> It depends on why you play though; the "combinatorial explosion of overhead" is only a problem if you're trying to min/max, if you play for fun it's more "What character do I like" or "What wings do I find pretty".
Then why don't you make sure all the pretty wings are on the Pareto frontier?
Back when I was playing D&D 4th edition (fairly casually), I started by assuming that all the fighter "feats" were basically equivalent from a damage perspective, and only differed in application or aesthetics. Then I did the math, and determined that there was a 2-3x difference between the weakest and the most powerful feats; so naturally I chose the most powerful ones. But I didn't really enjoy that process -- I felt obligated to do it because... I mean, I'm trying to increase in power? That's the whole point of the game?
Why should choosing an aesthetically pleasing power mean my character is weaker?I would have had much more fun if they'd balanced the feats such that they were all about the same (or at least, all on the Pareto frontier). Then I could really have chosen based on personal taste or roleplaying reasons, rather than trying to avoid having a nerfed character.
ETA: I feel like StarCraft does this very well overall. If nobody's using a unit, they buff in the next balance update; if everyone's using a unit, they nerf it in the next balance update. The result is that there are millions of potentially successful strategies, even at the grandmaster level, as long as you play efficiently. That's a lot more fun to me than 700,000 strategies, of which only 20 are realistically going to win at high levels.
Then why don't you make sure all the pretty wings are on the Pareto frontier?
Back when I was playing D&D 4th edition (fairly casually), I started by assuming that all the fighter "feats" were basically equivalent from a damage perspective, and only differed in application or aesthetics. Then I did the math, and determined that there was a 2-3x difference between the weakest and the most powerful feats; so naturally I chose the most powerful ones. But I didn't really enjoy that process -- I felt obligated to do it because... I mean, I'm trying to increase in power? That's the whole point of the game?
Why should choosing an aesthetically pleasing power mean my character is weaker?I would have had much more fun if they'd balanced the feats such that they were all about the same (or at least, all on the Pareto frontier). Then I could really have chosen based on personal taste or roleplaying reasons, rather than trying to avoid having a nerfed character.
ETA: I feel like StarCraft does this very well overall. If nobody's using a unit, they buff in the next balance update; if everyone's using a unit, they nerf it in the next balance update. The result is that there are millions of potentially successful strategies, even at the grandmaster level, as long as you play efficiently. That's a lot more fun to me than 700,000 strategies, of which only 20 are realistically going to win at high levels.