Future Alias update - Input required

[Kannkor]

A little while ago, I updated how Aliases cache instead of checking constantly. When I did this, it opened up a lot of new possibilities. I've just been very busy with the expansion to implement any of them. Anyways!

I'm going to be implementing some new built in aliases that will make sharing profiles even easier, and reduce the amount of work needed for reusing profiles.

Currently, many profiles have things like:
*Tank =Tank1
*Tank=Tank2
*Tank=Tank3

That way it can be used for which ever of the 3 tanks you have in your group at that moment.
Likewise, many profiles have things like:
*Priest1
*Priest2
*DPS
*Bard
*Enchanter

etc etc.

Incase people forgot.. * Designates a user defined alias, and * desingates a built into Ogrebot alias.

For standard groups, there's really no reason YOU should have to define these.
What I plan on doing, is adding in some new built in ones.
So for example..
@Tank = automatically find a fighter in the group.
@Bard = automatically find a bard in the group.

The input I'm looking for, are what should these naming conventions be, to maximize ease for the user.

Because so many profiles already have *Tank, would simply adding @Tank start adding confusion?
Would something like: @auto_Tank work better?

Next, how should priests be handled.. my thought was: Priest1, Priest2, Priest3.
Where Priest# would just have a priority.
For example: Priest1 would be a shaman if shaman in the group. If no shaman, then druid, if no druid then cleric.
Priest2 would be a druid unless they were priest1, or a cleric unless they were priest1.
Priest3 would be a cleric unless they were used in priest1/2.
DPS would have: DPS1, DPS2, which would have a priority also.
For example: Warlock, Wizard, Beastlord, Ranger, Assassin, , Necromancer, Conjuror, Swashbuckler, Brigand.


I am NOT removing any functionality of anything existing. So your current *Tank will still function exactly as it does now. But if you run a standard group (fighter/priest1/priest2/bard/enchanter/dps), you could change to using the new system. Any profiles I update as samples, will be converted to the new system.

This really helps for new toons, or toons that get renamed, etc, samples, sharing of profiles.
You could literally share a profile (or load a sample), and not change a single thing, and it would work perfectly. Including all buffs etc.

This is likely my next 'bored/eq2 is down' project I am going to work on. So feedback asap, as I would rather not rename things later.

[Plavok]

I love this idea and I think we should all be able to distict between * and @, but on the other hand it mght as well be descriptive since it would hardly ever need to be touched.

[Deugar]

Seems like a good idea. @Tank would work for me. What happens when you do not run a tank. Like in a raid were you run 2 dps toons? Will they be dsp1, dps2? And we would set the autofollow manually.

[pz]

Think you're gonna cause some confusion no matter what, cuz we are who we are, but I vote you use the @ since you've already established that as "built-in indicator".

Also I disagree with the DPS lineup, Brigand should probably be prio 1.

What about healer instead of priest? or in addition? Not sure it matters but caught my eye as the mmo "holy trinity" is commonly defined as tank/healer/dps.

[Kannkor]

Seems like a good idea. @Tank would work for me. What happens when you do not run a tank. Like in a raid were you run 2 dps toons? Will they be dsp1, dps2? And we would set the autofollow manually.

It's really designed around having a normal group. But with that in mind.. here are the answers.

If no tank is in the group, then @Tank would do nothing at all.
You can use multiple priests or DPS. They will scale all the way up to Priest6 or DPS6 if you filled an entire group with them.
I'm not really sure about the autofollow part.. You can always still use OgreFollow, or set your autofollow to whoever you want. Obviously if you used @Tank and had no tank, it would not follow anyone.

[Kannkor]

What about healer instead of priest? or in addition? Not sure it matters but caught my eye as the mmo "holy trinity" is commonly defined as tank/healer/dps.

Changed priest# to healer#.

Also added a note: If anyone doesn't like it to email primalz directly.

[LittleOgress]

I like where this is going.
I would break down DPS to *MeleeDPS and *RangedDPS maybe??

[user01]

My vote would be to allow anything we can use in 'forWho' parameters as input for an alias (or as an alias itself, depending on implementation).

That way you can specify by class, subclass, archetype, I can see a lot of situations where this may be helpful. The only rough part would be the UI, having all the options in a dropdown would be a huge list, but letting people type them in etc would have its own complications.

For example, you probably want to cast Gravitas on a shaman, not a random healer. You may want to have your healers rez dirges before most other classes, etc etc. So being able to have a generic alias for "shaman" or "dirge" would both be extremely useful.


Maybe we could enter alias as:
*Tank=forWho:Fighter
*Dirge=forWho:Dirge
*MeleeDPS1=forWho:Assassin
*MeleeDPS1=forWho:Ranger
*Enchanter=forWho:Enchanter

And if you implement my forWho featureRequest:
*MT=forWho:g1+Fighter

[Kannkor]

Just added this:
User defined aliases now support class, subclass, and archetype.
For example: *DPS=Assassin, would pick up the first assassin.
Likewise: *DPS=Predator, would pick up the first assassin or ranger.
Lastly: *DPS=Scout, would pick up the first scout. Admittedly, this example is silly, because it could pick up a bard, and we all know they aren't dps...
These will check group first, if not found and [NR] is NOT selected, it will scan the raid afterwards.