Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5949448" data-attributes="member: 22424">At the risk of derailing the thread...This is true. What I objected to with the 4e errata, though, was three things:- Things that were actually revisions being labelled as 'errata'. This actually started with the 3e polymorph changes, and distinctly gave the impression that WotC were trying to patch the game as one might patch buggy software.- Repeated errata of some game elements.- For a while there, it seemed we were getting a huge dump of errata every couple of weeks, even after the game had been out a couple of years. That really gave me the impression that they didn't know what they were doing.IMO, WotC (specifically, Scott Rouse) made a mistake when they stated categorically that there would be no 4.5e. With the level of change to the system, a 4.5e revision was actually more justified than with 3e, and there were areas where they seemed locked in to some poor decisions, because they'd denied themselves the opportunity to change them. In many ways, I wish Essentials had been a true 4.5e, rather than what it was.That's very true. I don't really object to the amount of errata required, and I certainly appreciate that the online tools made applying it pretty painless (with the exception that my Wizard seemed to change every session for a while there). I just feel it was handled poorly.What I think they should have done:- Where possible, release the material to DDI first for playtest.- Once they're happy with the playtest version, take it forward to print.- Once it's in print, spend some time collating the necessary errata. In particular, when something new combines with something old to cause problems, it must be the "something new" that gets changed.- A few months after the book is published, produce one set of errata for the material, fixing the known problems. Thereafter, that material should be considered "locked", and only changed in the most extreme cases.- Thereafter, if problems with the material are found, they need to just live with them until the next time the material is reprinted (whether in Essentials, 4.5e, or similar). Obviously, an exception to this needs to be available, but it should be for game-breaking exploits only. And in those cases, unless there's an obvious and reliable fix, they should deal with it by removing the offending element from the game entirely, again until the material is reprinted - this last gives them time to properly consider the issue, and develop an actual fix.</blockquote>

Verification