LUA for DDO?

[Latherian]

Hi, I have read with interest in the Lotro forum they have started to program some add-on with Lua. I'm curious to know if Turbine will apply the same idea for DDO. Honestly some simple macro can be really useful and fun, for example in healing purpose.

[Kruppe]

Depends on how they handle it. I for one am against macros. I remember how they ruined Asheron's Call was with the mass use of Eltank (although I have to admit it did make it easier to buff every single piece of armor that I wore). You could go into a dungeon and just see it filled with people who turned the macro on and left their PC.

Since DDO is setup differently than other mmo's where you don't get xp/loot simply for killing stuff, I think I would still be against a healing/buff macro. As a cleric it takes some bit of skill to beat on stuff and heal a party at the same time, I prefer the challenge of having to watch people's health meters as well as what is going on rather than have an easy button in a macro.

just my 2 cents

[NUDS]

Having mouseover scripts would make healing much much more streamlined for me. Especially in the heat of combat, when red bars are going down rapidly, I have to remember which red bar is bound to F2, F3 etc. It is really awkward to use, especially in a full raid with 12 people.

[Lear_beta]

Having mouseover scripts would make healing much much more streamlined for me. Especially in the heat of combat, when red bars are going down rapidly, I have to remember which red bar is bound to F2, F3 etc. It is really awkward to use, especially in a full raid with 12 people.

practice practice practice :)

it might sound a bit harsh, but the fun part about healing raids for me, is in times of great trouble. every red bar is dropping, some are calling out curses in voice and chat. you are being chased by a few stray mobs and you are running out of sp. Balancing sp, spells, pots, diplomacy and your own location in relations to everyone else is what makes it fun. if i could load an add-on that would e.g. remove curse or diseases from others, why would i practice at all. im sure i could find another add-on for healing and one for drinking a pot and one for following the party... hmm that would leave me more time with beer...

I wouldn't have a problem with add-ons that e.g. allowed you to swap from gear set A to gear set B, because some times you'll want to switch a lot of gear for just that situation and then back a few minutes later.

an in-game database for questgivers/locations and named items would be nice though

[NUDS]

Well I've raided in WoW for 2 years and I never really got into the whole add-on-does-everything-in-one-click scene. Why play the game when you can let add-ons do it for you? Obviously, automated macros that mimics something a person can do will be against the RoC and scripting can be pretty powerful, hence a lot of features will be disabled.

In this case, mouseover scripts doesn't make everything automated. It's merely much more convenient and saves my hand a lot of strain. Personally, I think the targeting system and interface is pretty clumsy and could definitely use some work. (I'm using DDOLite for UI, wondering if there's a way to scale everything down)

[Daliyn]

IMHO, any addons simplifying/automating the gaming process itself are not necessary. Any means to alter the UI and to add additional information on the screen are welcome. I'd really like to see at a glance, which of my teammates has that rogue splash and at which level, who has exactly how many HP (left) and which buffs are going to run out.

[Tinrae]

From the Lotro official thread on Lua, it seems that all they are allowing at this time is UI modifications. Things like 'gearscore', 'auctioneer', and gameplay macros won't be possible (at this time).

I'd like to see some better UI mods for DDO though. I've tried some before but they were either outdated or just recolored the existing UI.

[Nospheratus]

IIRC a developer (perhaps Eladrin) said that the scripting would not allow turning things automatic. The LUA programing interface DDO will eventually support is meant to allow changes to the UI.

For me, this is more than enough and what i am really eager to see in the game.
For example, at the moment i have a problem when playing on my laptop and desktop. Because they have different screen resolutions, the shortcut bars get all on top of each other or with too much space between and a script to just place them in the correct place would be great.

[zealous]

Vanguard had support for some simple macros, i.e. ability1->ability2->ability3, in game. You could make fairly efficient macros and play your character by pressing two buttons repeatedly, while blindfolded. Not very fun although it did put what part of that game was actually gameplay into perspective.


You could do something similar in DDO using e.g. autohotkey. In fact you could write a script that tracked health of all members in a raid party by polling the color of the pixels of the health bars. Additionally you could make the script automatically determine what spell would be optimal to use and to use it. It could also be made to estimate hp of all involved players and optimize spell usage accordingly not to mention tracking incoming damage in order to discover periodicity, i.e. stationary raidboss X hits exactly every 0.7s, and thus achieve super human timing of heal spells.

While I'd certainly like putting the char on autopilot for some quests/raids I believe it'd take fun out of the game and incidently it's against the rules.

[Bigrtt]

I don't know what LUA is, but from the discussion I assume it's some sort of macro. I really do hope we see no macros for DDO at all, I loathe the things. Every previous MMO I've played that ended up with macros being widely used I promptly quit.

People say 'why do something when a macro can do it for you?' well to that I say, if you're not going to put the effort into getting to 'X' why bother playing at all?

No, I already think DDO is easy enough to play without the need for macros. The only benefit I could see from them is if a piker used one. But given the amount of pugs I run lately most pikers on my server I already know of and don't group with anyway.

[KKDragonLord]

LUA is a programming language developed in the federal university of Rio de Janeiro.

Yes it is the same kind of thing that is used to make applications and macros in MMOs.

It will be added to Lord of the Rings Online which is a standard fare MMO, the possible adaptation of it to DDO is hypothetical to say the least.

If it comes to DDO the Devs will probably look out for it and keep it from being used for nefarious purposes, i highly doubt we will see much or any macroing in this game, as it is not their intent to mess with the gameplay in such a way.

[Kahath]

Before they go on to major changes like LUA, they could start with small things like letting us export combat logs for example. This way skilled developers can parse that without the need to actually bind LUA to the game engine. And I think many people would already be happy with that.

[KKDragonLord]

Before they go on to major changes like LUA, they could start with small things like letting us export combat logs for example. This way skilled developers can parse that without the need to actually bind LUA to the game engine. And I think many people would already be happy with that.

The lack of combat log parsing is intentional.

If you want to measure your DPS you will have to do it by hand and get an estimate of it like other people in the forums do.

They do not want to allow people to make DPS measuring applications nor deal with the fallout of such things. At least for now.

[Dancingrage]

The lack of combat log parsing is intentional.

If you want to measure your DPS you will have to do it by hand and get an estimate of it like other people in the forums do.

They do not want to allow people to make DPS measuring applications nor deal with the fallout of such things. At least for now.

Heh, I've seen what happens when damage numbers are easily available through parsing utilities, eventually a large number of people start to gravitate towards the classes and builds that are known to do the best damage and every other class is left in the lurch as a result, until a rebalance comes along and shifts it again, at which time the DPS nuts just roll up a toon of the new 'best DPS setup'.

To some extent it's unavoidable, since some people just want the most damage they can get out of a toon, but it pays to remember that this is a game and we're all theoretically here to have fun.