Stop the WoWificaton (ui mods)

[KatieConnr]

Honest question, (please dont attack me)

-But is UI options/customization really a bad thing? Seems to me that if say wow/elv users can duplicate what they are "comfortable" with then that would make them more comfortable and stick around in this game? -just an example.

-Now I'm not defending how mods can be used in a derogatory way, however im genuinely curious as to why "options" to make people enjoy the game more are a bad thing?

[Aron73]

Honest question, (please dont attack me)

-But is UI options/customization really a bad thing? Seems to me that if say wow/elv users can duplicate what they are "comfortable" with then that would make them more comfortable and stick around in this game? -just an example.

-Now I'm not defending how mods can be used in a derogatory way, however im genuinely curious as to why "options" to make people enjoy the game more are a bad thing?

In my opinion, you only use UI mods for two reasons. In my case, using ElvUI in WoW improved the game and got fewer crashes and faster load time.
The second reason is to make the game look better and increase immersion. A good example of this is Fallout 4, where I used a mod to improve the power armor UI.
Now in FFXIV, we are blessed to have the best UI I have ever seen, not the best-looking UI, but it works great and is more customizable than ElfUI, so my question is: Why would anyone change a UI to something inferior in everything that matters?

[Penthea]

Honest question, (please dont attack me)

-But is UI options/customization really a bad thing?

They can be bad if they give you more information than the game itself gives you. For example if the party has debuffs on different timers and the order in which they must do something depends on the timer. Normally a player would have to look at their debuff timer themselves to figure out when they need to do whatever it is, but an add-on could do that working out for you and simply tell you when to move. Add-ons can trivalise content. I don't put parsers in this category because they don't tell you how to dps. The add-on in my example tells you what to do.

If the add-on is purely cosmetic I don't particularly care. As long as it's not some weird ToS stuff that belongs on an adult website.

Honestly what annoys me most is when some WoW players dismiss useful parts of the ui, hide it, and then complain that they lack information that was actually in the ui element they chose to hide. I caught a streamer once complaining that they can't see what enemies they're not targeting are casting...and the reason why is because they hid their enemy list. WoW doesn't have an enemy list so they assumed they wouldn't need it. Many need to realise that each ui element has a reason for being there and just because it wasn't in WoW doesn't mean it's useless in a different game.

[Mirikh]

They can be bad if they give you more information than the game itself gives you. For example if the party has debuffs on different timers and the order in which they must do something depends on the timer. Normally a player would have to look at their debuff timer themselves to figure out when they need to do whatever it is, but an add-on could do that working out for you and simply tell you when to move. Add-ons can trivalise content. I don't put parsers in this category because they don't tell you how to dps. The add-on in my example tells you what to do.

If the add-on is purely cosmetic I don't particularly care. As long as it's not some weird ToS stuff that belongs on an adult website.

Honestly what annoys me most is when some WoW players dismiss useful parts of the ui, hide it, and then complain that they lack information that was actually in the ui element they chose to hide. I caught a streamer once complaining that they can't see what enemies they're not targeting are casting...and the reason why is because they hid their enemy list. WoW doesn't have an enemy list so they assumed they wouldn't need it. Many need to realise that each ui element has a reason for being there and just because it wasn't in WoW doesn't mean it's useless in a different game.

And I heard another streamer complaining about the lack of target castbars, and needing an addon for this which is just wrong. The in-game UI will allow you to separate out the target castbar, move it wherever you want, size it however you want. You do not need an addon for this. Or for the other things I hear complaints about. Just spend some time looking through the UI and seeing what it can do.

I played WoW and used addons there because they made my UI functional. It was a relief to come here and find I could get all of that and more with just the standard base UI in the game. I don't have to update addons which break with every patch. Give the standard UI a look before deciding you need addons to do basic things like resize castbars, enlarge and move your debuffs or DoTs on a target, etc. It's a lot more fun to set up a UI that doesn't break every 6 weeks.