[outdated] Handle to target/source tag

[Olivierko]

Hey,

My contribution to the wishlist will be the desire of either a handle to target and source units or additional parameters which could help me achieve the same goal.

Problem:
Getting additional information from whom/what killed you/you've killed, specifically I will use this for PvP purposes where I'd like to know the alliance, alliance war rank and class of the target and source.

The only current way of resolving this information is through a "unitTag", which can only be obtained by actual targetting, which becomes a problem if you kill/die by the use of caltrops for instance without ever seeing your opponent.

Suggestion:
- Add unitTag to GetKillingAttackerInfo()
- Add unitTag(s) to the EVENT_COMBAT_EVENT callback

As I already stated, there's no current accurate way of resolving this information and I'd love to see it added.

[sirinsidiator]

I am in a similar situation with some of my planned addon features. Because of that I made a little something that I will upload once Orsinium is here. It will allow you to ask for information about any player you have met in the past by character or display name.

Should a unitTag for combat events and killing attacker info be added, I will also integrate that to get more data.

[merlight]

Originally Posted by sirinsidiator Because of that I made a little something that I will upload once Orsinium is here. It will allow you to ask for information about any player you have met in the past by character or display name.

I've been saving class+alliance for everyone I target for counting forces. Should probably be pruning old data, e.g. people you haven't met for months, now that I looked at my saved vars, it contains 30k names after a year

[sirinsidiator]

My version saves a bit more and I already have more than 5k entries after only a few weeks.
I plan to add some pruning algorithm later on, but for now it works pretty fine without it.

[Olivierko]

Originally Posted by sirinsidiator I am in a similar situation with some of my planned addon features. Because of that I made a little something that I will upload once Orsinium is here. It will allow you to ask for information about any player you have met in the past by character or display name. Should a unitTag for combat events and killing attacker info be added, I will also integrate that to get more data.

Alright, that's neat, however as I mentioned in my post, even if you've been in combat with another player there's no guarantee that you've targeted him during that fight or in the past for that matter.

I can definitely see the value of such a utility, but I do believe that some events and functions need to provide the hooks for us to avoid any type of lookup.

[sirinsidiator]

That's true and I agree that it would be nice to have a unitTag in those combat situations.

Just as a side note, my little utility is not limited to targets. It collects data from multiple sources in the background and offers access via one API. The chance that you get attacked by someone who is not registered by it becomes pretty small that way, especially after you play for a while.

[ZOS_ChipHilseberg]

We can probably pile these values on top of the existing event fields. Unfortunately unitTags often won't exist for people attacking you if you aren't actively targeting them, so it would be empty most of the time. A general purpose API that can reference any unit in the area would be too broad.

[sirinsidiator]

Creating units for the duration of the event is not an option? For example add a new tag prefix "source" and "target" that is available within the context of EVENT_COMBAT_EVENT.

While we are already going on about unitTags, is there an official list of all available tags including a description somewhere? I think we never got one, only what some addon developers found on their own.

[ZOS_ChipHilseberg]

Events are frame delayed so we could build a buffer of unit data from the last frame and then provide one frame duration keys into it. It's possible, it would just take a bit more work than some extra event fields.

[Olivierko]

It would be nice if the data was consistent between the callback for EVENT_COMBAT_EVENT and the data fetched by calling GetKillingAttackerInfo(index), not that they have anything in common but that's what we have to work with when extracting kills and deaths.

Adding those fields would make me happy but I'm guessing it would also result in a bloated API.

[sirinsidiator]

If it is not unreasonably hard to add these unitTags, I think it would be the way to. The event handler already has way too many arguments IMO, adding new ones would just make it more unreadable.

function(eventCode, result, isError, abilityName, abilityGraphic, abilityActionSlotType, sourceName, sourceType, targetName, targetType, hitValue, powerType, damageType, log)

In my ideal little world I would like to see something like this:

function(eventCode, isError, actionResult, abilityId, sourceTag, targetTag, hitValue, powerType, damageType, log)
local abilityName, abilityGraphic, abilityActionSlotType = GetAbilityInfoById(abilityId) -- or make return values the same as GetAbilityInfoByIndex if that is relevant
local sourceName = GetRawUnitName(sourceTag)
local sourceType = GetUnitType(sourceTag)
local targetName = GetRawUnitName(targetTag)
local targetType = GetUnitType(targetTag)

It would also be a nice bonus if you could replace source and target tag with other tags like "player" or "reticleover" when applicable, because that would allow us to filter combat events for specific unitTags.

[Olivierko]

Originally Posted by ZOS_ChipHilseberg Events are frame delayed so we could build a buffer of unit data from the last frame and then provide one frame duration keys into it. It's possible, it would just take a bit more work than some extra event fields.

Any decision made here yet?

If so, any time frame?

Thanks