Quote Originally Posted by refuse
Then again, removing what people have now, without adding to it, might make people leave.
Then again, leaving it as-is might make people leave, and less people come to play. Who knows?

Hey, you mean I spent 1+ years making this character and getting the skills I wanted and now you are taking them away from me?
If the skills are out-of-balance with the effort spent, then sure. I would expect no less.

When one designs a game system "from scratch", one cannot account for all the ways which the system will be utilized to accomplish ends as a player. All one can do is to define the "vision", and try to remain true to that vision. If the current underlying rule system causes the game to veer sufficiently far enough from the "vision" to be detrimental to the game in the eyes of the designer, then the designer is left with two choices: alter the game system, or alter the vision. Either choice has its own pitfalls and plusses, not the least of which is altering something that is already in-progress, and how the changes will impact the game world and the players. The option to just "start over" everytime an adjustment is made to game rules and its resultant effects on gameplay isn't feasible the vast majority of the time. Also, changing the vision is fraught with more serious kinds of pitfalls, as it can drastically alter the game play experience more than any base set of rule system changes.

I guess it would be like if they took gold rage away from all the dragons that choose the mages path. Oh, and Spiked Scales (that is based on primal) the warrior dragons can't have that. I mean, it "adds" value, and dragons of the two preferences would have it's "own" useful abilities. Groups of well chosen selection of dragon classes would become more common, and perhaps more fun". We could then petition to have Armor increases differ between the types of dragons. Why would a spell casting dragon need 8pts of armor per level? It doesn't add to the uniqueness of the T&C dragon to have the spell casting dragon have that.
If it puts the game back in-line with the vision, I am all for the "nerfs", even as a staunch Dragon player. If it made the game unplayable for me, I would point out why, especially in a situation like Horizons is now, where there is little to no vision, and a very minimalist effort to communicate, understand, and deal with game design issues. However, with sufficient explanation and rational justification, I could swallow it, or at least would try to. I still would reserve the right to throw up my claws and say "screw it" and cancel, just as I expect anyone else would. They cannot please everyone, including me, all the time, so they need to do what they think is best for the game in the long-term.

The logic of removing from a game to add value is baffling to me.
I don't find it baffling at all. When our spiked scales abilities were not overwritten and we were able to use them all at the same time, stacked, it was removed, and it added value. When the flying with a cargo disk issue was resolved by "removal", it added value. Sure, you can point to the fact that they are/were bugs, and unintended, but who is to say that the current multiclassing situation was intended to the degree it exists today, and not a "design flaw" or "bug"? Hindsight is better than 20/20, and that makes past issues like these obvious now, after-the-fact, but a the time, there were no end of people defending them as bona fide intentionally-designed game mechanics.

Sometimes it makes sense to take something away to add value, just as much as adding something else adds value. Those that understand that concept and can take advantage of it make the difference between good game design and management and bad.