Quote Originally Posted by Sebazy View Post
My best guess is that Yoshida routinely commented in the past that he wanted to reduce the gap between top and bottom tier players. In this regard, the removal of Cleric stance was a resounding success and Stormblood watering down SCH was also fairly effective even if part of it had to be walked back. ShB was just a repeat of 4.0's initial SCH murder, but across the board and this time they stuck to their guns.
This scene from Sword in the Stone is how I perceive the changes from HW to SB to ShB to EW.

In this clip, the design team is the sugar tin, and the sugar itself is the simplifying of job mechanics. What we needed was what Arthur gets, a couple scoops of sugar, and SB was more like getting a 3rd scoop... a little too sweet, but not overpowering. What we got is Merlin's cup. We hit an acceptable level of sweetness years ago, but they continue to pour spoonful after spoonful of sugar, only we're screaming "when!" and they aren't stopping adding sugar to the cup. They seem to be on a crusade trying to eliminate anything that even sounds like it threatens the idea of accessibility, but I firmly believe if we instead tried to find that 2-3 spoonfuls of sugar 'goldilocks zone of simplicity' the game would still be extremely accessible, but without continuously alienating more and more veteran players/expert players who find that there tea has become undrinkable. Maybe it'd be a little sweeter than some might like, but it wouldn't be downright unpalatable.