Should they just break addons?

[VMSmith]

There are a few add-ons I would very much miss were add-ons disallowed, such as Postal and some wardrobe helpers. But for combat-related add-ons I've just removed them and enjoy the game without them. I still hold on to DBM but could probably do LFR without it so I wouldn't miss it, and I'm long past using DPS meters because I care not one whit how much damage I, nor anyone else, are managing.

But then, I don't do any of the top-end competitive stuff so I can play like this.

[Onikaroshi]

Nty, most of the addons i use are specifically to make the ui better, since the base ui puts many things in awful spots.

[Goatfish]

I'm not entirely opposed depending on what addons we are talking about. I can only speak for myself, but UI mods are a complete necessity to enjoy playing this game. We're talking Bagnon, Bartender, and raid/unit frames at a bare minimum. This is primarily since the base UI is so godawful that I'm shocked it still exists in its current form. Auctionator, Clique, and Leatrix Plus are huge QoL mods I wouldn't want to give up... which really just leaves 2 mods that I can understand people have issues with in DBM and Weak Auras.

I used to raid without DBM for a long time, and would honestly play without it if it wouldn't screw up other people I raid with who need the call outs it does for me automatically. Weak Aura's on the other hand, it really depends on the overall functionality we're looking for. I mostly use it for spell, buff, and ability timers for my own abilities, but could probably mess around with other UI mods to get similar functionality to what I want from WA. I effectively consider WA a UI mod that sometimes gets used to handle some of the more annoying mechanics so I don't have to use voice chat in pugs to communicate. Considering the sheer number of non-English players in the pug pool now, I'd like to keep it as well.

[Cracked]

I effectively consider WA a UI mod that sometimes gets used to handle some of the more annoying mechanics so I don't have to use voice chat in pugs to communicate. Considering the sheer number of non-English players in the pug pool now, I'd like to keep it as well.

Truth is WA is nothing but a meta-addon that allows you to easily display icons and text, and conveniently share the small addons that you make using it. There's no point in going after WA, because anything it does is basically a glorified ability timer or buff icon. To "curb it" without axing basically all addon functionality, Blizzard would have to completely redesign how reacting to event works and disallow arbitrary code execution... which is a fat chance.

The one area where I think they could step in is to prevent addons from being able to send Chat or Addon messages while in combat.

[agli]

I'd personally like to watch a RWF race without dbm/bigwigs/ to see just how 'good' the players are

[klaps_05]

WoWs API is very versatile and it would be a shame to limit it. Instead, they should make fight mechanics which arent easily solvable by weakauras.

On example with the Jailer - guilds use the weakaura in which hole to jump in with bombs in P1 by drawing those circles and coloring yours. You can stop that WA by simply randomizing which holes are open every time, or give each hole a 3 sec cycle of being open/closed with different timer starts.

[Sugani]

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.

This is the problem. The game should be designed around the 99%, not the 1%. Making a more exciting world-first race shouldn't be the priority, making more interesting encounters should.

- - - Updated - - -

Everyone in here saying add-ons aren't the problem is blind to the fact that even the developers of Deadly Boss Mods think encounters are over-engineered and over-designed. There is a very clear arms race against addons like this. You can't ignore the fact that if you want to engage in cutting edge content, ignoring addons puts you at a significant disadvantage.

[Biomega]

This is the problem. The game should be designed around the 99%, not the 1%.

While that's a separate discussion that could (and should) be had, in this particular example I used it to illustrate a point that's just as valid outside of the race. Big RNG swings suck for the 99%, too.

[Sar-]

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

How exactly would you play without a keyboard, pray tell?

[Super Kami Dende]

Lets be honest, most People that complain they require all these addons to play, wouldn't play the game anyway without the Addons since they would be even worse than most average players.

[Yarathir]

How exactly would you play without a keyboard, pray tell?

There are plenty of ways. They may not be optimal in a game built around keyboard use, but then that's the whole point.

[Biomega]

Addons aren't necessary

That's a pretty absurd bar to set, though. Almost nothing is NECESSARY. If your only measure is "can you literally not play the game without this" then there's very few things on the list.

The real problem isn't that addons are NECESSARY, it's that they disproportionately increase performance with respect to effort on the one hand, and raise the performance ceiling on the other. In other words, you could still do a ton of things without addons, but with them you can do more, and do it more easily.

This has positive and negative effects. But the bottom line is primarily that the genie is out of the bottle, and there really is no putting it back anymore. However, there is potential to curb its power somewhat; I personally don't expect it, but they could break the functionality of many of the "advanced code" WAs for example to bring things down to a more reasonable, primarily UI-modding oriented level.

[RoKPaNda]

Are you REALLY complaining about 1-2 mandatory addons for the hardest content in the game?

[cparle87]

If Blizz actually cared about the general sub base then they would limit and/or restrict addons from working as addons are actually helping people interact with the game even less than they were. If an addon brings what you need to focus on to the middle of your screen, then aren't you really playing a fast game of whack-a-mole?

Auction house addons do all the work for you so you just need to click OK.

If it continues, where will it end? How will a player with addons differ from a bot?

Bots are automated and require no input. That's the line Blizz has drawn in the sand. The player has to be there and press something at least, even one key, to make something happen like your AH mod.

[Biglog]

Addons are needed because without them either fights would need to be simplified, or Blizzard would have to accept that a much larger number of players would never do them. I guess another unrealistic option would be for Blizzard to replicate the truly required raid addons and make all of those features built-in to the UI, but that would take 10 years at Blizzard's pace. Some dps specs can maybe get by without them, although they are usually the annoying ones asking for meters to be posted every 2 minutes.

It's just too major of a change to a game that's been around as long as wow has with addons being essentially required for most raiding. That is more of something for a WoW II if they were going to do it, when Blizzard could reset player expectations that raids will be simplified but no more addons. If they did it now it's a change that would drive away far more players used to their features than the number that would be happy with them being banned.

[Biomega]

That is more of something for a WoW II if they were going to do it, when Blizzard could reset player expectations that raids will be simplified but no more addons.

I'm not even sure that would fix it. WoW has become too "professional" in that respect.

You know what top guilds would do? They'd create external addons, running them manually if they had to. RWF would involve the 21st RL sitting there with a custom app that has timers etc. and call them out to the guild as needed. Wouldn't be as efficient, but with toned-down fights it'd smash things to pieces. And with lower levels of QoL overall, it'd also have the side effect of annoying the shit out of people.

There'd have to be a combination of things going on - more inbuilt elements, different fight design, AND different overall raid philosophy to name a few. And even then it'd be a tough sell.

[Celement]

Kinda torn on the topic. On one hand the level of mods has gotten out of hand. On the other wow has such a garbage ui ( it was bad in vanilla even and it's not aged well) I would dread playing with default...

[Twdft]

On the other wow has such a garbage ui ( it was bad in vanilla even and it's not aged well) I would dread playing with default...

That's the main thing. Anyone advocating for no addons should take a screenshot of them raiding/m+ with standard UI and circle all the different places they have to look at to see the necessary information to perform adequately. As long as I have to look at 5 directions all at once wihout even seeing everything I need to know addons have to stay.

I can understand Blizzard wanting to provide a non configurable UI, the amount of support tickets "I changed my UI and now this and that is gone get it back" would be monstrous. So addons it is.

[Coldkil]

There's a very thing line between addons being useful and addons playing the game for you.

To me, the main issues are:
- WoW base UI and fights not being clear enough (more the first than the second actually)
- boss mechanics tied to timers and not to fixed HP besides phases.

There's a reason why addons are so prominent - they just set up an organized framework where all the informations are displayed and onto which players base their decisions during gameplay. Simplyfying this much the informations of a fight basically takes away a lot of agency from players that are basically just watching icons on a screen and reacting when X information appears.

It's very very detrimental for the game because it creates friction between players and developers cause the latter have to design fights counting for all players using those addons, which resulted in an overcomplication of the encounters which doesn't really serve to reach any goal. It's literally "to avoid the fights being moring and mindless, we add 4x the mechanics". Worst example is Fatescribe - the rings gimmick is fun on paper but actually ended being convoluted as hell and people just used a couple WA that literally gave you the list of which people needs to go where, removing any kind of player agency and coordination requirement to execute the mechanic well.

Which is sad, because WA is a great addon (though i don't like using it and generally don't need it). But it's exactly because of how powerful it is and how good some players are at tooling with it that fight are getting exponentially convoluted (which doesn't mean harder, only more error-prone).

It's the fight design that has to shift. With less but important mechanics, clearare indicators and less reliance on timers going off, the actual need for those addons would diminish substantially. Dungeon bosses are really good at this - they're all pretty straight forward in terms of mechanics and most of the are just fun to fight. They are short encounters though compared to raids - but a raid boss can consist in phases where mechanics change "completely" without being always a "same as p1 but with this and that aswell". Fights can be harder or easier based on enrage times, specific dps checks (burst phases) and reaction times needed being tighter or more relaxed.

EDIT: any addon about tracking buff/debuffs, or changing actionbars/unit frame and generally the look/organization of the UI are more than fine.

[Twdft]

Worst example is Fatescribe - the rings gimmick is fun on paper but actually ended being convoluted as hell and people just used a couple WA that literally gave you the list of which people needs to go where, removing any kind of player agency and coordination requirement to execute the mechanic well.

Actually Fatescribe only needs addons on higher difficulties. Normal mode doesn't need any for the rings, you can assign whoever you want/trust to do it. Put down some world markers, have Timmy always do blue and Susan orange etc. On heroic random players get the debuff to be even able to do the rings (never mind the standard UIs dog shit way of displaying debuffs) so you can't assign the same people every time. Sure you could call it out over voice, but weak aura is simply much faster and there's other stuff needing to be called.

Blizzard became quite good over the years to telegraph what's happening in the fights and normal mode doesn't need any boss mods anymore. Even timers aren't really needed, just some way of displaying your buffs/debuffs better than the standard ui.

At the same time Blizzards insists on making sure every player in heroic and mythic has to do all mechanics for their role. Which I think is fine for mythic, not so sure it's needed in heroic. Fatescribe, Mekkadrill, Dreadlords...