Quote Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese) View Post
It's been said before, but I think it needs to be said again: WotC puts no effort into high-level play because "Nobody likes high-level play." But the reason nobody likes high-level play is because WotC puts no effort into it!

And, yeah, I have to agree with the general consensus that skipping around the problem by making high levels identical to low levels is the exact opposite of what should be happening.
I think "nobody" means "nobody on our design team". Also your point about high-level play being really poorly designed being a turn-off for some people.

I suspect the reason for this is they've gotten themselves caught in a local minima: They're scared to death to make any big changes to the maneuver system because the fans might get angry with the new direction. It's just what happens when you go into game design without a vision, just tossing mechanics at playtesters and keeping what sticks.
They don't realise that staying put at this point will also make fans angry with the lack of direction?