I am going to treat you two replies as a single reply, I hope that is not an issue. Now player knowledge are character knowledge are sometimes impossible to not mix. Like if you always explore and try to get to places that would give you tactical advantages in fights, it becomes part of that characters personality, to the point where if they do not try and get to the most advantageous piece of terrain would be out of character. Now when I did the raid for my first time, We used the platforms. I did not know at the time it was a cheese strategy or "exploit". I thought the devs wanted us to use the platform since it was placed just close enough to jump onto as well as hobgoblins there hinted it was part of the playable area as no where else in the game are enemies located in inaccessible areas. This leads me to believe that the team that developed and designed the raid expected us to use the platforms. Which makes me believe that either the team that designed the raid is not the same team that is maintaining the raid (different design philosophy), or the change to the platforms was from someone higher than the team leader of the design team. Now I never thought player freedom was a bad thing or that you could have to much player freedom. The mechanics are not just the raid mechanics but all the mechanics that the players has access to. This includes their jumping ablity, their supers, the terrain, and Enemy AI. There seem to be two design philosophy in regards to raid design. One where players can use or not use any tools they want to solve the problems(encounters) and the other more common philosophy is that players have to use and only use the tools provided in the raid. I hope you can agree that there are different design philosophies in regards to raids and open world games, and a lot of MMO player are used to the more directed experience that only uses the tools of the raid.