaning the addon community) and if I don't like what I see then I will stay with my new game.

Blizzard is making a mistake because I imagine I am not the only one that shares this sentiment. If they take away what is unique and fun about WoW, what's the point in playing?