WoW: A statement on Mod Use by Blizz
Raid encounters are designed with the use of addons in mind (src)No, I think we assume that those who are working on the extreme endgame PvE content are going to be doing anything they can in order to help increase their chances for success. By both embracing the UI mod community and their addons, as well as assuming that players are going to be using them to great effect versus our encounters, we have to design encounters that assume their use or the encounter is trivialized by those on vent, those with a countdown, those with a threat meter, etc. Once a lot of the guess work is removed with mods we have to raise the complexity beyond what a mod can purely assist with. I think at this point we're forced to assume everyone is using mods to great effect versus our design complexity, which in turn forces everyone to use those mods. It's probably somewhat debatable what mods are required and where, but it's certain that we have to take them into account, lest the game be trivialized.
UI Mods have become an integral part of the game for many players, and we've been extremely pleased with the amount of customization and information they're able to provide. We're continually working to assess and implement new UI features, many of which have come straight from the community, to help ensure that the default UI is as full featured as possible while remaining uncluttered, clean, attractive, and easily approached.
Well, it's nice to see Blizz state outright what I've been saying for a while. If you want to raid, you need mods.
Edit: People putting Rick Roll songs in downloads should be banned or suspended.
"If Blizzard announces a subscription fee for Diablo III we will have to build a second Internet to make room for all the complaining." - muttonchop
It's April 1. Don't take ANYTHING seriously you read today.
If I were Overlord of the planet, "celebrating" April Fools Day would be an offense punishable by death. It's a moronic idea.
"If Blizzard announces a subscription fee for Diablo III we will have to build a second Internet to make room for all the complaining." - muttonchop
What is this about /roll being weird?
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
Ron Gilbert for president?
Computers don't make errors. What they do, they do on purpose. By now your name and particulars have been fed into every laptop, desktop, mainframe and supermarket scanner that collectively make up the global information conspiracy.
-- Dale Gribble
It would appear that the April Fools' joke Blizz is playing this year is on their forums, transforming everyone's avatar into a bear, and using a script to add "lol", "lolcats", "I lol'ed IRL" etc. to everyone's posts.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
I haven't heard, either, Fed. I assume there's some sort of cheat/hack that allows someone to exploit this typical way of dispursing shards and the like.
Personally, I think Blizzard is very aware of the mod/addon community and does take that into consideration while designing encounters.
4E D&D Campaign: Valley of Shrouds
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
The way the hack was described in the place I initially read it was that the mod author had figured out a way to spoof the RNG's seeding through the timestamp. Apparently, this download is just the whole rick roll BS.
"If Blizzard announces a subscription fee for Diablo III we will have to build a second Internet to make room for all the complaining." - muttonchop
Jaysus that makes for a fun read!
Yes, yes I WAS able to stand and cast roflmao!
Xbox Live: Trachalio
Pipe Threader Manual wrote:
Sad to say that I didn't notice the difference in the rogue forum until you guys pointed it out.
"If Blizzard announces a subscription fee for Diablo III we will have to build a second Internet to make room for all the complaining." - muttonchop
Yeah, at first I thought it was just the guy writing the first post I saw today lolwut.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
So they fully support this mod:
HighRoller
Playing WoW as: Vilius (70 NE Druid)
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” John K Galbraith
I'm a little disappointed if they really do "require" mods with the way they intentionally design raids. I'll hope it's an April Fool's post.
I prefer running as few mods as I can, there are a few truly essential ones or incredibly useful ones I run (Omen is just too critical to pass up, and Auctioneer and Gatherer are immensely useful), and I like having a general interface mod (X-Perl's been great). Beyond that, I don't like to run much more, though Healbot's going on my list at least to try it out and from the sounds of it, so will DeadlyBossMod.
That they are balancing with mods in mind isn't new. I recall Tigole commenting on it sometime back when Naxx was released.
Computers don't make errors. What they do, they do on purpose. By now your name and particulars have been fed into every laptop, desktop, mainframe and supermarket scanner that collectively make up the global information conspiracy.
-- Dale Gribble
They'll never require mods to play, of that I have no doubt, but I am equally sure that they do keep an open eye when it comes to how AddOns effect game balance and challenge levels. So while Omen (and its like) are not required, they certainly improve the play of users, increasing a group's/raid's efficency and overall prowess. I would expect that boss encounters are designed with the expectation in mind that players will maintain certain levels of threat/agro - and that is more easily accomplished by players using threat meter addons.
And, obviously, if for no other reason, they need to keep an eye on the AddOn content to ensure that nothing upsets that balance and tips the scales towards exploitation.
4E D&D Campaign: Valley of Shrouds
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
I know a lot of folks like to run with minimal mods or no mods, but there are really only 2 you need to have to be a successful raider and not be dependent on the rest of your raid to tell you when the poop is about to fly, Deadly Boss Mods or Big Wigs and Omen or KTM. Everything else is really a matter of choice. Healbot is nice for healers especially those assigned to heal the raid rather than a single tank target. A cooldown timer is great for DPS so they know exactly how long between their next interrupt. A damage meter is nice for those who have an average dps or heal per second goal. But none of the class specific mods are a necessity. Two mods will never crash a computer capable of running WoW in a raid instance. But not having those two has proven time and again to cause raid wipes. And really who wants to be that one person without Omen who "accidentially" pulls off the tank and causes the chain reaction wipe cause they back to back critted and didn't realize how close their aggro was to the tanks?
Raiding has been designed to be a serious undertaking. Mod requirements turn that undertaking from arepair bills from Hades into chancees of success. Mods are not as important in a 5 or 10 man, but once you begin running 25man raids on a regular basis when there are 4 tank targets and multiple CC target in each pull, you have to have something and be comfortable using it or be that person who causes the wipes.
Even the casual player should be comfortable using a threat meter and a boss mod.
*Bandolique (70 Combat Rogue)
*Amara (70 Fire Mage)
*Zeus the Good Luck Dog making the Lords of Kara/SSC/TK cry whenever he is around
Well yeah, just running two or three mods should be fine. I was misunderstanding I think, that raids were being balanced for running full suites of stuff. I didn't agree with that approach. But really ubiquitous mods like Omen/KTM, I can understand.
Some form of mods have been required for raiding forever.
Basically, the entire Blizzard raid UI has it's origins in CTMod's CTRaidAssist. MT assignments? Was there first. Raid lifebars? Was there first. There are a lot of mods that now do what CTRA did. The blizzard UI added most of it.
Decursive made certain encounters so trivial for cleansing classes that Blizzard was forced to break it.
Threat meters expose an incredibly useful facet of the game by giving DPS the ability to ride the tank's threat, optimizing their DPS. So, in response, they added several aggro sensitive encounters into the game. Some examples include Vaelestraz, Gruul, Moroes, and Gurtrogg Bloodboil.
Boss timers are another example-Naxx and AQ40 encounters had a lot of very strict timers. Deadly Boss Mods and the like made learning the encounters quite a bit easier. That's why Blizzard added cooldown-based abilities in addition to the strict timers.
Now, it really isn't required for raiders to have much more than a boss timer and a threat meter. The UI does the rest. But, at one point, none of that was in the Blizzard UI.
WoW-Dark Iron: Cuberen(80 Druid), Spacecube(70 Shaman), Deathcube(60 Deathknight)