WoW UI Team Responds to Upcoming Addon Restriction Feedback

Originally Posted by Merpish

It has long been my estimation that for the majority of the "ban all addons" crowd, their actual goal has been to make retail a substantially easier game at endgame.

That's probably a cop-out argument. Is there a good number of people who misplace blame on addons that they really want to direct at difficulty? For sure. Is it "a majority"? Much less sure.

I think what's going on is just fairly mundane confusion, not some underlying agenda. People perceive all sorts of problems with WoW - not just difficulty - and then jump on board for a convenient scapegoat in the form of addons. This is all sorts of things from the undeniably antiquated AI to overall feelings of an old game to design and complexity bloat to difficulty to etc. etc. etc. It's a whole litany of things across various demographics, and the promise of an easy fix along the lines of oh if only addons weren't a thing becomes very alluring whenever your frustrations have been piling up.

It's a much more diffuse problem than just some sneaky way of trying to sabotage high-end endgame. That's a minority movement at best.

Originally Posted by Biomega

It's a much more diffuse problem than just some sneaky way of trying to sabotage high-end endgame. That's a minority movement at best.

Yeah I think I should clarify that I don't really think it's some Doofenshmirtzian agenda, and I tend to agree that for the most part addons are just the scapegoat for a lot of very grumpy, very maladjusted, people who don't really want to play WoW anymore, but think about it all the time and want to justify their frustration.

In reality I don't think banning addons is going to bring anyone back to Retail WoW for any meaningful amount of time, and I've always been extremely skeptical of the whole "addons are the reason new players don't stick around" argument, often trotted out by those same grumpy veterans.

2025 and barbed shot still doesn't show on target nameplates like other dots. I'd be more positive about addon restriction if Blizzard didn't suck at UI implementation.

Originally Posted by Nzx

This first line is just bullshit though. Not on your part, on theirs. There's fucking no one on the planet who has never played WoW before, is now somehow interested, but upon learning that the UI is customizable with addons says "ah nah I'll go play fortnite instead". WoW doesn't attract new players because the major conceit of the MMO (the fact that you can interact with people online) isn't impressive anymore. In fact it's gone so far away from being impressive that it's now something most people want to actively avoid, hence battle royales with solos/small teams and instant abandon -> requeue when you die being the biggest games on the market. If they put "company-designed UI customizations!" on the box for Midnight, no one is going to look at it and go fuck yeah, I've been waiting for that. I wasn't interested when they did Arthas, wasn't interested when they did Deathwing, wasn't interested when it had 12 million players and was the main driver of half the videos on google video/youtube and essentially dominated the entire concept of machinima, but now that I don't have to download addons I didn't even know I needed I'm all the way in.

Current addons increase accessibility, far beyond what anything a company with three dudes and an "agile delivery lead" will ever be able to deliver even if they get funding beyond the six months this is a priority at Blizzard. Like, where on the totem pole of things to do do you think any texture, any font, any separator, any spec/class icon, any order, any colour bars will be for Blizzardetails? Say a minor but frustrating bug gets found with it two and a half months into a patch cycle - do we think Blizzard will hotfix it or push it for the next major patch? What if new sims come out 4 months into a patch that completely change the optimal way to play a spec, do you think Blizzard are going to rush to update the rotation manager?

I hate to buy into dooming, but it really does feel like they're pushing for a point where WoW can be played on console, using a controller, all the way through Mythic raid. The only thing that sets WoW apart for me at the moment from other things I could be doing with my time is group-based holy trinity PvE with responsive, relatively complex rotations. If they lose that, maybe they'll gain some random tourist from the street, but they'll lose my 20+ year sub, endless faction/race changes, and my propensity to get spendy when brutosaurs come out.

It should be noted that I'm not a supporter of these changes. I very much think this is far more likely to be a huge miss than it is to be the panacea that Blizzard desperately wants it to be. I'm simply trying to rationalize their reasoning. It's easy to post on a message board of people who may generally have the same feelings about the game; but what if Blizzard's own hard data shows that people like us are a dying breed? At some point, everybody eventually "ages out" of WoW. And if there's nobody to replace the ones that age out, Blizzard is left with a difficult decision: Cater to what is essentially the band on the Titanic as the ship slowly submerges or go for the Hail Mary and try to make the sweeping changes that the Old Guard has been extremely protective about.

I feel like anybody who feels this is a fool's errand is 100% in the right. But what's the alternative? Do we just accept WoW is kinda, just, gonna peter out eventually? Do we band together and try to get Blizzard to abandon this attempt at innovation by way of digital boycott? Do we stay on the sidelines and laugh cynically as Blizzard destroys WoW in real time? I... don't know if there's an easy or a right answer here.

Originally Posted by Merpish

In reality I don't think banning addons is going to bring anyone back to Retail WoW for any meaningful amount of time, and I've always been extremely skeptical of the whole "addons are the reason new players don't stick around" argument, often trotted out by those same grumpy veterans.

I think that depends on some specifics, really. It'll bring back SOME people - but it's unlikely to bring back millions. Addons aren't the reason ALL new players who quit didn't stick around - but they're a reason for some. And so on.

The problem lies much more so with unrealistic claims and expectations and overall poor epistemology, really. But that's a bit of a nothingburger complaint, because it just boils down to omg why are people on the internet so DAMN UNREASONABLE?! Yeah. Well.

What's much more interesting than which addons will be culled is what UI changes they'll make to the base UI. Because that, I think, is much more impactful to the new-player experience than addons. New players aren't starting up WoW going "what do you mean I need to download 50 extra things?!", they just start up the game going "oi this is all kinda shitty-looking, innit?" because let's face it WoW's UI is just not that great. But it's not the only part of that new-player experience. Class and quest design etc. also play a role. There's some interesting videos people have made of (more or less) genuine new-player journeys that highlight some of them (including truly wonderful moments like seeing Chinese gold sellers /yelling ads during the intro experience cutscene).

WoW is just, well, really old. There's wrinkles showing everywhere. And only so much you can do to smooth them over.

Originally Posted by Just Passing through

Well, at this point everything in the game has been suggested as being a barrier for new people. On the other hand, people have suggested that new mMOs fail, beause WoW already has so much content. Others say it keeps ppl away, because it has an overwhelming amount of content.

So one can spin the narrative as it suits them.

Up next: People will quit because housing is shit.

WoW has many barriers to entry which have various impact - addons is just one of them. Goal should be to reduce those barriers so more people would want to try the game and for population to grow.

Originally Posted by Biomega

What's much more interesting than which addons will be culled is what UI changes they'll make to the base UI. Because that, I think, is much more impactful to the new-player experience than addons. New players aren't starting up WoW going "what do you mean I need to download 50 extra things?!", they just start up the game going "oi this is all kinda shitty-looking, innit?" because let's face it WoW's UI is just not that great.

Yeah and don't get me wrong, I'm a huge advocate of improving the out-of-the box interface. I want a new player to have options without having to download addons, but I think addons add a layer of positive complexity, and consumer choice that is so desperately missing from many games.

Originally Posted by Relapses

But what's the alternative? Do we just accept WoW is kinda, just, gonna peter out eventually?

I think pretending that anything can continue forever is delusional. There will come a time when even Fortnite, or the endless re-releases of CoD, or whatever else will die off and be replaced too. My opinion is that the right thing to do once your game has reached its peak and is no longer the 'new hotness' is to cater to the people who have stuck around. WoW has had addons since day one and some of my fondest memories in my early days were fucking around with them, using Discord themes to put swords and shit everywhere and CT_Viewport to squish the rendered area above my action bars. I loved my Titan bar, I spent ages making some unitframe addon have an animated picture of my character's head as my icon, then I almost fell off my chair when xPerl did that by default. I had a Windfury tracker that kept a high-score of my biggest crits, I had MSBT telling me when my Overpower or Execute could be used.. and this was all well before addon managers and ultrafast internet.

I guess what I'm saying is, Coca Cola don't stop selling Coca Cola when they make new flavours. They're always trying new absurd shit like lime coke or whatever but they learned their lesson with "New Coke" that their core product is what their customers actually want. I think Blizzard are going to find out that their core audience is actually fine with the addons they use, even if they are mostly the same. They made insane mechanics like Neltharion bombs and portals, people didn't like it, and they're massively over-correcting in the opposite direction in a way that, I believe, will alienate more players (or more "important" players - those likely to spend on MTX, or stream the game and therefore advertise it for free, or those of us who have subbed through horseshit like Shadowlands because we like the game) than it will attract the mythical "new customer". 95%+ of the people complaining about addons being 'required' to mythic raid don't even clear the fucking raid on Heroic in the first place.

The critical part of this that I think gets lost in the whole argument of attracting new players or whatever is that there is a finite amount of development time available, and this just doesn't feel like it's even close to the most 'bang for buck' way of using it. Even if all of their addon replacements are perfect on day1, they're now an albatross hanging around their neck for every patch they release. They're taking responsibility for something people have been willing and able to do for them, for free, for decades, and even if they do it perfectly the value is questionable.

If they want the new customer tourist crowd, they're better off making WoW-lite experiences like Plunderstorm. OSRS gets crazy player engagement every time they do Leagues, PoE gets crazy engagement every time they release a new league. Get them in the door with something cool and flashy, reward them for playing it with something that carries over to the 'real' game, hope that you get them on the hook.

Anyway this is too much screaming into the void. FWIW - none of this is directed at you specifically and I know you're not a fan of the changes either. Just venting.

e:

Originally Posted by klaps_05

WoW has many barriers to entry which have various impact - addons is just one of them. Goal should be to reduce those barriers so more people would want to try the game and for population to grow.

No, that shouldn't be the fucking goal. Jesus. I know this is an insane concept in today's world, but some people actually enjoy a challenge. Not everyone is just sticking their hand out and waiting to be given every reward possible for the minimum amount of effort. If you want to play football, no problem, buy a ball and you can even do it in bare feet. But if you want to play in the NFL, I'm sorry but there are a few barriers to entry and some of them you are just flat out not going to be able to get over. Doesn't mean professional leagues are a bad thing, doesn't mean football is dying as a sport, doesn't mean the barriers should be removed so that everyone can make it to the pinnacle of the sport.

I don't understand where this idea that there's millions of people out there just dying to play World of Warcraft in 2025 but they're completely paralyzed by the fact that Mythic raiding exists and they might be required to learn a rotation or practice a boss fight if they want to engage in it comes from. Those people don't exist, they're made up by existing players in LFR gear who want maxed ilvl delivered to their mailbox so they can stand around in Dornogal thinking there's a bunch of people inspecting them and being impressed. The kind of people who would love Diablo Immortal if they had infinite money, but they don't, so they get to pretend they're taking a moral stand by not buying the boosts but in reality they're just broke.

Originally Posted by Leadfoot352

Inb4 people get mad at this for no reason.

It's not the first time they make a statement like this.

Originally Posted by Nzx

I don't understand where this idea that there's millions of people out there just dying to play World of Warcraft in 2025 but they're completely paralyzed by the fact that Mythic raiding exists and they might be required to learn a rotation or practice a boss fight if they want to engage in it comes from. Those people don't exist, they're made up by existing players in LFR gear who want maxed ilvl delivered to their mailbox so they can stand around in Dornogal thinking there's a bunch of people inspecting them and being impressed. The kind of people who would love Diablo Immortal if they had infinite money, but they don't, so they get to pretend they're taking a moral stand by not buying the boosts but in reality they're just broke.

I think you described like 70% of the remaining posters on this forum lol. "Oh you see, the game would have 12 million players again if there was only one difficulty mode and it was super easy!"

Originally Posted by Nzx

...
No, that shouldn't be the fucking goal.

The goal shouldnt be for the game to have more players? You are also misunderstanding what blizzard is trying to do - the idea is for the addons to be part of the base UI, not remove them. None of this has anything to do what challenge/rewards - reducing the barriers to enter the game doesnt diminish the challenges you beat.

Let me give you another example - target/focus/mouseover/cursor macros. Imagine instead of having to make macros, you can just select on your binding if you want the bound spell to cast at the target, focus, mouseover or cursor. In this scenario, you can now enjoy all functionality without the need to have any knowledge of how to make macros.

Blizzard's goal is to reduce the gap between the top and bottom, providing an equal playing ground by making it so all players have the same UI options. Yes, there will still be a gap, but the difference wont be one guy has the option (addon) and one doesnt even know about it.

Originally Posted by klaps_05

The goal shouldnt be for the game to have more players? You are also misunderstanding what blizzard is trying to do - the idea is for the addons to be part of the base UI, not remove them. None of this has anything to do what challenge/rewards - reducing the barriers to enter the game doesnt diminish the challenges you beat.

Let me give you another example - target/focus/mouseover/cursor macros. Imagine instead of having to make macros, you can just select on your binding if you want the bound spell to cast at the target, focus, mouseover or cursor. In this scenario, you can now enjoy all functionality without the need to have any knowledge of how to make macros.

Blizzard's goal is to reduce the gap between the top and bottom, providing an equal playing ground by making it so all players have the same UI options. Yes, there will still be a gap, but the difference wont be one guy has the option (addon) and one doesnt even know about it.

THE HARD PART IS KNOWING FOCUS TARGETING EVEN EXISTS AND WHY TO USE IT.

A focus macro is not hard, nor is downloading an addon which gives the same functionality you imagine Blizz adding.

To my eyes, all these posters clamoring for the change do in fact see the sub problem, since it’s all about injecting new players to the game, and now that they have a scapegoat, are willing to tacitly admit the lack of subs because they can pick a reason to blame that suits them.


There is no sub problem
If there is a sub problem, it’s fine
There is a major sub problem, and I can blame addons for it^^<——YOU ARE NOW HERE

Originally Posted by klaps_05

Yes, there will still be a gap, but the difference wont be one guy has the option (addon) and one doesnt even know about it.

Addons make up a very small portion as to why there is a gap between players today. Have you ever watched your average Normal/Heroic? I promise you the brainless gameplay you witness when you do has very little to do with the fact that, that player isn't using Weakauras.

Your average WoW player is just absolutely trash at this game because, like with most hobbies, most people are bad at the things they like.

Being good at WoW requires a level of dedication and practice that most people have no interest in putting in.

Originally Posted by meroes

THE HARD PART IS KNOWING FOCUS TARGETING EVEN EXISTS AND WHY TO USE IT.

A focus macro is not hard, nor is downloading an addon which gives the same functionality you imagine Blizz adding.

To my eyes, all these posters clamoring for the change do in fact see the sub problem, since it’s all about injecting new players to the game, and now that they have a scapegoat, are willing to tacitly admit the lack of subs because they can pick a reason to blame that suits them.


There is no sub problem
If there is a sub problem, it’s fine
There is a major sub problem, and I can blame addons for it^^<——YOU ARE NOW HERE

Nobody is talking about a sub problem - thats some narrative you are pushing. Are you saying that blizzard does not want their game to have more players? Why would a developer not want more players? They can be at 10 mn subs right now - their goal would still be more players.

Its also not only about new players - having addon as base means no more hassle managing bloatware like Curseforge or having addons run out of support because the creator dropped them and nobody wants to fork them. Less scams with weakauras, less RWF guilds competing who will cheat the best (personally I like that they try to cheat, but thats just me), etc.

Originally Posted by klaps_05

The goal shouldnt be for the game to have more players?

Goals depend on who you ask.

Blizzard's goal is not to have the most players - it's to make the most profit. More players can lead to that, but only to a point - because more players don't just magically happen, and there's a tipping point where your profit drops. The classic textbook example would be selling at $10 profit to 1,000 people or selling at $5 profit to 4,000 people - you'd have more customers in the second example, but your profit is actually lower than in the first.

The question is badly phrased here because it's suggestive of an abstract situation in which the number of players is the only thing that changes. It's like asking someone would you rather have $1,000,000 or $10,000,000? Obvious choice provided if all else is equal - but it almost never is. You'll be asked to do certain things for those $10,000,000 that you wouldn't have to do for the $1,000,000 - and while you may still decide it's worth doing (depending on what the ask is), it's most definitely not as simple as "oh but $1m < $10m isn't it? I mean duh?", is it?

In much the same way, it's not a simple matter of only having more players or not having more players - there's a cost attached. And depending on who you ask, they may well not be willing to pay that cost. Either Blizzard, or players.

Originally Posted by klaps_05

You are also misunderstanding what blizzard is trying to do - the idea is for the addons to be part of the base UI, not remove them. None of this has anything to do what challenge/rewards - reducing the barriers to enter the game doesnt diminish the challenges you beat.

Blizzard have, in fact, said that their goal is both. However we do not yet know the extent or any other details. They want to integrate certain features into the base UI, but also want to remove certain functionalities from addons. This is not speculation - it's their stated goal. What we don't know is how, exactly, that is going to look in detail. But we do know that they've said they want to do it.

As for the challenges, that's the other part of their statement: that they will likely change the design of some fights going forward to accommodate for whatever addon functionality is lost. This, again, is not in question or speculative - they've outright said as much. However we do not know much more beyond that stated intent. The FEAR is that this means fights will become less complex and less difficult. Whether that'll truly manifest and to what extent, we do not yet know. But it's a possibility and it's not exactly an outlandish thought, because it's more or less tied contingently to the addon ecology: the more powerful the addons available, the more complex fights can be; and vice versa, the less powerful addons are the easier fights would need to be to maintain some level of parity. We've had examples of bosses like e.g. Broodtwister where the top guilds have outright said that yes they could have done the fight without solve-this-for-me WAs, but it would have taken hundreds more attempts. That's a major spike in difficulty that would in all likelihood be compensated for by a reduction in fight complexity if this existed in a world without WAs/addons. So it's not farfetched at all to think that removal of addon power would impact difficulty, and consequently open the door for aberrant scaling as it's unlikely to just be a smooth case of direct proportionality that preserves parity; it would very likely end up either too easy or too difficult without the moderating effect addons have on the smoothness of the difficulty curve.

Originally Posted by klaps_05

Blizzard's goal is to reduce the gap between the top and bottom, providing an equal playing ground by making it so all players have the same UI options. Yes, there will still be a gap, but the difference wont be one guy has the option (addon) and one doesnt even know about it.

That's a noble goal and all, but the reality is that 1. this is unlikely to actually happen that way; and 2. this may in fact widen gaps in performance. The idea of an "equal playing field" is a fine abstract, but it has to be modified by real practicability. The goal isn't fairness - it's enjoyment. And that may well require an uneven playing field, as some people need more help and some people need less help to get to their preferred level of enjoyment. Now, addons are by no means perfect as moderators, don't get me wrong, but the fear is that the field will in fact be far from level after some kind of hypothetical addonpocalypse.

An example I've given before is the scenario where something like DBM/Bigwigs gets removed. You'd think oh well, now everyone is on the same level, all good. Except at the high end, they'd immediately introduce other ways of eking out an advantage. A very primitive one would be, for example, to have a team of people on voice watching the fight with stopwatches, and manually calling out relevant timings. That would effectively replace the old in-game timers, except that is now an option only available to the super organized, high-end teams, rather than to anyone and everyone. The gap would still be there - only now it's even wider.

That's just one example to illustrate that it's just not as simple as you make it out to be. Addons have important functions within the community and the gameplay ecosystem that's grown around them. Disruption would have serious ancillary consequences and not just be a situation of flipping the kill switch and waking up in a more pleasant world the next day. There'd be massive collateral damage on all kinds of fronts.

Originally Posted by Biomega

That's their goal. However we are far from any kind of outline on the actual technical implementation, and part of the problem - a really BIG part - is how to only gut WAs and not everything else. Because it's not like WAs use some exclusive code or section of the API no other addon ever touches. Far from it.

People like to throw this idea around of "they'll just ban access to combat data", but no one knows what that MEANS. What is "combat data"? Damage values? There goes any floating combat text addon. Auras? Bye-bye anything that tracks buffs or debuffs. HP values? Nice knowing you, unit frames. And so on. That is a vague, sweeping umbrella term for any number of things and you can't just disentangle it and cleanly distinguish between "stuff WAs mess with" and "stuff that's fine".

The whole debacle with private auras happened for exactly this reason. If Blizzard had a way to neatly segregate out WA data from other addon data, they'd have done that. They tried with private auras, and it was a complete disaster. This idea of somehow going don't worry it'll only be WAs nothing else is a complete fantasy, because if it was as easy as that Blizzard would have implemented it long ago. But it's not.

Any kind of substantial culling of WA functionality will have massive repercussions and collateral damage across the entire addon ecosystem. Blizzard are probably looking at that problem right now and trying to figure out how to thread the needle. We don't know how they'll do it or what they'll do, but we do know it's not as easy as just going "addons can no longer read combat data" because that's just a vague non-statement that has no substantive, specific outline.

Of course we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out, but at the same time I think it’s fairly straightforward to figure out which APIs are most likely to get axed. Player HP/mana values for example are on the more innocuous end of the spectrum because there’s not all that useful for “encounter solver” type addons, whereas things like player coordinates and ability to draw on the minimap rank a lot higher.

There’s also other ways to curb automation without closing off access entirely. Something that comes to mind here is addons’ communication capabilities… if those are heavily throttled or even disabled during combat for example, the extent of possible solving/automation is reduced dramatically while still allowing for entirely-local addons that merely present readily available data differently (like raid frames).

Originally Posted by meroes

THE HARD PART IS KNOWING FOCUS TARGETING EVEN EXISTS AND WHY TO USE IT.

Yeah, focus targeting is not even remotely an intuitive concept. It’d never occur to most players who hadn’t already been engaged in “serious” group play (or been mentored by someone who had) to look for such a thing. It’s not just new players that fall under this umbrella, players who’ve only ever leveled alts and done basic group finder stuff are going to be included in this group too. That’s a problem, because it’s a whole bunch of players that are only ever going to play less than half of the game and are more likely to run out of stuff to do and unsubscribe.

This isn’t even game design, it’s basic user experience stuff. You know how people who’ve never used modern smartphones are perplexed by all the arbitrary gestures required to extract various functionality? This is like the game version of that.

Originally Posted by iindigo

Of course we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out, but at the same time I think it’s fairly straightforward to figure out which APIs are most likely to get axed. Player HP/mana values for example are on the more innocuous end of the spectrum because there’s not all that useful for “encounter solver” type addons, whereas things like player coordinates and ability to draw on the minimap rank a lot higher.

There’s also other ways to curb automation without closing off access entirely. Something that comes to mind here is addons’ communication capabilities… if those are heavily throttled or even disabled during combat for example, the extent of possible solving/automation is reduced dramatically while still allowing for entirely-local addons that merely present readily available data differently (like raid frames).

Absolutely there's specific things like that, but I think you're underestimating just how interconnected all these things are. There's massive repercussions across the board, and it's one thing to just want to target solve-this-for-me WAs (which I totally agree are outrageous) but quite another to actually make sure that that is all that happens.

If this was easy to do, they'd have done this several tiers ago when they first started messing with private auras for the express purpose of throwing a spike in the WA situation. That did not work out. If they had had some easier, simpler method of disabling those WA functionalities... they'd have done that. But it just isn't that simple. Even relatively simply addons make use of a ton of stuff that WAs can then also access. You mess with one... you also mess with everything else.

Could Blizzard potentially find a way for a surgical strike? Who knows. Confidence isn't flying high, shall we say, given their history. We'll have to wait and see but I for one entirely expect them to just do a few things to tackle some of the most egregious shit, and then give up and leave the rest be.

Lot of mad people in response to this. I've been playing WoW for over 20 years now myself. I was super into the whole Add-on arms race thing myself at some point. I even was an early adopter of many information addons like all of the Atlas addons and such showing each and every bit of information available. So that there was no stone unturned. I have used all the different UI, and Bar addons and everything in between. However as I got older my mindset started to change. Maintaining addons isn't that big of a deal today as it was in years past. Usually one click to update-all is all you need. HOWEVER there are always new settings and features/functionality nuance to figure out. Honestly at this point in my life I'm kind of done with it all. I can't tell you how many times I was frustrated on patch-day because my favorite add-ons were broken. It got to the point where if I knew there was a major patch I just wouldn't log in for a few days till the dust settled and add-ons got updated.

I still enjoy my UI addons like Titan-Panel, and Bartender, and X-Pearl, and Sexymap. That's kind of it though. I don't really care about knowing each and every detail anymore because if I need to know something that bad then I can easily tab out and look it up on WoWhead. Boss fights should be more easily doable with whatever we have in game. I put my foot down when it came to the WeakAuras age. I had spent years and years Raiding prior to it becoming mainstream. We always did okay but by this point I was kind of done trying to get into organized gameplay. I did want to jump into an occasional organized raid here and there but maintaining specific auras was just that little bit of extra annoying that kept me from wanting to do it.

One of the problems is that when you play WoW or any video game for and extended period of time you get very good at piloting your toon, (usually). So basic fights aren't challenging anymore. So remedy this developers have to constantly introduce new mechanics, then addon developers come up with a solution. So on and so forth. It's never going to be SO challenging that it's going to satisfy each and every player's wants. It's also never going to be so easy that each and every uber-casual will be able to faceroll the fight.

Ultimately I would love to not have to maintain most of my addons. I'm over it. I understand that these changes are aimed at more raiding addons but even still, if they can make the UI a bit more like the addons that I still maintain then I'm happy to get rid of those too.

Originally Posted by iindigo

Of course we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out, but at the same time I think it’s fairly straightforward to figure out which APIs are most likely to get axed. Player HP/mana values for example are on the more innocuous end of the spectrum because there’s not all that useful for “encounter solver” type addons, whereas things like player coordinates and ability to draw on the minimap rank a lot higher.

There’s also other ways to curb automation without closing off access entirely. Something that comes to mind here is addons’ communication capabilities… if those are heavily throttled or even disabled during combat for example, the extent of possible solving/automation is reduced dramatically while still allowing for entirely-local addons that merely present readily available data differently (like raid frames).

They will ban access to the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED or atleast the sensitive events within, or accessible only out of combat. That's why they talked about a damage meter and a rotation assistant. These events are extensively used by hackers, and apparently by mythic raiders for other reasons.