Hello everyone!
This is my last post about addons and competitive integrity in PvP for this season. I’d like to share my thoughts with you and hear what you think.
Personally, as a player who has been playing with addons for over 20 years, not having them is a huge pain. The game’s default UI is quite basic and doesn’t provide enough information, of course. But that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about the perspective and motivations of the people who are against playing with addons, and probably about Blizzard’s actions and their view of the current situation—the state of the game we have today.
So where exactly is the line when it comes to competitive integrity?
Let’s take diminishing returns as an example. It’s an 18-second hidden timer. Should players be able to see it? Some would say no. But what would that actually achieve?
In my opinion, it would only make PvP less effective, because players need to know exactly when they can use crowd control for its full duration—whether it’s to secure a kill or to peel and save someone or themselves.
In other games, there isn’t even a diminishing returns system. In fact, some supports and item combinations can keep you crowd controlled almost indefinitely. In WoW, trying to mentally track an 18-second hidden timer while dealing with so many crowd control effects in a fast-paced team environment is simply unrealistic.
So am I just trying to force my own point of view on you again? Sorry, but maybe we really should remove all this information. Maybe the game would actually be better and more fair that way?
Remember Classic (Vanilla) WoW? You couldn’t even see an enemy cast bar. There was no visible timer and no spellname, no cast bar at all. If for example a mage was casting something icy at you, it was most likely Frostbolt.
Now let’s imagine modern WoW without cast bars, without visible enemy health bars (which is honestly hard to even imagine—a game where you are basically fighting blind). Let’s also imagine that enemy buffs work the same way they did in Classic (Vanilla), meaning they are hidden. Would we really want to play a game like that?
Speaking about enemy buffs, the current game has a huge amount of micro talents and buff mechanics that can increase the number of buffs on an enemy to 3–4 rows. Trying to find and after track a specific buff among all of them and focus on the target frame while playing melee and chasing a kiting you ranged DPS is not exactly a realistic task.
And in general, the visual representation (animations) of more than 70% of defensive and offensive cooldowns in the game is very weak, dull, and barely noticeable. There are no clear visual indicators showing when an effect starts and when it ends.
If you remove the ability to track major defensive and offensive cooldowns on nameplates, then the game needs to make those animations much clearer—with strong visual indicators that clearly show the beginning and the end of the effect.
And once again, I come back to the conclusion that my original position was correct.
And there is one more important point: many players have said, and I have personally realized this as well, that playing without addons simply does not feel as enjoyable as it used to.
This is also a very important aspect to consider.
And of course, it is important to acknowledge that playing with third-party modifications is not completely fair, especially in competitive environments where some players have access to them while others do not.
Unfortunately, the current built-in Gameplay Enhancements (like the Damage Meter) are very low quality and feel unfinished, almost like they were made in a hurry and then forgotten. Maybe these tools should be constantly improved and modernized with every new patch and update?
After all, this is basically part of the core gameplay experience. In my opinion, it is much more important than the countless housing decoration items that are being added (personally, I don’t even have time for that kind of content, because my available playtime is strictly dedicated to the aspects of the game I enjoy the most for decades.)
And I would also like to share my opinion about focus and arena1, arena2, arena3 targeting macros.
Almost all of my action bars are filled with spells and macros. In my opinion, it would be a good thing if there was a way to free up those slots by removing arena 1, 2, 3 and focus target macros from the game.
I think this has gone too far. It requires much more skill to actually watch what is happening on the arena field—tracking enemy positioning, understanding where each opponent is and what they are casting—than simply putting someone on focus and endlessly spamming arena/focus target macros.
Of course, this is just my personal opinion. I am not a Rank 1 player, so I am not claiming to have the ultimate answer about that kind of macro and mechanics. But I still believe there is more skill involved in manually following the fight, reacting to what is happening in the arena or in the world, and switching targets when needed to interrupt a cast or apply crowd control.
The current level of reliance on arena and focus target macros feels like too much.
Well, I think that covers everything I wanted to say.
Sorry for the wall of text, but this topic is genuinely important to me, and I believe it is important to many of you as well. That’s why I wanted to explain my thoughts in as much detail as possible.
I would really like to hear your opinions and thoughts on this.
