Should they just break addons?

[Gorsameth]

We wouldnt have these insane bossfights if there werent allowed with many addons that makes many of them much easier. You cant imagine someone doing it without addons, cause they are made with addons in mind. Without these addons, you wouldnt have these fights.

At the very least, they make the game easier.

As I said last; Would it really be so bad for most wow players if these addons were banned and Blizzard started to create fights/dungeons without addons in mind?

Except by their own words, addons don't drive encounter design.

To be clear: We make “high complexity” mechanics not because we feel pressure to keep up with addons, but because doing so allows us to create more unique bosses.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...blem/1242798/4

So we would still have these insane boss fights if there were no addons in WoW, and fights would actually be many times harder if they were banned because the community would no longer be able to fix Blizzards garbage with an addon.

[Malania]

It sounds like a good idea but some mechanics are so complex these days in higher end raids, you'd need to dumb content down again.

[Aydinx2]

They need to build in their own damage meter. The rest I can live without.

I wanna be able to easily see if I'm doing/did well.

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Except by their own words, addons don't drive encounter design.

To be clear: We make “high complexity” mechanics not because we feel pressure to keep up with addons, but because doing so allows us to create more unique bosses.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...blem/1242798/4

So we would still have these insane boss fights if there were no addons in WoW, and fights would actually be many times harder if they were banned because the community would no longer be able to fix Blizzards garbage with an addon.

What they say doesn't actually have to be the truth. That has been proven many times in the past.

To begin with, there have been plenty of unique bosses in the past when the average Raid was easier on mechanics than current dungeons. I don't remember a boss because of a mechanic. I remember a boss because of their visuals, lore and position/rewards in the raid.
And they have admitted themselves that Addons put a strain on Raids to be a certain complexity. I think this was during the Asmongold interview.

Literally the whole reason this conversation about addons is active right now is because the Raid has mechanics that pretty much require addons.

[Malania]

They need to build in their own damage meter. The rest I can live without.

I wanna be able to easily see if I'm doing/did well.

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What they say doesn't actually have to be the truth. That has been proven many times in the past.

To begin with, there have been plenty of unique bosses in the past when the average Raid was easier on mechanics than current dungeons. I don't remember a boss because of a mechanic. I remember a boss because of their visuals, lore and position/rewards in the raid.
And they have admitted themselves that Addons put a strain on Raids to be a certain complexity. I think this was during the Asmongold interview.

Literally the whole reason this conversation about addons is active right now is because the Raid has mechanics that pretty much require addons.

I used to remember raid bosses based on their lore but we've long since passed the point where there's any decent lore character left to use. We're fighting Jaina, Sylvannas and Anduin these days. The Illidans, Kael'thas's and Lich Kings have all been used up. Kind of sad.

Edit: Personally the only real use I find from addons are timer reminders, the rest can be done visually.

[enigma77]

They destroyed raiding in this expansion. It's not fun to have every boss require 5 weakauras, 10 assignments and 500 mechanics, of which at least 1 oneshots your entire raid if one member makes a tiny mistake.

Who enjoys this trash?

We need to go back to bosses having 3-5 abilities, each one being fun but punishing if done wrong. Ban all computational weakauras that automate assignments and make it utterly unnecessary to ever look at another dbm timer ever again, by making the bosses either announce they are about to do something bad or have them at least have energy bars.

How about we just play the game without worrying about all of this unfun gargabe? They should just fucking delete Jailer already, so we can be free of this hellish content. Make him a loot pinata, we are done.

[Malania]

They destroyed raiding in this expansion. It's not fun to have every boss require 5 weakauras, 10 assignments and 500 mechanics, of which at least 1 oneshots your entire raid if one member makes a tiny mistake.

Who enjoys this trash?

We need to go back to bosses having 3-5 abilities, each one being fun but punishing if done wrong. Ban all computational weakauras that automate assignments and make it utterly unnecessary to ever look at another dbm timer ever again, by making the bosses either announce they are about to do something bad or have them at least have energy bars.

How about we just play the game without worrying about all of this unfun gargabe? They should just fucking delete Jailer already, so we can be free of this hellish content. Make him a loot pinata, we are done.

What was the last boss that had a fun, but punishing mechanic if it was failed?

I can't remember a mechanic that did something fun if you failed.

I have this vision of the game you're describing playing itself without player interaction.

[Cyberred]

Come on man. Addons are great stuff, I can't imagine playing without them anymore. Why complicate your life by removing them?

[TOM_RUS]

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.

You think you did, but you didnt. Stop lying.

[Peacemoon]

Absolutely. Definitely for things like DBM - the game itself should be doing this job and if not you shouldn’t need to know. They are way outside the ‘custom hi’ field.

As for addons that help you organise your hotbars, that is fine I think.

[chesder]

You think you did, but you didnt. Stop lying.

It's always a gas to see people claim they didn't use boss mods during mythic (or heroic pre legion) raid content.

No, of course you didn't. I'm sure the raid had no problem yelling at you for constantly fucking up mechanics, benching you, then bringing you back post nerf when it doesn't matter.

To date I have not ever known a single top guild who would let that fly. Mine was so strict on it that you'd be benched for trying for the week, if not all of prog.

[potis]

It's always a gas to see people claim they didn't use boss mods during mythic (or heroic pre legion) raid content.

No, of course you didn't. I'm sure the raid had no problem yelling at you for constantly fucking up mechanics, benching you, then bringing you back post nerf when it doesn't matter.

To date I have not ever known a single top guild who would let that fly. Mine was so strict on it that you'd be benched for trying for the week, if not all of prog.

Cause their raiding was "We cleared the first few bosses that are usually a joke 6 months after they were relevant", or some mix of that, stuff like "Some rando guild was desperate for people or they would quit raiding, and i had no clue, i went along, died on every fight but it counts as raiding without addons and we were 2/10HC".

Its as i have said to multiple posts lately, some people really dont understand their level and that their experience does not represent how the game is, or is supposed to be.

Clearing Normal raid because they invited you randomly, with 9 mains with CE, because they are boosting the new e-gf of some guildie and they just took a few extra friends and family cause no one cares, does not count as "I have raided Normal".

[aceperson]

all addons? no. that's honestly a stupid idea so i can see blizzard doing it.

combat addons? certainly. we've had at least 2 different times the team admitted to designing fights around addons like weakauras. combat addons are clearly doing more harm than good these days.

[bloodykiller86]

Come on man. Addons are great stuff, I can't imagine playing without them anymore. Why complicate your life by removing them?

if i had to play with base UI id quit the game lol its a big reason i cant stand FFXIV, UI is garbage

[epigramx]

That won't happen, because you failed to see it practically. For example: if I want to be the best healer in the world: I'm gonna need mostly an amazing raid frames; but Blizzard ALREADY TRY TO PROVIDE THAT ON THEIR OWN; i.e. most "amazing addons that help" are already tried to be replicated by Blizzard.

tl;dr: Blizzard already tries to provide those addons themselves (the default UI is technologically just another addon set); there were extremist addons like the directional ones but those functions were disabled.

And let's say even Blizzard's UI would disable that basic functionality; what are you gonna do: heal by targetting people in the 3d world? that would be disgusting gameplay in a complex game already.

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if i had to play with base UI id quit the game lol its a big reason i cant stand FFXIV, UI is garbage

You underestimate the Blizzard UI. It can be usable if you tweak it well or at least if you move the frames around (and they plan to make them moveable I heard). Now some addons like TSM can be brutally advantegeous to some people.

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combat addons? certainly. we've had at least 2 different times the team admitted to designing fights around addons like weakauras. combat addons are clearly doing more harm than good these days.

I think blanket statements like that misunderstand what weakauras even is. Technologically it does nothing different than getting plain LUA and running it in the console and all the pretty graphical stuff is just wrapping to present the results.

i.e. to disable "weakauras" you don't disable weakauras; you practically wreck LUA itself; most of those functions are used for simplistic stuff like showing a health bar but if you combine that data: you can get something smart.

[aceperson]

I think blanket statements like that misunderstand what weakauras even is. Technologically it does nothing different than getting plain LUA and running it in the console and all the pretty graphical stuff is just wrapping to present the results.

i.e. to disable "weakauras" you don't disable weakauras; you practically wreck LUA itself; most of those functions are used for simplistic stuff like showing a health bar but if you combine that data: you can get something smart.

it may be a blanket statement about an extremely adaptable addon, but it is most known for the combat applications. which is the point of my post. if the game is being designed around the addons instead of the addon around the game, then something is seriously wrong.

[Biomega]

if the game is being designed around the addons instead of the addon around the game, then something is seriously wrong.

If that was the case, you'd be right.

It's not, though. That's just simplified vernacular for the complex interplay between addons existing and devs designing raid fights. It's not ACTUALLY how it works.

A more accurate statement would be something like "some aspects of raid encounters are designed with the existence and potential of addons in mind". Which is a very far cry from the broad overgeneralization of "omg the ENTIRE GAME IS DESIGNED AROUND ADDONS" that many doomsayers like to trod out.

Are WeakAuras sometimes taking things too far? Maybe. But maybe there's also some pretty silly mechanics that aren't nearly as cool and engaging as they look on paper - so people WANT to skip them asap via WAs.

The "Among Us" thing on Lords of Dread is a great example. It sounds cool and unique. It sounds like something to get excited about.

Until you actually get into the fight on mythic, and just want to do anything else but devote mental energy to identifying and communicating little things to 20 people all talking at once.

Instead, you just click the thing that lights up, and then get on with doing the ACTUAL fight and not some contrived minigame. That's not WA's fault, that's them designing mechanics that make you do things other than just play your character - and those are very hit and miss. Sometimes it's actually cool; very often it's just tedious bullshittery.

So instead of worrying about whether some minigame can be solved by a WA, maybe we need design to focus more on things that WAs aren't all that helpful for to begin with. They certainly have proven they can make fights like that.

[aceperson]

It's not, though. That's just simplified vernacular for the complex interplay between addons existing and devs designing raid fights. It's not ACTUALLY how it works.

the devs have literally admitted they design around combat addons MULTIPLE TIMES! god... the ignorance of some people...

[Popastique]

No, they shouldn't

[kail]

DBM/BW is the main addon that changes how bosses are designed to keep them from being a snoozefest, if anything warrants being broken it's those encounter addons that display the fightscript. Everything else is more for convenience and aesthetics that I would hate to see go. Even in FFXIV where mods are not supported/allowed, I can't see myself playing that game without DelvUI and such. I like the control on which information is displayed at wherever I want in the screen.

[VinceVega]

I use not many addons. And most are either interface stuff or info gathering for after the fight

Details beacuse it is interesting and helps with analyzing what went wrong
Elvui because... well.. vanilla ui is horrible
Weak Auras for my abilities. Basically only modified Abilitie Bars. Looks better. Doesn't really do anything or gives me more information than basic ui
And Boss Mods i mostly ignore because wows boss fights are quite telegraphed and you get into the flow of what happens really fast


there is the occasional boss i need another addon or weak auras for because it is... easier? Like the BirdBall Boss in Hellfire Citadel for example. Stupid mechanic wihtout it. I had no extra addon or weak aura in all of Nathria for example...

Long story short. Nearly everything can be played without any addon in wow. Boss Mods are usefull but also not necessary. Only the ocasional Weak Aura for specific heavy positioning or movement stuff like in HFC or in sepulcher