Are Addons Ultimately Bad for WoW?

[melodramocracy]

Over the very long term, yes. They're more detrimental than beneficial.

They are a boon to the dev team however, as they allow the community to serve as endless beta testers for the ideas Blizzard eventually cherrypicks without paying for or having to support during the process. There certainly are worse ways to make a living.

[Deleted]

Over the very long term, yes. They're more detrimental than beneficial.

They are a boon to the dev team however, as they allow the community to serve as endless beta testers for the ideas Blizzard eventually cherrypicks without paying for or having to support during the process. There certainly are worse ways to make a living.

News just in.

Developers making mod support for games so they can steal the ideas of their fans.

Lets cat all mod support from games because game devs are greedy bastards.

Sounds legit

[melodramocracy]

News just in.

Developers making mod support for games so they can steal the ideas of their fans.

Lets cat all mod support from games because game devs are greedy bastards.

Sounds legit

Implying this doesn't happen? Look at the popular add-ons in WoW that wound up actually becoming part of the game. From questhelper to various aspects of DBM to Oqueue (and variants), with many others in between. That integration isn't accidental.

This isn't some nefarious scheme on Blizzards, just a reality of how it ends up working.

[Pantalaimon]

Some addons are nice to have.
But people should not be forced into certain addons just to raid for example.
Many raiders who do not care about the game itself just big numbers force addons on novices to raiding.

Many WoW Purists agree that addons are ultimately a bad thing because they change how the game is meant to be played in the first place.
Are you concerned about addons overwriting the basic structure of WoW?

Nope. Don't want to deal with addons you are still welcome to lead your own group where you don't have to stress it.

I'd also say that in general addons being required by groups is less prevalent than it was in BC or Wrath. I remember when dps were required to have Omen, a DBM equivalent, some type of Skada-eqsque number tracker, etc. Now you pretty much only need Iskar Assist & maybe DBM (depending on if you're progressing/pugging or not. Most groups I've been in have been fine placing the expectations of knowing the fights more than having DBM.

[Bigbazz]

God no, addons make my life so much better when playing. Without addons and customisation I don't know that I would still play, because customisation in a game like WoW is essential.

[Hydrofluoric]

*shrug*

I see no problem with allowing the community to make features that Blizzard otherwise wouldn't due to lack of time/different priorities. Perfect example is oQueue and how Blizzard finally implemented their own.
RIP oQueue, you will be missed

[Deleted]

I always kind of questioned bow mandatory add-ons actually are for raiding outside of a very few specific examples like wrought chaos.

I don't really notice a performance difference in the vast majority of most fight. I think a greater value is placed on them then is really warranted at this point. That said I can get the draw they do highlight what you need to pay attention to in fight so it goes both ways.

I don't think add-ons harm the game but I really wish blizzard would improve the stock auction house ui. That thing is a relic that should of been updated a long time ago.

[Lei]

Well, I remember on WoD beta when Thogar was in testing, and in the feedback someone from the dbm team posted something like "Would be cool if Blizz wouldn't hide the track number broadcasting, not like we couldn't get around it, but would be so much easier"
I found this interesting back then, made me thinking.
So we have tracks, that were implemented knowing the addons will be able to read and broadcast the pattern... But then that made the encouter easier. So they make harder encounters because we have addons. Is this good? I don't know. Could we have encounters like Thogar without considering addons when they are being designed? Would we be back to training dummy style fights without addons?

And let's not forget we have had addons like AVR and things that Weakauras can do lately (Archi). And the best guilds having to have(?) someone who can write an addon. "Best guild on Antarctis LF a tank and an addon writer" Hm...

On the other hand I use countless addons just to make my everyday-life easier.

[Wolfrick]

If you ask me some addons are good and others are bad, I know this will be a huge STORM against me, but I think the most used addon "Deadly boss modes" makes Raids focus to much on the number and MATH, It should be about surviving and making progress (a Real Fighter dont stand around and focus on "hmmm do I do 10 more damage to my opponen with this attack" he Uses and ability and sees if the opponet get hurt hard "looses more health, not looses more Numbers").

like when you fight a boss, you have TIMERS who tell you Exaclty when the boss with do that attack.... what is the fun in that, to me, you should be afraid and stay accuret so that when you see the boss Cast the spell or do the special ability, you have few seconds to react.

it will make it way more fun and less of a MATH class, I am more for Immersion and making thing ingame look real (so if the boss want to fast the spell you should not know exactly when he does it)

PS: I am not a huge raider, but some of this things make me lost interest in raiding since it feels more then MATH class then an "adventure"

btw, you also have an addon which is called "tell me when"... its like "I want this computer program to play the game for me".....


but hey, this is just my oppinion and I can see that this addons make life really easyer for many people, I am not Indicating blizzard what to do, but I wont use these addons.

to raid you have to use the "deadly boss mode" if you wont an invite, so that is why I use that one...

Again, I am more for "Immersion and Challenging(close to real life stuff)"

[Aori]

I've been strongly against a lot of addons, I think they are what dumbed down the game. Things like DBM and Hekili are cancer. I mean when the addon tells you when something is going to happen, where to move and warns you when you're to close to someone.. are you even playing the game? Same with rotation manager addons.. good grief.

I like damage meters for personal use, I like to know where I stand. Catch 22 though, it divides the community. I haven't cared as much after the talent trees were removed though since I have no builds to play with. So I pretty much know where my DPS is always going to be nowadays.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Watched many of those "purists" use a ton of addons on the private Classic servers in videos they posted.

People are just making hens out of feathers, and problems out of non-issues because they're bored/dumb. Addons don't dumb down shit, you can bet your ass that the best guilds in the world used addons on HFC Mythic yet they needed 900+ attempts across the raid. If addons didn't trivialize the content for those players, they won't trivialize/dumb it down for the players that are not on the same level.

[hazello]

I personally like the use of addons and the versitility they offer in customizing the layout of the UI. While I am a fan of the standard UI, on some classes there are times I really need to move stuff around.

[Wolfrick]

If you ask me some addons are good and others are bad, I know this will be a huge STORM against me, but I think the most used addon "Deadly boss modes" makes Raids focus to much on the number and MATH, It should be about surviving and making progress (a Real Fighter dont stand around and focus on "hmmm do I do 10 more damage to my opponen with this attack" he Uses and ability and sees if the opponet get hurt hard "looses more health, not looses more Numbers").

like when you fight a boss, you have TIMERS who tell you Exaclty when the boss with do that attack.... what is the fun in that, to me, you should be afraid and stay accuret so that when you see the boss Cast the spell or do the special ability, you have few seconds to react.

it will make it way more fun and less of a MATH class, I am more for Immersion and making thing ingame look real (so if the boss want to fast the spell you should not know exactly when he does it)

PS: I am not a huge raider, but some of this things make me lost interest in raiding since it feels more then MATH class then an "adventure"

btw, you also have an addon which is called "tell me when"... its like "I am an Idiot and I want this computer program to tell me when to do stuff".....


but hey, this is just my oppinion and I can see that this addons make life really easyer for many people, I am not Indicating blizzard what to do, but I wont use these addons.

to raid you have to use the "deadly boss mode" if you wont an invite, so that is why I use that one...

Again, I am more for "Immersion and Challenging(close to real life stuff)"

This is not a Burning desire for change, this is one of the less Important things in wow and it does not mean much to me, I am just and Honest person and I will also try to speak my mind, in a gentile way, hope with all my heart that I have not offended any one and if I have, that was not my intention and I do Appologize in advance.

"people that use these addons have nothing less or Nothing more then me, it is just an Oppinion and a way of life" so I do not want with all my heart to tell people what to do or what to think.

send you all a huge hug and wish you well.

"PS: I am one of the OLD veterans which still dont use Auction House addons, since I know all the prices in my head, and staying at the auction house is one of my favorit stuff to do In World of Warcraft ^^"

PSS: I have to Appologize in advance about the "I am an idiot" part, I read my post over and saw that this could be offencive to some one, I corrected the Initial post since I do not want or intend to offend any one.

- - - Updated - - -

*shrug*

I see no problem with allowing the community to make features that Blizzard otherwise wouldn't due to lack of time/different priorities. Perfect example is oQueue and how Blizzard finally implemented their own.
RIP oQueue, you will be missed

This is also true, many of the cool Ingame UI that come in Legion is because some on made and addon and gave the idea to blizzard

[Cæli]

Sometimes I wonder how the game would be if there were no combat log, no damage meters.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Timers are fine but when DBM pulls up a window which shows you where to stand for Wrought Chaos then I wonder how much more difficult the encounters were suppose to be and how lazy/dependent we've become. Hearing people say "These fights are easy" but have half their screen dedicated to powerauras, DBM, timers, rangechecks, rotation helpers and whatever else makes me want to roll my eyes.

Non-raiding addons, I have zero issues with.

[Kirbypro]

Some addons are so useful that I feel Blizz should just hire those people as independent contractors and put into the game proper. For example:

Bartender - ability to move bars anywhere u want a resize them? Of course I want that.
Mik's Scrolling Battle Text - Yes please, nobody wants to see that ugly default combat text.
Skada - We've been using meters since the dawn of time (WoW), just give it to us as default, please!

[Queen of Hamsters]

Timers are fine but when DBM pulls up a window which shows you where to stand for Wrought Chaos then I wonder how much more difficult the encounters were suppose to be and how lazy/dependent we've become. Hearing people say "These fights are easy" but have half their screen dedicated to powerauras, DBM, timers, rangechecks, rotation helpers and whatever else makes me want to roll my eyes.

Non-raiding addons, I have zero issues with.

I'd dare wager that boss fights have only gotten more complex to counter our access to addons, and ofc the increased experience and skill of the players aiming for raid content.

Again, if addons didn't trivialize the content for the best players in the world, far less accomplished players aren't given a piggyback ride on them either.

[purebalance]

Addons make up for fundamental flaws in the game, and lets you customize your UI to your liking... One of the main reasons why i've stuck to WoW over other MMO's for all these years is the ability to customize the UI to my exact liking

Huge difference between tweaking the UI and half the things that play the game for people. I laughed at all the people when 6.2 launched that cried when that one add on broke. So dumb. You don't even need dbm these days tbh. The only actual good thing is the timer aspect, but even that you can easily do without.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Huge difference between tweaking the UI and half the things that play the game for people. I laughed at all the people when 6.2 launched that cried when that one add on broke. So dumb. You don't even need dbm these days tbh. The only actual good thing is the timer aspect, but even that you can easily do without.

And people are free to play without them.

No need for absolutes when there can be compromise.

[Shinv]

how can you think customization options created by the community are bad? If anything it shows how dedicated the community is to making the experience better.