Because everyone pays the same subscription.

[KaiKatzchen]

Why? Why does this happen with almost every patch: you let some people do things easier, less grindy, faster. And then a patch makes sure other people can’t do it like *that*.

It happens both ways my dear...why do some people have to go though broken mechanics overly extreme restrictions to get from one thing to another then they gimp it and make it easier for everyone else a few months later?

• Used to be you had to beat all the extreme's to get to Moogle and Levi fight, now you don't have too you can just go to it.
  
• CT used to only get one drop of gear per week, now people going in can go in and get as many as they want per day.
  
• ST will probably be changed to do the same soon.
  
• AK used to have the pain in the butt bees that everyone complained about, so what they do? Remove them so now that dungeon is a joke.
  
• Etc.

Most of the things you're mentioning, if I remember correctly, were either adjustment's that weren't supposed to happen and needed to be adjusted, or were unknown errors int he game that were adjusted. It's all about balancing, we don't pay for a broken game, no mater what subscription we pay...and that being mentioned:

People don't play the same per month. If you only want 1 character per server you pay 9.99 a month, if you want 8 per server you pay 14.99. If you pay in 1, 3, or 6 month increments you get a larger discount per payment the larger the amount of time. So people in here pay anywhere from 7.99 a month to 14.99 a month. Also that doesn't count people who pay extra for buying extra retainers or have multiple accounts because more than one person in their family plays.

[TeaTimeBear]

You've had plenty of time to take advantage of the things listed in the OP..

[Elurra]

• Let a some people speed level DoW/DoM on fates. Get to 50 in a few hours. Then a patch makes sure other people can’t do it like *that*.
  
• Let a some people cheaply speed level DoH/DoL on leves. Get to 50 in a few hours with almost no cash spend. Then a patch makes sure other people can’t do it like *that*.

• Let some people speed farm Ramuh Ex with Titan Egi. Then a patch makes sure other people can’t do it like *that*.
  
• Let some people speed farm soldiers/myth/allied seals on hunts. And with that Alexandrite. Then a patch makes sure other people can’t do it like *that*.

FATEs are still a good way to level. They changed dungeon xp so it's just as fast. How is that bad?

DOH/DOL leves are still the best way to level crafting/gathering classes. They changed it so you get more for NQ turn-ins and HQ is about the same as it used to be. How is that bad?

Nobody does Ramuh Ex anyway, Titan or no Titan, so that complaint is irrelevant. Plus they changed it after a couple days, so it's not like anyone really had a chance to "farm" it.

A and S ranks are unchanged. I did B's because every little bit helps, but I know most people didn't care about them anyway. I like the change.

[SendohJin]

Ramuh is a total glitch, had to be fixed and it was done pretty quickly.

B Rank Hunts are being balanced for the players that don't want to join the hoard, you can still do the A and S Ranks.

From my achievements, i do about 1:10:15 [S:A:B], so 50+200+75 in terms of Seals, so B Ranks make up for about 25% of my Seals intake. that's about how many i got per day that i actually did hunts. now the 75 seal lost can be subsidized by the 32 that you can get from Dailies. yea it's a net loss, but it's not really that much, not for the way that i've done it anyway.

[Magis]

All your subscription does is give you the privileged to login to SE's servers. THAT IS ALL. They can do w.e they want, including deleting your character for shits and giggles. "I pay a subscription" is not an excuse or reason for any argument. The only time it can be an excuse is if it somehow falls outside of the Terms of Service that you accepted before handing over your money, which is probably very rare since SE's lawyers drafted it to cover all bases.

Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't complain if you find something wrong, SE would implement changes if they saw it was causing people to quit, but "I pay a subscription" is worth less than the virtual paper it is written on.

[Adrian74]

Well, OP I kind of understand your point but... Can't be helped...

And yes, indeed, maybe... Maybe... Things could be tested before, send some real players, that think like players, to test the stuff before released, wouldn't be a so bad idea.

But if things would be tested before but some players it would also destroy the ''surprise'' of what's next in the patches.... But... I wonder at this point, what's better? A bad surprise or not surprise at all?

[Teirshin]

I wonder at this point, what's better? A bad surprise or not surprise at all?

I'd gladly sacrifice some surprises to have a working player populated test server to stop most of the unbalanced rewards, horrible gameplay mechanics and then SE either taking far too long to fix it, or making a knee-jerk reaction thats no better than the problem they are trying to fix.

[Aegis]

It sounds like you're new to MMOs.

Sure it sounds easy on paper: test these things out first thoroughly, make sure they're all balanced and play as intended. Release a test server, even.

It doesn't play out this way. Every MMO has issues like this, even ones with test servers. People don't play on test servers the same way they do in game because that's not where their real characters are. Nobody would spend 18 hours a day for a week spamming hunts in a network of linkshells on test servers because they won't see any benefit; their main character is on X server.

In the case of hunts, SE didn't anticipate the community working together as much as they did. Again, hard to predict. They assumed people would be selfish, gather only as many of their friends/FC members as are required to kill the mob then kill it. Instead, people took the path of enlightened self-interest and shared the rewards. In so doing, increasing the rewards to all players beyond what SE has anticipated. It wasn't exploiting or breaking any rules, so it didn't require an emergency maintenance. It didn't break the economy as the rewards are all rare/ex.

SE can't anticipate what that one clever dick in the millions of people playing comes up with to circumvent their systems. They can do their best to try anticipate it, but they're never gonna succeed 100% of the time.

[Teirshin]

SE can't anticipate what that one clever dick in the millions of people playing comes up with to circumvent their systems. They can do their best to try anticipate it, but they're never gonna succeed 100% of the time.

Which is why a player populated test server has great merit.

RIFT did it and people loved playing on it to see the new stuff and to report the problems before the code got pushed to the live servers.

[Hyouretsuzan]

I was waiting for the obligatory post patch complaint/rant thread. Just like clockwork.