Breakfast Topic: Addon changes in the Burning Crusade
by Elizabeth Harper 
Oct 9th 2006 at 8:00AM
The recent announcement of major addon changes coming with the release of the Burning Crusade has caused an uproar on the official forums. Many applaud it -- saying it stops lazy or skill-less players from playing the game on easy mode. But many also decry the changes -- saying that it only serves to increase the portion of the game that is tedious and dull. So this morning's question is this -- which side are you on? Are you glad to see decursive go? Or will you miss it? (For my own part, I'm worried -- I have to yell often enough at the mages to decurse the main tank even when they do have decursive. How will I ever teach them to target-and-decurse when I can't even get them to one-click decurse?!)Filed under: Add-Ons, Breakfast Topics, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Alizia Oct 9th 2006 8:18AM
Really happy, our guild was a rare one which is forbidding decursive or any other automatisation addon in our raid.
We killed 8 bosses in Naxx without it.
Alizia, Kael'thas (EU)
Luclan Oct 9th 2006 8:28AM
I love decursive, it definatly makes my job easier and thats what I thought addons were SUPPOSED to do. why they have taken this huge blow is beyhond me. I wish they would let us keep the mods.
Mats Oct 9th 2006 8:39AM
I say this is done to get more people to do raid dungons. If you remove "must have" addons, and let everyone play in the same areana, it will make pugs work better.
It will also help with the bots problem we are having.
Alizia Oct 9th 2006 8:49AM
Our guild is a rare one which is forbidding Decursive or any automatisation mod in our raid. We don't use any boss mods btw ;)
We are on Thaddius in Naxxramas.
So I'm really glad to learn this.
Jusk Oct 9th 2006 8:55AM
I would think its for balance reasons. If Decursive is available and widely used, then bosses must be tuned for that. If its not, then they can be more creative, and they dont need to spam the whole raid with a debuff every 20 seconds and expect a dozen people to spam thier decursive button.
I welcome the change. Not because it gets rid of easy mode ( i would HATE to go through MC on my paladin without it), but because now they can design boss encounters without having to make it a spamfest for the debuff removing classes.
Sylythn Oct 9th 2006 9:02AM
I wonder if you'll find less complaints about people being bored in Raids - especially from healers who just used to spam the heal button. Now you've actually got to stay on top of things, press a few more buttons and think...in my mind, that's an improvement to gameplay - not making life more difficult.
Wizbang Oct 9th 2006 9:10AM
I think that mods have their uses at times. Atlas mod for example is wonderful for those of us incapable of remembering their way through Scholo. But the number of times i've seen my mates playing with numerous damage calculators on the screen just screams "stop!".
I can support useful mods that can support the story element of the game, but those that give out the dps of a fly farting next to Ragnaros should be condemned to the same level of hell as the Gold Farmers on our server.
On that note, anyone with the Gnomish Anti-Farmer Blastotron 5000 please come over to Turalyon server, WE NEED YOU!
Theadrick Oct 9th 2006 9:35AM
Call it a crutch or whatever, but I've been using it for a year and a half now, and I speak for most of those in my guild at least who use it as well...
I think the change sucks and is not necessary.
Sahriasis Oct 9th 2006 10:18AM
My concern is this:
In order to effectively get rid of decursive they are going to have to do away with priority lists (like emergency monitor) as dispelling whoever is at the top of a magic debuff list is the same thing.
Not having these priority lists will end up with me running all 8 group frames visible on my screen. The difference between my mage and priest is that on my mage I get to enjoy the lush graphics and feel of the game. On my priest there are times where I may as well be using a monochrome monitor as too much of my screen is used by bars.
Im concerned that these changes will effect my screen real estate, of course we will have to wait and see.
Asir Oct 9th 2006 10:52AM
I'm glad to see the change mainly because I think it cripples players into button spamers. But that's my personal opinion. I've never used decursive and have not had any problems removing debuffs from my raids. As far as the 40 bars on your screen...yeah that sucks big time. At least the raids are dropping to 25 people which should help that a little bit. Another plus of the 25 person raid is that weaker players won't be able to hide behind strong ones as much.
Prauche Oct 9th 2006 11:22AM
Sahriasis said:
"On my priest there are times where I may as well be using a monochrome monitor as too much of my screen is used by bars."
Hence the term "Healer Whack-A-Mole." Ask me again why my highest level Priest alt is lvl 20....
Snicker Oct 9th 2006 11:37AM
If you expect that the upcoming bosses are going to be a tougher fight then the bosses currently ingame now. I think this might be a bad move. Being from a casual raiding guild, we have enough trouble decursing with these mods in place.
With this move i think you may see end game pushed even further towards a very small percent of players.
Luka Oct 9th 2006 12:29PM
Very happy, but as a mod developper, I am sad, all my toys are broken. I just hope that blizzard will stop stupid encounters like Lucifron where Decursive is the less dull way to go.
All AoE decurses are really a pain in the player experience. If they stop doing these kind of encounters, I'll be 100% with them :)
(but no emergency monitor, I plan a LOT of wipes and rogue deaths in the first month after the expansion)
Druid dude Oct 9th 2006 12:33PM
The way I understand (or misunderstand it), in a nutshell, addons will not be able to make decisions for us anymore. Nor will they be able to automatically cast a spell. That would mean that decursive will not be able to decide whether to cure a poison or remove a curse, and act on it as it does now. This does not mean that we couldn't have say, one list for poisoned players, a list for cursed players, etc. We would have to click the player on the list and select the appropriate spell to cast. It *should* be macro-able, so that we could click a name in the poison list to remove the poison... I think.
The guild I am in now is just completely insane about addons. We are running so many addons, its just unbelievable. Now, they want all healers to start using RDX. If you aren't familiar with RDX, its not so much an addon as a career or a religion. It's a very comprehensive package, but it takes a tremendous amount of setup and tweaking. Ironically, raid instructions are given in raid chat, not on vent. SO we have to use a mountain of addons, but are still using the telegraph for the most important stuff LOL!
It's going to be quite a different landscape post-BC. I for one am looking forward to these changes, even as a healer!
Iggep Oct 9th 2006 1:09PM
I personally see no sense in this. Playing a little character in a make believe world doesn't take skill, regardless of whoever thinks anything in this game does. Use of certain mods also have nothing to do with skill, or the lack of it. Use of mods eliminate tedious or repetitive tasks that can be handled better to begin with. Its as simple as that.
elizabeth Oct 9th 2006 2:05PM
To Druid dude -- mods currently cannot cast without a player clicking something. Decursive, for example still requires one click or hotkey per cast, though it handles locating targets and picking spells. Currently, this is all Blizzard's code allows an addon to do.
Anything that does perform actions without any player interaction is on the botting side -- it's not an addon, because addons are simply not allowed to perform those functions within the framework of the game.
Coanunn Oct 9th 2006 2:06PM
Ok, long story short here..
1) Anything that stops botters is a good thing.
2) Anything that makes this more a twitch based game is bad.
Ok, the explanation of those two ideas. Item 1 should for the most part be self explanatory, it isn't about raids, groups or any of that. It's about the guy who sets himself up in some location with a bot playing for him for the 8 hours he has to leave his computer to go to work. These players should be hung by their ankles. Yes they can play the game any way they choose and more power to them to have fun but setting up a bot that allows the game to play it self when you aren't even at the computer needs to stop for the fun of everyone else not doing that.
The second item is far more important, in that this directly impacts players of a) lower inate skill, b) lower game knowledge, c) poorer physical ability to hit that key that fast. I play a rogue, a VERY twitch based class, I have to be johnny on the spot with my attacks, feints. I have to have a hawk's eye on my threat and health and energy, be timely in calculating when to use a blade flurry or adrenaline rush for maximum effect plus listen for those warnings that say that anyone not the main tank standing next to the raid boss is about to die or kill the raid. Alot of people down play rogues as easy or obsessed with doing damage and frankly we are no easier or harder to play than any other class, it all depends on how much of a difference you as a player want to make. That all said I fumble my fingers at times, I don't click with the mouse when or where I should, and addons and controllers help me play the game. On my mage the idea of losing decursive means I have to find a way to get my decurse spell on screen or on a hotkey plus I have to target the cursed player, not to mention I have to know he is cursed in the battle spam flying by for me, 39 raiders, and 10 mobs in this trash pack. All that and do many of the things I listed above that I have to do as a rogue. Frankly if I wanted to play a twitch based game I'd be a FPS gamer. Limiting addons that allow players who may be physically unable to keep up with the hardcore gamer may seem like it will "cull the herd" to you hardcore gamers but to me it sounds like more of my friends won't be able to come do dungeons with me because they are of lower skill.
Simply put, this makes it HARDER for gamers to do their job in an already responsibility intensive portion of the game, how many of your friends do you get to replace in trade for a few fewer "weak players"?
Gamerz22 Oct 9th 2006 2:18PM
This is a good thing. I am one of the few among my own peers that do not use any mods/addons. I like and am fine with the regular style of gameplay that Blizzard provided, and thus use it.
I'm looking forward to this change, and BTW people, addons wil lstill exist but not as "open" as the pervious system, thus limited power for addons (meaning limited addons)
monkeywraith Oct 9th 2006 4:19PM
i applaud the change. i admit i grabbed decursive to make sure i knew when the tank was cursed when fighting alexi barov, but i dont like automating my jobs and welcome the lack of decursive. other than that, all the mods i use are ui and alert mods. hide what i dont want, give more casting bars, tell me how much aggro i have, alert for boss events, etc. no targeting or spellcasting in any mod except decursive. however, it would be nice to have curses appear on the hp plates that appear when you press v ... and the distance at whicch you see those should be extended.
as for friends not being able to come due to lower skill or physical ability, those are issues with game mechanics, not whether you have a mod or not. if you or they do not like or can not play the game, then do not play it.
Lori Oct 9th 2006 4:45PM
I use A healing addon that, with one button, selects the party member that most needs healing and uses the appropriate level of healing. And I love it because it lets me enjoy what is happening in the game rather than just staring at party health bars. It also gives me confidence in being able to keep my party healed, efficiently (manawise). My healer is currently level 42 and it is hard to imagine being able to do this at level 60 and above without the addon. Maybe when I was 40 years younger and my reflexes were much better.
I wonder why Blizzard is making this change. They had to know people would devise such addons when they originally designed the game and I expect their software people were the first to create such things when they were testing their game. Somewhere there is a statement that they want to slow down PVP. Could eliminating these types of addons be a part of that goal? And if so, will other fights also be slowed down, reduceing the need for addons that allow faster play.