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  1. #201
    Pandaren Monk Warlord Booty's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    SWTOR is fine without AddOns. The game isn't balanced around the demented precision AddOns allow WoW to be. In fact, it's quite pleasant to play games where you don't need to update an entire directory manually every patch cycle just to feel like you're playing the game correctly. Further, SWTOR has a much better default UI editor than WoW gives you.
    AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I love SWTOR. I love that I don't have to worry about updating a ton of shit. At my worst, an update required 3 hours of updating. This was due to my custom UI that I had to recreate with each update. There was a point where I had to redo it 3 times in 4 days, that next patch update, I didn't bother and it took a long time to get used to the new garbage. NO MORE! TY, SWTOR, for helping me regain my sanity.

  2. #202
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord Booty View Post
    AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I love SWTOR. I love that I don't have to worry about updating a ton of shit. At my worst, an update required 3 hours of updating. This was due to my custom UI that I had to recreate with each update. There was a point where I had to redo it 3 times in 4 days, that next patch update, I didn't bother and it took a long time to get used to the new garbage. NO MORE! TY, SWTOR, for helping me regain my sanity.
    The UI in SWTOR and the options it offers are clearly designed by devs that are primarily experienced in SINGLE player games. Seriously, with what you have in SWTOR, how do you track your own dots/debuffs on a target in group content when there is another player in your group with the same spec targeting the same target? Whose dot is what and when does it expire? What happens when there are THREE people of the same spec?

    Objectively speaking, the limitations of the SWTOR UI that stem primarily from no addon support are ridiculous and if WoW turned that way they would be shooting themselves and not just on the foot.

  3. #203
    Deleted
    It would be much better IMO
    But there will be problems here and there, like now you don't know how much dps your dpsers are doing without recount for example.
    But overall I would like this change

  4. #204
    Stood in the Fire Reds4Life's Avatar
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    This is a weird question. They designed the game to be very addon friendly. It is a huge plus to allow players to customize the game to suit their eyes and play styles.

  5. #205
    I only use addons to show resources better (default runes are utter crap) and have my character and my target to the left and the right bottom of my screen, because especially in the age of 16:9 having them in the upper left corner is just too far off the center of attention for something as important as health bars.

  6. #206
    Banned ciggy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by quras View Post
    If blizzard removed addons I think there would be a massive revolt and a lot of pissed off WOW gamers.

    It would be epic.
    It would be so fucking epic..


    I would get pissed about the auction and mail addons, and probably take awhile to adjust to no titan bars or dominoes but i really don't raid outside of lfr anymore, so it would just be a quality of life sort of thing. That makes me wonder, how many folks actually still raid.. another topic though

  7. #207
    Quote Originally Posted by Geish View Post
    You didn't need in-combat addons to parse combatlogs in vanilla and you dont need them now, they just make life easier for less talented and lazy players.

    Look at Formula 1 for example, they could and have done all sorts of technical gadgets and solutions so that the car is easier and more fluid to drive and gives you more data all the time, except they had and most likely still have to roll those back, as they are taking away from driver skills needed to compete. Now you have all sorts of sponsorship drivers who can't drive their way out of a paper bag but the tehcnology in the car lets them do it anyway.
    Like I said, encounter complexity and assistance tools go hand in hand and it isn't the right move to take this game to an all time new low. During vanilla this game was run by inexperienced developers who mostly had a laugh when creating new encounters, and the main difficulty was to get 40 players together and have a select few who were gifted enough to lead the heard of dummies from one boss to the next.

    In 10man raids every person basically has to deal with the responsibility of 4 vanilla raiders with a much much greater encounter complexity, it's all about individual responsibility, something that didn't exist in vanilla. It's a huge crutch if one of those 10 players can't perform and instead of wiping for weeks and going on a witch hunt without evidence you can analyze logs after the raid and pinpoint a problem and nip it in the bud.

    What you see as something that "makes playing easier" I on the other hand think adds a ton of depth and makes the game interesting even outside of physically playing it. On a personal note, I can't imagine how far behind professionally I would be today if I wouldn't have had the chance to deal with math and language issues (english isn't my first lang) in an environment (ingame) that genuinely interested me at the time as a youngster.

    Some people play games just to kill time, but I've stuck around for the brain teasers and pushing limits.
    Last edited by Strafir; 2014-01-23 at 07:43 PM.

  8. #208
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pourekos View Post
    The UI in SWTOR and the options it offers are clearly designed by devs that are primarily experienced in SINGLE player games. Seriously, with what you have in SWTOR, how do you track your own dots/debuffs on a target in group content when there is another player in your group with the same spec targeting the same target? Whose dot is what and when does it expire? What happens when there are THREE people of the same spec?

    Objectively speaking, the limitations of the SWTOR UI that stem primarily from no addon support are ridiculous and if WoW turned that way they would be shooting themselves and not just on the foot.
    Those limitations stem from weird developer choices, and have nothing to do with whether AddOns are included or not. The base UI of SWTOR still gets many more things right than WoW's does, because it has to.

    Lack of further improvements has more to do with nearly the entire team being fired, than a lack of desire on the devs' part to implement common requests. And it has nothing to do with single-player game design, since WoW also spent years with a giant clump of indiscernable icons polluting the enemy frames before finally beginning to add baseline UI support for things like enlarging your icons or hiding other peoples' effects.

    You're also overinflating the consequences. SWTOR isn't tuned tightly enough for this to matter as much as you're making it sound. Yes, it's nigh-impossible to sort out your Creeping Terror from someone else's, but your own internal rhythm about it is "close enough" for basically everything. Beyond that, it's mostly just a WoW-conditioned habit about millisecond-perfect refreshes — you don't need the performance, you just want it because you've been trained to.

    And in the event you're doing content that's so edgy you absolutely have to never miss a DoT tick, SWTOR opens up realtime combat logging so you can have applications yell at you when your stuff falls off or expires. Which is, basically, exactly the AddOn support you're complaining about not having, just implemented slightly differently.

    IMO AddOns are a neurotic crutch the WoW community feels they "need" after years of being conditioned by a mentality that perfect performance still isn't perfect enough, which the developers can design around since they know players pushing content will download and install the AddOns necessary for that. It's a bad cycle.

    I'm only commenting on combat-based AddOns, of course. Stuff like UI reskins and MogIt etc. are pretty much in a completely different class of product. Even then, though, they encourage the devs to be sluggish and unresponsive about baseline UI improvements. A game with WoW's level of funding should not have the default UI it still does, but they get away with it because other people fix it for them.

  9. #209
    there is beauty in the raw interface wow comes with. i know both Glad players and top PvE players who have played with default UI and maybe an addon or two, so its far from impossible.

    one of wows best selling points is that you can customize EVERYTHING. For example if SWTOR actually had a fully customizable interface I would have def played it much longer.

  10. #210
    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    Those limitations stem from weird developer choices, and have nothing to do with whether AddOns are included or not. The base UI of SWTOR still gets many more things right than WoW's does, because it has to.

    Lack of further improvements has more to do with nearly the entire team being fired, than a lack of desire on the devs' part to implement common requests. And it has nothing to do with single-player game design, since WoW also spent years with a giant clump of indiscernable icons polluting the enemy frames before finally beginning to add baseline UI support for things like enlarging your icons or hiding other peoples' effects.

    You're also overinflating the consequences. SWTOR isn't tuned tightly enough for this to matter as much as you're making it sound. Yes, it's nigh-impossible to sort out your Creeping Terror from someone else's, but your own internal rhythm about it is "close enough" for basically everything. Beyond that, it's mostly just a WoW-conditioned habit about millisecond-perfect refreshes — you don't need the performance, you just want it because you've been trained to.

    And in the event you're doing content that's so edgy you absolutely have to never miss a DoT tick, SWTOR opens up realtime combat logging so you can have applications yell at you when your stuff falls off or expires. Which is, basically, exactly the AddOn support you're complaining about not having, just implemented slightly differently.

    IMO AddOns are a neurotic crutch the WoW community feels they "need" after years of being conditioned by a mentality that perfect performance still isn't perfect enough, which the developers can design around since they know players pushing content will download and install the AddOns necessary for that. It's a bad cycle.

    I'm only commenting on combat-based AddOns, of course. Stuff like UI reskins and MogIt etc. are pretty much in a completely different class of product. Even then, though, they encourage the devs to be sluggish and unresponsive about baseline UI improvements. A game with WoW's level of funding should not have the default UI it still does, but they get away with it because other people fix it for them.
    I had the same discussion with another poster here a while ago on these forums. You and him are both arguing the same thing: that SWTOR baseline is better than WoW baseline, and you put the fullstop there. Unfortunately, there is the other half of the story, the addons. WoW baseline UI can be "lazy" because the addons allow you to do whatever you want and they are actually supported by the game and Blizzard. On the other hand, in SWTOR you can't do many basic things, let alone fluff, and there is nothing you can do about it.

    I also find your comment that I would only need this info only if I am doing very "high-end" content to be 100% false and you are just trying to decide for me how I like to play. Here's the thing: I like knowing what I am doing, and in a group setting SWTOR can make my life difficult. Considering that this is an MMO so group content should be what I am doing, plus that its main competitors do provide QoL features to help with these specific issues, SWTOR comes dead last on that front. Also, you don't need to take my word about them being heavily influenced by their single player legacy, just go and check for example the special they posted during beta that their metrics made it clear to them that people spent most of their time in-game watching the map so they focused on the map features during development and they shipped with the dire UI of theirs that was not even adjustable in any way.

    But feel free to believe what you want. I have both games, I enjoy both games, but there is no question that SWTOR's UI is one of its low points, especially in comparison to what's on offer in the MMO field nowadays.

  11. #211
    Titan Frozenbeef's Avatar
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    I've used dbm for so long I've honestly forgot what's wow standard and what's dbm >.<

  12. #212
    I've a always felt the need to have addons be a major flaw of the game.
    heroic raiding is just not possible without them.
    a game needs to be playable with what it ships not with third party programs developed afterwards.
    this is actually the one thing that really bugs me about wow.

  13. #213
    Could I? Yes. Hell, I had my game crash mid-raid once and fail to reload the UI when I logged back in, so I had to pull out the default raid frames (during WotLK, so these are the old style raid frames) and my spellbook and finish healing the fight hard-casting every spell from the spellbook or with typed /cast commands (on the main tank, mostly... luckily, I can type fast enough that I could finish typing "/cast holy light" before the last one finished), and it worked. It was inefficient and my performance suffered, but it worked.

    Would I? Probably not. The default UI is ugly, inefficient, obnoxious to heal with, and so horribly laid out that I'd probably quit out of frustration after a week.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Lovestar View Post
    I'm only commenting on combat-based AddOns, of course. Stuff like UI reskins and MogIt etc. are pretty much in a completely different class of product. Even then, though, they encourage the devs to be sluggish and unresponsive about baseline UI improvements. A game with WoW's level of funding should not have the default UI it still does, but they get away with it because other people fix it for them.
    Actually, I prefer WoW's system, and don't find it to be lazy at all. Their default is painful and obnoxious in many ways, but some people like it. Everyone has different desires and tastes for their interface, and addons let everyone get what they want. No single interface, no matter how customizable, will be ideal for everyone, but addons can achieve that.

    (This is one of the reasons I think tournaments that forbid the use of all addons in the name of fairness are actually less fair; the default UI is ideal for some, but not for everyone, and by forcing everyone to use the default you're automatically giving an advantage to anyone who finds that layout to be ideal, and a disadvantage to people who prefer a different layout.)

  14. #214
    I would be fine with it. It would be interesting for everyone to be on the same playing field.

  15. #215
    Quote Originally Posted by jetersky View Post
    I'm pretty sure if they removed DBM, they'd have to dumb down encounters for all but the most elite of guilds.

    My gameplay would likely suffer a bit, as I use a few add-ons for things like trinket cooldowns, etc., but overall I would get over it fairly quickly.
    The in game boss mod is just fine. Every single boss telegraphs what they are going to do a minute before they do so...

    Quote Originally Posted by Ytlayol View Post
    I would be fine with it. It would be interesting for everyone to be on the same playing field.
    Everyone is currently on the same playing field.

  16. #216
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by darkwarrior42 View Post
    Actually, I prefer WoW's system, and don't find it to be lazy at all. Their default is painful and obnoxious in many ways, but some people like it. Everyone has different desires and tastes for their interface, and addons let everyone get what they want. No single interface, no matter how customizable, will be ideal for everyone, but addons can achieve that.

    (This is one of the reasons I think tournaments that forbid the use of all addons in the name of fairness are actually less fair; the default UI is ideal for some, but not for everyone, and by forcing everyone to use the default you're automatically giving an advantage to anyone who finds that layout to be ideal, and a disadvantage to people who prefer a different layout.)
    This is a valid point. While the baseline UI with no AddOns is "equal" across all players, not all players perceive gameplay the same way. So even a universal UI will necessarily advantage some players more than others.

    However, so will every other mechanic. FPS multiplayer disadvantages players with motion sickness or poor reaction times. You can either make everyone stationary and slow down projectiles significantly, or you can say that this is how the game is designed. Some people will excel at it easier than others, but everyone can practice and learn to perform fairly well.

    That said, I don't have issues with AddOns because they "imbalance" player performance (even though they do). I think the difference there is ultimately negligible compared to players just being better and practicing more, except in extreme and exploitative cases like DoT-refresh snapshot timers. Primarily, I just see AddOns as causing developers to offload their design work onto player-based patches, which weakens the overall game design when the Band-Aids aren't present.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pourekos View Post
    WoW baseline UI can be "lazy" because the addons allow you to do whatever you want and they are actually supported by the game and Blizzard.
    No, it's not. Blizzard offers you no warranties about your AddOns and breaks them all the time with API changes that aren't sufficiently warned about in advance, or when authors stop playing and no one is around to adapt the code. The response in those situations is "Oops. Well, you have the default UI."

    Blizzard has the best of both worlds: they can break any UI features they want, without being blamed for it, because they're all "optional"; yet they can also rest assured some 3rd party volunteer will step in to maintain the systems they balance around the expectation of players having.

    I also find your comment that I would only need this info only if I am doing very "high-end" content to be 100% false and you are just trying to decide for me how I like to play.
    But it's true, you don't need to refresh your DoTs right on the clock to be effective in SWTOR. It isn't tuned that tightly. You like doing that, but you don't need to. And there's even options in place if you must be alerted when it's time to refresh.

    Also, you don't need to take my word about them being heavily influenced by their single player legacy, just go and check for example the special they posted during beta that their metrics made it clear to them that people spent most of their time in-game watching the map so they focused on the map features during development and they shipped with the dire UI of theirs that was not even adjustable in any way.
    Which they improved. Significantly more than WoW has improved most features of their UI in its 5x longer existence. Not to mention that WoW's UI is even more dire, so again, I don't understand what this has to do with the concept of "single-player legacy".

    But feel free to believe what you want. I have both games, I enjoy both games, but there is no question that SWTOR's UI is one of its low points, especially in comparison to what's on offer in the MMO field nowadays.
    I think SWTOR has one of the best baseline UIs in MMOs right now, especially once you take full advantage of the editor to position and size elements in a way you find comfortable. So I guess there is question about whether it's a low point. =)

    The only serious issue with SWTOR's combat UI is the poor support for buff/debuff tracking. This makes maintaining things like Kolto Probe and Kolto Shell annoying since they don't show up in Op frames, and it also makes DoT-based DPS somewhat ambiguous (as you point out). There are readily-available workarounds if you're pushing the meters to try to max out DPS, which are no more burdensome to implement than a WoW AddOn. If you're not pushing meters, you'll still clear content by refreshing your effects at close-enough intervals.

    If you added AddOn support to SWTOR, all you would do is encourage the devs to not fix the basic problems — which we see in WoW.
    Last edited by Lovestar; 2014-01-23 at 11:49 PM.

  17. #217
    blizzard can't remove addon support for WoW, it's been in the game over 9 years. No company would fuck over their players like that and risk them never purchasing another product

  18. #218
    I would probably quit. I am so used to where stuff is and the little quality of life improvements, that I would miss them too much.
    Or maybe I would just get used to it after a few weeks of GRR hp bar ....why are you in the upper corner? (Is that still like that?)
    "And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five?
    A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head."

  19. #219
    Depends what they offer as a "default" and how modular configurable it'll be. If they give full control over layout and include equivalents of the most popular addons (DBM, recount, Atlas Loot, Gatherer, etc.), then who cares?

    If we're supposed to just deal with the current default UI, frack it, I'm done.

  20. #220
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Strafir View Post
    Like I said, encounter complexity and assistance tools go hand in hand and it isn't the right move to take this game to an all time new low. During vanilla this game was run by inexperienced developers who mostly had a laugh when creating new encounters, and the main difficulty was to get 40 players together and have a select few who were gifted enough to lead the heard of dummies from one boss to the next.

    In 10man raids every person basically has to deal with the responsibility of 4 vanilla raiders with a much much greater encounter complexity, it's all about individual responsibility, something that didn't exist in vanilla. It's a huge crutch if one of those 10 players can't perform and instead of wiping for weeks and going on a witch hunt without evidence you can analyze logs after the raid and pinpoint a problem and nip it in the bud.

    What you see as something that "makes playing easier" I on the other hand think adds a ton of depth and makes the game interesting even outside of physically playing it. On a personal note, I can't imagine how far behind professionally I would be today if I wouldn't have had the chance to deal with math and language issues (english isn't my first lang) in an environment (ingame) that genuinely interested me at the time as a youngster.

    Some people play games just to kill time, but I've stuck around for the brain teasers and pushing limits.
    I'm sorry, but did you even raid at high level in vanilla? Stuff you are saying about vanilla, sounds like hyperbole you read from forums or someone who went there way after it was relevant content. Also there was a lot more math and brain work needed back then to come up with strategies, not to mention how important a good coder was for a guild. But again, how is combat log parsing after the fight related to in-combat addons? Wouldn't using boss mods be directly against mentality of "brain teasers and pushing limits"? and what on earth are these much much more complex boss fights I hear about?

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