From /target_previous Bugs to /UseAbilityOnPlayer Enhancements

When Sentinel’s Fate was released, it introduced a change in the way the /target_previous command functions.  This change broke some cure macros.  Lets take a cure macro that did this:

/target_group_member 3

Cure spell

/target_previous

If you had group member 1 targeted and clicked the macro for group member 3, all would be fine.  The macro would target group member 3, cast the cure, then go to the previous target which would be group member 1.  All is well.

If you had group member 3 targeted and clicked the macro for group member 3, problems occured.  The macro would target group member 3 (which wouldn’t really do anything since you were already targeting group member 3).  Then it would cast the cure.  Then it would go to the previous target.  Problem is, group member 3 isn’t the previous target anymore since you never changed targets.  It would find out whoever you had targeted before and target them.  Could be anybody in the group depending on the order that you recently targeted people.

This hasn’t been a problem for the click to cure feature in custom UIs because they use a completely different method.  Back in February of 2007 a new command was added to the game: /useabilityonplayer [player] [ability].  For example:

/useabilityonplayer Feldon Cure Arcane

This works fine for custom UIs because they have access to the name of the player and can simply substitute in that name when the button is clicked.  Doesn’t work as well for those creating macros since it doesn’t allow you to specify a player Number instead of a player Name.  In the above example, you would have to edit your macros each time someone new joined your group and hard code the player’s name into the macro.  Kind of a pain.

So how do we get around this problem?  One option would be to change the /target_previous back to the way it worked before.  But the way it worked before was really a bug.  It’s now working as it should have all along.  Another option would be to code /useabilityonplayer to allow group member numbers and raid member numbers as well as player names.  This is what Rothgar is proposing as the fix:

I’m willing to change “useabilityonplayer” to take a number which should allow you to create the cure macros without changing your target at all.  This simplifies the macro and would actually be another slight optimization.

Do you guys feel this is a fair compromise?

We might have to do something like g1-g5 for group selection and r1-r24 for raid selection.

This would solve the problem and as Rothgar said, even simplify the macros.  The above macro would change to this:

/useabilityonplayer g3 Cure spell

It wouldn’t change your target at all but would cast the Cure spell on whoever is in position 3 in the group.  This could potentially even slightly speed up custom UIs that have click cure buttons.  Today, those buttons have to substitute the name of the character into the text of the command they are executing.  With this change, they could be modified to simply use the group and raid position numbers instead.  Probably a barely noticable performance boost but when your machine is struggling to keep up in a raid, every little bit counts.

This is, of course, still in the planning stages and subject to change, but it looks like it would be a nice change for everyone.