Well, it is indeed annoying. But I also must face the multitude of skills with apostrophes in their name.
Here's a the logical problem... take the following. Which string of characters is the combatant name, and which is the skill name?
| Quote: |
| aaaaa' bb'cs's dddddd's eeeeee's fffffffff |
- The parsing engine already knows that the first apostrophe is not a delimiter because a quote mark alone not coming after an 's' or 'z' cannot be valid.
- A quote mark without spacing after it cannot be a delimiter -- not to mention it is not 's
- Apostrophe S following an 's' is not valid, so this is not a delimiter.
- This 's is valid
- This 's is valid
Given that the last two quote marks could be valid delimiters...- a+b+c+d could be the combatant name
- e+f could be the skill name
- a+b+c+d+e could be the combatant name
- f could be the skill name
ACT will invariably choose the second option. This was done for the sake of parsing players using skills with apostrophe S in them. Even back before T5 there were already mobs with 's somewhere in the name. Unfortunately both options create multiple combatants for only one. Incoming damage is always parsed correctly. So you're left with #1, making a new combatant for every combatant using a skill with 's in it. Or #2, making a combatant incorrectly named with incorrectly named skills in the deeper data, then a correctly named combatant taking damage.
Option #1 parses players correctly. Option #2 parses mobs correctly(unless they use 's skills as well).
You'll notice that I have once made a plugin to fix this sort of problem with Othysis Muravian. She spawns clones named after the player with an apostrophe S, and thus any damage done by the clones shows as a skill under the cloned player. As a specific case, the plugin fixes the parsed data in real time.
The only good way to work around the issue as you say is to expand upon that idea. Take things as a per situation basis to fix the problem -- as there is no blanket solution. Of course I don't suggest that you make a plugin for every case. I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to have ACT do it if the user supplies a list of situations(names for offending mobs). I was already toying with the idea for a new ACT tab for adjusting parse data. For things such as the new Inquisitor spell making the mob heal players and crediting the mob, not the Inquisitor... and for things such as classes giving procs to others -- re-attributing that damage to the proc buffer. Just for curiousity's sake... not to throw what DPS think of themselves into question.
