i think a lot of you guys are oversimplifying game design btw.

this is why it's actually a career =)

you need to plot out the game trees and figure out by changing a leaf on this branch what effect it changes on the others. there's two types of categories, one is completely formula based imbalances (mathematical ones) which is the easy one, and the other is logic trees based on known user interaction patterns based on user response to changes (this is the hard one, since you have to predict what users will do with these new changes beforehand). without plotting these out, you have no idea what changing one of these knobs will effect on this game.

what i was trying to refer to in my earlier posts was once you understand on the big picture what you are changing, you can do small tweaks on the knobs on matters you know aren't going to work from the logical and mathematical standpoint. what i'm specifically referring to about the admins not making mistakes is that they might not see all the userbase responses at once, but as long as they try their best and fill them all in, the player base will forgive you. i would definitely be bothered more if they can't see the formula based knobs and how they effect each other, since they should have plotted that all out already...

too many people suggest changes emotionally. when a game studio sees changes suggested from fans, they know its all emotionally charged. doesn't mean they aren't good ideas though, typically they love listening to their fanbase and any logical changes their fans suggest they would explore to see if it makes any sense. i believe dagga's change is worthy of pang/qzjul to seriously consider going through this type of review process.

that's why sometimes these changes are made and sometimes they arent. i'm still not sure how where our admins are in terms of game production and design, but i'm sure they have learned a lot since the early days =)