War Craft: The Importance of a Game’s Fighting Mechanic

Left click. Number two key, number one key, number one key, number one key. Left click, number two key, number one key, number one key. The potential interest held for World of Warcraft’s fighting system is lost quickly. As I played through “Exile’s Reach,” the game’s introduction and tutorial questline, the repetitive and strategically simple way of killing enemies wore down on me. World of Warcraft placed a lot of quest importance on hitting the creatures in the universe around you, but despite the very common combat encounters, it never required much skill or thought. The game is older than many games I find myself playing, sure, but I couldn’t help but think of the more engaging types of combat I’m used to finding in games like Hollow Knight or Cult of the Lamb. Where’s the difference? There isn’t a formula for a “good” video game fight, or a “good” use of fighting within a game. Video games, like any other art form, will always be subjective. What can be important, though, is considering how effective a game’s combat is as a part of the user’s experience—whether it holds a player’s attention, requires them to learn and improve not only how they play, but the way they think about playing. When a game tells a narrative, it’s also important to look at combat as a possible tool, as a part of the theming itself or to encourage players to explore the stories and messages that a developer may be trying to convey. Taking inspiration from the plethora of video games that do fights well, World of Warcraft’s combat mechanics could not only bring more interest to these solo quests but also serve as a much more relevant pillar to the stories the game tells.  

So, how does WoW’s fighting work, and is it an effective game and story mechanic? Players are first introduced to their ability to harm adversaries in the first ever quest in the Exile’s Reach starting zone. “Warming Up” teaches the basic ideas of how to engage in player vs environment combat (or “PvE” combat, for short,) by showing how to lock onto a target (a training dummy) and how to use a character’s first attack skill (“Warming Up”). This usually involves using a cursor to select the entity the player is aiming for and using the numbered keys at the top of the keyboard to slash a sword at, shoot an arrow at, or throw a magic spell at the entity. Immediately following the first introduction to fighting is the quest “Stand Your Ground,” which has the player spar with an allied NPC to gain an understanding of keeping their character facing towards moving targets during fights and keeping them within range of attacks (“Stand Your Ground”). Completion of this quest also gives access to a secondary ability to use in future combat situations. Exile’s Reach takes a very slow approach to introductions, easing new players into the surrounding universe very gradually and giving plenty of quests to practice new skills. Early quests such as “Murloc Mania” and “Cooking Meat” are largely based around the player moving through the environment and using the simple target-and-hit fighting, and even after “Enhanced Combat Tactics,” where players are trained on the applications of their second combat ability, the required strategy and amount of practice given for these overall simplistic mechanics goes unchanged. “Down with the Quillboar,” “Forbidden Quillboar Necromancy,” “Harpy Culling,” “The Rescue of Meredy Huntswell,” and “Who Lurks in the Pit” are just a few of the first quests within the Exile’s Reach storyline where World of Warcraft has players explore the narrative through combat encounters. The act of fighting off various mobs and enemies is incredibly repetitive, becoming mindless as the mechanics and steps to each quest never change, only the appearance and health levels of the targets. As an element of the game, its simplicity is incredibly welcoming to start with at best, and a tedious and boring interaction which prevents storyline progression at worst. This is the first issue we can address. [transition no longer flows pls replace]

Skill in gaming comes down to how well (or quickly) a player can perform movements and actions. The physical dexterity of hitting the correct buttons or keys in the correct sequence plays a large role, as well as the mental ability to react quickly and adapt to what a game may throw in a player’s way. The well known and loved RPG Undertale prominently features a “bullet-hell” style interaction within combat when it’s the enemies’ turn to strike. Players control a small embodiment of their character which they must move quickly and accurately to dodge projectiles which will cause harm to the character, with different types of enemies having varying patterns of projectiles. One of the most infamous of the game’s fights, and the final boss of the “neutral” route of the story, is an extreme example of having to build mental and physical skill within the game. The character “Flowey,” (or as he’s often called in this specific instance, “Omega Flowey,”) is revealed as being made of photoshopped images cut and pasted together into the general shape of a monster. From the beginning of this encounter, Undertale aims to overwhelm the player’s senses with the extreme appearances of this boss, and the unwavering barrage of bullets, flames, thorned vines, light beams, and many other additions throughout the fight’s many phases. Most players take many attempts to move forward or complete this encounter, and the game forces players to try again and again, slowly building up their knowledge on any patterns or specific movements they can take to avoid taking too many hits (“Photoshop Flowey/In Battle”). Though this fight is an extreme example, within any given encounter the player is constantly thinking on their feet. The game helps to build the skillset needed to master these movements and quick thinking through a core message of “staying determined,” and plenty of random encounters with entities along the way. This is similar to what I believe World of Warcraft intends to do through the many quests of Exile’s Reach. Clearly, the difference is the type and amount of skill the game needs to teach. In WoW, most practice combat encounters don’t require learning specific movements to target an adversary, nor do they require (or particularly allow room for) movements to dodge the attacks being received. The main complexities are surrounding timing of certain attacks, remembering to use a move with a cooldown once it becomes available, and spam-pressing a primary attack repeatedly until whatever is targeted dies. If World of Warcraft’s encounters included some method of movements (such as aiming or dodging) which required players adapt to each combat situation slightly differently, it could further challenge a player to learn and practice fighting skills and grow more confident in performing the actions themselves.

Combat strategy is how the player has to think about the actions that they’re completing, having a vague plan or foresight on what specific array of movements will optimize a fight. Baulder’s Gate III, a fantasy RPG which is largely based around the table-top roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, utilizes a turn-based combat system, which is heavy with strategy. During fights, time freezes, and allows players to get a top-down view of the situation (both literally and figuratively). The way events transpire is like a very complicated version of chess, where the player must contemplate the various actions that their characters can take, whether on offense or defense, to have the best shot at victory. The ability to better strategize is also a skill that players learn and improve upon as they build more experiences! In WoW’s fights, a small level of strategy can be implemented in the way a player initially approaches combat, from what side they enter from or what gear they prepared, but once PvE combat begins it becomes a matter of pressing a few buttons within a painfully familiar rhythm. Having to think critically and plan out how best to approach any given combat encounter is something that can make fights consistently interesting to play through, requiring your active attention and immersion, and providing a delightful (or devastating) challenge to a game. If players were able to interact more in the 3D space (with previously mentioned ideas of dodging or even aiming), or if more importance was placed on finding variation within the attacks utilized, with different combinations or different effects on different enemies, more variety from situation to situation, it would introduce more strategy into fights. World of Warcraft most likely wouldn’t want to have to make the large shift from simultaneous to turn-based fights, but adding a layer of intentionality to a player’s actions, forcing them to strategize, could absolve some of the mindless nature of many PvE combat situations.

Generally, games require a balance of skill building and strategizing as a player progresses. In the 2D platformer game Hollow Knight, combat and exploration are what keeps the game (and its story) moving—similarly to World of Warcraft. [HOW TO KEEP FIGHTS FROM GETTING BORING TEDIOUS OR ANNOYING- look at hollow knight, cult of the lamb, other games I've played somewhat recently where the fighting itself is just. Fun.] [MENTION THE MANTIS KINGS FIGHT OMG I LOVE THAT BOSS FIGHT SOOOOOOO MUCH]

The best part about games with storylines, though, is that the mechanics of the game itself aren’t isolated, they’re one of many narrative tools completely unique to the medium. Deltarune, the sister game to Undertale, has many metacommentaries within the story—with background theming regarding the player themselves, and the control they have over the game’s protagonist, creating a story that couldn’t exist outside of an interactive medium. This theming takes a forefront in the game’s “Snowgrave” route (often called the “weird” route by players), where the control that a player exercises towards a particular NPC within the game’s combat encounters is shown to take a large toll on that NPC mentally in the story, as she grapples with the fact that she’s been made to kill many entities and characters (“Snowgrave Route”). In games with more linear progressions, the way players interact with a game and within combat situations can lead towards specific possible endings or can allow the player to progress in specific ways which the written story allows. The impact that a player, and the mechanics they interact with, is even greater in a more open-world game like World of Warcraft, where the wider narratives that any given player experiences can be vastly different, and are greatly determined by the player’s individual interactions with the game itself.

Conclusion Combat situations between allies and enemies are an important way that many video games let players interact with the world they’ve been placed in. [point out direct possible ways that WoW could add a little here or there to vastly improve both the feel and the importance of their fights]

Works Cited:

Baulder’s Gate III. Directed by Swen Vincke, Larian Studios, 2023. PC and Console game.

Deltarune. Directed by Toby Fox, Developed and Published by Toby Fox, 2018. PC and Console game.

Hollow Knight. Team Cherry, 2017. PC and Console game.

“Photoshop Flowey/In Battle.” Undertale Wiki, 2024. https://undertale.fandom.com/wiki/Photoshop_Flowey/In_Battle#Attacks. Accessed 9 December 2024.  

“Snowgrave Route.” Deltarune Wiki, 2024. https://deltarune.fandom.com/wiki/Snowgrave_Route. Accessed 18 November 2024.

“Stand Your Ground.” Wowpedia, 2024. https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Stand_Your_Ground_(Alliance). Accessed 13 November 2024.

Undertale. Directed by Toby Fox, Developed and Published by Toby Fox, 2015. PC and Console game.

“Warming up.” Wowpedia, 2024. https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Warming_Up. Accessed 13 November 2024.

World of Warcraft. Directed by Ion Hazzikostas, Activision Blizzard, 2004. PC game.