True, just like the devs don’t let the players code the game, work on the graphical assets, create the story or the individual NPCs etc…
No one is asking Crate or any developer to let the players make the game. If that was the point, then they could have simply released the Engine without any of the assets and let the players make the game for themselves.
At the same time, it does not mean that you go against the community’s wishes and deliberately do something none of them want just because of your “vision” for the project.
In other words, you don’t dictate what is good or right for your community unlike what some here prefer to believe. That is upto said community. What you can do is choose to give them what they want or not.
Game design? I will give you that.
Balance? Sorry, but I don’t see any of the developers coming up with any top tier builds.
What I do see is stuff like OP Warlord at FG release. And considering that it is mostly the community that “don’t know jack shit” that is proving whether something is overpowered or underpowered and not the all-knowing developers, I very much doubt your claim.
And I will very much disagree. Just look at all the Hybrid Pet items in the game that Crate supposedly has chosen to make a part of their “vision” and then show me all the Hybrid Pet builds in existence that are atleast decent enough to be considered a proper, viable build and not a mistake.
I assure you it was well known that Oathkeeper in general was OP before and by release. They didn’t need the community to know that. What the community does help with is catching all the permutations - which gives them a much broader picture to work with.
Then that would make it worse since it shows incompetence rather than ignorance if a creator were to create and deliver something flawed fully knowing it is flawed.
Why would they? It was known. It was way more OP before it got released. You haven’t noticed the trend after patches where they come back and go over it with a finer comb after taking in feedback?
It’s pretty well known what it would take to make them work. But it’s more trouble than it’s worth. The Devs listened, they just didn’t care. There’s a difference.
People tend to take into account things like context, though not all the time as I learned just now.
For eg, for all my criticism, I have nothing but praises for those working on the art and graphics for the game, the story etc. Ofcourse, I will not say the same for the balance.