Nevermind

Taken literally, you've just asserted that a surprising reward with character synergy is worse than a surprising rigid reward that makes the player feel regret.

No. I asserted that guaranteed synergy is worse than random reward that might be synergistic or not, but the player does not know in advance. For example:

Let's say the player can get one of the abilities A or B at some point of the game (point 1), and C or D at some later point (point 2). And ability C is synergistic with A, that is, combination A+C is somehow superior to all others.

Eliezer's way... (read more)

Suppose the game was designed so that after achieving a goal, you get an unexpected bonus ability with awesome synergy with the character, no matter how the character had been developed up to that point? As a game designer, ignoring the difficulty of realizing such a design, how would you say the Fun-theoretic potential of this scenario stacks up?

Well, that is even worse, because essentially, you just took the choice away from player. No matter what he chooses, he'll always get some cool abilities.

This rule of thumb is overly broad as stated. It would r

Well, being a game developer, I can tell with some authority: you are wrong. It would (generally) mean error in game design if the abilities were hidden. Why? Because then the player couldn't plan anything. If some or all abilities are hidden at the beginning, that forces the player to choose based on incomplete knowledge, and more often that not, leads to regrets: "I wish I purchased that ability which turned out to work in nice synergy with others, and not this one which turned out to be useless..". Especially if there's some finite pool of res... (read more)