And no, it's not Stormwind, and again, Stormwind is in some cases not actually a fallacy. It's just oversimplified. It's a fallacy only if you view it as necessarily applying to every instance.
No stormwind is always a fallacy.
There is picking sub-optimal options because you will have fun with them. But that is doing mechanical things for mechanical reasons, which has nothing to do with RPing.
A ninja not taking vanishing trick is just being irresponsible. That's like playing a barbar with 14 strength or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.
or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.Nope.
You know what I meant...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And no, it's not Stormwind, and again, Stormwind is in some cases not actually a fallacy. It's just oversimplified. It's a fallacy only if you view it as necessarily applying to every instance.No stormwind is always a fallacy.
That may be true, but the stormwind fallacy does NOT encompass as much as people seem to claim it does. At least 80% of the times I see someone calling out on a starmwind fallacy, it's not actually the case.
Saying "optimization limits roleplay" isn't part of the stormwind fallacy.
Saying "the optimizers in my game don't care about roleplay" isn't part of the stormwind fallacy.
Saying "a high optimization requirement impedes roleplay" isn't part of the stormwind fallacy.
The ONLY THING that the stormwind fallacy covers is this:
Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.
The stormwind fallacy is only applicable when discussing actual roleplayers, not roleplaying systems. Saying that "you can't roleplay an optimized character" is the stormwind fallacy.
But people throw around "stormwind fallacy" as if it was some kind of cover-all perfect assessment that there cannot be any conflict between roleplay and optimization within a system, which is of course completely incorrect.
High optimization requirements stifle and limit roleplay, because the amount of roles you can play drops. Likewise, a high freedom of roles to play, limits what optimization level you can aim for.
Goddamn I wish they hadn't posted that thing about stormwind fallacy to begin with. Not because it's incorrect, but because it's application is so limited but loads of people treat it as some all-encompassing rule.
EDIT: Kind of like "ad hominem", which is very specific - it's attacking the other person and using that as an argument, not just attacking the other person. So "you're stupid and therefore you're wrong" is an ad hominem, while "you're wrong, and also stupid" might be rude, but not an ad hominem, yet people claim it is one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
High optimization does limit the number of builds avaliables.
If your in a cramped space then you use Stone Shape or Prismatic wall. Make a box around the fighter. If you are outdoors and the fighter runs into a cramped space you don't go chasing after him. Drop the entrance to the cramped space. Or just send a wall of summons at him.
Oh and this is just a regular wizard. Add in mythic spells and feats? The fighter has no hope... At level 20 a fighter just can't stand up to a level 20 wizard...
When in doubt, you can always teleport away and catch the fighter when he is not prepared.
None of this kills the fighter. At most the wizard can delay his death. This particular fighter is ageless and requires no food, air, water, or sleep to live. Delaying tactics just won't work. Eventually the wizard will die.
And we are comparing a MT 10 lvl 20 fighter to a lvl 20 non-mythic wizard. I made no claims about anything else.
Ok if you wan to play that game.
Wizard puts wizard in prismatic Box.
Wizard teleports to his demiplane (which the fighter cannot get to due to him not being able to cast spells).
Wizard then abuses the Sno-Cone Wish factory to create an infinite number of Star-Spawn of Cthulhu Clones. Just keep sending in wave after wafe of star-spawn at the fighter via gate spell.
Fighter will die eventually...
Again, this is a Wizard with NO MYTHIC TIERS AT ALL. vs a Fighter that is depending on 10 MYTHIC TIERS.
If your in a cramped space then you use Stone Shape or Prismatic wall. Make a box around the fighter. If you are outdoors and the fighter runs into a cramped space you don't go chasing after him. Drop the entrance to the cramped space. Or just send a wall of summons at him.
Oh and this is just a regular wizard. Add in mythic spells and feats? The fighter has no hope... At level 20 a fighter just can't stand up to a level 20 wizard...
When in doubt, you can always teleport away and catch the fighter when he is not prepared.
None of this kills the fighter. At most the wizard can delay his death. This particular fighter is ageless and requires no food, air, water, or sleep to live. Delaying tactics just won't work. Eventually the wizard will die.
And we are comparing a MT 10 lvl 20 fighter to a lvl 20 non-mythic wizard. I made no claims about anything else.
Ok if you wan to play that game.
Wizard puts wizard in prismatic Box.
Wizard teleports to his demiplane (which the fighter cannot get to due to him not being able to cast spells).
Wizard then abuses the Sno-Cone Wish factory to create an infinite number of Star-Spawn of Cthulhu Clones. Just keep sending in wave after wafe of star-spawn at the fighter via gate spell.
Fighter will die eventually...
Again, this is a Wizard with NO MYTHIC TIERS AT ALL. vs a Fighter that is depending on 10 MYTHIC TIERS.
WBL
Wizard runs out of money.
You are also admitting that the wizard loses in a straight up fight. That wasn't the challenge, but I thought I would point that out.
EDIT: Actually we may have to make this a straight up fight comparison because the wizard CANNOT kill an MT 10 mythic creature without an artifact weapon.
Saying "optimization limits roleplay" isn't part of the stormwind fallacy.
Saying "the optimizers in my game don't care about roleplay" isn't part of the stormwind fallacy.
Saying "a high optimization requirement impedes roleplay" isn't part of the stormwind fallacy.The ONLY THING that the stormwind fallacy covers is this:
Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.The stormwind fallacy is only applicable when discussing actual roleplayers, not roleplaying systems. Saying that "you can't roleplay an optimized character" is the stormwind fallacy.
But people throw around "stormwind fallacy" as if it was some kind of cover-all perfect assessment that there cannot be any conflict between roleplay and optimization within a system, which is of course completely incorrect.
High optimization requirements stifle and limit roleplay, because the amount of roles you can play drops. Likewise, a high freedom of roles to play, limits what optimization level you can aim for.
G!@!&+n I wish they hadn't posted that thing about stormwind fallacy to begin with. Not because it's incorrect, but because it's application is so limited but loads of people treat it as some all-encompassing rule.
Exactly right, on all points.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A ninja not taking vanishing trick is just being irresponsible. That's like playing a barbar with 14 strength or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.
This attitude is a big problem for me, and I think it's a very good example of exactly why you see a backlash against optimization.
EDIT: And incidentally, I played a Barbarian with a 7 Strength, and was perfectly effective.
High optimization does limit the number of builds avaliables.
But does that limit RPing?
I might have to agree here. I find that I just can't play a fighter in a group with a synthesist summoner.
A ninja not taking vanishing trick is just being irresponsible. That's like playing a barbar with 14 strength or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.This attitude is a big problem for me, and I think it's a very good example of exactly why you see a backlash against optimization.
Would you be against people playing as commoners?
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You know what I meant...or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.Nope.
You meant that doing things like having a 14Str on a barbarian or having a 9Cha on a sorcerer was irresponsible because it wasn't optimal. I was showing that you can make these "irresponsible" choices be just as viable as the "optimal path". I think my point still stands .
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Would you be against people playing as commoners?A ninja not taking vanishing trick is just being irresponsible. That's like playing a barbar with 14 strength or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.This attitude is a big problem for me, and I think it's a very good example of exactly why you see a backlash against optimization.
Funny you should mention this, because it actually came up in a discussion I was having in another thread. Someone wanted to be able to play a Commoner is PFS. My response was that while I understand the person's reason for wanting this, there's not a lot of point in it. You can already basically do this by making a Fighter with a weird feat allotment or a caster with nothing but random, crappy spells, and the resultant character will be a lot more interesting than the Commoner.
But basically, no, I don't care if someone plays a Commoner, as long as they can keep up with CR (up to level 12, anyway). I basically don't care what anyone does with their character as long as they satisfy two reqiuirements:
1. Keep up with CR
2. Do not exceed CR
It is annoying when people break either of these rules. The thing is, it is so ridiculously easy to meet CR that I always find it weird that optimizers feel it's at all necessary to go to the lengths they go to. I think the same thing whenever I see these lists people post of, like, must-have equipment for beating PFS scenarios and making sure you have something for every situation; it's just excessive.
I am running a campaign right now. The PCs are a Monk 1/Cleric 6, a Sorcerer 7, a Fighter 2/Magus 5 and a Barbarian 1/Rogue 6. APL 7. They have not made any outright stupid choices for their characters, but there are no funky tricks going on. No real optimization to speak of. I find I have to routinely put them up against CR 9 or 10 encounters to challenge them. In other words, they're just a very adequately built set of 7th level characters and I have to treat them as though they are about APL 9.5.
EDIT: I suppose I'm exaggerating a little bit. CR 12 encounters are still about their limit, depending on the encounter. So at the upper end of the appropriate challenge scale things are still functioning almost correctly (you'd expect them to cap out at around CR 11). But putting them against CR 7 or even 8 challenges? Laughable.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And no, it's not Stormwind, and again, Stormwind is in some cases not actually a fallacy. It's just oversimplified. It's a fallacy only if you view it as necessarily applying to every instance.No stormwind is always a fallacy.
There is picking sub-optimal options because you will have fun with them. But that is doing mechanical things for mechanical reasons, which has nothing to do with RPing.
A ninja not taking vanishing trick is just being irresponsible. That's like playing a barbar with 14 strength or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.
Actually, there's a pair of characters in our local PFS group with 11 Cha sorcerers where its terribly important for them not to get more Cha (Karmic, and they are built to fail as many Concentration checks as possible, with Paired Opportunists).
Actually, there's a pair of characters in our local PFS group with 11 Cha sorcerers where its terribly important for them not to get more Cha (Karmic, and they are built to fail as many Concentration checks as possible, with Paired Opportunists).
Okay, that's hilarious.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, that's hilarious.
Actually, there's a pair of characters in our local PFS group with 11 Cha sorcerers where its terribly important for them not to get more Cha (Karmic, and they are built to fail as many Concentration checks as possible, with Paired Opportunists).
They're pretty deadly, especially after they both dipped Cavalier so they could give everyone Paired Opportunists. Their best module ever was the one where they were given a drug that dealt Cha damage.
Them: "What!? It lowers our Cha-based checks and doesn't prevent us from casting spells. Must have MORE!"
Concentration->Fail->Everyone gets a swing at +4
They also always say "This is our most powerful magic, our 1st-level spell. It's more powerful than the cantrip because it has a 10% higher chance to fail to be cast defensively."
Or "Damn it! I actually cast shield! Oh well, I guess I do get +4 AC..."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
They're pretty deadly, especially after they both dipped Cavalier so they could give everyone Paired Opportunists. Their best module ever was the one where they were given a drug that dealt Cha damage.
Them: "What!? It lowers our Cha-based checks and doesn't prevent us from casting spells. Must have MORE!"
Concentration->Fail->Everyone gets a swing at +4
They also always say "This is our most powerful magic, our 1st-level spell. It's more powerful than the cantrip because it has a 10% higher chance to fail to be cast defensively."
Or "Damn it! I actually cast shield! Oh well, I guess I do get +4 AC..."
Oh, shenanigans. How I lovehate thee.
|
|
Human Fighter || 18 14 14 10 10 10 || Intimidate, Profession(engineer), Climb, Survival, Swim; Perception, Knowledge(dungeoneering, engineering)|| Resilient(+1 fort saves), Indomitable Faith(+1 Will)1 |Toughness, Intimidating Prowess, Combat Reflexes
2 |Bravery, Power Attack
3 |Armor training, Cleave
4 |Great Cleave
5 |Weapon training(Blades, Heavy), Blind-Fight
6 |Bravery, Lunge
7 |Armor training, Iron Will
8 |Quick Draw
9 |Weapon training(Thrown), Step Up
10|Bravery, Vital Strike
11|Armor training, Improved Vital Strike
12|Strike Back
13|Weapon training(Bows), Improved Iron Will
14|Bravery, Stand Still
15|Armor training, Deadly Aim
16|Greater Vital Strike
17|Weapon training(Close), Disruptive
18|Bravery, Spellbreaker
19|Armor mastery, Great Fortitude
20|weapon mastery(GS), Improved Critical(GS)
Guardian(Absorb Blow)
Mythic Feats: Power Attack, Toughness, Vital Strike, Quickdraw, Spellbreaker
Mythic Path Abilities: Longevity, Armored Might, Adamantine Mind, Ever Ready, Parry Spell, Mythic Resolve, Shrug it off, Borrow Elements, Mythic Sustenance, Sleepless
Dazing Ball Lightnings from 300ft away? 5 saves to not be dazed. If you succeed at them all and out-range him, the caster forces another on you. As soon as you fail one save, the rest of the Ball Lightnings eventually catch up to you and you'll never get out of daze lock until you die from hitpoint damage or whatever else the caster wants to do while you can't move. Am I missing any form of energy immunity/resistance to stop the multiple instances of 3d6 damage? Targets your lowest save (reflex), and you likely take a -4 penalty if wearing metal armor.
Does the caster even need to have more than improved invisibility+mind blank to make the fighter completely unable to find him?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
They are APL7, a CR7 or 8 encounter should be a speed bump for them.
Okay, a couple of things. First, it's barely even that, to the point that, really, even playing out such an encounter seems a little bit trivial. And second, no, it's not supposed to be that. In theory, a CR 7 encounter should drain 1/4 of their resources. Four consecutive CR 7 encounters should leave them feeling pretty drained and challenged, according to the tenets of the CR system. But in reality, they could probably face more like 20 such challenges before having to stop and rest. An equal APL encounter is supposed to be the "average" and APL+1 is supposed to be "challenging." Believe me, 2 redcaps do not "challenge" these guys.
And again, bear in mind that I am talking about a relatively non-optimized party here, which is my real point. Even if we agreed that they're being challenged appropriately by encounters, it would still show that any degree of real optimization pushes you over the edge in this regard.
|
|
The only issue is unstoppable. He can clear Daze at the start of each of his turns while he has mythic power left. Once he runs out he is boned and he still cannot find the caster to actually stop the attacks and is largely reduced to running for cover. Looking at Parry Spell it is also not really clear whether or not you have to be aware of the spell being about to hit you or not.
He can't use Parry Spell on Ball Lightning.
1) Daze does not kill
2) Mythic Resolve
3) Unstoppable
Oh and something people keep missing, IMMORTAL. To be fair this is cheating and I did not mean the challenge in this way.
They are APL7, a CR7 or 8 encounter should be a speed bump for them.Okay, a couple of things. First, it's barely even that, to the point that, really, even playing out such an encounter seems a little bit trivial. And second, no, it's not supposed to be that. In theory, a CR 7 encounter should drain 1/4 of their resources. Four consecutive CR 7 encounters should leave them feeling pretty drained and challenged, according to the tenets of the CR system. But in reality, they could probably face more like 20 such challenges before having to stop and rest. An equal APL encounter is supposed to be the "average" and APL+1 is supposed to be "challenging." Believe me, 2 redcaps do not "challenge" these guys.
And again, bear in mind that I am talking about a relatively non-optimized party here, which is my real point. Even if we agreed that they're being challenged appropriately by encounters, it would still show that any degree of optimization pushes you over the edge in this regard.
The honest truth is that any party that makes good use of their martial characters, optimized or not, can always keep going for many on-CR encounters before resting if they have enough sources of healing (like a wand of CLW). It's generally parties "carried" by the casters that wind up needing to rest sooner because even if your level 7 sorceress can wipe out the encounter with one 3rd level spell, she'll eventually run out. The exception being witches with their at-will hexes.
The honest truth is that any party that makes good use of their martial characters, optimized or not, can always keep going for many on-CR encounters before resting if they have enough sources of healing (like a wand of CLW). It's generally parties "carried" by the casters that wind up needing to rest sooner because even if your level 7 sorceress can wipe out the encounter with one 3rd level spell, she'll eventually run out. The exception being witches with their at-will hexes.
I know this. You know this. But the encounter design of many mods and APs does not reflect this fact.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I know this. You know this. But the encounter design of many mods and APs does not reflect this fact.
The honest truth is that any party that makes good use of their martial characters, optimized or not, can always keep going for many on-CR encounters before resting if they have enough sources of healing (like a wand of CLW). It's generally parties "carried" by the casters that wind up needing to rest sooner because even if your level 7 sorceress can wipe out the encounter with one 3rd level spell, she'll eventually run out. The exception being witches with their at-will hexes.
I dunno--it's all in how you sell the amount that the PCs should keep pushing each day. In fact, I daresay that in a campaign where the PCs try to press onward, martials and especially fighters shine more. I always see these threads about how you could just have a party with only casters and I think to myself that those groups must never deal with mega-dungeons where it's in the party's best interest to clear out as much as possible in one day, while they have the element of surprise.
That may be true, but ... some other stuffYou make a compelling argument; however, it too suffers from the Stormwind fallacy and is therefore invalid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Whether one can be killed or not is very rarely a relevant measure of winning or not.
I mean, a stone-avowed half-red dragon half-troll skeletal champion reaver is basically unkillable by nonmythic means (and even by mythic means there's just a very very limited list of ways), and it's CR 10 isn't too out of whack (maybe a bit depending on scenario, but not extremely).
A much more relevant way to gauge whether one "wins" or not would be to insert the character in some end-AP boss battle and see if the goal of the battle can be met.
EDIT: It should also be noted that being a (Su) ability, there are plenty of ways to kill someone with the Immortal mythic ability, if that's what is discussed here. Simply having an anti-magic field up either when the character dies or is revived (depending on rule interpretation, it's basically either or depending on if you view it as triggered when the character dies or 24 hours later).
Also, immortality doesn't stop you from being killed, it only makes you automatically resurrect. Which is a very different thing.
Also, just sticking the body in a dead-magic plane works wonders, and is easily within the grasp of the wizard. Follow these simple steps to have your perfect killzone:
1. Create lesser demiplane.
2. Get temporary immunity to fire (easy peasy)
3. Fill plane with lava (through gate, or shrink object, or various other means)
4. Get out of plane.
5. Create Greater Demiplane to make your demiplane a dead magic demiplane.
6. Get a bunch of ways to cast Plane Shift on your victim of choice (traps are just 2250 gp apiece, and since the enemy will save on a 1+ anyway you just need to get a lot of them)
In the case of an already-dead mythic immortal, it's even easier - just put the body within a space with a bunch of those traps; as soon as it starts living again, it'll have to do a whole bunch of saves and if even one fails, goodbye immortal.
Do you think that 1/3rd of a game being unplayable is a problem?
It is true that I basically view the game as ending at around 12th level.
But it's not 1/3 of game play. Games rarely get that high.
1) Daze does not kill
2) Mythic Resolve
3) UnstoppableOh and something people keep missing, IMMORTAL. To be fair this is cheating and I did not mean the challenge in this way.
Yay, you get to reroll your 6% chance to save while the caster keeps layering no save damage effects on top of you. Daze doesn't kill, but being locked into a damaging area does. 2d6+20 per round per wall of fire placed on you for 20+ rounds certainly kills you.
Also you still cannot actually find the caster.
I think his point is basically "well it doesn't actually kill, and you only win if you actually kill", disregarding the fact that immortal does not really make you immortal, it only gives you a (Su) autoressurection.
High optimization requirements stifle and limit roleplay, because the amount of roles you can play drops. Likewise, a high freedom of roles to play, limits what optimization level you can aim for..
Not only that, but let's face it. Us mortals just have so many brain cells. The more you spend on obsessing over that last point of DPR is the less you can spend on a exciting memorable personality. Think about it- your last big game moment... do you describe it as the time you did 400 points of damage and one shotted a monster? Then, you are into ROLL, not ROLE playing.
So yeah, one can optimize and Roleplay, but one tends to push out the other, like it or not.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
High optimization requirements stifle and limit roleplay, because the amount of roles you can play drops. Likewise, a high freedom of roles to play, limits what optimization level you can aim for..
Not only that, but let's face it. Us mortals just have so many brain cells. The more you spend on obsessing over that last point of DPR is the less you can spend on a exciting memorable personality. Think about it- your last big game moment... do you describe it as the time you did 400 points of damage and one shotted a monster? Then, you are into ROLL, not ROLE playing.
So yeah, one can optimize and Roleplay, but one tends to push out the other, like it or not.
On one hand, I see your point and agree to some degree. On the other hand, I don't think it's that bad. A lot of optimization can take place off-game time, and many of us has much more time than game time. Roleplaying consideration can also be done during off-game time, but not to the same degree as roleplaying is largely reactive. If I have 10 hours of free time that I can spend on thinking about my character between 5 hour game sessions, those can't all be spent on roleplaying consideration, so there's a lot of time for optimization considerations. Of course, things are different when you have off-game time together with other players in the same campaign, then you can strategize and prepare both roleplay and tactics beforehand...
But yeah, just wanted to say that. Optimization and roleplay do not fully compete for the same time/effort.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Which would be great if more games started that high, but because the rules are so unwieldy, so many people try to stick to the 'sweet spot' which shouldn't exist.But it's not 1/3 of game play. Games rarely get that high.Do you think that 1/3rd of a game being unplayable is a problem?
It is true that I basically view the game as ending at around 12th level.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong design-wise with focusing on one part of the game, leaving a later, more "advanced" part a bit underdeveloped. Their time is limited, and focusing on the part most people will experience as part of the basic gameplay - AP's, play from 1st level etc - makes sense. The high-level rules could be seen as a "okay, things are going to be a bit buggy and weird here, but if you wanna do something superpowered here's how the system handles it". I think that's okay, and probably is the method I prefer they keep to.
The issue though, is that that attitude is NOT clearly communicated by the game towards the players. You can find hints about it by dev comments etc, but the people most needing to know that is not the same kind of people who keep track of dev comments.
Consider a game like Minecraft. Now for my comparision I have to assume that most people by this point have a basic idea of what minecraft is. Most of the development goes into making stuff functional for survival gameplay, and especially for the first ~300 hours on a world. After that, there's just not that much more new stuff to do. You CAN do stuff like manually building computers inside minecraft, but when you do the really advanced stuff, it gets... buggy. And easily breaks. And that's okay, because every player that tries to do stuff like that, is aware of that at that point. At no point do they think it's a basic part of the gameplay.
Or for that matter, Magic the Gathering. From a balance perspective, Type 1 gameplay (it's changed name now, hasn't it? legacy or something? where basically every card is allowed) is incredibly unbalanced and broken. Not just between cards but between card types and colors. And there's a lot of "martial/caster disparity" there too, kinda (more specifically, the strength and toughness of creatures is pretty much irrelevant).
But most people first encountering magic will face none of those imbalances, because that's not how the gameplay works except by people accessing all cards and optimizing it 'til it turns blue (in more than one sense of the word).
Having the "advanced" parts of the game be inherently unbalanced and buggy doesn't have to be a huge issue (naturally it'd be better if it weren't, though), but players need to know what parts of the game are considered the core gameplay _by the game itself_.
Is that why the devs went out of their way to hand out 20th level capstones? Because incredibly few players are expected to ever acquire them?
I would imagine that capstones just sort of felt like the right thing to do when they were designing them, you know? Just sort of felt neat and tidy. Regardless of their intentions, though, incredibly few players do ever acquire these abilities, especially when you consider multiclassing.
Wish from simulacrums is free.
WBLWizard runs out of money.
Wish from simulacrums is extremely doubtful and I have never seen it allowed.
High optimization does limit the number of builds avaliables.But does that limit RPing?
I might have to agree here. I find that I just can't play a fighter in a group with a synthesist summoner.
Perhaps.
SOme people prefer to build first and to give personality later and make such peronnality around hte build. FOr those people their roleplay options could be limited.
Would you be against people playing as commoners?A ninja not taking vanishing trick is just being irresponsible. That's like playing a barbar with 14 strength or a sorcerer with 9 cha. You're just being silly.This attitude is a big problem for me, and I think it's a very good example of exactly why you see a backlash against optimization.
14 str barbarian are perfectly viable not like 9 str sorcerer (unless archetype).
But it's not 1/3 of game play. Games rarely get that high.Do you think that 1/3rd of a game being unplayable is a problem?
It is true that I basically view the game as ending at around 12th level.
Well, perhaps if the game woudl have been made to work better at highger level you would see more people playing at those levels.
High optimization does limit the number of builds avaliables.But does that limit RPing?
I might have to agree here. I find that I just can't play a fighter in a group with a synthesist summoner.
You've heard the Henry Ford quote "any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."?
That's the limitation on RP high optimization requirements put.