Revised Ranger update

[Sacrosanct]

Are the people who got started in 3e and 4e more advanced in years than the average new player now? Congrats, they are literally older than the current new generation. Not "old". Older.
If someone was 15 when 3e came out, they're 33 now. To fifteen-year-old them, that would be ancient.

And, again, brace yourself. The "oldies" stations I grew up played songs from the '60s and '70s. Twenty years earlier. Stations playing Britney now are playing songs from... twenty years ago. She is *technically* oldies, except "Oldies" has come to mean music from a particular era, and less the age of the music. So modern "oldies" stations are the ones advertising "the best of the '80s and '90s".
No station playing "modern pop" is going to touch her except in an ironic way.


But if it makes you feel better, replace "older" with "established".

The term you used was grognard along with older. I'm not buying the "I just meant technically older than people starting today" argument. Grognard has a common definition. Just like oldies has come to represent as certain era, so has grognard.

How?
The same event can have different causes.

Streaming has helped cause the resurgence of the last couple years, and word-of-mouth caused it in the '80s. Different causes, same result.


Most of your examples were around before 3e when D&D went extra-crunchy.

That's my point. Your argument was that because of streaming, which "brought in staggering numbers of new players and raised awareness of the game", players today care more about story than previous eras. Not only haven't you shown any proof of correlation to that, but my point was that the exact same thing, "brought in staggering numbers of new players and raised awareness of the game", happened in the 80s, so that seems like a very weak reason to base your position on. I brought up all of those movies, because in the late 70s and 80s, gamers still have plenty of media that focused on fantasy stories long before streaming was a thing. I also disagree about different causes. In both cases, it was established players giving a session to newer players. In person versus seeing it online doesn't matter; the new player is seeing the exact same thing. Watching a DM like Mercer play in person versus seeing him online has exactly zero impact on how I perceive the importance of story to the game.

 

[Staccat0]

Yeah I dunno man. 99% of hand-wringing about 5e is very silly and honestly I think WOTC has a habit of making people into worse DMs by feeding into that hand-wringing. So I appreciate the idea that people should just look at the existing rules and make a ruling...

But the 5e Ranger is boring.

We’ve had one is basically every campaign and they always get fun stuff to do, but it always feels like you have to go out of your way to not make them play exactly like everyone else’s Ranger.

The logical conclusion (to me) has always been that Ranger should be a Subclass but nobody actually WANTS that.

 

[Jester David]

The term you used was grognard along with older. I'm not buying the "I just meant technically older than people starting today" argument. Grognard has a common definition. Just like oldies has come to represent as certain era, so has grognard.

Grognards are people who play older versions of games despite newer versions being available. Fans of 3e and4e would be “grognards” now...

That's my point. Your argument was that because of streaming, which "brought in staggering numbers of new players and raised awareness of the game", players today care more about story than previous eras. Not only haven't you shown any proof of correlation to that, but my point was that the exact same thing, "brought in staggering numbers of new players and raised awareness of the game", happened in the 80s, so that seems like a very weak reason to base your position on.

Critical Role is massive. It’s had live viewing numbers in the six digits, and has even earned billboards. Their studio is lit by $30,000 lights. When the second campaign strarted, it caused a spike in people playing tieflings on DnDBeyond. Their campaign setting book is outselling some D&D books on Amazon.
And that’s just the one show. There’s Dice Camera Action, Maze Arcana, Force Grey, and sooooo many more.
Streaming is HUGE.

WotC isn’t working with streamers for fun.

I brought up all of those movies, because in the late 70s and 80s, gamers still have plenty of media that focused on fantasy stories long before streaming was a thing.

We had fantasy movies in the 2000. You might have heard of them. Lord of the Rings. Won a few Oscars, made a few careers.
And yet that didn’t lead to a spike in D&D.

I also disagree about different causes. In both cases, it was established players giving a session to newer players. In person versus seeing it online doesn't matter; the new player is seeing the exact same thing. Watching a DM like Mercer play in person versus seeing him online has exactly zero impact on how I perceive the importance of story to the game.

There’s a massive difference in knowing someone who plays D&D and being able to google a video at any time . The hardest part of D&D has been explaining how the game works, and streamed games are amazing examples of actual play. You don’t need to find a friend to watch them play or hunt down a group to teach you this game you’ve heard about in passing or just seen on store shelves.

Also, the campaigns are different. Vastly. Watching a DM at home is a very different experienced. More cross table chatter and side conversations, and time spent taking recent films or about your day. A streamed show is two to four hours with much of that entirely in-character. Maybe a single short combat

Which is my point. A whole new generation of gamers is being introduced and they view D&D primarily through the lense or long strengthens or role playing and talking in character rather than building a complex character for multiple battles or methodically working through a trap and puzzle filled funhouse dungeon.

 

[Otterscrubber]

If you want to fix the ranger, make hunter's mark apply to favoured enemies automatically.
I think this is a nice and balanced way of improving the ranger. That frees up a spell slot against favoured enemies and gives a substantial benefit.

I like this idea, I found it weird that a favored enemy in 5e didn't really give you any combat benefits to fighting them. Just super specific tracking info....which I felt was underwhelming for such a major (and iconic) class feature.

 

[Eric V]

But, at the end of the day, more people are playing the ranger than the other classes that are “better” in term of balance. And that’s what matters. It’s the “balance” that’s irrelevant,

In the preamble to the Revised Ranger, they write: "in the past year, you've seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class's high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D's weakest class by a significant margin."

It seems weird to me that these two things (high levels of player dissatisfaction and ranking as weakest class) are apparently no longer of any concern...oh, well. It makes me wonder if they'll be of concern in future products as well, though.

 

[Jester David]

In the preamble to the Revised Ranger, they write: "in the past year, you've seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class's high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D's weakest class by a significant margin."

It seems weird to me that these two things (high levels of player dissatisfaction and ranking as weakest class) are apparently no longer of any concern...oh, well. It makes me wonder if they'll be of concern in future products as well, though.

It first came up here: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/ranger
September of 2015, based on surveys conducted earlier in 2015 or late 2014.

It's not that audience dissatisfaction is not longer of any concern. Instead, it's almost as if the audience has changed in significant ways in the intervening three years and demographics have shifted...
What seemed like a major concern at the launch of 5e turns out NOT to have been a deal-breaker after all.

 

[Eric V]

It first came up here: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/ranger
September of 2015, based on surveys conducted earlier in 2015 or late 2014.

It's not that audience dissatisfaction is not longer of any concern. Instead, it's almost as if the audience has changed in significant ways in the intervening three years and demographics have shifted...
What seemed like a major concern at the launch of 5e turns out NOT to have been a deal-breaker after all.

Ok, but didn't the revised Ranger come out in 2016? It's been about 1.5 years...and the attitude towards the class has shifted that much? Did they come out and say how it now ranks in player satisfaction and power ranking?

I dunno, seems weird.

 

[nswanson27]

bleh.... I was really looking forward to the revised ranger. A lot of it's mechanics right now is just fluffy junk and underpowered. I don't think Wotc did themselves any PR favors here on how they just "ended it" without a better explanation. Is "RP vaporware" a term?

 

[Dispater]

None of this stuff would have been an issue if they had just designed a solid ranger and incorporated the survival aspects more solidly into the core mechanics. Survival and living of the land is the ranger's thing. The current one just felt like a watered down magic user. And who cares, the people who truly disagreed with the core rules have houseruled the ranger out of existence now anyway.

 

[Jester David]

Ok, but didn't the revised Ranger come out in 2016? It's been about 1.5 years...and the attitude towards the class has shifted that much? Did they come out and say how it now ranks in player satisfaction and power ranking?

I dunno, seems weird.

Not really.
They did a major revision in 2015, and based on the feedback from that pulled back from most of the changes to a much smaller revision. And based on the feedback from that, finishing the revision seemed to be a low priority.
After all, it's a month away from two years and nothing has been done, and only small tweaks were needed to balance the revised ranger. Feedback clearly showed they were either not on the right track or it was not a priority.

And it's not that the attitudes to the class shifted. It's that the negative attitudes were always a vocal minority to begin with and any changes likely ended up upset more people than they satisfied, paired with an influx of people who are just fine with the ranger how it is.