New AST from a New Player

[Hatstand]

Two years really is too long, not to mention having to shell out for a sub every month for a game that created such a high barrier to enjoy the rest of it. I'm content with remaining hopeful, however, since this seems to be an issue of just restoring assets they never should have cut in the first place.

Devs fixed things that weren't broke, but all they have to do is put the pieces that fit right back.

Those are the practical barriers, yes, but there are three psychological barriers there, too: pride, a sunk cost fallacy, and the dam on healer changes.

For pride, the devs have been insisting that the new card system is fine for months now, and that just as many people like it as like the old one. Changing it now would mean they’d have to admit they were wrong not only about the changes, but in all those statements, too.

For a sunk cost fallacy, no matter how lazily designed the new AST card system is, it is a whole new system, and taking it all back so soon after release would feel like a lot of work for nothing. Of course, it’s particularly fallacious in this case because they already discarded the old card system which clearly had had more work put into it.

Finally, the devs are always going on about how the healers are finally balanced. If they restore the assets they shouldn’t have ripped away from AST (and hopefully SCH, too) then they’d be right back where they started, and they’d have to admit that balancing the healers properly is going to require significantly more thought and effort than they seemed to want to put in last time. (The proper way to go about it would be to leave SCH and AST alone for the most part except potencies and spend more time improving WHM so that it’s as good as them).

[ZeroFool]

Those are the practical barriers, yes, but there are three psychological barriers there, too: pride, a sunk cost fallacy, and the dam on healer changes.

For pride, the devs have been insisting that the new card system is fine for months now, and that just as many people like it as like the old one. Changing it now would mean they’d have to admit they were wrong not only about the changes, but in all those statements, too.

For a sunk cost fallacy, no matter how lazily designed the new AST card system is, it is a whole new system, and taking it all back so soon after release would feel like a lot of work for nothing. Of course, it’s particularly fallacious in this case because they already discarded the old card system which clearly had had more work put into it.

Finally, the devs are always going on about how the healers are finally balanced. If they restore the assets they shouldn’t have ripped away from AST (and hopefully SCH, too) then they’d be right back where they started, and they’d have to admit that balancing the healers properly is going to require significantly more thought and effort than they seemed to want to put in last time. (The proper way to go about it would be to leave SCH and AST alone for the most part except potencies and spend more time improving WHM so that it’s as good as them).

I hadn't even considered external factors, especially the ones you just listed being particularly pervasive and so core to the direction that they took Every Job in. I simply don't know what kind of influence we as players have to affect these barriers. I may have opted from resubscribing due to the reasons already discussed, but they will only see my absence and not the reason behind it.

And I'm sure others who continue to play but are so put off by the changes that they opted to switch jobs will only show up as numbers the devs can construe as a whole number of things: that they did good work with the 'refuge' job which explains its sudden influx of players; players may have all just collectively burnt out on their main; etc. Whether or not they analyze the data in good faith will never be transparent.

It seems the most effective course of action is the forum, which despite all our activity may as well be background noise they tune into now and then(according to the recent responses we have received). An ideal course of action, as many have suggested and to my surprise has never been implemented in a game as big and ongoing as this, would be an official thread/poll created to directly interface our concern with the devs. Maybe we can start campaigning for this avenue as well?

I'm not sure, but seeing the devs trying new things I am hoping that they can also consider new ways of connecting with the players they're doing it for.