TIBWIDGET V1.1Original screenshot________________________________
JulesMultiboxer: WTF is that?! A new MB addon?TRoNIsBoxing: No way! TIBWIDGET is... just ISBOXER! But used in a creative and elegant form. It's implemented over the new menu system that comes with ISBOXER 41.
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JulesMultiboxer: So, what it does?TRoNIsBoxing: It has a lot of buttons with hotkeys to press
Pressing things gives results
Lets me explain the concept behind TIB.
Every boxer has a bunch of keys and actions that are crutial and important all the time, some other just used in specific situations and some other for this and for that...
So, I wanted to make something that could carry (almost) everything I need, beeing simple and logical.
TIB comes with the fundamental multiboxing stuff and the possibility of beeing customized with extra modules, extra pages and different aspect.
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JulesMultiboxer: Ok, so what it does?TRoNIsBoxing: Ok, Take it easy! Let's start with the MCP.
TIB-MCP (all OFF/all ON)The MCP (Main Control Panel) is a multipurpose paged menu with 31 buttons - 19 global and 12 dynamic. The global buttons make global things like open other TIB modules like the Action Rack and the Matrix.
The MCP also have navigation buttons to switch Banks and Pages and a lot of unassigned buttons to whatever you need.
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JulesMultiboxer: Banks and Pages - how's that?TRoNIsBoxing: The MCP loads pages into the central slot. The central slot is a dynamic 12 button menu. I have my G110 Gkeys assigned to the central slot. So, I use the same G1..G12 to activate all the different actions depending on which to page is loaded into the MCP.
So, Central slot is paged. Buttons all around are global.
MCP with the default Gkeys page________________________________
JulesMultiboxer: Nice. But how do you change those pages?TRoNIsBoxing: Pages are organized into Banks (or not! Mines are! As I said, all this can be customized...).
TIB V1.1 comes with three pages on Bank 1 and one page on Bank 2. Initially I've put 4 in a single Bank but I found 3 pages per Bank much intuitive and easier to operate. It also has a On-The-Fly page that pops and stays on while we're pressing a key.
Page 1 is up 95% of the time. It has all the basic things I need to run almost all content. So, paging up calls the CC page (P2), paging down calls non-combay page (P3).
Page 4 is social stuff and Page 9 is that special page and comes with no actions assigned.
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Let's see those pages. It will help you to better understand the idea.
Note: In this configuration, I use the bottom row of the Central Slot to Activate Maps/Repeater. My hand is addicted to those keys so I decided to keep them. Because of that, as you can see in the pictures, each page has 10 distinct buttons.
Page 1 (all OFF/all ON)Melee IWT or Not - Toggle
All follow or Just melee follow - Toggle
Jamba Strobe - Toggle
Melee GO! - Action
Face Target/All IWT (hold behaviour) - Action
Formations - Actions
Page 2 (all OFF/all ON)Mark Skull (all toons assigned on the MATRIX will attack this target instead master's target until it dies, then assist master) - Action
Assign Focus to SL1 and mark Cross - Action
Assign Focus to SL2 and mark Star - Action
Assign Focus to SL3 and mark Circle - Action
Assign Focus to SL4 and mark Diamond - Action
Assign Focus to SL5 and mark Triangle - Action
CC Focus - Each toon set on the MATRIX will control his focus target - Action
Attack Focus - Each toon set on the MATRIX will attack his focus target - Action
Page 3 (all OFF/all ON)Hearthstone - Action
Mounts (fly, nofly and all 5 on 3 rockets) - Actions
Mass fishing - Action
Arqueology - not tested yet...
Page 4 (all OFF/all ON)Each toon emotes something nice to target - Action
Each toon emotes something really bad to target - Action
All dance with target - Action
Each toon emotes related to hello - Action
Each toon emotes related with goodbye - Action
NOTE: Pages 3 and 4 are example pages and comes with no actions assigned! <........................
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JulesMultiboxer: That looks cool! What about the other modules?TRoNIsBoxing: Ok, let's take a look at the Rack. But before, there's something important that needs to be said to a better understanding of the Action Rack.
As you can see I don't use action bars. In fact, the Rack is my action bar.
My playstyle is team oriented, not character oriented. When I multibox, I don't think much about what spell the Warlock is casting or who debuffed the target... Instead, my mind is focused on what kind of action the team is performing or need to perform. For instance, when I command 'nuke target X with direct damage', all that matters is that every toon is doing the right actions to acomplish that goal. Period. All the details were prepared before the battle, at home, configuring ISBOXER like a pro!
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JulesMultiboxer: Hey hey, hold the horses dude! How can you command such a thing?TRoNIsBoxing: Obviously, pressing a key! My Mapped Keys are like: DPS SingleTarget, DPS AE, Interrupt, Stun, Heal, MegaHeal, OhShit!, CCFocus, GoLoot, etc. etc. Every toon of my team, any class, any role knows what to do when he receives these orders.
You're a noob or you're a pro?
Pro? So config it Like a Pro!
http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Configure_ISBoxer_like_a_pro________________________________
JulesMultiboxer: Hey TRoN, I'm a Pro! So, keep rolling...TRoNIsBoxing: I'll not elaborate much about the Rack... It does what the action bar does! I press the combat hotkey (I have some non-combat actions in the Rack too), IB virtualizes that kay to each toon and - puff - action is performed. You said you're a pro, right? So you know what I mean...
Action Rack V1.0 | V1.1The Rack is composed by 2 parts: The Combat-DPS zone, at the center, the inverted arrow, with 12 buttons, for the majority the standard '1 to =' bar (I use some weird horkeys because my main combat device is the mouse - but that's not relevant anyway). So, this central zone is similat to the standard action bar. Then we have the Extra Actions zones.
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JulesMultiboxer: Hey dude, there's only 8 buttons in that combat zone!TRoNIsBoxing: Right. That's because the other 4 are hidden. I don't need 12 different actions here. Why bars have to be full (of garbage). Remember what I said about commanding my toons. I don't use spell X and spell Y and blableblibloblu. I just want to say 'Healer do something!! The stupid tank (me) is dieing!' or 'Bring the Elements to their feet!'. So 8 actions are enough for me and for now - this is only the DPS part...
Let's check them:
STRotation; AERotation; Pull|Taunt; Big Cooldowns (fast cooldowns and trinkets are imbued in my rotations mechanic); Instants; Target AE; Ground AE and Shoo! (push target away).
Then, we have the Extra Actions zones, 8 buttons on each side of the DPS zone PLUs the Eye. That's 17 buttons (I have 15 because, again, 2 are hidden).
So, the Rack has a total of 12+16+1=29 buttons. My configuration has 8+15=23 buttons.
The left nest are movement or initiative actions and Control actions. The right nest is healing, protecting buffing and other benefic actions. This right nest is not yet like I want it to be. It should be reworked soon. Then there's the eye.
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JulesMultiboxer: I like the eye. What's its purpose?The Eye - because it looks like an eye (I think
) - is a single button with toggle property that swiches AOE/STarget modes. All toons set in the Matrix with 'permission to AOE' will perform the proper rotation whenever the Eye changes by a mouse click or the assigned hotkey.
The Eye (Single Target/AOE)________________________________
JulesMultiboxer: I see... So you have a 23 butons action bar, right?TRoNIsBoxing: Right! As you maybe have noticed these are my Like-a-Pro Combat Hotkeys plus some other utilities
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JulesMultiboxer: Very nice. I like it! And what are those 3 little buttons on the frame, at the bottom?TRoNIsBoxing: Well... Can you imagine... diferent layouts for different purposes?...
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JulesMultiboxer: That's all about the Rack. Lets see that Matrix thing...TRoNIsBoxing: Not yet! Two more quick things:
1. Every action performed makes the correspondent button lit with a gorgeous colored pattern specific to the type of action performed. This way we can track what is being done. DPS actions lit red, cooldowns lit purple, healing and buffing lits green, Movement and interaction lits yellow and controle ations lit light blue.
TIB-Rack (All lit)All Rack buttons, can be clicked with the mouse aswell.
2. TIB comes with a cool radial Menu to pots and consumables. So when we activate the 'Consumables' button, a circular menu opens under the cursor with 7 options: char1..char5, all chars and exit. Cliking one of these chooses who is going to drink or eat the stuff. When we click, for instance, char2, another radial appears under the cursor with several consumables: mana pot, health pot, elixir, food and exit. It's very handy and very fast to give stuff to the guys... and they appreciate the kindness
First we choose who, then what...________________________________
JulesMultiboxer: Now tell me about that Matrix thing...TRoNIsBoxing: I named it Matrix, not by any relation to Matrix the movie. It's more related to its mathematic meaning [...]
It sets the behaviour of each toon relatively to some particular actions usually set by default by the multiboxing software to the whole team or to noone.
TIB-Matrix (All off/All on)________________________________
JulesMultiboxer: What??!TRoNIsBoxing: Who follow the master when you press your follow key?
JulesMultiboxer: When I press FOLLOW, all the others follow!TRoNIsBoxing: Right! How many times your melees run away and you have to quickly press FOLLOW to bring them back to you before they agro everything around? And then you have your healer and the ranged guys scratching your back... How many times?... I bet on 'lots of times'...
So, Matrix allows me to set
whos toons follow when I press FOLLOW.
Also,
whos toons use AOE when the team is on AOE mode. Many times I want AOE damage over a group but some toon (or toons) keep the burst, nuking some specific target.
Matrix sets
who loots and skins.
It sets
who does CC and who are in hold with his focus set just in case...
Last but not the least, it sets
who belong to the Skull Brigade!
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JulesMultiboxer: LOL. The Skull Brigade??TRoNIsBoxing: Oh yeah
I have a 'key' (ALT+MOUSE3) which sets an additional target (@mouseover) and mark it with Skull. After that, all the toons set as 'Proud member of the Skull Brigade' will attack that target instead of master's target performing the chosen rotation. When Skull is dead and if there isn't a new Skull target, the brigade joins the rest of the team and assist master. It's a nice feature
So, those are things I've always felt I would like to have to solve some little big issues that we deal when multiboxing. I even tought about using an old IBOXER tool (ClickBoxer - I think it was its name) to implement something like this. Now Menus bring the whole thing to the table.
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JulesMultiboxer: It's indeed a nice feature. And what happens if I don't set anything on Matrix?TRoNIsBoxing: All works as when you normally play. Matrix just sets exceptions to the default character behaviour.
In fact, is a really simple implementation. Matrix manages Action Target Groups dynamicaly. I don't have to add toons to ATGs before lauching the game when their behaviour or role can be situational or temporary. I use to play a lot with ad hok teams. So, I pick any 5 toons and go!
I think the Action Rack is very cool and helps to keep things clean and more under control but the little Matrix, imo, is the most precious tool in TIB. This kind of control over the team makes all the difference 'when the straight lines begin to curl'...
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JulesMultiboxer: One last question... Do I need to use those 3 modules or I can just use one or two of them?TRoNIsBoxing: The MPC, the Action Rack and the Matrix are all independent from each other. You can use them togheter or you can use just the ones you like
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JulesMultiboxer: Cool. I'm gonna try TIB now... Thanks for all, buddy! TRoNIsBoxing: You're welcome
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So, concluding...
TIB V1.1 comes with 2 aditional modules: Action Rack and Team Matrix. There are two other modules under study but they aren't so 'plug and play' and still need further work: TeamUltimateControl and ToonsMonitor that work togheter. The Monitor displays toons' cooldowns and team synergies. TeamControl transforms those visual events and warnings into buttons so we can react and optimize our fights.
Remember that TIB comes configured with the mentioned functionalities and actions. Those are mainly everything I need. You may have to adjust the widget to fit your playstyle or to make it show or perform your own prefered actions. The good news is TIB is modular, so if someone builds a new Rack layout or a new MCP button set or a new Matrix toogle set, everyone can use it! So, lets make it for the benefit of the whole community and For The Multiboxing playstyle!
I hope you can find some utility to TIB on the field or simply as a tutorial to a better understanding of IBOXER mechanics and the new Menu System.
/cheer
\m/ TRoNDaNeflin \m/