Do restrictions automatically make choices more "meaningful"?

[Echo of Soul]

Depends really, what's definitely true though is that no restrictions at all make choices meaningless.

[Kithelle]

Or you could be you know... be the decent person and pick the RIGHT choice instead of picking the wrong choice based on your selfish needs and make 19 other people suffer for it.

I would rather be a team player and pick what the team needs over what I want, just because I want it. That's just me /shrug
To each their own.

If you can find 19 other suckers willing to live with your selfish choices, you should definitely do so.

Don't sound like much of a team player if you require your team mates to be perfect so they can carry you

[Dismayxz]

Yes, definitely, that would make class/race choice a hugely meaningful thing that people thought really carefully about. I'd probably main a Druid for starters. People would stick with characters much more, people would get much angrier even than they do now about bad class/race balance, and in general the impact would be huge and meaningful.

Not positive. But huge.

If this is intended to support your argument, rather than provide an example of the opposite, you don' fucked up son. Because that would be a very meaningful restriction which would change how the game played. Not all restrictions are meaningful, but that one would be.

Agreed that his example shot him in the foot. But like he said, it's also so heavily subjective. I -do- think that would make Class choices matter. Or race choices. You know what those two don't have? Huge additions to power. Your Class is or can be powerful, yes. But it's the main template for all the player power your are going to progress towards. It'd be lying if this thread wasn't a poke at the Covenant argument of 'meaningful'. And to me, for example, I would very much welcome meaningful choice if it was in all the right places for general enjoyment. Some people blatantly are in support of the current supposed "RPG meaningful choice" systems for SL, purely because it supposedly fucks over the 'Meta' mindset. Which, ironically, laughably - it doesn't. Because at the end of the day you could still level the 'Meta' class with it's 'Meta' specc in the process of less than a day to a day of playtime, get it geared up and any meaningful choice that was in the class system is gone.

Main reason I very much support the general point the OP is trying to make. This upcoming shit is just a shoehorned, sad excuse to lure in that super brainless "MUH RPG" crowd, when in reality, the problems that make the game devoid of that aspect lie with the pacing of much more fundamental things, that they (as evident by the outcome of the leveling speed with this upcoming leveling squish) will never change to a point where a class is actually objectively meaningful again.

Covenants, in scope, are just a shallow excuse of even a 'subclass'.

[Krakan]

I just don't get why?

With all the effort they put into this broken set of systems that are going to be distilled into a meta and act as nothing more then a newbie trap imagine what they could of accomplished without wasting so much time?

New dungeons? Maybe even a raid tier? Transmog items secrets extra story quests a whole host of possibilities maybe even add more to torghast and dare I say it a mage tower!

Instead we get an expansion pushed back because the systems are so comically broken that the same class and spec is doing anywhere between 10-40% more damage then the same class and spec...

[facefist]

If the whole point of your post was to say that comparing two things that the only metric you look at for how meaningful it is, is the level of restriction... I don't think a single person would argue that and makes your post pretty irrelevant. No wonder I missed the point of your post.

You missed it because you lack reading comprehension

[kaldari]

It is consequence that confers meaning upon a choice.

Maybe if people were kicked from guilds and such for their covenant choice, it would be meaningful. But Ion already stated this is 1) imaginary and 2) even if not imaginary, would be fixed by the ripcord. So they make a choice but intend there be no consequence, so therefore it has no meaning. It's just a performative choice, and a facade.

[Lord Pebbleton]

I think the right term here would be "inconvenience".

The flexibility of a system is measured by how easy it is to be inconvenienced by the cost you must pay to change something.
Azerite traits may be a relatively small part of gameplay and they would still be annoying to pay every time you want to change things up. But Classic has proven that even extremely meaningful choices, like specs, become a huge inconvenience when you have to pay an immense amount of gold to change your gameplay.

If a player is forced to either suck it or pay hefty amounts to get an edge, chances are that players will just stay with their current setup. The only solution would be to put a price tag on systems, but making it so small that it doesn't inconvenience anyone and still builds up over 100, 200 changes.

[TOM_RUS]

Choices are meaningful when you can choose best thing what what you currently do.
If you can't chose best thing for your current activity, then there's no choice at all.

[Ealyssa]

Azerite traits were restricted by a reforge cost

Classic mistake. Azerite weren't restricted by any mean. You litteraly could choose whatever you wanted.
The choice on the other side had a consequence.

Your confusing restriction of choice with consequence of choice. Restriction means you can't choose what you would like to choose. Consequence only means that your choice will impact things after you made it.

Retriction of choice aren't necessarily "meaningful". On the other side consequence of choice is extremely "meaningful", you can just go "yeah whatever, I can switch later" that's pretty much definition of "meaning" in a video game.

[Elias01]

there was never a meaningful choice in wow, never will be as long as there are raids and the class balance needed for those.
Neither there was in classic, or tbc, or wotlk, cata, pandaria, wod etc.
They literally made up this meaningful choiche thing out of their asses

Ahaha yes there was. If picking my class back in TBC wouldnt be meaingfull choice i wouldnt spend weeks of thinking about what i am gonna play.

[Eurhetemec]

This upcoming shit is just a shoehorned, sad excuse to lure in that super brainless "MUH RPG" crowd

I question whether this crowd actually exists.

[Elias01]

I question whether this crowd actually exists.

Yes it does and classic proved that. Clearly this compettive part of community what want play raid/dungeon simlutaro with low barrier of entry becouse they cant be bothered to care about world content were always minority.

[Krakan]

Yes it does and classic proved that. Clearly this compettive part of community what want play raid/dungeon simlutaro with low barrier of entry becouse they cant be bothered to care about world content were always minority.

I mean does anyone care about the world content beyond leveling?

[Elias01]

I mean does anyone care about the world content beyond leveling?

Yes? Like most casual what do not play game beyond LFG and LFR which are majority of players?

[bowchikabow]

Azerite gear can be swapped easily for barely any cost. So players just pick best traits what their item have based on guide = meaningless choice.

That is a result of gear acquisition and saturation. Prior to those elements (which are a natural outcome of participating in the content over a period of time), the azerite swap WAS cost prohibitive over a period of time. And for some classes, this was more painful than others. Druids, paladins, and I would argue DK's were adversely affected by this cost.

The choice is also considered in a vacuum. the essence of the choice is not taking into account 3rd party sites and completed theorycrafting (which is the argument that people often make for why such things have been bad for the game).

The idea was consequence, the outcome was "wait for the sims"... And that only affected something like.. 15 to 20% of WoW gamers? You would be amazed at the actual number of players who don't go to those kinds of sites, and also play a decent number of alts and specs.

[Logwyn]

By definition restricting choice make it more important or meaningful. It's fine not to like that but it doesn't change the fact that choice without restriction doesn't mean a lot.

Having to choose between a lot of options you don't like doesn't change that either although it makes it less of an issue to care about.

Not always. Let just say that Coca-Cola decided that for the next 20 years to make cans of coke all the colors of the rainbow. Then they decided to to just have white or red cans in color.

If all I want is a coke I really could care less what color the can is. My restricted choice in the color of the can has no meaning to me in the outcome of me wanting a coke.

Not all choices are meaningful or have importance. You also have to factor in individual taste and such as well. Something you care about I may have little meaning to me.

[MatPandaZ]

You missed it because you lack reading comprehension

Good talk, idiot.

[Lodreh]

Do restrictions automatically make choices more "meaningful"?

Some restrictions sure. Class choice.. yeah that should be meaningful. Race... again should help character identity and be meaningful. Talent choice... not so much... it's not meaningful to change a loadout before a fight. It is much more meaningful to know when to use the right tool for the job. If you have a choice of two buttons to press during the fight... one deals more damage... the other reduces incoming damage. The moment before the hit comes in you press a button... that was a meaningful choice as it dictates how the rest of the fight will go. Not having access to one of those buttons due to talent loadout before the fight kinda negates the choice during the fight. Likewise, in D&D you have what is called the economy of actions... if you are spending your time healing this round you are not dealing damage... and vice versa. The important decisions should come during the fight... not the prep before the fight.

Just my thoughts

[InfiniteCharger]

There hasn't been any meaningful choice for characters outside of race and class since WOW started.

At the end of the day we are talking about talent trees and talent choices. To some degree there has been meaningful choice in that.
But the restrictions on changing your mind has lessened over time. Not to mention you are not locked to a single talent tree per class.
That kind of restriction has never existed and adding it now is not meaningful choice when you want to play multiple specs.

[Osmeric]

I don't want "meaningful" decisions. I want fun decisions. I want enjoyable decisions.

I just got the SL beta. When I created a character, I am immediately confronted with a four-way choice. Actually, it was a five-way choice: I chose to log off.

The problem with this choice is that one is forced to make it without the experience to know what the right decision is. How can that be fun? It's fundamentally stupid game design.