Inept idiots like to call addon “cheating” because it makes them feel better about themselves.
But the truth is the designers ALWAYS intended for addons to be a thing, they were there in the first beta in 2004 and they’ve been a staple in the game ever since.
One of the reasons Blizzard supports addon creators is that they do free work for Blizzard and allow Blizzard developers to focus on more important things.
It’s actually genius, why spend months of development time on some UI option when someone else will do it for free and do a high quality job at the same time.
I think the old developers new that given the chance, the player base and community can actually HELP blizzard and do a good job at the same time.
Addons let players customise their game how they want it, not everyone wants to play with the default UI, addons are perfect for tailoring your gaming experience how you want it.
Any idiot that says “addons are cheating” is an idiot who is intentionally gimping themself because of some non existent honour code, the developers fully intended for addons such as DBM and Bigwigs etc to be made, all the features of the addons would have been put in the game by Blizzard, but as said before it is honestly a complete waste of time when fan projects will do the job for them and in alot of cases do a better job.
Really, I use weak auras on my tanks to keep track of CDs, DBM just lets me plan ahead a bit, it is far too easy to get “in the zone” when doing your role, and as such too easy to miss things that would let you know it is time to move. However, I also have a bar mod that lets me set up my UI as I want, I have movable party, roll, raid, etc so they don’t block what I need to see, I have an add-on that just lets me know when mobs/treasures are up and where they are.
Add-ons are not in and of themselves cheating, again outside of automation, but they do make it easier to keep track of important things or easier to do the job you need, in essence the default is pen/pencil and paper, the add-on is the calculator, the printing press, the typewriter, the computer, etc. Anyone who says that add-ons are cheating should limit themselves to pen/pencil and paper for their job.
My game runs smooth at 100+ fps constantly without addons (just dbm, tomtom)
I turn on recount and my fps starts dropping to 80 or smthn.
Recount is trash addon, I still use it cuz I wanna see who’s the cheeky bugger doing 100 dps, but it lowers performance.
That would be a complete waste of time on Blizzards part.
You simply do not understand why addons exist and what makes them so great.
If Blizzard didn’t want boss fights to have timers and information, they could block add ons from being able to do all that.
People like you simply do not understand that if Blizzard blocked addons then they would have to put all those features in the game themselves which would take so much development time literally NOTHING would ever get done.
Addons are simply a way of handing over the boring, time consuming aspects of development over to the player communities who are happy to create and help.
tldr if it wasnt for addons wow you’d be waiting 5 years between expansions because Blizzard would have to come up with all these and program into the game manually themselves.
There is also the customisation factor, I think it’s great that with addons people can customise the game and UI and tweak it exactly how they want it.
People often make fun of the default Blizzard UI but the reason the default UI is so bland is because Blizzard totally expected that people would rather customise the game how they want instead of being forced into using a default UI.
tldr people who are against addons are smooth brains that don’t understand why addons exist in the first place, at no point has blizzard ever suggested add ons are cheating, the people who believe addons are cheating are just short sighted and don’t see the bigger picture.
The missing piece here is that the API for AddOn development, which is what AddOn developers use to interface with WoW’s view frame, is maintained and developed by Blizzard themselves, for the purpose of AddOn development. And updated with most major patches.
It’s moderated, and in the past has had functionality removed because those functions were allowing add-ons to automate behaviour that is not intended or allowed. So if something is declare out-of-line, blizzard address it by changing what AddOns are allowed to do.
Doesn’t mean Bliz endorse all AddOns, but they have taken due course to make functional and data access that leads to rule-breaking protected or impossible–such as not allowing it at all, or forcing a hardware-input (key-press) to trigger the action.
I agree but like I said it comes down to saving development time.
People are already complaining about how long it takes for new content to come out, if blizzard had to incorporate every addon as an in game feature the amount of time between patches and expansions would increase dramatically.
You would also anger alot of players.
Some people like Shadowed Unit Frames, other people like Z-Perl or some other raid frame, people also like to customise their DBM so only certain timers appear in certain locations on their screen etc, some people want to keep the default UI but use things like bartender to put the action bars where they want or to re size icons etc.
Simply put, you can’t just “bake in” addon functionality in the game without sacrificing alot of flexibility and customisation that alot of people enjoy, just because some people can’t be bothered to install add ons doesn’t mean the rest of the playerbase should suffer.
Addons are very easy to install and set up, most are are simple as installing and away you go but alot of people treat addons like they re gatekeeping the experience or something.
They probably wouldn’t have given users the ability to create them if they didn’t want them to be created. I don’t think it’s ‘cheating’ but when you need addon’s to be able to play it’s an indication that there is an issue with the games basic design. (I’m not talking bout things like addons to manage bag space but addons that people use to do content and that groups may require of members)
What’s funny is that they do actually develop quality of life stuff, but players are so stuck on using addons that they have no idea. For example, the game has a built in Deadly Boss Mods now.
The only addon I’ve ever used has been a RP addon. Lol. I play the game just fine!
I can understand how WAs can seem like it’s overstepping bounds in certain instances, but me using it to track CDs, uptime of spells, debuffs, buffs, and the like, I’m going to give you a hard “no” on that being cheating. I want certain information displayed on my screen for a reason, and WAs allows me to do that in all sorts of different ways.
Yup. Anything that is automatic on gameplay is a form of “cheating”. However, Blizzard allows it. We have to live with it.
Its funny when when Blizzard breaks addons and macros on a patch, its a landslide for those players that thinks they are “skilled”.
Oh, I can play with no addons and macros. Even on raids. I just have to work a lot harder with all the hotkeys and mouse. Addons just makes it more convenient for me. I’m getting old you know.
