Well, they’ve always had a history of “overdoing” things when it comes to tuning adjustments/balancing. Or well, either that, or being a bit too conservative. Ofc they’ve gotten it right on occasion, but fairly often, things don’t turn out quite like one would expect.
With RSV, I would argue that it was fairly obvious even during the WoD beta that they weren’t putting any serious effort into it. Several things that were promised, never saw the light of day. This to me, while not really as apparent back then, now(after the fact) strongly hints at how they were investing in a different direction for SV, even as early as during said beta, or before.
While I’m not convinced that the effort of balancing/tuning had much to do with the end result, like you said, they’ve come out with several statements over time, serving as excuses to try to justify their decisions.
Some, like those below:
You guys also oversee all the other classes. Are there any particular changes that you’re most excited about?
Adam: I’m super excited about Shadow Priests, Outlaw Rogues, and Survival Hunters specifically. Proceeds to say stuff about the other classes/specs.
And then Survival Hunter…
Travis: It was another one that was missing its niche. It’s kind of like Marksman except more traps? Or different arrows? So it was kind of missing that “what is the core fantasy?”
Having it move into the melee space and actually return to its roots that was the vanilla Survival experience. You got your Raptor Strike and all that and having those come back and play a role, moving into melee, giving mobility like the Harpoon to draw you in – it’s like it finally gave them a unique identity. If this is the beast companion guy that you’ve always wanted to play then you’re going to have that role.
Generally those are the ones that probably got the most drastic changes but every single class – I think one of the things that’s fun to see is when you go into a five-man dungeon now and you can actually pretty readily, visually go: “Oh look the Rogue is doing his roll of the dice right now” or “Oh look the Paladin just threw his hammer.”
You get more flavor both visually and also as a player. That feeling of “What is that experience that I wanted?” and it delivers a little bit more for every class now.
There are several things you can say to pick this answer apart, showing how it simply doesn’t hold up whatsoever. But either way, that’s what was said there.
Next up, while I hesitate to quote something that was said in an informal setting, a non-official capacity, here’s what Chris Kaleiki, the dev who originally brought the RSV fantasy to life, said about the teams thoughts regarding RSV at the time of it’s removal. It’s taken from a DM, so again, not an official interview or anything.
Chris: You’re right that I did foster that gameplay during that time in development, and I was fond of it like you were.
If you can remember, the team at the time had a mission to focus on the fantasies of the different specs. While you did think they(it; RSV) were an ammunition expert and master trapper, they saw that fantasy as not as quite developed and lacking. There were a vocal number of players who did have ambition for a melee spec, and I think the team thought that’d be a good way to break up the 3 specs available to the Hunter. It was a rocky start, but I think a good number of players are fond of that change now.
I would argue that the actual number of players who have an interest in the current playstyle, isn’t all that “good”. Something Ion admitted to himself in an interview. But anyway, that’s what he said.
He(Chris) proceeded to add some of his own thoughts/opinion on the matter:
Chris: However, I think it was the wrong decision to rebuild the old Survival spec into the melee hunter because it disenfranchised all of the players who were fond of the original gameplay like yourself. But I don’t think the team would agree with me, obviously, and perhaps I’m a bit bias since I was fond of that original gameplay.
I do think the team may in the future re-introduce some of the original gameplay (in terms of the tempo and ability usage that Survival had in the past), its definitely something I advocated for.
Again, this last bit wasn’t from an official interview, but simply a direct conversation. And as so, they’re the thoughts of an individual, not the current dev team. Who knows were their heads are at atm.