Originally Posted by
Fox
From my point of view as a designer, design by committee is rarely a positive thing. Feedback is great, but if you try to please everyone you'll end up screwing up and pleasing no one. I love it when people say to me "here's what the players are asking for!" and hate it when they follow it up with "so let's give it to them!" Everyone wants something different, and everyone has different ideas for how to achieve it. The smart designer knows how to pick out the useful information and ignore everything else.
I do worry a little about something like FFXV with how much we've heard things like "Oh you want this? We'll see if we can do it!" Tabata has proven himself more than capable with his previous work though, so I have to just hope it's all under control.
In their defense, Episode Duscae was a really good idea and fantastic from a data gathering point of view. Players getting widespread unrestricted hands on with your systems before you even hit alpha? That's amazing, and a great opportunity to allow for meaningful iteration (like as Wolf mentioned that you get with MMOs) before release. I expect the combat in the finished game will be notably better than in the demo, largely as a result of information obtained by the demo.