How's D&D Working Out For You? First official feedback survey looks at CLASSES and FEATS!

D&D 5th Edition has been out for 7 months now, with a boxed Starter Set, a free basic game, three core rulebooks, two hardcover adventures, and range of accessories. and WotC has just launched the first of its feedback surveys. From the start, WotC promised 5E would be a "living game" and that they would periodically survey the fan base to find out how the game is working and what areas need to be looked at. This first survey is focused on character classes and feats. "Future surveys will touch on other areas of the game. We’ll also launch more detailed surveys of classes or feats as needed to refine the information we gather and better understand your feedback."

You can take the survey here. It can take up to about 18 minutes to complete if you answer all of the questions. But once you've done it, please do feel free to comment here and share what you think for others to read, too!

Most of the released products have high ratings when looking at consolidated ratings from fans and reviews from popular sites like GeekDad, Forbes, The Escapist, Examiner.com, The Mary Sue, Aint-It-Cool-News, Boing Boing, and iO9. The Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide both current have 92.5%, and the Monster Manual is not far behind with 91%. The Starter Set, also, has a strong 84%. The adventures have not fared quite so well; Hoard of the Dragon Queen has only 55%, although Rise of Tiamat is more popular with 76.5%. The initial DM Screen from Gale Force 9 is unpopular with a rating of 30%, but the new one from WotC was much better received with 84.5%.

 

[Parmandur]

I said I wanted boxed sets, and wrote in that Feats are lame as a concept and as such, was neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the variant option.

 

[Sailor Moon]

I thought this was a rather pointless survey.

I also didn't like the power between the classes questions.

 

[Morrus]

I love how meta this is getting. People are reviewing the survey itself!

 

[HobbitFan]

It's a weird survey. I like that they asked about general satisfaction and how to present supplements.

The "which of these classes is more powerful" questions were just strange. It wasn't a question formulated to get our input so much as confirm/disprove some notion they have.

 

[rooneg]

Honestly, I get what they're looking for on the "compare these two classes" stuff. It's not possible to get a true comparison because there's so much variation between game situations, but the perception still matters. If a huge percentage of the community thinks that Druids (for example) are more powerful than everything else that's something the designers should be aware of. Likewise if a particular class is viewed to be less powerful they'd probably be interested in that.

Now, I think you can make an argument that it's not fine grained enough, but I'm not sure they're going to get enough people to take the survey to really get statistically significant data if they started comparing Battlemaster/Eldritch Knight/Champion to Abjurer/Enchanter/Conjurer/etc.

 

[tuxgeo]

Maybe the class power comparison section was meta on their part: if the standard deviation of those answers turns out to be incompatible with some other statistic, they might use that to conclude that the survey didn't work as intended, and therefore they might weight its results differently.

Or, you know -- not.

That's one of the problems with these voluntary surveys: you don't know how many of the responses are sincere and how many are from people who are just looking to screw up a survey for fun, or out of malice.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Maybe the class power comparison section was meta on their part: if the standard deviation of those answers turns out to be incompatible with some other statistic, they might use that to conclude that the survey didn't work as intended, and therefore they might weight its results differently.

Or, you know -- not.

That's one of the problems with these voluntary surveys: you don't know how many of the responses are sincere and how many are from people who are just looking to screw up a survey for fun, or out of malice.

wait... there are people who just WANT to screw up surveys? or do you just mean ballet stuffing for your own cause?

 

[TrippyHippy]

Well I started the survey. The signal crashed after a couple of pages or so. I tried to get back in when it reconnected and I was told I had ‘completed the survey’. Oh, well, that sucks!

Can somebody let Wizards know that the Half-Elf is overpowered! Cheers!

 

[Psikerlord#]

I'm glad feedback surveys have begun. I commented on everything I could, and had "very satisfied" or "satisfied" for most things.

In the comments part I recommended taking the -5/+10 out of GWM and SS (in lieu +1 stat), and removing the no disad shooting in melee part of CE (in lieu +1 stat). I also recommended substituting Elemental Adept to allow the caster to change the element when casting, and reroll 1's for damage.

 

[Mistwell]

So which do you guys think is more powerful: Barbarian, or Fighter?