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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9543638" data-attributes="member: 6790260">See, she's found the way out--exploit the patriarchy!So...what you're saying is, people don't do things because they like absolutely 100% of everything that those things do. They may do it because it is just "what is done". They may do it because there simply aren't alternatives being offered. They may do it because they like X thing a whole hell of a lot, but strenuously dislike Y and Z...just not enough to stop seeking X. They may do it because they lack the resources to do other things. They may do it because, even though they normally wouldn't, they've been encouraged to do so by someone else who likes it more. They may....Etc., etc., etc. Note that my point here is not "everyone does it therefore they HATE it!!!!" That would be patently foolish. My point is simply that you cannot, under any circumstances, reason exclusively from "X is done" to "X is liked". There is no necessary nor sufficient relationship between those two things. "People do X, therefore they must like X" is an invalid argument. You need to actually...y'know, investigate what people like or don't like. You need to examine why something is pursued, and find out if the pursuit arises because of the specific traits of it, or because of some other reason--and which traits cause it.Remember: Champion was one of the lowest satisfaction subclasses (beaten only by Berserker and Beast Master, IIRC) in the lead-up to the 5.5e playtest. Yet Champion was also, consistently, one of the most-widely played subclasses, and so was Berserker! Why is that? Well, one simple reason is that the two of them were freely available, so more characters would get made with them. Another is that people like the idea of the "simple" warrior....but they may be unhappy with the specific execution. Since there's really no other options besides Champion and Berserker, people may still do that because they value the thematic expression, even if they dislike the rules associated with that thematic expression. If someone truly only enjoys the thematics of being a warrior, and truly dislikes the thematics of being a spellcaster of any kind, the choice is either to stop playing 5.0 (which, for many, wasn't an acceptable option, I'm sure, since 5e is often the literal only game in town), or to continue playing something they really don't like the rules for very much but which has the thematics they prefer.And, again, this is not me inventing something from whole cloth. There were pictures posted, on ENWorld, of the slideshow showing the before and after satisfaction scores for the under-performing subclasses. IIRC, Berserker was legitimately in negative territory, somewhere in the mid-40s for user satisfaction, while Champion was only 5-10 points higher. This despite Champion consistently being the most popular Fighter subclass in every DDB data-drop, and Berserker being first or second among Barbarians (in one case, having a whopping 49%!) Why would players consistently play a subclass that is consistently unpopular? I've obviously given my explanation, but whatever the reason, the point stands: WotC themselves explicitly recognized a flaw in the designs of these classes, a failure to achieve intended satisfaction ratings, despite these subclasses being demonstrably played by many, many, many people.That something is widely used is not proof positive that it is widely liked.</blockquote>

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