D&D 5E I feel like the surveys gaslit WotC about """"Backwards Compatibility""""

Chaltab said:

They would care about cheesing off their customers again after the OGL debacle, which a harder break from backwards compatibility would have done.

Click to expand...

Yaarel said:

There is little or nothing to "protect" when standardizing the subclass levels.

Generally, bump the class level up or down one, and if using a 2014 subclass for a 2024 class fill in any missing subclass levels with a feat.

Meanwhile, popular subclasses will have 2024 updates.

Click to expand...

DEFCON 1 said:

Coming out of nowhere doesn't really mean anything. After all... Weapon Mastery and Cunning Strike both "came out of nowhere" and were accepted by the gaming populace. So it's not like some new system WotC offered up in the playtests were automatically going to be stomped out by the playerbase.

Instead... more often than not it was merely changed items that got rejected by the playerbase. Things that weren't new, but rather merely things we already had that they were just getting moved around (by categories or whatever.) And that's where a large swathe of the playerbase asked "What's the point?" I mean what was the point of grouping Classes together? What purpose did it serve that was substantially better than what we already had (for example)? To which the answer was "There really wasn't any." There was nothing substantially gained in creating Class groups or Spellcasting Power Sources to warrant going through all the effort of doing it in most player's eyes. So WotC ultimately didn't. And the fact that WotC could then make the case that it might have been (or was) connected to people's beliefs or perceptions of backwards compatibility made it easier to explain and/or justify why they have been rejected.

I mean, I hate to break it to a lot of you, but sorry folks... a lot of stuff that appeared in the playtests that you liked... the rest of us felt just wasn't very good or was pretty much pointless. And we told WotC that. I know you wanted more stuff changed, but the rest of us basically said that change merely change's sake was a waste of all of our time. And WotC heard that and listened.

Click to expand...

mamba said:

if those ‘anyone’ are their customers and it potentially affects sales, they should care

Click to expand...

Chaltab said:

They would care about cheesing off their customers again after the OGL debacle, which a harder break from backwards compatibility would have done.

Click to expand...

Micah Sweet said:

How so? 5e would still be 5e, with all its support, and 6e would be its own thing. Besides, the OGL announcement was after 5.5 was well underway (I think).

Click to expand...

Micah Sweet said:

The claim was that they were thinking of 3pp compatibility. Why would they care about that? Lots of 3pp isn't as compatible as it was anyway, because lots of 3pp are player options.

Click to expand...

Scribe said:

We know the new edition was a corporate push. We also know "new edition" freaks people out.

Therefore.

Don't call it a new edition.
Preach that it's all backwards compatible.

Few were asking for a new edition. It's done to get everyone to buy the next set of 3 core books.

That's it.

Click to expand...

mamba said:

and who is using those 3pp options? the WotC customers, at least a part of them, and probably the part that is the most ‘hardcore’ and buys a lot of stuff, including from WotC.

If all 3pp player options were incompatible / hard to adjust, you give your hardcore base a reason to ignore 2024, that does not sound like a smart move

Click to expand...

Micah Sweet said:

I live 3pp, and I used to be part of their hardcore base, and now my wallet (if not my attention) is resolutely ignoring 5.5.

Click to expand...