D&D 5E Stat buy-in points

[Hereticus]

As a question to the thread at large, and this is an honest question that I am interested in hearing people's answers, who benefits from changes like these? Is it the DM for removing incentives for choosing certain race/class combinations and encouraging more variety? Is it the players who have their eyes opened to new possibilities? Do the monsters win for having easier heroes to fight against? Something else? Or does nobody win?

For me it is all about seeing a wider variety of race/class combinations, which will hopefully lead to some interesting characters.

I do not imagine that the monsters will notice.

 

[Warunsun]

I think you're undervaluing the feat here. Starting with a feat at first level is bad ass.

Perhaps. But I'd say it is not as bad ass as having Darkvision. Being able to see everywhere is pretty fantastic. Add to the fact that the "heat" sensing nonsense has been dropped it is super awesome. It works no matter what unless DM fiat is brought in and even then--that shouldn't be that common. I also feel humans are a sub-par choice based just on abilities. Role-playing and in logical situations like being a human in a human-centric campaign is a useful if your DM cares about racial tensions. These tensions seem to have disappeared in the modern rulebooks but they are written into all the classic campaign settings.