D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[ECMO3]

I ask this because of a some changes that were tried in UA and rejected and one change that was made and is unliked by many.

The things I am thinking about are:

Sneak Attack on your turn only (tried in UA and rejected)
No doubling critical Sneak Dice or Smite dice or other damage riders (tried in UA and rejected)
Paladin smite using a bonus action which effectively limits it to once a round on your turn (implemented but disliked)
Changing Warlock mechanics to a long rest (tried in UA and rejected)
Using statblocks for Wildshape (tried in UA and rejected)
Using statblocks for familiars (tried in UA and rejected)

Me personally I like the Paladin change and did not like any of the others, but I also don't think balance is important and I am not sure it is even good.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think it is more fair to say that all players play the game so differently that no one will agree on what things actually ARE balanced or unbalanced.

For every player who says "I've done the math! To get a precise numeric equivalent, then X feature should be written to give us Y result!"... there will be another player who disagrees with their calculation. Probably because of the style of play that makes X feature "proc" (for lack of a better term) for the former player occurs much more or less frequently than the latter and thus the math doesn't match up for both equally.

So rather than balance... a lot of the things you put in your list might be ones where players looked at it and said "Is that appreciably better than what we already have?" And if the answer was "No"... then they'd prefer to just keep things as they were, regardless of how much more "balanced" the feature may or may not have been.

 

[Distracted DM]

Obviously this depends on the player- I once tried to explain the purpose behind the gritty rest rules, that decoupling rest from sleep made it easier for the GM to challenge the players' resources etc etc etc. The response I got was "you want to make things more difficult for us?!" Not that the reaction was THAT bad, but it demonstrated to me that unless someone is a player AND GM that they probably don't think about the other side of the screen that much... Consequently the only reason IME that they would consider "balance" is if it's apparent that some characters are blatantly outshining others.

I have had players come to me with concerns about their character, the A5E Berserker for example, and say "it's obvious this is way too good, better than everyone else, how can we tone this down?"

Just personal experience of course

 

[Micah Sweet]

Obviously this depends on the player- I once tried to explain the purpose behind the gritty rest rules, that decoupling rest from sleep made it easier for the GM to challenge the players' resources etc etc etc. The response I got was "you want to make things more difficult for us?!" Not that the reaction was THAT bad, but it demonstrated to me that unless someone is a player AND GM that they probably don't think about the other side of the screen that much... Consequently the only reason IME that they would consider "balance" is if it's apparent that some characters are blatantly outshining others.

I have had players come to me with concerns about their character, the A5E Berserker for example, and say "it's obvious this is way too good, better than everyone else, how can we tone this down?"

Just personal experience of course

I run into this problem all the time. As the modern game gets easier and easier for the players, and PCs get more and more powerful, the percentage of variant rules that come down to making the PCs lives harder in some way goes up..and up. And that's without the variant rules themselves getting any tougher. It's relative. As the book sets the standard, you will (and I do) see firmer pushback on those kinds of rules as the gap between what the GM might want for the setting tone and gameplay and what the text says the player should assume is "normal" get wider...and wider.

 

[Maxperson]

I think it is more fair to say that all players play the game so differently that no one will agree on what things actually ARE balanced or unbalanced.

For every player who says "I've done the math! To get a precise numeric equivalent, then X feature should be written to give us Y result!"... there will be another player who disagrees with their calculation. Probably because of the style of play that makes X feature "proc" (for lack of a better term) for the former player occurs much more or less frequently than the latter and thus the math doesn't match up for both equally.

So rather than balance... a lot of the things you put in your list might be ones where players looked at it and said "Is that appreciably better than what we already have?" And if the answer was "No"... then they'd prefer to just keep things as they were, regardless of how much more "balanced" the feature may or may not have been.

I think that's a good chunk of it, but what you say here assumes all players want balance(even if they judge it differently). In my experience, there are also a lot of players(and DMs) who just don't care about balance. We(I and my players are in that group) find things that aren't balanced to be very enjoyable. I think most of us don't want broken, which also gets judged differently by different players, but unbalanced is just fine.

 

[Stormonu]

"No soldier WANTS a fair fight."

I think that players only care about balance in the sense that they get as much limelight as everyone else at the table and can pull their weight equally well in whatever is going on at the moment. If there's a lot of combat in a game, you want to feel useful and not upstaged by the person next or across from you.

The DM though, also wants to share in the fun too, and if the players are curb-stomping or bypassing whatever they're throwing into the mix, that's not fun for them. As long as things are interesting for both sides of the table and we're not being frustrated for our efforts, that's what matters.

 

[Horwath]

I ask this because of a some changes that were tried in UA and rejected and one change that was made and is unliked by many.

The things I am thinking about are:

Sneak Attack on your turn only (tried in UA and rejected)

change was not needed and it promotes team play to give rogue out of turn sneak attack

No doubling critical Sneak Dice or Smite dice or other damage riders (tried in UA and rejected)

do we need that bland criticals?
We need doubling of ALL damage on critical.

Paladin smite using a bonus action which effectively limits it to once a round on your turn (implemented but disliked)

once on your turn is a good change.
requiring Bonus action is an overkill.

Changing Warlock mechanics to a long rest (tried in UA and rejected)

problem with warlocks is problem with frequency of short rests:
0-1 short rests, warlock is weak
3+ short rests, warlock is too strong.

short rests are fail of 5E, they either need to be 1 min long or axed completely. 1hr duration is a hairbrained decision,

Using statblocks for Wildshape (tried in UA and rejected)
Using statblocks for familiars (tried in UA and rejected)

I really like those changes and voted for them every time.
they needed tuning a little.

Me personally I like the Paladin change and did not like any of the others, but I also don't think balance is important and I am not sure it is even good.

balance is important, but not so everything is completely the same(4E)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The DM though, also wants to share in the fun too, and if the players are curb-stomping or bypassing whatever they're throwing into the mix, that's not fun for them.

And I don't think in the long run that is fun for the players either. Sure, they want to win, but wins that are most memorable are the ones that actually were hard fought, not ones that came easily. But that's not necessarily something all players conceptually realise.

I also don't think that it makes much sense for surveys have these "Do you want your class to be nerfed, Y/N?" type of questions.
I doubt they yield useful data for good game design, as a lot of people will just instinctively vote "no."

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I dunno, ultimately balance might just be a way to achieve something they want.
I think most players want the feeling that they contribute to the game they take part in it. That can however be subjective, some people "need" to be more in the spotlight to enjoy the game than others, for example, and people have different measures of what contribution means.

A thing people probably don't like is negative surprises where a game element they thought would accomplish something they like fails to do so. And often - but not always - such disappointments can be traced back to poor balance. If you have the choice between two things, you kinda hope either would be useful and you try to figure out which sounds more interesting to what you want that character to be and do. If you realize it only in game option A was really much worse than option B, that is a negative surprise. But heck, sometimes it doesn't even need to be a surprise - having several options and realizing one will almost always be better is rarely great, because for players that care about these things, it means they effectively have no meaningful choices.

If a game is a series of interesting choices, then the game was lessened, the choice didn't turn out to be interesting because it was a foregone conclusion.

 

[aco175]

Like what @Stormonu said above- each player wants some action and limelight. If a player can do cool things others cannot, but they can do something I cannot, its fair. Making superman PCs might be some peoples thing, but my group/most I would think, likes to have some drama and tension where stakes are high that someone might die or be taken down for a while.