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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9210670" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well, as I said above, the key is to make it so that the way to min-max IS to be a team player. That optimization, fairly consistently, rewards teamwork much more than solo effort. That way, the folks you speak of (who don't care about min-maxing) are unaffected because they'll be doing what they were already going to do, and the other folks (who do care about min-maxing) will only be affected by feeling a natural urge toward pro-social, constructive behavior. When team optimization is what leads to effective strategy, it becomes advantageous to help your allies be the best they can be. When playing a &quot;support&quot; character provides rewarding gameplay in and of itself, folks who enjoy being a support character will feel concretely rewarded for their choices, rather than the nebulous moral satisfaction of &quot;taking one for the team&quot; by playing Brother Bactine. Etc.Everybody wins! Well, except the folks who want the game to be all about them. But I'm not really inclined to support such desires. Tedious at the best of times. If someone needs their character to be the most powerful, most important person in the game in order to enjoy playing, I think they should reconsider their priorities and perhaps look into single-player activities.For lack of a better term, the game must be designed to generally (not always, but most of the time) fulfill that old saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: &quot;We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9210670, member: 6790260"] Well, as I said above, the key is to make it so that the way to min-max IS to be a team player. That optimization, fairly consistently, rewards teamwork much more than solo effort. That way, the folks you speak of (who don't care about min-maxing) are unaffected because they'll be doing what they were already going to do, and the other folks (who [I]do[/I] care about min-maxing) will only be affected by feeling a natural urge toward pro-social, constructive behavior. When team optimization is what leads to effective strategy, it becomes advantageous to help your allies be the best they can be. When playing a "support" character provides rewarding gameplay in and of itself, folks who enjoy being a support character will feel concretely rewarded for their choices, rather than the nebulous moral satisfaction of "taking one for the team" by playing Brother Bactine. Etc. Everybody wins! Well, except the folks who want the game to be all about them. But I'm not really inclined to support such desires. Tedious at the best of times. If someone [I]needs[/I] their character to be the most powerful, most important person in the game in order to enjoy playing, I think they should reconsider their priorities and perhaps look into single-player activities. For lack of a better term, the game must be designed to generally (not [I]always,[/I] but most of the time) fulfill that old saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: "We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." [/QUOTE]

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