The Devs need a much needed thanks!

[Midareyukki]

Wildstar was decent and fun to play.... and then they started listening to the player base.

after that it really went off the rails in so many bad directions. one reason I still firmly believe the show runners need to stick to their vision, in the case of this game, stick to what has worked for this long, discard what hasnt.

Except experience taught them the exact opposite, hence the ARR transition and their slideshow. And a lot of the QoL in this game only exists because fans so asked for. In fact, your own race's male counterpart exists due to that.

It's great that devs have a vision to follow, but disregarding fans in its entirety is also dangerous. There needs to be a balance. And while this game really does have a cool dev-fanbase experience, it's not a very healthy one. Square is incredibly secretive and isn't transparent when it would actually help them out. Not just to follow their own vision, but to make sure fans understand and enjoy the vision itself. Sometimes, more so than asking fans what they think and working off of it, it helps to temper fans' expectations than blind promises and vague denials. For example, saying "It's impossible" and then ending up doing it really muddles the definition of the word "Impossible". And it makes people demand for stuff deemed "unreasonable", because when you actually mean it's impossible, you just end up sounding like the Boy who Cried Wolf.

Warframe also has a relatively good fan-dev experience, and it's far healthier because the devs do listen to fans while also working on their own vision, and are transparent about it. Fans know what to expect and are still surprised by the work done. And fan suggestions and even exploits aren't derided, but incorporated into the game as features. Parkour didn't exist until the fans started doing it, and now it's become a staple mechanic that the devs encourage.