You know, people in twitch-based games have a different word for addons.

 

They're called 'hacks'.

 

There's skill involved in making split-decisions and choosing your strategy based on the same GUI everyone else has- you're pitting the knowledge you have and your own sense of timing with your opponent's.

 

It adds more automation to the game, and if I wanted that, I'd play some game that forced me to code an entire combat system in order to be effective and pit them against other systems like we're playing pokemon.

 

Combat addons are a crutch. Other addons are perfectly fine.

 

Except regardless of your decision making process, he who has > hardware and > net connection wins.

Awww the poor elitists cant survive without their crutch? Good, go back to WoW.

Where's your heroic -anything- kill?

 

WoWs heroic endgame is still one of the most difficult challenges in the gaming world. SWTOR is pathetic in comparison. However, in terms of questing and solo play, SWTOR is much more challenging and I feel you really learn how to play your class to it's SOLO potential through doing the difficult elite story quests.

 

Also, no addons/customizing? Watch this game go the way of AoC in a few months. If you are truly a casual player, THEN WHY DO YOU CARE IF HARDCORE GAMERS USE ADDONS. How does someone elses customization ruin YOUR play?

 

If you say because they harass you for being bad by linking meters, I have bad news for you. You are actually bad, and someone pointed it out to you after carrying you through that content.

 

If you need an addon or meter (outside of the actual combat log numbers) then I got bad news for you... you're actually a bad player.

Addons are for accountants who ran out of beans...

 

"The odds of you getting addons are approximately 4 billion to 1"

Where's your heroic -anything- kill?

 

WoWs heroic endgame is still one of the most difficult challenges in the gaming world. SWTOR is pathetic in comparison. However, in terms of questing and solo play, SWTOR is much more challenging and I feel you really learn how to play your class to it's SOLO potential through doing the difficult elite story quests.

 

Also, no addons/customizing? Watch this game go the way of AoC in a few months. If you are truly a casual player, THEN WHY DO YOU CARE IF HARDCORE GAMERS USE ADDONS. How does someone elses customization ruin YOUR play?

 

If you say because they harass you for being bad by linking meters, I have bad news for you. You are actually bad, and someone pointed it out to you after carrying you through that content.

 

 

YES! another gimmie my addon's thread...because the other 20+ out there clearly dont do the subject justice.

 

no to addons, bw make the ui bigger, the debuff icons bigger, and call it good. dont like it? latter tater!

Edited January 7, 2012 by Crohadan

Yes, I'm part of the problem with this post, I get it..now that's outta the way I can say what I came here to say

 

 

LET THIS THREAD DIE..STOP POSTING

Yes, I'm part of the problem with this post, I get it..now that's outta the way I can say what I came here to say

 

LET THIS THREAD DIE..STOP POSTING

 

i've done enough killing lolololol:cool:

Most people are incorrect about what add-ons did to WoW. It made the game tuning based around them. This in return made people use add-ons that normally wouldn't be necessary.

 

They have nothing to do with someone being bad or not. I would be happy with SWTOR if they just implemented a customizable UI, Smuggler/Agent healing is so painful right now.

 

I have no doubt people could have easily played without those add-ons in WoW, but combining (insert random % of people) that used them and the encounters being tuned around that percent it made it a necessity for raiding which is sad really.

 

Comparing difficulty between raids in SWTOR and WoW is a laughable debate because of how polished WoW is and the fact add-ons are being deployed. I consider myself to be decent at both games, and can you imagine doing LK Heroic with the UI swtor has currently?

 

The debate isn't casual vs hardcore, people will make an argument "well i need to see my dps/healing numbers" That is fine really, recount doesn't do anything that is game shattering, but all the others should take a back seat to a customizable UI.

Y does it matter if there's addons or not? Ppl who suk will blame the others addons and the ppl who dont get their addons will suk lol. Just make it where healing is ezier, such as my healing spells beside the characters' name so i dont have to do extra work that's really just pointless. Give us addons idc, addons gives the mmo more and less enjoyment depending on the addon. U don't like addons? Well u play support till at least lvl 25 and tell me that u woudnt rather have an addon that made the game funner to play just by putting abilities by others names. And that's just one addon. There are tons more that could help/hurt the game but id like to choose. Hell the only thing that addons could potentially hurt is only PvP and id rather have my addons for the rest of the game to enjoy the PvE and experience, not the button mashing and annoyances

Seriously people who dissaprove of addons aren't raiders, and seriously who cares what they think. they don't even need damage meters, its us raiders who need to min max everything and figure out who is performing and underperforming just to beat an enrage timer. anyone who dissaproves of damage meters has obviously never ever done that.

Oh so you're in a 16man raid and you constantly hit enrage and wipe. Everyone is overgeared. What do you do? Replace them all? Don't be dumb.

 

I must be dumb because yes, you will have to replace them all. Your (pug I assume) despite having gear better than the content your attempting, is not good enough.

 

This will push most people into organised groups of players they know will perform and pugs will suffer. I think this is another good thing about not having combat logs/recount. Guilds and friend lists strengthen a community. Pugs do not. I suppose you want a looking for raid tool too?

Except it wouldn't be 4H then, since that fight only took top guilds a few weeks. D&T downed Loatheb in late July, then scored world first 4H on August 25th, ~4 weeks later. They didn't even raid half as much as Paragon does now either.

Name an encounter which took more than a month to down (encounters that were unkillable in their initial state do not count.)

Seriously people who dissaprove of addons aren't raiders, and seriously who cares what they think. they don't even need damage meters, its us raiders who need to min max everything and figure out who is performing and underperforming just to beat an enrage timer. anyone who dissaproves of damage meters has obviously never ever done that.

 

i wont use 3rd party addons becuse i DONT TRUST the progammer and yes i have raided and ok it has only been "normal" runs but when some raid leader wants you with X Y Z addons just to run a normal its plain STUPID if the original company doesnt implement something you should NOT have it

 

however im not againt addons that enhance the game i just hate dumbdowns like DBM

You know, people in twitch-based games have a different word for addons.

 

They're called 'hacks'.

 

There's skill involved in making split-decisions and choosing your strategy based on the same GUI everyone else has- you're pitting the knowledge you have and your own sense of timing with your opponent's.

 

It adds more automation to the game, and if I wanted that, I'd play some game that forced me to code an entire combat system in order to be effective and pit them against other systems like we're playing pokemon.

 

Combat addons are a crutch. Other addons are perfectly fine.

 

Memoriesofprey I choose you!

It gives them a crazy advantage. A casual player has essentially no chance to contribute to a PvP warzone against people with tons of crazy minmaxing addons. In PvE, addons often lead to groups demanding that all players have certain addons, i.e., LF1M Healer for XXX, must have DamageMeter!

 

You're misusing the word casual, you're using is at an excuse for being bad. Bad players will be bad. Casual players can be good, just not play constantly.

I don't really miss addons such as gatherer or sth-o- meter, but I'd sure love to be able to customize my Interface according to my likings. Action Bars (as much of them as I want), Mini Map, etc. : freely moveable. That'd be good. Edited January 8, 2012 by Nylas

Ugh. If there's one thing I hope NEVER comes into SWTOR, it's addons and Operation Achievements.

 

Maybe this is just me, but toward the tail-end of WOTLK, all I could see for miles in the Trade Chat was "LFM *insert raid here* post GS"

 

At first I thought "What the hell is GS?" Then I looked it up and thought "That's got to be the dumbest addon ever."

 

Heading into Icecrown Citedal, it didn't get very hard to fake my GearScore through simple third party programs (My gearscore was lower than what most people considered the par). Only to hear the reactions when we downed the Lich King and I give people my real Gearscore (hearing your tank is below 5k really angers some people).

 

Couple all that with DPS Meters and Healbot turning a key role into a game of "click the bars" easily made the game around me feel more like a math problem than actual game. Sure, all games are about numbers, but a game must do it's best to try and hide that fact.

 

Can you imagine how weird I felt being "that guy" who was telling his guildmates to shut up in vent so I could hear the Lich King's ending cutscene?

 

Go into Cataclysm, and I hear people (mainly healers) complaining about how the game is too easy. My solution? Heal without using Healbot.

 

I got bored with WoW shortly into it Cataclysm. I got into the habit of disabling/removing all my addons that had served me well and seeing how I could do in that kind of a situation. Being a Tank (and one who generally keeps his eyes on the raid at all times), my role wasn't really changed much.

 

Some people are going to say "But without addons, how do we know which players aren't pulling their weight?"

 

Simple. When the boss is dead, look around the group. Anybody who isn't dead is obviously doing their job properly.

 

My guild in SWTOR is currently doing World Bosses and starting Flashpoints. Even without Addons, we know who our good healers, tanks and DPS are, and which ones need improvement.

 

Let me put it this way. Imagine SWTOR had a built in DPS Meter.

 

You kill a boss who drops a DPS chestpiece. If you give first priority to the guy who has the highest DPS, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

 

Some addons like UI designs are cool. But addons which measure player performance and display it to people who have no buisness knowing exactly what kind of numbers that player is putting out punishes those who opt not to use them.

 

"But how do we tell how well our tanks are doing?"

 

Are the healers dead? No? They're doing fine!

 

"How do we tell how good our healers are doing?"

 

Did the Tank die? No? They're doing fine.

 

"How do we tell how good our DPS are doing?"

 

Is the Boss dead? Yes? They're doing fine.

 

Omitting addons removes individual players from being responsible for a group's failure. Instead, it means the group as a whole is not doing something properly. While this is rather flawed, it removes the kind of elitism I hate to see in a GAME. If you're honestly boasting about how good your are at a GAME then you seriously need to rethink your priorities.

 

Gaming is a secondary activity (meaning it gets put aside for things that actually matter in the real world). And MULTIPLAYER GAMING is a SECONDARY FUNCTION of a VIDEO GAME. Meaning it matters even LESS when confronted with the important things in life.

 

MMO's are the only place in the PC Gaming world where the douchebag ten year olds from XBox Live can congeal and become even more annoying. If the only reason you want addons is "to keep bad players from getting a free ride" then you don't deserve them in the first place.

 

Let me tell you a story. While I was gearing up for raiding in WOTLK, I got into a heroic as a DPS with a bunch of people in full raid armor who were only there for the emblems. I died once because I had never been there, and a Warlock kept shouting at the leader to kick me from the group because "We're basically running his scrub ***." The others pointed out that I was obviously there for the gear in the dungeon. So if they could easily 4-man it, why kick me out? They also pointed out that for someone in greens and a few blues at the time, my DPS was higher than other new 80's, so I was obviously skilled at my class.

 

So why not do this all the time? You see an undergeared or poor player trying to break into the endgame content, instead of calling them a "noob" and running off to go boast about how "Leet" you are, why not give them a hand? Help them out in maximizing their potential, show them where to find the best gear for them. Hell, group up with them for dungeons so they can get some hands on experience.

 

It's not giving players a free ride. It's extending a helping hand to someone else and sharing your knowledge with them and mentoring them. And in a Star Wars game, that makes ****tons of sense.

 

My hat's off to BioWare for not permitting addons, and I hope they continue that policy.

WoWs heroic endgame is still one of the most difficult challenges in the gaming world. SWTOR is pathetic in comparison.

 

Way to compare a 7+ year old game that devs at blizzard had time to improve and tweek vs a game that JUST launched. I don't even...

 

You want it to be like WoW so bad well don't let the door hit you on the way out, I hear they will have pandas soon.

Name an encounter which took more than a month to down (encounters that were unkillable in their initial state do not count.)

 

The situation is quite different. First of all, the top-end raid guilds are now semi-professional players, and the time they put in is extreme. Even if a boss dies in two lockouts, that world-first kill still represents several hundred attempts, and probably eighty or ninety hours of play by teams of top players.

 

Second, there were a lot of artificial barriers to progress in the vanilla days. Players had to do long corpse-runs and re-buffing took a while, because there weren't raid buffs. That really cuts into the number of attempts per hour that you can make on a boss, but that's not really an aspect of encounter difficulty.

 

Warcraft's heroic end-bosses are stupid difficult. Unreasonably difficult. The kind of difficult that no sane person would subject themselves to. These fights, in their pre-nerfed state, are designed to mop the floor with the top handful of players in the world. They have to be nerfed 20% after the world-first kills just to be accessible to hardcore progression guilds.

 

If you haven't beat the encounters yourself, you're really not in a position to discuss their relative difficulty.

Warcraft's heroic end-bosses are stupid difficult. Unreasonably difficult. The kind of difficult that no sane person would subject themselves to. These fights, in their pre-nerfed state, are designed to mop the floor with the top handful of players in the world. They have to be nerfed 20% after the world-first kills just to be accessible to hardcore progression guilds.

 

Don't worry, the final boss of EV is this way currently. Admittedly it has a lot to do with RNG, but it still kicks your *** when things do go right.

 

At least it is on 16m, 8m is quite a bit easier.

Edited January 8, 2012 by MercArcher

Many add-ons are tools. They can be used for good purposes and they can be used for bad ones. Starting out in a raiding guild in vanilla WoW I would have had a much harder time making the case that Marksman was a better spec for damage than Survival without damage meters showing me beating out hunters with much better gear than I had. As a class leader it was important to communicate with other hunters in my guild, but I couldn't really take the time to ask every hunter after every fight what sort of rotation they were using. Damage meters helped me see who was lagging and, based on what abilities they had been using that fight, helped me come up with suggestions to help them perform better.

 

Having something that actually shows performance helps guilds move from "I hope we all do something better next time than we did this time" to "stop standing in the fire and taking the healer's focus away from the tanks Jamuka!" Meters also help show if some prospective guild mate is playing well and some veterans are just having an off day or if the prospective guildie is doing poorly. Damage meters provide information without telling you anything about how to play. Some people will use that information to taunt or deride others, some people will use it to help improve themselves and the people they group with.

 

Hunters had way too many abilities they needed to have quick access to for the default UI to handle, and mods and macros helped reduce clutter and make it easier to use abilities. Macros let me put all my stings on one button with alt modifiers and ctrl modifiers and they let me put all my buffs on one button that activated all of them with one button. Add-ons put all my traps, aspects, and tracking abilities on single collapsible buttons instead of taking up 5 slots each.

 

Certainly there is taking things like add-ons too far, and what too far is varies from person to person. I think the whole minimum Gear Score requirement things that started cropping up shortly before I stopped playing WoW pretty absurd. The nice thing about a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG is that you DO NOT HAVE TO PLAY WITH PEOPLE WHO TAKE THINGS TOO FAR OR NOT FAR ENOUGH.

The amount of rampant e-peen elitism in this thread is overflowing, and a perfect example of exactly why BW shouldn't carebear them and keep addons out of the game.

 

Non-raiders = casual, brainless, bad players. Right. That's rich.

 

Go back to WoW, please.

@ValkyrStudios.... Awesome post! I totally agree. One thing I hated about WoW was not getting a group or getting kicked from a group because of my gear score. I was once kicked after a wipe for having the worst GS but i was last to die and was right below top DPS. I am a casual gamer and have been since EQ. I have a family and a job and don't feel the need to have the absolutely best of everything in a game. I'm here to have fun and meet some friends, to relax after a long crappy week at work. I don't need some kid telling me I can't possibly be good enough because I haven't had my guild carry me to get the best gear. I want to be judged by my own skill and not by an addon using "elitist" that can't carry their own weight without being given the best gear. I think part of the fun of the game is running something the first time blind. To bad too many people feel they have to beat a game every single time instead of having fun playing it.

@ValkyrStudios.... Awesome post! I totally agree. One thing I hated about WoW was not getting a group or getting kicked from a group because of my gear score. I was once kicked after a wipe for having the worst GS but i was last to die and was right below top DPS. I am a casual gamer and have been since EQ. I have a family and a job and don't feel the need to have the absolutely best of everything in a game. I'm here to have fun and meet some friends, to relax after a long crappy week at work. I don't need some kid telling me I can't possibly be good enough because I haven't had my guild carry me to get the best gear. I want to be judged by my own skill and not by an addon using "elitist" that can't carry their own weight without being given the best gear. I think part of the fun of the game is running something the first time blind. To bad too many people feel they have to beat a game every single time instead of having fun playing it.

 

And who are you to claim that people who want to beat a game every single time, are not having fun doing it? The only elitist here is you, and you can't even realize it. People have different opinions, respect them like we respect your "casual" view of games.

 

If "casuals" like you don't want us "elitists" to interfere with your "casual" gaming, then how about you "casuals" don't interfere with our "hardcore" gaming.

 

What boggles my mind, is that you "casuals" are the ones that WHINE THE MOST. So much for being a "casual".

Edited January 8, 2012 by Pintaphilly

And who are you to claim that people who want to beat a game every single time, are not having fun doing it? The only elitist here is you, and you can't even realize it. People have different opinions, respect them like we respect your "casual" view of games.

 

If "casuals" like you don't want us "elitists" to interfere with your "casual" gaming, then how about you "casuals" don't interfere with our "hardcore" gaming.

 

What boggles my mind, is that you "casuals" are the ones that WHINE THE MOST. So much for being a "casual".

 

It is the casual player base that drives a game. The elite "I have to smash content at the fastest pace possible" are the ones that cry, ***** and moan about content being too easy after the game is released for only 1 month. Meanwhile the casual player is happy with major content patches coming out only once every 6-9 months because we "play" the game.

 

We casuals are not interfering with your game play (if you can call it that) when we say no to addons. We are just trying to make it so that you are interested in the game for an extra week or two. Naw, I'm kidding. We actually do hope that people that suck all the fun out of the game leave as quickly as possible so that they don't whine BioWare into ruining the game by allowing third party addons.

 

Actually, real casuals rarely whine about anything. Why would we? We are too busy having fun instead of trying to beat the endgame content before anyone else does.