What I see again and again is that when they aim into the "fun" target area instead of the "realism" target area, they tend to get neither, at least int he long term.
I thought of another disappointing example. I followed the early dev stuff regarding Pirates of the Burning Sea. They wanted the game to have the sailing model of the HMS Surprise simulator, only pretty and with a good user interface. They have dumbed it down instead. Now ships will be able to sail into the wind in the name of "playability." Nevermind that it would be possible to have a user interface, and even AI help that would make realistic sailing playable. They simply elected to let all ships sail in any direction at some minimal speed. Sounds like a simple compromise to prevent people from getting stuck in irons, or making sternway to tack (not at all uncomoon in that time period), but so much tactic nuiance is lost by even a 1-2 knot headway past close-hauled. Battle of the Nile? Impossible, the French just sail into the wind. Thinking seriously about when the right moment to tack is? Nah, no worries. So they'll end up in a game with homoginized combat reduced to broadside to broadside slugfests instead of maneuver and seamanship. So in an attempt to make the game accessible, they made it in a way that will result in quickly tiresome engagements.
Seems to me that replay value is also important. If it's too easy to sink loads of the enemy, it gets boring fast. Some of my best online ww2 aircraft flights have been gas tank draining affairs where I saw only one contact.
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