Improving Gameplay

[Khraa]

Hi!

I'm looking for a whole slew of mods to help improve my gameplay. I'm visually impaired and also have crappy reflexes--which makes for one lousy WoW player. But I love WoW, and on the hunt for some mods to help make up for this, short of playing the game for me.

I'm using Hear Kitty for combo points for my Druid. Love it, but I need some other mods.

--A mod that will show class either brightly color coded or in text somewhere, and the name of the target big enough for me to see. Customizable size and font would be best.

--Mods like Hear Kitty that provide audio cues for events.

--Mods to help with what the heck to do when there are many mobs, many players, and manual tab just ain't cutting it (but if it's the only way, it's the only way.)

--A mod that will allow for customization of font, color, size of any other mod, in case the largest settings of a mod aren't big enough.

--Map mods galore that might help me see the map and minimap better.

--Mods that could somehow help with crappy reflexes without actually playing the game for me. This one is especially important. I hear there are voice control mods which would be sweet, but which ones are best and don't have delays?

--Any miscellanious mods that might help improve gameplay in my situation that I've overlooked.

I'm currently using:
Auctioneer
Carbonite (with mixed results)
AutoProfit
HearKitty
maybe one or two others

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[zero-kill]

So are you leveling a druid or all ready at 80?

What elements of the UI are hard to see (i.e. text or images), are there particular elements that you need/want to see better?

For reflexive play, is it a rotation that you are finding hard to keep in time with or the pace of a battle in general?

Is your druid only going to have a main spec or do you plan to have dual spec?

How comfortable does the the original UI fit your needs, if so what parts would need improvement to better adjust to your play style?

[Khraa]

Originally Posted by zero-kill So are you leveling a druid or all ready at 80? What elements of the UI are hard to see (i.e. text or images), are there particular elements that you need/want to see better? For reflexive play, is it a rotation that you are finding hard to keep in time with or the pace of a battle in general? Is your druid only going to have a main spec or do you plan to have dual spec? How comfortable does the the original UI fit your needs, if so what parts would need improvement to better adjust to your play style?

Ohboy... where to start. I have a level 25 Druid, and plan on leveling a Mage, Shaman, and Warlock as well. I've been playing with builds for my Druid between the three trees and deciding whether I want to heal, tank, ranged or melee dps. So far I like everything, even if I'm not very good at it.

The original UI is functional, but barely. On the other hand, blowing everything up and positioning it so I can see it all raises the problem of my screen getting so cluttered I can't see or manouvre where I'm supposed to in the game.

Let's start with the action bars. They're just functional. I have trouble telling what is what sometimes, and cannot see the numbers at all, so I have go to by memory a lot of the time. I cannot judge cooldowns very well either. The 'character bar' with skills etc on it is very very small. It would be nice to have it bigger, but then there's the problem of screen cluttering, and it's not combat critical anyway.

Next is the minimap. I have both Blizzard's minimap and Carbonite's Minimaps up. Mostly because I like and dislike aspects of each; Blizzard's is too dark to see and stuck in the corner (but move it and there's the screen cluttering problem), carbonite's is marginally better so far as sight and it can be scaled. I can't see my own pointer most of the time on either one due to size and coloration against background. Same with nodes, npc vendors, quest objectives, though these are color coded, they are often very small (but they need to be so they don't clutter or distort the map). The minimap icons? Forget it. Way too small.

The chat window is something I can live with if I have to. In largest font I can just make out the text and can read it with a bit of inconvenience, but the larger the font is, the larger the window is, and it gets in the way.

Quest text. I like the effect Blizzard was going for with it, but it doesn't suit my situation at all! I wish I could completely overhaul the quest text with clear font on a dark background or some other combination.

Tooltips, very small, but I manage.

Character and mob 'plates' and status indicators are all but useless at default. I can't read the names, determine the classes, or much of anything. This is a major issue.

The crappy reflexes comes down to rotation I think. I have a ton of trouble tabbing between mobs or party/raid members, even seeing what is my target in crowded situations. Tabbing between mobs/players with my Frakenstein fingers and getting the right ability off at the right time and cycling through is extremely difficult and awkward. They just aren't dextrous. But I love instances and hope to be able to raid with enough mods to make up for this.

Quest tracking with Carbonite: Either too small to see, or so big it takes up too much of my screen.

A 'Zoom' mod might be useful. A mod that will blow up parts of the UI maybe in combination with a keypress + mouseclick or something and then go back to whatever custom size I set would be good.

But the reflexes thing, blah. I might even look into voice mods for that, but the one I tried out, Pay2Play, had a delay between the voice activation and carrying out the commands.

[zero-kill]

All right well first off, what resolution or monitor size do you have?

[tinyu]

try making your UI Scale larger in the video options as for reflexes might wanna research some macros.

[khurzog]

first i would get fluidframes, you will be able to resize almost any frame, great for large character and quest panes, etc.

I would recommend a IceHud, will make important info very visable.

TidyPlates to better see all close mobs.

Chatter will allow you to make your chat text fairly large, plus many other helpful features.

When it comes to replacing action bars and unit frames, most mods will let you make them as large as you want. i personally use
pitbull4 and macaroon but lighter/easier mods are available.

Power Auras Classic will provide you with sound and visual cues to help with rotations/dots/buffs/procs/cooldowns and everything else.

These are just from the top of my head, ill probably post more after i play tonight. if you have any questions or need help with set up, feel free to ask =D
good luck

[Yhor]

I also suggest Macaroon. It allows for as many buttons and bars as you can need. Set up one bar to a size you are comfortable with and make it 2 (3 if needed-clicker?) rows with however many buttons wide as your screen allows (to your own liking anyway). Set it to page on stance change (bearform, catform, and you can even set it up for prowling). This allows for your primary skills for each form to be on your bar, and allows you to put more specific skills/items for each stance (form)... like melee trinkets for feral, healing trinkets for tree, or caster dmg for boomkin. Plenty of buttons that change depending on your need. Please someone correct me if this has changed.. I'm thinking I'm about to renew my sub, and it would save me time if I didn't have to learn this is no longer correct the hard way...
^That should help with viewing, and should help with keeping you more focused on the fight (instead of finding skills).

For unit frames, choose whatever you like (I like STuf). Try locating your unit frames together in a row, not far from action bars and chat frame. This keeps your attention on an area allowing you to have two focal points, instead of three... one: your unit frames, chat, and action bars... two: your game world view, giving you situational awareness.

A viewport mod. If you aren't into art, try Nefport; it's sole purpose is a viewport. This will allow you to have larger unit frames, bar mod, etc.. and allow you to see more of the game without things being 'hidden' by your addons.

I hope you have at least a 21" monitor, otherwise a lot of your size requirements are going to hold you back.

[Khraa]

Thank you for all the suggestions so far! i was busy for the holidays and can finally get back to WoW improvements.

I have a widescreen monitor, not sure how big it is, but it's running at 1440x900 resolution (not perfect, but it doesn't make things so big as to be unwieldy.)