Update Madness!

[Locutus Zero]

Like I said in the OP, forgive my hyperbole.

However, it often does seem that way to us, not so much because it is that way, but because we don't notice the changes until we try to use the relevant rule. Sometimes it takes weeks before we notice.

So, if WotC sends out an update that makes (relatively) minor changes a half dozen rules this month, we might run across all of them for a month and a half or so. But even as minor as those changes are, they stop the game dead for us on average once a week. And every time it happens, no matte how small the change, it stops the game cold and kills the momentum of the action that had been taking place.

For us, it's constant small annoyances, rather than occasional big problems, that are snowballing into a big problem.

Aren't we talking about, on average per month, one class getting like one fairly important update (like the sneak attack going 1/turn) and then several of their powers getting updates (so that maybe a high-level character has one or two of those powers)? Since a given game table only has 5 or 6 classes represented, how is that snowballing as big as you are talking about? You could go your whole life without bumping into many of these changes.

 

[Pbartender]

Sure, ideally the CB would let you say "I want the 2nd revision of this power, not the 3rd.", but the scope of that feature is just too great for the dev team to handle. As a developer, I can imagine how many fundamental changes to the system would have to be made to allow multiple version of each power. The behind-the-scenes database side would be a challenge, but not terrible. The real problem would be in the UI. Almost every panel of the CB would need to be redone, not just adding a checkbox or something, but probably a whole new pane.

What about just treating each version as a separate power? So, for example, you have "Come And Get It", but then you also have "Come And Get It v5/11" or something. Then, just as you can sort and select rules by which source they come from, allow for sorting and selecting of rules by which update they were included in.

That might be possible using what they've already got in place.

 

[Locutus Zero]

What about just treating each version as a separate power? So, for example, you have "Come And Get It", but then you also have "Come And Get It v5/11" or something. Then, just as you can sort and select rules by which source they come from, allow for sorting and selecting of rules by which update they were included in.

That might be possible using what they've already got in place.

That is true. I imagine the only reason not to do that is because they don't want newer folks seeing the kinds of power lists that would make. Well, shoot, even then you could group them in their own section that only comes up when you choose to see more options (like how an essentials hunter won't see regular ranger options unless he checks or unchecks the box). So.. yeah, seems like they could do that.

 

[catastrophic]

Sounds to me like come and get it snagged you attention, but how often is this really turning up in any game? Confirmation bias mixed with hyperbole is not a good way to judge an issue.

Anyway, how often are you even leveling up? Not that I object to fast leveling but still, there aren't that many updates, and there aren't that many levels.

 

[Pbartender]

Aren't we talking about, on average per month, one class getting like one fairly important update (like the sneak attack going 1/turn) and then several of their powers getting updates (so that maybe a high-level character has one or two of those powers)? Since a given game table only has 5 or 6 classes represented, how is that snowballing as big as you are talking about? You could go your whole life without bumping into many of these changes.

It's not just character powers (though those are the most obvious, and the most quickly noticed). Sometimes it's rules or other bits that, like you said, we might never have run across except for a specific scenario that induced us to look up the rules and find contradictions between the rulebook and character sheet.

Stealth rules are a good example of that one.

Sounds to me like come and get it snagged you attention, but how often is this really turning up in any game?

Come And Get It, Winged Horde and Cannith Goggles were the trifecta that really drove it home recently. They were by no means the first time or only times its happened to us, though.

Confirmation bias mixed with hyperbole is not a good way to judge an issue.

Yup, I know... That knowledge doesn't make the visceral perception of the problem any less frustrating, though.

Anyway, how often are you even leveling up? Not that I object to fast leveling but still, there aren't that many updates, and there aren't that many levels.

We try to meet weekly for our game, and depending on how faithful we are to that schedule, we usually level up once every month to two months.

Though I have no hard numbers, it seems as if we've been running into unexpected rules changes about once every week to two weeks on average.

Often, these are small changes that have no real impact on the game, but still disrupt play, because we have to stop and reorient ourselves with the change. Sometimes, it's a change we've run into before, but because of the obscurity of the rule and it's subsequent change, every time we run across it we have to stop the game and consult multiple sources to sort things out.

The sort of change that you're suggesting happens maybe once every level up, but tends to be a bigger disruption, because it sometimes involves the player wanting to swap out the power for something else.

 

[DracoSuave]

I don't mean to be cynical, but if you're encountering the problem once per week... maybe you might want to take options that aren't errata bait?

 

[DEFCON 1]

What we have in this case is the downside of being spoiled.

We are all spoiled in that we have this fantastic computer program called the Character Builder, that allows us to create and update our characters in a matter of minutes (if not seconds), giving us access to practically every single piece of information created for the game for a couple dollars a month.

The downside is... if you want to use it, you have to use it as is.

Speaking personally... WotC has nothing to apologize for. They errata and update those parts of the game they think need it, and if we players choose to make our own lives easier by using the Character Builder... then we have to accept whatever changes WotC feels are needed.

If we don't want to accept them... then we do what every other roleplayer has done for the past 30 years, and spend an hour (rather than a minute) generating and writing out our characters by hand. If you do that... you can use whatever version of whatever power or rule you want, mixing and matching them as much or as little you want.

Technology makes us lazier... there's no getting over it. But the only way to get things exactly the way we want it is to gird up our loins, adjust our helmet with the headlamp on it... and delve deep into the dark age of graph paper and the Number 2 pencil.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What about just treating each version as a separate power? So, for example, you have "Come And Get It", but then you also have "Come And Get It v5/11" or something. Then, just as you can sort and select rules by which source they come from, allow for sorting and selecting of rules by which update they were included in.

That might be possible using what they've already got in place.

This is why it can be done with minimal UI and database changes. But you have to think about it like that, instead of thinking about it as some decision by decision choice, like filling out a character sheet on paper.

In fact, to support that functionality, all you really need is a filter element on the table to collect the version, and then a toggle on the main part of the UI to turn it all on or only the most current. Most people will want the most current, most of the time, and the UI wouldn't even change for them. Then when you want to see an older version, toggle the option to get all the versions, and you'll see all the versions of whatever pane you happen to be in. Pick your older version, then toggle it off again.

Then you just need a bit of code so that the pane is allowed to show the older version, even though it currently isn't in the list anymore. (This is actually the biggest change in code.)

There are, of course, slicker ways that such a filter can be made--with more options, or more selective, but the basic functionality is very simple. It is so simple, that our company has built it into a few apps more or less out of habit. Even when we don't turn on the toggle for the users, it is helpful for us when rolling out changes, as we can roll them out before we turn them on.

 

[delericho]

Just to counterbalance the opinions so far: I love the updates. I love feeling like the game I'm playing is constantly getting better.

Unfortunately, one of the truths I learned early on as a software engineer is that every time you 'fix' something, there's a non-trivial probability that you'll break something else, possibly quite badly. To try to prevent such broken code reaching the market, every new version needs to go through large amounts of regression testing.

Do you think WotC are really doing that sort of testing each time they throw out their latest batch of changes?

The notion that each batch of fixes makes the game better is faulty. The game as it currently stands is almost certainly no better balanced than it was when first published; it's just that the unbalanced areas are in different places.

 

[Windjammer]

Just for reference, here's a list of all the elements that were errated in the books up to July 2010, so before the waves of errata due to Essentials (I haven't seen an updated index, but it would be considerably larger).

The list for PHB 1 and Adventurer's Vault are particularly impressive. And neither list factors in the number of times that individual entries were errated, actually. (E.g. if you recall, the July 2010 errata rolled back or revised some June 2010 errata, and I don't think that's the only time something like that happened.)

By comparison, here's a list of the items that WotC errated in the 3.x PHB from 2003-2008:

[FONT=&quot]Animal Companion, page 36[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Wild Shape, 37[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]A Thousand Faces, 37[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Special Mount, 44[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Rogue Proficiency, 50[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Listen, 78[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Run, 99[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Overrun, 148[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Soft Cover, 151[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Attacking on a Charge, 155[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Overrun, 157[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Animal Shapes, 198[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Baleful Polymorph, 203[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Blasphemy, 205[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Chaos Hammer, 208[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Darkvision, 216[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Area Dispel, 223[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Divine Favor, 224[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Glibness, 236[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Polymorph Any Object, 263[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Righteous Might, 273[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Scrying, 274[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Shapechange, 277[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Spell Turning, 282[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Stone Shape, 284[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Transport via Plants, 295[/FONT]


And you really don't want to say 'Aahh, but that's because you ignore the 3.0-3.5 makeover' in the years 2000-2003. Because then we're talking about magnitudes which WotC thinks license a half-edition change. Not the type of thing we want to associate 4E (in 2008-2010) with, now do we?