Originally Posted by
Niter
Well, there are some elements which are important in an RPG: choosing the race, gender, looks and the gear that brings out the best concept you've envisioned for that character (transmog, mounts, pets). You can have a backstory if you so choose, and that is a crucial aspect that most people overlook (and perhaps one of the reasons WoW hasn't been what it once was is that characters, the lore and locations matter less nd less, so most things story-wise feel empty).
When it comes to choice within the story and the game world, then I must say that WoW was never stellar to begin with, but at least there used to be some choice: you could farm rep for specific mounts, there were factions you could subscribe to (Aldor vs Scriers, the WotLK factions also had a different feel to them, Pandaria allowed for a few things) but it doesn't seem it has progressed at all. In Legion the Order Halls were great to provide that extra flavour, and were a welcome addition. Now we are unlikely to get anything like that.
Up to WoTLK there were more options in terms of sub-stats, gems and enchants. Now it is not as deep. Talents have never been that big of a deal since the good ones were obvious and the viable ones were known. But I can't help it but feel that the latest talent system is worse due to there being fewer choices, lots of talents that mean nothing, add little to no flavour or, worse yet, add back to the class/spec abilities that it used to have, so you must buy with talent points abilities that you once had.
It would be a good idea to have things like some monster having stronger armour, so bleeds and poisons would fit best to deal damage; then, another boss who's got higher armour but is less susceptible to bleeds and poisons, so armour penetration would be better; another kind that had no armour, so big hits would be more damaging the bypassing armour or applying DoTs... in the same vein, there could be some monster which took a bit more damage from some elements, making an Arcane Mage deal, say 5% more damage in that particular encounter. This way characters could be optimised to deal with different types of enemies. The same thing applies to tanking, with some tanking being preferable in certain fights... Right now, when that happens, it's mostly due to imbalances than Blizzard actually making this decision.
The big issue seems to be that Blizzard cannot seem to play the 'some can do better than others at times, and worse at other instances' without completely borking a sub-stat or trying to come up with a solution in which enemies never change and all changes are done to the characters.
Choice, gameplay-wise, isn't there because it is not required, it is an afterthought at best.