Quote Originally Posted by linay View Post
Sure, but feeling stale is subjective. I used to main SMN in late Heavensward and early Stormblood and I don't like it when they changed it a bit too much in Shadowbringers. Meanwhile, I was able to transition to RDM and loved that it didn't change much in Shadowbringers from the way it was in Stormblood, but still showed improvement. Other people might find RDM boring, and they're entitled to that opinion, but that's irrelevant to me and I hope RDM never strays too far from its current simplicity.

I used to prefer DRK as well before Shadowbringers. Warrior just became more interesting to me in Shadowbringers even though DRK got more changes, from what I can see anyway.
If enough people share that subjective feeling, however, does that still leave the sum of their opinions as inconsequential?

I may feel, for instance, that 1.x was better than Shadowbringers. Perhaps 1 other person in the world would agree with me while over a million would vehemently disagree, and for good reasons. But would both opinions be equally sound just because they're both subjective? Surely not.

In regards to Warrior, for example, the majority opinion (at least on across these official forums and virtually any and all unofficial areas of discussion) is that Warrior lost little capacity or optimized gameplay, but was nonetheless hollowed out by the Shadowbringers changes. If the devs were to create a poll, and a majority sided towards returning its lost complexity, or returning it by some other means, would they be obliged to ignore the majority just because (1) their opinions are individually subjective and therefore inconsequential (despite that the whole point is gameplay preference, which will always be subjective, yet consequential enough to determine whether someone cancels their subscription) and (2) someone may prefer the barebone gameplay (despite that, too, being subjective)?

The popularity of an opinion, and the number and frequency of other reasoned opinions that combine to form that opinion, matters. To deny all changes just because they're "subjective" is nothing more than saying "No, I got what I like right now, and no one's allowed to change it. Gameplay can't be augmented because I got the good dice roll this time and I'm not giving it up."

The best designs are going to be the ones that appeal to the greatest number of people. The more subjective opinions are appeased by the change and what changes must follow it is a good change objectively. Some designs are therefore, frankly, better than others. Skip the "it's subjective" dismissal and look instead at how an upgrade might follow general means of improvement (providing a welcoming skill floor, an encouraging skill curve, and a skill ceiling high enough to provoke you to continuously try to improve; reshaping the old only just enough to make the new cohesive; giving some fine eye-candy without breaking theme with what was there before or being overly gaudy; etc., etc.) as to appeal to the most people possible as deeply as possible, and alienate as few people as possible as little as possible. Those design additions, though subjectively received, can be made objectively better -- at least in as much as anything to do with perception can ever be objective.