So I’ve been playing WoW since launch, and while I’ve always loved the game, I didn’t really get into proper raiding and high-end content until addons became more of a thing. The tools we’ve had – especially combat addons – honestly changed the game for me in the best way possible.
Thing is, I have pretty severe ADHD, and without certain addons, I probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy the game at all. Stuff like clear sound cues, timers in reliable places, customizable alerts, etc. – they let me focus and actually perform in group content. It gives me the kind of structure and clarity that my brain just doesn’t do on its own.
Now with Blizzard talking about phasing out or heavily limiting combat addons, I’m seriously worried. If I lose those tools, the game might become unplayable for me, and that’s not an exaggeration. WoW is my main hobby – it helps me unwind, feel accomplished, and stay connected with friends. I’m scared of losing that.
I get wanting to make the game more “clean” or challenging or whatever, but I really hope they think about how this affects players who rely on addons for accessibility reasons. Not all of us are trying to “cheese” mechanics or automate things – sometimes it’s just about being able to play at all.
Just needed to get this off my chest. Anyone else feeling the same?
Clear sound cues are pretty much in the game, you only have to listen. Bosses pretty often announce their abilities - it’s just they say smth like “I’ll crush you all” instead of “Frontal AoE. Dodge!”, so you just need to know the mechanic
Timers in reliable places - Blizz mentioned in their interview, that they will do their best to make different events in the fight traceable, so it’s still will be there, just in a different form, I guess
Customizable alerts - if you need a national alarm siren to notify you about standing in the fire or boss casting some 1-shot AoE spell…well, ADHD has nothing to do with this, just do better
I believe, that the whole point of butchering combat addons is not only to go away from “we have to design fights for addons, although should be vise versa”, but to put all the players in same conditions ingame. So, if after these changes you won’t be able to see smth - it’s by design, and if you can’t deal with that - well, I’m afraid you’ll have to either adapt or find another game to play. I’m pretty sure we all will adapt =)
Hey, I’m not sure you fully understand what I’m getting at.
I’m not using addons or weakauras just for fun or because I can’t “be bothered” to learn fights — I use them because they help me manage a real disability. Yeah, there are in-game sound cues and visuals, but for someone with ADHD, that’s often not enough. I need more control over how information is presented – both visually and audibly – to keep up. Without that, it’s not just harder for me, it becomes close to unplayable.
And honestly, I don’t see the harm in this when it comes to PvE. I’m not trying to get world firsts, I’m just playing with friends and having fun. If the problem is competitive balance in high-end content, then fine, address that directly – don’t punish people like me who rely on these tools just to be able to enjoy the game in the first place.
Saying “we all will adapt” doesn’t sit right with me. Would you say that to someone who relies on accessibility options in other games because of visual, auditory, or motor disabilities? Probably not. So why is this any different?
If people are upset just because someone else uses addons in their own game experience, maybe it’s time for them to adapt a little and learn to be more understanding. No one’s forcing anyone to use addons – but taking away the choice hurts people like me a lot more than it helps anyone else.
I would suggest you get in touch with Blizzard Accessibility - https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/244753
If you let them know your worries about what might happen in advance, it might help in the decisions. However, they may tell you to wait until it’s implemented and then report the actual result it’s having so they can investigate.
Well yes. That is another issue, if they are going to make content that doesn’t demand addons, what are they going to do about the older content?
I don’t really think this is a great idea at all, there are tons of issues in World of Warcraft that should be addressed before. I do not know of any player that thinks that using combat addons is an issue for the experience of playing the game. There are some sour people that don’t want to use them but nobody is forcing them? And if you want to play in a guild that pushes and that particular guild is demanding certain addons I sincerely believe that being against it is just egoistic.
The real question here is why modern blizzard is in so little contact with their player base? Why make something so very little people actually want?
Im half expecting the to go through with the update, ban combat addons and then end up nerfing bosses by like 80% first week because you can no longer track everything.
Its clear they really want the FF raiding scene where almost everything is vanilla for the post part but they don’t realise the FF plays at like 50% of wows speed with very clear indicators when somethings going to kill you. When something is about ot happen in wow the only thing warning you currently is addons, the boss might say something but wows mechanics happen so quickly that its already potentionally killed multiple people before the boss has finished his sentence.
No way I’d have persisted with Zek ?? without a custom alert to announce Zek’s self heal was incoming. The lack of an in-game audio cue was a huge disadvantage for Ret with its melee range interrupt.
The concern I have is this: the game’s devs have become used to players using add-ons to overcome design flaws in boss encounters. Remove the add-ons and suddenly the encounters become broken for certain classes / specs because Blizz doesn’t do QA properly.
There have been multiple threads requesting for designing the fights in a way that people who do not play with addons are on an equal footing with people who do.
It’s not about being sour, it’s about wanting a good base game experience.
I got an idea that blizz will just add options.For consoles for example too.I never watched a video they saying we gonna remove addons.They just add their own options.Correct me if im wrong
Here is the thing. Keeping a functionality that might allow 1 or 2 players with severe ADHD from playing, but creating a situation in which a person with out ADHD cant play either with out that addon… is not a good idea.
Blizzard does have a point in what they are doing. Addons are required to play for 99% of people and its true that this situation cannot go on. Because the raids and dungeons are becoming ridiculously complex as a result. And can get super confusing even for someone with out ADHD.
And if the price to stop this escalating absurdity is barring an insignificant minority of people from playing… then its a worthy sacrifice.
Because the game should not be designed with the least common denominator in mind. It should be designed for the average person. Who, coincidentally, dosent have severe ADHD.
As it stands right now, both players can play the game just fine. The person with ADHD has the tools necessary (addons) to fix the issue. And the person without addons, can simply install them.
If they remove addons, now only the person without addons can play, and the person with ADHD, no longer can.
This is not an option for people with out ADHD in a raid with 15 mechanics going on at the same time. With expected reaction times < 1s.
That is literally THE problem Blizzard is trying to address. Blizzard is not trying to simply “bother” or “discriminate” people with ADHD. Their goal is to address what people with out ADHD do with those addons…
THAT is the problem.
So what do you suggest? Have people send a doctors notice to Blizzard so they are allowed to install DBM and WA while everyone else cant? How would that work?
Either we all have addons. Or none of us have. Simple as that.
As it stands right now, both players can play the game just fine. The person with ADHD has the tools necessary (addons) to fix the issue. And the person without addons, can simply install them.
If they remove addons, now only the person without addons can play, and the person with ADHD, no longer can.
Please, think before you post.
As Pandazak said.
But also I want to add: If people think that the game cant be played without addons right now and want the raids and dungeons to be less complex, why not make it so without prohibiting the addons?
I mean, the issues you talk about can be addressed even without removing addons?
In my opinion its a very weird statement “I don’t want to play with addons and therefore no one else should be allowed to do it”. It doesn’t make any sense at all!
You want to reduce the difficulty of Raids to LFR level ? Because that is what a “raid that dosent require addons” looks like.
Now get 20 people on discord. That have say… average skill (heroic raid level) and tell them to play LFR raid. WITH addons. WITH WA and DBM. What results would you expect?
Is that how your vision of wow would look like?
Exactly. That is what I mean by “reducing the game to the least common denominator”.
I mean… the “addon problem” and “blizzard/addon arms race” is a pretty known problem. And blizzard’s goal with addon pruning is pretty clear. I dont know why I have to explain this.