Enhancing Account Insights: Utilizing Log Files as a Overwolf Alternative for Warframe

[Karechta]

After reading the article on Third-Party Software and You, I felt inspired to share an idea. It's understandable that [DE] has concerns about gamehooks like Overwolf, as it can be seen as a form of cheating. However, there is a way to provide players with valuable account information without resorting to gamehook techniques nor the use of an api. This not only helps prevent false bans but also caters to players who enjoy utilizing such tools.

My suggestion is to introduce an "information.log" file that, upon game startup, prints essential inventory data and Warframe/weapon mastery. To ensure clarity, each entry in the log can be identified with specific tags:

• [Inventory] Braton Prime Blueprint
• [Mastery] Mesa Prime 309k / 593k

Additionally, it would be beneficial to include information about online/offline status and incoming messages:

• [ChatInfo] Herobrine went Offline!
• [ChatMessage] Sarah: Hey, wanna do some Survival?

Upon completing a mission, the log file can be updated with mastery progress and inventory changes:

• [MasteryUpdate] Mesa Prime 330k / 593k
• [InventoryUpdate] Braton Prime Receiver Blueprint

To provide even more useful information, consider including sections like:

• [RelicRewards]
• [FoundryCrafting]
• [Trade]
• [FactionTransaction]

By implementing these enhancements, we can establish a robust alternative to Overwolf and gamehooks in general, providing players with comprehensive insights into their account. Notably, there are already valuable apps available that operate using existing log file information, such as:

• Yate: Tracks performance in Eidolon hunts using ee.logs, without requiring gamehooks.
• Warframe.info: Utilizes data printed on the screen when opening a Relic to search wf.market for prices, also without gamehooks.

Expanding account insights empowers players to make informed decisions and maximize their Warframe experience. Encouraging the development of more such apps will further enhance the Warframe community's access to valuable information.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Karechta

[Mr.SpookSpook]

Everything that Overwolf does in-game should be part of the official game UI.

If we had a proper in-game auction house/marketplace that most other similar games have and if we had proper tooltips, info when it comes to opening relics, then there would not be any need for Overwolf and Alecaframe.

DE is pretty much forcing our hands as they have been refusing to add basic game functions from the very beginning.

[Karechta]

Having a marketplace or Auction house is something I would not like to be honest.
The current System is more personal, you are texting to players and interacting with each other.
Especially when you encounter new Players you are willing to gift them some Parts which is also good for the Community.
Having a Marketplace in-game would ruin this experience. Therefor I would not suggest to replace the Current System using Warframe.market.

By adding more Information on the Screen you also add a lot more Depth to the Game which can scare people off more easily aswell. Therefor making it a third Party software which does all this is a good choice, as only those comfortable using it will install it.
Casual gamer will have to be considered in a point like this. Also the level of Immersion can be lost when making it to technical. 
While saying this I dont mind adding some more Information on the screen in some scenarios.

Points that I agree on are:

• Profile Information (Mastery especially) should be easier to Filter and viewable, especially we should see those hidden Weapons.
• When choosing a Relic drop we should be able to see if we mastered the final product(not just on the bp). We should also see how many of the other Parts we have (to complete Sets)

What AlecaFrame for example would still offer, compared to Warframe and why we should have an Option to get our Information:

• Scroll through your Inventory and see Platinum prices instantly. (from warframe.market)
• manage Warframe.market offerings
• You get to see all your Information on a second Monitor, therefor you can e.g: easily alt tab to see what is missing for a yet to Master Warframe.

All that said, I would still welcome an option to get all the Information without using Gamehooks, as stated in the original post. It can be followed up with UI updates at some point, but I believe adding a simple log file wont cause any harm. 

[SpicyDinosaur]

1 hour ago, Mr.SpookSpook said:

If we had a proper in-game auction house/marketplace that most other similar games have and if we had proper tooltips, info when it comes to opening relics, then there would not be any need for Overwolf and Alecaframe.

Not this again. 🙄

[Mr.SpookSpook]

4 hours ago, SpicyDinosaur said:

Not this again. 🙄

Just because you are satisfied with the lack of basic game functions doesn't mean everyone else must be as well.

[SpicyDinosaur]

22 minutes ago, Mr.SpookSpook said:

Just because you are satisfied with the lack of basic game functions doesn't mean everyone else must be as well.

I'm not just satisfied, I'm actively opposed to the idea of a in game auction house, but I really don't think it's worth arguing over this yet again.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 25 minutos, Mr.SpookSpook dijo:

Just because you are satisfied with the lack of basic game functions doesn't mean everyone else must be as well.

For the thousandth time DE SAID REPEATEDLY THAT NOT GONNA HAPPEN stop crying over spilled milk.

[Karechta]

@Mr.SpookSpook @SpicyDinosaur 
 I want this post to stay on Topic, so i would appreciate you not to fight over trivial stuff in Feedback posts.
Nothing personal.
The post is not about an In-game feature nor the UI its about the alternative for Overwolf features, which currently could technically be detected as a Cheat.
While DE does not have to tolerate it, they still do, so thats to appreciate.
Having better UI in the Game will not be the same as having a Companion Application on the second Monitor with information about your Inventory, mastery etc.

There is a lot of passionate programmers that would love to make some third party software using legitimate methods, once those are provided. Hence I made the Suggestion of the Log System, which even is already in place using the EE.log. 
EE.log is lacking all the in the Original post named Informations, which would allow for companion apps to run without Overwolf, hence without running into the Risk of getting detected as a cheat by accident. 

[SpicyDinosaur]

44 minutes ago, Karechta said:

@Mr.SpookSpook @SpicyDinosaur 
 I want this post to stay on Topic, so i would appreciate you not to fight over trivial stuff in Feedback posts.
Nothing personal.
The post is not about an In-game feature nor the UI its about the alternative for Overwolf features, which currently could technically be detected as a Cheat.
While DE does not have to tolerate it, they still do, so thats to appreciate.
Having better UI in the Game will not be the same as having a Companion Application on the second Monitor with information about your Inventory, mastery etc.

There is a lot of passionate programmers that would love to make some third party software using legitimate methods, once those are provided. Hence I made the Suggestion of the Log System, which even is already in place using the EE.log. 
EE.log is lacking all the in the Original post named Informations, which would allow for companion apps to run without Overwolf, hence without running into the Risk of getting detected as a cheat by accident. 

okay, I admit to being ignorant on the issue. Is there a way you could dumb it down a bit?

[Karechta]

33 minutes ago, SpicyDinosaur said:

okay, I admit to being ignorant on the issue. Is there a way you could dumb it down a bit?

Sure, I can give it a try.

Lets start with Overwolf Applications, like AlecaFrame.
AlecaFrame takes the data that Overwolf provides to give you a nice Interface with all your Account data, like Mastery and Inventory.
Overwolf gets that data by literally hooking into the game, just like a cheat would.
Hooking into the game means, that it manipulates the running Game, to change its behaviour, in this case its making the game spit out Information on certain Events, like when Extracting or when loading into the Game.

The Issue with Overwolf is, that the End-user, meaning me and you, who might be using it, wont know what exactly it does. So it might hook into stuff like Drop-chances and change it without our notice and DE could detect that and give a penalty.

Ofcourse Overwolf will not do that kind of stuff (most likely), but its an example.

To prevent this, my suggestion was to make a log file available that gives the Information, that normally would be aquired using Overwolf. 
A Log file is just a Textfile which is being constantly updated while the Game is running with current events.
Currently you can look into the EE.log, which you can find under C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Loical\Warframe and read a lot of interesting stuff out of this.

if you know Eidolons in Warframe and about the Community trying hard to farm them efficiently, they have a Analyzers that use that EE.log to analyze their runs.
They can see when they made how much progress, where they lost a lot of time etc. and thats all thanks to a single Log file.
Idalon allows you to upload the ee.log and to inspect it for your time, while Yate will inform you about your times in realtime. 

Using a log file is not risky, as it is just a Textfile you are reading, which is Absolutely OK and cannot be considered a cheat unlike Overwolf.

Analyzing such a Textfile is pretty easy, especially if, like presented in the Original Post, you give each line inside the log a special tag, showing the type of information it is representing. ( [Inventory], [Mastery]... )

I hope this helps you understand my Post more.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Karechta

[SpicyDinosaur]

51 minutes ago, Karechta said:

Sure, I can give it a try.

Lets start with Overwolf Applications, like AlecaFrame.
AlecaFrame takes the data that Overwolf provides to give you a nice Interface with all your Account data, like Mastery and Inventory.
Overwolf gets that data by literally hooking into the game, just like a cheat would.
Hooking into the game means, that it manipulates the running Game, to change its behaviour, in this case its making the game spit out Information on certain Events, like when Extracting or when loading into the Game.

The Issue with Overwolf is, that the End-user, meaning me and you, who might be using it, wont know what exactly it does. So it might hook into stuff like Drop-chances and change it without our notice and DE could detect that and give a penalty.

Ofcourse Overwolf will not do that kind of stuff (most likely), but its an example.

To prevent this, my suggestion was to make a log file available that gives the Information, that normally would be aquired using Overwolf. 
A Log file is just a Textfile which is being constantly updated while the Game is running with current events.
Currently you can look into the EE.log, which you can find under C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Loical\Warframe and read a lot of interesting stuff out of this.

if you know Eidolons in Warframe and about the Community trying hard to farm them efficiently, they have a Analyzers that use that EE.log to analyze their runs.
They can see when they made how much progress, where they lost a lot of time etc. and thats all thanks to a single Log file.
Idalon allows you to upload the ee.log and to inspect it for your time, while Yate will inform you about your times in realtime. 

Using a log file is not risky, as it is just a Textfile you are reading, which is Absolutely OK and cannot be considered a cheat unlike Overwolf.

Analyzing such a Textfile is pretty easy, especially if, like presented in the Original Post, you give each line inside the log a special tag, showing the type of information it is representing. ( [Inventory], [Mastery]... )

I hope this helps you understand my Post more.

This sounds like a great idea tbh! Are thke mentioned mods safe though, (I know it's only tangentially related)? Alecaframe seems to be.

[Karechta]

7 minutes ago, SpicyDinosaur said:

This sounds like a great idea tbh! Are thke mentioned mods safe though, (I know it's only tangentially related)? Alecaframe seems to be.

You can read about that here

[Packetdancer]

On 2023-06-19 at 6:07 AM, Karechta said:

Overwolf gets that data by literally hooking into the game, just like a cheat would.
Hooking into the game means, that it manipulates the running Game, to change its behaviour, in this case its making the game spit out Information on certain Events, like when Extracting or when loading into the Game.

FWIW, though I admit I haven't poked at AlecaFrame specifically, I suspect it is functioning in a read-only manner -- e.g., not manipulating the game or changing the game behavior, but spying on what the game does in order to pick up changes to your inventory and such. That still has the potential for other exploits, mind you -- you could, for instance, watch for the events for enemies or items being spawned and indicate where they are -- but it's at least slightly less intrusive/destructive than something actively modifying the core game behavior.

Anyway, I tend to agree an official API would be great. I think putting more information into the game UX itself would be better, as then it would benefit console players as well. I mean, obviously not stuff like integrating to Warframe.market for "this is what this thing goes for" or whatnot, but showing whether a relic is vaulted or not when you're picking one for another round in an endless fissure? No reason they can't do that. It shows up in the interface when you're picking the relic before the mission, after all!

Still, even with those improvements, I think there's value to an API in general. And if I were designing the API myself, I think I'd do something like...

• Have an official web-based API where you can retrieve your overall inventory, mastery data, loadouts, rivens, and so on.
  This would let console players have a mobile app (or a webapp on their laptop, or whatever) which could do things like calculate which relics they have are the best option to crack in a fissure, or track what things they still need to master and give a checklist, etc. Anything you don't want to bundle into the main game.
  
  (No, the current armory API doesn't count, as so far as I know it can only read what your current loadout is. Think something that could do what the companion app does, but via an external API so that you're not logging in a headless version of the client and bouncing your real connection from the game.)
   
• Have an active API to interface with the game in a pre-determined and controlled fashion.
  By which I mean, having an API that is exposed from the process which other external tools can request and use -- whether it be via named pipes, or old school WM (Window message) events, or whatever other IPC (inter-process communication) method you prefer. Because if you design an official API, you can limit the functionality to just what you want to make available -- and then anything using only the official API is guaranteed to be okay.
  
  An API for the running game could provide all the same information as the hypothetical web-based API, but could also do things like offer a hook to let folks know when inventory changes (and include the changes, so you don't need to request the entire inventory again), say when a mission was started (allowing Discord-integration type status messages showing what you're doing in the game), and so on.
  
  You could even design it to allow an application to request certain information be drawn in an overlay, allowing for things like an AlecaFrame-esque "This thing goes for X platinum on WFM" breakdown, though that feels like it might be sort of a stretch goal.