This game badly needs mods and macros.

As a WoW player i felt like i had to post here and explain my POV on somethings u guys said. I went 6/7 Heroic on Firelands pre nerf and i know how important addons can be.

1st - "Addons make the endgame content and raid easier." Thats not true, in fact, if u take a look at WoW as it is today, it would be impossible to Raid without addons, so your statement could be valid back on Vanilla or Burning Crusade, but not today. Addons in fact help the developers to make fights harder and more challenging, which make them more fun (Those who don't like challenges shouldnt even be raiding, they should be doin heroic dungeons.).

2nd - "Stop using WoW as an example." That would be impossible since wow started the whole addons thing on MMORPGs, so it would be like discussing about soda pop without mentioning Coke.

3rd - "It should be used as a self improvement tool that doesnt show other people your performance as a player" Possible but worthless. You can do WoW raids without Damage/Healing meter addons, but those who know what they are doin will realize when someone is doin a poor job and will kick this guy from the raid ASAP. How the **** am i supposed to be a good tank if i cant see my threat? How am i supposed to be a good DPS if the only DPS i know its my own dps? What about healing? How am i supposed to be a good advertiser without ever watching tv, reading news paper, using internet or anything like that? U need comparison for self improvement.

4th - Damage/Healing meters also create a good thing for the community, and that thing is called COMPETITION. I realize that some of u guys play games only for fun, but for some people like me, theres no reason to play a game if i'm gonna be the worst and the most useless guy on my group. Competition is good, it helps the community to grow, want u or not.

So basically, addons help the developers to improve the game challenge, help the players to self improve.

Raiding without competition its like playing soccer with only one team playing.

When it came to recount it was prettymuch used for three things (as I'm sure everyone here who has ever used it already knows).
1. To know how much dps you were doing, and to help improve yourself.
2. To see how well everyone else in the group was doing (which was useful to find the one person who, say, wasn't DPSing at all and just autofollowing for the loot)
3. To be a jerk to people who were doing less than 100% dps.

Now our guild WAS one of those that used addons, but didn't force any members to, and while I never posted meters to make someone else feel bad, if there was someone in the group that was doing seriously below average dps (like so low they weren't even trying) I'd probably whisper them to ask what's up. If they were struggling I'd offer some tips, if they just weren't trying I'd ask them to and kick them if they didn't.

I guess what I'm saying is although it can be abused, it has it's uses too, and it really boils down to finding a group/guild that isn't a bunch of jerks. I would settle for a personal dps meter, but in the end if I'm in a raid and we keep wiping because of one person, I'd like to know who it is. It's better to have one person told they might need to try a little harder, than an entire raid group of angry people who don't want to do it anymore.

I had no idea how little people really understand what macros can, and more importantly cannot do. Macros cannot play the game for you. Wow.

Hi there people! I just wanted to say, I do agree with the existance of macros and I do believe that the kinda evolve combat.





See imo the challenge on a game shouldnt be on how hard it is to use your skills cause you dont have enough fingers to press the keys. Nor the rotation keeping.
"Skill" should be on brain, not on hands. If you agree then you wouldnt mind macros and people wanting them.

Only way i would agree that macro would be ok is if Bioware add it in game and simple make the CD time on a macro higher then you can click it if you dont use macro, say CD is 1sec then macro take 1.5sec before it click next "buttom".

I can understand you wanting to limit macros, but considering ToR has a built in pre-click timer, it's not really possible to click abilities faster with a macro than without, so there's no real need to nerf the system. Besides, castsequence macros are just inherently bad and can't adapt to different situations anyways, so they aren't really a benefit. Macros are usually used for things like compressing the amount of abilities per castbar space, or combining cooldowns.

Personally if macros were allowed the first thing I'd do is combine my 'trinket' with one of my cooldowns. Having it on my cast bars I never remember to use it, and half the time the game removes it from my cast bar anyways, so it's practically useless without macros.

[QUOTE=DragonAgeOrgins;2408469]I think the title of thread is very misleading. At first glance someone might get the impression we actually do need this. This is misleading. The very reason this thread keep's getting bumped by the people like me who say "No we don't stop speaking for the entire community" people that came from wow with training wheel of mods need to learn to seriously let thing's go.

Oopsy, you just said that those of us that believe a macro or mod should be added may be speaking for those of you that don't and that we should stop. You should take some of your own advice and NOT speak for everyone else by stating your own view is accepted by "everyone".
A macro would make the use of the TWENTY-FOUR actions I use a bit easier to manage while I tab to switch targets and right/left mouse button to move forward while I try to keep track of the medic and Mind Snap the Sorc trying to drain my life and chase my mouse button around the screen to click one of the side bars that have my force run.
I don't see that macros would be anything but helpful... sorry.
That was me speaking for me though.

All of you who keep crying about how addons will end up making people be "mean" to you because your dps isn't up to par, the bottom line is that your just bad at the game.

The fact that you do not want raid leaders to have the ability to analyze data from their raids just shows how elementary your way of thinking actually is. I spent the majority of my WoW career in US guilds that were competing with the Euro guilds for the #1 spot, so I can admit that my perspective on things is not going to align with 99% of the player base.

However, the fact still remains that anyone who is using an argument that they like SWTOR because there is no way to analyze data from raids, just shows that you care less about the progress of your guild and more about whether or not you can be held accountable for crap play. Nobody is forcing you to use addons and if you don't want to be in a guild that holds people accountable, don't join one. Just remember....the guilds who use "Recount" to determine raid spots or anything else are the guilds that your used to playing in. Any guild that has an ounce of intellect will use mods that extract data from the game and can be analyzed at a later time to determine far far more than Recount.

The only purpose that Recount serves is for personal accountability, as well as finding out why your tank died. Yes, maybe after that the raid leader will ask the healers why he only got x amount of heals over x amount of time, but understand that is an integral part of raiding. It allows on the fly iteration and helps guilds fix small problems and progress. Instead, you would prefer that you just keep wiping on the same mechanic over and over until you just get lucky enough to get to the next stage?


Inexperienced nubs are the only people who will actually argue against addons, but it is because of their inexperience that they do not see the real value, and I guess because of that, can they really be blamed?

The debate on macros and addons has become way too black and white, and that is just not the case. Those like myself who argue for addons/macros are doing so because we want the ability to analyze our play and make improvements. Yes, there is a very small percentage of people who would attempt to use them to exploit, and make them play the game for them, but the majority of people just want more options, more customization, and more interesting play.

A lot of you argue that something like a boss mod plays the game for you, but you fail to see the real value in a boss mod. Think about playing with no mods and try to envision how little you are able to track, see, and react to. Its just a dumbed down way of playing. Sure, you don't get raid warnings for who has a debuff, or when a certain attack is coming, etc. However without the ability to see every detail, you lose the ability to react to every detail.

So, for all the arguments about addons making the game too easy, there are just as many about how the lack of addons makes the game too easy. Instead of having a much more dynamic gameplay, the lack of addons ultimately just allows people to coast through the game, oblivious to all of the little nuances that are actually going on around you. In it's current state, SWTOR does not allow you the ability to really figure out it's mechanics.

People want to cry and moan about addons and that they help give you stuff to play the game easier. I am sorry but this game is not hard to begin with. I was an addon dev for WoW and all though I didn't need them to play, I liked them. They were my choice and that was that. I raided and pvp'd both with them and without them. I did all heroic clears with no issue what-so-ever with them and without them. I also played since release of WoW and back in the past it was harder to raid back then because they told you nothing about the fight and what was going to happen most of the time. They added the bulk of this in WotLK. What addons did do for a guild was to weed out the weak and un-dedicated to the guild. How did it do this? It held people responsible for FAILURE. It exposed the weak dps, the weak tanks, and the weak healers. It exposed the people unwilling to gem or enchant their gear. However, it did give them a chance to rectify some by adding DBM-like addons to allow those whom didn't study a fight to be able to have a chance to understand when and what they were doing wrong. Addons added a level to my interface that I was unable to achieve normally as I like to spruce up my view of things. I like the bells and whistles, I like the tighter set up since I run Eyefinity now. Did I ever or did I all ways use addons? No I shut a lot of them off and used them when I wanted to.

People fear addons because it will make you responsible for your faults and you will be requested to get more knowledge of your toon. I am sorry but I will never pug again because I had to teach people how to do certain things because they were absolutely clueless what to do. People, whether you like it or not, addons are a matter of choice and choices will be given whether you like it or not. Get better, get out of the way, or become pavement for the road being laid. I could careless either way but I would prefer that you do get better with or without addons because TBH I am all ready clearing Nightmare Modes and it is quite easy as they tell you when things are happening and there are decent write-ups on what you should do for rotation and efficiency. They are not perfect but when combat logs are finally able to be parsed they will be complete. I would rather play with a lot of different people but I am not going to bash my head against something just because someone is too lazy to do homework.

As for macros, the interface needs a lot of work and this is part of it. I want these things to be added as they will quicken response times and will essentially allow for more challenging content to be created as right now clearing everything is beginning to get drab and boring.

Wow that's a lot of reading...

Overall both sides seem to agree on one thing:

You may want them, but you don't NEED them.

Some say it will allow Bioware to make more challenging content with mods in mind, but why can they not make more challenging content without mods?

Another argues against those that say mods make the game too easy, but then goes on to say the game is already easy to begin with. Ergo wouldn't that mean mods aren't needed?

With meters and such, no one is going to feel any more responsible for faults than they already did before having meters. People know if they're good at whatever they do or if they need improvements just by playing the game and grouping up. A meter doesn't need to tell them that.

Some addons are going to be beneficial, sure, but let Bioware implement them. That way they aren't an addon, they're an in-game option or tool. I'd love to see a personal combat log. I don't care to see my teammate's logs, just my own for my own character. Mainly I want it so I can see in writing whether or not my abilities actually fire, and I have something to go back to for what sorts of damages or de-buffs I am taking in certain encounters.

Modifiable UI is going to be nice in 1.2, but it would be nice to be able to make custom UI skins to change the appearance of all the UI elements.

In the end of all things, if there were free reign of mods, then you might as well start selling the game with these mods, because the new players aren't going to be able to join guilds or groups without having them beforehand. They create standards that aren't really needed.

Want all you want, but fact of the matter is that the gaming experience is still enjoyable without them.