A Solution to FP Camping & Spy

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

Doesn’t that mean that any event source with an enemy player source could be restricted to unknown?

Well let’s see, just looking at this: https://wow.gamepedia.com/UnitFlag

If you outright blocked this info wholesale, people would have a name, but couldn’t access info such as NPC vs Player, Hostile vs Friendly, etc. This actually breaks a lot of basic macros that do one thing if targeting hostile and another thing if targeting friendly. So I doubt this would help.

If you restricted only one or two of these subcategories, you’d maybe eliminate whether you can tell if someone is in your party or not, but the spell would still go off in the log and Spy could just track for spell names while blacklisting known NPC names that use the same spell name.

You’d need the whole event blocked outright.

[Tln-herod]

Which is why the event would be filtered on the client side before the API sent the event.

COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED just doesn’t fire in some cases.

[Ezgg-rattlegore]

Which is why the event would be filtered on the client side before the API sent the event.

COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED just doesn’t fire in some cases.

I’d be fine with that, but it would require a rewrite of the API. Knowing Blizzard, bag slots would stop working or some nonsense lol. Humor aside, I think it would break a ton of add-ons, at the very least.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

Culled or filtered. AFAIK, we’re not sure if they’re still being sent (from the server) at all.

spellID and extraSpellID always return 0 when called, so it has been configured to be indistinguishable for any and all events

Nobody is suggesting hiding ALL of the events. They’re essentially suggesting that COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED not trigger for certain events.

I don’t understand what is so hard to understand about this.

Except that’s what that API call does, it captures everything and only hides stuff that has other events trigger the hiding, events we can also see.

Stealth would either have to be made a non-event, somehow, or the API has to be protected and replaced with a new more restrictive API, or one of a dozen other not-so-fast-or-easy methods to accomplish this.

Yea and I’m saying you don’t even send that event in the first place.

So we’re going to make a unique player status just… disappear? Something that doesn’t occur with anything else?

M’kay.

I think he’s saying that the source of the event and the event itself are untethered to preserve responsiveness.

I don’t know if that’s the ideal way to do it, it is just how Blizzard did it.

[Tln-herod]

it would require a rewrite of the API

You wouldn’t have to touch the API, though.

Hell, you could even have an COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED event fire when an opposing faction player comes into view that hides all subsequent actions. Then reverse that later if the player gets into combat with them.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

Hell, you could even have an COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED event fire when an opposing faction player comes into view that hides all subsequent actions.

Which would defeat the entire point because Spy would just rewrite to look for that unique faction specific event.

[Ezgg-rattlegore]

You wouldn’t have to touch the API, though.

Hell, you could even have an COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED event fire when an opposing faction player comes into view that hides all subsequent actions. Then reverse that later if the player gets into combat with them.

The problem here is that add-on devs are crafty and will exploit any visible events to their advantage. At least the player’s name and the fact that they are within log distance would be known. I guess the hide event could be hidden by default.

[Tln-herod]

Stealth would either have to be made a non-event, somehow,

Except in certain circumstances, yes.

So we’re going to make a unique player status just… disappear? Something that doesn’t occur with anything else?

We’re just not going to put it in the combat log.

Which would defeat the entire point because Spy would just rewrite to look for that unique faction specific event.

Spy is annoying people because it shows when players stealth.

That change would simply show you when players came into range.

What I’m actually suggesting is that the player simply not show up in any combat log event until the client determines they’ve… entered combat with you or you’re both in the same faction.

[Ristra-sulfuras]

Let me see if I can illustrate my point.

Take a look at chat. Both horde and Alliance in the same zone. Yet they each have their own chat. Can’t see the other faction.

The API see’s the data but the data sent from the servers is parse before it gets to the players.

Blizzard COULD be using lots and lots of different chat servers. Or they could be using 1 very large chat server that parse out only what is needed based on realm/faction/zone/instance/etc. Which means they are parsing faction on their end.

They COULD have the combat log data parsing the same way. Only difference is when they expose that data to the API it’s not limited by faction. If this is the case, it’s not going to be an overhaul to parse the combat log as faction specific.

What the API shows us currently isn’t so much of a concern.

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

We’re just not going to put it in the combat log.

And you think that’s just a toggle given how everything reports somewhere?

Phew…

What I’m actually suggesting is that the player simply not show up in any combat log event until the client determines they’ve… entered combat with you or you’re both in the same faction.

And that suggestion is entirely untenable, and I’ll explain in a moment.

Yet they each have their own chat. Can’t see the other faction.

You and Tln both seem to be getting at the same concept: why not just have faction specific logs and only let them cross-communicate when in combat?

Pure text chat is simple and carried with it virtually no real data, whereas “combat” data, that is everything your character does in game whether its actually combat related or not, carries a ton because it feeds into all the other things happening to determine whether or not you actually deal damage or are still alive and so forth.

All of that info is dumped into a common place, and the only thing keeping you from seeing it is range, not of your player really, but of the log itself. That’s why the Combat Log can extend up to 200 yards in all directions, a massive area, as it is just looking for events. That same set of log info is what lets the game know when you select an un-stealthed Rogue that his “power bar” is yellow and energy based, that he’s a Rogue at all, what percent health he’s at, and his name. All of that is hooked into the same source of info.

It just isn’t a simple matter of saying “Here is the Horde Combat Log, and here is the Alliance Combat Log.” The unitFlag doesn’t even care about Horde and Alliance, it only cares about Hostile or Friendly. The only reason the Combat Log “knows” you’re not a Dark Iron Dwarf casting Fireball is because the unitFlag also specifies what you are, and what is controlling your character.

As an aside, that’s how Mind Control works in the log. The unit, you, will be marked as a “Player”, but the control ID will change based on whether you are controlling the unit, an NPC is (like that boss in Strat), or an enemy player is. The updates to nameplates, the ability for macros and friendly spells to work, etc, are all based upon these publicly known checks.

Hiding the events isn’t just a visual/knowledge thing, it is like unplugging it entirely. If you completely unhook Stealth from the logs, no one will know you’re Stealthed, in the most literal meaning of “know” can mean. The game won’t know you entered Stealth, so you in fact won’t be in Stealth.

This is why what y’all want isn’t simple, easy, or even feasible at this point in the game. It requires significant overhaul that builds entirely new hidden data channels and interaction that just doesn’t exist.

[Ezgg-rattlegore]

The more I look at it (and I don’t have their source so I may be overly optimistic here), rewriting the API to use more than one Class of log event, so that there was a PLAYER_COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED and a MOB_COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED, pushing the Mob Class through as it currently is implemented as to not cause delay with add-ons like DBM, then holding all Player Class logs for client side filtering before pushing them through, doesn’t seem like an extremely difficult rewrite. Sure, player logs would be mildly delayed, but that doesn’t matter all that much when we’ve already got fake 400 MS lag in the form of batching… friendly player actions with a non-enemy player target could even fall under the responsive class or their own class. And yes, this is over simplifying the situation but hopefully you get the idea.

[Tln-herod]

And you think that’s just a toggle given how everything reports somewhere?

That’s what’s called a “conditional” statement.

Phew…

Also, there already exists a toggle for this.

why not just have faction specific logs and only let them cross-communicate when in combat?

Nope. My suggestion is predicated upon the idea of having one combat log.

the only thing keeping you from seeing it is range

And stealth, in the case of breaking the part of the spy addon that’s annoying people.

The game won’t know you entered Stealth

The game would know, because that information was sent down from server to client.

The combat log wouldn’t report the existence of the hidden player until the stealth broke. Thus no addons could report that information to the player.

[Bufftank-kromcrush]

Addons have nothing 2 do with flightpath camping in the end u cant do anything against a full raid waiting for u at a flightpath on uneven servers where horde are dominate thats all they do is camp boats and flightpaths wat blizzard needs to do is make guards that can keep the horde at bay from these points because at the end of the day its preventing people to get places. U can also make people that kill honorless targets wen they land dishonorable kills and the debuff has got 2 last more than a minute because they just cc u until its gone and kill u lol people are playing this game way different then back in the day so the game needs changes abusing players should be penalized id like to pvp but wen ur heavily outnumbered there isnt much u can do and alot of people just say oh then roll onto a pve server and such if everyone did that there would be no pvp servers the people that make it so it can be a pvp server would just like a little more balance without breaking the game being so outnumbered that the game isnt even remotely fun for 1 side is just annoying

[Ristra-sulfuras]

We’re just not going to put it in the combat log.

And you think that’s just a toggle given how everything reports somewhere?

Phew…

What I’m actually suggesting is that the player simply not show up in any combat log event until the client determines they’ve… entered combat with you or you’re both in the same faction.

And that suggestion is entirely untenable, and I’ll explain in a moment.

Yet they each have their own chat. Can’t see the other faction.

You and Tln both seem to be getting at the same concept: why not just have faction specific logs and only let them cross-communicate when in combat?

Pure text chat is simple and carried with it virtually no real data, whereas “combat” data, that is everything your character does in game whether its actually combat related or not, carries a ton because it feeds into all the other things happening to determine whether or not you actually deal damage or are still alive and so forth.

All of that info is dumped into a common place, and the only thing keeping you from seeing it is range, not of your player really, but of the log itself. That’s why the Combat Log can extend up to 200 yards in all directions, a massive area, as it is just looking for events. That same set of log info is what lets the game know when you select an un-stealthed Rogue that his “power bar” is yellow and energy based, that he’s a Rogue at all, what percent health he’s at, and his name. All of that is hooked into the same source of info.

It just isn’t a simple matter of saying “Here is the Horde Combat Log, and here is the Alliance Combat Log.” The unitFlag doesn’t even care about Horde and Alliance, it only cares about Hostile or Friendly. The only reason the Combat Log “knows” you’re not a Dark Iron Dwarf casting Fireball is because the unitFlag also specifies what you are, and what is controlling your character.

As an aside, that’s how Mind Control works in the log. The unit, you, will be marked as a “Player”, but the control ID will change based on whether you are controlling the unit, an NPC is (like that boss in Strat), or an enemy player is. The updates to nameplates, the ability for macros and friendly spells to work, etc, are all based upon these publicly known checks.

Hiding the events isn’t just a visual/knowledge thing, it is like unplugging it entirely. If you completely unhook Stealth from the logs, no one will know you’re Stealthed, in the most literal meaning of “know” can mean. The game won’t know you entered Stealth, so you in fact won’t be in Stealth.

This is why what y’all want isn’t simple, easy, or even feasible at this point in the game. It requires significant overhaul that builds entirely new hidden data channels and interaction that just doesn’t exist.

From what I can interpret from how you word things. You see the data as “what the API returns” If an addon executes a call we get info.

That’s not what am talking about.

All the actions the server can perform, we don’t see them all, we ONLY get what is released to the API. The devs have all kinds of data available to them we never get.

Server side data > API < addon and macro calls for output

Everything you have said is withing the addon and macro calls.

All it takes is the server side data to check faction before it’s released to the API then whatever calls the addons make will be parsed for faction.

[Gythriel-windseeker]

(FP Camping) If you die an honorless target, you should rez as an honorless target; fully refreshed buff. Killing an honorless target should also apply diminishing honor returns.

Probably wont work.
There is a good amount of people that dont actually care about the honor part, only the you dying part. The honor gained by camping an FP is probably 0 to non really.
You could be a level 1 in those situations and when you land, you are dead, level 1 or not.

(Spy) Disable combat logs for the opposing faction when they are not in combat with you.

That kind of wont work, not with how the game is written

[Fasciae-fairbanks]

All the actions the server can perform, we don’t see them all, we ONLY get what is released to the API. The devs have all kinds of data available to them we never get.

There really isn’t any info like that because the Devs built the combat log, guts and all, exposed to be exploited and used. That’s why your HUD draws from that public data, same with everything displayed in the default UI element, and anything that actually impacts your character or others.

It really is just an event log that shows everything

[Vajra-incendius]

Says the unskilled who rely on Spy, you should go roll PVE.

[Vajra-incendius]

Sounds like a perfect recipe to make users of Spy cry a river. Thumbs up.

[Jammed-herod]

lol yall talkin about a “problem”… it’s all part of the game. on herod the ally were camping the azshara fp and horde grouped up and beat them down. people were flying in from org to get in on the action. it’s about controlling territory… on pvp servers we have to do it ourselves thats how its always been. no training wheels here, if u want that flight point u gotta take it

[Tln-herod]

It really is just an event log that shows everything

It doesn’t show everything. It’s already limited by things like phasing and distance.

Just don’t show the things that make the Spy addon so objectionable to so many people.