MQ2Twist: Enhancement request

[hytiek]

I was wondering if MQ2Twist could be enhanced to have some intelligence about Mezzing type songs.

Scenario:

Bard is twisting a few songs
Bard is the puller
Bard pulls a mob + 1 (oops! bad bard!)
Bard sings mez song on the add
MQ2Twist is aware of such song being sung (${Me.Casting} [defined list of mez type songs]
MQ2Twist pauses until the mez song is no longer being sung.

This would be ideal versus the /twist hold # option. I'm not sure about others, but making such a hotkey for such a unique situation isn't really needed.

Devs? Is this possible or am I out of luck?

By the way, current situation is that once the mez song is sung, then twist continues allowing for my mez to end, my merc to get ass raped, followed by the embarrassing Shaman beating...

Thanks in advance!

 

[PeteSampras]

No. use a macro.

twist pausing is borked anyway, even with beta=on. on top of that, theyd have to add a method to figure out how many mobs are on aggro and which one and when you want to mez.

it isnt that they couldnt fix the pause issue and have mez songs pause, its that programming in every possible scenario gets way too complicated. you need a macro for this. and in that macro, you /twist off, /target add, /cast mez, /tar main mob, /attack on. and once your mezzed mob is on target again, /twist. then resume normal twisting. but then when you have 2 adds that need mezzed.. it goes back to needing to pulse the mez songs between them anyway.. or just use AE mez and save a lot of effort.

 

[hytiek]

I disagree with you Pete. I play the bard, not bot him.

Simple logic attached to a flag (variable) is all that I'm looking for.

some sort of logic such as:

twist begins {
if pauseOnMezSong {
:check
check if ${Me.Casting} = one of an array of mez song ID's, if mez song is being sung then go back to :check
} else {
normality()
}

-- Don't hate the suggestion, this could work and would be a nice addition for the Twist. I know that you do a lot of macro work and have your own set up - but I'm curious what other bard users might think about this suggestion and or inclusion?

 

[JimJohnson]

Better question, why should the devs go out of there way to upgrade MQ2Twist this way when a single hotkey that really needed could be made and customized so much easier with the end user?


This is what it really comes down too.

 

[PeteSampras]

Your idea of a macro and mine are apparently different. playing the bard vs botting the bard has nothing to do with not wanting to use a macro. a macro is just a scripted set of actions based on events. so are plugins. they do what you would normally do manually under the same conditions. a macro can be as simple or as complex as you make it and control as much or as little of your toon as is written.

what a macro allows you to do in this scenario are all those other factors that a plugin just cant be programmed to do without making it a monster and really complicated for the end user.

you can make your macro handle twisting functions only when you have adds, and you do it the rest of the time. or you can just make a hotkey as JJ suggested. I run a macro while I play a bard just to turn twist off, then turn it back on when i need a buff from a downshit because the autopause feature doesnt work yet.

and i dont hate the suggestion, im just telling you that what you are asking for is overly complicated for htw to code in properly (knowing that he doesnt have access to a bard) and is easily handled via macro.

 

[Tempest]

You dont even really need a macro if you are playing the bard...

I have a few hotkeys with /twist on it.

"Melee"
/twist 1 2 3 4 (for example. Would have all the normal stuff in their. Proc songs, Overhaste, and what ever else you normally use)

"Adds"
/twist 5 (which is mez) 1 2 3 (or what ever combo of songs you want in addition to mezzing the current target that you switched to). When you hit this hotkey, it will automatically start to cast the new line up, starting with your mez song

Remember that once you are singing Mez you can change targets, you don't have to wait for the song to land. So you can switch back to your original target, or line up the next one to be mezzed.

When the last song of your "Adds" twist is mid way, target the mezzed mob again, wat for mez to start and switch back.

Targeting adds is stupid easy with the Extended targets window and as you said "I play the bard, not bot him.", so why do you need a plugin or macro to target an add for you? You will be able to do it much faster and correctly then a plug or bot could ever do, and Adds are somewhat of an important situation.

 

[hytiek]

I'm not sure where the thought that I needed help targeting... that isn't the issue at all, but thanks!!

I've always been a believer in plugin vs macro and with this mindset an enhancement request came to mind. I love the MMOBugs release. It makes my life so much simpler than trying to keep up with all of the updates, patches, and line replacements that some authors like doing rather than using source control. That's why I support here on a monthly basis rather than the big discount of a lifetime membership. Its my way of saying thank you.

I work in software. Polymorphism is a much better way than re-inventing the wheel. This is why I asked for an enhancement. I didn't request it as a mandate, rather a suggestion to get conversations and ideas going about it to find out how viable it would be for htw and others to look at their code base, take the concept that I shared, and evalute it accordingly.

If it happens, cool! If not, that's part of the SDLC of a product Wishlists are there to be debated, used, thrown away, and sometimes ignored all together.

As always, thanks to the developers who keep our addiction fun, and thanks to my fellow addicts who keep the developers happy.


Pete: I value your reply, I just don't see how adding a variable, an array, and a condition to check the viability of contining with the song array.

JJ: I hear ya bro... but that's a hotkey that is used in 1 scenario only as opposed to, what I believe, a small code change - albiet I am happy to be wrong. Either way, I'm going to let my dev guys at work into my personal life and see if they can give it a bash. Who knows, maybe I'll contribute something else back to the community.

-hytiek

 

[PeteSampras]

Sigh. In a vacuum, for that single instance, it could be useful. I get what you're saying, but you arent thinking out the entirety of what needs to be accomplished to actually make that effective for the other 85 situations. Here is what is missing from your pauseOnMezCheck idea:

1. Adds. If there is more than one, you dont want it pausing or you cant mez the others. Twisting lets you target one, start cast, target next, and now 2 are mezzed without having to manually click the song icon.
-This requires a method to track adds that are aggro and in your camp that you actually want to kill/mez not that just aggrod as part of puller aggro but are going to be dropped.

1a. Target priority. Ok, so youve got 2 adds, and you want one perma mezzed, which one gets it?

2. Mez immunities. You don't want it to pause on mez against a mob that isnt mezzable. You can only maintain that list via events or an ini.

3. Mez duration. Sometimes you only want a mob mezzed for 18-24 seconds in the case of having a second mezzer or fast kill times. In this situation i don't want mez to keep playing at the sacrifice of group dps.

4. Mob actively being killed. Ok, so now you are finally killing that mezzed mob.. or are you. it took some damage but you didnt want it dead, you want it mezzed more because your tank died. How does your bard know to keep playing it? Or you do intend on killing it and its targeted by your group assist, how do you know to stop singing the song?

To do those things you either need to manually start twisting again or use a macro.. either way youve already set yourself up to do one or the other, so what was the point of making a plugin check for it in the first place.

If he wants to do it right, then he needs to incorporate all those factors and oh by the way, to do this sight unseen (remember htw has no access to a bard) and to figure out what adds you want dead, in what order, how many need mez, and for how long, and when to start twisting again. it is easier to make a hotkey that does (say your mez song is gem1):

/twist off, /cast 1

 

[Morx]

You dont even really need a macro if you are playing the bard...

I have a few hotkeys with /twist on it.

"Melee"
/twist 1 2 3 4 (for example. Would have all the normal stuff in their. Proc songs, Overhaste, and what ever else you normally use)

"Adds"
/twist 5 (which is mez) 1 2 3 (or what ever combo of songs you want in addition to mezzing the current target that you switched to). When you hit this hotkey, it will automatically start to cast the new line up, starting with your mez song

Remember that once you are singing Mez you can change targets, you don't have to wait for the song to land. So you can switch back to your original target, or line up the next one to be mezzed.

When the last song of your "Adds" twist is mid way, target the mezzed mob again, wat for mez to start and switch back.

Targeting adds is stupid easy with the Extended targets window and as you said "I play the bard, not bot him.", so why do you need a plugin or macro to target an add for you? You will be able to do it much faster and correctly then a plug or bot could ever do, and Adds are somewhat of an important situation.

I've got a bard up to 27 on TLP, and thanks for this post. That's a sweet idea, and I'll be making use of it this weekend as I take advantage of the double experience. Thanks for the hotkey tip!

 

[hytiek]

Wow Pete we are on some majorly different pages and I'm not sure how it got there.

You're going on about macros and in the scenarios that you've shared, I agree with you. I'm talking about something much simplier and before you go into the 85 different situations, remember the simplicity that I suggested in the beginning: if there is a song that is identified in an array, pause on the /twisted song list. That's it.

What I mean is the following:

my /twist 1 2 3 4

my mez = 12

I'm running twist, I run to some mobs, I sing Silence of the Dreamer Rk. II on nearby mobs, I Boastful Bellow the mob I want, and oh my! a friend! now I target the friend and mez (#12). While the #12 mez is current song, I want MQ2Twist to notice this and not continue with the twist at what ever song it was on and or continue the broken song...

Neither of us are the devs for mmobugs. If this feature did get included, simply setting pauseOnMezSong=0 would be as if nothing was changed, but maybe just maybe if this did get included, setting pauseOnMezSong=1 would then allow me to not have to write or use an existing macro, rather allow a plugin to have intelligence built in.

 

[Darkheart]

not to get off topic but you do realize a Plugin is basically a macro thats been compiled into a plugin so u can use multiples at once. A lot of our "plugins" were once a macro that was ran by itself but by making it a plugin in it enabled the user to reap the benefits like they were running multiple macros at once which u obliviously cant but you can run multiple plugins!

 

[Tempest]

What I mean is the following:

my /twist 1 2 3 4

my mez = 12

I'm running twist, I run to some mobs, I sing Silence of the Dreamer Rk. II on nearby mobs, I Boastful Bellow the mob I want, and oh my! a friend! now I target the friend and mez (#12). While the #12 mez is current song, I want MQ2Twist to notice this and not continue with the twist at what ever song it was on and or continue the broken song...

Another option.

You know that hot key you have for

/twist 1 2 3 4?

Instead of pressin gem 12, Make another for /twist 12

It will stop the /twist 1 2 3 4 and then when you want to twist that again use the original hot key again...

 

[dulak]

Guys, from what I've read so far, our new member seems to know all kinds of stuff. So continuing to give suggestions here will be like beating a dead horse. Besides, he's already stated that he's gonna get some of his dev work buddies to check it out. No sense in giving yourselves headaches over something like this.

 

[htw]

I was wondering if MQ2Twist could be enhanced to have some intelligence about Mezzing type songs.

Scenario:

Bard is twisting a few songs
Bard is the puller
Bard pulls a mob + 1 (oops! bad bard!)
Bard sings mez song on the add
MQ2Twist is aware of such song being sung (${Me.Casting} [defined list of mez type songs]
MQ2Twist pauses until the mez song is no longer being sung.

This would be ideal versus the /twist hold # option. I'm not sure about others, but making such a hotkey for such a unique situation isn't really needed.

Devs? Is this possible or am I out of luck?

By the way, current situation is that once the mez song is sung, then twist continues allowing for my mez to end, my merc to get ass raped, followed by the embarrassing Shaman beating...

Thanks in advance!

IMO, no problem. I added it to project todo list.

htw