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Blizzard has made waves in the World of Warcraft community after its decision to remove combat mods, a plan that started to roll into action with the recent release of pre-Midnight patch 12.0 – an update that prepares the MMO for its upcoming expansion pack.
It does so by smoothing things out across the board – but the most significant change is undeniably the restriction of access to user interface add-ons, which folks used during more challenging content like raids to help with cues and combat information.
For many, it's come as quite a blow, but Blizzard thinks folks should wait until they actually get to experience the rest of the changes that Midnight has in store before casting their final judgment.
Speaking to Polygon, associate game director Paul Kubit defends the studio's decision to axe add-ons, explaining that the new expansion's content and tweaks will make it far less painful for players, as Midnight was crafted with the removal of mods in mind.
One of the big things, for instance, is "that apex talents unlock for classes, and so classes are going to have a little bit more structure to how they play out," as he describes. "And then also all the new content comes, all the new dungeons, all the new raids, and whatnot."
Lead encounter designer Dylan Barker agrees – fans should feel the difference post-Midnight. "We changed some of how we build encounters to suit this new environment," as the dev puts it. "We want to be able to provide clarity on what players are meant to do to succeed more through our own means."
This applies to more than just the user interface, too.
"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," Barker states. "It's been a fun period for our team, because we've been focused on how to up that level of our game."
As for Blizzard's reasoning behind doing away with add-ons, Kubit reiterates that it's about keeping things fair – something the team has now stated multiple times, that it's to "level the playing field" overall.
The devs felt it's important they're "not giving players tools that shortchange the work that class design or encounter design does to provide challenges for players." It's all too reminiscent of Final Fantasy 14 and the topic of third-party tools, if you ask me.
Blizzard wants "to make sure that you don't feel compelled to have" combat mods, hence their removal and Midnight's rework of, well, a lot. Kubit and Barker acknowledge that World of Warcraft's encounters and their design were a large reason why the add-ons have been so popular, as they "were able to basically solve a number of problems that were intended to be solved by players."
For now, Kubit states they're "anxiously awaiting to see players' feedback" on how Midnight feels without any combat mods – but the work won't be over for the devs. "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," as he concludes.
Blizzard is going to continue "to find issues" and address any room for improvement.
