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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GrimCo" data-source="post: 9843802" data-attributes="member: 7044462">When 4e came out, most of my friend group who played d&d was already on WoW. And yes, our first impression was - damn, this feels very similar.  Basic attack - at wills, short cool down - encounter, long cool down - daily (basically, ability for boss fights of the day). To be fair, roles, albeit more informal, were part of d&d long before WoW came out. We had our tanks, healers and damage dealers before. Fighter was tank, cleric was healer, wizards were damage/control, rogues were skill monkeys. It wasn't unusual to ask what are other people playing ( healers were not very popular choice ) before creating characters, so we would cover all basic roles. 4e was just first edition to give classes official role classifications. WoTC sucessfully identified primary competition. Problem is, they went in wrong direction. They tried to compete with mmos in things that mmos do exceptionally well, instead of focusing on things that ttrpgs do well and mmos have hard time emulating. Tactical combat, with situational bonuses and penalties, conditions, positioning etc, computers do that recalculations in milliseconds. At table, that takes time and energy. TTRPGs excel in narrative flexibility and player agency ( in mmos, if it isn't coded in, you cant do it) regarding interaction with game world. 2e, specially late 2e with player options, skills and powers and other splatbooks is better than 1e. 4e is, from pure design standpoint, best designed edition out of all of them. It has focus on singular play style and robust mechanics that support that play style in great manner. If you want a deep, balanced, tactical wargame with RPG elements, no other edition provides that specific support as well as 4e does. Honestly, i think biggest problem with 4th ed is that it came out too early. If 4th and 5th switched places, that would make way more sense. And i say that as someone who doesn't actually like 4e.</blockquote>

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