Integration of key addons into the game

PVP Arenas
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Hey, everyone!

Here a post about addons came up, of course I understand everything, everyone wants equality in PVP, but maybe it’s worth thinking about integrating new, modern, informative and useful elements into the game interface?
So, if in 20 years you were too lazy to move your brain once more and download a useful addon, an alternative to which Blizzard has not managed to introduce into the game in 20 years (because they are a small indie company), this is your problem, not the problem of others.

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What if someone is new to the game and doesn’t know addons are available or that their enemy has them and therefore an advantage?

Personally I think Blizzard should integrate some addons into the game itself. Enemy frames should show their trinket CDs and major defensives available, with timers. Its kind of ridiculous that information isn’t available in the base game

There are also some spells that just need better visuals

Of course it’s the same in PvE. Boss timers aren’t available in the base game. Most we get is dialog to signal abilities going out. It’s really strange Blizzard hasn’t done anything to integrate that information. Especially in the modern wow because there are certain tank busters that will kill you if you don’t have a defensive up BEFORE they go off, but you have literally no way to know when they’ll go off unless you have an addon showing boss timers.

It just boils down to Blizzard being lazy and relying on mod makers to fill in the holes in their design.

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All these “Remove addons from arena to level the playing field” topics are so funny and ridiculous.

It’s a common misconception that removing addons (while keeping the default UI as it is) would lower the gap between the worst and best players.

In reality it’s the opposite - addons are the only chance for new players to make any sense of the buff/debuff metagame and find out what’s happening in arena. The veteran players already know all animations and important abilities anyway and addons help them just perfect their game, while for new players addons allow them to play at some reasonable level in the first place.

The default UI and arena frames should definitely change - the sooner, the better.

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1000% this.

The only real people who are vehemently anti-addon don’t even want them removed; they just like having the excuse of, “oh i lost because that guy abuses addons”.

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So what claims does the new player have for high-rated PvP? When I was a new player the only thing I could use was thotbot.

Justice was invented by people, it is not a natural law.

That’s it, this is what I’m talking about.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are very faded and barely noticeable.

Absolutely right, they should be bright, noticeable and at the end of the effect there should be some bright and noticeable effect that puts an end to it, for example Blade Dance, which at the end is animated by a blow to the center, Ice Block should breaks into ice pieces, the Bubble bursts at the end with a light effect, etc.

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I know a guy who started playing wow like last year and he felt a bit unsure about addons, it seems overwhelming. And it kinda is. What’s the overlap of people who want to just play a video game with social aspects and people who want to do UI design?

The Diminish addon fits so well with the default UI that it’s mind boggling why Blizzard doesn’t have it on by default.

Back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I had just started playing wow using addons also felt overwhelming to me and honestly I made very poor use of them for the first years

A lot of people get used to the game by leveling too, so going from the breeze that is leveling or doing otherwise casual content to the learning curve of the endless productized end-games we’re familiar with on top of having a completely different UI is off putting

Honestly there’s just no defending their laziness on a core gameplay aspect

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I legit had someone use a “do you have an mmo mouse? Well thats why I lost”

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Whether certain information necessary to properly play the game is part of the base user interface or via a third party add-on isn’t really the issue for most (imo).

The issue most have with add-ons is that it requires a lot of extra knowledge to optimally and/or properly configure the various add-ons, knowledge that goes well beyond the scope of the game.

For example, while I’m sure most on this forum will disagree, figuring out how to configure weak auras to provide audible or visual queues for countless abilities is complex for the average gamer, yet many are able to derive an in-game advantage by being able to edit add-on code, write their own weak auras, etc.

Having knowledge in coding and/or programming shouldn’t be a prerequisite for obtaining an advantage in the game, and I imagine most don’t like this about the game.

Having said that, yes, it takes minimal effort to just download the add-ons and utilize them with their default settings, and quite honestly, this is more than enough for most to play the game and enjoy doing so, however, it would be disingenuous to deny that players with the above knowledge have an advantage over those that do not.

As another example which is hopefully relatable, weak auras can often be incredibly complex, and as a non-techie boomer, if I can’t find the weak aura(s) I need via a google or two, then I just won’t have access to them, which is at least a minor disadvantage in terms of how effectively I can process information compared to the next guy [e.g., Bob has icons flashing around and a voice of choice going off every moment that someone presses a cooldown, whereas Fred has to hope that he noticed relevant abilities being used by squinting at various icons amongst a sea of other icons].

At the end of the day, I don’t think being able to properly configure and/or optimize the various [essentially required] add-ons, including weak auras is going to matter below rank 1 range, but an advantage is an advantage, so I can understand why many (if not most) players would prefer for there to be a simple uniform interface and/or means for which relevant information is conveyed to each player.

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I liked AWC more without addons. I think certain comps (RMP/RPS) benefit way more than others (cleaves) from DR/CD tracking, and being able to track timings was part of the skill cap (no the in-game timer feature is not anywhere near as useful as diminish).

Similarly RWF teams having a dedicated WA expert lowers my enjoyment of watching by some tiny amount.

I think no Addons probably increases the skill gap between top and bottom, but I also think if they didn’t exist there would be more pressure on Blizzard to achieve visual clarity.

From a corporate perspective it makes no sense to disable them though. It was cheaper for Blizzard to send the DBM creator a new computer to ensure he keeps working than it would be to rethink their raid encounters without DBM or to hire someone to create/maintain something similar internally.

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I’m not a big fan of getting rid of add-ons, seeing as so much of the game revolves around RNG buff proccs… which I use add-ons to help track.

There’s also things that simply aren’t adequately tracked in the base UI… and probably never will be adequately tracked in the base UI, not least of all when they are often spec/build specific.

That’s arguable.

The thing is natural justice isn’t the same as man-made justice (which is, ironically enough, often unjust). Nature is incorruptibly law-abiding (the root of its orderliness) and, therefore, unwaveringly just as a result - we just don’t like its rulings very much.

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