The combat_filter command and you!

Hello!

As some of you may, or may not, know there is a command /combat_filter which will filter combat spam server side. This can really help lower load on your client when in a very heavy combat situation such as a raid. There are a few settings:

/combat_filter 0
turns off the filter

/combat_filter 1
only combat spam that applies to you (and your pet) is sent to your client.

/combat_filter 2
only combat spam that applies to your group is sent to your client.

/combat_filter 3
only combat spam that applies to your raid is sent to your client.

At SOE Live a few people I talked to said that the combat_filter was unusable in raids because important queues are missing. Could you guys and gals post a few specific examples. And if possible the specific text that you need to show in your chat window to make it work the way you would like.

Hi,

Possibly a stupid question but...

If we use this filter, I take it ACT will not be able to log things that aren't received by our client?

That is correct, you will not be able to parse logs that you do not have.

Will these filters include the damage to yourself and pet by the mob you are fighting?

These filters are already in game right now and you can try them out!

And yes, all of them include any combat message that includes yourself and/or your pet. So all incoming and outgoing damage, spells etc.

What the heck does Maevianiu stand for?

He bought too many vowels while playing Wheel of Fortune; they had to go somewhere.

It came from the EQ1 random name generator. I've always used that as my handle for work stuff across 3 different companies, and 8 games.

I think what we'd need is a combat filter for enemy casts only. Should still get red texts and then also see the info for when an AE or something hits an ally.

So yea, a combat filter for no player damage, npc only

Yah hinesly i wish it filtered out everything that does not direct effect me/ for example i do not need to need know that a sk's ward is regening
or You are struck by Vengence
Your group is proteced by xxxx malevalent diatribe etc
just adding a heal filter would help alot
Next raid i will check for specifc texts.
I raid on Satellite so combat Filter is Crucial to me )

I want More filtering not less. Combat filter in its current form is the Only reason i can raid or even do Heroics reliably. If i forget to turn it on my connections gets too conjested for me to play.
Could you please make combat filter a Persistent option? Mabey a check in options

Yes please give me specific examples of text that you need to see, but it is getting filtered out. That was what people were saying was the reason they did not use the filter at SOE Live.

And Thand, it looks like you would like it trimmed down more. In that case what would you like to see? (Your list of what you want filtered out will be huge, but your list of what you want to see is small so it would be easier for me to work with that)

Is the combat filter setting persisted across an account and game sessions?

meaning I log in and set the filter. I log out, next time I log in, it still applies?
How about between characters?

As it stands currently, no it does not persist between logins.

Someone mentioned before making it stick for characters, which I plan on doing as part of this.

this is a neat sounding thing but sadly being a raider.. ya i need to parse what im doing. need timers need to know so i cant just sit there and count down in my head 1 mississippi...

personalty on the character i raid with all i want to see is Damage and effects done directly to me and by me.
For example if a class is spamming short term group buffs or heals. i Do not need to see them being applied to the entire group or raid, just me. The biggest offenders are group wards and heals and group effecting procs. though that would not work for everyone which is why i wish there was more levels of Combat filtering.
Of course what i would Really like to see is the chat options we already have be server side filtered but i am not shure how feasible that with be with the current client, Though for some reason even the Chat filters ignore some of the setting.
Here for example here is a list of my combat window settings for my Conj
SPELLS
Spells you cast
Critical cast
Hostile cast
Hostile fail

COMBAT
General combat (should only show me)
Non Melee Damage(should be me only)
Damage intercept(should be me/and or pet)

Melee Combat
Your Hits
Attacker Hits
Your Pet hits
Attacker Hits your pet
Critical hit

even though these are my settings i Still get spammed with group buffs and wards which i guess is a different problem as it seems to be ignoring the friendly cast option.
Also it would be nice if there was option to toggle how fast damage updates are applies. for example if in stead of every single hit someone else does it sent to my client so show me mobs hps i could have a Combined total damage every second or 2. Though this would break the current accuracy of the parsers which is why it would have to be a option. If i remember eq 1 used to have a option sort of like this where you could specify the connection speed till it got removed. Which is how i raided eq 1 on Dial up for so many years.

in intence ae fights i literally can get 3-5 minutes behind on my screen on what is actually going on.(note this is Only receive as my commands and movements seen to go through in real time) To bad there is no command to flush the buffer

This is brilliant, thanks!
Will make it significantly easier to figure out just what happened in those trickier fights now when you kiss the dirt.

Funny Funny. but i rarely die

Can we get a filter option that we can customize even further? Friend of mine doesn't have great internet, and goes LD sometimes from the massive pulls we have during raids a lot.

for combat_filter 1 (ie: self only) it'd be nice to customize it so that you can do something like combat_filter 1 1 (self, self). Meaning, you only get information from the server on damage you deal, and you don't receive info on damage mobs do to you.

Or, combat_filter 1 0 (self, other), where you only receive info related to YOU where OTHER is doing damage/intereacting with YOU.


Example:
With 1 1 (1 [space] 1), I only receive info from the server of all the damage, or interactions, that I do outward towards NPCs or myself. I do NOT receive damage or information about mobs that hit me or do spells, etc to me.

With 1 0 (1 [space] 0), I only receive info from the server of all interactions, or damage, that is done TO me from ANY NPC around me. I DO receive damage from mobs/npcs around me only related directly to ME, but I receive zero information about what I'm doing to things around me (ie: i don't see the dmg to mobs that i'm doing to npcs/mobs).


This would even further limit server traffic per character during raids, and could actually reduce traffic your servers have to communicate outwards.

i like gromz suggestion i woudl happily give up the ability to parse and see the damage i do on raids. IF i do slack be shure i would be told haha