Yes, if that was your only design goal.
Generally, game design is a lot more complicated than this. You’ll have several design goals that you’re trying to meet with any given project, and with something like a class, you’ll have different design goals per ability as well.
Let’s create an analogy here. Let’s say I said ‘I need something that can cut into something else.’ That is a broad goal, and can be satisfied by really any time of sharp object. A sufficiently sharp knife would do, a razor blade, a sword, etc.
Now, let’s say that instead I had said ‘I need something to create precise cuts in paper, in order to create a specific shape.’ Well, you wouldn’t want to do that with a razor blade. You also probably wouldn’t want a knife or sword right? You’d want something like Scissors. But does that make those things poorly designed, or without purpose? Absolutely not. They’re still perfectly well designed tools, with completely different design goals that are made for a completely different scenario. Similarly, if I had said ‘I need to be able to cut wood’ well I’d want an axe. But an axe would be horribly inefficient for cutting paper.
This is why goals matter to design - and are a good way of measuring a successful design.
You can still have a design that meets its goals, but is a worse design than something else, too. But usually that is because it doesn’t solve design problems. IE: If I wanted a screwdriver that was also a blade - well I could just have a screwdriver and turn the handle into a sharp knife. That would fit the design goal. But it would fail to solve the design problem of ‘OK well how do I hold it now without cutting myself?’ Which is why you would iterate on it and make the blade and screwdriver store away into the handle - an objectively better design. But you could also create an attachable head, and make things moddable. This would also be an objectively better design than the first - but it wouldn’t necessarily be an objectively better design than the second. Whether or not the second or third iteration is better depends on your intent. Do you want something very portable? Or do you want something very comfortable to handle? One is better for each situation.
That is what design is really like. It is not this all-encompassing field with objective rules that everyone follows. What makes a good design is highly dependent on the situation, design goals/intent and the problems that follow.
But it absolutely is, and you continuing to make reductive arguments does not help you, because you assumed the answer, and were wrong in that assumption.
It’s a good thing they didn’t fail, then! You might argue against holy having design bloat but others might argue it does - which, honestly, I would say it objectively does have some design bloat when you start to crunch numbers, but I don’t think it’s poorly designed either.
I don’t disagree that if your design has fundamental problems, it could be called a poor design. But I absolutely disagree with your assertion that Discipline is lacking tools. This seems to be an opinion you hold so deeply that you are presenting it as if it’s an obvious fact, but realistically it isn’t.
Goals absolutely matter. There’s several ways we can look at and analyze design, but the only true objective way we can is through looking at whether or not it accomplished its goals and solved its problems well. Anything else is subjective, and not worth trying to present as some objective fact.
This isn’t to say we can’t criticize design. I might solve a design problem very differently than another designer, and have several reasons for solving it in another way. But I wouldn’t call something objectively bad when it does accomplish its design goals without fundamental problems.
