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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8633952" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>The much bigger issue is that many "open playtests" are not actually interested in doing any <em>testing</em>. They're just hype trains or (even worse) confirmation bias generators.</p><p></p><p>Actual, serious playtesting requires work, and most importantly, it requires unbiased data collection and actual data analysis. Many public playtests (I'm looking at you, WotC and Paizo) are absolutely LOADED with push polling, leading questions, biased answer options, and an inability to give meaningful feedback. Further, there's an incredibly frustrating tendency to both overreact and be completely blase about the results. Things that get slightly too much criticism but that one isn't strongly committed to will be obliterated and replaced, sometimes repeatedly, leading to a never-ending cycle of half-baked ideas or a failure to actually generate something new to test. Things that get lots of criticism but to which the team has a major ideological commitment will endure <em>long</em> past the point at which they should have been canned, dragging down the whole process.</p><p></p><p>The D&D Next playtest spent more than half of its time either dithering (failing to ditch unwise concepts a year or more after they had demonstrably proved untenable and widely disliked, e.g. proficiency dice) or vacillating wildly (the failure to settle on a Fighter concept until like two or three packets before the end of the playtest). Ideas should get more than one pass unless they are deeply unpopular, but should not get seven passes in the hope that maybe this version will be liked. And again, this isn't just Wizards; Paizo did exactly the same thing with many PF1e playtests, most notably the Gunslinger (a very badly-designed class where public playtesters gave useful, targeted feedback and were not only ignored but sometimes BANNED for doing so).</p><p></p><p>Playtesting is incredibly important. If WotC had rigorously playtested the ratio of rests per day that players actually use, rather than only what they wanted players to use, we literally might not be getting 5.5e now. They would have done a little more work initially to reap GREAT benefits later. Likewise 4e's stealth rules and Skill Challenge rules (which were half-baked at best early on), or pretty much ALL of 3e after about level 8 (hence the prevalence of "E6" rules.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8633952, member: 6790260"] The much bigger issue is that many "open playtests" are not actually interested in doing any [I]testing[/I]. They're just hype trains or (even worse) confirmation bias generators. Actual, serious playtesting requires work, and most importantly, it requires unbiased data collection and actual data analysis. Many public playtests (I'm looking at you, WotC and Paizo) are absolutely LOADED with push polling, leading questions, biased answer options, and an inability to give meaningful feedback. Further, there's an incredibly frustrating tendency to both overreact and be completely blase about the results. Things that get slightly too much criticism but that one isn't strongly committed to will be obliterated and replaced, sometimes repeatedly, leading to a never-ending cycle of half-baked ideas or a failure to actually generate something new to test. Things that get lots of criticism but to which the team has a major ideological commitment will endure [I]long[/I] past the point at which they should have been canned, dragging down the whole process. The D&D Next playtest spent more than half of its time either dithering (failing to ditch unwise concepts a year or more after they had demonstrably proved untenable and widely disliked, e.g. proficiency dice) or vacillating wildly (the failure to settle on a Fighter concept until like two or three packets before the end of the playtest). Ideas should get more than one pass unless they are deeply unpopular, but should not get seven passes in the hope that maybe this version will be liked. And again, this isn't just Wizards; Paizo did exactly the same thing with many PF1e playtests, most notably the Gunslinger (a very badly-designed class where public playtesters gave useful, targeted feedback and were not only ignored but sometimes BANNED for doing so). Playtesting is incredibly important. If WotC had rigorously playtested the ratio of rests per day that players actually use, rather than only what they wanted players to use, we literally might not be getting 5.5e now. They would have done a little more work initially to reap GREAT benefits later. Likewise 4e's stealth rules and Skill Challenge rules (which were half-baked at best early on), or pretty much ALL of 3e after about level 8 (hence the prevalence of "E6" rules.) [/QUOTE]
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