I was playing MMOs and raiding long before World of Warcraft came along, and we did fine without having ways to communicate or add-ons when it came to telegraphing events in fights. You actually had to learn the fights and watch the queue to know when something was about to happen. Those fights and wipes and eventual wins brought more enjoyment than I ever got in current WoW.
The problem is people like easier ways to win to gratify them verse the old-school players that put in the hard work to learn fights. I currently use Spartan UI and Bartender 4 and I manage to play the game perfectly fine. I have been in WoW guilds in the past that required add-ons, or you didn’t go on guild runs. It’s one of the main reasons when I came back after 6 years of SWTOR which was another game that didn’t use add-ons that I have remained guild less.
I agree with everything you said except for these two points.
I’ve had to use the stock Raid frames in Beta and they can be sized almost any way you like. I still prefer Grid 2 but the stock frames are a very solid replacement when needed. I’m not sure if you were aware but you can also choose to replace the Party frames with Raid frames and store setups for different group sizes.
As far as macros I only use my own custom Mouseover macros even with that functionality now added baseline and I never run out of macro space. I make my own because most of them are Help/Harm style and/or use Conditionals all to save Bar space.
Cosmetic Addons, like Bartender, Z-Perl and such can stay.
Ones that affect the actual gameplay like Deadly Boss Mods and Weak Auras need to go. Games should be designed around Player Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence.
Removed. Would make the game interesting PVE and PVP wise. I wish blizzard would do so. People would see the game is more challenging and rewarding. Also, pvp would be funner as you won’t have an addon saying when you can cast or shouldnt cause enemy has kick.
It can be argued that DBM and Weak Auras are cosmetic as well for the most part since they take info that’s already available and present it in a format that’s better for the player.
If you really want to go nuclear then hide the Combat Log from the player. That would also mean no parsing and/or damage meters which would be very polarizing in the community.
I agree with your agree. The Default “raid frames” IMO are far more informative and customizable. I have tried addons for healing and it’s overwhelming and just to complicated IMO. Blizzard default frames show me HoTs on targets/range/color/ and I remove the border on them and have it tucked nice down low/center on my UI. And in 5 mans I have them go horizontal above my spell bars.
I think things like weakauras that show your buffs and cooldowns in the middle of the screen are fine. Adding class icons to details or role icons to chat is fine.
Bar mods, damage meters, even boss timers. These are all things in some form or another that have existed since Vanilla. Where I would personally draw the line is things like DBM or BW or WA organizing mechanics for you, like the left/right thing in Castle Nathria.
Honestly, I’d love to see the UI become customizable enough that we could drop many of the “combat” addons. Things like DR/lockout trackers are just too integral to play to just break wholesale.
I think having simper bosses with more noticeable cues would be a better experience.
You must not PvP at all. Weak Auras are ruining PvP at the moment.
People now use WA’s that blow air horns to let them know to disarm Warbreaker, to stun/cc/kite Bonedust Brew. People aren’t playing the game, addons are playing it for them.
There were more of them, or they had more healers, or their gear was better, or their racials were better, or their class or spec is overpowered, or the map was imbalanced, or blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
“I didn’t win so obviously there’s something wrong with the game.” - PvPers
Been that way for 17 years. Could get rid of every addon in the game tomorrow and PvPers would just move on to something else and complain it “wasn’t fair!”
Weak Auras aren’t “playing the game” in those examples. Some players (myself included) like sounds as reminders during hectic fights.
Weak Auras can’t show you anything you couldn’t already discern yourself from info presented in game. They just show it in a way that’s “better” for each player. That could mean using sounds or placing an icon in the center of your HUD.
I don’t use addons. And I fully support Blizzard implementing them into the base game, especially if they’re of the essential sort. We shouldn’t need to rely on addons to enjoy the game. I don’t, already, but the experience could be improved. I think the announcement about updating the UI is in part about them moving forward with the goal to standardize some addons.
Except they could if Weak Auras didn’t exist. The info is there.
Using one of your examples I can see if I have the Bonedust Brew debuff on me without Weak Auras. It’s right on the player frame. Weak Auras just lets the player have control how the info is presented to the user.
Fighting the crappy stock UI shouldn’t be one of the tests of skill in the game.