With the release of the 12.0 “pre-patch” for World of Warcraft — the patch that lays the groundwork for next month’s Midnight expansion — Blizzard made one of the most consequential and controversial changes to the way the game is played in its whole 21-year history. “Addon disarmament” restricted the access that user interface mods (known as “addons” in WoW) have to combat information in real time. This meant addons that players depended on to be effective in high-end encounters stopped working, and some, such as the popular WeakAuras, were abandoned entirely. These addons would give players specific direction on what to do and when to survive major boss encounters.
The community has been split on the results. Some players hate having what they see as key utilities removed; some feel that Blizzard’s own new UI tools aren’t up to the task of filling WeakAuras’ shoes; some find themselves enjoying the increased challenge and immersion in the game world; some think it’s an exercise in futility that requires players to download even more addons to patch together the flexibility and functionality of those that have been rendered obsolete. A recent, second pre-patch made further improvements to Blizzard’s in-house UI tools, but most feel there’s still work to be done.
Associate game director Paul Kubit robustly defended addon disarmament to Polygon in a group video interview. And he reminded players that Midnight’s new content, which has been designed for a post-addon-disarmament world, hasn’t even launched yet.
“One of the big ones [is] that apex talents unlock for classes, and so classes are going to have a little bit more structure to how they play out,” Kubit said. “And then also all the new content comes, all the new dungeons, all the new raids and whatnot.”
Lead encounter designer Dylan Barker affirmed that players should see a real difference in how encounters play out. “We changed some of how we build encounters to suit this new environment. We want to be able to provide clarity on what players are meant to do to succeed more through our own means. And that’s not just in the UI — that’s doing extra levels of presentation on the creatures, in the world, and getting players to really look at the creatures that are trying to kill them, so that they can play better in that way. It’s been a fun period for our team, because we’ve been focused on how to up that level of our game.”
Kubit stressed that for the World of Warcraft team, addon disarmament was primarily about fairness. He said the team felt it was important that “we’re not giving players tools that shortchange the work that class design or encounter design does to provide challenges for players.” Blizzard is seeking to establish “an even playing field for players who want to play Mythic+ [dungeons], play raids, just play whatever competitive content they’re playing, without feeling like they had to download add-ons to be competitive. […] Really, the ultimate goal here is to make sure that you don’t feel compelled to have them.”
But both Kubit and Barker accepted that the design of World of Warcraft’s encounters was part of the reason combat addons were so popular, and this needed to change, too. “That was the place that we felt that we were at in The War Within,” he said, referring to WoW’s most recent expansion. “Based on the way that classes were designed, the way that our encounters were designed, and the way that our addons were allowed to gather information, addons were able to basically solve a number of problems that were intended to be solved by players.”
Barker is particularly anxious that Blizzard’s new UI tools, like its in-game cooldown manager, don’t become an equivalent crutch to the old combat addons. He wants players to get the cues they need from the action on the screen. “We have to make sure we are doing heavier lifting as the design and the art teams to make it clear what players are meant to do,” he said. “We’re looking at making sure that a heavier focus is put earlier on: What is it like to play this without specific add-ons giving you the information? How can we take information out of the UI and put it in the game world as much as possible — using the artistry of our art teams, but also some designer visual thoughts expressed in-world, and on players?”
Like any major change in a live-service game, add-on disarmament is an ongoing process; Blizzard’s UI tools will evolve, and the design of the game will evolve, too. “We’re anxiously awaiting to see players’ feedback” on how the Midnight content plays without combat addons, Kubit said. “This is not going to be a ‘12.0.1 and done’ initiative to make sure that players have all the tools that they need to be able to represent everything they want to see in combat. We’re going to continue to find issues where there’s desire for more flexibility, desire for more clarity, desire for more functionality in the in-game UI or what is available for add-ons to do. And we’re working on that right now.”
