Do you think 6 months are enough for playtesting?

[KingCrab]

The longer they playtest, the better their rules will hold up. There's not one point where suddenly the balance is perfect, but it gets better the more you test it out with different gaming groups. If there was going to be 4.5 I wouldn't worry, but there isn't, so getting things right off the bat is more important.

 

[Grymar]

Bingo.

3e was a whole new game, new mechanics, new concepts.

4e is an evolved form of 3/3.5, so I'm not so sure as much playtesting is needed. Sure, they need to balance feats and spells, but the core mechanic should be fairly well set.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Would 6 months be enough by itself? No, of course not. But the thing is, it's not really all by itself.

Unlike 2>3 which had several major changes to the overall mechanics of the game, 4.0 seems to be more in the nature of a lot of tweaking to the rules, more so then 3.5, but enough to still be recognisable. Add in the fact that a lot of the new changes have already previewed earlier in other products, and I'm sure they already have reams of data on how the mechanics worked and incorporated them correctly. (Fingers crossed)

I believe they have exactly the product they want, the external playtesting is there to make sure (As someone mentioned previously) the rules are clear enough, and to help spot any glaringly obvious problems that internal playtesting has missed.

That said, I'm sure there will be SOME sort of problem. No matter how much playtesting anything gets, it's never enough to get rid of every single problem out there.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Would 6 months be enough by itself? No, of course not. But the thing is, it's not really all by itself.

Unlike 2>3 which had several major changes to the overall mechanics of the game, 4.0 seems to be more in the nature of a lot of tweaking to the rules, more so then 3.5, but enough to still be recognisable. Add in the fact that a lot of the new changes have already previewed earlier in other products, and I'm sure they already have reams of data on how the mechanics worked and incorporated them correctly. (Fingers crossed)

I believe they have exactly the product they want, the external playtesting is there to make sure (As someone mentioned previously) the rules are clear enough, and to help spot any glaringly obvious problems that internal playtesting has missed.

That said, I'm sure there will be SOME sort of problem. No matter how much playtesting anything gets, it's never enough to get rid of every single problem out there.

Thing is, 4th Edition is a new Game (although evolved out of 3rd edition), that was said often enough by WoC.
Many new features were previewed in earlier products, that is correct.
But joining all the different parts together to form a homogenous and solid system ist the difficult part.
I think that there will no glaring problems, those should be spotted by the designers already.
It is more the many small things.
Again look at 3rd edition. A very good very solid system. And nonetheless there was a 3.5 revision that fixed a lot of small problems.

I fear that 4th edition will contain a lot of bugs that need a lot of fixes. I know that no system is perfect. But it can be vey solid. And for that you need a lot of people who try to use and abuse the mechanics.

It lik with a new car. Even though the Card Designers and Technicans know their Job, the car gets his exhaustive testdrive nonetheless.

 

[Li Shenron]

3e was a whole new game, new mechanics, new concepts.

Well I'm not so sure... 4e is killing some sacred cows of D&D and is changing some of the fundamental aspects of playing D&D such as the need for resting of the spellcasters. This is a major change to the whole game IMO.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

They won't worry about getting it perfect. Did anyone see the reason WHY there won't be a 4.5? It's simple. With the DI, they have the ability to auto-update everyone's copy of the rule books (the digital versions at least) with any changes they need to make. So, instead of a 4.5 there will be a 4.01 and a 4.02 and 4.03. They won't be labeled as such, but they have the ability to "patch" the game now on a regular basis with confidence that a large number of players will get the update.

 

[heirodule]

When Ryan Dancey launched the OGL, one of his main points was that Wizards would take what they considered the 'best of' back in-house and update D&D using it. So far, a lot of what we're seeing, with what appear to be nods to Saga, Iron Heroes, Spycraft and others, seems to be doing exactly that, although Wizards did produce quite a bit more in-house than in Dancey's original plan.

Well, not exactly.

Because if they were, they would have to take the d20 license and credit those companies with their innovations.

But that never happens.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'm a little concerned when taking into consideration the number of fairly major game features we're hearing about that aren't finalised yet. I don't agree with the argument that 4E requires less testing because it is just an iterative change from 3.5E. They are making some fairly major changes to core design elements that have been in the game for 30 years so I would assume it would need just as much testing if not more when we see how 3E turned out (errata, revisions, etc).

My suspicion is that, even moreso than 3E where errata could be published easily in PDF form, with the advent of D&DI where the electronic versions can have errata updates handled automatically they will be taking a few pages out of the software development book of bad habits. Ship it, get some revenue coming in, and fix the problems later.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt (even though I'm not sure they've earned it) and wait and see what they do.

 

[Nebulous]

Yup. None of the 'new' tidbits they leaked so far sounded revolutionary to me. We've already seen everything in a very similar incarnation in previous systems (ToB, MM5, UA, etc.).

Exactly, which is really good news in a way, because it means that the concepts HAVE been playtested, both internally and by the public. Sure, they'll be plenty of changes, but the core ideas seem to have already been seeded in 3e.

The absolute largest change, to me, seems to be the magic system, and how that will pan out.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

They won't worry about getting it perfect. Did anyone see the reason WHY there won't be a 4.5? It's simple. With the DI, they have the ability to auto-update everyone's copy of the rule books (the digital versions at least) with any changes they need to make. So, instead of a 4.5 there will be a 4.01 and a 4.02 and 4.03. They won't be labeled as such, but they have the ability to "patch" the game now on a regular basis with confidence that a large number of players will get the update.

Yeah, i know and games with Newbees will be like this:
Newbee Fighter: I use Feat Mightyblow to do 500 points of Damage to that Dragon.
DM: Hmm, actually in Patch B2 it says that the Feat can not be used against Huge or bigger opponents. And it does a maximum of 100 points damage.
Newbee Fighter: What Patch?
DM: Well, the Patch you get if you buy yourself a PHB, use the special code in the Book and download the Patches for the WoC Homepage
Newbee Fighter: I see, well I have no PHB yet. Ok, I then will use my Mightysmighty ability to charge the Dragon.
DM: Aeh...Patch C4 says that you can not use Mightysmighty and charge at the same time.
Newbe Player: Ok, leave it, I go and play some WoW...