Would you like A-Net to allow more mods?

[Khisanth.2948]

9 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Just look at the most recent GShade debacle to realize why there might be potential issues with blanket allowing mods. And notice, how GShade is not exactly a type of mod/addon that you think of first when you consider potential dangers...

That is a weird example to use.

The gshade situation shows that disallowing mods(AFAIK its primary target is FFXIV which is stricter on mod use than GW2) doesn't actually prevent the problem.

[Astralporing.1957]

35 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That is a weird example to use.

The gshade situation shows that disallowing mods(AFAIK its primary target is FFXIV which is stricter on mod use than GW2) doesn't actually prevent the problem.

It makes it not the developer's problem, though.

[Doggie.3184]

It could rescue us from having 0 customization of the UI.

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, Doggie.3184 said:

It could rescue us from having 0 customization of the UI.

It definitely could. But the UI mods are also the most controversial in my opinion. Because they give direct advantage to players who use them. Many could easily be considered as a cheat. I prefer we all have the same UI, but yes, Anet please rescue us here. And do a better job than you did with a simple mouse cursor.

[Doctor Hide.6345]

19 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

It definitely could. But the UI mods are also the most controversial in my opinion. Because they give direct advantage to players who use them. Many could easily be considered as a cheat. I prefer we all have the same UI, but yes, Anet please rescue us here. And do a better job than you did with a simple mouse cursor.

Well, I wouldn't consider them a cheat personally. They just clean things up making it easier to play the game because it should have been in from the start. Everyone having vanilla ones is kind of meh imo since I am all for customization of personal preference.  As for the cheat claim, a real cheat is something like removing all foliage or giving your character a power boost in PvP. When I think of "cheats", I think of more console command stuff in single player games, or more instant headshots and trackers in shooters. Making yourself take no damage like people do with mods in Red Dead Online. Those are cheats. The stuff the community made is not cheating compared to the stuff listed above. 

[Grunim.9034]

I would like the ability to replace the buff/debuff icons with customizable icons that can be resized or even replace that information altogether and present in a text format using a size and placement where my eyes can actually read this information in a timely manner.

When I played ESO, I had far more customizable control over how information was presented.  I waste so much time in GW2 squinting my eyes and waiting for light flashes to calm done enough to try to read the teeny tiny little number in this tiny icon that represents a stack of some thing on myself or others.

 

And yes, I have checked with many people if I can make the UI any larger in this game than how I currently view information and I can't.  And no, no surgery or medical appliance can change this for me.  I have played other games in recent years where the UI was not so problematic for me as the UI of GW2.

I truly hope someone at Anet reads this and decides to support others who work on more accessibility add-ons for those of us who love GW2 otherwise.

[The Boz.2038]

15 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

4. Said dev included an intentional malware code (designed to instareboot system when triggered, bypassing any confirmation checks)

. . .

5. when called upon, said dev said people should be glad he didn't put something much worse in there

jfc, I truly hope people have learned now and cast that piece of software into oblivion, never to be touched again.

(I know they didn't, because people, but I can dream, right)

[Cuks.8241]

11 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

Well, I wouldn't consider them a cheat personally. They just clean things up making it easier to play the game because it should have been in from the start. Everyone having vanilla ones is kind of meh imo since I am all for customization of personal preference.  As for the cheat claim, a real cheat is something like removing all foliage or giving your character a power boost in PvP. When I think of "cheats", I think of more console command stuff in single player games, or more instant headshots and trackers in shooters. Making yourself take no damage like people do with mods in Red Dead Online. Those are cheats. The stuff the community made is not cheating compared to the stuff listed above. 

When it comes to competitive online play any advantage over others is a cheat. This could be as little as having a better higher contrast texture for enemy models, a simple stopwatch to time stuff... 

[Doctor Hide.6345]

23 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

When it comes to competitive online play any advantage over others is a cheat. This could be as little as having a better higher contrast texture for enemy models, a simple stopwatch to time stuff... 

Yeah, that is too loose of a definition for cheat to me. Then that means people that have better ping can be cheating. People who have better PCs for processing can be cheating. I am not buying it with having a stop watch and such because you can do all that stuff outside the game just as easy. Hell, just having a colour blind mode for people could be considered a cheat for some. So, I go back to my original statement and say just having vanilla everything is a meh thing. People can customize how they want as long as it doesn't cross the line with the stuff that actually matters when it comes to real cheats. 

[Dreams.3128]

On 2/7/2023 at 3:18 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Just look at the most recent GShade debacle to realize why there might be potential issues with blanket allowing mods. And notice, how GShade is not exactly a type of mod/addon that you think of first when you consider potential dangers...

Gshade never tampered with things like how FF and WoW mods would tho. FF and WoW mods tampered with things like the actual assets, while also giving clear advantage to gameplay. Gshade is there just to allow you to take pretty screenshots ._. If you were gonna use a good example that is used in Gw2, you should've said something like GWTaco or something like that. But even then, GWTaco doesn't blalantly tell you what to do in content like raids.

Unfortunately this is an apples to oranges situation.

[WillowWisp.6497]

I'm not really in favour of having mods in the game. Having a dps meter mod can cause a huge influx of toxicity and superiority complex. I mean it can be used well but just don't kick other people down for having less dps as you; it's a matter of enjoying the game equally than just pushing those aside that wish to take part.

My comment is not intended to cause anger or cause an upset, it's merely an opinion and past experience.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Dreams.3128 said:

Gshade never tampered with things like how FF and WoW mods would tho. FF and WoW mods tampered with things like the actual assets, while also giving clear advantage to gameplay. Gshade is there just to allow you to take pretty screenshots

Precisely. It was not a mod you might expect to create any issues. And yet it did. Just because one of its devs had a bad day (well, more than just one day, actually, but that's besides the point).

So, seeing as even seemingly benign and completely innocent  mod can cause issues, it's easy to understand why Anet devs might be wary of giving blanket stamps of approval on more of that stuff.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Nilkemia.8507]

No.

 

The issue with GShade validates the concern that any mod could be a Trojan Horse lying in wait, or become one later.

 

Keep that out of here.

 

 

[Doctor Hide.6345]

6 hours ago, Nilkemia.8507 said:

No.

 

The issue with GShade validates the concern that any mod could be a Trojan Horse lying in wait, or become one later.

 

Keep that out of here.

 

 

You know you don't personally have to use the mods right if they were allowed? It's not like it would affect you or the server if someone used them. All an affected one(if it did happen again which is not likely. I am saying this with having experience of many mods in different games. Most are clean.) would do is affect just that PC it is on client side. If you don't personally use them, then it would not harm you in any way because the actual server is still safe and sound.

If a person wants to take the risk, I say let them. The risk is low btw because you can't be scared of potential threats. If you are scared of potential threats, I would recommend to not even be online because anything can be a risk if someone warrants it enough.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Doctor Hide.6345

[cyberzombie.7348]

I've said this years ago, hotjoin servers in PvP would be perfect sandboxes for modding. 

[araiya.5160]

Weird question in the title since they obviously already allow mods, but  a n y w a y . . .

BlishHUD with all its submods does most everything I'd want. I use the Pathing (Taco compatible), Characters (quick switcher), Clock, Mouse Cursor (omg, wonderful), Inquest Chipset (quick clicker), and Item Search. And there are so many more available and new ones getting added all the time.

But, I'd love a mod framework like what that-other-big-name-mmo has done. I've seen such wonderful work spawn from that framework.

I really miss being able to fully mod my user interface appearance. The obvious being able to move all UI items, but also skinning. Maybe even advanced things like a circular minimap. With access to the right APIs, I bet some awesome person would create an LFG that is MUCH better than what we have. etc. etc. And man, it'd be nice to have quick click icons for a few things in my bags.

On the more iffy side of things:

Have a method to mute annoying sound effects, or even change them to be easier to hear in some cases. God that new ghost mini that sounds like a constant toypocalypse....

Have a method to do the same with visual effects, though replacement is more iffy here... like if a certain thing is deliberately hard to see you shouldn't be able to turn it into a huge bright alert graphic, hah. Honestly, I don't think there's any solution here. Many players will always find ways to be an eye sore, they just love the "look at me!" effect. Get more than ten people in a room and you'll have at least one kittenhole. 😉

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

17 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Precisely. It was not a mod you might expect to create any issues. And yet it did. Just because one of its devs had a bad day (well, more than just one day, actually, but that's besides the point).

So, seeing as even seemingly benign and completely innocent  mod can cause issues, it's easy to understand why Anet devs might be wary of giving blanket stamps of approval on more of that stuff.

If mods here were to go the way of ESO, they're actually restricted by an API Zenimax developed.  Sure, they can crash your game (Usually by overflowing w ith error messages), but that's rare (I've had it happen once in over 5k hours of playing and that was due to an out of date library I forgot to update, not malicious code), and if they do on purpose, they're taken down.  I'm also pretty sure that ESO addons are open source, so anything malicious or exploitative can be found probably before it's actually put into game.

[Bookah pls.9352]

The things i would do for a gw2 version of weak auras.

It doesn't matter what game i play, i always feel like weak auras could improve it.

[Domlek.7918]

On 12/31/2022 at 2:46 AM, Vyr.9387 said:

Mods are a grand thing because they're made by passionate people for other passionate people, which no company can even fathom to ever come close to, be it in workforce or, many times, said passion, too.

The choices in the poll are a bit too invasive, aren't they?
What I envision would be what I'd loved in WoW - the malleability of the UI.
Dug up some ancient sshots for illustration:
here's the default layout (the only option of the vanilla UI was turning on or off the additional hotbars - the top row)
and here's a very tamely modded one.

As you can see, there's a Grid add-on to see the entire raid (customizable to show the amount of absorbs, incoming healing, DoTs... literally everything needed including the tiles acting like a targeting said person),
a CD tracker I can't quite recall the name of,
the bread-and-butter of raiding at the time - Deadly Boss Mods - contributing the timers and alerts for fight mechanics, automatic callouts (like you see Shadowned in the chat proclaiming "Malleable Goo on me!") for targeted spells, and a bunch of other stuff,
and the hotbars looking very different - and transparent unless moused over - while being able to be put literally anywhere thanks to Bartender.

But virtually every aspect of the UI could be customized, from the (mini-)map (starting at simple visual tweaks done by SexyMap to things as extensive as Carbonite, which was more or mostly less what Blish does in GW2) to bags, browsing the game's item database, chat turned into Messenger with stored conversations, personalized windows for whispers...
You can just browse CurseForge and salivate over the sheer amount of things there, not to talk about their functionality.

There have never been any gameplay changes, though, as the majority of the poll's options seems to be suggesting.
Which is a pretty ridiculous proposition to start with for a multiplayer game of MMO proportions, and should definitely stay within the offline realms.

As for the cash-in question: I voted yes, because everybody profits from people enjoying the game, if indirectly.
SHIKASHI.
In case EA.net rises from its slumber in another cycle of devouring greed as it's been the case with the Build "Templates" - which is not even a kitten anymore, but a full-grown feline apex predator - there should be no mercy.
People deserve more than this nonsense, even if they don't know any better.

This reminds me of the recent world first in Final Fantasy 14. The creators are right when they say that mods like DBM destroy the point of hard content. Imagine an addon telling you what to do at all times during HT CM. Everyone would manage the strike without any problems if you have at least 3 brain cells. I am absolutely against raid/strike mods that give you timers for certain mechanics. Where is the difficulty? Where is the skill? If you don't have to use your brain anymore....

[Bookah pls.9352]

57 minutes ago, Domlek.7918 said:

This reminds me of the recent world first in Final Fantasy 14. The creators are right when they say that mods like DBM destroy the point of hard content. Imagine an addon telling you what to do at all times during HT CM. Everyone would manage the strike without any problems if you have at least 3 brain cells. I am absolutely against raid/strike mods that give you timers for certain mechanics. Where is the difficulty? Where is the skill? If you don't have to use your brain anymore....

It's funny that you say this yet wow has had boss mods since raiding began and every single tier since the very beginning there are guilds who don't manage to clear all content despite using the boss mods.

I'd love to watch someone who doesn't like boss mods attempt something like wows mythic archimonde laser mechanic successfully.

[Khisanth.2948]

3 hours ago, Bookah pls.9352 said:

The things i would do for a gw2 version of weak auras.

That is actually one of the biggest reasons against adding in mod support.

Using that is like someone joining the Tour de France with an ebike.

1 hour ago, Bookah pls.9352 said:

It's funny that you say this yet wow has had boss mods since raiding began and every single tier since the very beginning there are guilds who don't manage to clear all content despite using the boss mods.

I'd love to watch someone who doesn't like boss mods attempt something like wows mythic archimonde laser mechanic successfully.

So mods are basically mandatory in WoW?

Another reason against adding mod support. The devs end up making content with the expectation that mods will be used and anyone not using said mods end up being handicapped.

[Ashen.2907]

25 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

Another reason against adding mod support. The devs end up making content with the expectation that mods will be used and anyone not using said mods end up being handicapped.

Indeed.

[Bladestrom.6425]

29 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That is actually one of the biggest reasons against adding in mod support.

Using that is like someone joining the Tour de France with an ebike.

So mods are basically mandatory in WoW?

Another reason against adding mod support. The devs end up making content with the expectation that mods will be used and anyone not using said mods end up being handicapped.

mods became mandatory after first raid in that game, you needed mods for buffing and depuffing effectively, and then it got worse from there with ever decreasing circles of red avoid or die nonsense as each new raid had to outdo the previous.

Edited February 9, 2023 by vesica tempestas.1563

[Domlek.7918]

On 2/9/2023 at 5:28 PM, Bookah pls.9352 said:

It's funny that you say this yet wow has had boss mods since raiding began and every single tier since the very beginning there are guilds who don't manage to clear all content despite using the boss mods.

I'd love to watch someone who doesn't like boss mods attempt something like wows mythic archimonde laser mechanic successfully.

Yeah but that sounds like a problem because of the mod. I don't know how blizzard tests the bosses but I think they would make it more managable without mods if they wouldn't be meta since day 1. Honestly this sounds more like a balancing problem because of existing mods rather than just hard bosses you could do without these.

[Bladestrom.6425]

4 hours ago, Domlek.7918 said:

Yeah but that sounds like a problem because of the mod. I don't know how blizzard tests the bosses but I think they would make it more managable without mods if they wouldn't be meta since day 1. Honestly this sounds more like a balancing problem because of existing mods rather than just hard bosses you could do without these.

 

The problem with wow is that its a vertical raiding game. that means every raid must be bigger than previous raid with greater rewards, more interesting, blah blah and a challenge for people with meta gear they spent the last 3 months grinding - ad infinitum. That means ever more complex levels if silliness in terms of layered boss circles of death to the point where you need automation to track everything. During early days it had 40 man raids, that's a lot of debuffing in mid of fight - so again you need mods. 

 

Root problem is vertical progression  games where content = repeating instances for numbers on a meter.  Blizzards is caught in a trap of its own making in effect, thankfully Anet and horizontal progression games are not.