WoWCast - How World of Warcraft is Improving its UI

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WoWCast - How World of Warcraft is Improving its UI

Sit down with content creator Dratnos, and Raid Leader of Team Liquid and content creator, Max as they talk with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas about future User Interface (UI) changes arriving in Legacy of Arathor (11.1.7.)

The future of the evolving base UI is just beginning. We look forward to your feedback as we continue to share our discussions with you.

[SinR]

Oh god I can't wait to be called various slurs in game because I use the in-game Hekili and don't pull frame perfect DPS

Oh.

Wait.

I already do.

[Big Thanks]

They recently added an addon i always use

Tellmewhen

To the standard interface.
I was very surprised.

[SinR]

They recently added an addon i always use

Tellmewhen

To the standard interface.
I was very surprised.

yeah, TMW and Hekili work the same. Lets you train a bit to be able to work on rotational stuff.

[Illuminance]

One button rotations added... next up in 11.2, the game plays itself :P

[Rezzyk]

11.1.7 Legacy of Arathor? Did Blizz miss an announcement before making this post?

[Biomega]

Maybe, just MAYBE, there's a bit too many buttons going on in those rotations perhaps sorta kinda?

Jokes aside, it makes sense that they're acknowledging the situation: addons solve problems that the default UI can't solve, and that are created as a result of the design arms race. Working on several fronts to deescalate and bring things back down a bit seems like a sensible intervention.

In an ideal world we have a stock UI that has some advanced features like voice alters and dynamic bars, but also fights that require fewer communication, are better telegraphed, and don't feature overly complex conditionals. "If you light up, get out of the raid" is an easy thing to handle - "dispel this when it's at 5 stacks at least, but only if there's over 4 seconds left on the buff" or whatever is not. As long as the design and the available tech work in concert, then at least in principle the arms race is reversible.

What we absolutely cannot, I repeat cannot, have happen, though, is Blizzard half-assing the solution somehow so that regular people lose functionality, top-end players find a workaround, and fights retain overcomplexity that now only people "in the know" can handle. That's exactly the kind of Blizzard fiasco I envision happening: they try and restrict addon functionality which breaks everything, but because they leave addons in the game in principle the clever code monkeys on the top guilds' payrolls will find a way to turn a "cosmetic" addon into a functional one with some extra steps. So it's good they're involving the community directly - that could be something to help with such a nightmare scenario, and stop it in its tracks.

It'll be interesting to watch how this develops, and how far it will really go. Lots of pitfalls left and right, to be sure. But I guess it's been a long time coming, this has been building for a while.

[Malcho]

Me immediately after watching this interview:

[Daedius]

Woo, win-win -- all the lazy sods in WoW can now push that bit more dps beyond pressing one ability or auto-attacking, and we get kills done faster.

- - - Updated - - -

One button rotations added... next up in 11.2, the game plays itself :P

Pay extra to unlock the auto-play function like in many mobile idle games.

[Ereb]

One button rotations added... next up in 11.2, the game plays itself :P

Some here apparently need that for how much they cry that retail is too hard and too complicated and ahh I hate thinking where's my free dopamine!

[TristanTaylor]

Some here apparently need that for how much they cry that retail is too hard and too complicated and ahh I hate thinking where's my free dopamine!

I prefer them to the ones who will ride you raw acting like if you're not the best of the best of the best you don't deserve to play.

[CrittenMitten]

WOW (Pun not intended)

I did not expect they would add an 'auto-DPS/heal-button' like the Japanese mobile games I play.

[McNeil]

So not only is WoW looking like a mobile game, it’s gonna play like one.

[Rageonit]

So not only is WoW looking like a mobile game, it’s gonna play like one.

I'm sure nobody in your +4 key will care.

[celinamuna]

Removing in-game dps meters sounds great

[Azerothian Explorer]

Now just remove access to the api so all the stupid parsing and gatekeeping addons go away.

[neocount]

How about... maybe fix your game first.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

MMO cooldown rotation combat is nonsense. You press a button to swing your sword but it only hits that mob for 10% of its HP (why? You just slashed him! He should be barely standing!), but then you arbitrarily can't press that button again because it's on cooldown. So now you need to press this other button where your character swings his sword differently, and it hits the mob for 8% of his HP (???). But whoops! This wasn't actually the button you should have pressed! You should have pressed this other button that hits the mob for 9% of its HP, putting that button on cooldown, and then hit that 8% button! There is no way you could have known that due to the esoteric tooltip numbers. How are you supposed to know that one button that deals (67.1596% of Spell power) with an 11 second cooldown (how do you calculate your 4,713 haste stat modifier?) is better than the button that deals (107.1% of Attack power) on a 6 second cooldown? And you have three hotbars of these buttons. There is no way for a player to know which buttons they should be pressing in what order through what they experience in the game.

And this doesn't just extend to button pushing, but to your character building as well. How are you supposed to know if crit is better than mastery (makes you deal more frost or holy damage) or versatility? They both make you do more damage, right? And then you have talents. About half of the post-DF talents are so useless they exist to troll players who don't know any better. And then there are trinkets or item effects and elixirs, and so on. There is a massive power disparity between people who pick up a class and push the buttons, stack the stats, and pick the talents that seem the most sensible, Versus players following an out of game guide. And the PUG community bases player performance over the top players who follow the out of game guides. Players who don't get kicked. The game never prepares you for this, never tells you that you are dealing on a fraction of the damage of other players or how to rectify this. And oftentimes, the highest DPS builds are the one you enjoy playing.

The basic ability combo button simplification was something GW2 and FF14's PvP was already doing, because again having to press 15 different buttons to swing your sword and they only hit the mob for 10% of its HP each is utter nonsense. All basic sword swing buttons should be simplified down to one button, and leave the other buttons for actually meaningful, different stuff like summoning a frost dragon airstrike or riding your divine steed or activating a shield.

[Algorath]

Ooooh not sure I like the one button rotation thing. I remember feeling like such a cheater on my paladin, using Decursive (I think it was called) to auto cast cleanse poison on everything, bound it to my mouse scroll and just cheesed that mechanic. Now people will have it for all abilities?

I like the highlight. Use it as a tool to sort of get to know the class, but a one button does all... Oooooh that's rash.

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Every patch we're getting close to a big single red button to play the game my god