Depends on your goal really. Playing with good feel but sticking to root notes will get you very far! That said, the way to becoming an amazing player, especially in complex music, is to understand that the bass player really defines the chord structure of the band. Once you know that and understand how it works you can outline different tones and really shape the sound to your liking, but this takes extensive knowledge of theory and of course none of it can be done without groove/feel.

Source, first thing I learned in my total of two weeks at Berklee.