Using several past WoW expansions as an example, and probably the current one, the concept of OP "Ooo, shiny!" to market new features has been done in Wrath of the Lich King, Mists of Pandaria, Legion, and IIRC in Dragonflight where new classes were added in to the game.
Wrath was the first expansion to add in a new class, the Death Knight. It had 3 specs: Blood, Frost, and Unholy, and originally all 3 could Tank or Dps depending what abilities were picked because the talent trees weren't nerfed to shit back then. While nowadays Blood is the Tank spec in Wrath the best pick for a DK was 2h Frost tanking, something they don't get to do now because Frost is now the dual wield spec while Unholy is the 2h dps spec. DK tanks were next to impossible to kill. If you died it was probably because you fucked up something special, like falling off a mountain. Even later on a well played Blood DK could out last his entire raid group if done properly however that starts to require actual player skill and the issues here are more to do with the inherent class designs.
Then came Monks in MoP who were literally broken as fuck. The healing spec could outperfom dps in damage and was colloquially referred to as "Fistweaving" rather than 'Mistweaving' as it was actually called due to using water themes.
Legion added in Demonhunters which could both Tank and Dps. So they were amazing at both.
In these cases subsequent expansions toned/nerfed these classes down but in their original content they were that OP literal idiots could play them and still do exceedingly well. Much like Hunters and Warlocks in TBC who were so badly designed single button pressing was all you needed so groups filled with any idiot who decided to roll one 🙄 the term "huntard" existed for a reason.
The current expansion, Dragonflight, added in another new class, Dracthyr, who could either dps or heal. Because they are the new kids on the block they are both front and centre at ongoing events as well as class performance because the devs want people to play with the new toy.
Whatever happens next you can be sure the Dracthyr will be toned down to some degree to fit more in line with how other classes perform and if another class comes out eventually you can expect the pattern to repeat itself where the new shiny will be awesome for the duration of its expansion before being firmly resized and stuffed into a box of the devs choosing.
I'm a couple of days late checking this thread but will give some thoughts on the topic in general as well as address some of the specific examples brought up.
I remember how powerful an extra fighter or two could be in Baldur's Gate 2
BG2 didn't function like a traditional D&D game/party. Not only if the protagonist literally powered by the Divine but almost every single companion has some unique twist that makes them stand out from their actual class and subclass.
Minsc is more than just a Ranger, if he even is one because he functions more like a Fighter. His internal party interactions can lead him to adopt Aerie as his new witch after the death of Dynaheir between BG 1 and 2 which will lead to moments where Minsc can enter a berserker rage, despite not being an actual Berserker, if Aerie gets hurt too much. There is also Boo, who turns out to be exactly what it says on the tin. A miniature giant space hamster, and not just a regular hamster some brain adled strongman has been convinced otherwise. Most Rangers don't get played like this, Minsc functions better as a two handed tank/dps than the animal attuned archer/"ranger" stereotype or dual wielding swords type and apart from the protagonist, Keldorn, Sarevok, and a couple of others, Minsc potentially one of the single best melee characters you can get. As a Ranger.
Speaking of Sarevok, he's quite possibly the best melee character in the game again because of unique traits which also require several significant decisions to be made in order to make use of them.
First, you need to resurrect him in Throne of Bhaal and recruit him. Second, you need to give him his sword back, a sword you originally get all the way back in the very first dungeon in BG2, but only if you do the side quest for the Djinn and return its lamp from Irenicus' chambers. Then you have to hold on to the sword for the entirety of BG2, although others can use it in the meantime, because it's not until ToB where giving it back to Sarevok will let him return some of its lost power and upgrade it from a +2 2h sword to a +4 that only Sarevok can then wield. By this point in the trilogy you should be able to take epic levels which means whirlwind and greater whirlwind in the case of Sarevok, and Minsc. Add on to that Sarevok's Deathwalker ability where he can literally one shot almost anything and you can see why he's the best melee character in the game outside of the protagonist who only beats him due to both plot and broken class choices.
And those broken class choices are a multiclassed Kensai/Mage that gain martial abilities from the Fighter subclass in addition to armour bonuses that don't need actual plate, the aforementioned WW and GWW epic feats, and access to various Mage spells to further increase your abilities as well as simply cause damage should you so wish. Or even Wish. Simulacrum, Contingency, and others like Haste, Mage Armour, let you further buff yourself to absurd levels because the game design accidentally permits it, but then you're meant to be a demigod according to plot so acting like one this way isn't really that out of character.
It's the same error Dragon Age Origins made with the Mage subclass Spirit Warrior that permits Mages to use their INT stat to work for both melee weapons and wearing armour when it would otherwise require STR. You can then again couple martial and magical abilities for a synergy that outperforms everything else in the game.
Similar to being powered by the Divine in Baldur's Gate, Mages in Dragon Age really are that terrifyingly powerful so again it's still more or less behaving in line with how the class can be for plot reasons.
I have some MMO examples to go over as well which I'll do in a separate comment.
Legion starts good but goes woke several times such as when Syd starts spouting off about how "men are afraid of getting laughed at, women are afraid of getting murdered" to David. The guy is literally just trying to live his life away from all of the shit that has happened to him at this point and those who have caused it but continues to get harassed by people he thought were his friends who are now working with the very guy who has been abusing David and literally living off him like a parasite since he was born.
Season 2 only happens because future Syd is dumb enough to believe Farouk of all people and similarly the events that lead to season 3 only happen because Melanie is equally dumb enough to also listen to Farouk.
There is also Syd's history where she used her body swapping power to sleep with her mother's date/boyfriend and then acted like she was the victim afterwards, on top of not understanding why the date turned "her" around during sex in the shower 🙄.
Even better is the way the show en's as that all still happens because the whole time travel plan of the third season only changes David's early life and he didn't meet Sid until several decades had passed so all the shit Syd does will still happen in the new timeline.
Then you have girl boss Kerry, gay interogator Debussy, and whatever Ptonomy was meant to be because that character ends up getting dropped hard.
Apart from the rap battle in season 3 the few feel good moments of the show come from the catharsis of seeing David just cutting loose and turning various characters who have attempted to kill him into modern art, something we get to enjoy multiple times due to time travel being involved.
I dislike 100% absolutes as they are far too easy to disprove, something I point out to Imp when he makes them although he evidently doesn't learn anything there since he keeps on doing it and will probably do so again in a couple of days when his 48 day ban expires 🙄
On topic, while there can be the rare 0.1% show that isn't trash I am these days mostly watching things which are 20 years old or more as the selection of non woke stuff is significant. Recently started watching the 90s X-Men cartoon from the start as I never actually watched it from start to finish back when I saw it originally on TV and I'm sure there are still episodes I missed. Also planning to watch X-Men Evolution after as I enjoyed that one even more than the 90s version if simply because the animation was a lot better.
Villeneuve doesn't understand Dune at all. He is a one note director.
I think a lot of audiences are simply praising this because they are told to. "It's the Blade Runner 2049 director, clap peasants!" sort of thing. While BR2049 was OK, it was still yet another nostalgia piece heavily relying on the originals 80s movie. Hm, kind of the same deal with Dune 🙃
I wonder what his next big piece will be 🤔 Considering Blade Runner came out in 1982 and Dune in 1984 that means it will be something from 1986. That means one of Big Trouble in Little China ⚡, Flight of the Navigator 👽, Highlander 🗡️, Labyrinth 👨🎤, or Short Circuit 🤖
Wildcard option: Little Shop of Horrors 🥀
Nope, but then I haven't seen part 1, don't intend to, actually liked 2000 Dune and 2003 Children of Dune adaptations, and won't lose sleep over the strike continuing.
Why?
A lot of modern media is trash, the ones writing and producing said media are frequently paid too much for said trash - which they will use as a soapbox to air their own views on various topics instead of writing anything meaningful, and there is never any consequences for the writing of, or production of said trash while many far more popular titles get cancelled because of a lack of "message", instead actually attempting to tell a good story and not retell something for the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time and harping on about casting decisions more.
Pacific Rim 2 had a lot of problems going for it, in particular the director/writer and producers.
The director/writer:
Pacific Rim Uprising is a 2018 American science fiction monster film directed by Steven S. DeKnight (in his feature-film directorial and writing debut)
The producers:
Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Guillermo del Toro, John Boyega, Femi Oguns, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni
Of those seven the last three were more to do with financing the film, del Toro's name speaks for itself, Mary Parent and Cale Boyter were also producers for the newest Dune adaptation, leaving John Boyega.
Easier to just quote an earlier post I made about this,
Problem is Finn also suffers from an insufferable woke actor. Boyega not only played the race card multiple times throughout the Disney Trilogy, including shouting down someone who tried to make a comparable statement, but he also proved he has zero fucking clue about other projects when he's working on them. His role in Pacific Rim 2 also included helping with the writing and yet he specifically called for the PR2 main Jaeger to have swords on both arms because [paraphrasing] "in a sequel you should have more". Gypsy Danger already had swords in both arms. You see it deploy both in the last fight because one of them gets immediately torn off with most of the arm by one of the Kaiju. The same Kaiju that is then bifurcated by the other sword arm moments later.
Guy had zero awareness.
One of the worst things about Pacific Rim is that it may be the closest we get to a live action Neon Genesis Evangelion and as it managed to kill itself with Uprising even that hasn't gone very well.
This is the same line of thinking that happens from officials regarding other kinds of laws.
"There aren't enough people being arrested/sentenced for x/rape/murder/downloading a car, we need to pump up those rookie numbers!"
The simplest reason that these things aren't happening as often as claimed by some never occurs to them.
Dominion Tank Police really skips a lot of the manga lore. I only found out this year the cat girls are meant to be robots that can change their sizes by functioning like water ballasts.
Still, I loved the design for the mobile weapon platform that Bonapart has to fight in the later episodes. Far more streamline that GitS Tachikomas but still retaining an overall insect design as many anime exosuits often end up being based on.
Could be worse, could be Tina Howard repeatedly writing the same things over and over because she gets doing so poorly her current series get cancelled. Again.
I could say "it only took three attempts for her to actually write her Betsy Braddock story" but the truth is all three attempts were the same telling done three times and horribly rushed as a result of the repeated cancellations.
Funny how OP behaves the same way as Imp does but hyperfixates about Finland instead of other things 🤔