Discussion: User Created UI Addons?

[Wolfie]

Yes, because people can't get it through their heads that when something is allowed by the TOS, it is by definition not cheating.

[Tonkra]

Yes, because people can't get it through their heads that when something is allowed by the TOS, it is by definition not cheating.

things that mods/addons do is that it is forcing people to actually install that "shit" if they dont want to have disadvantages against those who use it. and thats a terrible idea in my opinion.

why not making the entire original UI good enough. well.. well..


i like the idea of cutsomizing the outward appearance of the UI. For example switching the job icons in the group menu against 2D sprites of classic FF's. But what i dont like is the idea to make a number fest out of the FF franchise and to give people advantages to those who have installed any of these addons. (you are 1 metre away from target etc.)


now then we have boss fights were everybody says "do not get 10 metre near the boss, otherwise you will get hit by an aeo attack" ... for me it is like making it far easier, in this case you cheat the game design, thats a fact.. because in the original version it is not visible to your character.
so you can say its kind of using a cheat in an offline game. making things easier, than just playing the original version.
Or please just tell me the difference.

these addons just persuade you that you REALLY need "features" like these. so disturbing to me personally. im not against addons which change the appearance of the UI, giving it a classic FF7/FF9 look to it or whatever..

[Wolfie]

things that mods/addons do is that it is forcing people to actually install that "shit" if they dont want to have disadvantages against those who use it. and thats a terrible idea in my opinion.

why not making the entire original UI good enough. well.. well..


i like the idea of cutsomizing the outward appearance of the UI. For example switching the job icons in the group menu against 2D sprites of classic FF's. But what i dont like is the idea to make a number fest out of the FF franchise and to give people advantages to those who have installed any of these addons. (you are 1 metre away from target etc.)


now then we have boss fights were everybody says "do not get 10 metre near the boss, otherwise you will get hit by an aeo attack" ... for me it is like making it far easier, in this case you cheat the game design, thats a fact.. because in the original version it is not visible to your character.
so you can say its kind of using a cheat in an offline game. making things easier, than just playing the original version.
Or please just tell me the difference.

these addons just persuade you that you REALLY need "features" like these. so disturbing to me personally. im not against addons which change the appearance of the UI, giving it a classic FF7/FF9 look to it or whatever..

For a mod to trivialize encounters that are reliant on distance from a target, API has to be exposed that allows someone to check the distance between the player and the target with accuracy.

WOW does not have something like this. The best that it has is a boolean check if the target is within Follow, Inspect, Trade, or Duel range. It's not accurate and does not work on NPCs.

Besides that, there were several topics over the last year asking for a distance-to-NPC display on the target frame. If SE opens up the API so you can check a distance to an NPC, but does not implement it in the default UI, then that's SE's fault and they're bad developers.

[Ladon]

Many AddOns may not break the TOS but they walk a gray area that marginalizes content. One good example is HealBot for WoW which uses legitimately exposed API information to mostly automate playing a healer in the game. You can set it up in a way that all a healer has to do is click on a player bar and the AddOns auto-chooses and auto-casts the most efficient spell to heal or cure the player. Technically no rules are being broken and it's just using the information being exposed by API and auto-executing commands that are again allowed by both the API and TOS. It's also been the AddOns of endless debate where many claim it's now required for high end raiding while at the same time making a whole set of healers that use it incapable of playing their class without it.

This is the sort of thing that is concerning if you start opening up your UI to user content. It may not be breaking any rules but many will argue that it is something that should be prevented. But how do you do that when the AddOns isn't technically breaking any rules?

[fusional]

i dunno what kind of endgame you were involved in, with what kind of guilds- but in my guilds pushing for server firsts people using healbot were the exception... not the rule.

communities like elitistjerks sneer at stuff like that for a reason.

(that reason primarily being that holy paladins tend to use healbot more than any other class, and holy paladins are already completely faceroll... but i digress)

[Ladon]

i dunno what kind of endgame you were involved in, with what kind of guilds- but in my guilds pushing for server firsts people using healbot were the exception... not the rule.

communities like elitistjerks sneer at stuff like that for a reason.

(that reason primarily being that holy paladins tend to use healbot more than any other class, and holy paladins are already completely faceroll... but i digress)

It's one of the most downloaded AddOns in WoW. I don't see how you can push it off as not being an issue just because your server first guild frowned upon its use.

[fusional]

It's one of the most downloaded AddOns in WoW. I don't see how you can push it off as not being an issue just because your server first guild frowned upon its use.

it's not an issue for the same reason it's one of the most downloaded mods: no matter what you do, baddies gonna bad.

that said,

HealBot (and Decursive) created OnHover and OnClick macros, and re-skinned the raid frames. You could replicate that with the default UI if you wanted to waste a few hours writing your macros.

entirely true.

[Wolfie]

HealBot (and Decursive) created OnHover and OnClick macros, and re-skinned the raid frames. You could replicate that with the default UI if you wanted to waste a few hours writing your macros.

[Ladon]

HealBot (and Decursive) created OnHover and OnClick macros, and re-skinned the raid frames. You could replicate that with the default UI if you wanted to waste a few hours writing your macros.

I'm not seeing the point here. You could say the same with most other WoW AddOns since you have access to pretty much the same calls via macros as you do via AddOn Lua scripting. The core issue is still that with enough control given to the user, you can expect people to come along and automate game tasks to the point of marginalizing gameplay without breaking a TOS.

[Wolfie]

I'm not seeing the point here. You could say the same with most other WoW AddOns since you have access to pretty much the same calls via macros as you do via AddOn Lua scripting. The core issue is still that with enough control given to the user, you can expect people to come along and automate game tasks to the point of marginalizing gameplay without breaking a TOS.

The point I was trying to make was that you could do what HealBot did with the default UI and in-game tools that were given to you.

The fact that some things were automated by the API does not mean anything. Generally things that were automated via API calls were already marginalized, unwanted, or unimportant parts of gameplay, like automatically retrieving all your mail, auto-replying to tells when in combat, etc. That is a conscious decision that the developers make.