The Making of a User Interface

Okay, I admit it, Blizzard's standard UI has, for the most part, been perfectly fine for me ever since I began playing the game back in December of 2006. Wow, has it been that long already? 12 ability hotkeys and the additional toolbars were all I seemed to need. Other add-ons like Questhelper, Recount and Omen really don't take away from the standard UI. For general play and basic PvP, there is little wrong with Blizzard's interface.

This brings me to arena, the subject I've been most focused on the past weeks. Since our 3v3 progress essentially reached a standstill, I stepped back and began to analyze what has been going wrong. First and foremost on my short list was my inability to easily trip all my abilities and spells when I most needed them. In a heated and generally very short arena match, looking away from your quarry to try to click on an ability on another part of the screen is doubly ineffective; it takes extra time to hit the button, AND you lose out on valuable moments when you could be striking, interrupting, or otherwise harassing your target. Thus, I reluctantly began to look for ways to improve my UI.

I say reluctant, because I'm generally not one who likes change, especially not after three straight years of being in a "comfort zone" with my controls. So, this has become more a forced effort than I was expecting. After a rather laborious research period, I found several key addons that I have implemented to try to improve my UI. They are, in no particular order:

1. Gladius - Arena addon that tells you the build of your opponents, sends messages to your team regarding critical events (like when the enemy uses a PvP trinket), and more.

2. Pitbull - This addon drastically changes the appearance of your UI - it basically does away with the standard target and party frames and re-introduces them in a completely customizable way.

3. Dominos - This is a unit fram editor that finishes the transformation that Pitbull starts, and lets you customize every other aspect of the UI - especially the action bars.

4. MSBT - This alters the default scrolling combat text and adds in more functionality.

5. Cooldown Watch - Gives you small, customizable countdown bars that tell you when your cooldowns will be back up.

All of these are amazing addons, but they are not for the faint of heart. They all must be heavily customized to suit your needs, and often do not function at their best "straight out of the box." The biggest thing I've done with my UI so far is to put two large unit frames on either side of my toon on the lower middle part of the screen - one for my info, and the other for my target. There are many other mods I have done as well to the UI.

It is clear that the UI I've made is becoming purpose built - it is not the best suited for standard PvE any longer because of the information it shows, but so far, it seems to be doing what I'd hoped - providing me with quick information at a glance.

Add in the fact that I've finally broken down and begun to map my spells properly to hotkeys surrounding WASD, and I think I have come a long way. Early testing in BGs and Arena seems promising.

So, if you are serious about PvP and are not afraid to roll up your sleeves and mess around with some highly useful addons, I highly recommend doing so. At the very least, I am now able to use all my abilities without looking at the screen. Learning which ones are which (by feel) is another story! But, I'll get there.

The Ups and Downs of Arena PvP

1256. That is where our 3v3 team stands, after something like 40 straight arena matches over the past few days. We want desperately to break into the 1300s, because it is there that we finally become eligible to purchase the first major piece of the Wrathful gear (belt). Yet, the best we have managed was to get to 1295, and then quickly bumped back down again. The most frustrating part of all of this is the Arena system's seemingly inexplicable allocation of team rating points at the end of a match. I don't pretend to call myself an expert on this subject by any means, and I imagine it is "working as intended," to quote a cliched line often stated by game CSRs. But, when we see teams lower than our "matchmaking rating" receiving +45 points after beating us, and then our team only receiving +5 for besting a team that was ranked slightly less than us, it certainly makes me scratch my head. For a layman, it really seems that point allocation is being given out unfairly. We've even seen teams ranked higher than us, that lose ZERO points when we beat them! I just don't get it.

We had a great run a couple nights ago, and advanced by over 100 points in rating, but since entering the 1200s, we are at an impasse. Each time we get close to 1300 (i.e. one win away from it), we always get beaten. It is not for lack of gear - we are fully geared as best as honor and Arena Points can allow - my DK is 3/5 in Relentless with all the other slots filled out with the Wrathful gear that can be bought with honor. The other two members of our team are similarly equipped. We should be able to do well, right?

Perhaps our composition is not the strongest out there (Unholy DK, Boomkin and Resto Shammy), but we are doing it because it is what we like. We have had a few moments where we shine, but there are quite obviously some comps that are more than a match for us. We give it our all each time, though, and hopefully we will break the 1300 level that is standing in our way.

I am very much looking forward to the ranked BGs that are coming with the Cataclysm expansion - I love BGs, but currently there is little incentive for doing them aside from once a day for the 25 arena points (and honor if I need it). For now, if we want to get the best gear, we need to continue on in Arena.

I'd love to hear some constructive criticism of this posting (if there is anyone out there that sees this blog yet - I don't believe it is easily findable on a google search yet). So, if you have anything to offer, please speak up!

Victory!

The stars were aligned for us last night. We went 15-9 in the 3v3 matches we chose to partake in last evening. That is a first for our fledgling team, "The Face Palmers." As I've mentioned in previous posts, we are by no means PvP experts. Thus, winning as many as we did in one night was a great shot in the arm for us. We bumped our team rating up over 150 points, to just shy of 1100 (which gives us a matchmaking rating somewhere north of 1200). This is still relatively low (we don't have access to the first of the better gear until we hit 1300 rating), but for us, it's great. We are still having trouble against some compositions, especially those with resto druids. We also can't seem to best a team with a higher MMR than us on a regular basis.

I believe our performance of late is attributable to two things. First, we have been slowly upgrading our gear, and in my DK's case, I am more effectively gemming my gear. I learned that Spell Penetration is critical to a DK's PvP effectiveness. I believe it is helping. If only I had ONE more interrupt to shut down those freaking druids.

But anyway, a win is a win...and we'll take it! Hopefully tonight will be more of the same.

Stepping into the Arena

Before I get into the meat of this post, a bit of background. We play on the Misha PVE server, and have since it was created in advance of the Burning Crusade expansion. Prior to Wrath of the Lich King, I only had one character, a Human Rogue, that I used. Alts never really interested me all that much. At Level 70, my wife and I tried out 2 vs. 2 arena matches, and experienced the severe gear disparity that newly created arena teams often face (along with general inexperience in this type of PVP). Once Lich King came out, we essentially forgot about Arena and focused on PVE. We even got into raiding with our mains (my wife's is a Human Fire Mage - she has more toons than me!) and got them decently geared in Naxxramas armor. Last year, we relocated to a new home, and WoW took a back seat to many other things.

Fast forward to recent history... About 2 weeks ago, I finally finished levelling the Death Knight alt that I'd made 1 1/2 years ago. Prior to that, I hadn't really given Nuadu much focus - my Rogue wsa always my main and that was all I cared about. But, the DK has grown on me. I have grinded BGs to get him fitted out in the best of everything available for honor points - not the best there is by far, but it's almost mandatory to even enter at the ground floor of Arena. So, finally finished, we started a 3v3 team with a friend of ours and tried to see how we did. Our team is this: Unholy DK, Resto Shaman, and Balance Druid. We don't really care what's the best composition, because these are the builds we like.

Our experience was mostly for learning - and we learned a lot. And also found that we lost, a LOT. I tend to get very frustrated when I don't produce results, but much of this is due to (as we found at Level 70) insufficient gearing and lack of experience in the Arena. So, hopefully with time we will progress and learn what it takes to be moderately successful.