Make them yourself.

User created add-ons were great on paper in WoW. An amazing idea that opened an entirely different community based on the game. Spawned websites, designers, forums, etc. Great addition.

here's the downside though... It also introduced an amazing amount of additional work for the developers. the system was good but people found loopholes and "creative" ways to use it to make addons/mods that basically became required tools for the game and gave you an edge just by existing.

There are some things that I would say 'need' to be in the game though. Some of which you are already adding. I will try to list those that I think are the most important up front with suggestions as to how to make them actually useful for us (the player).

1. Combat Log with statistics.

We like number crunching, not all of us but a lot of us. I don't want charts where you can see everyones individual DPS in a raid/group because that just spawns idiocy and tracking someones actual value through just DPS is a bad idea for a variety of reasons I'm simply not going to cover here (ex. If my merc stops DPSing to pop an emergency heal on the guy healing the tank I did a good thing but my "DPS" will suffer)

Suggested implimentation: A ui element which tracks categories with some broken down stats.

Total Combat time since last reset:

- Average DPS.

- % of DPS broken down by ability.

- # of times X, Y, and Z ability were used.

- Average HPS.(heals per second)

- % of HPS broken down by ability.

- # of times Z, Y, and Z ability were used.

Last combat round:

Same stats as above but only on the last "combat round"

Optional: the ability to save your current log off as a .txt file.

2. Advanced Hotkey banks.

The default UI is not bad as far as hotkey banks but it leaves something to be desired, many of us would love to be able to create our own hotkey bars or at the very least have the option of arranging them slightly differently.

Suggested Implimentation: Break the bottom bar with player/target windows and create new UI element for "buttons"

Create an option where you can have free floating player/target windows. Keep the portrait but move the health/resource bars to the center point of the circle instead of the top. Break the hotkey banks out of that. Create a UI element for hotkey banks that is standalone and configurable to be in 1-12 rows, each bank only has 12 buttons. This allows you to create banks in rectangular formats or horizontal/vertical rows. Allow the hotkey banks to be draggable and scalable individually.

Allow the Companion window to be expanded and also have their hotkey bank configured/scaled just like any other hotkey bank in this new system.

When a hotkey is unpopulated it becomes inactive and invisible until you attempt to 'drag' an ability at which point the empty slot becomes visible. by inactive I mean if the hotkey bar is locked and you mouse over an empty slot it does not register the mouseover so you can still click on things in that screen space without it thinking you're clicking on an empty slot.

3. Enhanced notification system.

There are times when we need to be notified that something is happening. I don't want rage timers or cast alerts but I would like to spend more time looking at the beautiful game and less looking at the beautiful UI...

Suggested Implimentation: Invisible UI element that is relocatable and will have a 'text' warning based on various criteria set in an options panel.

This window would be primarily for ability announcements. Warrior/Knights have an ability that only becomes available after a defensive action. Having that "pop up" when it becomes available would be an example. "5 stacks of Tracer Lock" would be another example. Threshold warnings for your own resources/health would also be nice say "Low health!" when you get to 25% or 20% etc.

4. Advanced Targeting Option.

Currently theres a fair amount of lag/difficulty, especially when healing with target swapping and ability use. This is unrelated to the "ability lag" situation currently being looked at.

Suggested Implimentation: Additional options for targeting such as mouseover or friendly Right Click functionality.

Currently there is no "auto attack" and if you have an attack ability bound to your first slot on your primary bar and right click an enemy it casts that ability. This is great and I use it quite a bit. It would be beneficial if that functionality was more inteligent and functioned for heals as well. As an example, if on my merc I have combat support cylinder active and rapid shot bound to my first slot I would like to be able to right click a friendly to "shoot" them for a heal. Also, having it be intelligent enough to recognize friend vs foe abilities like heals would mean you could bind your primary "work horse" heal spell and enable healers to right click on ops / party frames to cast that primary heal spell without having to do the target shuffle and add to the overall timing of using the ability.

Optionally, a 'mouse over' ability option would be nice. If I hover my mouse over PlayerX's ops frame and hit 3 (rapid scan) button it should cast rapid scan on that target and not my current target.

Addtional Option: advanced "target of target" or "Focus Target" key modifiers that actually function. As in, I could set SHIFT as my Target of Target modifier and CTRL as my Focus Target modifier. target the boss, Focus my MT, and cast a nuke. Nuke hits boss, I cast a heal holding CTRL and it heals the MT without me having to switch my actual target. MT loses agro and starts to whack the sniper I can hold SHIFT and cast heal and it will heal whoever the current target (the boss) is targeting. These changes would go a long way towards helping healers in PVE and PVP.

5. A Macro System

This one will be met with a lot of debate, people are going to want complicated macros that can chain abilities, etc. I think if you go too far with this it opens the door to simplifying the game down to a level that is just a 1 button mash fest which is a BAD thing.

Suggested Implimentation: restricted macro system that allows Targeting options, flavor text, item links, and singular abilities to be included.

Examples of things you 'could' do with this system:

- Create a Target Partymember1: Cast rapid Scan button.

- Create a "/2 WTS [item 1] [item 2] [item 3]" button.

- Create a "/emote Rages out! /use Adrenal" button

- Create a "/companion Attack /cast Skill 1"

Examples of things you could NOT do with this system:

- Cast Skill 1, if skill one is not available Cast Skill 2

- /use item 1, if item one is not available /use item 2

These sorts of limitations would avoid the 1 button mash fest but open up some functional things that generally add flavor or ease some of the more tedious aspects of gameplay. With the hotkey suggestion I made earlier + the macro system for targeting/casting you could avoid the advanced targeting option suggestion.

6. Enable more windows and window overlap.

It is currently very annoying to deal with a vendor/craft/crewskills. I can only have 2 windows open at a time and occaisionally (read, all the time) I want to have 3 when I'm dealing with crewskills and vendors.

Suggested Implimentation: Allow all pop up windows like inventory, crewskills, craft lists, vendor windows, and the character sheet to be open at once, overlap each other and be independantly draggable. Essentially make it function like windows on a desktop.

7. Allow UI settings to be saved as a profile.

When I started the game I made 4 characters, I quickly modified the chat elements to make two windows with all non chat going to one and all chat going to another. I changed my bindings and opened the bottom center hotkey window and the right hotkey bar. I had to do this on every single character and if I create a new one... have to do it again.

Suggested Implimentation: Allow current UI settings (chat, bindings, which elements are active {scaling and location when you add that}) to be saved as a 'profile' which you can apply to new or existing characters in the options panel while logged into that character. Allow at least two profiles, preferably 4 or more.

8. Things you might be doing in 1.2 that I want to clarify.

I saw the little preview of some of the UI changes coming, I saw movable parts and scalable UI. It is important to note that those are great changes and one of the main reasons I re-subbed was because of that little preview. Knowing that you guys are putting effort into improving the game as well as fixing bugs this early on makes me feel very confident about the games direction. However, please impliment it in a functional way early on.

- Make all items of the interface relocatable independantly.

- Make all items individually scalable. We may want our target window bigger than our player window, or one hotkey bar smaller than the rest, etc.

- Add a 'snap to' option to interface elements. Let them dock to each other cleanly so we can align our windows without overlap easily.

- Don't forget the hotkeys. Currently if you have the 'right hotkey bar' active in some WZs the objective map covers the top of it. Please make sure we're able to move those bars around or at least move that objective map.

- Allow individual locking of all UI elements.

Dream list: add different skins for the UI, including a minimalist skin that cuts the majority of the borders and 'graphics' off of the elements and takes it down to a barebones, only what you need look. (i.e. hotkeys are just the icon, player/target windows have no portrait, just a name/health/resource bar, chat windows have a small tab to click for options/drag, etc)

Thanks and sorry for the wall of text

I agree, any changes to the UI should be done by Bioware/EA. Game addons decrease performance and are a security risk.

err, I don't really agree with your points. Properly managed add-ons are not a security risk in any way, I can go into extensive details if you want but I'm an IT security person with his CISSP and have been working exclusively in IT security since '98 so I'd ask you just take my word for it.

As for performance, that's true but that't not biowares problem. you want to run 500 addons while you play you are gonna make some sacrifices, them effecting performance is not a reason to NOT allow user created add-ons, they would still be optional so you use them with the understanding that you are 'adding on' to the existing game and that might come with a performance hit. Don't want the hit? Don't isntall the add-ons.

I think we should have a more modifiable UI. I'd prefer they be Bioware provided but if they won't do the things the majority of the populace wants I think they should allow user created add-ons. I just prefer Bioware provided over a user created.

Im pro-addon and pro-macro (just so everybody knows)

here's the downside though... It also introduced an amazing amount of additional work for the developers. the system was good but people found loopholes and "creative" ways to use it to make addons/mods that basically became required tools for the game and gave you an edge just by existing.

While i agree that certain things like gearscore and AVR were bad addons. But overall like you also pointed out. It created a new community, which is an amazing community. With so many addons for so many small problems. An addon for any small problem is available. And these addons get released alot quicker then if in this case bioware would be able to develope all these addons. Everybody has a different taste, so everybody would like a certain addon to just work slightly different. Take boss mods there like 4 different boss mods out there. Countless different damage meters etc.

In my opinion while it initially would take alot of work to make a system like this to work for lua coders. In the end it will safe alot of time to, since they dont have to develope so many different things for everybody's way of playing the game.

Im pro-addon and pro-macro (just so everybody knows)

 

 

 

While i agree that certain things like gearscore and AVR were bad addons. But overall like you also pointed out. It created a new community, which is an amazing community. With so many addons for so many small problems. An addon for any small problem is available. And these addons get released alot quicker then if in this case bioware would be able to develope all these addons. Everybody has a different taste, so everybody would like a certain addon to just work slightly different. Take boss mods there like 4 different boss mods out there. Countless different damage meters etc.

 

In my opinion while it initially would take alot of work to make a system like this to work for lua coders. In the end it will safe alot of time to, since they dont have to develope so many different things for everybody's way of playing the game.

the bigger issue isn't making the system. It's maintaining it. it adds an entirely new 'area' they have to patch, develope for, maintain, consider when adding/changing content or balancing things, etc.

Look at decursive as an example in WoW, it took a difficulty mechanic from bosses/combat essentially out of the game so Bliz had to adjust the system to make it not work. That's another thing for Bioware to have to 'deal' with.

A user created add-on system introduces a lot more work for Bioware. Work i'd rather they be putting towards the core game and not a tertiary system.

If they add the major functions people build addons for and introduce a moderately useful macro system with restrictions it will satisfy a large portion of the user base.

I agree that losing out on the "Community" of modders does suck a bit but avoiding the long term and sustained headaches having a modding system creates for the actual developers of the game is worth it.

I love mods, my UI in WoW was unrecognizable from the stock UI however, I despised having any mod that was essentially 'mandatory' to play the game because it offered so much of an advantage it was ignorant to NOT install it. I don't want to play a game with that in it again, a lot of people don't actually. We want the functionality some of thsoe mods provided.

err, I don't really agree with your points. Properly managed add-ons are not a security risk in any way, I can go into extensive details if you want but I'm an IT security person with his CISSP and have been working exclusively in IT security since '98 so I'd ask you just take my word for it.

 

As for performance, that's true but that't not biowares problem. you want to run 500 addons while you play you are gonna make some sacrifices, them effecting performance is not a reason to NOT allow user created add-ons, they would still be optional so you use them with the understanding that you are 'adding on' to the existing game and that might come with a performance hit. Don't want the hit? Don't isntall the add-ons.

 

I think we should have a more modifiable UI. I'd prefer they be Bioware provided but if they won't do the things the majority of the populace wants I think they should allow user created add-ons. I just prefer Bioware provided over a user created.

Bioware would have to spend months if not years getting mods into place when the community could do it in a fraction of the time for a free. I don't know why so many people are against them.

1. Macros should be allowed. Things like /mouseover are literally usability issues, and should be implemented by Bioware themselves so that players CAN modify how a spell is cast, but cannot, say, create one button that does their entire rotation. This is something Bioware can implement themselves that I would appreciate.

2. I agree with not allowing 3rd party add-ons. WoW has literally "died" at numerous points because of these add-ons, ranging from 1-button dispel management during Vanilla to botting during BC to a mod that allowed players to literally draw paths, stack points, DPS points and "stay away" zones on the floor during Wrath. It has gotten to the point in WoW that the game is building in boss mods, because encounters are being designed around them existing, which is annoying.

With all the arguing over mods/addons I figured this would actually get some attention from the user community.

This list is cool.

However, your statement to me about how the addon system in WoW makes more work for the devs? And then you post this huge list and claim this is less work for them? Lol. Are you a developer, can you provide proof one way is more work for them?

I agree, any changes to the UI should be done by Bioware/EA. Game addons decrease performance and are a security risk.

Thats bullcrap. I use tons of addons in WoW. I have never had a keylogger nor have I seen any performance issues.

My UI in World of Warcarft

I build my UI with well over 100 individual addons. As you can see from the image, I am getting 51fps (this was my old system - Pheonom X2 550, 4gb ram, HD5770... my new system gets well over 100 in raids), addons take up 30mb of memory and I have everything just the way I like it. That is what is most important about addons, are the fact you customize your gaming experince to the way YOU like it.

Bottom line is, if you don't like addons, then don't use them. But don't try to spoil it for those of us that do use and like addons. Bioware adding addons to the game does not affect you in any way, and in fact will result in less work for Bioware as the will have to worry less about one aspect of the game.

The huge WoW modding community is a testament to the fact that the game was missing large amounts of things that should have been in there and that were left unaddressed for so long that the amount of a headache having addon support created was completely dwarfed by the amount of time and resources they saved by having said community do this work for them.

Not having this community is an unjustifiable and ignorant waste of one of the greatest resources available to gaming. People pour their hearts into some of these great programs and that is the kind of spirit you need behind a game to increase its longevity. The fact that WoW has taken so many of these addons and put them in as default options is proof of that. Alot of the things the OP is asking for BioWare to do themself was a modders creation, not a game developers.

All having BioWare do this themselves will acomplish is getting you a couple things you liked and limiting yourself from further improvements. No game developer has the resources to hire anything remotely equivilent to the combined intelligence of an entire modding community. These people micromanage your every gaming want and need in every detail for free with no patching downtime required. And in the end, they even teach the devs a thing or two. That is how a game evolves. Fighting evolution just makes you a prime target for natural selection imo.

In reference to which adds more work. Bioware creating the mods/addons or letting the community.

here's the difference:

Bioware allows mods/addons.

Initial labor: creating the system to allow a modifiable UI. This means determining which functions should be available to a modder, which will be locked. Which will be available but can't link to another (i.e. you can log events and trigger a text only macro but you can't trigger an ability based on events) if the engine doesn't support that sort of system already they will have to build it from scratch. They have to create the documentation needed for creating the mods in the form of what's allowable in the system adn what's not, essentially the text files for a mod kit. If they go above and beyond they'll actually release a dev kit for mods but that would be pie in the sky. They have to test how the mods/ui elements people will create will function within game and do all of the coding to allow all of the various functions to be implimented.

On-going labor: They now have to maintain this with every code update, they have to monitor it for bugs and repair those, they have to monitor it for potential abuses that slipped through the cracks in the 'allowable/not allowable' and they have to maintain game balance with the understanding that mods exist. I.e. if theres a Decursive type function and you put a debuff/dot/negative thing on a boss that is intended to be part of the balance of the encounter is it suddenly nullified by anyone with X mod/addon, if so can it really be considerd part of the balance?

Now, Bioware creates the base level modifications and UI tweaks I listed.

Initial work: create, in house, the mods and addons I listed. This will be more work but it will be done by the teams that created the game so it will be modifications of existing systems and some limited new code.

On going labor: simply maintain it just like the rest of the game. You have no 'outside' influences to worry about because they are inhouse mods/UI elements so you are able to balance your encounters, and build the game with a full awareness of what's going on.

Bioware making their own modifications and tweeks to the UI like I mentioned will be much less work for them in the long run, a little more work upfront (maybe) but ultimately less work and less headache.

In reference to which adds more work. Bioware creating the mods/addons or letting the community.

You're wrong. The initial work of developing and documenting the addon framework (API) is exactly the same in both cases. The only difference is in the decision process of which functions to expose to the modding community, and even that part of the work has already been done.

And maintaining, supporting and updating an API is a much simpler process than doing the same for a set of UI options (which by their very nature include and are much more complex than the API), and that on top of that are guaranteed not to please everyone.

The time and ressource they spend developping UI and addons type feature (recount, power aura...) is time they don't spend on actual content, balancing class, game feature (dungeon finder, double spec...)

Just make an API for your player base and watch them carry your game to limit you never thought possible. Just keep an eye out for "game breaking" addons.