It's a major PITA when playing a healer. There's no good way to track buff/debuff status of party members.

Honestly, they should either improve the visual cues to the point that they're useful, or add it into the API.

I'm not going to ragequit over it, but it is annoying. I like to know what's going on in the game world. Same reason I added dmg/healing number addons, and add-ons to show what I just looted.

Pawkette wrote: »

@ShinChuck Yes, but the things people are asking for are not iterative improvements on the vision of the game. They are radical changes to the overall design and vision of Zenimax.

I'll repeat that they do not want you to have this information, just as they do not want you to have more than five abilities and an ultimate usable at any time. To ask them to change either is to ask them to diverge from the vision of their product.

If you want to play a game where watching the UI is the limit to the game experience, find a game heavily based around the UI. Don't try to make a game, who's vision has publicly been stated to be an attempt to move away from playing the UI, into something else.

I find your last comment interesting, as you make addons that add to the UI. You *are* making it into something else, albeit, in this case, with the permission (via allowing it in the UI) of Bethesda/Zenimax.


But that aside, I disagree with your premise. "Vision" is not a set thing. A few weeks ago, they were entirely fine with short-term buffs in the UI. That's how particularly deep-seated their "vision" was. We don't know the full rationale behind disallowing it, we don't know what went on in meetings. Did they ever explicitly say it was part of "their vision" and not something technical on their end? Something they want to tweak still? Who knows? Not you or I.

Things change, even their vision.


And on that, I think the best visions are formed when the community works together, when there's a synergy and a symbiotic relationship between the developer and the player. Players help form the game: they wouldn't have created the game the way they did if they didn't think it had wide appeal, meaning player input, for this and other MMOs, has played a vital role in shaping that vision. "Vision" isn't just a static ideal; it's a fluid concept.


A fine example is FFXIV: jumping, for example, was *explicitly* stated to go against their vision. Ditto for an auction house-esque searchable UI. Combat was slow, the inventory was bulky and hard to manage. It was mostly intentional: it was their vision.

FFXIV then took in three years of player feedback to release a drastically different but drastically superior product that was overall fulfilling for both players *and* the development team, adding everything above and more. Despite the fact that A Realm Reborn deviated significantly from the original "vision", both sides have been thrilled with the results, and the team at Square Enix, from what they've said, couldn't be happier to have had such a strong relationship with the players.


Vision isn't set in stone. We see things from different angles all the time, we grow and develop. MMOs are a unique bread of game where players and developers evolve together, where players are part of the development process, and I don't think the developers would have it any other way.



All that aside, people will keep asking, and things will be added, changed and adjusted based on people's input. With that, I truly hope any changes you and others don't care for are optional, some kind of on/off switch, and everyone else can play as they desire.

(And that wall-of-text is all I'll say on that in the topic, much to everyone's relief!)

cjmarsh725b14_ESO wrote: »

Just to throw my two cents into the ring...

I think the issue is whether or not the ability to access aura timers in an addon gives an unfair advantage to players who don't have the addon. I think it does indeed give that advantage since someone who is playing without addons is at a significant disadvantage in this case. I understand that addons are free to use and anyone can use them, but the fact remains that addons are intended to enhance the gameplay experience, not change it. Having said that, my assumption is that the developers are working on an in-game implementation, and when it is released I am sure that the api access would be restored.

So what's the difference between the Combat visual Cue system and an add-on that displays them in icon form? Either way you are monitoring the same thing, right? So please explain how that is an advantage?

funny thread is funny. if you see "tears" in someones HP bar, his armor is debuffed. If you see arrows pointing inward he has a dot on him. etc etc.

Im playing as a healr/support role and i do agree that not being able to see when HOT spells or buffs expire is annoying. But at the same time it make gameplay for me even more difficult and strategic as to when i should apply certain spells. It hasnt effected the enjoyment for me and i actually think it enhanced it.

You should at lease be able to tell WTF is happening to your character at any time; eg my hands are red (why!) . We should also know why we died. I am not talking about group management or knowing every detail, just your immediate status. If these aren't somehow added to interface I predict that people are going to stop playing after their 30days are up out of frustration. And I might be one of them.

I figured out that we can actually see buffs (and most likely debuffs) on ourselves in the character screen - pushing C I think? Just like you can see them in Skyrim, which helps out a lot after eating food or drinking beer, taking potions etc.. but it would definitely be nice to be able to see this stuff without having to stop whatever you're doing to double check it instead of just looking at a small box somewhere on the screen.

There also should definitely be a much better way of knowing when you're buffs and debuffs are active on other players / creatures - it can be a real pain when you're playing something such as a healer.. Although I guess it is kind of easy to see a lot of the stuff like the people you heal glowing a bit, or the monsters you cast a spell on on fire / frozen.. whatever lol.. I dunno.

Great for some stuff, pointless for others.

i don't know why people are complaining about this stuff. If you can't use your massive brains to track a 20 second buff, you shouldn't be tracking it at all. It will require some effort from you to actually keep track of your de-buffs and your opponents buffs. You can spam all skills all you want, but someone else can actually use their massive brain to track those de-buffs to make a better and effective player. Simply put.

zhevon wrote: »

Actually self buffs - I am not as worried about because I know what I actively done. Its buffs/debuffs from the outside that frustrate and confuse me.

This, right here.

The issue is not so much your own self buffs, it is more so the debuffs and dots you apply to the NPC itself.

Are they stacking? Do they over write? Are you wasting your resources when they are precious enough as it is and a single cast or two can mean the success or failure of your encounter?

I suspect most people here who are not having an issue with this are solo playing at the moment and have not yet participated in any large group based content i.e. Anchors, Rifts and open world Boss fights where you have a good amount of people in and upwards of 20+ smashing on the same target.

If you can actively and visually see whats going on with your targets condition monitoring with 20+ people smashing it, then my hat off too you, but for those of us who cannot see at 200hz or 500fps then seeing debuffs and dots applied to the target is not a must, but very nice to have.

To clarify here, if you go in to your settings > gameplay > Combat Cues, you will notice this feature is hard locked to off client side, so those of you pretending you know what the visuals look like at the current time actually have no idea what you are talking about because it isn't even implemented yet.