Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
There is nothing wrong with having MMO influences, they are quite good in their own right, even if that is something that turned off folks at the time. If it is what the designers were specifically thinking about and crediting as an influence, it is what it is.
I don see anybody being told to "suck it up," but the thread started from a post-mortem from one of the designers of 4E on how it could have been different. As it was, it failed in the marketplace. Mearls speculated on how it could have been if WotC had better knowledge of the target market at the time.
Then there is the odd sidetrack into how one of the aspects of 4E that 5E took basically wholesale is somehow a defining difference? Yet it remains the same, with flatter math.
I don see anybody being told to "suck it up," but the thread started from a post-mortem from one of the designers of 4E on how it could have been different. As it was, it failed in the marketplace. Mearls speculated on how it could have been if WotC had better knowledge of the target market at the time.
Then there is the odd sidetrack into how one of the aspects of 4E that 5E took basically wholesale is somehow a defining difference? Yet it remains the same, with flatter math.