Dear WotC: Be Blizzard

[Hussar]

While that was an impressive demonstration of dodging the point, D&D traditionally eschews active defenses.

No, it's not dodging the point.

You want a "finished product" and hold up the 4e release as a bad thing. Yet, 4e is probably one of the most polished initial releases D&D has ever seen. It's not like they rewrote large sections of the PHB on the second printing. It's not like they released a replacement EDITION 3 years later.

Has 4e seen lots of tweaks and mods? Oh hell yes. Certainly.

But, there's a point here that's being forgotten. 1e and 2e NEEDED those tweaks and mods and never got them. Mostly because the technology was never there to get the tweaks into the hands of gamers. 3e had massive amounts of errata. A new edition worth of errata.

Yet, we're pointing fingers at 4e for poor editing and not being "complete" enough when it went out the door? Good grief. The classes have largely remained unchanged - the biggest change I can think of is the warlock and that change? It can now do it's warlock's curse damage more than once per round.

THAT was the biggest change.

Heck, the "math fix" feats are a grand total of +3 to hit spread across THIRTY levels. That's it. That's how "bad" the math was in the game. To "fix" the math, you had to add a grand total of +3 to hit to a 27th level character.

How complete does the game have to be?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Heck, the "math fix" feats are a grand total of +3 to hit spread across THIRTY levels. That's it. That's how "bad" the math was in the game. To "fix" the math, you had to add a grand total of +3 to hit to a 27th level character. :

But they had to spend one of their eighteen precious feats to do it! They would have much rather taken a "fun" feat like Long Jumper if only WotC hadn't screwed the pooch so severely!

 

[GreyICE]

"You must spread some Experience Points around before giving them to Hussar again"

Honestly 4E was obviously intensely scrutinized, at a level 3.5 never was. They ended up redoing 3 classes completely just to try and bring them in line with the remainder.

Fighter -> Warblade
Paladin -> Cavalier
Monk -> Swordsage

That's 4 if you accept the existence of a Warblade pretty much obsoletes Barbarians, which it really kinda does.

Is 4E problem free? Nah. The MM3 math fix for Paragon/Epic tier monsters, and the solo revisions were both extremely necessary. The Angry DM staged 'Boss' fight routine was pure genius, and made encounters 10x more interesting. The initial incarnation of Soldiers wasn't UNBALANCED, but it made the game significantly less fun.

This pales in comparison to the 3E problems (Undead template... *sigh*) but they were very real.

That being said, come on. There's no way you can say 4E needed massive revision.

 

[carmachu]

The problem is I'm not sure 5th is going to HAVE time to be perfected. Considering that 4e was somewhat deemed failure, or not living up to its predictions, it just might not have time.

*holds up hands* Not trying to provoke an edition wars over the failure comment, so please dont take it as an opportunity.

 

[Andor]

Yet, we're pointing fingers at 4e for poor editing and not being "complete" enough when it went out the door?

Where, exactly, did I use the word complete?

What I said was the WotC posts leading up to 4e, akin to the current "Rule of Three" and designer blogs, clearly showed that they were still experimenting with new systems and concepts right up till the moment of publishing. This was not final polish stuff it was much more fundamental. That the finished project was as cohesive as it was is a testament to the hard work the editors did.

The system works well because they had hammered out their mathamatical model fairly early on. However how they wanted to apply that model was still in flux at the instant they ran out of time and what we got was merely a snapshot of an unfinished and ongoing design process.

Was it a complete game? Sure, Classes, magic, items, monsters, everything you need. I just don't think it was the same game they would have shipped if they had another 3 months or 6 months to work on it.

For 5e I want them to take that 3 to 6 months. If they have what they want by the end of May then great print it and ship it and we'll all buy a copy and see if we like it. If they are not happy then I, for one, don't want them to finish working on it untill they are happy.

Are you really taking the position that WotC shouldn't take the time to do it right? Because if you're merely being argumentative because I mentioned 4e, then by all means feel free to ignore that bit, or rewrite the letter so it bashes 3e instead. I'll still sign it for you. I'm not focusing on the past, what's done is done. I want 5e to be the best that it can be going forward.

 

[Henry]

Wizards of the Coast is the most successful RPG company ever. They also have far more cash than any other RPG company, fueled as they are by Mtg and Pokemon.

I didn't see it, but has anyone brought up the point that WotC hasn't made Pokemon cards in 10 years now, and Magic the Gathering isn't as successful as it was in the 90's? That fat cash is either vastly reduced or long gone now. Not to say they're in the red or anything, but they aren't sittin' pretty like they were in 2002.

I'll also say this on the whole "polish 5e till it gleams" idea: If you've ever heard of the Osborne effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , you know that the barn door is already open -- they can't wait too long to avoid their future product cannibalizing the market of their current product. What they need to do IMHO is START getting some public playtest snippets out there. Dear WotC, don't be Blizzard -- be Paizo. Value-Add, Value-Add! Tell your customers how precious they are, shower them with cheap but eye-catching gifts that cost you little to nothing (such as experimental rules, or an active PR department making participatory contests) while they're waiting for the next big thing. They're doing some of this, but their PR department needs to find new ways to express what they ARE doing, because it's getting lost either in the noise, or behind the paywall.

I feel for WotC, because they released a good product, but in my opinion PR was badly handled, the OGL was badly handled, and Paizo is an example of a company doing it right -- they're even using other people's OGL, for goodness' sake. (They have a love for the Tome of Horrors statblocks that makes players cry. ) people talk about how much they cash in on the OGL, but ignore the amount they contribute to it, and how much of their success is due to well-crafted adventure modules, story hooks, and gamer aids, none of which are parrotted from pre-existing OGL. I want to see Wizards succeed, Paizo wants to see Wizards succeed -- I think Erik Mona said as much about a healthy D&D being key to new pools of gamers. Hell, they just need to contract Paizo to handle their PR for them.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Whether comparing to Blizzard is relevant or not is... irelevant

The idea is that, and I agree, they polish/TEST! 5E more than 4E. I missed 3E and went straight into 3.5 so maybe it is relevant to 3E as well. But I know the absolute crap maths that came in parts of 4E (e.g. skill challenges) really left a sour taste in the mouth. Especially as they were picked up within days of release by the customers.

I certainly like the previous idea of releasing the game digitally for a while before the books. Smaller companies are doing it (honour and intrigue for ex) but I don't see WotC doing it, sadly.

EDIT: The idea of a DDi which you can easily submit feedback on errors is a great one. The only problem, and it is HUGE, is sorting the wheat from the chaff. If you read errata threads for games it seems many people are totally incapable of sorting real errors/balance issues from their preferences. I see heaps of it in PC games threads and TTRPG seem to be just as bad! The person who had to compile that stuff would go mad from nerd rage

 

[Hussar]

But, at some point, perfection becomes the enemy of good.

Take the example of the skill challenges. Yup, the numbers were off. No argument there. But, the underlying system is fine. It took a considerable amount of time to actually fine tune the numbers to what we have now.

So, how long should it take? Would they have had "fixed" numbers with six more months of internal playtests? Maybe, maybe not. At some point, you have to simply sign the bottom line and push it out the door.

You will ALWAYS have errata. That's unavoidable. There is just no replacement for having several hundred thousand hours of actual play to show the cracks in the system. No amount of playtesting is going to be as revealing as that.

The best they can do is get things good enough and then patch as necessary. Considering the technology is there - the Internet - to get the patches into the hands of gamers in a timely manner, it's the best you can do.

For those who want a really polished product, the best advice is to wait six months before buying the game. There, now you have what you want.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

4E at launch had more work, and more impressive work, done to get it right, compared to 3E at launch. OTOH, 4E was also a far more ambitious change than 3E. It had more work to do just to stay even. (You can make the exact same comparison between 3E to 2E, BTW. It's not that 3E wasn't ambitious at all or didn't have a lot of good things done for it.)

The more ambitious the product, the more testing you need, and the longer period you need to react to that testing. If you want to hit a home run and be ambitious? You'd better have serious testing in the works.

 

[Darkthorne]

In order for 5E to do well, they should not tell us how GREAT it is over prior editions as they did with 4E. My concern is they are not truly in touch with what's going on until AFTER the fact. 2005 they started R&D on 4e, 2 years after 3.5 came out. 3/3.5 lasted 8 years, 4E/4E essentials lasted 4 before they decided they screwed up. Mind you the screw up for some was the game mechanics, for others it was the PR fiasco. I WANT to drawn into my RPG and have ideas spring from what I have read about a location or organization etc. Currently the ecomony STINKS and Wizards needs to realize QUALITY will ALWAYS beat quantity. Having to buy 3 books to play the character I want because I can't come close in the core rules is not a value add. While *I* will spend less money due to being older & having other priorities, it's MY enthusiam that will get other to buy some product (the whole word of mouth idea)