DRK - Excessive "Conditional" Effects

[Shurrikhan]

They definitely ought to. Doing twice the work for the same results is never a viable way to design a fun game, while designing a straightforward baseline-viable 'easy' option and a more effective 'hard' option is proven to work.

When has it ever been proven to work? I've seen plenty of examples of the opposite, be it in WoW, Rift, League, Overwatch, or so forth, but I have yet to see it "work". The closest examples I can think of are player-customization choices within a given class that amounted to very, very little throughput variance, not usually of linear correlation to their increased skill requirements (similar to price vs. quality curves).

Why would any skilled player play a class that requires less skill if they will be noticeably penalized in overall and by-event throughput for that reduced requirement? You would end up with non-choices at each end. And while that might work for a moba with a vast set of class options, that would continue to be met with uproar if classes were effectively pruned from serious content. And when a game is entirely slated towards raiding what is the point of having an easier leveling or dungeon experience on a job that will be significantly disadvantaged thereafter? By that point, you've essentially decided, knowingly or unknowingly, that you will never be good enough for a class with stronger theoretical output to be useful to you. You have chosen to be of lower tier.

The largest aim in class design shouldn't be to have the high skill setups have higher rewards and the lower skills setups lower potential, and so forth: it should be to create enjoyable, balanced classes. If that means offering traditionally "easier" classes more means of control around which to be balanced, then so be it. The only absolute "rule" should be to never confuse convolution with complexity. Players should be rewarded for their understanding and skillful execution of class mechanics with the ability to adapt and control those tools, not merely for maintaining mind-numbing rotations despite artificial difficulty. If it does not provide choice, it does not provide complexity.

:: Also, SE's own stated purposes for design shifts are so tremendously self-contradicting that they really cannot stand as precedent for any of particular design philosophy. There is not a single goal they alleged that has not been made worse in some way, and more importantly, there has never been any thorough attempt on their part to explain and reconcile their decisions. Their alleged goals may as well be considered spattered words divorced from any of the actual content of their changes, promises that got lost early into production.