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I'd say the game is designed around 16 primary stat at level 1, +2 prof vs AC or implement v NADs, no expertise, no epic destiny stat boost, and fighting enemies at approximately equal level to yourself. The improvements in the nature of your powers is supposed to allow you to overcome numerically superior enemies. The expertise bonus and ED bonus, combined with the higher monster damage could be considered part of the revised design, to make higher level combats run faster. But the basics otherwise remain the same.
If your party is heavily optimized, it can lead to confusion about where the baseline lies, because the DM will most likely compensate by upping the difficulty of encounters. In particular, you will mostly face enemies of a higher level than yourself, so that they can hit you and sometimes avoid hits.
The higher level the enemies are above you, the bigger difference optimization makes (especially to hit). A +1 attack is +10% damage output (ignoring crits for simplicity) if you otherwise hit on an 11, but +20% damage output if you otherwise only hit on a 16.

Oct 2, 2012 -- 2:22PM, warrl wrote:

Oct 1, 2012 -- 5:26PM, DLfan wrote:

My whole point is that very high level stats in 4E don't feel spectacular either. The game is designed around you having a 20 in your primary stat

Gee, that's strange, most of my most-effective characters have 17 in their primary stat at level 1. And yes that's post-racial. Putting a 20 in the primary stat usually (not always!) leaves so little for the secondary stat that it hurts overall effectiveness. Particularly if you also need a tertiary stat.

Gee Warrl. Try posting my whole response instead of one line. I mentioned that I often give out very high stats so your arguement that an 18 in one stat leaves no room for other choices in your character build is a complete strawman arguement.  

My complaint on 20's not being overpowering for a start stat is simple. 20 str, +3 weapon,expertiese and fighter 1 handed feat = +10 at level one   vs kobold dragonshield ac18 is a 8. Hardly overwhelming.


Warlock 20 cha & expertise vs goblin blackblade reflex 14 = 9. Hardly overwhelming.

And if he's not willing to go through the links, here's some quotes:

 "I was a fan of 4th edition until I realized that my group wasn't actually roleplaying anymore; we were instead playing a miniatures game."

"the game system is very 'game-y' and doesn't encourage roleplaying all that much"

"My biggest complaint, I think, is that the Powers system feels flatly detrimental to my notion of role playing"

"4e for me was nothing more than an attempt to turn a video game into a tabletop game and a porr attempt at that. It lacked all the social skills and abilities found in the more successful tabletopRPG’s and left you with only a combat system set up for miniatures and little more"

"My previous discussion of the 4E game laid out a lot of my concerns — the powers-based system, the lack of roleplaying..."

Oct 3, 2012 -- 2:46AM, DLfan wrote:

Oct 2, 2012 -- 2:22PM, warrl wrote:

Oct 1, 2012 -- 5:26PM, DLfan wrote:

My whole point is that very high level stats in 4E don't feel spectacular either. The game is designed around you having a 20 in your primary stat

Gee, that's strange, most of my most-effective characters have 17 in their primary stat at level 1. And yes that's post-racial. Putting a 20 in the primary stat usually (not always!) leaves so little for the secondary stat that it hurts overall effectiveness. Particularly if you also need a tertiary stat.

Gee Warrl. Try posting my whole response instead of one line. I mentioned that I often give out very high stats so your arguement that an 18 in one stat leaves no room for other choices in your character build is a complete strawman arguement.  

Ah, I see. YOU as DM decided to jack everyone's attributes, and in the resulting variant system a character with with attributes that are neither jacked nor "optimized" can't keep up.

I absolutely agree.

But I don't see this as even relevant to the system as written, where characters' attributes aren't jacked. Specifically it doesn't prove that a non-jacked, non-optimized character can't keep up with other non-jacked characters optimized or not, and it's no condemnation AT ALL of the system as written. You might as well condemn 4E for not meshing well with WoD rules.