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oFollow 0.2.1

Tiny,

I love oFollow so much that I had to register an account on here so I could talk about it. I probably have the typical pvp multiboxer story; started boxing around the woltk days, hated cataclysm with all of the cc's, was fundamentally transformed by the MoP talent changes which made boxing so much better, (hunters self-healing for example). The prime of my days was MoP 5.0 and 5.1 which I got so good at pvp boxing that I actually started posting YouTube videos. And then... 5.2 patch comes along and it all goes to hell.

I actually quit for a year and then came back to pvp in timeless isle. That was fun for a while, but not being able to box bg's anymore frustrated the HELL out of me. I started looking into all these 'alternative' ways to box like ethereal soul trader and brew pup interact with target functions, but none of that appealed to me. Especially since it would require melee classes and break my hunters anyway... I ended up quitting again.

I recently started playing a few weeks ago once I learned about this addon... so I think it goes without saying that oFollow is my new best friend. :-) Being able to multibox bg's again has me all gitty inside... and I thank you for the renewed interest I have in playing WoW.

All that being said... I'm sure that you use oFollow yourself and have noticed a lot of issues. You may or may not be working on these issues as we speak, but I wanted to mention some of my experiences that I think could be improved in future versions of the program.

The biggest issue I've had is having to restart the binary so much that I have actually pinned it to my taskbar for a quick launch. Restarting the binary fixes problems such as the slaves not following at all, or running into walls, running in circles constantly, or being spread out too far. The being spread out too far apart issue happens a lot after being cc'd by fears or disorients, or when a slave gets stuck on an obstacle and I have to correct. (Getting stuck on a fence post, for example.)

Another problem is the constant zig-zag like movements of the slaves when the master is moving forward, especially when mounted. It is noticeable when I am looking at the slave screens I can see them moving left, overcompensating, then moving right to compensate for the left movement, then overcompensating and moving back left again. The issue with this becomes readily apparent when you notice that your slave toons are following far behind the master after a while of mounted movement, and you have to stop to let them catch up. This affects the speed at which I can move about the battleground, trying to run to different bases in Arathi Basin for example. I know it's possible to adjust the mouse look sensitivity in-game... is it possible to adjust the keyboard turn sensitivity in-game as well? Doing a quick google search I found discouraging results on this issue, but I feel like if I could adjust their turn sensitivity I might be able to make them follow a little closer with a little less zig-zag.

I can't figure out why the slave toons run in circles sometimes, but it seems to happen most often right after a respawn or when first entering a bg. Moving forward a bit or swapping screens usually corrects the problem which makes it not a big deal, but sometimes 1 or 2 of them will run a circle after moving and stopping, and I've had some fairly comical instances of them doing this and running off of a cliff, such as the lumber mill in AB.

The slave toons will get trapped on solid objects a lot, back to the fence post example, and using jump will solve a lot of these issues. Sometimes I have to swap screens and manually move them to get them untrapped. Moving in tight quarters becomes a real challenge... I had mastered moving up the horde towers in Alterac Valley back before the 5.2 patch, but after several attempts with oFollow I don't get anywhere close to getting up those towers with all the toons :P I just stopped trying and focused on killing ground targets instead, relying on my teammates to cap the towers.

One of my favorite things about oFollow is how the slave toons will turn in the direction the master is facing, even if the master is standing still. This is an improvement from the original /follow method where they would only turn if I moved to the other side of the slaves and forced them to turn by following me. This makes fighting melee classes easier and also allows me to do such tricks as capping a flag point in Arathi Basin with my master, while my slave toons can turn in any direction I want them to so that they can fire at enemy targets while my master caps the flag point. This is a great feature!

I have also learned how to configure ISBoxer so that setting '/of master' and '/of slave' becomes automatic just by clicking my screens. This way I never have to type those commands again. That helps a lot. I also learned that turning '/of debug on' allows me to follow in Ashran and other parts of the world if I want. Killing rares in Ashran and turning in their artifact fragments is a super fast way to get honor and rep as a multiboxer, btw. I think it is a faster way to gear up than doing random bg's at the moment.

I am going to donate to support the future of this addon and I will donate again if it is updated and improves some of the issues I addressed above. Thank you so much for developing this! You're a boxer's hero!

thanks so much for the support!

i've been a bit busy working on (oQ)Group Finder and haven't had much time to give ofollow more love. don't worry, it's definitely on the agenda.

the wiggle thing is annoying and something i'll try to address. one technique i developed with (oQ)Group FInder will allow me to auto-configure better making the install easier and potentially improving performance.


I'm not sure why the new 6.1 patch would have an affect on oFollow, but having played it the last couple of days I've noticed that the zig-zag problem has gotten much worse. The slave toons zig-zag back and forth much more dramatically now when the master moves forward, and moving around a map is slower than it was in 6.0. They also seem to be wiggling back and forth while standing still now, something they didn't do before.

Hoping for an update soon! :)

I noticed today that the new patch had automatically adjusted my video settings back up to the high range. (I normally run on low.) This was causing an FPS drop and the toons were zig-zagging more. Putting it back to low corrected this. Just wanted to let you know!

Perhaps the zig-zagging occurs because the master window slot is running at a higher FPS than the slaves? I'm running 60 fps in the master slot, 30 fps in the slaves.

So I tried a little experiment, I set all the toons max fps windows to 40. The result is much better, they follow more smoothly... there is still a little zig-zag but it is very manageable.

I hope my experience with this helps you out!

thanks for the update! good to see you were able to hone in on the issue.

i've noticed a similar impact when a machine is overloaded, which is essentially the same thing.