Nerfing Combat Logs: Will It Happen? Should It Happen?

Hey everyone,

Wowhead recently posted an article about 3rd-party programs using the game’s combat logs to draw overlays during raid fights.

Should, or will, combat log nerfing occur?

My opinion is: yes it should be nerfed. Blizzard should do what they need to break this if it means nerfing logs by breaking the functionality that allows this to happen, or any other means. Blizzard created private auras, and in response people created a means of working around it. Break that workaround please!

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Find out next time on Days of Our Raids.

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Somewhere there is position data in the combat logs that shouldn’t have been there. Gonna get patched out.

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They should get rid of it. Period.

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That sounds like a great name for a Mythic guild.

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Is this necessary to compete in mythic raiding? If so, perhaps mythic raiding is a bit much.

nah, its fine.

There’s no evidence that Blizzard didn’t create the private auras and push things to log scanning intentionally to introduce overlays without introducing overlays themselves. Avoiding the inevitable backlash, by introducing new things and letting the community do what the community will do.

Players moan and whine about addons, and have been doing so for 18 years. Yet Blizzard has never done anything about addon functionality as a whole. If overlays are the evolution, why do you presume Blizzard won’t allow it?

Add-ons are usually constrained to fixed functions given by blizzard themselves. Overlays circumvent these restrictions and thus is bound to get struck down much like using software to read the games memory.

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Indeed. We’re talking external 3rd-party external programs vs. an in-game addon confined by Blizzard’s restrictions. There is a major difference.

We intend to make changes to how the Advanced Combat Log is populated, in advance of Dragonflight Season 3, that will prevent its use in this way.

Please see section 1-C of the Blizzard End User License Agreement for more details on our policies about third-party applications that modify or facilitate gameplay.

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Oh thank the lord!

EDIT: Does this also cover WCL’s proposed “Augmentation-accurate” real-time DPS meter overlay?

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i’m going to throw out a guess that it will.

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A fabulous example of effective use of the first post in a thread.

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It was obvious. Thanks for the answer.

Has your thought process evolved on whether or not addons like Details! will be able to attribute augmentation damage correctly via API hooks? Or will we still have to rely on combat logs to be able to accurately assess performance?

I understand that there is a push-pull with “making Game 1, not Game 2” but I think it’s increasingly obvious that players want accurate and timely feedback on their performance.

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Hi,

Please consider WarcraftLogs Competition Mode when designing this change. Low-Latency livelogging is super useful to save a few minutes when you die in combat, and can drastically save a lot of time analyzing deaths over a night. It is a useful progression feature. It is also a major driver of hype and viewership during RWF.

I fear a simple delay to writes will break Low Latency livelogging on WCL, if that’s the solution of choice.

I hope this feedback is heard.

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How will the change to the advanced combat log be happening? Will it be a simple delay or will there be loss of function to the advanced combat log with something crucial such as player positioning?

How about you fix the root cause that started this and make augmentation hooks available in game ?

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I understand blizzards desire to minimize third parties from monetizing derivative works but I strongly disagree with the mindset that overlays are “cheating.”

Blizzard forbidding users from coming up with their own solutions to red on red ground effect , swirls that are larger than they appear, cones without clear indicators, and lines made out of smoke just seems like a weird hill to die on.

It hurts no one to accommodate WOWs aging player base.

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