The journey to update World of Warcraft’s combat experience continues, with a focus on making gameplay more intuitive and approachable—without requiring addons. In the Midnight expansion, we’re working closely with addon authors and taking in community feedback to create a more streamlined and engaging combat experience for everyone. The World of Warcraft development team shares the guiding principles behind these updates, focusing on ongoing customization and increased accessibility whether players choose to use addons or not.
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I’ve just noticed this has quickly gone from
“we don’t want you to have to go to somewhere out of game for addons to play the game”
To
“We want you to have to go to somewhere outside of the game to import settings for our addons to play the game”
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In your example Life Cocoon is shown as a large defensive, while Ironbark is not, is there a reason for that?
“Again, addons will still be able to reskin raid frames or create totally custom raid frames for those who prefer that.”
That’s all I needed to know, and as long as I can still use Bartender to adjust the size and ordering of my action bars, I will be happy.
Yet there’s still no work on the worst part of the base UI, the absolutely insufficient combat text that provides no context whatsoever. At least adding ability icons to damage numbers should be provided by the base UI. This element was dated 10 years ago, less so now, and is completely reliant on addons - and the issue isn’t even aknowledged or mentioned.
I’ve still got concerns over how much we can actually customise the “look and feel” of the UI. I don’t feel confident that some of the ways my UI customises the way certain things are displayed will be possible in Midnight.
For example, my (hand crafted) custom UI displays charges as a series of bars with the “currently refilling” charge represented by a progress bar that slowly fills up.
In my opinion the way they chose to implement this is wrong (although I understand that this was probably the easier approach given the time available), currently they UI a “query based” UI model - that means addon code asks for the data and then sends it to the UI to displayed (e.g. if you want to show the targets name you first ask “What is the targets name” then you say to the label in which you want to show that name “Set you text to this”). I believe that they should of gone for a “binding” model instead, this means that you would tell the label “You display my targets name”. This would make it much easier to customise the look and feel whilst preventing addons from doing anything clever e.g. the addon code doesn’t have a value to interrogate and do all the “clever stuff” they want to avoid with.
I would wager it is looking good but it should continue getting better
One thing you still haven’t mention which NEEDS to be implemented is the ability to add custom sounds to events in your preferred logic.
Like if I want a custom sound alert for a certain proc, or if my health or mana drops below a specified %.
Things like these are also a vital part of the UI kit and especially helpful for accessibility.
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Its good, after many weeks to see at least some communication regarding raid frames.
We are adding a setting allowing players to choose from three different layouts for the information shown in each player frame
The problem is not so much the layout. Its that we want to filter out specific buffs and debuffs, and specifiy the location, size and color/icon of where those buffs and debuffs are displayed. Just adding three layouts will not be enough for healers.
For dispels—Magic, Poison, Curse, or Disease—we are making them bolder on the frame, so they’re easier to notice, along with color and border visualizations.
This is good. But what still is not possible, for example, to color the full player frame with the color of the debuff.
Going to far with killing addons, alto weakauras can do to much, the Blizzard own version of this can’t do anything even that what is technically fine.
What its wrong to be able to track my own defensives ? have TTS cue’s for interupt or cooldowns being off cooldown upon entering combat ? TTS cue’s for free spell cast such as word of glory ? or TTS cues when a defensive buff expired ?
Do you want me to play tank next expansion at all or you just want to see the World of Warcraft burn for an entire expansion ?
No i will not keep my eyes on a tiny buff bar to track my defensives i need audio cues and so on to play tank when you already visually overload me with to much information audio cues are the best solution for that.
Also whats wrong with being able to see who has interrupt on cooldown ? you know people can also communicate that, so what you basically saying enter voice chat communicate or you do not get to push high keys right ?
Removing these addons is not gonna solve anything, heck its only gonna make things worse, if its for raid mechanics fine go create your own boss mods then so we do not have to do it for you, if you do not want this fine but let us track or own defensives just the way we are able to right now with weak auras
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I use MSBT and I use sounds for procs too 
After 20 something years playing this game, I would gladly use the default UI if it could do the following things:
Nameplates:
- Able to change color with specific debuffs. Several specs that I play use dots/debuffs in their main rotation. One of the first things I do is make it that mobs with those debuffs have different color nameplates. When we have 7-15 mobs together, it is impossible to track the debuffs with just some aura icon.
- Name change of the mobs. Most of the mobs in dungeons have almost the same name, with just the last word being different. We need a way to shorten the names to the “different” word.
Unit frames:
- Same as nameplates, changing unit frame colors depending on buff. Some healers/aug only care about spreading specific hots/buffs around. Being able to change the color of a unit frame when the buff is active is a game changer.
- Change the color depending on health. Healers use that for many years.
Debuffs/Buffs:
- Option to change a buff to multiple bars. Mainly used to track overlapping stacks like ironfur.
- Option to change a buff bar to track stacks instead of duration. Main reason for that is Maelstrom Weapon for enhancement. Having your main resource as a tiny icon number is not acceptable. Need to have an alternative way to track it like a bar/combo points as an example.
- Blacklist buffs/debuffs. In unit frames and nameplates there are a ton of debuffs or buffs that you do not care at all to track, or that tracking them would be too “tryhard”. We need a way to choose what to track and what to ignore.
Assuming the above options would be available with the default UI, I do not think I would ever need something like ElvUI again.
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whatever yapping blizz is using for justification = removal of player-driven customization and agency regardless
Is that why some of the biggest addon authors basically said “nop” and walked away?
Actions matter. This is just talk. Ambitious vision, different in reality.
Atm it feels like you’re aiming high and you’re going to shoot your own foot.
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Atm I would like a lot more options on the nameplates, I didnt expect Plater levels of options but simple things like text size, choosing abbreviated form for mob names etc. It’s too basic at present.
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Nameplates are big sticking point to me, as well, despite “just” being a fairly casual raider. Hope to see that addressed!
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i wonder which of the addon developers blizzard is claiming to be interacting with as almost all of the famous addons are putting their development on hold .
my fear is addon development will totally shift to classic if blizzard doesnot rectify the situation .they should had taken this addon thingie slowly .they are moving too fast and in process their own ui is uptil now failing to provide even basic functionalities.
secretly i am still hoping blizzard will pull it off and surprise us with good implementation .one can dream
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