The feeling of complexity

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about some of the changes that were implemented in World of Warcraft with the release of the Legion content patch.

On Wednesday 20th, 2016 the World of Warcraft (WoW) Legion Pre-Expansion Patch went live on European realms and implemented all the major game changes that are part of the next WoW Expansion which will be released on August 30th. At first, after I started the game for the first time since I upgraded to WoW Version 7.0.3, I was really skeptical as the glyphs system as well as some of my most used warrior skills, I play a protection warrior, got removed. Suddenly, the game seemed more simplistic than ever before!

World of Warcraft

However, after thoroughly analyzing the changes, I came to the conclusion that the alterations were not as drastic as I thought. As the glyphs system got implemented with the release of the Wrath of the Lichking expansion, it seemed to be a very interesting game mechanic that challenged the decision making of the players as only a few glyphs could have been active at a time. Hence, players were required to chose only those glyphs that matched their personal playstyle or provided them with the best bonus. Unfortunately, the system never had many valid alternatives for a certain playstyle and, as a result of this, I had to change my selected glyphs only when Blizzard introduced significant changes to the glyphs. Therefore, despite having the potential to implement a certain complexity, the glyphs system never played a significant role during my gameplay.

In contrast to the glyphs system, Heroic Strike, one of the warrior skills that got removed, played a significant role during my gameplay. Using this skill was useful to significantly increase the damage I could cause while tanking less dangerous bosses. Interestingly, Blizzard also implemented a new skill which, once activated, increases the damage of a different ability but does no longer cause direct damage. In the end, using the new skill has the exact same effect as it increases the damage I can cause, hence I have not lost anything except for a good feeling during the gameplay when more numbers indicating my damage were shown.

In sum, the Legion content patch has just streamlined the gameplay by removing features that were not used very often. Strangely, although the game has not lost much complexity, it still feels as if the game has got more simplistic. It seems that even rarely used game mechanics can highly increase the feeling of playing a more complex game. Also, I wonder what would have happened if Blizzard, instead of removing the glyphs system completely, had improved the glyphs by providing more valid alternatives. In the end, although my normal gameplay has not changed by a great deal, I wish the developers would have just added more features to the game to make it more challenging.

RIP Heroic Strike.