A new feature in World of Warcraft is causing a lot of discussions. Because with just one button, you will soon be able to do everything. Is the game becoming easier?
World of Warcraft has announced some major changes, primarily affecting the capabilities of addons in the game, as many of them Blizzard plans to incorporate directly into the standard interface. In the course of this announcement, a new feature was also mentioned that is expected to arrive in patch 11.1.7 – the “one-button feature”.
In future battles in WoW, players will only need to press the same button repeatedly to use the character’s various abilities.
How does it work? The basic idea is that you can pull a new button onto your ability bar that automatically selects the best ability to cast for you. Instead of manually executing a rotation and responding to procs or various buffs, all of that will soon be possible with just one button.
The button is supposed to act “smartly”, adjusting according to the situation. It should automatically recognize whether you are engaged in combat with a single enemy or if there are enough enemies in range to justify an area effect ability.
Is there a downside? Yes, there is, and it’s quite significant. Those who use the one-button feature will experience a longer global cooldown. This will be increased by 0.2 seconds, as with the example of a rogue. It’s still unclear whether other classes with slightly longer casting times, such as mages, will receive a more significant penalty.
In simple terms, this means that players using the one-button feature will use fewer abilities in the same time compared to those who forgo the feature. Since around 10% – 20% fewer abilities can be used, performance will correspondingly be lower.
World of Warcraft will not be easier, just more accessible
What bothers me about the discussion is that in many cases, the purpose of this function and who it is actually intended for is completely overlooked.
When looking at the comments in the game’s subreddit or the official forum, the critique is: WoW is becoming increasingly easier. The game is being “simplified to stupidity” and soon, WoW will play itself, requiring no action at all.
That is simply not true. The target audience for this feature is not players competing at a higher level in the current endgame. Hardly anyone here will use the feature, as they will likely always be significantly weaker than someone who manually uses their abilities – due to the built-in penalty.
The feature is for people who either do not enjoy complex class systems with demanding rotations or, for various reasons – such as physical limitations – cannot press so many different buttons in a short time.
This feature provides many simply with a new option for the accessibility of the game. Just like settings for color blindness, controller support, or the arachnophobia mode.
Of course, one can now play the devil’s advocate and ask: “What if someone wants to troll me in M+ and uses this?”
Yes, that’s a possibility. The thing is, there are already countless ways to troll someone. If you are the kind of person who derives enjoyment from that, you will always find a way. And in this case, it wouldn’t be so bad, because you have a teammate who at least uses abilities.
But one should not always assume the worst. Good players who strive for high ratings and good performances will not use this feature. Because those who enjoy challenging content are likely to quickly become bored when they only have to press a single button and consequently fall significantly behind the performance of everyone else.
The player base of World of Warcraft is not solely made up of people who love to tackle high-difficulty dungeons, complete raids, or chase after high PvP ratings. There are also many who play WoW for other reasons. For role-playing. For collecting pets. For the long story and beautiful game world. For crafting. For some of them, the hundreds of talents and dozens of abilities per class are simply too much, and they do not enjoy learning the complexity behind it.
That there is a method to have a “light” variant in all combat situations, enabling one to easily accomplish the essentials to reach their goals, for which fights cannot be avoided – who could that really bother?
Just because one does not enjoy high-end fights, there is still a lot to enjoy in World of Warcraft. That is exactly what this feature is intended for. It will never affect the vast majority of you. And if it does, just take a deep breath – just like this WoW player who took the wind out of a flamer’s sails.
