EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Is it simplistic? It reflects precisely what I've seen--and argued against--for years and years and years.I know you like to think that it's merely the "Wizard fanboys" fault that 4E wasn't embraced by more of the community... but that is such an simplistic take with little basis in truth that I don't know why you keep clinging to it.
If we are to accept this argument, then, am I permitted to expect others to avoid simplistic, inaccurate glosses about 4e? Like the one we literally just got in this very thread, where someone said that every Striker attack was copy-pasted from every other, even though the proof that that isn't true is trivially easy to provide?
The vast majority of people I have spoken to who so thoroughly hated 4e did so on the basis of blatant misrepresentations, self-admitted total ignorance, or intentional omissions. These folks were quite easily able to spread a great deal of falsehoods, and got a lot of people very riled up over nothing, or over extremely little. (Consider, for example, the three different users on another forum who point-blank claimed that it was impossible to roleplay while playing 4e--not that it was hard for them, for whatever reason, but that it was impossible for anyone to roleplay while doing it. Hell, the [in]famous Justin Alexander literally made that exact claim in his eternally-cited, rarely-read "dissociated mechanics" posts, an argument which he then proceeded to promptly abandon the moment it applied to a system he liked.)I assume you do it just to make yourself feel better to have someone to blame-- that it's all the fault of that one small group of people that the game didn't resonate, and now you rail against that group and their cause celebre any chance you get... but at some point you're going to have to accept that there were a lot more issues and a lot more people who didn't enjoy 4E for what it was beyond "Wizard fanboys".
Now, does this mean 4e was some sort of flawless diamond? Absolutely the hell not. Its presentation was very poor. Several early adventures were absolute dog feces. Skill Challenges were almost never actually used well in official publications, and were almost never explained well. Certain classes came out half-baked and required fixes or extra love (Paladin, Warlock, and Wizard, for example.) Some of the rules for certain elements, like stealth, were not well-made and thus got adjusted later. The designers made some decisions that, in the long term, proved unwise (e.g. I am completely convinced that it was 100% intentional that the game got very slightly more difficult at higher levels, forcing players to demonstrate better teamwork and cooperation in order to "keep up" with the power curve--but people complained about that, and then complained about the fix, and all the while complained that the whole thing was a treadmill, meaning it was impossible for WotC to make a correct move.) The monsters erred too much on the side of caution/"fat sack of HP with only moderate damage" when they should have leaned toward more danger. Class skills were not well-handled and carried forward certain unwise choices from 3e (e.g. giving Fighters fewer skills than other classes for literally no other reason than "Fighters got few skill points in 3e.") Somewhere around half of all feats and powers just...really didn't need to exist, as they were just not particularly worthwhile.
I could go on: the point is, I'm quite well aware that 4e has flaws, that it isn't perfect, that there are reasons to be critical of it, to demand better, etc. But the vast majority of criticisms actually levied on 4e had literally nothing to do with the game at all--and everything to do with a committed, vocal minority actively crusading to bring it down by whatever means necessary.