Development to Gamesystem II is not a design set in stone. Opinions and observations and ideas count. It is also not complete until it is completed and the tendency to mistake Avalon as now for Avalon as always shall be must be resisted. It ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy short-term, a dead-end mindset that's often an excuse for lazy disinterest punctuated by resentment as easy exploits make way for anti-mechanical measures trying to get people to play the game not the system.

Avalon's gamedesign is NOT, nor has it ever been, determined by favouritism or the complaints, whining or opinion of any individuals, nor do gripes chorused by groups of players result in anything more than attention. Conclusion is another matter altogether and one commited patient player has a greater role than a dozen fairweather detractors.

This "so-and-so whined and got it nerfed/buffed" is a common misconception - plausible but fundamentally inaccurate - and missing the real point. Complaints and criticism DO get heard. Often louder means more likely to be heard faster - it is unavoidably the case and thus the "so-and-so" whining can manifest real results - albeit short-term - as bugs get fixed, exploits closed and the "when" some part of the gamedesign gets attention (whether a change is made or not). These are the realities of organic game development.

However:

The main thing whining or - better still - clearly bugfiling or (incredibly enough sometimes) a 'thank-you-for-this' does is to bring attention to some ability or scenario or design aspect that might otherwise have escaped notice or given lower priority 'under consideration'. Hence the coalescion of the "whine" and subsequent fix or nerf or buff or evolution. This is all the more likely when an ability is new or the interplay is between recently altered skills. But it's a level playing field: all considered committed collaboration gets airtime and ultimately all aspects of the gamesystem gets attention.

Take it is a given:

Seldom is first implementation perfect. Players are ingenious exploit and loophole finders; bugs and oversights do happen. Every ability in the game has thousands of interconnected hooks, effects, counters, checks, blah blah.

So:

In the case of a vocal and complaint-prone player, he or she whines. The subject of the complaint, providing it actually gets heard, is thrown under the spotlight and the issue gets tested and considered as against how it SHOULD be working. Perhaps a change is made. The change, though, is NOT based on the whine - even if the complaint is the catalyst. Have a little faith here. Why would you be playing Avalon if its design was a work of incompetence and its creation as a gamesystem pulled out of somebody's arse? You wouldn't.

For every player-alert that leads to a gamesystem change, there's fifty more that don't because whatever it is they're whining about (or have bugfiled) is working like it's intended or they don't understand how their ability works or their conception is simply wrong.

Reality is defined by players as usual. The more vocal - often the whiners, unfortunately - WILL end up gaining when the system is in flux because players complain about what hurts them not what helps them. There's not much we can do to change this reality, save to suggest others alert (via bugfile or directly) about things that seem wrong to them/their side and hope players can be as objective as possible.

Nothing in the gamesystem is set in stone.

The purpose of the development period is to get it as close to the on-paper design as possible. That's not to say the design is perfect - far from it - but during development bugfiles (and complaints too) bring the game closer to the design as it should be; with occasional amendments to the on-paper design when it's some glaring oversight or mistake.

The development phase is finished when the gamesystem matches the gamedesign, as closely as possible. Then comes the balancing / battleground phase - and THIS is where true imbalances, poor skill interplay, as well as exploits and bugs and oversights are tackled with 100% focus.

IN THE END, regardless of who whines first or loudest during the development period or who suffers in silence, it all evens out. Part of the point of the battlefield/balancing phase is that redress. It's a process Avalon's been through three or four times before and usually wallops 95% of the bugs; understandably with more on the side of those who WEREN'T the complainers/busy bugfilers during development period.

After the battlefield/balancing phase there's always occasional fixes/oversights requiring attention but the paradigm shift from an "in development" to "this is the gamesystem to be mastered" will be concluded.