Have addons indirectly ruined the game ?

[wholol]

Hello there,

As the title says, does anyone ever think that addons over simplified the game ?

Everyone has become so used to addons it's basically playing the game for us, everything from cd tracking to debuff tracking to encounter timers, heck even garrison tracking and plenty of other things that have trivialized content, people whine about how easy this game has become when their addons are doing 75% of the work.

I mean a lot of people believe the game has become too simple and catered towards casual which I agree with entirely, though I do get this feeling that if blizzard had instead reduced the number of addons permitted at least to a bare minimum ( like damage meters or simple UI altering addons) the game would be somewhat harder to play.

Now whether harder to play correlates with more fun to play is entirely up to the player, but for me at least I feel like this game is becoming less and less an MMORPG and more about numbers and stats and figures on a chart, people don't want to do anything that's fun, they just want to do efficient things with minimal effort.

Think of it this way, the skill floor / ceiling have gotten so close to each other over the years, if most people would turn off their addons and play they wouldn't even perform at half of what they usually do, addons indirectly trivialize skill which indirectly affects effort to enjoyment ratio.

Let's say bob puts in 10 secs of effort to walk up from point A to B and when he reaches said point he gets rewarded with a Ferrari, now what is the worth of a Ferrari if the amount of effort it takes to achieve it is 10 secs of minimal effort, that is the Ferrari's worth, 10 secs of effort.

Basically the worth of the best reward is trivialized if said reward is achieved so easily with minimal effort, on the other hand if it took bob several years to get from point A to B, that would make the worth of a Ferrari much much higher ( do note this is an example and in no way related directly to the amount of effort that should be placed in game , just for reference ).

Now the real question is, would it be more satisfying to get the best rewards with little to no effort ? would that not simply reduce the incentive to even participate in said structure to begin with ? I mean where is the fun in that ? a challenging task is rewarding because it is challenging.

Instead of having blizzard make the game harder and more complex simply to cope with the hundreds of addons that cut complexity and difficulty , why not simply remove most addons and keep the most basic ones?

I would like to hear what you guys think of this.

[Lochton]

Some people hardly use addons, and content is designed without addons in mind, addons are a different section that we use to easier make things a little more simple, or easier.

The only addons that actually could be claimed to ruin anything would be.. Battleground Targets and DeadlyBossMods

But even so, they aren't a demand to have, you can run without - they are just a simple solution to something tougher. Over the years, boss fights has become much more than they were, so some tools are of course created to counter it - it is called, adaptation. We adapt to the situation by the tools we have.

[Starscream101]

Yeah and Macros all so ruin the game. Macros and addons take skill away from the game do not even have a person targeted and will auto silence people and then out in the world they can not even kick a mob or a boss from casting. Macros to pop everything and cast things all in a row. But some addons I do like like Atlas Loot and Bagnon and a bar mod. I would not miss macros if that was taken out of the game.

[Deleted]

DBM and other debuff/buff tracking addons you could argue make the game easier, yes.

Master Plan ruining the game though ? Fuck no. Please do not fall into the trap of equating difficulty with tedium (those who pine for Vanilla days love this). There was nothing difficult or thought provoking about sending teams of followers on missions, the default Blizzard UI already gave you a success %. If I can do it with fewer clicks, that means it's a better design.

As for other addons, some just genuinely make the experience better. For instance, playing the new Disc Priest without some proper raid frames and without using mouse over macros is just annoying. With those macros I can keep a mob/boss targeted all the time for DPSing while still casting my heals. Could I just do it with Blizzard frames and by switching targets all the time ? Sure, but I would be ever so slightly less efficient, and it feels clunkier.

I also don't believe the skill floor and ceiling are close. At all. I don't know if you run any PuGs or not, but a lot of players are just really, really not good. Their reaction time to mechanics is totally off. Blizzard didn't come up with things like LFR just for giggles, they made it for these players.

If by "reward for minimum effort" you understand "Seeing all the content", then that is already available to you through LFR and has been for a very long time. And addons are pointless in LFR since mechanics can often be ignored or are trivial.

For "real" content, timers like DBM help your group coordinate and arguably yes, lower the skill ceiling, but a bad player will still play badly with or without DBM.

I guess the TLDR is that saying Heroic/Mythic raid content requires 'minimal effort' is a bit dramatic and I include Heroic because what might be trivial for some is challenging and end game for others.

[Deleted]

No. Made it better

[Deleted]

I'm all for qol addons, addons that I never agreed with are the irrelevant ones like Gearscore back in the day, the stupid mediaplayer trackers that were popular in vanilla / tbc / wotlk, no I don't need an automated chat message telling me you're watching Here Cumz Santa.XXX (yes that happened mid raid once). And anything that doesn't bring anything useful.

[codywankanobi]

This argument could be made for some addons early on, especially in Vanilla, but not so much now, I believe. I remember one in particular, and this is when we still had multiple ranks of skills and could choose to use a lower ranked spell to reduce the mana cost but with a corresponding reduction in power, that was a precursor to Healbot that would not only choose which person to heal but would also choose the appropriate healing spell and which rank of that spell to use to get the most effectiveness out of it. That took all choice and player skill and knowledge out of the game completely, which is really not what the game is about at all. Nowadays the player has addons to make things more streamlined and less complicated but it's still up to us to decide the who, when and what in every situation. As has been stated before, more tedium does not make for deeper or more compelling gameplay.

[Gorgodeus]

Some people hardly use addons, and content is designed without addons in mind, addons are a different section that we use to easier make things a little more simple, or easier.

The only addons that actually could be claimed to ruin anything would be.. Battleground Targets and DeadlyBossMods

But even so, they aren't a demand to have, you can run without - they are just a simple solution to something tougher. Over the years, boss fights has become much more than they were, so some tools are of course created to counter it - it is called, adaptation. We adapt to the situation by the tools we have.

Actually Blizzard has stated they design encounters with DBM in mind.

[Lochton]

Actually Blizzard has stated they design encounters with DBM in mind.

Aha, didn't know that bit. Might also be for the better then, as it would make sense with all the functions of the fights.

[melodramocracy]

Short answer is "well, partially".

Blizzard made a fairly smart move in allowing the game to be opened as it is to addons. Allowing the community to customize as they see fit, while not having to pay anyone for it? win-win

Sadly, once you get outside the realm of UI enhancements, it becomes a bit of a gray area. There is absolutely no question that combat addon's have accelerated encounter design complexity fairly sharply over the years. I'd also argue that having some values 'hidden' from the player make things a bit more interesting over the long term.

[Perkunas]

Add-ons like DBM and other UI improvements allow the devs to create more compelling and interesting mechanics. You can see the opposite in Star Wars the Old Republic the game relies on the lack of information for the player to foster the illusion of challenge within the content and not just because you've got to navigate a shitty UI. These little bells and raid warnings typically take from the game's own combat logs to convey information in a better way. Now, mods like AVR back during Wrath were complete bullshit and I am glad they got canned.

[MrKnubbles]

There are times where I actually feel like I'm cheating by using certain addons such as NPC Scan showing me where all the rare spawns are hidden or DraenorTreasures showing me where all the hidden treasures are.

[PeterTheGreat]

Addons can't make the game easier. The developers make the game easier, they decide what Addons can do, and what not.
It is foolish to assume that Addons have made the game easier, then you need to say that wider monitors have made the game easier, wowhead.com has made the game easier, mouse with 20 buttons has made the game easier, high-speed Internet has made the game easier, youtube has made the game easier.
Simplification and convenience are two different things.

[I Push Buttons]

They made the community shittier that's for sure.

The toxicity related to recount, ilvl, etc...

[Deleted]

What comes to my mind is "how" people use addons. Like recount - is it a tool to identify your rotation flaws, or something to brag about (your damage \ healing done) and how much better you are than anyone else.

Addons like npc scan or treasure map are however in no way a tool to improve your performance, and I can't justify using stuff like that. But as always it can be a QoL , but imo it is a unfair advantage and I would never play with it. It also take away the exploration part of it really..

[l33t]

No. Because way less than 20% of players actually use them.

[WowIsDead64]

No, addons are actually the reason, why Wow have been so successive in a first place. Several addons are mandatory for me - I would never play with standard UI, cuz it's terrible. You can see your CDs at the bottom side of the screen, your buffs - at right top corner and target debuffs/combo points/resource bar/etc. - at left top corner. And for some classes/spec this information is extremely important. You need 4 pairs of eyes, if you want to properly track all this info + watch for fight itself properly. It's extremely counter-ergonomically. I don't even know, how somebody can play this game with standard UI. I guess, Blizzard don't play their own game, if they have been keeping so terrible UI for so long. So, following addons are mandatory for me: Bartender, Grid, Decurse, TellMeWhen, NeedToKnow, Recount. Without this addons I wouldn't play Wow.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

didnt you make this thread last year? i couldnt play wow without bindpad

[Keny]

In a way i agree

[Thorgarth]

Hello there,

As the title says, does anyone ever think that addons over simplified the game ?

Everyone has become so used to addons it's basically playing the game for us, everything from cd tracking to debuff tracking to encounter timers, heck even garrison tracking and plenty of other things that have trivialized content, people whine about how easy this game has become when their addons are doing 75% of the work.

I mean a lot of people believe the game has become too simple and catered towards casual which I agree with entirely, though I do get this feeling that if blizzard had instead reduced the number of addons permitted at least to a bare minimum ( like damage meters or simple UI altering addons) the game would be somewhat harder to play.

Now whether harder to play correlates with more fun to play is entirely up to the player, but for me at least I feel like this game is becoming less and less an MMORPG and more about numbers and stats and figures on a chart, people don't want to do anything that's fun, they just want to do efficient things with minimal effort.

Think of it this way, the skill floor / ceiling have gotten so close to each other over the years, if most people would turn off their addons and play they wouldn't even perform at half of what they usually do, addons indirectly trivialize skill which indirectly affects effort to enjoyment ratio.

Let's say bob puts in 10 secs of effort to walk up from point A to B and when he reaches said point he gets rewarded with a Ferrari, now what is the worth of a Ferrari if the amount of effort it takes to achieve it is 10 secs of minimal effort, that is the Ferrari's worth, 10 secs of effort.

Basically the worth of the best reward is trivialized if said reward is achieved so easily with minimal effort, on the other hand if it took bob several years to get from point A to B, that would make the worth of a Ferrari much much higher ( do note this is an example and in no way related directly to the amount of effort that should be placed in game , just for reference ).

Now the real question is, would it be more satisfying to get the best rewards with little to no effort ? would that not simply reduce the incentive to even participate in said structure to begin with ? I mean where is the fun in that ? a challenging task is rewarding because it is challenging.

Instead of having blizzard make the game harder and more complex simply to cope with the hundreds of addons that cut complexity and difficulty , why not simply remove most addons and keep the most basic ones?

I would like to hear what you guys think of this.

Addons aren't playing the game for us. They're making our lives easier. Addons don't control your character and move him out of fire. Addons don't perform your proper rotation/priority for you.

I disagree with the game becoming "too simple and catered toward casuals" too, but that's a different discussion.

"people don't want to do anything that's fun, they just want to do efficient things with minimal effort." I think this is reflective of the environment that you're currently playing in. There are still several folks that are interested in playing to have fun, but still playing to the best of their ability . They're out there, search for 'em!