The devs had to make encounters with the prospect in mind that players were going to build or change an addon that would make part of that encounter trivial. That literally impacted the sort of things they’d do with encounters.
So we DO get affected. And that’s why I’m hoping for the best: An improvement on what type of encounters we’ll get now (and again: For some that improvement will be ‘ruining it’ instead, that’s unfortunate; but part of it).
Cheers!
And yeah, your words weren’t exactly what he said, but sure; the important bit is indeed there; that they used addons as a crutch sometimes in their development.
Except this is only the case for Mythic raids and high end M+, and for M+ that mainly comes down to how using your utility and defensives becomes a necessity as the content hits harder and harder, so as a healer you’d really want to know whether your tank used their CDs or whether you should use your own to prevent overlapping them and running out on later packs. So it seems at least most content being perfectly doable without addons means that content isn’t designed around the idea of needing them. So really, not to sound rude, but no you are not affected since you don’t do M+ or Mythic raids by the looks of it. I don’t do that content either, but I do get affected because I main healer (until Midnight at least) and myself and countless other healers still express concerns over how their current iteration of the UI is still not as good as what healing addons provide. And just to be clear, these addons do not play the game for you, they just make up for the lackluster functions and info provided by the base UI. Again not to be rude, but you are a hunter who does not do very high end content, and hey if that’s what you enjoy more power to you, but if I was playing a DPS only I also would not be concerned over losing my healing addons and WAs that track buff and HoT uptime far better than the (currently broken) CD manager does.
No it’s not.
Encounters are less punishing and sometimes don’t have all the same mechanics on lower difficulties; but the essence is the same. The mechanics are the same basic mechanics. Their overal design is in place.
It doesn’t matter whether or not addons are needed there; the mechanics and basic designs exist.
Again, the difficulty in M+ scalability mainly comes everything hitting harder. You need to be more on point with interrupts because a cast that chunked you for 20% HP before might now chunk you for 90% instead, so interrupt rotations need to be on point. Tanks need to be on point with defensives to not be melted, but you also can’t just waste them all because they have CDs and M+ is timed so you can’t just sit and wait between packs for all of your CDs to come back up. Healers also need to be able to clearly see what defensives tanks use in order to use their own when necessary. All of these things are not feasible with the info that the base UI provides, unless you are all in VC. Normal and HC content is never this punishing, it can even be quite easy at times. That’s subjective of course, but the difficulty always stays the same, it never scales upwards.
What Blizzard deems nessesary info will be provided through the game’s own UI (with addons still being able to change how that info is displayed to the player)
And encounters and class abilities and whatnot are now made with the knowledge that ‘some of that info now not being present’; so it should be fine.
Which would be fine if we actually got all of the necessary features implemented, but as of yet many healers express concerns over the lack of certain key features that could be implemented quite easily. Like sure, I’ll wait and see, but how long are we going to have to wait for these implementations? Knowing Blizzard it might take some time after Midnight release. With every new iteration people still have to bring up again and again the same features they’ve been asking for since forever.
I get that concern, but what many players are forgetting is that we’re not looking at the complete picture yet.
So while out of the correct context some changes may seem alarming; as part of a grand overhaul of many things, it could very well be completely fine.
You right now might think you need A, B, C and D. But maybe the devs are making sure through various systems and encounter designs that you won’t need D anymore at any time and that C is only relevant in certain situations that will have a ‘safety net’ in place in the game.
We just don’t know any of that yet for sure, without a clear view of the whole picture.
That’s fair, but it’s still concerning that rather than gradually getting rid of addons and implementing features as they go like everyone initially thought, they hit the nuke button and now have a few months to catch up on over 10 years of addon development, while also developing 2 expansions, not to mention that means they have to do a complete 180 on design philosophy that got people into using addons in the first place, all the while some of those features they implemented themselves are still bugged for some specs. Maaaybe I’m just pessimistic, but I think that’s fair given their track record. I would much rather end up being wrong and being pleasantly surprised, rather than thinking “I’m sure it will be fiiine” and being massively disappointed. I’ll never forget the TBC Classic shop, it was a big lesson in terms of whether I should trust Blizzard at their word.
The game is bad at giving us certain information and when it comes to combat that has meant some of us using hideously large WA packs etc to make up for that shortfall.
I have no idea what it’s going to be like and I’m a little worried that this is a very ambitious move, but on the other hand not needing various addons for M+ and Raiding will be fab. PvP is no different, they have certain must haves too.
Ofc I also use a load of addons for convenience when it comes to other aspects of the game. Those are not really going to be affected though.
I don’t really don’t think generalisations about what kinds of players do what or want what is helpful though. Individuals all feel different in all areas of the game.
Never used large WA packs myself, they take forever to import, show way too much tat that I’m not interested in, and tank performance. I always make my own, super simple WAs now that do and show exactly what I want and need and nothing more. People’s minds always go to the packs that competitive raiders use that do a ton of heavy lifting in terms of cognitive load, but forget that some addons/WAs do super simple, super basic stuff that the base UI simply lacks.
Which is why I make sure to remind people that addon users don’t consist purely out of “high end content elitists who look down on the addon-less peasants” that make their UI a cacophony of different sounds and indicators and alerts and lines and whatnot. At the end of the day, it’s a whole wide range of people that use them, and are affected by their loss in different ways.
No because every now and then you will encounter people with addons who will use the information it feeds them to impede on other peoples enjoyment of the game.
That’s general toxicity which will still exist whether addons exist or not. Case and point, people suspecting others of using the OBR and ridiculing them for it. I’ve seen at least 1 person who wanted OBR users to have a special indicator so that they could exclude them. I suspect it will be the same for people who won’t use the built in addon replacers.
And that’s absolutely all right, because they will know what those addons can do and what not - and it will be fair; everybody playing on the same basis, not forced to investigate stuff on their own if they want to have a chance to be competitive. Because I don’t want to waste time investigating. I just want to start the game and have everything present IN the game.
I’ve played this game for 15 years, and in those 15 years, they’ve never let MY expectations down. I believe in our devs. And if it takes ages - well - at least we will all be in the same situation. Even playing field. Again, this is fair.
And having too many choices is a bad thing in my opinion. Again. If everybody is using the same thing and having trouble, devs at least know the problem has to be something that affects all, and isn’t just the result of some random addons reacting badly with each other. Again, even playing field. This is good.
This is enough of a completely bonkers statement for me to not bother with you already but you are also the same guy who was being a massive hypocrite in another thread about how the game should change to cater to your old age, but other people with impairments should just get better at the game. Sorry, but I won’t be bothering to read any of your comments anymore, and I’ve put you on ignore, so don’t bother replying.
On the ‘nuke’ issue; I do get their thinking. They went ‘nuke’ initially and are now slowly seeing what they CAN allow and such, in cooperation with addon developers. It’s easier to build stuff from the ground up, rather than try to pull out specific building blocks and hope everything else doesn’t collapse by doing so.
But yeah, like I said; I understand the concern.
And I will admit: It’s easy for me to say ‘I’m going to trust them and see how it pans out’, because yes, I do get impacted very minimally (unless they err the other way; in which case all those optional features become mandatory and I won’t be able to even do my own type of beloved content anymore without all that extra info; which for me would suck big time).
We’ll see.
Worst case scenario: My time with WoW ends.
Which isn’t all bad to be honest. Plenty of other hobbies or interests I could pump that money into.
I know you won’t be reading this, but I still want to state for others who might read this that I don’t see it that way. I never asked the game to change - I want it to go back to the way it was before it started to change because of people using addons.
When I started playing this game, it was in a state where casuals and old people could easily play it, but it has changed in a bad way. I want it to go back to how it was - which was by the way also the time when the game was most popular. So I don’t ask the game to become something it never was, I want it to turn back, while addons add things to the game that weren’t intended to be a part of it.
