Although this isn't necessarily the official development team's stance on the subject, I do believe that I can explain some of the decisions the map making team has made.
Since the beginning, the maps have always been changing and evolving. Old spots are blocked off and new ones are made. The same is true of kiting paths. This thread was made ages ago (over a full year! :O), and since then there have still been many kiters fully capable of kiting all of Hard mode and most of Ragnarok mode on their own, and several teams that are also capable of this. As far as I can tell, the development team isn't trying to "kill" kiting any more than it is trying to "kill" barricading - it is just changing up the maps to keep the game a little more fresh and exciting. Wouldn't it be boring if a map would be changed to be very easy and then just stay that way forever? It would kind of defeat the purpose of playing on other maps until they were also made very easy, but then everything would just be very easy. It makes more sense, in my opinion, to switch up maps and have some easy, some hard, and change the maps and spots every so often. I enjoy kiting as well and have kited with several other people very recently on a few different maps with varying success. It isn't like kiting is impossible now, the maps and kiting paths have just changed around a bit. The easier ones become more difficult, the harder ones become easier, and new opportunities are made.
Hopefully this will aid some in understanding the reasons behind map changes. Nothing is new and there is definitely no new crusade against kiting. Maps are just changing as they always have. If you don't believe me, look at the post date of the first post in this thread. As mentioned before, it has been a full year.
Since the beginning, the maps have always been changing and evolving. Old spots are blocked off and new ones are made. The same is true of kiting paths. This thread was made ages ago (over a full year! :O), and since then there have still been many kiters fully capable of kiting all of Hard mode and most of Ragnarok mode on their own, and several teams that are also capable of this. As far as I can tell, the development team isn't trying to "kill" kiting any more than it is trying to "kill" barricading - it is just changing up the maps to keep the game a little more fresh and exciting. Wouldn't it be boring if a map would be changed to be very easy and then just stay that way forever? It would kind of defeat the purpose of playing on other maps until they were also made very easy, but then everything would just be very easy. It makes more sense, in my opinion, to switch up maps and have some easy, some hard, and change the maps and spots every so often. I enjoy kiting as well and have kited with several other people very recently on a few different maps with varying success. It isn't like kiting is impossible now, the maps and kiting paths have just changed around a bit. The easier ones become more difficult, the harder ones become easier, and new opportunities are made.
Hopefully this will aid some in understanding the reasons behind map changes. Nothing is new and there is definitely no new crusade against kiting. Maps are just changing as they always have. If you don't believe me, look at the post date of the first post in this thread. As mentioned before, it has been a full year.