@solidbatman@sakurajima.social I only played 1.0, ARR, and a tiny bit of HS, but I remember what the new dev team brought to the table was a stable and safe design sense.
Reign in the ambition, simplify the systems, cut back on experimentation, just look to what's popular and do what works.
That realistic philosophy saved the game, but the hit to the game's creativity was definitely felt. They went from one extreme to the other, from a stupidly risky team to a stupidly safe one.
They didn't get much dev time for ARR, so my assumption was that they'd begin diversifying the game and experimenting with quest design and dungeon structure later... but then they began removing systems and simplifying the game further.