Use of addons is cheating, and it needs to be addressed

[Abricot-grizzly-hills]

But they aren’t cheating. They just aren’t.

1. They are not against the Terms of Service. Blizzard makes very clear which addons are okay to use and which aren’t.

2. They’re universally available. You can download and use the same addons as everyone else.

3. They create usability and accessibility that isn’t native to the UI. There are a lot of people with vision challenges, motion challenges, and musculo-skeletal challenges that benefit from addons. Addons help more people play.

4. They create better information architecture. Custom tooltips, graphs, and organizational structures allow players to view game data in ways that work best for them. For players who take an analytical approach to play, addons enhance the game experience.

I’m not even going to say, “Change my mind.” We might as well be arguing oer whether the sky is blue.

[Perd-thrall]

This post is from 1 year ago.

Read dates before posting.

[Kiofea-illidan]

Necroing should be a bannable offense.

[Jujubiju-staghelm (Jujubiju)]

I wanna ask him why it took him 24 days to respond.

I mean, personally, I’ve been experimenting with the new UI and importing my art into kgpanels and weakauras just using something called an my own artwork attempts.

Once I’m done I might even share it.

AI could tell you that. But I learned that part years ago. It makes those addons so much easier to use and funner to use.

That’s all you really need. If you raid I could see wanting DBM. I used to raid and I understand the need for it cause you don’t always remember something or know a fight. Seems like Bliz has gotten better about that over the years because even without DBM I can figure out when to move now.

[Father-ysondre]

@Stillaverage-area-52

Well, no, it’s a way for players to deal with terrible game design in many cases. Take the second boss of fall, for instance. From the healer’s perspective, it’s an extremely demanding fight. They already have to do the same things everyone else does, but then they also have to determine when people are safe to be dispelled, and when they aren’t. And this can change in an instant. Without a nameplate weakaura, you’re simply asking too much of one person.

Genuinely, why do you think that the game has to be designed that way though? Do you think the game is made that hard just because? Or is it because Blizzard constantly has to design stuff based around these insane addons that do cover for an egregious lack of awareness on the player’s behalf?

Also 1 fight being that way doesn’t mean addons are needed. It means that fight is silly.

[Linast-stormrage]

@Critianbale-stormrage

I think using addons to track another players CD’s and to vocally announce what is being casted is a little bit on the unfair side, but the rest…no, that is not and the UI should evolve to adjust for such QoL things.

there is nothing wrong with outing hunters who use growl in a 5 man(no tank likes that), or knowing when someone uses time warp/lust/hero

[Sulfargan-bleeding-hollow]

WANT TO GO PRO??? GET THESE ADDONS AND GG
BigDebuffs
DiminishDRTracker
OmniCC
OmniCD - Party Tracker for party cooldowns
NamePlateCooldowns

these are all you need to be pro if you dont have these addons just dont q please.

[Rhythalia-stormrage]

You still can perform equal or better than people with addons. Just ignore them. Many did not go through vanilla because everything is manual.

[Samcarter-eredar]

The people who say you can play fine without add-ons, are the same people who wouldn’t be able to play without their add-ons xD I tested this against arena players with and without them on and oof, the difference lol.

[Rhythalia-stormrage]

You probably need practice. Actions Per Minute increases significantly due to manual work and hotkeys.

I’m running my mouse at 8000 DPI too.

[Samcarter-eredar]

I don’t use addons, we did matches where they used them and they did well, next games when they took them off, they didn’t know what to do since they didn’t know how to track anything lol. I’m just fine. I think any argument for addons being ok is baseless, aside from you wanting an advantage. Which fair, but just be honest. xD

[Schloof-elune]

Every single addon does what it does by making calls to the public WoW API. If Blizzard didnt want people to use specific qddons they coupd simply remove said public API.

[Ayukama-frostmourne]

Can’t people just let this troll thread die?

[Stillaverage-area-52]

@Father-ysondre

Genuinely, why do you think that the game has to be designed that way though? Do you think the game is made that hard just because? Or is it because Blizzard constantly has to design stuff based around these insane addons that do cover for an egregious lack of awareness on the player’s behalf?

Also 1 fight being that way doesn’t mean addons are needed. It means that fight is silly.

I mean perhaps theres some truth to this, but I don’t see what they’ve done as a solution. Add-ons can only make the game so easy. They could’ve just left the difficulty alone, rather than constantly trying to one up the creators of these things. And it’s not just one fight, it’s the whole game. I need a weakaura pack to cause my frames to behave a certain way whenever an ally is rooted. Another pack to make them behave a different way when someone has a bleed, or something removable by bop. I have a weakaura that tells me if I’m being targeted by the blight dot on third boss of fall. I could go on and on. Its an endless list.

[Dartakan-ragnaros (Dartakan)]

Or you could use your brain and recognize what the debuff does just by the icon.

[Sulfargan-bleeding-hollow]

or you could just download the addons and stop being lazy and help the playerbase out, wow that’s a new thought.

[Dartakan-ragnaros (Dartakan)]

I dont need an addon to tell me what to kick, dispel or when to use my personals.

[Lingxiu-the-forgotten-coast]

@Xunametra-barthilas

@Skepticism-skyfury

There’s one aspect of the game that has been the subject of much controversy: the use of third-party add-ons.

Lets be real, using add-ons in WoW is cheating. It’s a way for players to gain an unfair advantage over others, and it ruins the game for everyone else. Why should someone who uses an add-on to automate their rotation or track enemy abilities have an advantage over someone who doesn’t? It’s unfair and goes against the spirit of fair play that WoW was built upon.

Furthermore, many of these add-ons are not even sanctioned by Blizzard and could potentially be harmful to your computer. By using them, you’re not only cheating, but you’re also putting your computer at risk. Is it really worth it to potentially compromise the security of your system just to gain an unfair advantage in a game?

Using add-ons in WoW is just a way for players to compensate for their lack of skill. It takes away from the challenge of the game and ruins the experience for everyone else. If you can’t play the game without relying on these crutches, then maybe you shouldn’t be playing at all. So let’s all agree to play the game the way it was meant to be played, without any unfair advantages or shortcuts. That way, we can all enjoy the game to its fullest and create a fair and fun gaming experience for everyone

No. WoW was designed to be played with addons. The base game offers the most basic UI elements, with the expectation that gaps are filled by addons.

The game is fair and fun; you have access to every addon that I do. If you choose not to use it that’s up to you, but that doesn’t make it unfair anymore than it would if a Tennis player chose not to use a racquet.

This is horrific design philosophy; your base UI should be able to cover the entire game from 0% to 100%, and do so comfortably. Add-ons being so incredibly prevalent should be sending Blizzard developers panic attacks and inspiring UI overhauls.

You can’t guarantee every player will have the same add-on loadout, nor that they’ll be up-to-date, or even configured correctly.

WoW’s add-on policy is simply too permissive.

[Annastasi-proudmoore]

@Lingxiu-the-forgotten-coast

This is horrific design philosophy;

it’s actually quite a smart design philosophy that in many ways contributes to the popularity and longevity of the game.

The UI is basic, so basic, the game is playable on a toaster. We can then expand the ui as much or as little as we want.

it’s quite clever. Not everyone needs battle pet functionality, so why should that functionality be baseline in the game? The guy who only world quests doesn’t care about raiding functionality, so it’s pretty great that his UI isn’t bloated with stuff for raiding. etc.

Players aren’t stupid, and can figure out how to use addons. the concepts aren’t difficult.

[Lingxiu-the-forgotten-coast]

Or, you actually design for the game, instead of asking your playerbase to pick up the slack. If there is information the player needs to know, it falls to the game’s designer to present that information to them. They can’t just shirk their duty and say ‘oh well, just go to Curse or whatever,’ that’s not just laziness but also rather unethical.

Add-ons, by their existence, cause an imbalance of information which makes the game unfair. Even if two players have the same add-on, there’s no guarantee they’re both configured correctly, and there’s no guarantee of universal adoption. They also increase stress for patch time; part of the ‘spaghetti code’ of WoW is the numerous add-ons that patches either need to decide to account for or just break.

Add-ons aren’t a positive thing in this game.