Quote Originally Posted by Kabooa View Post
Game design itself is rarely subjective. Much of game design can be objectively looked at and errors pointed out, even in an early design stage.

For example, the moment Blue mage and its capacity was announced, it didn't take playing the job to realize what was going to happen to it the week it released. You'd level, you get your skills, and you'd beat the Masked Carnival and then not have anything to do with it afterwards.

We just didn't know the timescale. I honestly thought leveling would take longer, and Blue Mage would be dead to me within a month until the next content patch.

Turns out I hit that point on day 3, and I sincerely hope you all love sitting in a corner while someone else does your primal fights.
Whether it is ‘good’ design is still subjective, whilst we can measure it and compare it, the parameters set to be considered ‘good’ are still subjective because they are based on opinion, professional or otherwise. Even if people overwhelmingly agree, it isn’t objective. That is not to say it devalues a person’s opinion, especially if it is a professional opinion, but in the example of FFXI and also Blue Mage there are people who disagree that it is bad design. It’s not because they are in denial of the facts, because opinions aren’t facts.