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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9133527" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Nothing wrong with disliking what you dislike, nor speaking on what it is you dislike. But of course being that critic of a product often results in the defenders of the product that is being criticized rushing forward in attempts to "clean up" the potential mess the critique is causing... usually because they don't want a product they like/love "sullied" by negative critique. So by saying "Just handwave it!"... they are trying to offset the negative critique by backdoor suggesting it's not actually an issue if you just change how you play or what you like. It's not "really" a mistake... if (general) you just play differently. But of course... that's not how people actually think or play, and more often than not the product itself doesn't actually need that "defense" or "protection". The product is the product and usually can hold up to scrutiny. It is only the truly bad product that will collapse under the weight of bad critique.</p><p></p><p>So that push/pull between criticism and defense is always going to be there in every review. And while a review has the privilege of being able to get the reviewer's opinions out for mass consumption... the downside for the reviewer is the potential discovery of whether or not the designers of a product happen to <em>care</em> about the same sort of things the reviewer does-- and often they don't. Which I think sometimes can bother potential critics-- as though the things they find are important are not shared by the people who can actually fix the issue. If the designers for whatever reason put (for instance) the combat strength of the encounter ahead of the ability or logic to place the tokens correctly... then they will end up falling on the side of the "Just handwave it!" folks and just accept the criticism as it comes. The designers know they will make some people happy with their choices to put in the number of enemies that they do, while end up irritating others who are more concerned with something different. And that just ends up being the cost of doing business-- knowing you can't make everyone happy all the time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9133527, member: 7006"] Nothing wrong with disliking what you dislike, nor speaking on what it is you dislike. But of course being that critic of a product often results in the defenders of the product that is being criticized rushing forward in attempts to "clean up" the potential mess the critique is causing... usually because they don't want a product they like/love "sullied" by negative critique. So by saying "Just handwave it!"... they are trying to offset the negative critique by backdoor suggesting it's not actually an issue if you just change how you play or what you like. It's not "really" a mistake... if (general) you just play differently. But of course... that's not how people actually think or play, and more often than not the product itself doesn't actually need that "defense" or "protection". The product is the product and usually can hold up to scrutiny. It is only the truly bad product that will collapse under the weight of bad critique. So that push/pull between criticism and defense is always going to be there in every review. And while a review has the privilege of being able to get the reviewer's opinions out for mass consumption... the downside for the reviewer is the potential discovery of whether or not the designers of a product happen to [I]care[/I] about the same sort of things the reviewer does-- and often they don't. Which I think sometimes can bother potential critics-- as though the things they find are important are not shared by the people who can actually fix the issue. If the designers for whatever reason put (for instance) the combat strength of the encounter ahead of the ability or logic to place the tokens correctly... then they will end up falling on the side of the "Just handwave it!" folks and just accept the criticism as it comes. The designers know they will make some people happy with their choices to put in the number of enemies that they do, while end up irritating others who are more concerned with something different. And that just ends up being the cost of doing business-- knowing you can't make everyone happy all the time. [/QUOTE]
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