Addon ban during raids in World of Warcraft? A developer enforced this and everything improved from then on.
If you want to participate in raids in World of Warcraft and don’t want to see them only at the “LFR” difficulty, you need to find a group or guild for that. Such groups often have some prerequisites, such as the use of certain addons to make fights easier.
However, not everyone has had good experiences with addons. In some cases, addons also make bad players even worse.
Who is Pirate Software? The streamer “Pirate Software” is actually named Jason Thor Hall. In the past, he has worked for companies like Amazon Games or Blizzard, usually responsible for security – such as players’ account security or tracking down bots and fraudsters. On YouTube, he is primarily known for his numerous short videos where he talks about peculiarities of the gaming industry or game development.
What did he say about addons? In one of his recent streams, Hall talked about the current pre-event for the new expansion The War Within and how much he enjoyed it. He then spoke about his WoW past and various experiences in the game’s raids. He had a strong opinion about interface addons:
One thing I did as a raid leader, since I was a raid leader for ages, was this:
The thing I found quite funny was: Many people use addons because they see the big streamers and endgame raiders using addons. And then [these players] use them incorrectly.
Many raiders who play at the top level use addons as a bonus, as an addition to their already high understanding of the video game. They know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. That’s why they use an addon to empower themselves. That’s a bonus effect.
Many new players do not have the understanding of the game that is needed. So they use addons as a crutch instead. The addon tells you how to play, rather than [they] understanding that the addon is supposed to have an additional effect. They use it to beat the whole game.
What I’ve found is that players who use addons in this way were really bad.
The consequence he drew as a raid leader was quite drastic. But it also brought him success:
I banned addons in the raid. And you know what happened next? We started defeating bosses we couldn’t defeat before because “the addon didn’t tell me to get out of the fire”.
That was the biggest lesson I learned while raiding and as a raid leader: You have to make sure that players have the basic skills to use the addons effectively.
Cortyn thinks: I can definitely understand the viewpoint of “Pirate Software.” Every now and then, you come across players who have a whole bunch of addons installed because “the pros have them too,” but are overwhelmed with the correct use of these addons. For example, they cannot properly categorize the warning sounds from boss mods or have even installed multiple addons for the same thing.
This leads to confusion and little clarity. A handful of addons are, in my opinion, indispensable for certain game content, but they only help if you understand the fundamental mechanics they are supposed to assist with. The best WoW addons are of little help if that understanding is lacking. Or how do you see it?
