Should they just break addons?

[Grax]

They certainly have the ability to do mechanics that cannot be automated. Hell, they did it in CATACLYSM (over 10 years ago), where the orbs on Sinestra would chase a person and there would be no debuff or any other way to know it's you except a beam going from the orb to your character.

The thing is that it doesn't work that well in a game with this many spell effects and this many characters on the same spot with these camera angles. It's more frustrating than engaging. For the most part, people have accepted that playing WoW means 99% playing the UI, 1% playing the 3D game. It's unlikely to change without a huge shift in player mindset too.

This is the best, clearest way I've ever seen WoW's biggest problem stated. I've made similar statements, but never this concise. What led me to gradually fall out with WoW over the years is the overwhelming feeling that I'm constantly waiting on the game (or addon, etc) to prompt me to make an input, instead of assessing the situation and making what I determine to be the optimal decision. I think that's also what pushed me toward healing classes later in my time with WoW, as there seems to be a little more room for decision making versus the current push-button-at-prompt playstyle.

[klaps_05]

Its been 15+ years, wow raid encounters need to move on from scripted abilities. you can still have every 15 sec some ability happens, but just RNG it 1 out of 5.

Lets say u look at Jailer bombs - the ones where you drop in a hole in P1.

1. Make it so you dont know if in 15 sec it will be bombs or blood soaks.
2. When the bombs spawn, make it between 3 and 6 players getting it.
3. Hide the holes on the platform until the debuffs go out.

Timer WA wont prepare you that bombs are coming (only maybe they are coming), location WA like echo uses wont work because you dont know where the holes are. Sure you can make a general WA with locations, but raiders will be the ones who will have 5 seconds to make decisions.

Im sure blizzard can come up with better RNG mechanics, but enough of the fully scripted boss fights.

[potis]

6 pages of everyone discussing something that the community has proven is massively needed, which is why it was created and expanded upon.

You played Classic with 32' inch monitors and 1GB connections and 3ms on 5000$ rigs and still failed to ground mechanics and Baron Gedon run out debuff.

Its adorable how so many are acting like leet mad gaming pros and addons are the problem when you even wipe in LFR, where the damage combined is not possible to kill someone unless they are 100% afk.

Addons have expanded and caused some bloating to raid mechanics for sure, but they arent the problem.

[Yarathir]

6 pages of everyone discussing something that the community has proven is massively needed, which is why it was created and expanded upon.

You played Classic with 32' inch monitors and 1GB connections and 3ms on 5000$ rigs and still failed to ground mechanics and Baron Gedon run out debuff.

Its adorable how so many are acting like leet mad gaming pros and addons are the problem when you even wipe in LFR, where the damage combined is not possible to kill someone unless they are 100% afk.

Addons have expanded and caused some bloating to raid mechanics for sure, but they arent the problem.

No, they are exactly the problem.

Blizzard is in an arms race with addon creators because the addons trivialize encounters, so Blizzard is forced to make things more contrived and add more and more mechanics and dances, which in turn means addon creators adapt to that and so on.

Meanwhile, people who don't want to play with addons are shit out of luck even in a hypothetical sense because now the fights are built from the ground up around having at least DBM/BigWigs and WeakAuras.

Good game.

[Razorice]

No one is forcing you to play with addons, so if you don't like them don't use them.

[Yarathir]

No one is forcing you to play with addons, so if you don't like them don't use them.

No one is forcing you to play without a keyboard, so if you don't like it, don't use it.

[Razorice]

No one is forcing you to play without a keyboard, so if you don't like it, don't use it.

Except I like using my keyboard and I'm not here on the forums complaining about being forced to use something I don't like?

[Yarathir]

Except I like using my keyboard and I'm not here on the forums complaining about being forced to use something I don't like?

I accept your concession.

[erifwodahs]

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

Because they all are telegraphed and displayed and also cued. You can tell what a boss is doing literally by voice of the boss, I wish more players listened to that.

[melodramocracy]

Modern higher difficulty fights are designed with the idea in mind that the player is going to have a bunch of addons and some level of reliance on them. This is part of the reason that fights just keep getting more absurd every expansion, and will continue to do so.

- - - Updated - - -

Because they all are telegraphed and displayed and also cued. You can tell what a boss is doing literally by voice of the boss, I wish more players listened to that.

Simply reacting to a visual cue isn't enough for many of these fights. There are countless examples where a group needs to be in area x or y a few seconds before an ability begins, and that is absolutely not indicated w/o addons. Same goes for when an ability is going to end.

Much of this can be negated through a group simply outgearing an encounter, but that isn't the point.

[Kumorii]

Doubt that'll go over well. Removing customization isn't exactly the thing players want.
I also think that the WA issues with how complicated they have become have little bearing on actual raid design.

Usually the WA that's created is so complicated because it tries to do something that isn't exactly necessary nor does it have the tools to do so. It has to create their own tools with using raid markers and creating their own lists and you name to get all these complex things. Usually there is a setup step even across multiple addons to get the WA's to work. And usually it's more complicated than the actual mechanic.

I remember Ra-Den.
The WA was supposed to make things so damn easy. Adding players to a list and reorganize the list based on RNG with mechanics etc etc. And we spent so much time setting it up, getting it to work because everyone had to set it up correctly. It was a mess.
And what did the WA actually do? It's a glorified list. A list that's so easily replaced. You don't even need someone doing the calling of it.

If I remember correctly, all you needed to do was to make a pre-determined list with players, which is easy. Everyone should already know their position. So if you're third, you're always third etc etc. No need for a WA for that.
Then you needed maybe 2-3 as back ups, who is also on a list, aka they know in which order they are. If one in the main list couldn't do the mechanic, they just call "I can't, need backup" then the next in line in the back up does it.

That was so damn simple. Yet people claimed it was the most complicated mechanic and YOU HAD TO USE A FUCKED UP WA TO DO IT.
I might not remember the fight exactly. I just remember how much time we spent on this WA bullshit until we finally ditched it and just went with a simple order that everyone and their grandma could know. If you're 1st 2nd 3rd or 4th or whatever, you are always in that position.

People having to watch that list being updated constantly just detracted from the fight when you already know what to do. If you can't. 3-4 words. And backup does it.
Badabim bada-boom.

So this idea that fights are complicated and that it's designed to require WA's I don't really agree with. There are certainly some fights that can get heavy help with it.
The thing is, the WA's usually help when you know what to do already, it's more of a reminder if anything else. But people act as if they use a WA then that's all they have to rely on and then complain that fights are designed to use them.

I personally rarely use the raid compilations for these reasons. They are overbloated and over complex at times and usually badly optimized so performance issues happens quite frequently. I think in Ny'alotha it was quite common for people to get disconnects when using the compilation.

I honestly think that there is a warped view on WA's based on missconceptions of it. People use it as a replacement for skill and hide behind "raids are designed to require it". No, you just don't want to learn and instead want a WA to play for you... which it can't.
Wouldn't the idea of Blizzard using these addons to tune the fights mean that they would have to create various WA's to actually test and tune the fights? I find that improbable that they would do so...

I think the biggest issue with raid fights over the years is that they are trying to make it more and more tight. You have to play more and more perfectly. Any small mistakes causing raid wipes etc etc. Think that's hurting raid design more because it's like they are competing with players to see how far they can push raid design. Which I think is an easy trap to fall into. I would probably do that the same.

I know from my little experience in level design I sometimes fell into that trap. I try coming up with clever stuff but sometimes I just tuned it too tight because I know what's happening, I know how i designed it to work... so it often became way too difficult for others who don't look at it through my eyes or even knew my thought process behind it. Easy trap tbh.

[Biomega]

Its been 15+ years, wow raid encounters need to move on from scripted abilities. you can still have every 15 sec some ability happens, but just RNG it 1 out of 5.

Lets say u look at Jailer bombs - the ones where you drop in a hole in P1.

1. Make it so you dont know if in 15 sec it will be bombs or blood soaks.
2. When the bombs spawn, make it between 3 and 6 players getting it.
3. Hide the holes on the platform until the debuffs go out.

Yeah, nothing more exciting than a world-first race where they have to wipe 75% of pulls because 4-6 people got the bomb instead of 3.

Nobody likes swingy RNG like that.

[Kumorii]

Because they all are telegraphed and displayed and also cued. You can tell what a boss is doing literally by voice of the boss, I wish more players listened to that.

I find it very odd when i hear people play wow without sound...then use wa's with flashing images or sometimes sound. Not entirely sure how it works, but when watching streams I hear their game sound being very low while DBM or bigwigs and WA's are still quite loud. Then claim you require WA's... well, no shit.

[Kralljin]

Blizzard is in an arms race with addon creators because the addons trivialize encounters, so Blizzard is forced to make things more contrived and add more and more mechanics and dances, which in turn means addon creators adapt to that and so on.

Addons don't trivialize fights, at best, they trivialize singular mechanics.

Take Mythic Archimonde, despite the fact that people not only effectively trivialized the beam mechanic in P2 / P3, but also the Mark of the Legion mechanic in the extra Phase and yet despite this, i'd say Mythic Archimonde was still one bitch of a fight.

Because modern encounters throw a plethora of mechanics at you, even if one mechanics becomes massively easier due to a WA, the entire fight doesn't fall apart and becomes trivial.
I also doubt that Blizzard then thought that people would develop a WA that gives them a little screen and tell them where to stand, because that was arguably the first time that has happened.

Also, important thing of note here: This pretty much only affects Mythic, not the entire Archimonde fight as whole.

On the vast majority of encounters, most thing Bossmods do are:
1. Timers for abilities (again, they have existed since forever)
2. You are standing in bad shit (nothing new either)
3. Telling you to use an ability (interrupt, dispel, defensive, etc..) - also nothing new

I'll say it again, people laser focus on the discussion of addons, but completely ignore
1. Classes have gotten way more complex than they used to be, especially a bigger focus on rotation and cooldowns takes away a lot of attention you could focus on the encounter itself
2. Classes have gotten way more powerful, if you're wondering why encounters in Wotlk were much more simpler, it's also because classes were much more weaker back then.
3. Blizzard has to design encounters for not only one difficulty, but four, without creating an entirely new encounter for every difficulty.
Also that encounter must be flexible in terms of playercount for two difficulties.

If you give a designer the job to create an encounter that is adequate for a ~Normal Raider, and then also tell him to design him an encounter adequate for a Mythic raider, you'd probably get two very different encounters.
But since that is too much work for Blizzard, they effectively create one encounter and then scale everything up depending on the difficulty and very mechanical abilities cannot be easily scaled up or down like numbers.

Games rarely tend to create entirely new encounters just for a given difficulty (at least not across the entire game), they usually slap more hp / damage onto everything and maybe a 1-2 new abilities, yet these tools fall apart when you want to entertain the upper echolons of the "skill" level, at least in terms of statisfying difficulty.

Another factor is how the gap in terms of playerskill has grown massively, compare the "easiest difficulty" of raiding to the hardest in Wotlk.
Now do the same comparison in Retail.
At a certain point, the "one size fits all" becomes increasingly difficult.

I'm not going to say that addons take no blame in the difficulty creep, but god damn, people laserfocus on this singular factor and ignore everything else.

[kail]

I am very biased towards addons and honestly enjoyed tinkering with my UI from time to time to try a different style/layout. If Blizz nuked all addons, I likely won't even try the next expansion post SL because the baseline UI is honestly an eyesore for me. DelvUI and other plugins made FFXIV bearable for me as well, I just like clean setups where I can control the color scheme and information displayed.

Having said all of that, I wouldn't be against breaking DBM so long as the fights give enough visual/audible hints on what to do. I completed FFXIV's savage content (pretty much a mythic equivalent) and there are some aspects of that game's boss design that WoW devs could benefit from. No bossmods are needed. strict movement patterns or death and all of it hinted by how the boss hands glow, what they cast, their own position, etc.

[Sugani]

There are so many things that the game's default UI just does so terribly, that militantly desiring to play without addons is akin to intentionally shooting yourself in the foot.

Like what?

[ercarp]

Lol, I wouldn't play WoW if they removed add-ons. The game's default interface looks like garbage and it's missing like a hundred obvious QoL features that only add-ons can provide. It's a big win for Blizzard too because they know they don't have to add anything as add-on developers will do it for them.

One of the main reasons I dislike playing FFXIV is the lack of official add-on support. I still use XIVLauncher and Dalamud plugins but they're kind of clunky and the game would be just so much better if they gave add-ons official support.

[hecpercu]

Yes pelase, thank you.

[Cracked]

This is the best, clearest way I've ever seen WoW's biggest problem stated. I've made similar statements, but never this concise. What led me to gradually fall out with WoW over the years is the overwhelming feeling that I'm constantly waiting on the game (or addon, etc) to prompt me to make an input, instead of assessing the situation and making what I determine to be the optimal decision. I think that's also what pushed me toward healing classes later in my time with WoW, as there seems to be a little more room for decision making versus the current push-button-at-prompt playstyle.

Healing is interesting because it's the one role that explicitly just plays the UI. You literally CANNOT play the game without constant interaction with the UI. I don't necessarily like it, but I understand why it feels more consistent to some.

[SNES-1990]

They should remove them and design encounters accordingly. A lot of the QoL stuff from DBM could just be built into the game itself.