D&D (2024) Class spell lists and pact magic are back!

[UngeheuerLich]

I don’t follow, the 60% is not enough to clear the 70% threshold, so it gets rejected. In other words the 40% prevented to 60% majority opinion.

It is not a vote between the old and the new. It is just a vote if you could live with the new option. You don't know how many of the 60% also like the old option.

 

[mamba]

Not really. It is hard to prove that D&D is successful despite the playtest. It is hard to prove that it is successful because of the playtest.

that was not my argument, my argument was that if the playtest worked, we should not have subclasses that score approval ratings in the 20s, as we were just shown exist.

I said that sales do not show that it is working.

 

[mamba]

It is not a vote between the old and the new. It is just a vote if you could live with the new option. You don't know how many of the 60% also like the old option.

I believe what the vote shows is that 60% prefer the new option. It is a vote between old and new.

If this were old vs new, the threshold cannot be 70% everywhere

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I believe what the vote shows is that 60% prefer the new option. It is a vote between old and new.

See. I think that you are wrong here.

 

[mamba]

See. I think that you are wrong here.

so why would the threshold be 70% for a class that has an approval < 30%, and also for one with an approval of 75%, that does not make much sense

I also think humans are basically incapable of rating this without comparing it to what we have. So even if WotC would like to get that rating, most people filling out the survey will not do it that way. They will compare to what we have and rate low or high based on which they like better.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I believe what the vote shows is that 60% prefer the new option. It is a vote between old and new.

See. I think that you are wrong here.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You use 3 or 4 singular subclasses to prove that the whole process failed?
That is also not proof.

 

[mamba]

You use 3 or 4 singular subclasses to prove that the whole process failed?
That is also not proof.

it is given that it should have prevented all of them. We are not talking about 65 instead of 70, we are talking 25. Not asking for any feedback will have a hard time getting a lower approval. This is a whole subclass, that is not one single vote but dozens. That is complete and utter failure

 

[Clint_L]

I don’t follow, the 60% is not enough to clear the 70% threshold, so it gets rejected. In other words the 40% prevented the 60% majority opinion.

What the majority chose did not make it in. You found the option, you did not use it…

It's not an election for office, or something. They don't want a simple majority, they want a strong majority.

1) I do not think they get absolute ratings, they get preferences. People rate 'do I like templates better than animals', not 'how much do I like these templates'

Because they aren't setting up a vote between two candidates. They aren't trying to see if you like this OR that, they are trying to find out if there is a strong preference for the thing being tested. If not, then they'll try something else. Which they did. You'll note that they didn't go back to the 2014 version.

2) Having something rated 1 to 5 without us knowing what will happen due to our vote and them throwing things out unannounced when the score is low.

They've been very upfront about the various thresholds for when they keep a proposal or set something aside. So there is no "unannounced." That said, they also aren't "throwing things out." The ideas still exist, and might be revisited in the future despite a low score in this current playtest (e.g. Ardlings).

As I said, people vote 3 because they like templates but think they need to be improved, not because they want them thrown out, and they had no way of knowing that would happen. They would have voted differently if they had known.

You don't know this. You can't speak for "people." I would think that people might give templates a three because they think this version is only okay and want to see them improved, as you say. Or maybe they think templates in general are just a mediocre solution - not the worst, but not very inspiring. Or maybe some other reason. And from WotC's perspective, it doesn't really matter - they are not just getting ratings, they are getting comments. From people like me who hate the template solution. Given that the proposal was very divisive, there was no point in moving forward.

So the poll fails at its basic premise already. We cannot accurately express our intention, WotC cannot accurately interpret it and as a consequence the poll is not accurately capturing the will of the people being polled.

Says you, based on your detailed knowledge of the poll results, methodology, and collated comments, and your expertise in interpreting such things? Except you have none of those things, whereas WotC has professionals with all the data. Maybe...you're just wrong?

3) I would prefer two questions over the 1 to 5 rating to fix this, but other ideas are welcome. 1: Do you like this proposal better than the current one? 2: If you do, does it need improving?

If only there was an option to write exactly such comments into the survey? Oh wait - there was and I did.

This answers directly what WotC can only vaguely guess right now, and we do not need to wonder about the implications either. Right now the only sensible way is to vote 1 or 5, and leave a comment. That is the only way to ensure your vote accomplishes what you intended.

Okay, well then it seems the survey is working as intended, since there's a solution that you like.

This is a very standard kind of survey, and there is a lot of research behind this methodology. Variations on this survey format are extremely widespread. The number ratings are there to encourage greater participation, since they allow respondents to quickly give very general feedback, while the written responses allow respondents who feel passionately to express their opinions exactly. It thus allows the surveyor to assess broad trends while still drilling down into more granular detail on particularly contentious areas.

My employer does a very similar style of survey with us every year, and at out year end meetings we collectively review the results. Low and high scoring categories are given particular focus, with a lot of analysis of particular comments to try to understand the specific issue, so as to assign actionable items. If something is notably low-scoring (at my work, the threshold is around 60%), we know that a new approach is needed. Much like WotC, scores over 80% are seen as pretty good, though we still look for improvements. We would see 70% as problematic - not a disaster, but definitely a potential problem brewing.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

it is given that it should have prevented all of them. We are not talking about 65 instead of 70, we are talking 25. Not asking for any feedback will have a hard time getting a lower approval. This is a whole subclass, that is not one single vote but dozens. That is complete and utter failure

I think those classes and subclasses show that at the end of the playtest process, they rushed a few things out. The exact classes that fail so horribly are the exact classes that were changed after the playtest process. So I'd say, it proves that the playtest was successful, but business decisions to put the game pit at some point without testing everything properly was the causation.