It is Time to Ban WoW Addons

[Fargo-stormrage (Fargo)]

I can always spot players that would rather not pay attention to their groups and their joined raids in LFR.

I feign and an immediate heals goes off. Sooner or later you can spot the macro timer going off.

[Malikypewpew-twisting-nether]

@Beki-argent-dawn

The recent WF races are no longer just a competition of game skills, but also a competition of which guild can write best codes and addons. RWF is in game and irl gold sink. It is working a full time job instead of a playing a game.

It is not surprising at all that more and more hardcore raiding guilds stopped or disbanded. And this trend will continue.

Addons that think for you agree, and its something blizzard activly tries to design fights away from, such as lord of dread… the rest, no…
And to your second point… I have yet to get a sensible answer as to why I should care what you, or the RWF raiders do and how it impacts me.

@Beki-argent-dawn

I have to agree some streamers have said already: raiding is too hard. It is already hard to find people, form a group and organize a raid for casuals. Then the raids are significantly harder and harder over the years. It is just not fun for casual raiding.

Disagree… there’s normal, it’s a snooze fest, there’s LFR it’s a snooze fest for even a coma patient…
I’m willing to bet that if you were honest you’d realize your problem isn’t the raid, but the reward structure… the difference in power between someone only doing normal and one doing mythic is extreme.

@Beki-argent-dawn

One of the big reason is the addon. Ion said in recently interview, Blizzard has to make the encounters harder and harder, because combat addons are more and more intelligent. This is just a vicious circle.

Then you weren’t listening if this was your take away from that interview

@Beki-argent-dawn

Players shall not be dependant on third party addons to play a game. Basic addons like UI customization, damage meter, coord, should be integrated in the game itself.

Which was something he said they were working on in that interview.

[Thedarksteel-ravencrest]

But but if u ban addons how will people know how to make interrup?

[Teann-arathor]

@Beki-argent-dawn

And the removal of combat addons like DBM will certainly make encounter design more creative.

DBM literally makes it possible for the fights to be more creative. Unless you want to claim that tank’n’spank and kill 2-3 adds classic fights are more creative, which would be ridiculous.

@Beki-argent-dawn

In sum, Blizzard, it is time to improve wow default settings and ban ALL addons.

Yeah, ban addons and then add them to the game. That would make a huge difference.

[Thatsitthen-darkspear]

39 I am boggled

[Calándra-bloodhoof]

You look at The boss and see when he casts.

[Mackerelth-turalyon]

the health of the enimes go up so i say we ban the peggle addon

[Bauldheed-moonglade]

@Mackerelth-turalyon

so i say we ban the peggle addon

Nooooooooooo! Have mercy upon the Peggle!

[Vinnem-eonar]

If they redesign the game around it, sure.

I don’t enjoy having to redownload/update/get addons to be able to play my classes optimally and be able to clear raid or dungeon bosses.
It is ridiculous that we are at this point, but this is the game.

[Lockfromwish-aegwynn]

Nah, addons are fine.

Weakauras on the other hand are something I would 100% vouch for being removed.

[anon20309957]

Blizzard needs to improve their in-game warnings and telegraphing so that people feel comfortable doing dungeons/raids without the likes of Weakauras or DBM telling them everything. Its addons that feed too much information that are the problem.

[Frances-hellscream (Frances)]

As a casual player, I had a look at the all addons I currently use:

All The Things
Altoholic
Badboy etc.
Battle Pet BreedID
Better Wardrobe and Transmog
BtW Objective Filter
Candy Buckets
Covenant Mission Success Estimates
DataStore etc.
DBM
GatherMate2
HandyNotes etc.
Immersion
Omen Threat Meter
PetTracker
Prat 3.0
RareScanner
Recount
TomTom

Most of the addons I wouldn’t want to be without as it saves a lot of time looking at websites such as Wowhead. That said, I don’t believe game mechanics in dungeons/raids should be so difficult that players require addons to complete the game content.

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

Off-topic aside: you have PetTracker and Battle Pet BreedID but not Rematch? You should try it!

[Frances-hellscream (Frances)]

Thanks! I’ll look that up, most pet battles I do is random button pressing and hope I win hehe… it’s not a very efficient way of battle/collecting pets I must say!

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

Another case. So many people get a few pets to 25, and then have no idea where to go next. Only one of many areas where the devs give too little guidance. I think the devs should worry less about the UI and worry more about providing good information.

[Susanne-moonglade]

To ban all addons would make me stop playing the same day and I’m not alone - my friend I play with would do the same. We are both autistic and some things, some goals are very difficult to achieve or even understand without a little help from addons like Immersion, or those that help in minigames. I believe the correct terminology in English is “perceptual disorder”. That is also the reason I use an alternate health bar for mobs and addons that correct my typos when chatting. You would not want to read my text without them. I can’t even begin to dream that Blizzard would suddenly include these things in default game and thus remove the need for addons. Not every addon is built to make raiding easier and not every addon you deem useless is that useless for someone else.

[Yuumyuum-silvermoon]

Addons have always been part of playing wow and that will never change.
Even in vanilla we used addons, but the difference from now is that back then raids were built without addons in mind.
I know raids would be easier if they went back to their old mindset, but is it really that bad if more people were able to clear mythic?

In my mind heroic raids like it is now (mechanic-wise) is good enough to be mythic. All they have to adjust is increase the damage/hp of bosses. Adding even more mechanics like they do for mythic is not really needed.

Back in MoP Heroic actually was mythic before mythic was a thing. Even a scrub like me was able to clear the hardest raids and life was good lol.

[Greasybolt-tarren-mill]

How about you stop using them?
There your addon problem is solved.

[Ishayo-tarren-mill]

I think a huge part of the problem is how computationally powerful addons have become. They can do some insane stuff.

For example they can change your keybindings on the fly outside of combat at any time, which allows completely abusing the AH. They can coordinate with one another to assign raid roles and tasks. They can predict mechanics and assist you with them like there’s no tomorrow.

Fundamentally the issue with addons is, and has always been, their ability to coordinate players.

But a current strong point of addons is that many of them present information that the base UI should just have, but doesn’t, like diminishing returns. Or, even more frequently, make you aware of abilities that are almost impossible to see - like it just has no visual effect at all and yet it can blow you up in seconds. This happens mainly in PvP but it has happened in PvE as well.

Getting rid of addons is something I do not think is a good move right now, but I would say that the ability for addons to coordinate between each other should be removed. Addons should not be able to read text entered by the player during combat (reading notes to coordinate), should not be able to send chat messages (chat bubble abuse), set markers automatically in combat (strategy and awareness abuse in M+), talk directly to the addons of other players (Classic layering abuse, master/slave weakaura abuse), change keybindings on a keypress (AH posting abuse) although on spec/talents/covenant etc. changing it should be possible for an addon to hook in there and change stuff, and much more.

They really have to get back to presenting in-game information and assisting the player in managing their character in small ways. Sorting your bags, managing gear and talent sets, making bigger or smaller health bars and mana bars, moving action bar around, managing portals and food and healthstones, changing how some information is displayed, etc.

And if they can’t get back to that, then… time to get rid of addons, yeah. It sucks but if people won’t stop abusing it then that’s what has to be done. But before they do, they really need to improve the game’s readability a lot.

[Amonet-ravencrest]

@Beki-argent-dawn

Why so many other games don’t need addon, but wow needs?

Pretty much every single game could be improved with an addon, just look at skyrim. The difference is that WoW lets us use addons.