Do You Think Open Playtests Improve a Game's Development?

[TiQuinn]

Maybe I wasn't clear.

I don't believe that the fans that respond to open playtesting a) necessarily represent the broad average of players, and b) I don't think those fans motivated to answer are necessarily motivated to make the game better and instead are motivated to make thegame stay the way they like it.

I think designers should be trusted to designa game.

If you are going to do a playtest, it certainly should not be piecemeal and in brief intervals. you should put out a wholly playable version of the game and let people play it as if they would the complete game, and take feedback on that.

I understand what you are saying, but honestly, I really don’t agree at all.

I’m not sure if the impetus for this thread is specifically targeted at 5.5 but as I pointed out, other very notable companies have also done playtests. I have a hard time believing that all of these designers are not deriving value from them, or that they are creating a blindspot for themselves because they are taking input from those who get involved with the playtest.

 

[mamba]

How is better measured? It seems popular approval is out. Making lots of money is out. I’m not sure of an objective tool because even the feel of the game impacts enjoyment, which is entirely subjective. How would you determine better?

I am fine with using sales as a measure. To me the real question is how would you determine what would have been released without the playtest and how it would have fared.

Personally I do not think the 2024 playtest helped much, but there is no way of showing that, regardless of what you believe

 

[Reynard]

Well, that’s one, largely snotty, spin on it. But what’s the difference between a vocal minority shouting something down and an insufficiently large majority embracing it? Rude spin is all. I mean what IS it about people ascribing negative personal characteristics behind decisions they don’t happen to like? Does it make you feel better about yourself and your own preferences?

I'm not sure why you want to try and turn this into a personal argument. I am proposing a point of view, that's all. If you disagree, maybe articulate that instead of attacking?

 

[Reynard]

I understand what you are saying, but honestly, I really don’t agree at all.

I’m not sure if the impetus for this thread is specifically targeted at 5.5 but as I pointed out, other very notable companies have also done playtests. I have a hard time believing that all of these designers are not deriving value from them, or that they are creating a blindspot for themselves because they are taking input from those who get involved with the playtest.

I do think other companies have and continue to do public playtests in a better way than WotC, but even in those cases I am actually not sold on the idea that they help.

I think that the people inclined to engage with a playtest are more likely to have a bias, and therefore their responses are not going to be "neutral" with regards to the design.

Moreover, i think that game designers can design games and then give them to the world and see what happens. BUT, if they do want to see how the public views it, a big playtest release that amounts to a "early access" release is a better way to do it than piecemeal.

 

[Hussar]

I think they’re a form of marketing. You can’t design a game by committee, but having thousands of playtesters is useful to iron out kinks. Folks don’t know what they want until they see it, so less about designing good rules and more about our vetoing bad ones.

Either way, the discussion itself is useful because it creates hype, gets more people interested and a successful game at inception is likely to go on to be better.

Bingo. Right here. This is the winning answer. The point of these open playtests isn't to get the "best rules" possible. That's not going to happen. What the point of open playtesting is, is to gather HUGE amounts of market research and also to get the word out to the customers and build hype.

Actual impact on the rules of the game? Arguable.

 

[billd91]

I'm not sure why you want to try and turn this into a personal argument. I am proposing a point of view, that's all. If you disagree, maybe articulate that instead of attacking?

Maybe it’s because of the blatantly pejorative language you’re using with “vocal majority shouting things down”? Do have evidence that’s what happened or accurately characterizes the play test result? Or is that just a value-laden way to characterize your disappointment with the end result? It’s like people complaining about “lazy design”. It’s ascribing negative personal attributes to something they don’t like. Why do it?

 

[Reynard]

Maybe it’s because of the blatantly pejorative language you’re using with “vocal majority shouting things down”? Do have evidence that’s what happened or accurately characterizes the play test result? Or is that just a value-laden way to characterize your disappointment with the end result? It’s like people complaining about “lazy design”. It’s ascribing negative personal attributes to something they don’t like. Why do it?

We watched, in real time, people complain strongly against anything that was a change. You can go back and read the threads on this very site. It was a thing that actually happened.

It is okay if you are happy with how that turned out. Everyone has different preferences. But don't pretend it did not actually occur.

WotC was pretty clear: if a change did not get 70% (75% I don't remember) approval, they tossed it. The problem is, that is asking a small minority of fans to make design decisions. That just doesn't make for a better game.

Don't accuse me of "ascribing negative personal attributes" because I am not talking about any persons. I am talking about the discourse. And the discourse was dominated by people with strong preferences for staying the same, and the designer backed off because of that. Again, we saw it happen in real time. Go back and look at your playtest packets and watch as ideas are presented and then retracted.

 

[TiQuinn]

Moreover, i think that game designers can design games and then give them to the world and see what happens. BUT, if they do want to see how the public views it, a big playtest release that amounts to a "early access" release is a better way to do it than piecemeal.

What do you think is that different between piecemeal and a big release that makes the latter better, and how does that change anything regarding invested fans versus people who don’t try the playtest?

 

[Reynard]

What do you think is that different between piecemeal and a big release that makes the latter better, and how does that change anything regarding invested fans versus people who don’t try the playtest?

I don't think you can effectively playtest an RPG in pieces. The nature of RPG play is holistic, and you need to be able to run adventures and even campaigns to understand how all the rules interact with one another. A set of abilities for a specific class may seem reasonable, for example, but if you can't test it against other new rules for other classes and monsters and such, over time with leveling up, you really can't test it at all.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't think you can effectively playtest an RPG in pieces. The nature of RPG play is holistic, and you need to be able to run adventures and even campaigns to understand how all the rules interact with one another. A set of abilities for a specific class may seem reasonable, for example, but if you can't test it against other new rules for other classes and monsters and such, over time with leveling up, you really can't test it at all.

In the case of 5.5, given that the core mechanics were largely unchanged, and what was being changed were modifications to classes, monster, spells and the like, why wouldn’t piecemeal work? It’s not like the mechanics were unfamiliar to anyone. Perhaps the biggest change were the weapon properties as a new subsystem within the game, but the game was not completely rebuilt from the ground up.