No kidding. Fighter is just not evocative enough of a concept. Just the name “fighter” makes it sound like a boring, one-note class. I’ve had players I know would enjoy playing fighters if they tried it, but do just about anything else because they assume it’s not going to be interesting.
Yeah I feel like older Millennials and maybe a little younger were so exposed to images of/writing about cool fantasy warriors (who typically have magical powers, nor were outright berserkers) that this sort of overcame the "sounds dull" factor. But people much younger than say 35 likely grew up playing videogames and watching TV where warriors tended to have at least flashy martial-arts-style powers, which, to be fair, in 4E, Fighters did have, but 5E's whole unacknowledged "apology edition" deal meant they took that and anything much like that away.
4E and loads of multiplayer videogames show it's totally fixable.
the same reason why in 4e I saw a HUGE amount of fighters and warlords... people love the concept. Some are just willing to take less options and power in exchange for higher damage... and some of us want those concepts to be able to have the options and power, even if it means "only" doing caster damage.
the new caster monster design is a GREAT place to look for how WotC could do a simple caster...
Amusingly, the particular player I’m thinking of is a literal boomer (he’s my dad, in fact). But he never played D&D before 5e. His first character was a blade pact warlock, because he liked the idea of using a weapon but still casting some spells once in a while. Almost never remembered his spells and ended up feeling really mediocre. But another player in that campaign had a Paladin, and he was impressed with their survivability and damage output. So next campaign he made a paladin. Almost never remembered his spells or his smites, and couldn’t wrap his head around how Lay on Hands worked; though he really liked Extra Attack when he reached 5th level. Another player in that campaign had a monk, and he was really impressed with her ability to make a whole bunch of attacks, so next campaign he made a monk. Never remembered to use his Ki points, but he did really like the bonus action unarmed strike. I keep telling him, “you like having a lot of HP and dealing a lot of damage, and you really like making lots of attacks. You should really try a fighter, I think you would like it a lot.” And he’s always like “yeah, maybe…” but I can tell he’s not convinced, and then he ends up making something else he thought another player made look cool.
The point is that there are many, many options.
I mean..there is a whole 'medicine' skill sitting on every 5e character sheet vying with 'performance' and 'animal handling' for most useless skill you can pick..
