Ahh ok. I do not have the add on. By the text on the download page it is kind of misleading, as it talks about the enemy and not about the user in context.
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I also believe that Spy is garbage. But at the least, Stealth notifications should be removed from the combat log.
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Disagree.
Now what?
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Literally all you’re good at rn.
Depends on the solution used, but based upon the suggestions in this and other threads:
- Combat Log API calls going fully protected
- Combat Log redesigns to incorporate parameter(s) that flag for hidden based upon hostility/faction/immersion
- UI customization regarding target windows, reskinned chat, and custom sound files going fully protected
- Case-by-case skills being outright stripped from the Combat Log entirely
Any of the above would be necessary to “break” Spy. Each of them would break hundreds upon hundreds of addons or require significant coding changes, or both. This isn’t like LFG Classic where they browsed the code, found an API call they could protect, and it not cascade into hosts of other consequences. If Spy had to use a very specific, very PvP nuanced Combat Log API call then it would be trivial to protect and break… but it doesn’t. It uses the literally simplest Combat Log call any of us have access to: the complete unfiltered stream of data.
What people argue in favor of changing isn’t some simple switch, it calls for significant redesigns of the game on a fundamental level, while having guaranteed results in destroying so many other addons with no elegant or even viable workarounds.
That is why LFG Classic still works for finding and making groups, because other methods existed to continue its primary purpose.
To break Spy, you have to break addons and/or the Combat Log.
That’s why I care about it, because wanting it changed is actually a worse demand than wanting a PvE encounter massively retooled, changed, or outright deleted. I get it, people dislike the Onyxia threat mechanics, and people whine about it all the time, but they also know that that is just how she is coded and designed, and that is that.
Folks need to accept that as well with regards to Spy and all other Combat Log related parsing. That’s just how the game is and always has been.
Feign Death doesn’t show as a default message, but that’s not the only parameter the Combat Log tracks with regards to a Hunter using the ability, which is why an addon can display “Feign Death” instead of “Dead” of an opponent.
There’s more to the Combat Log than just what the standard log with standard filters shows. Any given event can have upwards to 16 parameters dumped, many with their own subcategories.
Hiding the default message does nothing.
Okay… What would it break? Changing 4 abilities in the combat log. What addons are required to run by checking for prowl, shadowmeld, vanish and stealth? Blizzard’s job, the reason they get paid is to change and update, and care for their product as is needed at the time. Asking them to put resources into fixing a problem (though you don’t think it is, I do; agree to disagree right now) with no impact on anything else is their job…
You’re telling me they can’t figure out a way to simply stop the combat log from logging these events then? They created the log… They made it so that the abilities would be put there and recorded, you’re telling me they lack the power to stop it from happening without affecting anything else?
If they changed stealth abilities to not show up like Feign Death, and then require Spy to remove the automated warnings of stealth, what’s the issue? The creator of the addon put those cues there specifically, they can remove them. They wouldn’t even need to mess with it in this way. If you were to duplicate feign death situation, we ourselves can’t watch the log to see if they pretended to die, can we?
Because ‘stealth’ isn’t the issue. That is what people complain about. But Spy will detect another player if anything they do shows up in the combat log. From eating food to drinking potions to rebuffing themselves or applying poisons. Spy will see all of it because all of it ends up in the combat log.
If you mean require Spy’s author to refrain from making alerts then that is a silly suggestion. They must remove the ability for ANY addon to make alerts. They can’t do it on a per addon basis.
YOU and I and every one else can write an Addon in about ten minutes. You can make you own alerts and own combat log reader. Nothing is stopping you. You don’t need Spy to do any of it. Asking Spy to stop it won’t stop anyone else. It has to be a system wide design change.
No. But ask yourself this. IF they do not show feign death in the combat log or API buff calls, then WHY do they show stealth? You think they just forgot about hiding the stealth message in the combat log?
They forgot about it for 15 years?
Or do you think it is more likely they intentionally broadcast stealth notifications in the combat log? Try to think about it at least a little before answering.
Here is a hint for the answer:
When someone stealths does the game play a recognizable and intentional audible noise for all in range to hear? (the answer is yes)
When someone Feigh Deaths does the game play a recognizable and intentional audible noise for all in range to hear? (The answer is no)
This isn’t a rebuttal, as the same reasoning can be applied to Onyxia threat mechanics.
As for the abilities listed, what breaks depends on what they try to do with the abilities.
Yes, they created the log to be open access. A top to bottom update would be required to start protecting a new class of events using parameters that didn’t exist before. Just because they created the log doesn’t mean the log can be finger-snapped into any other state they want, not without significant redesign. You can’t simply reduce it down to “is code” like someone reducing a car down to “is mechanical” and then demand the creator do something very different.
I can turn a car into a submarine, but it is going to take a lot of work despite the fact I’m using many of the same core mechanical engineering skills.
Feign Death can be found through other parameters that still exist in the log. That’s why even in Vanilla people had target-last-target addons that would automatically reacquire a dropped target instantly, which would then allow you to blast their body (because they’re not actually dead, and the log tracks and confirms that as well) without fail. What you see in the default Combat Log is not the only information available, go look at the API list yourself, there is a LOT of info.
This is actually a tremendously bad suggestion. Blizzard can’t just say “Spy, and only Spy, stop generating text.” You’re effectively asking Blizzard to deny addons the ability to generate text based on ANY triggers, because even if they redesigned the current trigger to be completely undetectable, Spy would just look to one of the many other still available triggers and report using that instead.
That’s… not how addons work from Blizzard’s side. That’s not how coding works at all. Blizzard doesn’t know someone is using Spy, Blizzard only knows that particular API calls are being made.
Sure we can, just gotta set the filters to see more than default info. Or alternatively, you just target-last-target, or make a Hunter pet focus macro that checks for it existing, or a hundred other ways.
There is SO MUCH INFO FREELY AVAILABLE
Look: https://wow.gamepedia.com/COMBAT_LOG_EVENT
You’re telling me a rogue applying poisons in stealth reports there’s a rogue to everyone around, though he’s not visible? I’m not too worried about this, just a bit ridiculous.
Pretty sure they fixed her ability not dropping threat. Not sure what you mean besides that.
Well, the fact that I’m out here mining on my priest and get warnings for a stealth class being stealthy is tremendously bad too in my opinion. Yes, my opinion.
So what you’re saying is don’t roll stealth classes because they lack reasonable stealth in the current version of classic. They get their power from getting an opening, and they don’t have shadowstep or anything similar rn. So giving other classes with abilities to counter rogues a full warning a rogue’s around damages the gameplay of that class. We’ve had hunters saying that rogues can’t open up on them because they know they’re around, and just keep up flares and traps for them. Mages and Priests are bubbling up to get ready for someone they didn’t even see or know about. We’ve got people moving to spam AoE on an enemy that was hidden from sight, in both LoS at the time of stealth, and now into stealth. That’s game balance?
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Aww the rogues are sad they can’t stun lock all the time 
It’s not misleading. It does exactly what it claims to do.
When multiple players are using the add-on it uses a process of triangulation that estimates the location of the target.
If you look at the screenshots, you’ll see multiple dots on the map…which should be an obvious clue that it’s not reporting the player’s location.
For one thing, you wouldn’t need to know your own last known location since you were standing there yourself. Secondly, you wouldn’t have multiple locations…just the one you were standing at when the alert occurred.
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I’ve not had this happen in my game so far, I’d say it doesn’t right now. The only location I receive is my own. That’s supposed to be the case, but I’ve not witnessed it.
How is this news? It is how the game has worked for more than a decade.
If you do anything that shows up in the combat log then everyone around will know you did it (at least have the information you did it)
I’m pretty sure the answer is “No” to things that happen while Stealthed that don’t actually break Stealth, since Stealth applies an aura that tags everything hidden, barring something else revealing the Rogue (like being on top of them for instance).
Her threat mechanics generally. Wing Buffet and Fireball both drop threat, can’t really be controlled, and without access to the Threat API, make anticipating who is about to pull aggro (or not) near impossible. While Vanilla has a number of obnoxious threat reducing mechanics, her Phase 2 leaves Tanks with little recourse if it drags on too long and/or she targets the Tanks too often with Fireballs. It would be an understandable complaint to demand Blizzard “do their job” and make her a more consistent encounter, in line with all other fights in Vanilla, but the flip side is that that is simply how Onyxia is designed to be and to suck it up and deal with it.
That’s my point.
They can still get that opener. If a Rogue sees you at max view distance and pops Stealth, you get a warning, and then 10-15 sec later the Rogue MIGHT be close enough to you to open on you, assuming you froze in place and did nothing more. That’s part of the reason I’m incredibly amused about claims of advantage with reference to the extreme range of the Combat Log. If you notice a Rogue with Spy even further away, that Rogue could very well drop off your recently seen list before he even makes it to you. I doubt you’re going to hop around smashing Rank 1 Holy Nova for the next 30+ seconds.
With a 200 yard range, unfixed locations, and asynchronous pings… no. Not even close.
So you’re just assuming these dots are enemy targets rather than pins from when the Spy user detected someone?
You aren’t immobile, and detection from multiple players will not occur simultaneously.
You’ve never done programming, signal processing, or process control before have you?
I’m just really happy I’m on a PvE Server. Spy seems to be an issue within the the PvP community.
It isn’t really an issue in the PvP community either. Spy doesn’t prevent a lvl60 Rogue from one-shotting a lvl35, despite Spy alerting you to the presence of an opponent. Spy also doesn’t force a Rogue to engage when someone is clearly acting twitchy and not behaving normally. And Spy really doesn’t do you any good in large scale wPvP because it isn’t listing info to detect Healer vs Tank vs DPS or anything of the sort. Having a list suddenly populate with 40+ Horde as I Prowl into Blackrock Mountain isn’t going to let me know who to focus fire with my group.
It really is an overblown issue.
Which is it? It doesn’t matter so much to me as the stealth notification as it lasts an hour so it shouldn’t bother rogues too much. More for curiosity’s sake.
Eh what we said isn’t actually mutually exclusive. Stealth applies an aura that hides acts that don’t break Stealth. However, if you’re close enough to see through the Stealth, then that aura is negated and any act taken would show on the Combat Log like normal.
Rogues applying poisons and remaining in Stealth was a Patch 1.10 addition, just for curiosity’s sake.
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It kind of is. I don’t PvP, whatsoever. Which is why this issue has no effect on me. Which makes me super glad I’m PvE.
The PvP community is substantially more fixated on BGs than random wPvP encounters. Actual Southshore vs Tarren Mill type fighting is usually just a giant cluster anyway, much like what happens in BGs when people fight away from nodes or along the road. Spy doesn’t do anything for any of that.
Spy is more of a tool designed for solo farming/grinding/leveling folks than anything. You should look at what Gladius did for Arenas in WotLK. Now THAT was a strong mod for PvP, and Blizzard all but fully incorporated it into the default UI before long.