Plugin Overhaul Ideas

[psikoi]

I feel like our current RuneLite plugin could use some love. As I played a bit during League, I found myself wishing our plugin was both less intrusive, but also more useful. These are my main issues with it:

• It adds a few extra menu-options that are somewhat disruptive to my gameplay, such as: WOM Lookup, Add Member, Remove Member
• It adds non-urgent overlays to the game (Competition Time left)
• Some of its features require the group to be properly refreshed on the client (Member partyhats, Add/Remove member options)
  • This is problematic because we can't be refreshing this data every second, so there's always potential for outdated data
• The line between what configs are meant for regular players, and clan admins are very blurred

Ideally, I'd like the plugin to not get in the way of my gameplay, yet keep everything I care about synced up. For players, this would be auto-updating during my play sessions, auto-submitting name changes, warning me of ending competitions, etc. For clan leaders, this would be syncing the members list, auto-submitting name changes, etc.

I feel like the amount of extra stuff we throw in the user's game window, makes the plugin feel a lot more complex than it is, and I suspect this might push some people away from using it, which makes them lose out on all the passive benefits.

Improving passive benefits

• Update players on login (if first login of the session) #27

  • This would ensure their entire session will be tracked. Not just from the first logout onwards.

• "Group is out of sync" warning on login #2

  • This would relieve some responsibilities from clan admins, they wouldn't have to remember to sync, we would tell them when they need to.

• Sync "success" message should include the number of ranks ignored #29

  • Makes people aware of ignored ranks, this is often overlooked and people assume it's a bug.

• Allow ignored ranks to be discoverable and editable on the plugin's config #30

• Add confirmation prompt when ignoring a rank #24

• Sync should also update-all after finished #31

  • Some people assume it does already, and then are unpleasantly surprised when it doesn't. We might as well do this, so that in 1 click, the clan admin can update everything they need to for their clan.

• Add a confirmation prompt if the group being synced isn't the same as the current group #1

  • Sometimes people leave their clan, join another, and accidentally override their previous clan's group with the new clan's members list.

• Advise players to logout when nearing the end of a competition #32

Add/Remove Member menu options

• IMO, it gets in the way
• It's not clear that it's related to WOM
• It requires the group to be properly refreshed at all times
• Only used on average 20 times a day (combined), very low compared to our 21k installs
• We should maybe push people towards whole group syncing instead?

Group member partyhats

Are these used/loved? They add "clutter" to the game, and if you're in a very large clan, I assume a big portion of your friend's list will be filled with these.

Also, I don't personally like the country flag variants of these, makes my friend's list look like a carnival.

Removing these would also remove the need for group refreshes.

Plugin config

IMO, all these "cosmetic" things like overlays and menu options should be disabled by default, to make the plugin less intrusive to new users.

Also, the Group ID and Group Verification Code fields should be a lot more focused towards clan admins only, and this should be clear in the config, to reduce the complexity of setting this plugin up for most users.

Competition "time left" overlays

These shouldn't be an overlay since they really aren't that urgent. I believe by default they should be on the side panel instead, with the option to pop-out if users want to (like the exp tracker plugin.)

• The idea of warning people when the comp is about to end (if they have decent gains in it).

Player Lookups

Are player lookups that useful? It doesn't tell you much more than the hiscores, and having the WOM Lookup menu option on players is just a bit annoying

Conclusion

I'll be doing a survey to collect people's thoughts and preferences on the plugin. And then i'll start making issues to hopefully tackle these problems over time.