WoW boss reveals which addons will soon no longer work

The Game Director of World of Warcraft explains what will soon happen with the addons. Because many of them probably won’t exist anymore.

A few weeks ago, Blizzard announced that there would be drastic changes in the area of addons – meaning the interface modifications for World of Warcraft. Apparently, they are tired of constant upgrades. Harder boss mechanics give rise to more complex addons, and complex addons require harder boss mechanics.

A cycle that they finally want to break. And for that, they will have to have a go at several addons.

What is the problem? Addons in World of Warcraft can be extremely powerful. They can read the combat log in detail and even solve complex problems quite easily. Instead of thinking for themselves or discussing with the group which position to run to with a debuff, an addon can take care of that. It assigns different symbols to the various characters and clearly states: Star goes to this position and Moon goes to that one.

Because addons can easily solve such and much more complex mechanics, developers had to resort to other mechanics: Swirlys.

Almost every boss has multiple mechanics where circles are spread all over the floor that players must avoid. A standard mechanic that cannot be read by addons and therefore sees much use in the latest raid. But this is not a permanent solution, as Ion Hazzikostas states in an interview with PCGamer:

Our classes were not designed with the assumption that you need to perform unpredictable movements every few seconds.

A problem, especially for casters (like mages, priests, warlocks), who are desperately trying to play as well as possible while being interrupted every few seconds.

How will WoW change? Mechanics will become easier if there are no more addons that completely decipher them. If a mechanic requires all characters of a group to quickly gather at a specific spot, you might have a few seconds more time than before.

If we know that [a mechanic] is already solved for you and just tells you “Run to Diamond,” how is that challenging? How do we make it challenging? The only way for us is to give you only 2 ½ seconds, so you need a movement boost. You take the warlock portal from A to B, because otherwise anyone could do it easily.

Which addons are affected? Although there is still no concrete list of all the features and addons that should no longer be usable in the future, the general direction is already clear. In the future, it should no longer be possible to monitor other players in minute detail.

Addons that list which abilities of other players in the group are currently on cooldown will no longer work. The same applies to enemy abilities.

Incoming healing will also no longer be visible, nor will “specialized buffs and debuffs.” If they are relevant and important, the WoW interface should provide a way to highlight them by itself.

As a trade-off, many of today’s addon features should become part of the standard interface. For example, they plan to offer a damage meter (like Recount or Details!) by default.

What does this mean for game design? It is clear that the upcoming addon policy will also ensure that Blizzard needs to get better at making mechanics in the game clearer. Abilities must be clearly recognizable, and at a glance, one must be able to tell whether an enemy’s spell is so important that it should be interrupted or is just a “standard spell” that can be let through. Hazzikostas also admits that they need to improve in this area:

I honestly believe that this will ensure that we can’t get away with some things as easily anymore.

This refers to the mentality that some mechanics in the game are simply not well represented. Here, developers could always say: “Oh, they will manage that with an addon.”

If that goes away, the demand for quality and clear, visual cues must automatically rise.

Which addons will not be touched? Although WoW is finally taking the step to massively redesign the addon landscape, there will be a whole number of addons that will not be touched. Especially addons that modify visual elements of the interface or role-playing addons will not be restricted in their functionality. The principle is that everything that does not impact combat should continue to work.

When will all this happen? For Blizzard, these are long-term plans. No one needs to fear that beloved addons will no longer work in patch 11.1.7 or 11.2. But the developers are clearly stating: This will come. Maybe with Midnight. Maybe only with “The Last Titan”.

And now everyone has the opportunity to prepare for it and tell the developers which addons must definitely be part of the basic WoW interface. A discussion that one should participate in as soon as possible if they want to have an influence on it.

In other areas, Blizzard does not orient itself to addons, but to completely different games. Just recently, they admitted what everyone had already suspected: The housing is clearly inspired by WildStar.