The "Meaningful Choice" Fallacy

Community General Discussion
81

The problem in general seems to be that there’s no way to have meaningful choices with cool abilities since elements of the community will immediately min-max all the flavor out of it, declare X the optimal choice for Y content and then at the highest level everyone uses X. The wannabes who imitate the highest level see everyone using X and then also start using X exclusively and ostracize anyone not using X. Then the middle-tier elements of the game see the top tier and the tryhards using X and also demand X, and since this tier is often the most toxic, selfish and rudest of the bunch they outright insult anyone who doesn’t use X.

You see where this goes, because it’s gone that way for almost everything else, whether it matters or not. Eventually the perception becomes that X good, everything else bad, anyone not using X is a baddie/scrub and should be kicked/declined for not picking X.

This is not how any sort of game, let alone an RPG, should function. But there’s no easy way to fix it without stripping abilities of anything that makes them interesting, which would make them a superfluous choice and probably get a lot of “why even bother” sort of remarks if it doesn’t have a tangible benefit. If the covenant was just a neat world power and cosmetics/non-tangible benefits it would satisfy the RP aspect but not the gameplay aspect. Making it too tangible satisfies the gameplay aspect and kills the RP aspect because people are going to pick the best effect irrespective of the RP part in many cases because they don’t want to be shunned from content for picking RP > Gameplay.

The double-edged sword here is that you have a game which wants meaningful abilities and wants to inject flavor and choice, and a player base which has (de)evolved into not caring about anything but the best choice for any piece of content. Being “good enough” is no longer the baseline, it’s “best or nothing”.

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82

This isn’t Meaningful choice fallacy. This is Blizzard Fallacy. They keep thinking what they’re doing for balance is good and that they will be able to balance multiple systems they add into their game for one expansion. Blizzard has shown us time and time again that they are not capable of balancing their game. And buffing/nerfing covenants while shadowlands is live and it is “hard” to change is going to be a gong show.

They need to recognize their own limits and make the game with those in mind.

Also stop giving us choice and just make the game fun. Some people like to be punished for their choices but the majority does not.

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83

Legion had no signature abilities like this. The artifact weapon wasn’t poorly received either.

I dislike rental power but there are clearly good and bad directions to go here. If convents were just class abilities, story and cosmetics is that still not enough RPG choice? Why does anyone need the teleport?

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84

I disagree. You and I both know this would allow the “no-lifers” to simply min-max at will depending on the encounter.

Increasing the cost per swap i.e. a % increase every swap that does eventually cap at, let’s say 100% and resets every season/tier accomplishes everything Blizzard wants to achieve: “meaningful player choice”, eventually punative measures for the repeat swappers, and a reason to play/maintain alts (remember, alts will be able to pick their covenant from the get so if you need ability A for Encounter Z, you will the alt to compensate).

And that is where, perhaps, the true choice lies: individual player progression or sacrificing for the greater good of guild/group progression.

85

Exactly, we’re going to min max FULL STOP. So just stop thinking we won’t blizzard. Just make the game fun! Give us agency not choice! Let us build and design our characters the way we like – give us enchants, gems and reforging again.

86

I’d just get rid of any borrowed power at this point. Let Covenants have the cosmetic armor and stuff, but remove anything that’s soulbinds, signature abilities and all that.

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87

Remember when a faction would give you a cool tabard and recipes?

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88

Who cares if min/maxers want to swap on every encounter? Does that effect you at all? Stop worrying about how others want to play the game and focus on yourself. People like you are the reason we have many of the garbage systems that are in place today. For some reason you can’t handle getting beat by someone who puts more time/effort into the game, so you want Blizzard to turn the entire game into a daycare center where everyone gets the same rewards for doing differing amounts of work.

This whole “everybody gets a trophy” society we live in absolutely sucks and in the end nobody wins.

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89

i think you meant to say that blizzard has an absolute track record of being completely incapable of balancing these kinds of things, not once has utility ever been anywhere nearing anything that vaguely resembled balanced

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90

Imo if I want to change what amounts to a talent, I shouldn’t have to change my covenant. Covenant identity should matter, and we should have the freedom to choose our gameplay independent of that.

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91

What does me getting “beat by someone who puts more time into the game than me” have to do with anything?

I think you’re drawing some rather sketchy conclusions here, friend.

In fact, one could argue that:

A) they put “more time into the game than I do”, they will have more gold and are therefore more able to afford punative measures.

B) It sounds as if you are the one who needs more “help with the game” than I, and many others do if, by having to min-max every encounter, you are-presumably-unable to beat said theoretical encounter otherwise.

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It’s pretty easy to draw conclusions about what type of gameplay someone focuses on based on their profile & achievements. Based on your achievements and what you have done in this game I’m going to go ahead and say you are not the type of person that is ever going to be able to achieve what high level min/maxers achieve.

Your first comment, “A)”, makes it very clear that you want people who are either better than you, have more gold than you, or play the game more than you to suffer.

As far as “B)” goes, this kind of ties back into the first couple sentences of this post. You are obviously not the kind of person that pushes high level content, so obviously you aren’t going to need to rely on min/maxing. Easy content is easy, regardless if you min/max or not. Players that focus on high level/difficult content min/max because that is what is needed in order to clear that content with the least amount of problems.

This is just another case of a casual player wanting hard core players gameplay to be limited because they are unable to keep up.

93

Then don’t. I don’t plan on switching - that doesn’t mean other people need to be restricted to following my way of playing.

Casual/RP players like myself gain nothing for forcing other people into timesinking grinds to play the game optimally, the way they like.

If I value commitment, I can get that benefit in a flexible system - just like I can value a committed relationship in a society that allows people to sleep around and jump from relationship to relationship.

In fact - my commitment actually means MORE when the option to switch easily is there.

You can switch talents easily - and the way I play as an RP/Casual, with the people I play with doesn’t cause an issue.

The same will be the case in Shadowlands if the covenants are easily swappable. I’ll still stay committed to my first choice, I’ll still play with like-minded people that I enjoy playing with, and I won’t be impacted in any way by others changing things up when they want and if they want.

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94

You are one of the first self-proclaimed casual players I’ve ever seen who isn’t trying to slow down hardcore players progression because you are unable to keep up for whatever reason and I applaud you for that.

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There’s a lot of players like myself actually. Some even more “hardcore” in the RP elements we like.

I know players in my guild and communities that don’t use xmog or flying mounts because they don’t like those features. But they also don’t want those features removed from the game because they know that other people enjoy them - and that as long as they have the option to not use them, everything is gravy.

I also don’t understand the idea of being “unable to keep up”. Keep up with what? the only thing to “keep up with” would be the race to world 1st raiding? 99.9% of players aren’t even in that race.

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96

You could argue this, yes. The problem is that you’re immediately attaching a cost to it. You’re saying it’s OK to spend more time in game and get more out of it but you’ll have to compound the time.

There are two main arguments.

  1. Spending 2 hours in game gets you [1]. Therefore spending 4 hours in game gets you [2].
  2. The average time in game is 2 hours, so you get [1]. It’s not fair to people who only spend 2 hours if you have more time, so spending 4 hours gets you [1.5].

A person shouldn’t have to offset their additional leisure time just because others don’t have that time. If I have 4 hours a day to play, and you only have 2 hours, I shouldn’t have to “pay” for the luxury of having extra time.

It’s OK for players with less time to have less to show for it. That’s how life works, for good or ill. People who put less effort get less reward. There shouldn’t be “punitive measures” for people who put more effort in, that’s ridiculous.

A lot of players enjoy min-maxing as it’s own separate form of gaming. When I play Morrowind, for example, I draw up a spreadsheet and find the optimal route to leveling. It’s not that I don’t like Morrowind, or that I want to avoid playing, it’s just that truly maximizing my character is just so good. It’s just an incredible feeling to know I’m getting absolutely every last drop out of the situation.

I could absolutely beat the game without min-maxing. I know this because I did, plenty of times, before I started min-maxing. Then I discovered a different way of playing and I ran with it. I don’t play every game that way, but I often prefer the ones I can because it’s an entirely different mental environment.

I’m not a min-maxer in WoW. I just don’t have the energy for it, honestly. I think that people who want to min-max shouldn’t be punished for that desire, though. Who cares if they get ahead of me? Who cares if they don’t have to “pay the cost,” besides time investment, for that extra power?

By that logic we should all have to pay an amount of gold for the power we accrue. You want to be a 435 casual with 23k DPS? That’ll be 700g per week. I mean… you think this stuff is earned just by getting the stuff? No, you need to be punished for wanting to use it.

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I didn’t mean the “unable to keep up” thing in a bad way, I should have clarified.

What I mean by that is that you don’t push certain content for various reasons ranging from you don’t have time or you just don’t enjoy it.

Call me a casual when it comes to things like pet battles, arenas/pvp and a lot of other aspects of the game. I don’t enjoy them so I don’t do them. My focus is on M+ and raiding for the most part.

98

I thought pet battles were stupid until my husband showed me how useful they were for Mechagon/Nazjatar rep. I still think they’re not a major source of content but now I kind of like them. (I do have to avoid using guides or the only interesting part is lost)

Full disclosure: I like competitive Pokémon battling, though.

99

I will do stuff like that if I am just sitting here watching a movie and want something I can kinda mindlessly afk while doing, but aside from that it gets super boring super fast.

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At the end of the day, it’s going to suck if different Covenants are good for different types of content.

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