Should they just break addons?

[Athulua]

I feel that the game went way too far with addons again.
It was like that in late WoD too.
I was always playing the game with as little addons as I could, I didn't had to have a boss mod yelling at me every 5 seconds to get out of damaging floor or something. I managed to beat all of MOP raid tiers on mythic (or back then - heroic) without any boss mod installed.
First tier of WOD was manageable as well. But the second tier (on mythic), well... not quite. I had to have an addon for Kormrok (hands), and another one for Iskar (cos passing the ball fast enough with default UI was nearly impossible) and yet another one for Archimonde (lazer beams).

Then in Legion and BFA they again toned down this bullshit a bit, I haven't raided all tiers but most were manageable without DBM or weak auras. Mostly awareness mechanics, you know what's coming and how to deal with it.

But then Shadowlands came and another round of clusterfuck fights that have mechanics which require addons. And any kind of mythic guild i was in was mandating weakauras from players. I mean fuck off, do i have to have so much trash on my UI on every damn fight? I clearly don't, I was fine without that for years.

What's up with blizzard? Did their UI Design team just gave up because everyone just uses ElvUI/RothUI/GennUI? AH took 10 years to fix, prior to BFA patch 8.2 it was unusable without some sort of UI addon such as TSM or auctionator. They're basically telling the players to fix their damn game for them. And the result is having to install a hundred fucking addons and have 15 LUA errors pop up every login. I'm through tolerating this.

[dopefishz]

I'm through tolerating this.

then just dont play with addons?

[MrLachyG]

No.

/10char

[Progenitor Aquarius]

I would be happy if they did. It is so time consuming to install this thing. Especially when it comes to updating UI and weakauras. I understand that you can have a few add-ons like damage meter or big wigs. The rest should be provided by the game interface itself.

[Skylarking]

i think it would be a good idea, but only for instanced content. Addons offer far too good QoL for things like AH i would not like to part with.

[Shingaru]

its a hot topic but its too late. addons have gone too far. and reverting to a state without them would ruin the game at this point.

[ellieg]

No. No they should not.

[Puri]

Fights are designed around the existence of addons.
Some boss fight mechanics have no visual or textual clue, but are just transmitted as event in the combat log which then is read and displayed by boss mods/WA.
It's been that way since several addons.
If they should disable addons they would have to implement their own version of boss mods, or tone down on boss mechanics.

[Maell]

They should do what they have been doing for ages but at a faster pace. Seeing what add-ons are used the most and make them baseline within the game.

This goes way back to the in-game calendar and most recently to raider.io score and mouse over options.

The default UI is still very limited without add-ons.

[Sunnydee]

I think there's a bit of a vicious circle regarding addons and fights. Most fights back in the days were so easy you could and most did without any special addons.
The more people use stuff like weakauras to make fights easier the more mechanics blizzard feels they have to add in to keep the fight relevant and "hard". Then the people without the right stuff gets shafted beacuse you almost need (i said almost, hold your horses) those weakauras etc.

[Ludek]

Breaking all the addons? No
Breaking combat-enhancing addons? Yes, maybe, kinda...

First they would have to design clear boss telegrams to a point that mythic raid is fully clearable by a mythic-level group without the addons (spoiler: It will never happen), then they can maybe start thinking about removing something like combat info not related to your character only from WeakAuras or something like that.

In the past Blizz did some tweaks to addons in combat, like disabling that ICC "AR" addon, or making range radar outdoor only... but I don't think they care nowdays.

[czarek]

Rolf thats ur choice to use them or not. Im could play easly without most of content. Anythin MUST is just DBM for me.

[Schmilblick]

Raiding addons ? yes.

[Taquito]

99% of player base can't even do LFR without dying. 99% of M+ players cannot react to something bad happening using their spells and save the pull or don't wipe.

If you have a correctly configured UI, this % will be a lot lower.

[unbound]

They literally designed the game to be inclusive of add-ons from the very beginning...yes, beta (if not alpha) of Vanilla.

Furthermore, many of the enhancements to the game came from Blizz essentially stealing earlier add-ons and integrating them into the game.

No one is forcing you to use add-ons, but Blizz understands that part of the remaining popularity of the game is due to add-on availability. They aren't going to break them since they are already being incredibly lazy by providing minimal content each expansion now...they sure as heck aren't going to put in the effort to drastically improve their base UI now.

[Stickiler]

Some boss fight mechanics have no visual or textual clue, but are just transmitted as event in the combat log which then is read and displayed by boss mods/WA.

I genuinely can't think of any fight mechanics(From recent expansions) which aren't either telegraphed through buffs, debuffs, animations or sound cues.

[Gaidax]

The extensive addons support is one of the major features that sets this game apart from most if not all MMOs.

It should stay as it is and be improved. Having ability to customize interface to such almost limitless extent is amazing and something that should be commended, not fought.

[Bats]

I'd love it if they did and integrated a lot of them into the game. Have a customizable UI like FF would be a huge first step so we stop using Bartender.

Knowing Blizzard tho they'll half ass it and lock these features behind a time gate/grind so probably leave them as it is lol

[Iain]

then just dont play with addons?

Suppose Blizzard added god-mode invincibility as a gameplay option, would you then say "just don't play with god-mode"?

[Rageonit]

Breaking addons, at this point? No. For better or for worse, addons are part of what WoW is nowadays - so the upset would be overwhelming. The raiding/m+ competitive niche is where WoW still shines compared to its biggest competitors, so it wouldn't make too much sense either. Why destroy an important part of what makes this game stand out?