Tellapart: Add Progressive Letters To Mob Names.

Hello all,
I hereby release Tellapart (current version: v1.2.0).

This addon adds letters at the end of enemy mob names, for the purpose of telling them apart. It will add letters from the range of A to ZZ, which I assume is going to be enough forever because to get past ZZ it would mean 700 identical mobs of the same name in zone, and I can't see that happen ever.

So, you are being whacked by a mob in the middle of half a dozen other identical mobs, and can't tell the tank which one is killing you? Now you can!

You can find the addon on github as usual:
https://github.com/lili-ffxi/FFXI-Addons/tree/master/tellapart

Names are changed in a way that they are identical across different clients, even if those clients run on different computers. In other words, everybody will see the same Mandragora B in any given zone, regardless of when you zone in, where, how, etc.

Couple known quirks:
- if there's only one mob with that name in the zone, it will not be renamed. A known offender is that one lone Locus Lugcrawler in Crawler's Next [S]. There's only one in the entire zone, so no letter for him. There might be more somewhere else.
- some NMs have multiple copies of themselves that are spawnable - Unity NMs, Geas Fete, but also Abyssea etc. This is normal and there's no way to know that they are NMs instead of regular mobs, so enjoy your Apayec A-B-C-D
- there's a global 23 characters limit to mob names. So, mobs whose names is longer than 20 characters get their name truncated to make space for the letters. I don't see this causing issues in general, but if it does do let me know.
- it's inactive inside of those areas that do not have killable mobs (mostly cities).
- due to the way renaming works, it's doing some work per every frame. If you run at 30fps on a regular pc it should not matter, but if you are playing on a potato or have 8 instances loaded all running at 120fps and have been roaming a lot in any given zone, you might see your fps drop or your instance stutter. Lower your fps a bit to prevent that, or don't run it on *all* of your boxes.
- this is written for retail. Private servers are unsupported, tho it should work on them with no issues. Names can be inconsistent on private server if two people use different versions of the client, which it can sometimes happen and it's never an issue on retail which doesn't let you connect with an outdated client.

Lastly, one last buywer's beware: this breaks bots. Do not come asking me support for bots. Write a better one that is compatible with this instead. What do you mean you can't write a bot!?

Apart from the above, it should work anywhere, even instanced zones. It's pretty sturdy.

Load it and it's on, unload it and it's off.

Available commands:
For now, there's only one available command:
//ta mask: toggles whether the pronoun <t> shows the original or the modified name in chat. Shows original name by default. Currently the setting is not saved, it must be toggled again each time you load the addon.

That's it. Enjoy and let me know if it breaks somehow, somewhere.

Have funsies,
-Lili

This may be a dumbass question, but does this affect what <t> outputs? It sounds incredibly handy and I'll definitely be using it when I get back to the game.

Not a dumb question at all. As far as the game is concerned, that's the new name of the mob for all intents and purposes now.

Well someone has been busy during the holidays! Thanks, I'll give this a try in the coming days.

Edit: were the issues with get_mob_list fixed?

Can be usefull when cruel joke fail on some mobs , nice

Will this function for naming Nyzul lamps? Would help coordinate with those buddies that are cardinally challenged.

No idea, I've been out of the loop for a while, but regardless that stuff should not affect this in any way since it only tracks killable mobs.


No, only killable mobs.

lame

Jetacku pls

You don't have to use it, you know.

o.O

Updated to not be active inside Pankration, as it was creating issues in there. Thank you to Navius who reported the bug on discord.

Small update (1.2.0)

Added a masking functionality. Previously, using the <t> pronoun in chat would have shown the modified name. Now, by default Tellapart masks names so that inputing <t> in chat will print the original name. You can toggle this behavior and restoring the printing of modified names with the command //ta mask.

Current caveats:
- The setting is not saved, when you load the addon masking is on. You have to deactivate it each time, or edit the lua.
- Can possibly remove 1-3 letters from mob names that are very long. Will fix in a future update.

Enjoy.