To the Devs: Communication is failing!

[Rutelor]

Full disclosure: Most of this post is recycled from another one which got lost in the middle of the Byzantine discussion that ensued after the announcement of the changes to come for skills and abilities.

This Byzantine discussion is precisely what I'm complaining about, and I blame the Developers and the moderators for failing to communicate the New Vision that ought to be replacing Tanaka's. I assume there's one. Strategically speaking (the Marketing Department, I'm sure, will agree with me...) this moment--one month before you start charging again--is the wrong moment to inject a pretext for negativity into the community. There are too many trolls happy to run with the opportunity to wreck havoc.

So, again: Could you please give us some of the reasoning behind the disappearance of Water as an offensive spell and the elimination of enfeebling magic? This whole issue will be much less likely to create a spike of animus against the plans of the development team, if they allow us to understand why this is being done, and towards which end.

Just removing a structure that was shown to us as essential from the beginning of the game will make us feel deprived, but giving us a few glimpses of the new structure will make us feel reassured. Showing us the end towards which we are moving will allow us to understand your reasoning and dispel the whiff of arbitrariness we are now getting. The structure the developers are toying with was presented to us as a fundamental object of necessary knowledge, a core constituent of the Adventurer's efforts to understand and conquer the world. Telling us it will be taken away without letting us see what will replace it... this is very likely to make everybody feel mutilated.

I am sure I speak for the vast majority of the community when I say we don't want a excessively streamlined game, that falls into the territory of the simplistic. The pull of the Final Fantasy universes has always been the complex interactions within a very deeply structured system of interacting forces. We, as players, are given the end of very entangled strings, and by pulling them, we slowly learn the effect they produce, and get to partially (very partially) control the forces of the world to our advantage. And the forces are part of a continuously shifting kaleidoscope that permanently plays with the influence of light, darkness, moon, weather, day and hour... You are kept constantly on your toes and your strategy has to change on a dime. That feeling is what brings us here, and we are afraid a good chunk of that is being taken away from hydaelyn. Perhaps it's not, but appearances are paramount. It seems the game is moving towards one in which the point is to gank, and gank fast without much thought. Maybe it's not, but again, that's what it feels like from the very succinct information you gave us.

Could you please give us a clear and illuminating snapshot of the "Vision" as it pertains the interaction of forces (Deities, Elements, Weather, Moon Phases, Weekday, Time of the day, Day or Night...) monsters and players?

It will be much appreciated by all, I'm sure.

R