Originally Posted by ZOS_ChipHilseberg
Looking at the current code I'm seeing:
Targets Player/Pet or from Player/Pet
Full information.
Doesn't target Player/Pet and isn't from Player/Pet
You get limited information. This hides the ability name, icon, damage type, source name, source unit id, source type, target name, target type, and...not target unit id apparently...maybe that should be gone too. The exception to this case is in Cyrodiil and BGs where you get limited information about DIED, DIED_XP, and KILLING_BLOW results ONLY. This is because the mere presence of a COMBAT_EVENT can be used to detect the presence of other players in the area.
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Thanks for the clarification, Chip! From your statement I deduce that using "conditional filters" on the server's side is possible (DIED, DIED_XP, etc. working only in Cyrodiil).
As everybody clearly sees the neccessity of enemy faction's players not being detected by the use of combat_event tracking addons, I have the feeling that you overreacted a bit with killing the whole events in PvP AND PvE. I'd like to make the following suggestion (the list is ordered by increasing restrictivity, so if the 1. suggestion would not suffice to break unwanted addon functionality, move to the 2nd suggestion, and so on...).
But before you look at those suggestions, have a look at this picture, please:
Why not just deactivate combat_events under specific circumstances?
1. stealthed hostile players and npcs do not send combat_events (anti enemy stealth detection)
2. hostile player characters and pets do not send combat_events in pvp environments (anti enemy reaction alerts, e.g. "BEWARE, enemy is casting crystal frags!" -- to be honest, this information can also be gained by looking at the enemy's character, so I can't see any harm in addons doing this)
3. all player characters and their pets do not send combat_events in pvp environments (to prevent any info given about all player actions)
4. players and pets only send combat events when grouped with you (in pvp) - NPCs STILL send all information!
5. players and pets only send combat events when grouped with you (in pve) - NPCs STILL send all information!
6. only blank the
damage field in pve settings (preventing dmg meter addons - if you really must.....
)
7. at least add a
sourceName and
sourceUnitId field to EVENT_EFFECT_CHANGED and GetUnitBuffInfo()
So the functionallity would at least be retained in PvE settings