Is it possible to have a real strategic element to this game?
Strategy here is the opposite of tactics. As a wiser person than myself once said “Tactics are what you do when there’s something to do; Strategy is what you do when there’s nothing to do.”
Arena, DPS Rotations, Mage Tower - they all feel like tactics to me. We’ve assessed the gameplay, we know what actions have the highest outcome of winning. Therefore, when the enemy does X, you should do Y. That’s a bit reductionist, but the point is it’s not strategy no matter how many factors you put into “when the enemy does X, you should do Y.”
My thinking is, assuming decent balance, the battlegrounds could be the part of the game with real strategy, especially Epic BGs, though in their current iteration isn’t not really paying off like it should.
So here are the questions:
Is it possible to have a real strategic element to this game?
If it is possible, where would you like to see it? Or how should it be implimented
If you don’t think it’s possible, is there anything we can change to build it in?
ok napoleon bonaparte , to be honest , i don’t really know . Do players really want deep strategy ? in BGs , you have people playing kills instead of objectives
most players have their brains off , and just want to blast dps
Good point. I think that in normal combat tactics is paramount (reacting to circumstances and adapting), but in pet battles you need a good strategy to win, if the opponent team is at your level. Regarding your general style of play, it can be guided by tactics (encounter by encounter) or strategy and planning. I think neither style is clearly better.
Before the widespread advent of walkthroughs and youtube guides, yeah I think there was a much greater strategic element to WoW PvE Encounters. Now though… before we even step foot into a raid, people often watch several videos describing everything, removing the mystery and the need to adapt.
I think there still is strategy, but only when things go wrong. Like I’m tanking the last boss of Vault of the Wardens, and two dps die late in the fight… now the healer and tank and last melee dps have to step up their game and manage the light, avatars, and puddles where earlier, having the full group would have nullified that mechanic.
I’m not sure if Arkane has ever asked a question in earnest, but if you are reading this and maybe wondering the same thing, here’s my response:
Nothing wrong with tactics, but not everyone enjoys games centered around rote memory. As such it’s valuable to ask “Is the game catering to as many play styles as it could? And if not, should it?”
My guild back in WOTLK put in a lot of strategy into raiding. I think what took a lot of that away was to top raiding guilds posting videos of how they handle encounters. In wrath and cataclysm, I never heard “go watch the fat boss video before we do the fight.” Now it seems like everyone just watches a video and can’t use their own brain to come up with a proper strategy.
There is still strategy at the top mythic level of raiding, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played with a guild that doesn’t just all watch the same video and copy the strategy. It’s a shame really. The most fun I’ve ever had in WOW is with guilds that choose to not watch videos and craft their own strategies.
I can’t really speak for pvp, but I imagine top arena teams have at least a couple different strategies before each match and adapt.
It never has and never will. After 17 years Lizzard puts as little effort in this game as possible in order to keep it profitable. And Ion clearly designs this game strictly for raiders.
I can’t answer this, but it seems to me a few things are true:
The higher you climb in arena the fewer mistakes you encounter
The higher you climb in arena the more a team is well aware of the win condition
The higher you climb in arena the more likely it is that the team knows the win rates associated with both their comp in general, and their comp playing into the enemy comp in a given match
Therefore, it seems obvious to me that in 2200+ arena the game outcome hinges on a single mistake
But this makes me ask, this far into the game, with as many times they have reinvented their wheel, can they even?
I think there are too many limitations, both technologically and when it comes to the people who run this game, to prevent them from doing something like that. I feel like Blizzard limits themselves a lot sometimes. Themself? I never understood whether to address Blizzard as a singular entity or as a whole bunch of individuals. I don’t really care about that though.
The point of a strategy is to get the other team to make that mistake first, though. I don’t know much about pvp, but to me a strategy would be something like popping multiple damage cooldowns while attacking their rogue, but then immediately death gripping their healer over to try to get the rogue to waste a defensive and having that kind of thing planned in advance.