I would take, "it works for me" as a much more valuable statement than, "it works for millions". The former is a personal statement of preference, and can be conducive to worthwhile discussion. The latter is merely an appeal to popularity, and has nothing to do with anything except money.
No consensus is required. Balance is an objective quality that games have in varying degrees. It is not mysterious.
That's why balance is a sort of compromise. It seeks to present players with choices they might want - meaningful choices. And to put player choices on an equal footing - those choices should all be viable. "Everyone getting everything they want" is impossible, since there may be some very unreasonable wants out there. By definition, then, some things players might hypothetically want - "I want to be better than everyone else at everything" - that are obviously, incompatible with balance, because, by their very nature, they block others'.
It's the most popular version of D&D ever. The fighter is the most played option and there are 0 barriers to playing other classes. It works well enough for millions.
Still don't see how that's at all relevant to quality as opposed to marketing.It's the most popular version of D&D ever. The fighter is the most played option and there are 0 barriers to playing other classes. It works well enough for millions.
Yes, the degree of balance offered by various editions of D&D has had no correlation to it's commercial success.
Correct. Behaviors like that are incentivized in an imbalanced game. So are more sophisticated, rational, and not at all childish behaviors that have similar effects on the play experience, like excessive optimization.
Ideally or conceptually, TTRPGs can be "infinite games," but, yes, in a practical sense, there is a finite amount of play, and campaigns have a scope and theme that can narrow the focus of play, and poorly balanced games only get worse the more you run up against those realities.
It's hard to point to much of anything in D&D in general, let alone 5e, specifically, that is well-balanced. Skill checks certainly aren't an area where the classes are well-balanced...
TBF, that's the direction 5e went with Bounded Accuracy, it just didn't take it quite that far. It's not good for balance, either. If there's absolutely no difference between choices, they're not balanced choices, because they're not choices, at all.
Is it though? Because I don't think it is quite as simple in a game where the characters can be doing wide variety of things.
Maybe not mysterious, but certainly nuanced and complicated. There are different ways to balance things, and not everyone agrees what sort of balance is desirable.
Have they? I haven't seen that. And as there is no default way to play the game I don't see how it even could be done.
Mass popularity doesn't remove 5e from either criticism, shortcomings, or room for improvement.It's the most popular version of D&D ever. The fighter is the most played option and there are 0 barriers to playing other classes. It works well enough for millions.
