NO Addons please. There is another solution!

[valandal]

I think adding one would probably be against their idea of keeping it "social", meaning if you get those add ons (esp dps/healing logs), and if a player is "under preforming" the chances are there will be alot of of negative reaction towards these players in the group and this group is likely to kick/remove him from the party and never group with him in the future, and some players could possibly spread that hate across the chat channels (i've seen this happen in all the MMO's I've played, although this is more commonly for raids than your standard group dungeons, but still you get the point).

 

I kinda get their idea of not allowing them so some players wouldn't be forced to have "necessary addons" in order to play with others and it kinda helps with future players tbh if they decide to take a break and come back - (same happened with me on WoW, after a years breaks and with a new rig, I wanted to go back and check out whats new but because I lost my UI settings and the idea of redoing all of that again would be an absolute pain, so I decided not to renew).

[Boba-Midget]

Yeah I'm gonna have to dissent here for a couple of reasons.

 

First as mentioned by a lot of people DPS meters give you the ability to do a post mortem on an encounter. Did you wipe? Maybe someone isn't understanding a mechanic. Maybe your play stinks. Maybe a hundred other things but there's no way to tell w/o the combat log. People complain about DPS meters building epeen. That's not the meters fault. Same goes with gear score (I personally think gear score is stupid) but it's not the meters fault that people misuse the data.

 

Second, regarding threat meters, there's currently no way to tell how close you are to getting aggro (please please correct me if I'm wrong. Seriously if I'm wrong it would be handy information). Players can't be asked to enforce mechanics they can't see. Without a way to see threat DPS is either a) flying in the dark or b) threat is not a real concern. Either way a central mechanic to playing a damage role is taken out of the picture.

 

Lastly, weather you like it or not, these things are coming. All of the combat log information is there because otherwise the game client couldn't display it. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to parse the data stream coming from the server to get the combat log information. I think it's preferable if this happens in a controlled environment where BW releases their UI API so that at least the addons can be sandboxed instead of having the addon situation be like the wild west.

[Twizztednight]

The only good thing about DPS/Healing meters was if in a guild raid group to see where things weren't quite happening right. To better understand where the weakness was so you can adjust and either help others to make a difference or whatever however more than not especially in random groups people used them to inflate their ego and put down everyone else or to kick people because they didn't perform how someone else wants them to perform regardless the outcome of an encounter. Theres good and bad to each side of that.

The one thing I would like though and this doesn't even have to be an addon its a simple thing to put in the game is some sort of threat meter or threat status. As a tank it is very helpful to be able to see where you may be losing some threat on something or if you have enough threat on one mob in a multi mob encounter to be able to switch to the other and build up more threat to insure the survival of your group. Also handy for dps and healers to be aware of their threat level so they can ease off a bit or use an ability to lower threat so they can continue doing optimal performance.

 

UI wise I never really saw much point in a UI mods in any other games as well as this one. The UI is asthetically appealing and really have no need for an addon for that but thats my personal preference.

 

Raid Boss addons are to be honest unneccessary, part of the fun of playing a game is figuring things out on your own and reacting on your own, paying attention. If you just sit there watching tv mashing buttons waiting for some audible alarm to tell you to move or switch up, then whats the point in playing a game, essentially sucking the enjoyment and the challenge right out of it. (Sometimes its fun to stand in the fire accidently and die, at least your learn what not to do or pay attention to certain things. It helps to build better players, and improve peoples skills overall when you use no addon. Effectively improving the player base performance.)

 

Addons are meant to be complimentary to add a small amount of versatility to your gameplay or to maybe at most customize certain aspects of your experience. They aren't meant and should never be used to play a game for you. If you use them in that matter then you should really ask yourself why you even spend the money you do and what exactly is the point in playing. If Bioware ends up allowing addons, I really hope that there is a limitation and restrictions against certain kinds or adding certain ones themselves.

[Fallenlight]

Addons suck balls. Play the game

[gallbi]

Just because previous games in the same genre have done it, isn't a reason to do it with this one.

 

And that also isn't a reason NOT to have it. DPS meters/heal meters, don't like it, don't use it. There is no logical reason not to have it other than the "It's a different game."

 

You cannot deny that meters serve some purpose by providing a general, NOTE GENERAL, overview of a player's performance. Right now, I can't even tell if a guy is watching **** half the instance on a second monitor and spamming 1 and 2 occasionally.

 

Some stupid raid leaders will only look at meters. But don't blame the tool. Blame the guy who is using only meters and not taking into account hybrid specs, etc.

[zaneosak]

As an end-game raid leader it is extremely important to have addons that measure healing, damage taken, damage done, how people died, etc. without them you cant see who is making mistakes in a large raid setting when it isnt obvious and yes , playing your class subpar in a raid setting is a mistake.

[Homegrownn]

anyone who thinks dps meters hurt a game is just someone who has gotten booted out of groups and raids due to not pulling their own weight

if you dont like them, dont use them

but for endgame content, if you want to be able to figure out how to improve your performance, without a dps meter your basicly just guessing

some ppl prefer to do the best they can and expect their guild members to do the same

 

you need a way to look at the numbers to figure this out

 

if you dont like them, dont use them, but dps meters DONT take away from the game or "play the game" for you

 

sure boss mods arent needed, but they do allow for WAY more advanced encounters, but i can understand not wanting this because at the end they do start playing the game for you

but dps meters dont do this, they just show you what you and your friends did, and the boss did. quit whining and learn to play if dps meters ruin the game for you

[necrotura]

people just need to learn to play.

 

if they are still calling out for add-ons.. well its time they go back to WoW

[gallbi]

people just need to learn to play.

 

if they are still calling out for add-ons.. well its time they go back to WoW

 

It's hard to know WHO needs to learn to play when there is no meter. I could be spamming 1 button all fight and no one will know.

[Soulstess]

Its funny how we managed to do everything people are stating without addons before. We raided, managed our threat, DPS, healed, and thought through raid and group encounters in many games before WOW. WoW has it so dumbed down they design encounters around the add-ons.

 

Add-ons do not require thought just button pushing. Whatever Bioware decides I hope they manage it and not 3rd parties. I do agree we need some additions to the UI and the ability to customize the UI, but not the game itself.

 

ALot of players left WOW due to add-on requirements. Call it what you like but if you raided in a guild you had all the add-on or you did not go. ADD-ons felt like a trained monkey could play the game. If the monkies could have learned how to push the keys, which WOW told you when to do that.

 

I do not care either way as I am here to enjoy the game not the add-ons. I see alot of posts all over the web about how this game is like WOW and they hate it and others complain about not having the same UI and hooray for Biioware, I hope they maintain tight control of this.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Soulstess

[Heelz]

I agree with some points made while others not so much. I don't think addons with timers for boss attacks, etc... are necessary, but when you are looking at 16 player raids, it would be nice to have dps/heal meters.

A person simply can't watch all the other players at once and see if they are making mistakes that need correction. Meters help this. As for the argument "We did fine without them before!", this isn't really much of an argument. It's like saying "We don't need cell phones, we made it work with corded rotaries!". Sure when forced to do something an outdated way I will buckle down and do my best, but when offered a better option to more quickly learn who needs a little extra explaining or help with a mechanic in a raid I will take it.

If we lived in a perfect Old Republic, anyone who needed help in a raid would ask questions and admit to their ignorance. This idea doesn't hold up in reality though, where things like embarrassment or simple laziness coupled with the inability to uncover such laziness will bubble to the surface.

I have spent many an hour in raids across a number of MMO's (yes, even wow. You wow haters just need to hang up your angry little hat and calm down. It was a fun game that appealed to a large demographic. Stop crying like someone urinated in your cheerios because it wasn't hardcore enough specifically for you. You look absurd), and when there were not systems in place to keep people honest, there were always a player or two per raid that pretty much auto-followed, with a few random attacks thrown in. Sometimes someone would notice this, more times no-one would. Not to mention that the afk-raiders always seemed to have the best rolls lol.

Just my two cents, feel free to ignore it or debate it as you see fit, my que popped!

[Caraanam]

useful add-ons like...changing your UI = good

 

bad add-ons like recount= bad

 

i like the idea of a score board at the end of flashpoints, with a MVP at the end that's neat.

 

I've been raiding since raiding was thing in wow...and let me tell you as more and more add-ons become available, the more it took away from the game. ..the more ppl meter watch, the less it becomes a game and more it becomes work. The more drama surfaces and more i dislike raiding with certain people (that is most of the wow community).

 

I've been both dps and heals and do well. BUT i see how some people just focus on the meters, or can't play the game at all without their add-ons (like healers who can't function without heal bot pfft...or dps who don't understand threat mechanics, unless omen is up and running)....dont even get me started on botting programs and how its totally wrecked pvp in wow

 

i hope bioware/EA will be a lil smarter in what kind of add-ons they allow in game if they allow any at all.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Caraanam

[entropyji]

I don't really care about dps meters, threat meters or boss mods. I don't think people learning to overcome them is a bad thing. And several have negative consequences.

 

I do think bar mods are needed though, right now the game is a pretty steep learning curve to someone who doesn't want to fixate their eyes on the bottom of the screen.

 

Buffs/debuffs need to be filtered so you can more easily track them, some classes have to monitor quite a few. Procs ... at least mine, have no visual cue either.

 

Translation: I could see the fight better and learn faster with a bar mod, if you know wow I'd say something like dominos/bartender, a frames mod ala xperl/pitbull, and probably something like power auras to make procs/buff/debuffs less myopia inducing.

 

It would make the classes easier to play and master I admit, but I don't think the challenge of a class should be overcoming the ui.

[NightskyStar]

Why exactly do you not want addons available? If you don't like them, don't use them.

 

Perhapes, they fear they will get replaced by NPC companions.

 

 

I wonder, how much DPS companions do?

[wilcofan]

only baddies hate on meters, it's usually because they suck and get ripped on for having scrub dps, then they qq about how there shouldn't be meters

[Warstrike]

I like this idea in general

 

It would let you see how YOU did

Without getting into the "penial measurement frenzy"

 

But, really wouldn't mind a threat meter

besides the obvious - oh @@$@#@!!!!

Gee Ricky guess that WAS one to many lightning bolts!!

[Syben]

I'm fine with there being no healbot but there NEEEDS to be a damage and threat meter. For the endgame raiding scene to thrive they are a necessity.

[Cyberkensho]

My opinion is that meter & boss alert add-ons should stay out of the game.

 

With meters people get criticized, insulted, antagonized, are cut off from groups, race to be in top and neglect to do something else equally important like debuff, cc or shield etc.

 

And before someone says I was bad at wow meters or something and that is why i dont like them, I never found a healer in any of the 3 servers I was raiding on (yes! I had no life back then) that could out-heal me in any occasion raid or pvp. I just dont want to make it my primary goal again(also in this game) to stay on top and enjoy the game content more without the constant psychological stress of proving my self to people that do have meters.

 

Regarding raids, alert like add-ons makes me feel that I am handicapped (and that I need special care) having something in order to instruct and remind me what to do in a boss fight or something. Its better to just hear or see the fight and pay attention to the in-game hints. Not having them will most likely force people to properly prepare and train for a fight or an operation more.

 

I am not against all add-ons (in fact I even created an addon for my wow guild back then) I just dont like certain ones

Edited December 21, 2011 by Cyberkensho

[Droids]

fine run with no addons but work more on the UI! currently i cant even see my healing hots on people in operations! if your not going to allow addons work more on customization with the current ui Edited December 21, 2011 by Droids

[Lonsecia]

People have been inspecting people outside of instances or looking at their armory profile long before Gearscore.

 

 

 

I am aware of that, but it never felt as prevalent, and it was less likely to be followed by a reply of 'sorry, your gear's not good enough' as would be the case with people who saw GS as the be all and end all of how to tell if someone was going to be able to pull their weight. To a degree it's useful - especially if their gear is clearly just not good enough (all greens and no hit on a tank would not end well in pretty much any circumstance).

At the same time, people should have learnt by now that bad players exist, and sadly do end up with amazing gear. I kinda preferred when people asked you to link achievements, though even that was a bit silly if you were trying to go into a raid for the first time. At least if people had one relating to no-one dying you could at least assume they were fairly competent though.

[cdestuntman]

Why do people want to blame addons, particularly gearscore and DPS meters, for people being jerks?

 

Those people, will be jerks without them. The difference is, without a DPS meter you won't be able to prove they're wrong.

 

DPS meters and UI customization need to happen. ASAP. Be it BioWare's design or addons, I don't care. I never used gearscore anyway. My "not optimal spec" and "low gear score" kept me in the top 3 DPS in everything I did in WoW.

 

Grow a thicker skin and learn to prove people wrong instead of trying to get useful tools avoided because you don't like the pressure. You don't want to focus on how to be the best you can? Spend your time crafting, not in operations.

 

This is a ridiculous argument. People who want to improve need tools like DPS meters and UI customization to do so. People who don't want them, spew BS about having fun and not being judged poorly. If you want to improve, you'll like the tools. If you don't, you don't really need to be in the situations where people find the tools useful, as they're specifically progression and improvement based - not story or social.

 

This. If people don't like addons, don't use them. As a tank I hate not seeing a target of target, I hate not seeing if I fully have aggro, and I hate seeing everyone else's buffs. Addons have been in games long before WoW, they only popularized them. Addons make things a lot more user friendly.

[thomasdr]

I'm probably one of the few who actually loves dps meters, it's not to stroke my epeen but I like to see how I'm doing compared to other ones. Sure, the boss dieing is most important thing, but it sure helps to optimize your damage so the boss dies faster.

On top of that I always liked some competition in high end raiding, it makes people better.

 

Threatmeters are also kinda useful, heck as a merc I get an ability to lower my threat but how can I use it efficiently when I don't know what my threat is. Sure, I can wait until I pull aggro and that probably works fine on trashmobs but I noone wants to pull aggro on bosses.

 

Bossmods and stuff aren't exactly needed for me. Those advocating against them should however realize they helped in developing more interesting raid mechanics in wow, if it weren't for bossmods people would probably still be killing dragons with only 2 abilities right now.

Edited December 21, 2011 by thomasdr

[CLASSlFlED]

Power Auras Classic.

 

Sith Sorcerer..

 

I really don't need to say anything else.. But just for the people that have a short supply of brain cells..

 

Procprocprocprocprocproc. *Never seeing any of it because the Buff icons are half a centimeter in width and height*

[supernickx]

Sorry, don't agree.

 

Mouse-click based healing completely changes the dynamics of healing. It's such a tired old method of: click target, press key for heal, click another target, press key for heal. Mouse based healing should be a standard feature but as such it wasn't, and we will have to rely on a mod for it.

 

I also find the following style mods to highly increase my meta game as they are so rarely provided by the developers themselves:

- Bag organizers

- Gear checker with a link to say TORHEAD in game to save me alt tabbing

- Automatic gear swap to save me pressing every single icon

- Auction house mod to save me the hassle of what is always a cumbersome system in new MMOs

- UI mods to ensure I have things like more bars, different colours available and more information flowing (like hey an actual combat log?)

- Notes and waypoints mod for making marks on my map. If I find a rare mob, i'd like to be able to mark it and not have to alt tab and go hunting the internet

 

These are just some of the mods i'd like to see.

 

I could care less about things like threatmeters or damage meters, though I do like them because i'm that sort of geek where I find numbers and info to monitor fun.

[Luckysaf]

agree addons make people lazy and hostile to people below them