The new concept screenshot is a real-time in-game render!

[Synfrag]

In short, addons are not the evil people here feel they are. They help enhance an interface that in turn makes the game more enjoyable and more playable. The interface exists to translate your intent to the servers, and the better the interface accomplishes this, the better. Addons that assist gameplay may help players learn their classes, but exist to make veterans of their classes hone their skills even further. Addons that actually play classes for people are called bots and aren't actually allowed.

Wrong!

Add-ons have the complete power to destroy a game without any abuse or misuse. Exactly as they have in WoW. There are thousands of players who do not understand how to play their class in WoW without add-ons. I am one of them. I was convinced into playing wow by co-workers and so the first thing I did was copy a friends add-on profile and have him show me what to do. When the game gets patched and it breaks my add-ons I have no clue if someone is cursed or if my Fingers of Frost are up and what have you. Add-ons that tell you what to do next after a skill only add to the lack of knowledge in how to properly use your class.

This is detrimental to the game no matter how you spin it. If we end up with shortcut add-ons like decursive for example (I'm sure there are better examples) it's all over. I am absolutely fine with things like UI skins, CD timers, parsers (AKA DPS meters) and non-altering add-ons. The second you throw in shortcut add-ons you break FFXIV. Even if, only for the simple fact that at leas 1/2 the population will be playing with a controller and targeting a shortcut will be nearly impossible.

Shipp actually illustrate my point perfectly with "You claim your GF has healed without any healing addons. This is simply ridiculous. No serious raid healer is not going to have a healing addon." If the game requires a 3rd party add-on in order to fulfill your task then it is broken, end of story.

On top of that comes serious balance issues and the result of inaccurate game balance is Elite mobs with 500k HP and no tactical strategy required to beat them. There is no other way around it besides making everything generic like Blizzard has done. Because the field is so vastly split due to which add-ons are used and by whom that the designers have to compensate with simplicity and numbers e.g. more trash mobs, higher HP and less or no visual clues.

Personally I cannot stand most of the WoW add-ons on my screen. They are designed by amateurs with literally no understanding of aesthetics or visual design and they clutter up your screen so bad that all you see is add-ons and nothing in the game. But, because WoW is such a cluster**** of a game, I have to use them. There is no choice and therefore I am forced to live with an even uglier version of an already ugly game.

Yes, some are great to have and I'm not completely against them as a whole but to say that there is nothing negative about them is absolutely ignorant.

[Lavani]

Wrong!

Add-ons have the complete power to destroy a game without any abuse or misuse. Exactly as they have in WoW. There are thousands of players who do not understand how to play their class in WoW without add-ons. I am one of them. I was convinced into playing wow by co-workers and so the first thing I did was copy a friends add-on profile and have him show me what to do. When the game gets patched and it breaks my add-ons I have no clue if someone is cursed or if my Fingers of Frost are up and what have you. Add-ons that tell you what to do next after a skill only add to the lack of knowledge in how to properly use your class.

This is detrimental to the game no matter how you spin it. If we end up with shortcut add-ons like decursive for example (I'm sure there are better examples) it's all over. I am absolutely fine with things like UI skins, CD timers, parsers (AKA DPS meters) and non-altering add-ons. The second you throw in shortcut add-ons you break FFXIV. Even if, only for the simple fact that at leas 1/2 the population will be playing with a controller and targeting a shortcut will be nearly impossible.

Shipp actually illustrate my point perfectly with "You claim your GF has healed without any healing addons. This is simply ridiculous. No serious raid healer is not going to have a healing addon." If the game requires a 3rd party add-on in order to fulfill your task then it is broken, end of story.

On top of that comes serious balance issues and the result of inaccurate game balance is Elite mobs with 500k HP and no tactical strategy required to beat them. There is no other way around it besides making everything generic like Blizzard has done. Because the field is so vastly split due to which add-ons are used and by whom that the designers have to compensate with simplicity and numbers e.g. more trash mobs, higher HP and less or no visual clues.

Personally I cannot stand most of the WoW add-ons on my screen. They are designed by amateurs with literally no understanding of aesthetics or visual design and they clutter up your screen so bad that all you see is add-ons and nothing in the game. But, because WoW is such a cluster**** of a game, I have to use them. There is no choice and therefore I am forced to live with an even uglier version of an already ugly game.

Yes, some are great to have and I'm not completely against them as a whole but to say that there is nothing negative about them is absolutely ignorant.

This UI has all of the "essential" addons people claim are ruining the game. Tell me where the cluster**** is?

[Synfrag]

This UI has all of the "essential" addons people claim are ruining the game. Tell me where the cluster**** is?

Yes your layout is clean and you are running @1080. But you aren't in combat which means a bunch of flash indicators and such aren't running. If I still played I would ask you what you are using for UI and raid frames but idc now.

The look of it was a side comment. And more primarily directed at the terrible aesthetic design than the space they take up.

I still find this to be a lot cleaner

[Raikki]

But you aren't in combat which means a bunch of flash indicators and such aren't running.

I still find this to be a lot cleaner

Ironic. You countered with a screenshot which is outside of combat, not in a party, and not in a timed instance.

[Jynx]

Ironic. You countered with a screenshot which is outside of combat, not in a party, and not in a timed instance.

What are you trying to somehow say FFXIV is as cluttered as Wow's interface?

You and I both know that even in battle, in a party, with a lev screen up it's less cluttered still.

[Raikki]

What are you trying to somehow say FFXIV is as cluttered as Wow's interface?

You and I both know that even in battle, in a party, with a lev screen up it's less cluttered still.

No? I'm saying that pointing out how "clean" FFXIV looks when you're sitting in town not doing anything is a useless comparison. However, anyone can see that some things, like XIV's current action bars for instance, are a lot clunkier than you can do in WoW using addons.

[Shipp]

What are you trying to somehow say FFXIV is as cluttered as Wow's interface?

You and I both know that even in battle, in a party, with a lev screen up it's less cluttered still.

FFXIV's toolbar is freaking horrible. With UI add-ons, you can fully customize the width, height, how much buffer space is between the buttons, how thick the borders should be, the shape of the buttons, whether you want a portrait for party frames, whether you want to show Mana and energy for other players, whether you want absolutely no toolbars whatsoever because you can just hide them and have them keybound and memorized, whether you want damage to show up on the screen or just in the combat log, which way said damage scrolls on the screen, how fast it scrolls, if it arcs out or goes in a straight line or is over the target's head, the color of the scrolling combat numbers, whether they have the ability/spell icon next to them, how large they should be, whether you want crits colored another way or larger than the rest, or even showing up in their own set area... How many mobs should the debuff timer track, how many buffs will show up on your screen, whether to consolidate all buffs into one box that you can mouseover and then see them, etc, etc.

You can show as little or as much as you want. I could have a UI which shows nothing but the chat log if I wanted, and even then, I could get rid of that. This argument about XIV's UI looking better when the toolbar isn't even brought up in that picture is foolish. I much prefer Lavani's UI screenshot, because it's -fully- customizable.

Also, when talking to an NPC and they say something in the chat-log AND that little box that pops up in the middle of the screen that you can't resize... yeah. It looks bad, especially since it only shows a few lines of text instead of just reading it all in the chat log. Why is it even there when we already have a chat log? It's useless. It's showing the exact same information twice and unnecessarily clutters the screen.

[Zenaku]

Ironic. You countered with a screenshot which is outside of combat, not in a party, and not in a timed instance.

and that still not even as full as how WoW can get with Addons to display information which make it not clean but hey you know that just me.

[Synfrag]

Ironic. You countered with a screenshot which is outside of combat, not in a party, and not in a timed instance.

Well I wasn't going to form a party and enter Darkhold just to take a screen shot. I don't keep SS on hand sorry.

[Aradon]

Wrong!

Add-ons have the complete power to destroy a game without any abuse or misuse. Exactly as they have in WoW. There are thousands of players who do not understand how to play their class in WoW without add-ons. I am one of them. I was convinced into playing wow by co-workers and so the first thing I did was copy a friends add-on profile and have him show me what to do. When the game gets patched and it breaks my add-ons I have no clue if someone is cursed or if my Fingers of Frost are up and what have you. Add-ons that tell you what to do next after a skill only add to the lack of knowledge in how to properly use your class.

This is you mis-using add-ons. When I started playing WoW, I played with no add-ons. Then, when I became frustrated with being unable to relate my performance to anything else, I installed recount. Then, when I decided I could react better to bosses with timer displays, I installed DBM. When I had trouble keeping my threat in check, I installed something to monitor my threat. They're tools, and you get the ones you need.

Your comments regarding balance are an issue the Devs would have to be aware of. The WoW dev team decided to embrace add-ons at the highest level content, to extend the range of skill and challenge at the top end, while leaving dungeons to be balanced without expecting add-ons. Even then, there is grey area, as I expect Firelands could be managed without healer add-ons, just not heroic Firelands. Still, if the Dev team felt that the FF XIV playerbase wants the game to be balanced without add-ons, then it can be balanced so they aren't expected or needed.

To address a couple of the other things you have said as well:
- You said that things like decursive will be unfair to controller users. This isn't really true, as controller users have other options for their add-ons. Things like bumpers to shortcut to party selection for healing, or in this example, simply holding L2 or something to shortcut a spell like Remove Curse. There's no reason that add-ons can't be made to take advantage of controller input methods; they simply don't map over 1:1.
- You said that you can't stand most of the WoW add-ons, but are forced to use them. This is simply untrue. Once I learned to manage my threat, I could turn my Omen meter off. Once I brought my dps up to an acceptable level, I hid my recount damage meter. Having Deadly Boss Mods on is hardly an information overflow, and even that isn't absolutely required. You could totally get through fights just listening to raid communication, skill, and timing memory if you cared to put that much effort into it. If you don't care that much, then I guess you'd prefer having the raid interfaces available to you. It's always an option, and I doubt the Dev team would start balancing to require add-ons, considering how vocal those against this have been.
- No matter how much you claim that add-ons will deter someone from learning there class, it is impossible to dispute the fact that most add-ons improve someone's understanding of the class. Threat meters teach you what is an is not appropriate for skill timing, and most of all, dps meters allow you to gauge your overall efficiency, and if and where you need to improve. The feedback allows players to experiment with different rotations or ideas and actually see if it was effective. You will note that players already do this with parsers outside of the game because it is so important. Whatever harm is done by those add-ons that tell you what spell to cast is vastly outweighed by the benefits of instant feedback and learning through playing offered by other add-ons. In terms of being good or bad for player learning, you can't say to remove all of them just because of the few add-ons that give you your rotations.