Class Design Concepts

[Nikosandros]

I really wish we were smarter than we seem to be.

Luckily, there are some like you who are smart enough to recognize the fact and enlighten the rest of us...

Edit: And in cast the smiley isn't enough, this is meant in good humor, since DEFCON 1 criticized me exactly about this point.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Luckily, there are some like you who are smart enough to recognize the fact and enlighten the rest of us...

Edit: And in cast the smiley isn't enough, this is meant in good humor, since DEFCON 1 criticized me exactly about this point.

Everyone's gotta have a gimmick.

 

[Kinak]

WotC has known these three points all along. And they've been doing these three points all along. It's only us morons on the message boards who keep thinking they don't know what they're doing. How WotC's "lost their way", or how "the first packet was a great start but it's gone in a direction I don't like since then" or any other number of stupid statements on our part that seem to have no forward thinking or higher-cognitive assessment of the reason for what has occurred. Clearly indicating we have no idea what is actually going on.

Maybe you live in a different world than me, but in my world 90% of using feedback is translating complaints into actionable changes.

All "the first packet was a great start but it's gone in a direction I don't like since then" means is that they rate the first playtest highest and the others in roughly descending order. It's not our job as posters to gather WotC's feedback, but if it was, they'd want us to find out what was alienating potential customers, not just shut them up.

A lot of people said spreading XD around was heading in the wrong direction. Now that's being walked back. Whether they were just testing to see what would happen or actually intended to take the game in that direction, it doesn't really matter. They got the feedback they wanted and made a change based on that feedback.

My faith in them is much less than yours, but they're obviously capable of calling out rules options. If they wanted a measured comparison between several choices, they're more than capable of asking for it right next to the things being compared.

So, if WotC are the masters of playtesting who know exactly what they're doing, why exactly are we getting this kind of feedback you don't think they want?

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think most of the individual changes to existing classes he mentions sound good (rogues getting something else instead of XD, monks incorporating ki into their maneuvers, more distinct maneuver lists, a new approach to skill bonuses), and it sounds like it'll make the core 4 classes pretty distinct again. They'll have three "core" class mechanics (spells, XD, and this new skill thing, if people like it), and fighters will get XD, rogues the skill thing, and wizards/clerics will get spells.

It even sounds good for classes like the monk and presumably warlock, who would take one of those pegs (XD for the monk, spells for the warlock) and give a very unique twist on it.

I'm still a little distraught that they think the way to make "hybrid" classes like paladins work is to give them XD AND spells, plus some other mechanic to make them "special." That sounds a lot like the 3e paladin and ranger to me, who were mediocre spellcasters and mediocre warriors. Wouldn't it be better to at least experiment with giving paladins ONE, unique core mechanic?

 

[RangerWickett]

I personally prefer a design with shared rules for the 'physics' of the game (how you attack things, how damage works, and other stuff everyone does), but that has baroque subsystems for different classes.

XD (expertise dice) for fighters is cool. If you're playing a non-fighter and want some XD for maneuvers . . . multiclass.

For monks, try the different style powers from 4e. I'm in crane stance, so I can use crane kick to knock you back and prone, and I can jump very far. I'm in tiger stance, so my punches weaken you, and enemies have disadvantage on opportunity attacks against me. I'm in turtle stance, so I get a bonus to defenses but am slowed.

Combine those with ki as a resource you have X amount of per rest, and you can spend ki to use your stance's 'magical attack.' Crane stance kicks with a flyby attack. Tiger stance steals someone's strength. Turtle stance shoots a hadouken.

Rogues can have various tricks and skill bonuses so at higher levels they can do things seemingly magical without trouble.

Wizards have spellbooks, Vancian style.

Clerics could have supernatural powers tied to their god's domains.

Sorcerers could be something new, like they can spend an action to draw mana, and another action to cast a powerful spell.

I don't want everything to use the same mechanics. I don't want spell dice, and skill dice, and god dice.

 

[mlund]

Maybe you live in a different world than me, but in my world 90% of using feedback is translating complaints into actionable changes.

The trick is that the critical first 10% of the process is filtering out the signal from the noise.

A lot of people said spreading XD around was heading in the wrong direction. Now that's being walked back.

Actually, it seems like they are going to go ahead full-steam and give everyone short of the Wizard the Expertise Dice to handle weapon attack damage-scaling. They just aren't handing out Maneuvers to everyone to go with them.

About the only place they've walked anything back is in separating the Rogue from the Maneuvers system. That seems like a very good idea overall since a Fighter w/ Maneuvers and a Rogue w/ Maneuvers can look very "same-y" in combat once you get underneath the armor and weapons profile.

So, if WotC are the masters of playtesting who know exactly what they're doing, why exactly are we getting this kind of feedback you don't think they want?

Whenever I've observed an Open Playtest (of a printed game, not a video game) it's looked to me to be about 90% marketing gimmick, 10% product shakedown. The key is just letting people think that the product in Design is fluid and their opinions matter so they A.) stay tuned to the marketing campaign (are they going to "fix" [XYZ issue]), B.) feel some misguided sense of ownership and investment (it's "our D&D") and C.) don't have a sufficiently fixed specification to run off and create an effective Internet Hate-campaign against your new product before it even hits the shelves. The perceived fluidity of Open Playtest products helps undermine the festering of a the general "they changed it so now it sucks," reaction that crops up whenever a product line is revised.

- Marty Lund

 

[DEFCON 1]

So, if WotC are the masters of playtesting who know exactly what they're doing, why exactly are we getting this kind of feedback you don't think they want?

You misunderstand me. It's not that I don't think WotC doesn't want our feedback. It's that they've wanted it and been using it all along but we message board people just didn't grasp that or think they actually were.

Lord Tirian suggested the article was WotC "a) recognising that there's still a bit of work to be done, b) that they realise that they have the luxury of experimenting right now and c) that they're listening to feedback regarding expertise dice, maneuvers and skills." As though this was some new thing. Like they hadn't been doing this all along and it's only now that a light has gone off in Mike's head. When the fact is... anyone who's been following along with their process has seen and heard them talk about all of that, and do all of that, this entire time.

I presume this goes back to what I keep seeing here on the boards (based on comments posted over and over), which is that a whole segment of folks here truly think the guys at Wizards are idiots. Which is why an article like Mike's might seem shocking to people... even though there's nothing he's said that hasn't already been in place from the beginning.

 

[Kinak]

Actually, it seems like they are going to go ahead full-steam and give everyone short of the Wizard the Expertise Dice to handle weapon attack damage-scaling. They just aren't handing out Maneuvers to everyone to go with them.

Yeah, their statements on that struck me as very vague. Either I'm not understanding them or they don't want to show their hand yet, which is fine.

In any case, it seems like a rather boring way to handle damage scaling. But if that's the flat math equivalent of BAB, boring can work.

Whenever I've observed an Open Playtest (of a printed game, not a video game) it's looked to me to be about 90% marketing gimmick, 10% product shakedown.

I certainly agree they're trying to fend off the complaints they got with 4e, but this doesn't feel like 90% marketing to me.

Most of those playtests are feature-complete games released at, effectively, the end of Beta. Just, as you said, to shake out the last few issues and build some hype.

This is a different beast. Next is a game in Alpha or Early Beta, both in completeness and in the scope of changes being made.

Now, it's still entirely possible that they just needed a way to keep people occupied for two years while they finish the new game. Or it's possible they're following a software paradigm and trying to actually get feedback. I'd guess it's actually a mix of both.

If it's 90% marketing, though, it feels a lot more like damage control than building hype.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[mlund]

If it's 90% marketing, though, it feels a lot more like damage control than building hype.

The early marketing work on a product line revision is almost always damage control, unless the existing product line variants have gone terribly stale. Your old revisions (and off-shoots) are essentially at war with your new prospective product and your customer base is going to instinctively gripe about being bilked by another reboot.

If you're in the particularly un-enviable position of having created a permanent competing live-branch product due to implementing an Open License without the proper business model then it's doubly important.

You bring the loud hype in either the Spring before the release's convention season or the Fall before the holiday season release.

- Marty Lund

 

[Bluenose]

I think we could be on the same page, I just don't care about the label.

I want to to be able to do anything batman, robin, john carter, Conan, the steam, the leverage team, or any cop/military guy can do but I am fine with some of it being "cool story point" powers

Ah, then we do agree what we think Fighters should be capable. I do think the label is important, though. I suspect the reaction to Fighters getting "Supernatural" abilities would not be wholesale acceptance that it's what they do that matters rather than the label put on them.