Request for Stacking Nameplates

Can we get smart stacking nameplates, so if we have 5 mobs of the same name, and 2 of another, then 3 of a 3rd, the ones that share a name stack; while the ones that don’t (or start casting) will float to another line. I hate having my screen taking up the entire screen with npc plates, when i just want to see casters.

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Yeah, they need to examine Plater a bit more closely; default one is “Alright” but Plater is still better by a good margin.

im hoping they will come back and incorporate it into their baseline ui

I could have swore it had some “element” of nameplate stacking but it doesn’t allow you to control the padding around the stacked nameplate.

My biggest issue is that it’s just kinda buggy compared to Plater and delayed; like the threat management and little fire effect doesn’t really work very quickly.

Plater just visualizes the incoming data better, and I think that’s been the crux of a lot of the addon’s Blizzard is trying to integrate / clone.

It’s very rushed and I don’t think they are looking at “how” the addons are being utilized (could be a data problem).

It’s very much apparent from the healer perspective, it’s almost like they forgot they even existed.

Veteran Players generally want all the information, and then the controls to reduce it down so it’s not obtrusive and just to what they think they need.

New Players generally just want an out of the box experience that gives them what those veteran players configure down towards.

It’s a hard problem to solve as well, because some veterans are totally comfortable with just textual alerts and other players (like myself) are audible and need flashy alerts.

UI design is a whole profession so it’s no surprise to me that Blizzard is going to struggle here for a bit now that they have decided to absorb the problem themselves.


The base UI though HAS improved tremendously though from a DPS and Tank perspective, I see no real need to use full UI overhauls anymore in it’s current state from this perspective.

  • Blizzmove
  • BlizzHUDTweaks
  • Details!
  • Plater
  • Pawn
  • SimulationCraft
  • MythicDungeonTools
  • Auctionator
  • HandyNotes (and it’s various expansion packs)

That’s basically it… this lets me perfectly enjoy the game.

Blizzard could easily tackle Blizzmove by allowing all functional frames to just be moveable.

BlizzHUDTweaks they just need to add some more options to control opacity between in-combat and out-of-combat and on-hover of a particular UI element (and binding this to states so hovering over Bar 1 will make visible Bar 2 & 3 if linked).

Pawn could in theory just be a stat-weight string you plug into your talent-tree and it just shows the improvement breakdown on the gear there-in.

HandyNotes could be replaced with a series of map-pin features and allowing players to just import them in, technically speaking this same feature solves MythicDungeonTools if they can allow links to nodes on the graph.

Plater we discussed already, literally just copy it.

Details! is close… they have a damage meter today but it’s just missing features, I presume overtime this will be addressed but until then… Details! it is.

platynator.

The type of Stacking Nameplates I’m suggesting has never been implemented though. It’s a hybrid system between the two they have stacking or floating. Floating is just a sea of nameplates with all of them going over the screen like a a broken frozen ice lake; while stacking is just a single spot where all the mobs are grouped up. What I want is for them to make any npcs that have the same name, stacked in a nice group, then the next name, and so on. Then if one of them starts casting or doing an ability, shunt it off to the side, or let us drag the name and put a pin in it for that specific npc, like a drag & drop window (or a mini focus). Another thing I think they could get to implement and would help give players the information we need, is if we’re playing tank, and we loose agro on a mob, put the nameplate in a big (like the entire top) of the screen like a console boss, or if we’re dpsing/healing and gain agro put it at the top. Might even be a good place for spell casts.

my platynator basically does all that for me. i cant really drag and drop them or do anything with them aside from shaping them the way i want and when they stack they stack in a very functional way. If I lose aggro it changes color…casts, stops, everything is color coded…I know whos casting what, where they are located and if my interupt is up or not… If you spread that out horizontally in organized groups you would just have a spreadsheet on your screen. The way it works now if i make a big pull it sort of stacks everything and then uses a priority system for targeting…if i pull a caster into the pack and his nameplate is somewhat buried…i can still see the cast bar and if i tab…it will highlight that mob 90% of the time. Its up to you as a player to be able to tab to have the most important mobs in the group already targeted so you can get your interupt or stop off on them. If people were actually manually clicking every target…it would be impossible to play at the pace we currently do.

tab targeting and prio targeting has worked for 20 years…theres no reason to change it.

Thats a base part of the ui, plater & platynator are just skinning. Your using floating nameplates correct? What I’m suggesting is about 3-4 groups, because most packs have 2-3 types of named mobs. “Darkreaver Dragoon”, “Darkreaver Thuargamist”, “etc” so all of the dragoons, would be stacked in one small pile, all thuargamists, in a nother and so on. Then if a cast bar started up, it’d be highlighted by itself so we can deal with it.

right, im pretty sure i understand what youre saying, and it would start to look like a spreadsheet…i can run into a delve or something and literally pull the entire place in one pull…in some low keys people are pulling all the way to the first boss…in timewalking…literally just running straight to the bosses with an entire instance behind them…that would literally fill your screen with bars…looking something like a spreadsheet…for a caster i guess it would work if you could just stand back and click on each one… but the game just isnt designed that way. for melee players it would be nothing but nameplates on the screen covering the entire thing.

but thats happening today, its been happening for the past 20years ehhe =0)

no it doesnt, right now i can pull infinity mobs and if they are in front of me yea, there is a big group of bars going towards the top of my screen but i can still see the game and i can still see the important stuff going on…i am only able to use one ability at a time…its up to me to choose which one i use for what purpose…i dont want to manually sit and look at a giant wall of nameplates to manually click on to make my action…the game should know what my prio mob is, and select it…and then i depend on my group to do the same.

Stacking nameplates as is currently implented ( Addon for party nameplates? - #3 by Kaurmine-area-52 ) (posted jan 2021)

Overlapping not floating (think thats whats causing the confusion) reddit link to overlappingnameplates

While thats only a few, but a large pack like that can get overwhelming

oh…i think i see what youre saying now. i think that would make the game a litte too easy no?

like you want it to be say..when a tank does the pull and everything is rounded up…you want for the mobs that would be casting inside the pull, for their nameplate to be shown by itself outside of the pull…and if there are more than one type, for those nameplates to be also, pulled even farther out of the pull to be shown clearly by themselves as well…so basically every type of mob to have its nameplate and castbar shown by itself and if there are multiples of those types to stack them on top of eachother in one spot?

Yea, exactly, it’d be a quality of life thing. Because like you said, if you pull large packs, like most M+’s do, you have to choose between a sea of floating nameplates, and pray your kick lands on the spell caster, and the name plates don’t shift at the last second so you hit a melee. Or a solid brick of nameplates, and you can’t see anything.

you dont have to pray…its prio targeting its literally built into the game.

the game AUTOMATICALLY selects the casting mobs for you.

the order in which you use your interupts…is where the coordination comes in. thats literally what makes it fun. what youre asking for would make all content incredibly trivial and mindless…there would be no chaos.

I just want my stacked nameplates to actually stack. No matter what I do. They all just end up overlapping when there’s more than like three enemies in the space. Seriously trying to do large pulls and then pick out a specific mob that is is doing a spell cast I have to interrupt is just cancer. I literally cannot see who is casting what because no matter which version of spell bars and health bars that I go with, they’re all just smushed right on top of each other. If it doesn’t matter how far my camera is or how close my camera is, the same problem applies.

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Are you talking about focus targeting? @Spiller

if im facing a pack of mobs and a cast goes of…i push tab…that casting mob is selected. its prio targeting. thats…the way its always been.

yea, so tab targeting is MEANT to cycle through all the closest npcs, but in my personal experiance, it usually pulls something from across the room thats not even engaged, and as I main a hunter, the old addage of “Pet pull” … so I don’t try with that. But that said, I just want them to put a cleaner use of overlapping, that way the casters are nice and visable, and the melees are largely ignored. Because thats the way I play. Mouseover targeting for the win to me =0)

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yea i dont know…maybe they can make a new nameplate system particularly for ranged classes only or something. honestly im not really sure what you mean but i kinda understand. I never found it hard to tab to prio, hit my interupt key and get back on target either by clicking or just tabbing…tabbing with a hunter can be dangerous cause of autoattack that is true…but tabbing during a cast going off should never highlight anything but the casting mob as long as you are looking in the general direction.