As the title states, can we stop pretending the addon nuke was good? News flash, its not and it wasn’t.
The reasons why are simple:
Accessibility: The addon nuke killed a bunch of Accessibility addons such as the vocal raid announcer. Yes, youre correct there are some options for voice announcements, but they are not as good and are not good enough for those who are legitimately visually impaired such as myself. Speaking for myself, im legally blind and see blobs rather than definition but through announcer addons I was able to raid lead and see without seeing. I was able to use GTFO to know if I was standing in bad stuff, now its been reduced to doing 1 chirp and thats only in certain scenarios. I was able to make WAs to let me know when things were on cooldown. In essence, this has made me enjoy the game less and I know there are others who feel similarly.
Fixing what wasn’t broken: The removal of addons has really shown a light on the fact that addon developers did a bunch of heavy lifting and they did it for free. The time and resources spent on trying fix what wasn’t broken could have and should have been utilized on fixing things that were actually broken, or adding additional features. Instead, we got half baked addon replacements for whole baked bad decisions. Im not irritated that addons were removed, im more irritated that it was forced in a timeline that clearly was not achievable
Lack of visibility to party/raid abilities: RLs used to be able to see when CDs were available and call them on the fly in pugs or less coordinated groups. This allowed groups to plan ahead and really operate as a team so long as everyone paid attention. With this being removed, it made the groups operate in silos now where everyone is operating and looking out for number 1. Its beyond short sighted.
Did not change PVE: One of the biggest reasons given for why addons were removed was because they were making encounter design harder and preventing blizzard from using some bags of tricks that WAs or addons would solve. Sounds good on paper, but the reality is that addons were removed and then encounter design didnt change to account for it. The only thing new was the memory game from L’ura and I can tell you, its a truly terrible experience trying to pug this. So good job blizz, you made a mechanic that isn’t currently solvable and now the game is less social and less fun by proxy because now im forced to find a dedicated guild to play with just to do content. Oh yeah, and as the RWF is showing us, the true contenders for the title still have addons, so your argument that you needed to do this to make encounters difficult is complete BS. The only thing you did was widen the gap between normal guilds and the big 3 guilds. And no, this isnt me saying I could play at that level, but at least in the past, I could get the liquid weak aura pack and make the encounters on tiny bit easier. Now, this stuff is all custom and not likely to be shared. Let’s call it for what it is, you guys are using the same tired mechanics and aren’t thinking out the box anymore. Protect the baby, DPS/ HPS check fights, council equal burn fights are all we get. Here’s a free one for you, how about we try a boss where the classes swap. Dps classes now attack their allies to heal them and healers heal the boss to hurt them. Or kick bombs at the bosses limbs to cause them to take damage or remove plating (think mother load boss). Or what about creating a boss that you have to damage the environment at the right time to make stalagtites fall on them or something. None of those suggestions are solved by addons and thats just my stupid self sitting on the couch for 5 minutes.
The only logical thing I can think of is that Blizz is gearing up to release on console. If that’s the case, thats fine, but dont penalize the PC players so that you can add a console player.
I personally am going to try to continue playing, but if I continue to feel like I am not able to play the way that I want to and have done for years I am not likely to continue for very long. So as the title states, can we stop pretending that the addon nuke was good, and come to grip with reality that this has actually made the game worse?
It’s not about penalizing it’s about equal footing. Which would never happen imo because mouse and keyboard will always be superior for this type of game
Agreed to both points, but there also has to be a moment of realization that intent must be that a person on PC and a person on console should be trying to work together in all situations less PVP. To make it harder for one so that its easier for the other makes it a net loss for both by proxy. To your point as well, theres never going to be equal footing on a console as there is a mouse and keyboard. FPS players demonstrate this every day lol.
No, that’s stupid. They explained very plainly why they were doing it. It was because addons had gone too far in what they could do. Not simply changing how information was conveyed to players but conveying information they weren’t supposed to have. In response they started making boss fights more complex. Then addons started doing even more. Then boss fight got more complex still. And on and on it went. It became like an arms race. So they had to finally put their foot down.
Pull the ripcord. They’ll never get the balancing right. After saying they were holding off until after the rwf and mdi. Now the talk is all as if we will be getting weekly sometimes daily balancing.
Not sure if you have been watching the RWF, but L’ura is already considered to be the hardest boss ever made and thats by the guilds who still have addons. So your argument was that they removed addons so that they could have better encounter design without having power creep, but the fact that they nuked addons and then proceeded to release a boss that is farming the best guilds in the world with the best players in the world and is also one of the hardest bosses to pug is a direct contrast to that argument.
It would be like saying “we had to reduce the fire power of our weapons because we were afraid we would blow the doors off the firing range when we shot it” but then coming in with a nuclear bomb as the example of how youre idea accomplished this. Actual clown logic.
And their explanation wasn’t that they wouldn’t create difficult content. Of course they would. It’s supposed to be difficult! The point is that people shouldn’t be able to circumvent the difficulties using addons. They’re supposed to overcome the difficulties by playing the game really well.
I know critical thinking is hard but I want you to read what I wrote in both prior posts and understand that I acknowledged what you just said, and also showed why that argument made no sense. But thats ok. Ill explain it another way.
Difficulty is one thing, inability to do the mechanical without aid is another. Keeping with the RWF L’ura example, did you know theres actually a 4th place team from China thats on L’ura as well? Did you know they dont have add on development on their team so they dont have the same weak auras as the big 3? As a result, they have not even seen the intermission yet. Coincidence?
All of these are fair points. One additional reason for the addon removal that I’d like to add is that they were removed because players were no longer interacting with the encounters just the add-on. In TWW I did raids with minimal add-ons when I told people they were genuinely shocked and questions how I even did it. I didn’t use any raid add-ons or weak auras. Just some simple UI add-ons and mostly kept my screen vanilla.
Still tho, I was a bit taken back when a couple people responded in that way and can see why Blizzard chose to do so.
Bear in mind that this is also just the first season without add-ons. It’s still really early after the change. If anything raids don’t feel too bad IMO. But then again I’m only playing dps can’t really say for healers and tanks.
The removal of combat addons was great, however what isn’t great is Blizzard back peddling and allowing restrictions through though due to players crying similar to OP.
They aren’t even close to Uu’Nat. Liquid has 457 pulls on L’uru and have shown they can do it. The boss melts in p4 but so fits the raid. They got 44% in p4. It’s gonna happen soon. Uu’Nat was over 700 pulls.
Yeah because addons for them were not about cluttering up their screens. Just info they needed. So of course you can look at it and say it looks like same. And there are tons of smaller addon creatures in curseforge