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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 5649171" data-attributes="member: 61155">Not in my experience, honestly. I mean, I can see in theory how those extra actions to shift in stances and auras and such would be more complicated.  In practive, though? Not so much. I've run for players who, when presented with a list of at-wills and encounter powers... always choose to basic attack. Even when using an at-will costs them nothing - they just don't want to bother with it. They don't get why they would have a basic attack if an at-will is supposed to be their default instead - the benefit of being able to make OAs, charge, etc, is lost on them. When presented with an Essentials character, on the other hand? And the ability to just say, "Hey, you always have this defender aura on, so you automatically distract enemies near you. And just choose one of these stances to always be on, and just write down that benefit next to your basic attacks"? It works. It is simple and easy, because they don't actually have to bother with shifting stances. That's the difference - they can just set it to default and go, rather than having to make those decisions every round about at-wills and encounters.  Similarly, Power Strike is so much easier for them to handle than Encounter powers, since they can decide it after they hit. Which means I can say, "Hey, did you want to use Power Strike?" And then can say, "Oh yeah, extra damage, woo!" Whereas it is much harder to cut in before they attack and say, "Hey, did you want to use an encounter attack here instead of something else?" That's both more disruptive to them, forces them to look over options and make more choices, etc. And can't really be done after the attack, when they already know what they are rolling.  Look, I can totally get not preferring the Essentials format. And I do hope going forward they provide a mix of design.  But arguing that the Essentials fighter is more complex than the normal fighter... just really isn't true. At least, in my experience, and amongs the gamers I know whom are pretty much the ideal target audience for such things. Maybe you know others for whom it is different, I suppose.</blockquote>

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