Some people, not all people. I was a huge fan of the 2014 5E Monk and enjoyed playing them, using the 2024 rules I have played more Rangers and Rogues than anything else (counting the total number of levels per class) and they are widely regarded as the two weakest classes. I would say most of the people I play with fall into this category.
Most people.
Because people understand that, when you incentivize something, that thing is now inherently more valuable. That's...what an incentive
is.
That is not to say I don't optimize, I heavily optimize in some of my games, but I optimize around what I want to play, I don't just pick what is optimal and play that.
Then you need to understand that that is not what most people will do with a game.
"Players will optimize the fun out of your game" is an extremely serious game design problem.
I decide on an idea for a character first and then I figure out what mechanics I can put together to make that character idea work. For example I am playing a Pyromaniac Tiefling right now. That is the fiction (in a nutshell), that is what I wanted to build. She is currently level 3 (F1/Warlock3). Her progression will go like this - 1 level of Fighter, 4 levels of Warlock (Pact of Blade, Pact of Tome, Agonizing Green Flame Blade, Flames of Phelethegos), 10 more levels of fighter (Eldritch Knight, Warcaster, Shadow Touched), 4 levels of Paladin, taking her last level at Fighter 12 for 2 epic boons. She is a hard melee character who with Agonizing Green Flame Blade, Flames of Phelethegos and Cleave is going to be just fine despite not getting extra attack until level 9 (and not primarily using it until level 11).
This is very neat, and I'm glad you enjoy this. But most people will not approach it this way. Most people will feel punished for failing to choose the obviously overall-optimal choices.
I would disagree with this. Balance really kills the story IME. I know it works for some people, but not the games I play in. The mathematical equivalence is extremely difficult to achieve and the desire to achieve it makes choices seem trivial.
It isn't at all difficult to achieve--you just have to
work for it. It requires statistical testing, something a lot of designers are simply unwilling to do. But then again,
using surveys correctly also requires statistical testing, so....they're already embarked on needing statistics in order to design the game
anyway. Might as well use them wherever they're useful, rather than treating them like a horrible nasty thing to be avoided.
You say that "Balance really kills the story". How? Like...genuinely what does that even mean? It sounds to me like what you're saying is
uniformity kills the story. And if that were what "balance" meant, I would 100% agree with you. Making it so every choice is
meaningless because the choices are "A, but blue; A, but red; or A, but green" is not a choice, it is the illusion of choice. Or, if you prefer...
But now imagine your choice is "I want to go to Chicago." By definition,
all choices will have the same endpoint, but that doesn't actually mean that the choices are identical. You could fly there, which would be quick, but expensive. You could drive there, which would be slow, but could save you a lot of money. You could take a train, which is kind of in the middle, depending on when you need to travel, but limited and not the most comfortable unless you spend extra. You could take Greyhound. Etc.
These things are in fact actual choices, because they are
qualitatively different, not quantitatively different. They all achieve the same quantitative end: your location becomes Chicago, IL. But different qualities matter. Perhaps time is no object, but money is--you're taking a long vacation and you've never actually done a road trip before, so taking 3-4 days to cross the Rockies is a perk, not a penalty. Perhaps you have a relative who is sick, possibly dying--then the fastest method is the only choice, damn the expense. Perhaps you are preparing to go there for school, so you're weighing your options--train might let you carry more goods, but it's uncomfortable unless you spend at least as much as if you'd flown, and shipping isn't
that expensive.
Applying this same concept to TTRPG design is what balance is: every route gets you to
more or less (within a statistical comfort zone) the same outcome, such as "about the same amount of damage" or "about the same survivability" etc. But the qualitative differences now become paramount, and local, context-specific perks or penalties become relevant. E.g., a character with high AC but only average health (say, a Fighter who invests in offensive stats) can't take many
hits, but doesn't
get hit very much. A character with ablative-THP but weak AC (say, a Barbarian who doesn't invest in Dex)
can take hits, but also
will take hits. The two achieve the same result, but are better suited for different tasks: the high-AC character is better dealing with hordes of weak enemies that can't easily hit their target, while the ablative-THP character is better against more sustained damage from a small number of enemies, because their THP functionally negates most of the damage they'd take.
I don't see how this, in any way, is the death of story. If anything, it is
supporting story, by actually making it so that different methods, different approaches, are
equally valid answers, rather than privileging one or two answers above all others.
That is why I am so against the set number of encounters. That is a mechanic without a story hook.
Sure. Like I said, I believed that doing that was genuinely never going to happen. Thus, if a fixed number of encounters isn't possible, and taking away control of the rate of resting isn't possible,
the only remaining option if we must preserve the D&D-like gameplay experience is to take away the design (or the power, which is functionally doing the same thing) of Vancian spellcasting-
Because otherwise, the correct build choice every time is to be some kind of spellcaster yourself, and the correct build choice at the group level is to have as many spell slots as the group can realistically achieve while still being sufficiently defensible to survive the early levels. If you're skipping the early levels, every character should always be either a full spellcaster, a full spellcaster with a 1-level Fighter dip, or a Paladin, unless the player is electing to intentionally play a weaker character in order to have more fun. Choosing to play anything else is intentionally choosing self-detrimental choices in order to have more fun--and few people willingly choose self-detriment, even if they legitimately actually
know that doing so would bring them more entertainment value.
Because that, that thing right there, is what imbalance forces people to choose between. "Do you what to
succeed more? Or do you want to
have more fun?" Or, if you prefer, "Which would you rather accept: failing more but having more fun, or succeeding more and being bored more often?"
Achieving real balance--meaning, asymmetrical balance with genuinely distinct paths--makes it so those two questions cease to be distinct. Doing stuff that succeeds more
is the most fun thing you can do. That's...kind of what game design is all about, making it so that the enjoyable thing to do is to
actually play the game, rather than playing your self-imposed challenge mode.
