Quote Originally Posted by Talraen View Post
That's true. However, from a standpoint of trying to get as many players to play as possible, the fact that anyone is frustrated by this system makes it a bad system. Rewarding a segment of your players while annoying another segment is not neutral, it's a net negative. No one is paying you more because they got more gear.
I find your argument confusing. The fact that there are some who prefer 1 system, some who prefer the other system, and some who prefer a mix, isn't Square doomed to hit that net negative with no matter what system they end up using then?

I think ultimately, you can only discern the net negative by determining the number of players that like each system, and the number of players that will quit or subscribe with each system. This is virtually impossible. This thread aims to gather some information on that, though. Looking at competitors, as mentioned previously, WoW has the highest subscriber rate of any MMO consistently and substantially for 12 years straight, and WoW uses a random stat system. This suggests that the success of an MMO is not dependent on using a tomestone system.