Is WoW Light on RPG Elements?

[Chronometer]

What the fuck? This would be objectively awful. Sure, make random leveling mobs or world mobs or whatever have this lame early 2000's JRPG "resistance" system. The moment you put this into M+ or Raid content is the day I, and pretty much anyone else who cares about playing this game beyond world quests and LFR, quit. Remember when Fire Mages just literally could not play their spec in Molten Core? I remember, that was such incredible game design, so much customization!

Don't forget the trash packs of 3 massive drakonids with twirling swords in BWL who were only susceptible to one damage type and massively resistant to others.

[kamuimac]

Obviously the defining characteristic of the RPG genre is choice, and meaningful choice at that (hopefully). They've made an effort in that department with the covenants, and it remains to be seen what happens with that system.

But do you think the game in general lacks a lot of RPG flavor? Do you think WoW is just an action-adventure game with RPG window-dressing? Are you satisfied with the itemization of the game or do you think it has room to be deeper and more thought-provoking? Do you think a game like WoW can even allow that?

wow hasnt been rpg for years now.

its instance symulator.

[Loveliest]

When I think of RPG I think mostly I'm interested in focus on the story, my main character's involvement in that story, resolving a situation through means specific to my character and a lot of dialogue/ interaction with npcs and party members (also specific to my character). So from this pov, WoW does not really satisfy my RPG need. But I knew that from the get go, it was never going to let my char influence the story in any meaningful way. And options regards to gearing and stuff like that are largely irrelevant, not exactly the main focus of an RPG.

[Stormgnoef]

after wod wow pretty much stopped being rpg and got turned into action game with fast pace combat.Just log into classic and see the difference.

[Chonar]

I dunno man. I usually roll for initiative whenever we pull, but the mobs keep ignoring it, and my party members just yell expletives about me "wasting time" and "omg we're on an M+ timer wtf". It's all very confusing.

[korijenkins]

WoW stripped away almost all of the RPG elements it once had to cater to a general audience that was never particularly interested in playing the game anyway. Things that were annoying, that felt unnecessary, were also immersive and important.

Weapon skills being maxed out was important for a melee class even if it was annoying, but the process of maxing them out was still something that felt good to do. The old talent system, while equally susceptible to cookie cutter builds, also allowed a large amount of freedom to make your own builds. Wanna be a Blood DK with a pet? You can! Queuing for Dungeons and Raids was a disastrous decision, it killed server communities.

[Specialka]

WoW stripped away almost all of the RPG elements it once had to cater to a general audience that was never particularly interested in playing the game anyway. Things that were annoying, that felt unnecessary, were also immersive and important.

Weapon skills being maxed out was important for a melee class even if it was annoying, but the process of maxing them out was still something that felt good to do. The old talent system, while equally susceptible to cookie cutter builds, also allowed a large amount of freedom to make your own builds. Wanna be a Blood DK with a pet? You can! Queuing for Dungeons and Raids was a disastrous decision, it killed server communities.

All you said where the best decisions ever made for Wow.

[VinceVega]

I do not understand how people think wow was ever a heavy RPG game. It never had much in regards to RPG other than character development.

Be it yours or NPCs. NPC development came in WOTLK. Before that it was your journey. Choice was never an option. It clashes to hard with the MMO aspect of the game.

I love RPGs. I love them with choices. PoE, Mass Effect (ironic i know but still you had many choices to make), Baldurs Gate, Dragon Age. But there are games without choices which are also praised. Think of the heavily streamlined Final Fantasy Games.

But none of them are MMOs. MMOs with choices that interlock with the MMO aspect are nothing but detrimental to the core game which is Teamwork.

Keep the choices to not affect the gameplay/power. Side with different factions. Fine. Different stories on different playthroughs. Great. Do that.
I am looking forward what they have to say about it this evening. Because what we have right now will lock you basically in one spec with one field to play. If you want to reach anything. Or not look like an idiot if someone plays with you with the same spec but "the right" covenant for that activity. Everything is just way to powerful. Corruptions all over again.

[Alkizon]

Quote of justice

Shadoowpunk
Is it a RPG thing making a permanent choice? Yes it is.

No, RPG is presence of set/constructor for formation "something", subject to certain rules of interaction of its parts. Something may be permanent and something may not, but this isn't its fundamental characteristic.

Shadoowpunk
Make covenants not punishing to switch (aka not lose soulbind progression, legendary, traits, conduits etc) BUT make it take 1 week

this is not solution, this is crutch for initially poor system

I agree with speaker below that “story role and character path choices” are also not the least in mentioning genre, but in MMORPG discussions these less relevant.

Also

WoW stripped away almost all of the RPG elements it once had to cater to a general audience that was never particularly interested in playing the game anyway. Things that were annoying, that felt unnecessary, were also immersive and important.

Weapon skills being maxed out was important for a melee class even if it was annoying, but the process of maxing them out was still something that felt good to do. The old talent system, while equally susceptible to cookie cutter builds, also allowed a large amount of freedom to make your own builds. Wanna be a Blood DK with a pet? You can! Queuing for Dungeons and Raids was a disastrous decision, it killed server communities.

Yes mostly, except "Queuing" didn't, CR(Z) interaction did (although, if this wording emphasized, for example, criticism of current "progress vs content" organization, I could partially agree, see link further). Saying this, I must also clarify that shards/phasing/auto-teleport(now also WM) did (killed wholeness) world. A properly organized "Queuing" won't ruin anything.

ps. Here some words about weapon skills disappearing.

[rrayy]

What Blizzard should do is to keep some specs with a clear advantage (between 5-10%) and make it so that in the same instance or raid different specs get a chance to shine. If we are only talking about a Molten Core-like experience, it doesn't matter how much I like the format (I really do!) but it will not be a good design to heavily favour only one spec. In a 6 boss encounter raid there is nothing holding Blizzard back from including two bosses that are weaker to Ice/Shadow, two more that are weak to Fire/Lightning, a couple more that are weak to Holy/Arcane and so on. Even for melee classes it would work quite well, with two which are weaker to DoTs, two more that are weak to arpen/elements, and finally two that are a bit resistant to DoTs.

So have fun only being able to raid two bosses each week. Alll guilds will do is switch players out every boss to stack the advantage. That is a good way to kill the game.

[Venziir]

Story choice and character choice are two completely different things. When people say they want meaningful or impactful choice in a RPG on this forum they're talking about how you build your character and the permanence or semi permanence of those choices. Nobody gives a rats ass about narrative choices or cosmetic choices, those aren't impactful when it comes to playing your character.

Erm.... What? Have you played stuff like DA:O, Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Those games are all about narrative choices and thus affecting the story. "Nobody"... Lulz.

[rrayy]

Weapon skills being maxed out was important for a melee class even if it was annoying, but the process of maxing them out was still something that felt good to do. The old talent system, while equally susceptible to cookie cutter builds, also allowed a large amount of freedom to make your own builds. Wanna be a Blood DK with a pet? You can! Queuing for Dungeons and Raids was a disastrous decision, it killed server communities.

Wrong in every way. First, you are re-stating the same myth about the old talent trees. There was no freedom. Just the illuysion of it. If you want ed to play end game, you had to use the cookie cutter build or be laughed at and told "Git gud newb". Weapons kills was the stupidest most idiotic waste of time ever in the game. Also, queueing did not ruin server communities. Players did.

[Tartys]

Obviously the defining characteristic of the RPG genre is choice, and meaningful choice at that (hopefully). They've made an effort in that department with the covenants, and it remains to be seen what happens with that system.

But do you think the game in general lacks a lot of RPG flavor? Do you think WoW is just an action-adventure game with RPG window-dressing? Are you satisfied with the itemization of the game or do you think it has room to be deeper and more thought-provoking? Do you think a game like WoW can even allow that?

You choose the wrong genre of MMORPG.

WoW it's a Theme Park MMO... You are only allow to move in a pre-determinate path and go to the different "attractions" at each stop. Nothing more than this.
Only Sandbox MMOPRG allow players freely to choose wich path follow, and fit more well the definition of RPG genre...

So, Wow its by definition a genre of MMO far away from RPG idea where a choise metter. If you wanna more "RPG flavor" move to a Sandbox MMO.

[Nzx]

Don't forget the trash packs of 3 massive drakonids with twirling swords in BWL who were only susceptible to one damage type and massively resistant to others.

Sounds like fun and engaging flavour to me!

[Marrilaife]

The mistake is making every choice about utility so sooner or later there's an "optimal" choice decreed by the community.

Why garrisons couldn't be "player housing" and had to be "do x and z to print gold otherwise you're an idiot"?

Why covenants can't be just about story, lore and transmog set / mount but have to gate a part of your class toolkit?

Why races need to have combat enhancing racials and not just be a choice of appearance and maybe some flavour perks (+5 to cooking is not really that impactful, contrary to abilities that allow you to ignore game mechanics or increase your dps).

You can't make an MMO with branching story and world changing choices, because you'd fragment the playerbase. It's already bad enough we have servers and factions dividing players.

You can't scrap the power progression because it's one of the pillars of the game.

But you could make that not everything exists to feed the power progression and there are things you can do for fun without losing out on character power.

[SirBeef]

I honestly can't see how it would be any different to the previous choices in WoW.

1. Aldor or Scryer in TBC. Pick the one that Elitist Jerks said was best for your class.

2. Oracles or Frenzyheart in WotLK. Pick whether you want a mount and pets or a toy. Swap when you've got the stuff you want.

3. Pick a covenant in SL. Forgive me for being Mr Pessimistic, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say we'll pick whatever Icy Veins tells us is best for our class.

And that's the problem. Either it's not important and nobody cares about it, or it's important enough that somebody else will tell you which to pick.

1, picked what I felt was best for my character according to lore.
2, never bothered because I didn't care for the rewards.
3, I'll pick what I feel fits thematically for my character or my own character's head canon.

[WowIsDead64]

Obviously the defining characteristic of the RPG genre is choice, and meaningful choice at that (hopefully). They've made an effort in that department with the covenants, and it remains to be seen what happens with that system.

But do you think the game in general lacks a lot of RPG flavor? Do you think WoW is just an action-adventure game with RPG window-dressing? Are you satisfied with the itemization of the game or do you think it has room to be deeper and more thought-provoking? Do you think a game like WoW can even allow that?

Blizzard use buzzwords, when it suits them. Such as "immersion", "homogenization", "class fantasy", etc. Their new buzzword is "meaningful choice". Yeah... And after all that BFA crap will we have moral choice in SL? Nope, game is still railed as hell, so we still can't choose, whether we want to be good guys or bad. And are covenants really about choice? Aren't they about "you will need to regrind them in every patch, as we'll constantly swing balance between them"? Aren't they about "you actually need them all"?

[ymirsson]

This topic always boils down to WoW not having dialogue trees like TES/Fallout or permanent choices

Who would argue in favour of these dialogue trees? In Modern terms it would be the TikTok of RPG elements.

[Candy Cough]

Its a thing of the past sadly, modern gamers want action not boring grind of stats and min maxing. Its a reason why fallout 4/Skyrim are so dumbed down but still outsold games like morrowind 100x times besides the consensus that «Morrowind is so much better than skyrim»

Morrowind has 300 peak players, skyrim has 20,000. Retail is also more populated than classic

It’s fine imo, expertise and hitrating are such boring stats simply there to be annoying. Its almost as if classic tries to punish you as much as possible. I play games to have fun, not to have a second job. However, things such as elemental resistances could have stayed, as they aren’t neccesary but helps out a great deal.

[Sansnom]

Obviously the defining characteristic of the RPG genre is choice, and meaningful choice at that (hopefully). They've made an effort in that department with the covenants, and it remains to be seen what happens with that system.

But do you think the game in general lacks a lot of RPG flavor? Do you think WoW is just an action-adventure game with RPG window-dressing? Are you satisfied with the itemization of the game or do you think it has room to be deeper and more thought-provoking? Do you think a game like WoW can even allow that?

I always felt WoW was an action-adventure and not a RPG. There are very little choices in the game beyond choosing a spec and the talents. The talents themselves are limited. Even the old talent choice did not have any real choices. It gave the illusion of the choices since most of the skills would be picked anyway.

That is not entirely bad thing. Action-adventure game are fun to play, which is really what matters at the end. Is the game fun to play?

Is it possible to add role playing elements into the game? Possibly. Light ones at least. They could make certain quests chains to have choices where it branches out to different paths and people can choose which paths to take. Of course it cannot involve the killing of plot characters since it would be strange to see or not see that character. Phasing has its problem with groups.

Is it worth doing? Depends. Many players decisions are driven by loot. So if there is a choice to be made, it will be made based on which is the best reward to improve their character.