If D&D's approach doesn't work for you maybe you should learn to accept it or move on to a different game. No game can cater to every preference. If I understand correctly, what you describe sounds more like GURPs than D&D.
This is a BS statement to make, and a toxic attitude. You need to stop telling people to "love it or leave it", especially people who like the game and are criticizing an aspect of it. Their place here isn't any less than yours.
Because Mike Mearls said,
To which, a few of us said, “Yeah, that makes sense. But a lot of players really like having a lot of mechanical options in a modular framework, and it seems like this:
Could have solved the problem on its own, without the need to gut those mechanical options and modular famework.”
And so now we’re having a 100+ page argument about it, because god forbid anyone want more mechanical customizability than 5e already offers. Those dirty powergamers are out to ruin our game with all their badwrong “roll-playing”!
I was more referring to the specific subset of the topic I was responding to in that section of text, but yeah, that too. Although, I think most folks just aren't willing to directly engage, for whatever reason, with the fact that you are just saying that it would be great to have the option to play a version of a class that makes some kind of choice at most or all levels.
If we break every class into a Warlock style structure, with a combination of features to be chosen from that include passive features, feature upgrades, and new distinct abilities (spells, manuevers, etc), and a new choice made every few levels, on levels where you don't gain a feat, or a new subclass ability, or spell, so that most levels have a choice to be made, I imagine you'd be happy?
There are very few options for fighters of any kind that do anything but hit people with a weapon. The Battlemaster is basically the only option, and he does one thing, which is roll an extra die and add the number rolled to something.
You absolutely are, although I would say that “wanting 5e to be more like 4e” is a gross oversimplification of my perspective. 4e had serious issues, but in my opinion, giving every character a choice of cool new feature to get every level was absolutely not one of them.
The Battlemaster has a suite of distinct powers. What are you talking about? Those powers are expressed in a way that fits the system, but they're not actually different from 4e powers, or spells.
From a mechanical standpoint, it's hard to see how you could make 5e any more like 4e without it actually BEING 4e. 5e, mechanically, is very, very close to 4e.
The biggest feature of 4e, for a lot of us, is having a choice of a new ability or feature at most levels, and the meaningful difference in playstyle that came with different powers and feats.
The level of customization, and the degree to which the customization changed gameplay without creature massive power creep, and with only a few examples of "broken" options, most of which were somewhat weak options that were still usable in a normal game, but unplayable in a heavily optimized game, was awesome.
Seriously, I played a Cavalier next to a phb ranger with twin strike. We were about even, because it wasn't a CharOp cheese game. Even if the ranger had been heavily optimized, I would still be viable next to him, as long as I didn't ignore optimization, which is also true of options in 5e. Now, I wasn't playing a vampire or binder, to be fair, but the vast majority of options were somewhere between the Cav and the Ranger, and in normal games, the differences weren't really noticeable, even at the very end of the game's publication.
It was an incredible wealth of distinct options, that meaningfully changed how a character played, such that two dagger master rogues could be mechanically distinct in the way they play at the table, but the entire game didn't contain any power gap near as great as those found in previous editions of DnD.
