Outdated—no longer relevant.
Blizzard recently announced a big change being made to World of Warcraft when the Burning Crusade is released (regardless of if you purchase the expansion). There is a lot of hysteria about this change. I hope to clarify below exactly what you can expect.
Macros and add-ons will still be able to use abilities or target someone, but they will not be able to make a decision about what ability is used, what rank of spell to use, who it is used on, or who you target. You will always be required to specify, whether by pressing a specific key or clicking a specific button, exactly what you want to happen.
This is currently accomplished by forcing a key or button to trigger a specific action—casting a spell or changing to a specific target—and forbidding the interface to alter the behavior of any key binding or action button while in combat. The UI will allow for certain, very specific, automatic behavior modifications—for example, allowing a button to cast a different spell depending on if your target is friendly or hostile, or depending on if you are pressing a modifier key. You will also still be able to switch action bars—so warriors will be able to have different buttons depending on stance, druids different buttons depending on current form, and rogues different buttons depending on if you are in stealth or not. You will remain able to switch action bars manually while in combat, if you want certain abilities to be available in different situations.
Add-ons that allow you to pick a target and cast a spell at the same time (click-casting) will still be available. It will also be possible to differentiate between left-click and right-click (up to five mouse buttons, actually) as well as shift-click, alt-click, and control-click.
There will be a feature that allows a key or a button to open up a menu of actions, which can keep you from needing all your abilities on the screen at once. Making the key bindings automatically associate with items in a menu while the menu is open (for example, pressing 3 to open a menu, and then 4 to select an item in the menu, even though 4 means something else while the menu is closed) is not currently implemented, but it is on the list of features that will be added if there is enough time.
Because you can change key bindings and button actions out of combat, it is likely that add-ons such as Whispercast which automate buffing will continue to work, but only out-of-combat.
Any part of the visual interface that uses an ability or changes your target will not be able to move, appear, or disappear while you are in combat. This prevents add-ons from conditionally moving certain buttons under your cursor, for example. However, there will be no restrictions on what information the UI will be able to present to you. An add-on can highlight raid members' frames depending on if they have a debuff you can remove, or if they're badly hurt, or they want you to cast a certain spell on them, and so on. It will be possible to create a prioritized list of raid members (like the Emergency Monitor of CT_RaidAssist), but the list will not be directly interactive; you won't be able to click on a name and target/cast a spell on that player. The add-on would, however, be able to indicate when anyone on your static list of raid members is in dire need in any way it likes: a noticeable highlight, a large animated red arrow, whatever. You would then need to click on the list of raid members or press a key corresponding to that specific raid member to heal them. It will be able to advise you very overtly, but you'll have to make the final decision.
Any "main tank targets" add-on you have will remain nearly unscathed—you will not be able to customize the list of main tanks while you are in combat, but clicking to target or cast a spell on either the main tank or his target will be unaffected.
Any macro that uses slash commands only will mostly be unaffected. Any macro that uses a /script command to target a unit or cast a spell will not work, but many macros which do so without making conditional statements (if this is true, then do this) will be able to be rewritten in slash commands. You will still be able to use macros which consist of a series of /cast commands (which allows a button to use a different action if it is clicked and the first action is unusable for any reason).
Anyone who foresees the game turning into some sort of "whack-a-mole," remember that it was entirely possible before to make the UI into a whack-a-mole with only a single mole. It's also important not to judge anything by the status quo. There will be very little raiding of the current raid instances once the expansion comes out—and remember the new raid size is 25, which greatly reduces the number of people to keep track of. This change could easily be awful if the wrong types of raid bosses are implemented in the Burning Crusade. But this change was pushed for by the raid designers so that they don't have to consider add-ons like Decursive—which means that we will only get mass-debuff fights if the fight is designed to be monotonous (unlikely, to say the least). Also remember that if there is an inadvertent side effect of these changes, you can bet that it will at least be looked at.
I will update this post whenever I think or have my attention brought to something that needs to be mentioned or clarified. Don't hesitate to add a comment if there's something I'm missing, something that I'm wrong about, a question that you have, or if you hate my guts.
Last updated on October 11, 2006 at 5:00 PM.
313 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 313 of 313go shadow... PVP will be the new thing for priests... mine is not going to see another raid. For this I will use my mage or roll a lock.
I posted against comments stuck up snobs were writing, like L2P, etc. Shortly afterward my login was set to ERROR everytime I tried to log in to the forums.
So I went to my husband's account and his is fine. He can log in with no problems.
I think they are banning people that write things they don't want to hear. I didn't curse at anyone. I didn't slap anyone for their opinion. I stated how I play and how that will affect me tedium-wise.
Today I find out several more people in my guild who also posted are suspiciously having the same problem. Mind you, they posted the same sentiments I did.
You know what? Keep your game and the games you are playing to silence those that pay your salaries. It's not like I post a whole lot. Out of a year I said 5 things. Whoopdeedoo!
It's not about your changes. It's about Blizzard's attitude.
This change will be fine if your a flash heal spammer but healing as a druid will become hell.
How, exactly? My non-healer brain thinks it'd be less hectic with slower heals. If you mean the fact that it'll be even longer before your heals hit, it's a static amount of difference, probably, and even less percentage-wise.
So its not that the targeting ability is being disabled, its that the targets seen during combat can no longer be dynamic?
Basically.
If that's the case, then what Bliz is really saying is that they don't want to make it easy on healers to identify targets.
If by "make it easy on healers," you mean "let healers automate," yes.
I have no problems getting rid of auto-spell functions, but why exactly do I have to monitor the raid using their horribly eye-straining frames?
You don't. You have no restrictions on which raid frames you use.
Will the encounters be rebalanced to support all the new players that will lack veteran help, because veterans are all in Outlands?
Will it be needed? You won't be capped at 60, as you go on most fights will get progressively easier.
In addition, it's unknown what the reward-to-investment ratio will be—you might get better stuff by going straight past the level 60 raids. I'm nearly positive that for a guild which has never done it before to go straight through MC/BWL/AQ/Naxx will be much slower than getting gear in Outland. It will almost certainly not be required.
Of course, I'm completionist and you may be too; gotta balance that.
Also, I'm not convinced that "Blizzard just doesn't have a clue what the real player base is like." I am very, very unconvinced that they made this change without thinking it over.
Then you're blind. They are doing it simply to change the mechanic...similar to the things they did in EQ to get away from the MT/OT and Ch rotations....It still happens a lot.
The problem is - think of all the waste - you're in a fight where a mob curses everyone. Your mages and druids have 8 seconds to decurse the raid before mass damage starts.
Everyone is frantically clicking people and casting, only to see that someone got to it before you, now you have to click someone else and cast...
The raid wipes because 7 people got missed due to the duplication.
Sure, you can still spread people out and make them responsible for their own groups...It's besides the point.
Then you're blind.
Thanks for that.
Everyone is frantically clicking people and casting, only to see that someone got to it before you, now you have to click someone else and cast...
You're in a fight where it's impossible to get out of the AoE curse range, and you can't preassign decursers to groups to avoid that?
I play a priest, and though this will make it harder, I fully understand why Blizzard has done it.
World of Warcraft has turned into a 1-button click-fest. Even classes with a simple 2-button systems have add-ons that either press the first or the second.
Blizzard has actually put the active part back in raiding - for priests it always was (at least unless you over-modded your UI) and this change will only change the aspect of decursing - something that will be a challenge, but people have to remember that it was possible before Decursive was made or any of the other mods - people back then didn't just say "This is too hard, I quit".
If you want to play a simple 1-2 button game, go play Tetris. I'll be sticking with WoW.
To the above:
If you think this change only affects decursing, you are truly in the dark, don't play a priest as you claim and understand nothing about UI real estate.
This change means if you don't have a monitor to support higher resolutions, you can forget about seeing the game, only the buttons. That's not playing a game to most people and that's the problem here.
One would think that with all Blizzard's experience, they would have addressed this before considering such an added headache and that's what it's all about.
WoW forgets it remains popular because the parents refuse to buy expensive monitors, cpus and ram for kids.
Kids working at McDonalds can't afford it either.
Adults who can afford to play MMOGs, usually play higher-mechanical games.
I agree with Jenkins' summary. With the moving of posts to scattered forums, especially those that move fast off the screen like General, deleting others, people saying they can't log in after posting and the smirky type replies I've seen regularly by the moderators, it's all an indication that is not going to be changed back.
They have millions of customers now, they don't have to listen. This was seen with Everquest when they got big. It was just a matter of time with Blizzard.
The fact that they didn't redesign that crappy UI when they cried about the mods in the first place, was an indication that they knew all along they could just take the easy route and prevent 3rd party access to their code, which is essentially what scripts do now with intelligent arrays.
You are left again at the mercy of mod authors to clean up the UI and make the game fun for an otherwise, very cumbersome interface, both visually and interactively.
It does not look like Blizzard will be focusing any energy of their own to clean that up.
My feeling is that while there may be 2 or 3 mod authors in there right now, with determination that benefits the players, I don't see enough of them saying that much at all. That's not a good sign when you take into consideration that mod authors burn out quicker then healers. Patch burnout has much to do with it. Now you have a revamp that is essentially going to restrict them further with the same prospect of updates.
As Jenkins points out, they've made their decision and now it's just a matter of player and mod author decisions that is left. You will not be able to turn back time after it settles in. Other games will come out and the investment of time in those will preclude any player from changing their minds even if Blizzard changes theirs down the road. So I hope they know what they are doing.
Drowsey, author of Panza is out of the game now because of this. He and his wife went to EQ2 already.
A couple other ones posted they aren't going to stick around to rewrite either.
So I wouldn't get my hopes up that mod authors are going to fix this. I think some of the really good ones have given up and that's not a very warm and cozy feeling!
Goodbye Drowsey! You're da man! You will be missed!
Asking a priest to not cross-assist healing in a raid is like asking all tanks in a raid to not assist each other and only focus on mobs aggro'ing their own individual groups. Ridiculous!!
Why the hell would I want to ask my healer to not enjoy the visual content of the game and instead clutter up their UI with bars and buttons and icons and displays and lists and menus for every fight. Keeping their eyes open to be tacticly aware of combat and assist in notifying any members of potential aggro (all eyes should be watching for such, not just the tank; patrols happen, unfamiliar content, etc...) is taken away with the more UI frames required after this change for them.
It doesn't take smarts to understand what a healer will lose in convenience and enjoyment to do their job post-TBC installment. I felt sorry for all the punishment I put my healers through pre-expansion. Now its going to be twice as hard to get healers in my groups because they're not gonna wanna play with the difficulties mentioned by their removal of assitance mods.
This won't necessarily force me to quit as I play a tank.. but it'll drive me closer to quitting due to lack of support for my class from other players. Repeatedly dying, because a healer (already from a lowered resource pool of players after the patch) isn't able to do their job with assistance, will cause me too much stress and headache keeping up with durability and finding 'the one healer who is talented enough' or 'the one healer who doesnt wanna see anything but menus/lists' to group with all the time.
yay.. another poor design flaw from another once-was game company. I just hope they toss this idea out and re-work their design.
Yeah I don't think with Warhammer around the corner this was such a great idea, Blizz.
You stand more to lose then you do to gain.
Lol, I'm glad really, macro players suck in general. They are the ones who cant move when they get in trouble, take a ton of tries to finally learn their part of an encounter and generally bring guilds down. I think we'll start to see a lot of players packing their bags in many guilds and I'm sure well played healers, decursers, and players in general will step up to the challenge.
They are also adding group decursing and healing to the game so how is this going to be so bad?
Just like when they'd tweak war3 and starcraft to alter each new exploit they were carving a way for the most talented players to move to the front and compete for/with that talent. Why shouldnt your micro make you stand out as the best player?
So now instead of you appearing competent, you are going to get exposed for the fraud you are, so either learn to play or stop trying to raid. Making a new macro for every encounter you come to is really not playing, it's game genie for wow, and it's lame.
How can you even say this moves it into the realm of "who can click the fastest" when you get 1.5 secs between actions you bawling noob? Try the 180 apm+ in rts and then come back and say this is all that hard.
I'm glad, too. I can leave Warcraft behind and the idiots that go with it and start a new game fresh with Warhammer Online.
Uh guys i hate to tell you this but the answer is simple....the "smart players" will use their smarts to think around this upcoming problem with new ideas, or new mods that simply work differently than the current ones do. Is it so hard to imagine that, seeing as how they did it once before with the creation of the mods that are currently in the game?
This is simply a new task that I believe someone will create a new solution to. It may not be what we're used to, but hopefully will make raiding either a little more, about the same, or even less, challenging.
What was wrong with the way we had it? Where we could see what was going on? Now I have to go out and buy some huge 21" monitor that does booku resolution to play a $15 a month game along with another video card that supports it.
This goes further then you're attempting here. It's not that we don't know how to play without mods, we're not morons, morons are the ones who don't even know HOW to install a mod. It's we LIKE it the way it was.
How hard is this for you to understand?
All because Blizzard refuses to change their disgusting UI. Mods won't be able to HIDE mode anything anymore. Read what he said.
And did you read about the mod authors from the more popular layouts? They quit! Can't wait to see who will pick up the ball and write something decent but it sure won't be the l2p crowd who play melee or wannabe healers who were outsted before because they couldn't cut it in raids anyway.
I have one thing to say, BAN COGWHEEL, VOLARA and MALRETH.
These people are the epitomy of self-righteous snobs who need to get out of the house, work when they are at WORK and BREATHE!
They run around constantly belittling everyone who doesn't like the changes.
Ah well, they are fanboys so they won't get banned but Blizzard will find out how much they were worth when 100 to 3 quit because of people like them.
Cogwheel talks about posting from work then complains that people were cheating using the mods in the first place.
Kinda hypocritical, dontcha think?
Personal attacks.
Out.
Does anyone have a link where I can see the Warhammer UI? I went to the site after hearing all these people talk about it but I couldn't find one.
Oh and to stay on topic: I hate what the changes will do to this interface so I need something new to play. ;p
WO? Man, they're all overrrr!
Take a look at http://camelotvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Columns.Detail&id=251 for an explanation.
And here's another http://camelotvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Columns.Detail&id=251
Then look at YouTube's interview.
You have to be in the dark if you never heard of WO.
Release is supposed to be Q1 2007 so if you guys don't like the changes in WoW, definitely check out these, including you John. lol I mean really, take a look at clean that UI is.
Forgot the YouTube one, here ya go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE8wWpqnE5Q&NR
My thinking is this. If you probably have to buy a new monitor to clean up your UI and make it look ok. And then you have to buy a graphics card probably to support it and the new resolutions to view it on that monitor, and the graphics are BETTER then WoW now, why would you NOT try that instead if you're gonna be frustrated in WoW.
See what I'm saying? This is why Blizz should reconsider this cuz they're just not making sense. You have this kind of competition, you don't mess with it NOW.
They can't. They just designed an entire expansion around getting rid of that feature so they're stuck with it.
Did you really think they just came up with this decision yesterday?
Thanks for the links though. Looks like WOW so far. Looks like the dwarves defected to another game. haha They're identical.
Looks good so far. First thing that went through my mind was if i don't like the new WoW, I'll give this a try. Not bad at all! Gives Blizz's graphics a run for the money too.
Warhammer Online doesn't appear to run on Macs, so even if it solved world peace, it wouldn't do me any good.
First quarter in 2007 WO is coming out? I thought it was later. Also didn't know it wouldn't work on Macs. It does look like Warcraft I'll say that.
Sure hope Blizz fixes this mess thou. I don't wanna have to switch. Well hope for the best!
And a big thanks to all the mod authors out there. Hope you continue to fight the good fight. :)
I personally cant wait till all the shitty players quit because of this... can't wait
I heard of the changes. A friend gave me this link so I came to read what's up with my gaming hobby and scroll to the last comment and see the above.
It's a GAME! If you can't see that Mr. Anonymous, you are far more addicted to these games then people you think are stupid.
FYI, have you any idea the percentage of people who raid actually is? Try about 30% and that's including those who even explored MC once.
People work, go to school, have lives. The majority doesn't sit around gloating like you that they will finally BE someone in the world (of warcraft) because someone didn't like raiding anymore.
Some of these personal attacks are the lamest thing I've ever read and demonstrate how badly addicted some are that the only thing they can do is demand that others become as addicted as they are and study a game like a schoolbook.
Sad day, for your types. To realize you have nothing else but a computer game to take so seriously.
They don't call this game the cheapest babysitting service for nothing. It's absolutely true these kids just wait for drama and pour gasoline on it for attention.
I think the parents should be locked up and the kids put in respectable homes.
Children and young adults don't belong on video games that take up this much time. They belong in school and starting their careers. What are they going to do? Put WoW on their resumes? Good luck!
I haven't noticed anyone talking about how this will affect battlegrounds yet. I'm surprised because after raiding for months, I switched back to BG's this week. I have decursive running in there and the CTRA monitor. The monitor is annoying anyway in battlegrounds because everyone is always out of range anyway, but it definitely was a better guide so I could SEE everything. When I put the UI raid completely, it was annoying and I was looking through health bars to see where I was going. It was really annoying, so I put up the vertical PerfectRaid I haven't used in awhile and that was ok. Why can't Blizzard do something like that?
Anyway, the real annoyance was the amount of spammed diseases, curses, poisons, polymorph, fear, etc. that suddenly just popped on my screen. All I could think was, it took them milliseconds to spam that junk and it's going to take me at least 40 seconds or so to get it all off, but how long after I don't have decurse. So I tried doing it without decursive and I lost so many lives and I was mashing like crazy. Then I put decursive back on and didn't lose lives, but the crap was RIGHT BACK only seconds later!
Everyone knows we don't get enough healing in battlegrounds as it is, but with this change I see a lot more people dying faster in there as well.
While I understand the reason why the changes are being done, I have to conclude that if you're going to change something this drastic, you need to compensate a little and put something else back in. I switched to battlegrounds but at level 60 and being expected to do nothing but heal and decurse, I know I'll be neeed, I just don't know if I want to do it anymore. Not the way they are talking about nerfing it, no.
Unless you're going to do straight BG's for your epic rewards as a melee class, that's how I feel after this week of testing what this game is going to be reduced to.
If any other healers have tested using/not using the mods in bg's due to this change, I'd love to hear from them as I'm really reconsidering subscription and would like to know what others thought of their findings.
I found myself swearing at the screen and in a very bad mood as a result. My husband asked what was wrong with me and I said I was testing some changes in WOW. He flatly said, "Well don't test anymore because your attitude sucks!" hmm.. marriage or WOW? Bye Blizz!
Well, I just heard about this and put in my cancellation today. I didn't have a lot of raid experience, but I could already tell I wanted to play WoW, not Spreadsheet.
I have a 45 hunter, a 60 mage, and a 60 druid, albeit without much raid experience with any of them. I'm reasonably qualified to opine, but am not truly expert.
DPS is pretty easy; you just sort of point and shoot. Click lead targeter, hit F, shoot until dead. Repeat. Usually, very easy... you have to manage aggro sometimes, but if the tank is good, often not.
Tanking is hard. You have to be aware of a great deal more. But, at least on a Windows machine, you have a lot of data coming at you to help you sort it out. On a widescreen monitor with a 5.1 soundcard, it's really very immersive. If the squishes are shrieking, you can even tell where they are, without having to think about it in any way. You just know, and go there.
You have main vision, peripheral vision, and sound to help you find stuff. And humans are *designed to do this*: we are evolved to hunt. As stressful as tanking can be, particularly with a bad pull, it's engaging a lot of your brain.
But healing is different. As others have said, you're not in the game at all. You're just ping-ponging health bars. I hadn't yet gotten anything past Decursive: I've been healing as Blizzard intended, for the most part. It is incredibly tedious and draining. I don't mind a little tedium, and I do like healing 5-man groups, but 40-person is just awful. Blizzard purposely making the job harder is crappy. They gave us the ability to make our lives easier, we took it, and then they remove the ability because they don't like how we use it.
I was just starting to look into good mods, because I was so much slower than the other healers. I thought it was me... and perhaps some of it is, as I'm pushing 40. Not as fast as I used to be. But I also realize I was slow because I was modless. Blizzard wants to fix this problem by screwing up the people with mods, but in so doing, they turn the class into a bunch of tightly focused, stressed, bar-watchers.
When healing the Blizzard way, you're not playing WoW, you're playing Spreadsheet. I have no idea what most of the critters in AQ40 even *look* like, because I was so damn busy.
Since they insist that I can't make my life easier, and give myself enough time to look around and enjoy life a little, I insist that they not take any more of my money.
Tanking is tough, no doubt, but at least a tank gets to actually see the game.
Here's the design flaw:
You take a game that sets up grouping in lots of 5. The layout is schemed around 4 + yourself showing up on the UI.
Now you're doing 10 man, then 40 man instance runs and the layout for healers is to watch them all. They are the ONLY class that has to pay attention to 40 people because their counterparts can be out of mana, need help on their tank, experience lag or become disconnected. The result is, cross-healing is a requirement.
When you take out things like CTRA's Emergency Monitor, you tell your healers that the default raid interface is the only interactive frame to heal from because the ability to hide unneeded frames has just been nerfed.
Why? Why is it good to add in all that battle spam as part of the default UI (SCT and those like it) yet Blizzard designers didn't put a thought into adding healer monitor support?
This is a design flaw, no 2 ways about it. This is lack of planning. The fix is thrown off on the shoulders of mod authors to figure out? Come on, man! You gotta be kidding?
I hope you guys borked that Glider hack too because that's where the real cheats are in this game, not in honest players just trying to play their role.
Is it about learning to play smarter or learning to hack better? Because all you critics of healers obviously have no clue about who the real problem is here and if you'd educate yourselves by reading sites like these (http://phtbstrd.blog.co.uk/2006/10/12/an_awesome_post_by_the_great_omw_on_bot_~1212214), maybe you'd get it. THAT guy will come up with a fix to his POS hack tricks but healers will be at the mercy of mod authors.
Read it. Then tell me how fair it is.
What the heck is up with posting links?
http://phtbstrd.blog.co.uk/
2006/10/12/
an_awesome_post_by_the_great_omw_on
_bot_~1212214
Long, but apparently you gotta piece all that together to view it.
I think what most people including John fail to realize is what all factors come into play when you are a priest in a 40 man raid.
Most MC / BWL runs have anywhere from 5-8 priests with them, the latter being a much better # of course. Now what do you do when you have 8 freeform objects all deciding situationally what to do based on given variables. You heal the most wounded that's the general concept of being a healer. Look to find the most damaged player and start casting whatever heal you think is appropriate.
Now when you couple in the fact that you have 8 people deciding to heal TankJoe who just lost 2800 health. TankJoe 80% of the time will see HealerSuzy heals you for 680, HealerKix heals you for 3800, HealerDon heals you for 1690, HealerFrank heals you for 1848, oh poo look at all that mana getting wasted. Is it the priests fault? No, it's Blizzards fault for their stupid implementation of the system. It just gets compounded when you add in the necessity for decursing in many fights. (Shazzrah, Lucifron) Yes one can argue that better planning needs to come into play but lets face it. Better planning means more time spent. It already takes an average/fairly good guild 3 hours to clear from the front of Molten Core through Garr. Now if you couple in the time to designate decursers, priests/druids for each group. That add's a considerable amount of time. Lets even go deeper, i'm sorry but druids are good healers to an extent, their bane is their casting time. Which just so happens to make them not so great with primary healing on the pinch when a person is taking massive damage really fast. Which means your going to need a high amount of priests (and i don't know about other servers but every server I have a 60 on most guilds complain about lack of priests). So now you have to figure out how to build your groups couple paladins and druids so they can offset each others weaknesses in healing (paladins faster smaller heals to stabilize for a druids much larger slower heal) oh well guess what you just lost a decurser and a curer just to make sure they can heal. Mages are now having to concentrate more so on decursing than doing damage so raid dps just went down a crap load.
Now lets discuss the need to nerf emergency monitoring wtf is the problem with having a list of people and their health levels so you can easily target them. It saves your eye strain. I dont know anyone that can say it doesn't get very painful staring at 40 people (especially with the crappy raid interface currently built into the game) trying to watch health bars. Yes Priests do have to take a back seat and not actually experience the game. All they are there for is standing around playing whack-a-mole like everyone has said.
So far i've discussed the changes that will effect Priests, now lets think about other classes no they are not necessary but addons like LazyScript made the game more fun for me. Made it so I didn't have to frantically pan the screen keeping tabs on every little bit of data to judge different things on what I should do when playing my rogue or my warrior. For example, typical fight without lazyscript, run around and try to stay behind the mob while the two tanks whom are on opposite sides of each other fight for aggro so i'm running back and forth to stay behind the mob so i can backstab. Backstab backstab slice and dice, backstab backstab backstab eviscerate, now there are two ways to do this, count the number of backstabs you landed which is just one more variable to track or look up at your combo points and then over to your buffs to see if you need to throw up a snd. What i'm getting at with this is the fact that those addons increased the effective dps of that person. No they should not be used by players who have NO clue how to play their classes. However they shouldn't be taken away from the people who want to have fun and have to come home and just do a second job when they just got off of a different job.
Call me crazy but addons like Detox/Decursive/LazyScript/Squishy(emergency mon) didn't hinder the game... They helped quite a large varying genre of people. People with disabilities, raids who just didn't have enough people to truly devote specific classes to specific things.
So tell me this, why are there so many whiners out there who got angry at people who enjoyed using addons? Is it because you weren't intelligent enough to do it yourself? Or just bitter because someone bested you with a script they wrote so they didn't have to think about every single attack before they did it.
I for one think this is one of the famous mistakes Blizzard tends to make with it's games that just seeds even more hatred for them and will lose them a considerable amount of customers as soon as something new comes out. I don't play to work.. I don't work to play... I want to play to have fun. I don't want my head spinning for 5 hours going through BWL. Blizzard feels that they are helping get rid of botters by doing this. INCORRECT botters will always be around, they don't need your scripting language to effectively exploit the game. They will simply find new ways of getting around warden and hooking into the addresses in memory and watching health to know when to send certain keystrokes to the game. Or to know when to perform other attacks. The scripting language didn't help them do that anymore efficiently or easily. Their philosophy on smarter players is ludicrous. Players are not dumb because they want something to be fun and easier rather than mind numbing and retardely boring.
So whatever to Blizzard. I for one have canceled my preorders of the game because they effectively neutered my ability to dual box and play alts (oh god how many people did I hurt by using quickheal to heal my alt while i had fun leveling up characters, probably countless millions...).
And to Lorelei, you hit the nail on the head, Brad is sitting back at sigil going those idiots.. they should learn from others mistakes and don't screw with their customers. I mean look at verant, and what became of EQ and then the future for EQ2, I was surprised to learn it didn't even hold the #2 spot for mmo's. I wonder why? Could it be the fact that it takes to dang long to do ANYTHING in that game. Maybe Brad will have better luck on Vangard I have a feeling he is at least attempting to do things right.
William, you should repost this to the UI Forum and the Suggestion Forum as it best sums up a lot of the comments in this blog.
Good job!
What's the use though, blizzard makes 50 million dollars a month off of wow, what do they care if a few thousand people quit due to their changes. It just all seems moot to care about it. I know they won't see the light and see the disaster they are causing for some players. I just felt there were certain things that needed to be said.
I don't have much hope for this game after reading the confusion/ignorance coming from some of the mod authors on that forum. They don't seem to have a clue what the problem is with the raid interface where it applies to healers healing & curing (two separate issues that should be combined into one interactive frame).
Most seem to be arguing with the people who put these things into practice everyday and slandering them with cheating accusations for using mods that were available up and until the release of TBC.
I find the entire fiasco appalling. All I can think to say to these arrogant know-it-alls is: Get down off your high horses because you aren't coming up with a solution yourself, so don't get pissy about the fact that players are trying to show you their concerns.
If you can't fix it, just move along because it's obviously getting clear, this is unfixable.
Seems the players know more about what's going to happen then the authors do and that's scarey!
I also notice that not too many addon creators are even posting at all which leaves just the wannabe crowd talking.
The ones who came to this blog and spoke out, namely the one who created Squishy and knows what the problems are and will be, did not seem that optomistic, with good reason.
Hey Alex/Furor. Let us know when you're ready for the countdown timer to go up, ok? You know what I mean.
Now you can practice your whack-a-mole skills before TBC!
That's right! We've given you a trial run to sharpen those eye-scanning, reflex-binding skills no matter what you've lost with those don't l2p addons!
Just click on this link here and PLAY THIS GAME and get practicing to be the most uber healer in all of BC Azeroth!
http://www.newgrounds.com/
portal/view/340829
FREE!
bwahahaha111!!
Definitely whackamole! Borrring too!
So I've poured over all these comments here, curse-gaming and the official forums.
I've come to the conclusion that due to Blizzard's lack of information and response to their customers' posts, the debate is turning into nothing but drama and I hate drama. One person will post a question that a Blue should be answering and you see nothing but some jo-schmoe customer answering with snide comments.
What amazes me is that for an official "UI and Macro Forum", set up for the sole purpose of addon questions, some dumbass replies with a bash on that person for having used the open source Blizzard promotes.
We are right back to EQ mentality where people think they can slam others with the excuse "it was not working as intended".
I blame these people for the demise of WOW and Blizzard for sitting back and doing nothing about it while they reap in millions a month. I am literally disgusted after reading all this crap. It's nothing but attacks on addon users and defensive responses. Not that i don't understand the defensive tones, but the instigators out there have no excuse.
This is a game that clearly implemented the use of addons and encouraged it. A game that now precludes the use of critical addons without the forethought of changing the interface design, which demonstrates incompetence and motive. Any intelligent person knows from MMOG experience, this is just another ploy on the designer's part to slow down users chewing up content too fast. The slower you play, the more money they make and this is a fact.
So from reading all this, I conclude that the only interest Blizzard has is in slowing down the end-user. Epeen swinging is the only intent of the addon basher/ learn2play crowd.
The whole thing has gotten completely out of hand to the point that just reading it is enough to ruin any taste I had for TBC.
The forums are now nothing but a big playpen and I suggest those of you making intelligent comments save your breath because it's falling on deaf ears. They are only goading you into a fight and it's not worth it. This was supposed to be entertainment. Because some actually live on Azeroth, they'll never get your point. They are too far gone in their addictions. It's like talking to a heroin addict.
I'll give you guys the point that some mod authors have gotten so full of themselves on the official forums that it's no use in trying to make your point and it seems evident that Bizzard isn't going to answer you. On the other hand, there are tons of authors who don't post there(Discord comes to mind) because they are way too busy trying to sort this out and get a new release done.
So really, who you are arguing with are the nobody's of the macro and UI scripting world.
Save yourselves the aggravation and stop posting there. Wait until TBC, don't buy it yet, see if you like it and make your decision.
While I'll agree this game has been given too little attention to UI design by Blizzard, it's complexity to change requires you to be almost a programmer.
For those that can't be bothered or interested in such modifications, I would just say, if you don't like the changes, make a change for a better game. There are tons out there now to choose from and there's really no reason to get this upset over a hobby where you have alternatives.
That's all I wanted to pass along as that's what I will be doing come late November, early December.
May be inflammatory. Disregard if you have heart troubles.
I was just out in the real world, with other people who play WoW. We didn't even mention the add-on change.
This won't be the end of the world for Blizzard. It might be for you combined with Blizzard, in which case we can get back to ranting.
Carry on.
Be careful what you are defending with insults. The company you are claiming to defend stands a lot to lose by your actions and does not appreciate it.
I'll find my answers when the expansion comes out.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. - Plato
Well, I just cancelled my pre-order for Burning Crusade. I'm not going spend another fifty bucks to find out if this change is bad enough to make me quit the game.
I use mods because I am 56 years old and I don't have the reflexes of a 12-year-old "twitch gamer." By the time I can target a member of my raid using the CTL-TAB combo or the "mouse on the toon," she'll be dead. I'll be unpopular in the guild, and won't get invited to raids, because I won't be able to keep up with the combat spam.
And that's too bad, because up until now, Blizzard has done things mostly right. World of Warcraft has been the best MMORPG experience I've ever had. It makes me sad to think it may end for me.
Its time for WarHammer.
Thats all i got to say.
Serena said...
I'm just glad I'm on the monthly subscription plan! :)
No way I'm going back to staring at health bars and frantically clicking. Nope, nope, nope! Not this priest!
ok you lazy piece of shit priest, learn how to play...you probably get blown away in the healing meters night in and night out.
True dat! Melees in BG are out for themselves. They could care less about their healers. Maybe Horde does, but Alliance is a joke. Blizzard should check their stats on healers in BG because it's almost non-existant on Alliance and that's with macros as they are now. Proves when you don't have backup, why bother?
Alliance melees suck in BG and that's why Horde pwns them! Selfish little pricks most of em. The facts speak for themselves.
Isn't this the typical attitude of the WoW crowd. Just typical.
What's really stupid about these comments is that you all don't even realize that it affects all of you. Some of you act like if one class loses something, it's funny. The joke is on you, jerk. You coming in here and on the forums and laughing and scoffing at players does 3 things only:
1. Makes the player quit the game to get away from you;
2. Makes the player deliberately not cure or heal anyone of your class (now who's the joke on?); and
3. Will end up being a frustrating game to play because of 1 & 2 and no one will want to play.
These are mechanics Blizzard allowed, same as they allowed you all to cheat using your speedpads and supped up keyboards (which they should have detected and ban you from a long time ago). There's no difference. You're ALL "cheating" if that's how you wanna put it. It was allowed, period.
And I have news for you. People that didn't use that crap, never even saw the 40 man runs, so please put some common sense where your elitist attitudes are because you sound like dumbasses.
I've played every single class in this game and hands down, the melee and hunter class is the easiest and the healer is the hardest with the dps casters in between. And I've made it at least thru AQ40 and best thru Naxx on all of them.
You're wrong. You don't know what the hell you're talking about and it's going to have an impact NONE of you are going to like.
Say goodbye to your PvP Battlegrounds boys. No healer will step foot in one after this and I don't blame them one bit.
I suggest you stock up on potions and bandages.
as a 60 pvp priest, hit WL few weeks back... love the game a ton. You take away squeakywheel and make ctraid all phucked up, and you've made a huge mistake which will piss off healers everywhere.
I hope you lose revenue because of this bullshit (lol, as if) because that is the ONLY way you are ever going to give a shit.
<-- considering switching games.
WoW.. what happened?
You were the top dog in MMORPGs.. and now if you seriously do consider carrying out these changes, your game is going to crumble and fall.
Healers ARE the hardest class to play and it's true, we don't get rewarded or protected. There was a saying I read somewhere.. "The healer is the last line of offense, but the first line of defense."
So WoW, heed the players words of advice for once this time, unless your head is too far up the ass of business - since this time, it will either make or break you.
60 Priest here. I'm getting kind of sick and tired of reading how we had this coming.
What right do any of those people have to tell me how to play? Take away their auto-shot, their auto-attack, etc., etc., etc. and see how much they like it.
If I choose to click a button I KNOW is going to cure, don't be giving me this SHIT that I don't know what it's doing, so I need to learn to play. What kind of screwball thought that crap up?
Let's see, I can find target I know I already want, click target I know I already want, click cleanse I know I already want and do this over and over and over but that takes MORE brain work in your minds (as if you should even CARE) then concentrating on heals, fear, mana drain and the slew of other crap we do manually. Yeah I can REALLY see the point that you have to friggin LEARN TO PLAY in order to decurse.
You know something? You people are really IGNORANT about what a priest does! You're so STUPID it's not even funny. It's no wonder most priests wouldn't go near a BG with you if YOU paid them! You're STUPID and SELFISH angry players.
This change is Blizzard's way of saying, "We can't get rid of the hacks so we're taking it out on you and letting the players put you down when you complain and spit all over you because it's better that you get ripped and not us."
Well you know what? Screw you! I have better things to do then put up with this crap.
Enjoy your expansion. I'm sure it'll be a huge hit with a bunch of tired healers who will come up with every RL emergency in the book after a month of doing it YOUR/BLIZZARDS way.
What a total waste of time this game was. Never AGAIN!
This change is Blizzard's way of saying, "We can't get rid of the hacks so we're taking it out on you and letting the players put you down when you complain and spit all over you because it's better that you get ripped and not us."
Yep, because translating what Blizzard is saying because you're feeling bitter and vindictive is an excellent way of making a point.
Looks like my priest will be an alt and go shadow.
No way I'm gonna go back to "the good ol' days".
I guess they do this just to get rid of botters but like has been said already, botters already "cheat" they wont be affected by this...
Yep, because translating what Blizzard is saying because you're feeling bitter and vindictive is an excellent way of making a point.
Wouldn't take away from the chance that she may be right under all her "bitterness", eh?
Who wouldn't be bitter after reading all those attacks against healers while Blizz sat back and didn't intervene?
You got nobody's like Malreth (btw, are you HIM?) who does nothing but troll the forum there with his quipes against lazy people and they seem to let him run amuck just fine.
Then you have the audacity to point out that she's the one with the nerve for having an attitude in return?
My Lord, John! Your bias is totally shining here! Get one thing straight. Just because someone doesn't agree with YOU, doesn't mean YOU have the right to scold/belittle them into your way of thinking and that's exactly what some of the posts here do towards healers and especially on the UI forum.
Now what you see is healers, after having read that bs, shooting back at them. But that's not fair? You guys started the venemous tones against mod users, not us, remember that.
You got nobody's like Malreth (btw, are you HIM?) who does nothing but troll the forum there with his quipes against lazy people and they seem to let him run amuck just fine.
Then you have the audacity to point out that she's the one with the nerve for having an attitude in return?
I am not Malreth; I've never heard of him, actually.
I, in general, have a very bad attitude about "translations." I haven't yet seen one that wasn't venting frustrations; my response was to the method of presentation, not the content.
As for the content: "We can't get rid of the hacks so we're taking it out on you and letting the players put you down when you complain and spit all over you because it's better that you get ripped and not us." This has nothing to do with hacks. This was not put in place because they "can't get rid of hacks." This would be a very minor bump in the road for anyone using hacks to accomplish what this prevents.
My Lord, John! Your bias is totally shining here! Get one thing straight. Just because someone doesn't agree with YOU, doesn't mean YOU have the right to scold/belittle them into your way of thinking and that's exactly what some of the posts here do towards healers and especially on the UI forum.
Wait, bias?
You also do know that both camps are often assuming the other is wrong and, as you put it, belittling each other? I hope you're reprimanding both sides.
It's worth repeating: my snide remark was on the method of presentation, not the content.
You guys started the venemous tones against mod users, not us, remember that.
It completely depends on who you're looking at.
If I could say something here. There is a thread on the UI/Macro Forums now where someone asked for the reason that this change is going into effect.
That person was slammed also. Malreth again chiming in and I've seen that before in many, many threads on this issue. Being not even a 60 melee, I can't begin to think how he even understands how this affects healers. He doesn't even claim to have an alt where he could understand.
I just think that these people are pot-stirrers. They definitely went at healers in a vicious way and now that healers are responding in kind, the threads get locked or deleted. Yet he's been at this since the announcement.
Also no reason has really been given other then a brief statement by Blizzard that THEY feel we don't play according to their vision. When countered with the myriad of addons that will remain that automate play, especially for melees, healers are getting very frustrated trying to understand why they are being singled out so harshly, as this affects their classes more then anyone else and that's a given.
The only reason given for the above, was that those changes would somehow alleviate botters and/or make it more difficult for them. The reasons did not include anything about the encounters being too easy, but the player themselves, being put under the microscope as to what is acceptable play by Blizzard and what is not.
It would be one thing if Blizzard did something about this from the start of decursives inception, but it's ludicrous to have it in the game so long and then eliminate it with the expansion, especially when they are doing nothing to address the hardware devices out on the market that make "automation" a cinch. It's just really about double-standards at this point.
I don't think people are going to adapt. I think they will leave and try other games. And then I think Blizzard will try to taunt them back by announcing they've changed their minds yet again and put it back in. But by then, I fear it will be too late.
It would be one thing if Blizzard did something about this from the start of decursives inception, but it's ludicrous to have it in the game so long and then eliminate it with the expansion, especially when they are doing nothing to address the hardware devices out on the market that make "automation" a cinch. It's just really about double-standards at this point.
How can they do anything about the hardware automation options, besides forbidding them? This is the one aspect they have completely under their control.
It would most certainly have been more consistent to have these kinds of add-ons impossible from the beginning. But it makes me wonder: many people seem to be saying that the game is not worth playing without this functionality. Would they never have played this game at all without this functionality?
(I apologize that this statement says nothing with regard to people who physically may have a hard time playing without this functionality. I don't have anything to say, nor an opinion, about that.)
I am going to assume that the tipping point for people buying World of Warcraft was generally not the fact that it is possible (and early on, not yet done) to automate certain functionality which they knew was going to be tedious. That seems rather improbable. Instead, I'm going to assume the argument which people are making and not explicitly stating is that they bought the game, and as they leveled up or the game evolved it entered a state where, either in PvP or end-game PvE, it became quite handy to automate. I can easily see this being the rationale.
In which case, I just have to point out that PvP and end-game PvE are changing a lot in the expansion, and the status quo may no longer apply. No one can say for certain—we can only guess or make assumptions—if the old rules will still apply.
I may be wrong. The old rules, or enough of them, may still be the case, and the game may be ruined—from many people's perspective. I still don't think we can make that pronouncement until we get PvP and level 70 PvE flowing—even the beta is only at level 67 now.
Oh, and just a nitpick: there has been little to no mind-changing. They just finally got around to closing off what they've wanted to for a very long time.
If people want to explore the reasons, I could share some examples if that helps.
I understand why people think the game will be drastically changed without this functionality, I do. Some of the encounters at end game are so curse intensive, they are wondering how long the game will remain "fun".
I won't get into the particulars, those have all been said as far as PvE, but I would like to explain possibly why this change was coming with regard to PvP.
If you look at this picture here:
http://static.curse-gaming.com/mscreens/11234.jpg it shows a Warlock using a program named LazyScript where everything is automated. Horde especially uses these programs in PvP. If you've ever wondered how it was that a battle required you to do nothing but decurse repeatedly, look no further then this script. It's not that Horde is so great, it's that these cheaters can push one button and cast demon skin, find every target that doesn't have Immolate, Corruption, Curse of Agony and cast it while you have to find each of your targets and do the same. As a Paladin, I knew this was happening. I could see it. It was done in seconds! It was no wonder to me that Horde despises Paladins because they are the only class not in cloth who can dispose of these debuffs with a click and survive the entire script. It was also no wonder to me why Horde cheered at the prospect of getting the Paladin class themselves. They believed they would conquer all until this change was announced.
If you think the Warlock script is bad, take a look at the cheating Warrior. If you even try to cast, his script will Warstomp you and prevent it, automatically! Another reason why you don't stand a chance even 1v1 with him.
With these scripts, you can automate an entire PvP battle, from start to finish, for most any class. But most Alliance healers don't use these types of advanced scripts nor even know about them. So they do feel singled out. Perhaps Blizzard would have done better to make additional changes on their behalf as it does seem rather harsh. For whatever reasons Blizzard has, we'll just have to wait and see how this pans out. Yet the real reason, if I were to speculate, that these changes are coming, are probably due to scripts like the above. Coupled with advanced keyboards like the G15 and button devices like the Nostromo, there's no stopping the cheating that goes on.
Warden also has its limitations. It checks memory at the loading of Warcraft and then again at the closing of the game. People know this, so they circumvent Warden by loading their programs after WOW starts and terminate them just after use. Teleports is a good example. I sincerely hope with these changes, that Warden becomes more proficient as well.
I blame the abuse of scripting for these changes and sympathize with the healers who play normally or with just an addon or two. I hope Blizzard finds a way to redesign with these changes, if they haven't already, what's to come with it. I am confident healers may see an improvement to their success as far as PvP is concerned with these changes. I understand they don't fully grasp why at this time and predict doom if you consider what's happening now. Yet if these changes also PREVENT what is happening now, they should feel better. The playing field should close and Blizzard can get an even better idea of any future changes that need implementing.
I hope these few examples help shed some light on how Blizzard is preventing cheating with this change. I'm sure we're in for a long road to perfect it, but hang in there healers, the "good" mod authors are working hard out there, I assure you! :)
P.S.: Pay no mind to Malreth. I've read his comments. He has no idea what he's talking about. ;)
Dear Danice,
Your post is a typical reaction of the type of player who is NOT using those advanced scripts. You feel that you'll be put at even MORE of a disadvantage then you are now.
But consider that they will no longer force you to spam Decursive because after TBC, they have to find their targets as much as you do. I doubt they have the skill because they've relied on their scripts for so long. You are manually doing everything but decursing according to your post, so you should be fine. It's them that won't be.
The reason they tell you to "learn to play" is to purposely incite you, so you do quit. Because with people like you out of the picture, they remain at an advantage even if they can no longer use their automated gameplay. It's them that are to blame here, not you.
So give it time. Don't buy TBC if you don't want to. But just try the changes when they come. You may be pleasantly surprised they are no longer dominating the game. :)
Madison
"It would most certainly have been more consistent to have these kinds of add-ons impossible from the beginning. But it makes me wonder: many people seem to be saying that the game is not worth playing without this functionality. Would they never have played this game at all without this functionality?"
Yes, they most likely would have played, but whether they'd still be playing today or for long is another unknown.
John, in your last post, you went on to imply that automation became a convenient extension of the game and made it easier to play. I agree that it did. I confess to being a mod user, using things like Group buttons and DAB. If I hadn't discovered the these mods early into my WOW experience, I know Blizzard would have been 2 subscriptions lighter.
I consider my son & I casual players, we don't have time or want to have to remember which level of a particular spell can be cast on a particular level character. We don't have the time or play often enough to master the game to that level. Automation mods enable casual players to drop into the game and get some enjoyment. It's not a game if it's a chore.
I hope that Blizzard is a very charitable employer, as I get the feeling that as the game loses popularity as a result of the proposed changes, the income to support such a massive support infrastructure is going to fall off. That's going to increase pressure to release people.
I've been paying 2 full subscriptions more or less since the game game out, I started to get hacked off with the UI after a few months, but mods filled the gaps and kept me going. On the back of the current approach, I am not going to be rushing out to buy the expansion pack on day 1. I'm so grateful that you are going to inflict these changes on the existing user base as well as the expansion pack folks, at least that way I get to decide whether I like the 'improved gaming experience' before I part with any more money. I'm going to be suspending my subscription a couple of weeks before the pack comes out so that I have a little time left to try the new UI and balance how much money I waste.
I consider my son & I casual players, we don't have time or want to have to remember which level of a particular spell can be cast on a particular level character. We don't have the time or play often enough to master the game to that level.
I'm curious—the only reasons that come to my mind for downranking a spell is for healing less, or buffing a lower-level.
Buffing has automatic rank selection in the expansion, and I'm honestly drawing a blank as to where a self-proclaimed casual player will need to downrank, as opposed to it merely being a good idea. I believe one of the intentions is that there is a difference between those don't "play often enough to master the game to that level," as you say, and those who do.
DAB and Group Buttons and even Clique will still work.
DAB and Group Buttons is being rewritten right now and Clique is already up for download for beta users. You just can't have these programs target for you. That you will have to do yourself.
I have not read all the comments on this thread, but it seems a very large number of the comments are failing to consider that the raid size is being reduced from 40 to 25. Blizzard made this decision very purposefully and it has massive implications on exactly how much a healer requires his UI to do for him.
Someone commented that raids will fall apart because the two brilliant healers in the group will no longer be able to pick up the slack for the rest of the dumb healers who are tagging along for the lewtz.
Well thank Elune!
A 40 man raid should not be able to ride on the shoulders of two fantastic healers. In my opinion the current game design is absolutely broken if this is happening, and am glad Blizzard is making this change.
I will wait to pass final judgement on this until several months after release. The mod designers for this game are myriad and ingenius. They will find a way to ease the lives of the Healers in the new 25 man dungeons without breaking the new rules of the UI system. If not? Warcraft will lose its spot as the complete and total domination of the genre.
I have a question for you, Psy.
I have a main 60 rogue and an alt Priest that is only 50. Will the new expansion change the old instances from 40 man to 25 too? Because if those old instances that my priest never got to see yet remain at 40, that's not gonna be fun and my guild needs priests.
Do you know anything about how they're doing this?
Thanks in advance,
Christine
None of the existing dungeons are being altered for the Burning Crusade. So, yes, unless they return to them in the future, they will remain capped at 40 people, though at level 70 you will probably not need them all.
Thanks for the information. I'm not sure if that's good news or not, but I guess we'll see.
IRVINE, Calif. -- Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™, the highly anticipated expansion for World of Warcraft, will be in January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.
“We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we’re excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content,” said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve.”
Blizzard began the closed-beta phase of testing on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade earlier this month. The January 2007 release window will allow extra time for current beta testers to participate in the final stages of development and continue providing valuable feedback.
Further information on specific worldwide release dates, pricing, and other details will be announced in the near future.
Sure you all know this, but hoping that the delay has healer concerns in mind.
Sure you all know this, but hoping that the delay has healer concerns in mind.
Possibly, but... a few CMs have shown their intentions to release a content patch (1.13 or 2.0) prior to the actual release of the Burning Crusade. I'm guessing this will be the same as what the non-expansion would have gotten along with the Burning Crusade release—which, I believe, will involve these changes coming at the same time they would have anyway, and actually before the Burning Crusade itself.
I'll tell you what. After monitoring the Battlegrounds and proving firsthand (thanks to the gank meter) that 5 people can target and kill you within literally one second of you showing up at a flag, that shit better be fixed. If those cheats are not OUT of this game come any expansion or patch, Blizzard can kiss me goodbye.
I don't play a game to sit here for hours on end against a bunch of script kiddies who have self-esteem issues and need to use every cheat in the book to get their rocks off.
It's about time people woke up and realized these are nothing but cheats and hacks and you're wasting your time against people you CANNOT win against. They stacked the odds against you. The reality of it is, Blizzard allowed this for 2 years. I figured it out 8 months after joining. But since knowing is half the battle, ask yourself if you REALLY want to waste your time in a game you can't win or even come close.
It's either fixed or forget it. I do this for fun. I don't want nor need to spend my life playing WOW.
Since the revamped RDX already is coming out with their own pay for cheats and hacks, I'm not holding out any hope for TBC. And if you don't know what I'm talking about John, I suggest you do some homework. I've talked to enough people to know, the cheating is f'ing ridiculous. The sites are already up and they're in the process of collecting your monthly fees to cheat. THIS is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder if it's not an inside job where developers are now making side money as a result of customer frustration. They were busted in EQ. Don't tell me it's not happening in WOW.
I'm not sure what you're complaining about, Michael. The current state of add-ons? Is RDX too much for you, even after the upcoming changes?
He is right. The word is out. People are already talking about the mods and hacks that will get around the 2.0 changes. I don't want to list them but I hope Blizz bans users of them, including the hardware device users. It's just out of control. They should probably just go back to locking the UI entirely if that's what it's going to take to correct this situation.
Um, I feel like I'm feeding the trolls, but hacks are basically unaffected by this, and add-ons don't "get around" it, they find other methods of making things easier. Mind saying something concrete?
Only read the first few posts, quite set back by the ones like Lorelei...I know how a healer can feel, it does get tiresome and it definitely gets you burned out after a while. I healed for over a year and then stopped.
I rolled a rogue. Now, it's all better. There's a level of skill that was completely absent from healing and buffing, one in it's own league and depends on little anyone else. Make a name for yourself, be an "uber rogue" instead. You'll be loved, and you'll have fun again. If you rolled healer as your first class, you should have known what you would be doing the rest of your wow life...and that's healing.
Emergency Monitor? That's not even close to being essential. Neither is decursive from what all the new raid encounters are being talked of. Decursive is awesome, makes you super-human, simply no way to react as fast without losing your target, but people will get over it. Healers especially, what did you do before decursive? Do it again.
Quite simply, at the most, you will just have to start learning to interpret and heal the people in your group/cross-heal when necessary through judgement (I don't say "better judgement" because it takes little when you're using E-monitor, heh).
If you have a hard time judging which person, class or hp bar needs healing, you should have rerolled instead of being a hypocrite yourself and relying on the mods to basically do the heals for you.
Make a name for yourself, be an "uber rogue" instead. You'll be loved, and you'll have fun again.
If that's your version of fun, you're demented. Fun is being loved in an online game? You're just weird.
Um, I feel like I'm feeding the trolls, but hacks are basically unaffected by this, and add-ons don't "get around" it, they find other methods of making things easier. Mind saying something concrete?
I've written several addons for World of Warcraft. I know firsthand how you can "cheat" on your opponent.
You Sir, have no idea what you are talking about. Please be informed before you post a blog.
There are many, many loopholes to be exploited using Blizzard's version of LUA and many more then will NEVER circumvent what's been going on. Merely taking out a target automation such as decursive does not solve the unfairness in this game for those who know something about programming.
If Blizzard truly wants to the odds to be even, they would take out ALL scripting abilities and offer only those that are built-in.
You talk out of your ass! And if you think I'm going to direct you to every loophole there is because you're too lazy to scan even curse-gaming, forget it. You're just one of those people who sits around doing nothing to educate yourself while demanding the answers be given to you.
They aren't talking about gliders. They're talking about mods used in that game RIGHT now and are already being rewritten to still function with the aim in mind to CLEARLY cheat your opponent with advantages they don't have normally.
Tell Blizz to stick to their TOS and start banning those who use them. Until then, shut up because you're pissing people off who read this and know better.
You talk out of your ass! And if you think I'm going to direct you to every loophole there is because you're too lazy to scan even curse-gaming, forget it. You're just one of those people who sits around doing nothing to educate yourself while demanding the answers be given to you.
There's a little flaw in your suggestion to scan Curse. You are ranting on about "cheats" and "loopholes," without giving me any clear idea of what you definition is. Are you using your definition? Blizzard's definition? I doubt you're using mine, so telling me to scan Curse won't be productive. Give me one (1) example of something you call a cheat, or I'll be forced to insinuate that your posterior is no better than mine for talking out of.
They aren't talking about gliders. They're talking about mods used in that game RIGHT now and are already being rewritten to still function with the aim in mind to CLEARLY cheat your opponent with advantages they don't have normally.
Because you say "opponent," I suppose you're talking about add-ons which confer PvP advantages. Again, I'm curious. You suggest that Blizzard takes out "ALL scripting abilities"—you'd prefer what, exactly? What do you want add-ons to do? Also, what do you mean by "those who know something about programming" gaining an advantage? A very large number of add-ons provide an advantage of some sort, but I don't know of many that need programming knowledge.
Am I correct in guessing that your ire stems from the fact that add-ons are capable of providing an advantage to those who use them? If so, I suggest that you find one (1) clause in the Terms of Service and show us an add-on that directly violates it.
You're the one coming in here with a torch and pitchfork. It's your job to back up your claims, not mine.
/em wonders why a person writes a blog who doesn't know about the numerous addons presently used that is THE reason why Blizzard is doing this.
I've been playing for a year and even little 'ol me knows about them. I have no doubt they are re-writing those cheat mods as we type. They give a clear advantage against normal players. When you have pvp situations where epic gear stands at stake, it's not fair to leave that in the game, no.
I agree with the other guy.
John, you need to argue less, learn more.
Yeah, I do know about the add-ons which are the reasons these changes are being made. What I don't understand is the assertion that these changes won't do a thing.
Add-ons are being re-written to use as much power as they'll have, obviously. Presumably this "as much power as they have" will now be closer in line to what Blizzard wants. I haven't heard of any loopholes, and I wouldn't put any credence in them until the patch itself is released.
You can say things like "cheat mods," "CLEARLY cheat your opponent," all you like. If you define it, we can get much closer to the solid ground of either a) an add-on which is clearly against Blizzard's concept of add-ons, or b) an add-on which is clearly against what you want to see in add-ons.
A lot of people have made comments along the lines of "This change has made me decide not to buy Burning Crusade".
I was wondering if the reason people are no longer going to buy the expansion is
a) To register a protest and not part with their cash to Blizzard
b) A wish to avoid the changes mentioned
Option a) is a reasonable response to a genuine disappointment felt at the changes. Option b) is showing a misunderstanding of the changes.
Blizzard will implement version 2.0 as a server patch just before the 16th of January so that everyone will be running with the new code regardless of them buying the expansion pack or not.
Having purchased the expansion pack simply gives you the ability to level beyond lvl 60 and to experience the new content, as this content will not be available to the people who only have the basic retain version. ie: Going through portal to Outlands will require that you have the expansion pack, rolling a Blood Elf or Draenai will require the expansion.
However EVERYONE will have the same code base as far as how addons work, so these changes will affect every player. I suspect when this happens is when the currently blissfully unaware will suddenly sit up and start shouting.
Personally as a MT healing Priest, I can just about live with the changes however I fear for the viability of guilds that raid, as mine does, on a fairly casual raiding framework. We rely on healers to turn up or the raid doesn't happen.
If 10-20% of healers quit or reroll because of these changes that will significantly affect the viability of many a guild and indeed even some servers. The number of priests on a lot of servers is very very low. Anything that discourages people, even if its only word of mouth "Blizzard have made Priests jobs harder mate don't roll a priest", could seriously unbalance things.
One of the features of any Role Playing game is game balance and its something that designers constantly have to strive to achieve. I applaud the efforts to encourage players not code to make decisions, however changes that make things irritating and turn people away cannot be good.
Personally I am a keyboard user as I frequently switch between using a laptop & my desktop. These changes would massively impair my playstyle if it wasn't for the fact I am a MT healer and only occassionally have to "off heal" another party member. I would hate to have to go pick up the mouse during combat or worse still tackle my laptops touchpad to move around the screen and select things. This would add so much delay as to make my playstyle impossible.
I don't use a mouse and never have liked using one in combat. I use addons but none that make decisions for me. If I am off healing then I use F1-F5 to select targets or F6-F10 for CTRA emergency monitor ones. To change to use a mouse would be hateful.
I appreciate that I am obviously in a minority in being almost exclusively a keyboard users. However can anyone explain how using the new locked down interface I could use a keyboard to select someone and then to select a pop up spell from a list or does that implicitly DEMAND a mouse?
If you're casting spells by keyboard now, you can cast spells by keyboard in the expansion. Selecting players by the keyboard will be tricker, though. It *seems* that you'd be able to use key sequences to select a specific player (e.g. F6 then F9 to select the ninth raid member).
The long and short of it is, if Blizzard didn't want this functionality in the game, they never should have given it to us in the first place.
The game is so heavily built up around the player's ability to customize their UI in meaningful and valuable ways because the base UI lacks so much pertinent information and functionality. Changing the game now doesn't really reconcile the fact that a big part of the game is hinged on our ability to innovate ways of tackling the challenges in the game.
Until they take dispels/cures/cleanses right out of the game, they should simply let us mash the damn buttons. I guess I'm the only one who remembers being a 60 priest a year and a half ago when some bored kid made a Javascript game of 40 randomly emptying green bars that you could click to fill until your blue bar was empty. That's end-game healing, in a nut-shell - get the GUI out of the way entirely and let's do it with asterisks MUD-style, why don't we?
The long and short of it is, if Blizzard didn't want this functionality in the game, they never should have given it to us in the first place.
Why? That's a little like saying that the writers of the Constitution should have anticipated everything that would ever need to be in it, and not allowed amendments.
Unless you're suggesting that the designers could have forecasted precisely what would happen with add-ons two years ago, and delayed the game further to put these changes in? That has some merit.
Changing the game now doesn't really reconcile the fact that a big part of the game is hinged on our ability to innovate ways of tackling the challenges in the game.
True. Most of the existing raids are based on the presence of helpful add-ons. The premise is that the raids in the Burning Crusade won't be based around this preconception. If that's not true, then, well, you've got a point—but we don't know yet.
This also poses a problem for people who don't want to buy the expansion and do want to keep raiding. I'm not sure how big this crowd is, or how big a problem it will be.
I guess I'm the only one who remembers being a 60 priest a year and a half ago when some bored kid made a Javascript game of 40 randomly emptying green bars that you could click to fill until your blue bar was empty. That's end-game healing, in a nut-shell - get the GUI out of the way entirely and let's do it with asterisks MUD-style, why don't we?
If you're in the right mood, you can make things like that for anything in raiding. But your phrasing suggests that this mindless-bar-clicking isn't actually involved enough for you. You'd prefer that same game with a single button to spam, turning the randomly emptying bars into randomly empting and filling bars, and removing all interaction?
it seems clear to me that the blizzard people who are making these decisions are the "casual" gamers that they keep saying the game is geared towards. these are unfortunately also the same gamers who never make it to endgame content unless they manage to hold a place in a guild of much better players. the "casual" gamers just don't streamline things enough to cope in the newest content, and so far, they've only made that distinction worse. I'll play it by ear, but I'm loosly expecting to quit WoW within a month or 2 of the expansion. they're deliberately destroying the most successful and enjoyable aspects of the game, and it will cost thm in the end.
Tejing
What i'm going to miss most of all apart from the ease of use is keyboard bindings. I have keys bound to EM1-EM5, MT1-MT5 and so forth, and use those along with various heal hotkeys and a 'cancel cast' hotkey (used with RnS Incoming Heals).
I'm really going to hate to have to use the mouse to do my role :(
The only ones you lose are the Emergency Monitor bindings (admittedly a big part). The only mouse-work you'll need is for spot-healing.
Here's my two cents, take it or leave it.
Theonly people I hear, see, play with that cry the most about these changes are the ones who decided that the default interface wasn't enough for their style of play and took it into their own hands to change it. Yes, Blizzard gave them a way to make thoughs changes. Guess what? Blizzard is changing things OMFG. progress in a game? How blessed outragious!! Some of these addons and macros were and have always will be some lazy gimp's idea of a 'good thing'. This is and shall always be a MMORPG. It's NOT a console game with a one hit wonder button that most of these type players are looking for. OMG, I got to hit TWO buttons instead of one. What's the big deal about that? If you really miss that console game feel then you need to back to the Atari/PS/Xbox or whatever you favor and let the Online games to this genre of players. I know plenty of people who play for years on these type games, with no mods or addons, and come out on the top lists either PvP or PvE. Addons and macros are a sign of a truly weak and inferior player.
I'm going to probably get flamed for this, but to ask the question: Why are "lazy" mods so bad?
Obviously they appeal to different people but are they so inherently evil they must be banned?
Background: I'm 40 and I have a 10 yr old son. We both play. I started a warrior and got bored with the same old grind in each fight - very reptetive, non-thinking class (so I thought). Rolled a Pally and loved it - got him to 60. Wanted to do some DPS and rolled a rogue. Love it - got him to 60 as well. I used LazyRogue and Panza (Drowsey, the author, posted above btw), both of which could be considered "one button" type mods.
My experience: Yes, LazyRogue (and the other spinoffs) allowed my 10 yr old son to play reasonably well - better, in fact, than I think a 10 yr old could play given the fact that as his father I do limit how much he can play in a given week. Yes, LazyRogue and Panza allow me to play my characters better than my slower fingers and also limited play time could otherwise allow - mainly what they did is they let me use abilities I could not otherwise use because they did not make the "cut" for the 12 slots in the action bar and I don't switch fast enough from mouse to keypad to use all those functions in combat. Without those mods, I simply don't use certain abilities. With the mods, I can use them all.
Panza is a little different, because I mainly used that for getting the right debuff on each member of the group when the 5-minute timer went off. It saved hassle and time and nothing else. In combat, I still have to do a lot of manual decision making because the abilities I need to use change drastically based on what mob I am fighting right then. I do use it for selecting the right level of healing - which I personally think Blizzard should make an automatic part of the game. I already know I shouldn't heal more than is necessary, so it is not a question of intelligence ("smarter player") to have Panza "hit" the correct level of Holy Flash for me....
But even with LazyRogue, I found that no script I could use (I am assuming you have familiarity w/ LazyScript/LazyRogue) made me a smarter player it just let me do certain combinations I wasn't fast enough to do otherwise. I eventually kept having to "slim" down the scripts (i.e. logic behind my one button) so I wouldn't do stupid things in battle - complete reliance on the "one button" naturally capped my playing ability and caused me to do idiotic things in combat. I now use three scripts (buttons 1, 2, and 3...) and still have the rest of my keypad tied to a different basic ability (i.e. no scripts) that I use to make intelligent choices on what to do next.
So for me, the LazyRogue mod allowed my son to play a game he otherwise couldn't. I fully understand that a college student w/ 5x more time to play will always be better than my son is, but this way he could at least play and enjoy the game past lvl 20. It allowed me to play using my assets (i.e. willingness to analyze how to use each ability) and overcome my weaknesses (i.e. slow fingers and limited amount of time to play).
LazyRogue, as complex and scripted as it can be - and yes, there are some VERY long and complex scripts out there - never did and never will make me or my son as good as a smart, nimble, and time intensive college player. But it did let us play the game and enjoy it - without making ourselves out to be complete buffoons. It might seem like cheating to some to have the script remember that a given mob cannot be stunned and so to not try it, but for me that is really a function of playing time. If I played 5 hours each day, I would remember that myself, but I don't, so I can't....
What is so horrible about me playing with all my abilities as a rogue and remembering to not try to stun unstunnable mobs? The purist, I realize, will say that it allowed me to play closer to (not "at"...) their level even though I did not have their nimble fingers, their time in game each week, etc. They will also complain that a 10 year old was able to get above lvl 20 faster than he could have otherwise. My response to this is:
(1) Am I not allowed to play and enjoy the game as much as you? I am most certainly a differnt type of player, but does it kill your game to have me there as well? I do not pretend to be as good as many of the "kids" I run into in game, but does that mean I can't enjoy the game as well as you?
(2) My son never went above lvl 31. The game has many other aspects to it that simply defy any scripting or intelligent mods. Try as I might, I can't get my son to understand how his class fits within a group and why he should play his part rather than solo w/ 4 other people. Nor can LazyRogue help him understand how to deal with the more complex challenges that occur after lvl 30. LazyRogue helped him do combinations he otherwise could not have done in a timely manner, but it did not help him be a smarter player. He has since rolled every class except druid and leveled them up to 20-25 and then he re-rolls.... And he doesn't care about using "fancy mods" anymore. That is the part of the game he enjoys so that is what he plays.
(3) It is clear to me that using LazyRogue will never make me as good as a really good player. Good enough for my guild to invite me to ZG, etc., but not good enough to "own" PvP or beat others w/ more time and fast fingers. I am not going to get lvl 10+ in PvP rankings because of a mod. So I am really no threat to a talented player, but I do provide better (more entertaining?) fodder for them....
(4) LazyRogue is readily available to ANY player who was attracted to such a mod. I had no unfair advantage. A very good friend of mine who also plays prefers to NOT play w/ such a mod. For him, the enjoyment is in "fast fingers" and seeing if he can get the right button in time.... Mods such as LazyRogue are not attractive to everyone. We both enjoy the game, even if I play w/ LazyRogue.
Comments above ask "why would you want to play a game that involved just hitting one button again and again, mindlessly." To this I would say that (1) the game involves much more than hitting one button repeatedly, even with mods and (2) what if that is exactly what someone likes? For some people, the social aspect of helping others and watching the performance unfold is as much fun as they need. They are happy to help the raid and if that means hitting one button, bully on them! Their $15 / month is just as valuable as yours.... Does it kill you that someone else has fun hitting one button repeatedly? (wait until you are my age - simple pleasures become more attractive....)
With the advent of the new changes coming up, you might likely lose me and my son as players. Not a death dealing blow to us - we will find something else to do just as we did before we found WoW. Not a death dealing blow to others - the guild will do just fine w/o us, I am sure, as will the other thousands of players on Lightninghoof. And not a death dealing blow to the purist who was always better than us anyway - but you won't have us to kick around anymore :). But how does this help you? Are you SURE you will enjoy the game more with only dedicated, nimble-fingered players on? What if other, less-talented players who remain drive you nuts because they can't play well at all - even reasonably? What if, as suggested above, there are no priests/druids/paladins around to heal you?
So my question really is: what harm does it do for people who want to use mods such as LazyRogue or Decursive to have them available? What benefit will come when the changes arrive and some (not all, I understand) of the players find the fun is gone? The mods are available now, so is the game now ruined and in desperate need of saving?
I fully support banning robots and selling gold, etc. This defeats the purpose of the game, which is to have fun playing the game yourself. I do not like the breaking of the current mods because it means I either (1) quit playing or (2) play with only 60% of the abilities Blizzard gave my character, which is disappointing, because I know I could be much better if I could use them all.
By the way, I have turned off LazyRogue since the announcement, to get prepped for BC, and I find I can still play with only 60% of the abilities, but I am not nearly as helpful to my guild and it isn't as much fun - I keep thinking about what I could have done had I only the ability to play more or move faster. And I'm not nearly as much fun for Horde to kill....
Stom, lvl 60 Gnome Rogue, Lighninghoof
Obviously they appeal to different people but are they so inherently evil they must be banned?
I don't think they're "inherently" evil, given how long they've been around. But I think it depends on the design philosophy.
In a cooperative atmosphere, such add-ons are relatively harmless. A raiding guild could choose to play without them if they felt they were abusive, or with them if they didn't. The only advantage they get is faster progression and possibly bragging rights—there is little impact on anyone else. In competitive portions, like world PvP, battlegrounds, and soon arenas, any advantage you have is a direct disadvantage to the other players.
And there are even subcategories under the competitive heading. Do you want to encourage "pure skill," twitch reactions, and so on? Or do you want to encourage "powergaming," meaning expecting anyone who is serious in the competitive atmosphere to get every add-on which could possibly provide an advantage? A person could be an excellent player using the build-in interface and greatly dislike add-ons for any number of reasons—such a player would not like being defeated by "less talented" players.
It depends on what you want to encourage. Is it okay to allow add-ons to provide direct game-play benefits and assist those who are willing to add-on hunt, or disallow game-play benefits and encourage anyone with "fast fingers"?
I think some of the confusion and general uproar was due to the fact that part of WoW is already on the powergaming side (your effectiveness in combat is closely related to how much time you spend in-game getting gear; a staple of RPGs), and now this is seeming to move towards the twitch-reaction side of the fence (traditionally FPSes).
...mainly what they did is they let me use abilities I could not otherwise use because they did not make the "cut" for the 12 slots in the action bar and I don't switch fast enough from mouse to keypad to use all those functions in combat.
Given the fact that you can add extra action buttons with key bindings, is that a logical limit? That is, is it difficult for you to use more than 12 abilities at once in any circumstance?
Panza is a little different, because I mainly used that for getting the right debuff on each member of the group when the 5-minute timer went off. It saved hassle and time and nothing else.
I believe out-of-combat that will still be allowed.
In combat, I still have to do a lot of manual decision making because the abilities I need to use change drastically based on what mob I am fighting right then.
This is one of the uses that I think would be a good one for them to keep—switching states (like the different abilities in a warrior's action bar depending on their stance) depending on your target. I'm fairly sure you can do it manually (click a button to switch), just not automatically.
I do use it for selecting the right level of healing - which I personally think Blizzard should make an automatic part of the game. I already know I shouldn't heal more than is necessary, so it is not a question of intelligence ("smarter player") to have Panza "hit" the correct level of Holy Flash for me....
First off, Blizzard is reducing the effectiveness of down-ranking, so this may be less important soon.
Second, down-ranking is one of the things that add-ons are very, very good at. It's one thing for a human to have a good intuition given his target's heath, his own bonus to healing, and how much damage is coming in—he becomes very good at picking the right rank. It's another for a script to make the perfectly correct choice in all circumstances, given the available information.
So for me, the LazyRogue mod allowed my son to play a game he otherwise couldn't. I fully understand that a college student w/ 5x more time to play will always be better than my son is, but this way he could at least play and enjoy the game past lvl 20. It allowed me to play using my assets (i.e. willingness to analyze how to use each ability) and overcome my weaknesses (i.e. slow fingers and limited amount of time to play).
Of course, if you didn't want to analyze how to use each ability, you could just get an add-on that makes Pretty Darn Good(tm) choices without having to do much work; whereas "fast fingers" can't be passed around like that. It's a design philosophy thing again.
Though it makes me wonder what kind of college student I am, judging from my startled reaction to your mention of the copious free time in college.
It might seem like cheating to some to have the script remember that a given mob cannot be stunned and so to not try it, but for me that is really a function of playing time. If I played 5 hours each day, I would remember that myself, but I don't, so I can't....
An add-on could still determine if a mob is stunnable and gray-out or red-out the button for stunning.
(1) Am I not allowed to play and enjoy the game as much as you? I am most certainly a differnt type of player, but does it kill your game to have me there as well? I do not pretend to be as good as many of the "kids" I run into in game, but does that mean I can't enjoy the game as well as you?
The trouble is that this is a social game, and just because you use add-ons to overcome your weaknesses doesn't mean that someone who is already good at the game doesn't use them to get even better and dominate in the competitive areas.
(2) My son never went above lvl 31. The game has many other aspects to it that simply defy any scripting or intelligent mods. Try as I might, I can't get my son to understand how his class fits within a group and why he should play his part rather than solo w/ 4 other people.
The area of people who are physically unable to play without add-ons or those who are just young is a touchy one. To me, it seems like a perfectly legitimate use of add-ons which simplify the game, but I have no good arguments either way.
(4) LazyRogue is readily available to ANY player who was attracted to such a mod. I had no unfair advantage. A very good friend of mine who also plays prefers to NOT play w/ such a mod. For him, the enjoyment is in "fast fingers" and seeing if he can get the right button in time.... Mods such as LazyRogue are not attractive to everyone. We both enjoy the game, even if I play w/ LazyRogue.
Again, this design philosophy means that in a competitive atmosphere everyone needs these add-ons to be on even footing, and that essentially negates their use at all—except that not everyone puts in the time to get them and use them to the fullest potential. Same principle as twinking—which isn't wrong, it just doesn't fit into some people's philosophies. And in WoW it's all about Blizzard's philosophies.
So my question really is: what harm does it do for people who want to use mods such as LazyRogue or Decursive to have them available? What benefit will come when the changes arrive and some (not all, I understand) of the players find the fun is gone? The mods are available now, so is the game now ruined and in desperate need of saving?
To sum up my answers: WoW could be about either time invested and willingness to powergame, or about "skill" and twitch reactions. At the moment it seems to be moving towards a mix of both. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that it's a mix. All I know is that add-ons are moving towards the "skill" side of the line, because of a deliberate design choice.
Stom again (shorter this time...)
Thank you for your thoughts - putting the 'debate' in terms of FPS vs. RPG makes it much easier to understand what is happening. WoW is a hybrid between FPS and the strategy games I've loved so much (Such as... Warcraft!) so naturally working out the balance is an issue for Blizzard to face.
Even though a mod like LazyRogue might give me some advantage in PvP, LazyRogue is available to anyone who wants to go get it - just as is a given weapon or armor in game. No one complains (well - tries to change the game...) when someone shows up in BG's with better gear, which creates unequal advantages to the better geared player. I see the two as being equivalent; if the disadvantaged player wanted to they could download LazyRogue, figure out their scripts, and use it just as I could grind or raid to get that better piece of gear.
I still regret the decision of Blizzard to "nuke" certain mods that make the game more enjoyable for some people - and possible for some priests. If there is an advantage to having the mod, it is not any more unfair than one player having better gear since both are clearly available to any who seek it out - actually, the mod is considerably easier to get than some gear!
And no mod can re-create the advantage of certain twich skills (ex: the hunter's jump-spin-shoot-spin back-keep running trick). Good twitch players will always (under the current situation) be better players than other players, regardless of mods used.
Blizzard is, in my opinion, "fixing" something that isn't broke - if it was broke, why would WoW be the #1 MMOG?
Stom, lvl 60 rogue, Lightninghoof
Even though a mod like LazyRogue might give me some advantage in PvP, LazyRogue is available to anyone who wants to go get it - just as is a given weapon or armor in game. No one complains (well - tries to change the game...) when someone shows up in BG's with better gear, which creates unequal advantages to the better geared player. I see the two as being equivalent; if the disadvantaged player wanted to they could download LazyRogue, figure out their scripts, and use it just as I could grind or raid to get that better piece of gear.
Sure, but under this model, at least conceptually, you get even more out if you put in even more time—which is at least partially true here. It's time investment—if you can put in more time, you're better off.
I still regret the decision of Blizzard to "nuke" certain mods that make the game more enjoyable for some people - and possible for some priests. If there is an advantage to having the mod, it is not any more unfair than one player having better gear since both are clearly available to any who seek it out - actually, the mod is considerably easier to get than some gear!
It is a different kind of time investment, which isn't to say easier for everyone. Though in the main I agree with you.
Blizzard is, in my opinion, "fixing" something that isn't broke - if it was broke, why would WoW be the #1 MMOG?
If they didn't "fix" anything until they dropped to #2, and then suddenly went into action... well, that's not a good business model either. Who's to say this won't actually increase their profits?
I can understand the upset this will cause, but I also rather like this fact. Not only because I myself have never needed any such mods to play my classes well, but I find that they mostly hinder skill growth. They replace reflexes with scripts and even in simple scenario's where you don't have them, you struggle.
Look at the amount of people that seem great when on thier own PC, but the moment they use another PC they suddenly become trash. That's not skill by any degree, that's reliance on computers to do the thinking for you. I shudder to think what some of you would think of Guild Wars scenario's where you have to maintain healing with no computer assisted help. All reflex and thinking. The same way Blizzard wants their players to play. Prowess based on skill, smarts, and foresight. Not prowess based on having the biggest, baddest macros/mods/etc.
Anything that required sudden timing like instant casting after NS casts is still possible, and still very easy to macro for a panic heal. All Blizzard did is break the functionality of mods that were breaking the game and cheapening it. If you can't see that, good riddance.
I can't agree with the belief that both players have the availability of using LazyRogue or whatever, because in all truth not everyone can get them. Large amounts of players are playing in CyberCafe's where the game is given to them, and they can't modify it. Is it fair to them that can't afford to own a computer to be at a disadvantage because of thier financial status? What about the people that don't know about sites like Curse-gaming for whatever reason and are completely unaware of mods that will simplify everything for them. Does their slight ignorance make them less worthy for a fair game?
I fail to see how you can rationalize mods be available to all as a reason to let them break the game. When in reality, they are likely to tone down raid reliance on things of this nature because you can't have them anymore. No more debuff fest fights because they know people have Decursive? Sign me up, I never liked mods that tried to do my job for me. If I can't keep up without mods I don't deserve a spot over someone who can.
People who rely 100% on add-ons to make every decision for them are "smart"? ROFL. Give me a freaking break. Of course the "smart" ones are going to quit the game. Why? Because they might actually have to *gasp* THINK and REACT! Oh, the horror! People that quit WoW because of this change are self-made handicapped idiots, angry because they can no longer simply install an add-on, bang on the button it created, and get phat lewtz.
To Cameron:the mods DO hinder skill growth, but the assumption is that the skill is there in the first place. My 10 yr. old son doesn't care about maximizing his DPS, he just wants to "play". I don't have the reflexes I might have at age 20. Neither of us have the 20 hours per week to dedicate to the game to fully memorize each key binding, etc. The mods allow us to play reasonably well without having all the advantages other players have. As for "good riddance", will your game be really improved if only young, talented players with LOTS of hours in a week (dare I call them professional players?) are allowed to play? Does it really hurt you to have us part time players in game?
To both Anonymous: The mods are certainly as available as guides, forums, etc. I cannot address "fairness" to people who must play in CyberCafe's as I do not (can the cafe download the mod?) but the same financial issue applies to anyone who cannot afford to play 20+ hours a week. Some can - and that doesn't hurt me. Some can download mods - and I don't think most mods "break" the game for others. I am not, of course, talking about the illegal cheats and hacks here, but the currently legal and approved mods. Finding out about the mods is much like finding out about the instances and quests - you ask around and people help you, especially if you are in a guild.
Also, the mods make less of a difference than gear does, so the notion of "unfair advantages" is already built into the game. My lvl 60 rogue (with many greens still and not even the complete Dungeon 1 set) will get his head handed to him by a rogue with a tier 1 set and better weapons. No (legal) mod can make up that difference. Gear is more a factor of "time in game" than skill, so already the talent issue takes a second seat. There are players who do nothing on raids after the first boss but still roll on the gear w/ each boss drop. I have heard of players who hide in BG's battles so they can get the honor points for the other's work while they are not even at the computer. They have great gear available to them without any skill applied at all.
Nor do any mods I know of make a player smarter for much of the game. LazyRogue does not prevent my gaining aggro over the tank, select the best target for me, not use Blade Flury when a nearby mod has been sheeped, keep me from standing away from the river of lava when I am fighting a mob w/ knockback, etc. Mods do not teach players how to play their role, how to function in a group, etc.
I still THINK and REACT for myself using LazyRogue, but I don't have to memorize 16+ keybindings and have blazing fast fingers to use them. With the priests and other healers, this is the "whack-a-mole" problem they face and it has nothing to do with being a smarter player. If my son and I quit WoW, it is not at all because we are "self-made handicapped idiots, angry" about the changes but because the game will be less fun than it was and we will move on to something we can enjoy.
My main point is that it does no "harm" to purist who disdain mods for me and my son to use them. We have no advantage that other players can't have as well (except for Cafe players, then) and certainly less of an advantage that better geared players have. And will those purists be that much better off once my son and I are gone - along with a lot of other players, including healers? I realize I do not meet your standards for a 'good' player because I would like to use a mod such as LazyRogue, but does that mean I cannot play? The current game allows for a lot of different players to all enjoy the game - what is the harm in keeping it that way?
I'm going to post in support of the anonymous father and son team here. I'm an endgame tank who has used the evil LazyScript to help automate some of the repetetive and needless button pressing that has been designed into the warrior class. I'll briefly run through what I use LazyScript for and detail my reasons. As I'm a tier-2 endgame tank, I'm fairly sure this will result in a reasonable amount of personal insults but what the hey...
In short, I've used LazyScript to automate aggro generation. Press the magic button and LazyScript will do the following:
- Bloodrage if it's available.
- Revenge if it's available.
- Shield Slam if rage is high (I use this as a rage sink).
- Shield block if Revenge isn't lit (only use shield block to light up revenge as it's the most rage efficient aggro generator...although only marginally)
- Sunder.
That's pretty much it. I also did a version with taunt in it but reasonably that doesn't really help with most endgame bosses as they're immune to taunt.
Now, on to the reasoning. What important, context sensitive decisions is LazyScript taking for me?
1. It looks to see if Bloodrage or Revenge are lit and presses them if they are.
2. It presses Shield Block if Revenge isn't lit.
3. It uses Shield Slam if rage is high.
Those decisions do not require a great deal of thought, they simply require half-decent reactions. If endgame instances simply required those kind of decisions I doubt I would even bother playing this game.
Proper tanking is all about positioning, aggro management (you don't just need lots of aggro, you need the right amount at the right time for bosses like Vaelastraz), speed on stance dancing, environmental awareness (noticing that patrol heading towards the back of the raid group), strong leadership and direction in comms and a few other things. Those decisions are more complex and make the endgame raids worth playing. I don't choose to add needless complexity by baning buttons when they light up like some kind of demented Pavlov's dog. The fun of the endgame raid for me was in the tactics and the execution of those tactics. That's where the real decisions and thought lie. By killing off mods like LazyScript and allowing "advisory" mods, they are adding in needless complexity.
I'm disappointed to see these changes being introduced. Rather than being knee-jerk and leaving, I'll give the new patch a try and see how it plays. Blizzard seem to have introduced some talents to reduce button mashing (as far as I can see, Sunder/Devastate combo should pretty much replace the Revenge/Sunder/Shield Slam/Shield Block mess currently in place) and I'm hoping this will make it possible to tank without the clutter. Time will tell.
My main point is that it does no "harm" to purist who disdain mods for me and my son to use them.
Trouble is, it can. Automation add-ons like Decursive have reportedly had a major impact on dungeon design. By disabling these add-ons, dungeon design can be changed to not assume their presence.
however detestful i find the idea of removing my faithful decursive mod, there is one element of the game however which i will be glad to see them remove. i am refering to the mods such as beneheal and the many others which simplify healing far too much, as a priest i strangely enough find healing able to sustain my interest throughout my warcraft experience, and being able to find a target and manually select a spell *I* think will be most suitable is cruitial. there are far too many people taking the shortcut of having a mod basically doing all of that work for them, clicking a target and a program selecting exactly what to cast,in my opinion they are too few steps away from being a computerised program that leaves no room for human speculation and even error.
in this sense i can see the plausability in the idea of making such "do-it-all-for-you" macros unuseable, however such simple straightforward things like decursing which do not even require marginal judgement are a neccesity, and vital to making raids bareable for healers.
All right - I didn't read every single thing in this blog but I'm sure I read enough. I have multiple 60s - one of them being a priest. I currently raid with said priest. The only mod I use outside of CTmod and whatnot is decursive. If playing priest becomes too tedious and not enough fun I'm simply going to stop playing priest. And also if they change the fights and get rid of mass debuffing etc. it's going to take away from the game designer’s pool of fun that they can throw in to boss fights. There is a double edged sword here and blizzard is swinging away with it. Hopefully everything will pan out and the changes won’t screw up the game. I rock at playing priest and I'm a very active healer - I don’t think that my ability to keep the raid up will be affected by this change, but a LOT of people aren't as capable. They are casual players and they suck at the game, but with a little help from mods they can be useful. I reeeeaally hope that blizzard does not screw up the balance with their new ideas about raiding and mods. Playing a priest is already an extremely involved version of whack-a-mole and the changes have to potential make it an extremely difficult and tedious involved version of whack-a-mole. On the bright side we get stackable HOTs – being able to set it and forget it will free us up a bit to focus our attention on the non-healing priest actions like getting rid of debuffs. It’s also going to play a part in new boss fights I’m sure. I guess we will find out how much of an impact all this will have soon enough.
But this change was pushed for by the raid designers so that they don't have to consider add-ons like Decursive—which means that we will only get mass-debuff fights if the fight is designed to be monotonous (unlikely, to say the least)
Every boss in Molten Core is monotonous. In fact, Decursive was created in response to Lucifron. And, given the raid designers track record, I have no doubt that they do intentionally design raids to be monotonous. Especially given the crap that the guys who used to play Everquest who are now on the raid design team had a record of pushing for.
And, given the raid designers track record, I have no doubt that they do intentionally design raids to be monotonous.
And yet you're still playing the game?
When I saw this was happening I said to myself "This will clear the top players from the rest" and yes it does - but like some ppl have said here - it mostly adds alot of stress on healers that ALREADY are the classes that need to be on their toes the whole raid. As I see it - as a paladin it will defenetly make some fights alot harder and I dont use alot of macros or addons -
I just wonder how the hell Blizzard are seriously gonna think Viscidus can be killed by ally now ... or why any1 should bother..
Or like some said - why healers that already have to react to alot of diffrent things that are going on ingame while many other classes have 1/3rd of that focus needed to get through most of the fights.
Sorry Blizzard - this is in my opinion a big mistake. Try to play a healer that raids every night and now has to think of even more things and see if u can manage..
For the good of this game - this one is a NONO
There are plenty of other approaches to the problem. For instance, HealBot (another addon) replaces you raid windows. It color-codes people that have curses/poisons and lets you click them to cure them. Just as easy as clicking your decusrive macro.
I'm a one handed rogue lol so it's kinda hard to play now with LazyRogue gone. I used to have my LazyRogue scripted to my mouse wheel.
Hey you try to play a rogue with one hand! You can't now. Ha ha ha. I guess the joke is on me. I quit.
Im playing a raiding priest, and are feeling a burnout that didn't get better off the "before the storm" patch... when they rewamped scripting and so on, destroying alot of mods and functionality.
Standard ui sucks.
Decursing is worse hell now. And it wasnt fun with Decursive, but it was atleast doable. I have adapted, but i will not keep on going for long. Because it will take waaaaay to much of my energy, and give waaaay to much headaches to even think of raid now. Because i know that there are so many situations that will be a "oh fuck i have to decurse a hell of alot of players, give me some smack please!"
CT_raidassist and decursive are the 2 addons i needed to beeing able to do my job. CT_raidassist is back, but with severe bugs still. I never ever liked emergency monitor, and are happy today i never used it.
Decursing is and will be a HELL.
And slacking healers will as always make us that actually tries our best to keep getting shouted at because of their slacking. Wich will make good ones to burn out and just quit it.
Atm, i am shadow. And liking it. Respecced because of server beeing terribly instable after patching... and the guild therefore took a raiding break for a week. I will be expected to go back to heal/decursive bot, but i don't really feel that its appealing.
It's simply not fun to raid anymore. And tbh, i will probably not gonna buy tBC at all. Why even bother playing when i feel i get screwed over all the time?
And having other characters to play 2. i Feel that the ui are soooo crap that its not playable, not without eating a can of painkillers every day because of the crap ui.
man... why am i still here? Why not just /gamequit. Because its not gonna get better...
I've already made a suggestion on the forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=55011425&postId=557618291&sid=1#1
/bump it if you want :)
"John said...
Myrial, Zukuth doesn't really address the fact that it will be pretty easy to see who needs healing."
Yes I've seen you claim that repeatedly on this page. It was pretty easy to see who needed healing when you had an interactive list too.
The diffrence will be that now that list is pretty worthless and I might as well just look at the raid directly to be able to click and heal without the added HASSLE of having one list for identification of people being hurt and another one for selecting them.
Fine you might say. Thats the way it is supposed to work. WELL think about WHY the emergency monitor was brought into the game?
Clearly there is a ISSUE with watching 20 to 40 (in the future 25) people directly and trying to see who are in trouble. Thats why the interactive emergency lists were made up!!!
Clearly there is a ISSUE with watching 20 to 40 (in the future 25) people directly and trying to see who are in trouble. Thats why the interactive emergency lists were made up!!!
True. It's also why things like healing assignments were made up.
Is this change really necessary? NO
The only reason this change is being implemented is to thwart the gold farmers.
And who suffers?, the people that Blizz should be caring for.
The assumption that the designers have benevolent intentions is a dangerous one.
Sure, hamper the gold farmers but don't focus purely on that, be cogniscent of the effect this has on the real players and do something positive about it.
Is this change really necessary? NO
Bravo. Beautifully reasoned argument.
The only reason this change is being implemented is to thwart the gold farmers.
No, no, and no. Many gold farmers actually play at their keyboards. Others, of course, don't. But you can't write bots as add-ons anyway, so add-on restrictions don't affect them in the least.
I think alot of people are forgetting the simple fact that comparing what they are going to do with what people know of the game now is just a waste of time. So you uber mods won't work, they mentioned the fact that the bosses and battles will be scaled down some so the need for those mods will be diminished.
Lets also not forget that when mods were first developed they were nowhere near as powerful as they are now. So just because YOU can't see how they can help doesn't mean that the programmers behind them won't find ways around the new system to make mods that are just as effective on the new system.
FYI i do play a priest and know some of the pains associated with it, but quite frankly i learned how to deal with it. I learned to play better and more effienct so i'm not playing whack a mole.
Oh and who's to say this change won't be completely reinstated in the first patch after the expansion release.
I guess i'm just saying, stop your bitching and speculating about how hard the games gonna be until it comes out and the programmers actually make new mods. And if its still too hard quit, no one is forcing you to play the game or even raid for that matter.
Kosmoz (aka the Uber Priest), Stonemaul
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