In discussions about the place of addons in wow it’s always brought up that addons cause devs to design fights around addons. Nobody seems to go into why that’s a bad thing though. Why is it bad if fights are designed around addons existing? Weakauras are only ever really needed in mythic raiding, and if you’re a player who is at the level to be mythic raiding installing a weakaura is not a barrier in the slightest. If you think it makes the game too difficult then raid a lower difficulty level?
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Because it leads to the devs designing fights with the addons in mind, so they create mechanics that will be challenging with the addon…and impossible without it.
In mythic raiding specifically, there have been a few fights that were essentially impossible to complete without a weak aura. For example, Mythic Echos of Neltharion.
Sure, you can raid below mythic without addons but why would you when the fights were designed with their use in mind. No reason to make the game harder for yourself.
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Game design should never be based around third party addons/mods. Especially when it comes to difficult encounters to rely on. There are VERY difficult games and encounters out there (Sans fight in Undertale, any and all Dark Souls / Elder Scrolls games, etc.) that do not need a mod nor do they allow mods to actually help out. It is purely skill based, which is what it should be.
As soon as you bring an addon, then the encounter is cheapened and the “difficulty” is just getting the latest mod from the guys who run the stuff. Wahoo. There’s no real accomplishment in it.
What IS ok for a game to work around when it comes to mods/addons is a mod that may be loved by the community and the game devs work with the addon devs to ensure it works at patch day.
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The super simple answer is that you shouldn’t need external/third party software to be proficient at a video game.
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it’s bad for a few reasons:
- designing fights around systems that are outside of the base game is bad game design overall.
- It’s extremely new player unfriendly, a new player shouldn’t be expected to use addons to be able to do anything in the game. Frankly this should apply to all players
- Makes difficulty progression exponential instead of linear, this is with anything that is computer assisted which addons are, as they can react and optimize the players reactions faster than natural play would.
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Have you questioned why Mythic raiding has been made so hard that an addon is needed? Why do you think world first raiders have also complained with how fights are designed?
If something can’t be done without addons and/or over gearing consistently or constantly puts players under a large amount of stress to play perfectly for extended length of time with a perfectly designed character, maybe it’s bad design.
Do you find scripting and such good for PvP? Bots good for the game as a whole?
The easiest thing to do to solve the complaints about WAs being required is give people more time to react to the mechanic going out.
We used WAs to solve stuff like Hydra Shot or Volcanic heart because the launch version did not give us enough time to solve it without one.
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Also, nobody can give any examples showing it’s true.
The Volcanic Hearts one is hilarious because apparently Blizzard’s intended way to do the fight was to punch holes in the walls and spread into the rest of the room. I guess nobody told the developers that Neltharion fills the room with lava as you move along, turning into no-man’s-land.
The developers don’t design the fights with WA’s in mind. They don’t have clue whatsoever how people are going to beat these fights.
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Other than Ion outright telling us they design encounters knowing people will be using addons to beat them. Other than that no one can show they design encounters knowing people will be using addons to beat them.
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Preposterous. Everyone tells me that 20 man locked mythic is needed because of blizzard’s 200 iq tuning team that tunes the fights so well that flex would throw off the balance. Surely they wouldn’t be wrong about that and at least know how players are supposed to do the encounters…surely.
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Ion’s a liar. You believed him?
Which of these is more likely?
- Ion and his team are bad at their jobs.
- “the weakauras made us do it” actually being true.
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for you, my friend.
I think it’s most likely that the devs know people are going to be using addons in their encounters, and they try to design them accordingly, and you’re just spewing bullcrap because you have a narrative you want to push. Gun to my head, that’s what feels most likely.
Okay. So which encounter mechanics, specifically, can you name, where the developers were clearly thinking “people will use a weakaura that does THIS to manage this mechanic THIS WAY”?
Because the ways people beat the fights always catch the developers by surprise. Like Mythic Zskarn, where THE DEVELOPER THAT MADE THE FIGHT had his guild use the exploit strategy everyone else was, then hotfixed the fight the next day so nobody else’s guilds could do it.
I can tell you the two encounters Ion explicitly used as examples but it’ll probably just be met with “Ion’s a liar, Brewa on the WoW forums is more knowledgeable about the back end of the game than him”
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yeah I’m sorry but designing fights around addons is so dumb. It’s challenging with addons and impossible without which means you get pressured or forced to use them… why did they suddenly feel that was a good move?
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Ion is a liar. But go ahead.
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Right, Brewa on the forums is infinitely more knowledgeable about the inner workings of WoW’s design. I know.
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WAs give me information way better than the UI does. For example, when my dot or hot or upkeep spell is about to fall off, I use a WA to highlight my button and I just re-apply it. The alternative is a buff disappearing with no notice. No way am I going to pay attention to what buffs are on who all the time.
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I thought you were going to name 2 encounters that were clearly designed to be solved by addons.
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