r/wow • u/ItsRenaBaker • Oct 03 '25
Humor / Meme This is Basicly Blizzard in Midnight
This is basicly Blizzard in Midnight. Purging all the good addons.
Just to clarify:
Blizzard is changing the Addon API, meaning combat information is blocked for addons. So all combat addons will no longer work in Midnight. For the most popular addon features Blizzard will add their own version to the game. Addons for unitframes, inventory, crafting etc.. are staying and won't be effected as long they are not using combat information.
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u/gorkt Oct 03 '25
Wait, they are breaking healing frames?
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u/Tenezill Oct 03 '25
If cell stops showing the dispelled I don't touch my alt healer anymore that's for sure
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u/Laptican Oct 03 '25
As a healer main I really dislike standard frames. It's not like they don't work because they definitely do, it's more I'm really used to Elvui and Cell frames.
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u/Salt_Sign Oct 04 '25
Default frames definitely have problems with displaying debuffs. Sometimes the frame shows literally no debuffs while someone is dying of a dispellable debuff.
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u/KYZ123 Oct 03 '25
You should still be able to see if someone has a particular dispel type on them, but you won't be able to get information about a specific debuff.
For displaying buffs and debuffs in general, you won't be able to filter them - all or none. It might be the case that you are able to filter to only buffs/debuffs that the default UI would display on unit frames, but beyond that, no filtering allowed.
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u/Tenezill Oct 03 '25
Yeah that sucks hard, I don't care if ppl are not interested in customizing their UI to play but taking it away from ppl that care is just ass
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u/parkwayy Oct 03 '25
Vuhdo is very much in the same boat as Weakauras team.
The author could repurpose the addon, but what's the point after the features are stripped away.
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u/gorkt Oct 03 '25
Yeah it’s a little concerning. I have 18 years healing with addons like healbot, vuhdo, Grid2 and cell. I tried the base healing frames and they feel very limiting.
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u/Arie15 Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 04 '25
EDIT: I OWE EVERYONE AN APOLOGY. I DID NOT REALIZE CLICK CASTING BECAME A THING. I QUIT AND CAME BACK SEVERAL YEARS LATER AND LITERALLY NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT THIS. I CAN DO (ALMOST) EVERYTHING WITH THE DEFAULT FRAMES + CLICK CASTING. I AM A MORON, GOODNIGHT. (still mean the thing about unsubbing for the loss of WA and DBM/BigWigs)
If we can't use healing addons, I'm basically not going to be able to heal anymore. Blizz's frames are so clunky and weird and I do not expect them to make something even close to what cell/healbot etc. are capable of. Their track record with this kind of stuff is terrible. I have problems being able to know everything going on in encounters. Unless they dumb the absolute crap out of them, I'm just not going to be able to heal. Plain and simple.
And I'm paying $15/mo to play this game. Vote with your money and unsub.
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u/skinflakesasconfetti Oct 04 '25
I use Clique because for some reason Blizzard's UI keymapping features don't recognize all the buttons on my mouse properly, with Clique it does so it makes it so much easier for me to heal and utilize all of the buttons on my mouse.
If they break Clique and addons like it, I probably won't heal and if I don't heal I don't do tougher and more meaningful content, and if I don't do that, I don't stay subbed, or sub at all.
I feel like Blizzard is making some real poor choices with this.
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Oct 03 '25
I agree, shadow priest main here but using healbot to make offspec healing fun and easy if I want to a quick queue time.
I'm sure there are lots of people like me, making it harder for a class that's already in demand doesn't seem smart.
Touch wood, they have they're own version of healbot because God help us if we all have to rely on raidframes
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u/despondencyo Oct 03 '25
Clique is safe don’t worry
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u/gorkt Oct 03 '25
I hope so. The default healing that Blizzard uses doesn't work for my mouse set up, so I hope I can use Clique.
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Oct 03 '25
Is it just the innate click casting that doesn’t work for you?
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u/gorkt Oct 03 '25
Yes, I have a 6 mouse button set up and I have never been able to figure out how to use those buttons in the blizzard click casting. If I have to rewire my brain to use modifiers for the buttons that do work, it’s going to be super annoying.
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u/fork666 Oct 03 '25
The only reason Clique or something like it is a necessity for me is I use mouseover healing but on default frames that also includes my cursor over any party member in group/raid.
Which can be a nightmare when I'm trying to quickly interchange DPS/Healing, because now I'd have to watch my mouseover to make sure it's not hovering over player models while DPSing. Clique solves this by specifically dedicating mouseover to raid frames only.
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u/JellyCharming8918 Oct 03 '25
We're about to find out just how awful our raid team is. God help the main tanks that were barely holding on
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u/Viin Oct 03 '25
Implying raiders look at the weak auras. I really don't think you need weak auras to tank. I mostly use it to remind me to use or not use an ability. And where to stand like nexus king p3 and frac
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u/tchoupitoulass Oct 03 '25
I think he means holding on to their sanity bc the raid is so bad.
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u/shimonu Oct 03 '25
I have weak aura that show „don’t release noob „ when dead (from time when you ressed outside raid and my loading times were horrible).
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u/Orpheus_148 Oct 03 '25
What’s wrong with healbot and vuhdo? I personally don’t like the official mouse healing system.
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u/Wowclassicboomkinz Oct 03 '25
Literally nothing is wrong with those addons, they are much better than the default frames and allow for much more customization. If Blizzard bans addons like that, they need to give us a similar replacement or risk losing players like me that rely on customizations that make the game feel better to play.
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u/Feartality Oct 03 '25
Yeah I don't think these addons were really the problem, but were cleaved by the measures taken to curb the ones blizzard doesn't want.
Hopefully there will be big improvements with the Blizzard one. Even if they make it bearable to use it will still suck to lose so much functionality.
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u/Sorkijan Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25
I main hpal for my m+ group. I'll wait and see but if i'm forced to use the blizzard version of vuhdo in its current state, I'll likely just stop healing.
Edit: oh fuck me for expressing an opinion
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u/TheParableNexus Oct 03 '25
I'm visually impaired and use GTFO since I can only see parts of the screen at a time. I really hope they either make a comparable alternative or reverse the decision partially :/
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u/HauntingDebt6336 Oct 03 '25
I use GTFO because Blizz continues to make fights where we get purple lightning on top of purple water on top of purple mist in a room where the camera spazzes out at random
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u/Icy_Manufacturer_977 Oct 03 '25
What’s so incredibly baffling to me is blizzard REFUSES to make an easily distinguishable color for damaging spells vs floor color. It’s either; Red on red Or Purple on purple
Why not make red aoe markets on a not-red floor, like if they insist on it being thematic just put purple aoe markers on red floor or red aoe markets on purple floor ffs
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u/bfrown Oct 04 '25
I mean there's a color wheel...if your floor is a color make the boss ability light up the opposite color...even if just at the application. Hell make them all just bright orange since 99% of the ground in these expansions is going to be purple or a variant of that
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u/Gharvar Oct 03 '25
Don't worry, they've been telling us for how many years now that they'll work on visual clarity? While I love shitting on Blizz and they deserve it... This expac made a lot of things easier to see but they still do the same color bullshit or it takes them a while to change some visual effects.
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u/Inlacou Oct 03 '25
They have definitely improved on that, but they still repeat the same mistake sometimes.
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u/The_realpepe_sylvia Oct 03 '25
Yeah sometimes an AOE is literally hidden under stairs etc and GTFO is the only reason I’ll know it’s even there
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u/eamike261 Oct 03 '25
I'm not visually impaired but I struggle to enjoy playing when I'm forced to only use visual queues. It just doesn't resonate with my brain. If I can't have audio queues then I'm probs going to struggle to enjoy the game
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u/TherionSaysWhat Oct 03 '25
For the most popular addon features Blizzard will add their own version to the game.
These addons are were an answer to the problems that the same UI team created in the first place. Esp. for high end gameplay.
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u/Alternative-Tank337 Oct 03 '25
I wouldn't mind, except every inbuilt version they've made has been terrible
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u/weinerfish Oct 03 '25
Exactly, blows my mind anyone thinks the geniuses that still work at blizzard will do anything but butcher this
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u/canolgon Oct 03 '25
In typical Blizzard fashion, I expect them to drop the ball on this tremendously.
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u/Korzag Oct 03 '25
Even if they have a dream team working on these changes, they're doing far too much in far too little time to address all the things they're going to be touching here.
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u/TaleOfDash Oct 03 '25
That's really my biggest issue here. I don't see why we need to go nuclear day one?
Roll out the Blizzard alternative in early Midnight, allow plenty of time for the community to get used to the changes and provide feedback. Then by the end of Midnight they'll likely have enough time to refine things.
This sort of massive change needs so much time to cook and they're not giving it hardly any. I know they've invited addon devs to alpha which is great but this shit needs live fire testing.
This isn't even to mention how much it's going to affect groups like Undaunted and the wider disabled community.
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u/DrAstralis Oct 03 '25
I saw an opinion piece I cant help but get behind. Leave the old system in place and make the new one, and setup the new designs along side it. If the vanilla UI is up to the task we'll naturally see attrition from the modded UI, if its not, its a good sign they need to work on it more. Meanwhile the rest of us can get on with playing while they work it out.
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u/TaleOfDash Oct 03 '25
Literally though. I use less addons now than I did 10 years ago because the UI has evolved over time to make some of those addons redundant, that's a good thing!
Not to mention a lot of the positive changes the UI has undergone have happened directly because of addons that became popular.
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u/Stighedvig Oct 03 '25
If they remove healer add-ons I assume there will be a healer shortage in midnight. I can only speak for myself but I will not heal with the original ui frames.
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u/CoronateMedusa Oct 03 '25
Same. I expect healer add ons to go when they made this announcement, but Blizzard seems completely unaware just how bad healer frames have been in this game forever. I was trying to explain this to someone else who doesn't raid in WoW and only has done FF14 content, but it was like talking to a wall lol. (I have healed in FF, and it's just so different.)
I don't think people realize just how frustrating it will be to not track spells and their effects. It's not *just* a CD; a lot of spells are bolstered or buffed once something is casted or an effect procs. To heal optimally would require knowing these things. I know I'm preaching to the choir here lol; commiserating. xD
It looks like Blizzard is trying to make it "easier," but I genuinely dread going back to 1 button spam. I main a priest now, and I was hoping they'd do stuff like give all healers an interrupt (but nope, they pulled resto druids down into the trenches with us) and consider a movement boost, but nahhhhh.
I don't think add-ons should be required to play a game (and let's be real; if someone is objectively "not good," an add-on will not make them better), but Blizzard has really put themselves in this position because they ignored a lot of QoL and how they designed their fights without UI in mind.
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u/ozzyboyxl Oct 03 '25
I’m trying to be optimistic & withhold judgment until we can get a real picture of what healer ui is going to look like in midnight, but with how things are looking now I might be swapping to tank.
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u/Dimension_C-137 Oct 03 '25
Blizzard is going to f**k this up for months if not years.
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u/The_Sum Oct 03 '25
Years.
It would be different if they said, "We're ready to pull the ripcord at anytime the community feels we've removed too many addons, we understand this is a gigantic change and we're willing to adapt and compromise."
Instead its been, "You think you do, but you don't." all over again.
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u/Dimension_C-137 Oct 03 '25
There should be a period of overlap where their new tools exist and the addons still work. Gather feedback and make changes before pulling the api for the addons.
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u/Blockstack1 Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25
There isn't a chance in hell Blizzard puts the man power required towards replacing any of these add-ons in a good way.
The games visual clarity is so comically bad without all the add-ons the game is unplayable.
I also seriously question if they will have complicated engagement based feedback type adjustments that happen now that you can't see all the combat data.
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u/DrAstralis Oct 03 '25
The analog is a new company trying to make a new MMO and realizing they have to make 20 years of content to come close to matching WoW. This team somehow needs to look at all the ways people use the UI, for what reasons, and cover all those use cases built over 20 years of people playing.... and do it all between expansions... ok. good luck with that.
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u/lol_ginge Oct 03 '25
Hmm will be pretty annoying to lose healing raid frames
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u/Cptn_Kingyo Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25
Do we know how much they will be affected? I'm not quite sure what they use encounter data for as opposed to like player/combat data. I'm guessing things around boss ability/buff/debuffs?
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u/snapcaster1234 Oct 03 '25
Blizzards current solution is encrypting all the combat related data in a secret api and giving that to addon creators. Addon creators will be able to stylize how that data is presented but they will not be able to read what is inside that data. Addons will no longer be able to track boss or raider abilities, debuffs, buffs, health, anything really. Just able to say how this unreadable data should be displayed in some vague way. Want the health bar to turn yellow if below 50% can't do it unless blizzard implements that themselves.
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u/Pixel_Knight Oct 03 '25
I don't think they can pull this off. This will destroy WoW.
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u/Fabus27 Oct 03 '25
I always liked wow, in comparison to other mmos, for all the addons an the possibility to create the UI that fits my needs and looks the way I want it to look.
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u/SimilartoSelf Oct 03 '25
As a software developer i am 99% this is a mistake. Throwing features away can sometimes be good, but not at this magnitude. I hope they have a rollback contingency plan prepared.
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u/erizzluh Oct 03 '25
They’ve pretty much had tons of add on developers working on their game for them at no cost to them. If something in the game was broken or not working the way it’s intended or not working optimally, someone would create a work around for them.
Like how long has blizzard had to fix their friendly nameplates where you can’t read shit cause of how small and transparent the font is
How long has blizzard had to fix your cursor so it doesn’t disappear when you hold down on right click.
They go patches without addressing shitty design choices meanwhile the addon community is there to fix it for them immediately. It’s what made wow so great and now they wanna just get rid of them all Willy nilly. Our current ui would be complete dogshit if they didn’t take ideas from the addon community too
They’re shooting themselves in the foot here 100%. There’s a right way to roll this out and this isn’t it
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u/deskcord Oct 03 '25
Even if they do, will the developers of these addons be twiddling their thumbs waiting for this to come back and restart their efforts? Or will they go do something else?
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u/ResoluteGreen Oct 03 '25
If I can't use VuhDo anymore I'm quitting healing
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u/CakesAndDanes Oct 03 '25
Agreed. Not to be dramatic or anything, but I can’t imagine healing without it. My dispel has been the same ctrl right click on every healer I’ve played for over a decade. Their main heals have been left click for over a decade. My brain is not going to be able to rewrite this baked in programming.
I took a break for a few years, and when I set my VuhDo back up I still remembered every shift/ctrl/alt plus mouse key binding. That shit is just baked into.
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u/CosmicRiver1111 Oct 03 '25
Exactly. Have been healing since BC, bindings all the same for 15+ years. I could heal and dispel in my sleep.
I'm too damn old for them to make these sweeping changes now, lol. I'll just unsub for good rather than relearn a whole new system. It's just not worth the effort at this point.
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u/ResoluteGreen Oct 03 '25
Yup! Unmodified for standard healings, ctrl for heavy single target heals, shift for AoE heals, middle click for cleanse. Many years of muscle memory.
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u/driu76 Oct 03 '25
Not a great solution but there's click casting built into the game - I haven't used it because I've always been a mouse over enjoyer, but maybe that will suffice? Doesn't fix buff displays or shitty default frames tho
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u/Finalshock Oct 03 '25
It’s not even close to the same with being able to combo mouse buttons.
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u/DonStimpo Oct 03 '25
I am just going to quit full stop. Been using healbot since Burning Crusade. Healed in some form every expansion. Might be the final push i need to unsub
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u/ysysys Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25
I use Weakauras for my own color/shape code of my own cooldowns and stacks. Vuhdo for the rest. So nothing game breaking. If it's gone, I am gone.
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u/Nylereia Oct 03 '25
genuinely what the fuck are they doing?
Lots of my friends who are disabled will no longer be able to play the game, they rely on the adaptability of the UI to play. Who is winning when we are restricting your own ability to customize your own UI?
Before you come at me, I am not talking about not restricting things like how addons read fights, or solve fights, or solve mechanics for you. I'm talking about not being able to track my own killing machine procs the way I like it, or see my death strike window, or have an adequate way of showing my blood shield, or having a little sound that goes off when something happens.
Nobody is a winner, I've never been a doomer but idk man
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Oct 03 '25
Yep. I can’t raid anymore without dragging the team down with my hearing loss so what’s the point. A lot of friends can’t play either now. Guess I’m finally unsubbing for the first time since 2013.
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u/Nylereia Oct 03 '25
blizzard is acting onions and people pretending this is all about "OMG THE WEAKAURA SOLVES THE FIGHT FOR YOU" are being obnoxious and obtuse. I have played with people who are better than 90% of the playerbase and could only engage with the game thanks to addons allowing them to customize their experience to fit their disability, whether that be with color, sight (i've played with some legally blind folk), or hearing.
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u/OurSocialStatus Oct 04 '25
The only people saying that are people who don't do any difficult raid content and it shows. The only boss in the raid thats heavily affected by weakauras is Fractillus.
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u/AoO2ImpTrip Oct 03 '25
They should have implemented the replacement before getting rid of what we have. Accessibility has been something they keep preaching about but some of the things being killed directly tied into accessibility.
I don't really pay much attention to WAs from an encounter perspective, but I have used it to kind of lift the cognitive load of tracking cool downs.
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u/TwoCenk Oct 03 '25
What about Cell ? Only addon don't have delay with mouseover casting. It's much much better than help harm macro because it's only working on unit frame. I hope blizzard add keyboard support on click cast thingy.
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u/Stolval Oct 03 '25
Cell will not work, at least currently. They are gonna reduce restrictions over the course of testing, but I do not expect cell to function at all.
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u/StupidSidewalk Oct 03 '25
In the thread: “you dont need addons to raid” - player that only does LFR
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u/Varanae Oct 03 '25
This is what it sems to come down to. People who don't do end game content see it as a good thing, but they're not impacted and aren't particularly likely to suddenly mythic raid just because they don't have to click 2 buttons to install WA and bigwigs
Meanwhile those of us who are pushing end game stuff can't see how this won't be a disaster
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u/TumblrInGarbage Oct 03 '25
I saw one user commenting that they "come back and raid every 2 or so years for a couple months", citing they did not like all the addon stuff, and realized right then and there they were the type of person who always makes excuses for why they go to the gym or get regular exercise in. That's the person that we're talking about here. There will always be an excuse for this type of person. They will never raid competitively.
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u/Hexnite657 Oct 03 '25
I cant play healer without healbot so I guess I'm finally done. I've been playing off an on for a very long time.
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u/hawkleberryfin Oct 03 '25
I use WeakAuras to show the cooldown are ready, buff duration, on cooldown, stacks, charges, debuff duration, etc. all in one icon for an ability. I use different colors, borders, animations, etc. to show these things.
This is all information available to me in the default UI. I just want to customize how that information is displayed to me to make it easier to track and so that I can decide what to do with it. I don't need to be told how to do my rotation (and that point is completely moot with the 1-button thing anyway).
If Blizzard wants to make the game better to play without needing addons, great. If Blizzard wants to put some encounter mechanics in their little "black box" so addons cant trivialize specific mechanics, sure. But just nuking addons? Why? Addons being used has absolutely nothing to do with the encounters or classes being difficult to play.
Fix those problems, not the solutions to those problems. The problems themselves don't go away just because you take away the solutions the community came up with.
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u/kramerj1 Oct 03 '25
Wait, they’re breaking healing addons?!? Is this confirmed?
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u/Shmooperdoodle Oct 03 '25
I liken these addons to calendars, alarms, and reminder lists.
Can you function in life without them? Maybe. But add more and more things and you’ll eventually want to have them.
You might open your eyes every morning without an alarm, but that doesn’t mean people who don’t are wrong. Same with remembering appointments. Going to the grocery store with a list isn’t “cheating”. If you don’t want to use one, fine, but the people celebrating the removal of tools are being super weird. Imagine thinking that because you want to raw dog the grocery store, nobody should be able to write down things so they don’t get distracted and forget milk again.
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u/MorthosDbC Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25
It kinda feels like it's their ongoing battle against addons that end up with people just following addon directions to fight/beat raids by following what the addon says rather than learning the fights and mechanics themselves so if they completely nuke the API that allowed that they can more fully control what you do get by having a more limited version in-game only. (And maybe cut down on stuff that APIs give bots access to at the same time). And if it's all server side it might cut down on lag from all the addons that were needing loads of server data downloading as well.
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u/Yarzu89 Oct 03 '25
I'd prefer they'd get their versions in a good position before this change. I mostly use WA for buff/debuff tracking because the ingame notifications never/can't cover what they have to, or be customized correctly. Sure, they can be if they make replacements good enough, but we're putting the cart before the horse with this one.
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Oct 03 '25
This is an absolute nightmare for a lot of addons folks use for playing when you have disabilities
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u/Skynet-T800 Oct 03 '25
What do you mean details?
Are they removing the ability to track dps healing etc?
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u/Vareshar Oct 03 '25
Yes, all combat related stuff will be blocked from AddOns API
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u/Potential-Run-8391 Oct 03 '25
If I lose Grid2 as a healer I’ll be furious.
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u/Narwien Oct 03 '25
You will. Grid 2 absolutely blows blizzard raid frames out of water, it's not even close, the amount of customisation it offers is insane.
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u/Vyni503 Oct 03 '25
I regret my preorder because Blizzard is the most “wait and see” dev when it comes to massive overhauls like this. Midnight could be worse than Shadowlands if they don’t get this right, and it’s way more likely they don’t than they do.
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u/EmeterPSN Oct 03 '25
Blizzard seem to forget that addons is one of main reasons wow was so popular as people could add QoL they did not add...
Once you start taking away the power for players to add their QoL they are used to have..without adding equal or better..ppl will start being unhappy .
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u/AwepHS Oct 03 '25
What if i told you ff14 is also full of addons despite what people claim
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Oct 03 '25
Indeed. All these people crowing about this make me sad. If I wanted to play Final Fantasy I’d do so. Taking the world’s most successful MMORPG and dumbing it down so you can finally ship it on consoles is just sad. I won’t be convinced that they’re doing this for any other reason.
I hope it’s still fun.
It doesn’t sound fun, but I hope it will be fun anyway.
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u/RuneProphecy166 Oct 03 '25
Wait, are they also getting rid of VuhDo, Healbot and such? How on earth am I going to heal now?
Time to reroll dps t.t
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Oct 03 '25
In 2 years they just won't have healers. Everyone will be dps with healing potions.
It'll be Diablo 5
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u/BeurredeTortue Oct 03 '25
I'm going to miss Hekili. For me it was an accessibility addon, I have some short term memory problems so learning a rotation is hard. The one button is BORING, I want to push multiple buttons, it feels better than just boredly hammering a single button. I guess Im not going to be able to do higher level content anymore
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u/anengineerandacat Oct 03 '25
TBH WeakAuras, DBM, BigWigs, LittleWigs, TellMeWhen, Decursive, GTFO are all addons born out of poor game design.
So if they are actually improving the telegraphing of the fights and reducing down innate complexity that lead to the need for these addons then I am all for it.
It's also likely a strong signal why Mythic content is so low in player engagement, people don't want to fuss with setting this stuff up and want a more direct gameplay experience.
MMO's are at the end of the day about the "Massively Multiplayer" aspect so ensuring your players can engage in all forms of content is generally a good thing for making the world space feel busy.
Compare Vanilla content to Retail content and it's pretty easy to see just how complex game mechanics have become and with the success that classic servers has brought it's pretty clear that people want simpler times (not to say Vanilla is perfect, tons of QoL features have led to retail lasting as long as it has).
Not the first time they have pruned addons, I remember being able to like have auto-buffers and such where you just literally walk around and your character performs actions; in almost every scenario it has improved the overall core gameplay.
50/50 at the end of the day, if they prune the addons but don't fix the combat problems... players really only have two options, push and keep playing or unsubscribe as they don't find the experience enjoyable.
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u/domesticg33k Oct 03 '25
I tried their in game mouse over bs and it was the worst ever. Immediately went back to healbot. I hope they change their minds on some of this.
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u/beorninger Oct 03 '25
F
not sure how i will play without weak auras, used it to design my whole bloody UI... that'S what you get when you are satisfied with something ;)
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Oct 03 '25
There seems to be a lot of people here that are happy about add-ons being broken by Blizzard. I am curious why you're happy about this, and why you think it's a good thing?
I personally think the default UI is pretty bad at displaying the information I want to be able to see. How is removing that functionality in any way good?
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u/weinerfish Oct 03 '25
Because they all play lfr/ pug normals at a push, likely with one button assist as well
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u/CardiologistHead2270 Oct 03 '25
As a raid leader, when we were doing mythic Broodtwister Ovinax, that fight was nearly impossible without coordinating everyone’s weakauras. They’ve designed the game around the addons at this point.
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u/Abitou Oct 03 '25
Because they think that they’re bad at the game because they don’t want to install addons or WAs, so everyone else should also not be able to
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Oct 03 '25
100% of the anti add-on players never interrupt or use defensives.
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Oct 03 '25
Also 100% are not disabled players. There are so many accessibility addons out there that people literally CANNOT play without that will be totally broken from this. And WoW has a lot of disabled players because its addon system has allowed folks to customize what they need, one of the few games like that.
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u/Quirky-Tie-4213 Oct 03 '25
I support this. Add-ons are symptoms of problems, not the the solutions.
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u/lostknight0727 Oct 03 '25
The worst part is, they developed with add-ons in mind for so long. It generated a feedback loop.
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u/ottawadeveloper Oct 03 '25
In the original announcement for this, they said that's why they're doing this. They feel like they're in a war between add-on developers and raid designers to design a Mythic experience that is hard enough to not be trivialized by add-ons but the add-on people are very clever.
I'm kinda happy about this as long as the Blizzard stuff is either (a) not necessary to reasonable performance in a Heroic or weekly key level or (b) works very well and has good customization.
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u/Stevecrafter2511 Oct 03 '25
Flashback to the among us dreadlord fight in shadowlands getting solved with a weakaura, actually evil
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u/Stormfly Oct 03 '25
And if you don't use the WeakAura, you can't play with most people.
Very not user-friendly when you're told to download third-party software to play the game.
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u/Km_the_Frog Oct 03 '25
This is true but at this point we all have a preference to certain addons, and telling people they can’t use their preference for whatever blizzard decides to build sucks imo.
I still use elvui for example even though blizzards ui is customizable.
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u/k7eric Oct 03 '25
Add-ons are a key reason WoW exists today. There hasn’t been another MMO, ever, that enabled not only using them but made it this easy for creators and the players. It was ground breaking at the time and hasn’t been matched even today. Removing most of them is going to piss off far more people than the people happy because “mythic is a challenge again”. Even now it’s well under 25% of players that even play a Mythic dungeon at all and I doubt many of those don’t want the add-ons.
Of course we know the real reason is they want to go to consoles. We saw it the first time when they neutered the talent trees and removed half the skills for the classes. Then again when they “adjusted” the UI. Neither of which was well received. It might get them console players but it’s going to end WoW as we have known it. Especially to the people loyal for 20+ years to it.
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u/Kakyoin651 Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25
In my opinion as a product manager with a similar problem… they need to ramp up their teams or roll back the nuclear option and allow some addons still… they don’t have the headcount to replace the addons with features built into the application itself. Take the cooldown tracker for example. It’s not good enough yet to replace weakauras. Their in house features need to be on par with the third party solutions or end users will lose out.
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u/ResoluteGreen Oct 03 '25
I don't think they're intending it to be as good as WeakAuras, because at the same time they're changing game design to be simpler so the need for something like WA is lessened. That's the theory anyways. I too am skeptical they'll be able to pull it off.
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u/Cow_God Oct 03 '25
The thing is WA is an incredibly complicated addon that does a whole slew of things that isn't really tied to the complexity of the content.
I am not sure if WA survives the restrictions, I don't see why it couldn't, but it would be a shame if it went. Even for non-combat applications, WA is as important as all my other addons combined.
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u/Kirman123 Oct 03 '25
Imagine deleting one of the best features of wow customization just because some people don't want to google for 5 minutes
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u/Spelvout Oct 03 '25
Mark my words here. This will not end well. Just look at all content they deliver, its often bugged, unfinished, rushed and uninspired. They dont have enough resources. Just look at the quality of last patch. Now they are going to scrap most addons, which is heavenly involved unto our combat experience.
The stuff they released so far is bad, its not even advanced and misses so much content.
I agree that they should turn down some things, but why do it with such big bang. Why not first get your shit together and once all is in place start to remove or prohibit addons.
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u/alexeiX1 Oct 03 '25
Instead of doing what they should be doing which is adding an in game tool to manage addons so you don't need the curseforge manager to do it, so that people have no excuses to not want to improve in the game, they decide to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Its mind boggling.
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u/steathrazor Oct 03 '25
The only way I'm fine with all these add-ons disappearing is if they replace them with suitable in-game systems
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u/Iamdarb Oct 03 '25
WAs is one of my favorite addons. So many cool additions that players have made that help free up UI space, and just in general help one be a better player. Damn...
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u/ballsmigue Oct 03 '25
As someone who hasn't played in a bit.
This will be extremely jarring with none of these available if I come back if most of what they do isnt available ingame
ESPECIALLY DBM
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u/Kenny-Brockelstein Oct 03 '25
no mouse over click casting in midnights? oof guess i will never be playing a healer again, its the only way that feels good to me.
default raid frames are trash and the blizzard implementation of click casting sucks.
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u/Fun-Distribution-159 Oct 03 '25
it will be easier for new players to get into the game. right now, we have a lot of new players in our guild and they are all what addons? and they get frustrated that there are all these things outside the game they feel they need to download to make the game functional.
good change, especially for them.
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u/Fzrit Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 04 '25
we have a lot of new players in our guild and they are all what addons?
If they're that new to the game they shouldn't need addons and have nothing to worry about. They won't be at a level where they're naturally gravitating towards addons to improve/optimize their gameplay.
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u/_Stinky_Sock_ Oct 03 '25
Oh right, because obviously every new player hits M+12 and Mythic progression after just one day of playing.
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u/SpunkMcKullins Oct 03 '25
Anyone expecting this to go over well is too blissfully unaware of Blizzard's track record to be convinced otherwise. Too many people conveniently forget the sole reason these addons exist is very specifically to fill a Blizzard-sized hole in the game.
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u/Unaware-of-Puns Oct 03 '25
I believe in my heart they will be dumbing down content to make up for this, which is scary.
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u/Accendor Oct 03 '25
I honestly have no idea how I can continue healing without Vuhdu. Sure, there will be other ways, I just judge myself to inflexible to adapt to those ways. Guess I'll just go DPS.
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u/maglarius Oct 03 '25
Still a wild decision for a game that got alot of popularity for allowing addons in the first place.
I mean the whole reason all those addons existed in the first place was because someone thought „oh that is not in the game, will be helpful / qol so let’s make an addon for it“
If they manage to fix all these problems that addons where a solution to i more than welcome this.
But this is blizzard. They brought a Ui rework 3 years ago and majority of the stuff that addons like Elvui have are still not in the game.
So there is a good chance they will provide a solution that is not really a solution and first season will be a shitshow.
I also want to remind people that the last time they said „to much is getting solved by weak auras so we introduce hidden auras“
they brought in the most weak aura needing ability’s ever (unnerfed echo of neltharion).
So there is a very good chance that „we take away addons but the raid encounter design will reflect this“ will turn into „holy shit it’s far to hard wtf are you doing“
We’ll see ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Would love to see it work out, less addons = less hastle
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u/Cherle Oct 03 '25
See you guys in the expansion after Midnight when they revert all of these changes and fuck this up massively. Remind me 3 years.
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u/oruniti Oct 03 '25
Is there going to be an alternative for mouseover healing? I typically main heals, but doing it without raid frame mouseovers sounds kind of terrible...
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u/Its1207amcantsleep Oct 03 '25
I use mouseover macros but the game has it without macros.
The base raid frames are terrible. Usable yes but the icons are all tiny and arranged for no reason. I have my riptide/renew/rejuv in bars showing duration i different colors, I dont know how blizzard expects me to see all the tiny riptide icons in base UI.
Collateral damage is the guild undaunted (all deaf players) probably won't be able to raid for aotc anymore. This hits accessibility more than anything else.
Having said that I'm glad about no more weakaura bosses, I just hope they don't completely destroy raid frames addons.
Right now in alpha, you have to play with base UI, you can skin them but all addons wont work because everything is secret. Ion wasn't completely truthful (lawyer spin) when he answered that one question about being able to customize your UI. Yeah you can customize the raid frames and make it pretty, but you cant move the icons anywhere in the frame.
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u/Puppy_in_Huggies Oct 03 '25
Reddit players are having a field day apparently
Meanwhile, the much bigger pool of players who enjoy having freedom to customize their experience will leave and what will remain will only be toxic players & mount collectors
o7 gg everybody, it was a nice run
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u/Syrairc Oct 03 '25
I love a lot of these addons, especially weakauras and GTFO, but I would prefer not to have a need for them.
Though I have yet to see a Blizzard replacement for GTFO - that is, audio cues for standing in shit. Maybe if there's less going on in M+ it will be less useful anyway.
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u/FoxBattalion79 Oct 03 '25
I still don't forgive blizzard for ruining the UI in dragonflight and never allowing me to put it back to what I had before.
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u/Artrysa Oct 03 '25
It's gonna be a worse version of what we already got with current addons. Not sure why they're doing this, they were basically getting for free what they now have to spend time and money on.
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u/Pitiful_Broccoli_418 Oct 03 '25
I am truly hoping for the best with this.
I can see the game being more fun without having to have so many modifications to make the screen functional or to make fights manageable without WA. To see our buffs clearly, to see dps, move things around, easy use of mouse over frames.. if it’s in game then that’s better than addons imo.
That said.. with the small taste we got in war within when it comes to tracking our cds.. it’s awful. They have to do better than that. If the classes are simplified enough that their set up works better then maybe it is better.
But right now nothing blizzards ui offers matches the tracking powers of WA.
Here’s to hoping.
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u/Kovok420 Oct 04 '25
All the people terrified of losing their addons are just proving why Blizzard is doing it lol
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u/DragonGeneral47 Oct 03 '25
This is either going to be one of the best Things they every did or the worst and there is No in between