If the base game had all the functions of Plater, weakauras and Details integrated, I wouldn’t need addons. But they still shouldn’t be removed, because I think once you understand the game beyond a shallow way, you know exactly what information you need.
I’m also a returning player. I thought I quit for good due to personal reason, but then they pulled me back in
if addons .made the game easy everyone would have CE/Glad ?
Of course the game would never have all the functions of the aforementioned addons, especially weakauras, because weakauras allow direct access to Lua, so it wouldn’t differ from current state of things at all. Some good ideas from those addons definitely could be used in the game, for example I love nameplate coloring by threat when I’m tanking and I definitely think that the game should have that option.
Absolute majority of games do not have that kind of customizability and they do just fine. Just because WoW went that route 20 years ago doesn’t mean that it should not change. Of course I do understand, that it’s unlikely for them to completely disable addons, but the fact that they implement more way to restrict addons every year means that the game moves into that direction.
For example you can’t access friendly nameplates in the dungeons using addons, it was disabled few years ago. You can’t access some boss buffs and debuffs using addons. You can’t recursively /click macroses since TWW. It’s entirely possible for them to just disable addons in the instances one day.
Another example of issues caused by addons is Auction House. While back in the day AH UI was absolutely abysmal, current UI is pretty solid. Yet when I’m posting some trade good, there’s always some cheater who put 1 item with 50% discount, expecting me to post my goods with wrong price and instantly buying it out. There’s no way it’s implemented without addon. And it only benefits those players, this playstyle I’d only call scam, it brings no good to the game.
Probably the only addons that I wouldn’t want to remove is RP-related ones, but, again, Blizzard could just implement them in the game, this is RPG after all, so catering to some roleplay should not be something out of question.
They should control and restrict addons way more, because some may be used to aid cheating methods, or they can hurt the game like those AH addons, but addons overall should not generally be forbidden. I think Blizzard should make their own Addon Manager Interface, and only allow approved Addons.
AddOns make the game easy, fact. You can even see the ladder from last expas, where it is super tough from 2.2 to lets say 2.7k mmrs because people have the same info displayed through addons just to say few examples, and the only key difference is game knowledge and micro play that comes along with experience and observation.
Most of those players who steamroll their game to 2.2 don’t have the knowledge of the game to react accordingly, they have alerts here and there and they just play according to what a weakaura alerter say, it’s a no brainer and trivializes legit skill xd.
That’s the key; to find a sweet point where addons allow you to customize certain aspects, without being too good at thinking by you.
They won’t because this adds more work than they want to do when it comes to managing addons. They would also become liable for any viruses/keyloggers etc that may infect the PCs of their customers if an addon they approved in their database contained them. By not having their own addon manager they’re actually protecting themselves from potential consequences from ill management.
I do agree that they need to start limiting some functionality in game for current addons but they need to be careful not to go too extreme.
Precissely that.
AddOns force people to be elitist, because they make the game easy, so if you have every addon at your reach and you can’t play the game, means that you are bad (to the elitist ones i mean), which could be untrue, maybe you don’t have certain aura, maybe you don’t want to install them; but see the irony here; not using an addon will make you lose value as a player; and since everyone is using those auras becuase nobody wants to be left over, the addon usage or, excessive addon usage has been such a thing that even the game has developed around it, looping into a toxicity game design-gameplay that is not casual friendly.
The irony of the irony is that even though all of this, the game is developed with gamemodes and difficulties more casual oriented, which is boring because it will be always an addon that will trivialise it and make it even easier.
No, the addons are not gonna contain them, because they are just stored locally as lua files in the interface. The issue is usually the client, which unzips them. It’s way less likely that the Blizzard client is gonna give you a virus than something like curseforge.
The mainly annoying things for me is that I “have to” use a third party client for addons, or else manage them manually. I think Blizzard should at least offer the little effort of providing their own Addon manager tbh.
i never raid just becous the game atm is made so complex you need multiple addons and be good ad it using them, this is wrong but it is what it is so raids, no so are high end mythic+ dungeons, they all can’t be played without the use of addons.
I do recommend this video, for everyone of you that are interested in the topic.
It is long, take it with coffee. Have a nice day; dont get Jbaited by the title, hehe.
I hope they advance further.
I want both of my arms replaced with programmable cybernetic ones, if I graft my fingertips onto them and connect them to my mouse and keyboard it will still be me pressing the buttons.
If I get a second set of cybernetic arms I can connect them to my body and do other stuff while I play WoW, like go downstairs and play my Xbox.
Also maybe a DBM brain implant connected to my CNS so my nerves react to the commands automatically.
You dont need any addons to raid.
How does me using a weakaura to track guardian spirit procs make weakauras “play for me”? You can’t see guardian spirit has procced until it’s over if you’re using the default UI and no weakauras, you’ll only know it procced when it’s on a 3 min cd instead of 1 min. There’s no way anyone can scour the combat log during combat to check if it procced or not.
How does me using a weakaura to make the dungeons clickable in the m+ tab to teleport to them instead of having to open my spell book or putting the teleports on my bars, make weakauras “play for me”?
How does me putting certain buffs/spells closer to my center of attention during gameplay make weakauras “play for me”?
How does tracking profession knowledge stuff make weakauras “play for me”?
Ok, so you have a problem with 0.1% of the addons, and then you throw all of them under the bus. Not a fair discussion.
No, no, currently M+ shows that this is bonkers. It doesn’t make the game easy, in any way.
What tends to happen is a cycle of the following;
We see this, imo, clearly in the “new” weapon and trinket mechanics. Most of them don’t require anything super special. But
a.) to make the most out of it, you’re gonna need an addon to track everything (even incoming effects from other players…)
b.) the ones with a “downplay” will need some sort of third-party tracking as the amount of buffs we get nowadays is … just…out of control, and they come and go quite frequently (some stay mere seconds) that following a specific buff and its timer is blatantly impossible in the default UI
It’s not that Addons make the game easy. By now, Addons are close to mandatory to track basic things because the default UI is pretty much suboptimal in doing so.
Can look at boss-encounters too. Why do we need DBM or alike? Complex encounters with specific actions made when specific mechanics happen which tend to have specific triggers → just make this information baseline in the default UI…
Over the years WoW’s telegraphing has become better, mechanics more intuitive, default UI better at displaying relevant information and most addons are about customization and highlighting a few vital details.
“addons playing the game for you” has become a meme, and is only a recurring topic because every 6 months a casual player who doesn’t use addons wants to drag everyone down to their unfun level of gameplay.
Weak Auras does FAR MORE than just boss encounters… you can literally make an entire UI out of it.
And many people use class specific WAs to have their ability info and resources in the center of the screen instead of looking down at their hotbars.
Or a tracked checklist and reminders. Or whatever…
Plus let’s not ignore the fact an absolute ton of what were once addons became an integral part of the game which you so readily make use of without a second thought…
Addons exist to expand outside the scope of what Blizz didn’t think of doing before they potentially adopted it. WoW’s default UI has always sucked.
I use addons for my UI (moving bars around and removing cluttering space claiming “art”) and for my RP profile
WoW’s UI is not good, I would even say its gotten worse since the last rework of the UI (the spellbook is unmoveable and takes up waaaaay too much screen space, by default it is always covering my action bars which are closer to my character and not snapped to the bottom of the screen which makes assigning abilities a pain in the rear)
I don’t want to see my quality of life improving addons removed as part of a denial strategy to people using addons as performance enhancers
Just for the record, there’s a line where we can understand where an addon satisfies an “immersion” or QoL need, and another where an addon is purely combat oriented, designed to save cognitive player power, alowing the player to focus in other things, which is something that gives an advantage over people that don’t use such addons/auras.
Of course that tracking your procs is not bad, but it’s close to that limit line.
Tracking procs is not bad; we can see it through our buffs or our sounds, but having an extra sound, alert, display, timer track, improves direct performance overal. One could justify and say that “I know how to play my character and I don’t need WeakAuras to play”, and it’s play, but the fact of not having them, will axiomaticly return in a loss of performance even if it’s diferential.
The “formula” or “reasoning” to see if something is across the line is something like:
Is that tool giving me information that saves me time or cognitive processes even if it’s very little? Yes → across the line. No → safe.
I know it’s a hard take, but it is how it is. Every player, as it can be read in this post, is… not fragile, but selfish to himself, wanting to play the game as someone wants, but also critizising people for being elitist due performance. Which is a nonsense in the big picture.
If certain addOns allow and are specificly designed to improve combat performance and also we all agree that everyone “should play the game as they want”, then, competitive toxic behaviours that emanate from pure competitive performance given from addOns are a side effect that we should not critizise.
My point of view from all of this, and this last paragraph is purely personal opinion (disclaimer), is that there should be a difference between self performance in therms of gameplay (rotation and whatever), and performance of perception or what’s happening around my character. So addOns that track enemy CDs, enemy DRs (even if they make the PvP game playable, for example), or addOns that autopilot and reduce some PvE mechanics to a “do X” instead of encouraging players to thing by themselves, should not be allowed; where addOns that track your own stuff and make you personally perform better at your combat or resource management, should be allowed, but only because the game has been developed around addOns (thats why we have some procs and interactions through abilities). If we could have a game that is more “classic” or even “cataclysm” like, that feature would not be needed hence should not be permited. But ye, it is diffuse and unclear where to put the line in this last point.
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