WotC Jeremy Crawford Interview: Playtests from experimental to focused. By Christian Hoffer at GenCon.

[darjr]

@mamba also I dint know if they have to be designed behind a curtain. Just that D&D is a different ball game and it probably shouldn’t be.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Feel free to join the club. Setting an arbitrary "almost everyone must like this before we even consider iterating on it" standard is the stupidest design choice they ever went with. And that's got stiff competition from the Champion subclass.

It’s a great design decision. It helps make sure they don’t waste their time as much chasing stuff that will never be popular, and don’t change the game for no reason.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I meant 98% of the design of other games.

Not 98% of all games.

Maybe I misunderstood the comment I was responding too.

Most games are so small in user base, or generally will be, that it might actually be an asset they are wholly designed behind a curtain.

Also many just dint have a big enough audience anyway, especially vs D&D.

So the concern between designing behind a curtain vs showing and asking the user base some if it is different when you are talking about D&D.

I would reinforce @darjr point, with reference to D&D that part of the core identity of D&D are elements that one probably not include if one went back in time and were starting afresh.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wotc raised the bar when 5e came out, it’s rare for customers to lower their expectations

More accurately, people are entitled and irrational, and when you improve service they will just take it for granted that they were always due that and you should have been doing that before.

Customers are wrong much more often than they are right.

 

[darjr]

It’s a great design decision. It helps make sure they don’t waste their time as much chasing stuff that will never be popular, and don’t change the game for no reason.

And It’s also only a part of the design process. After all he did say there are changes comming that will not be in the playtest. Or at least that’s what I thought he meant.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And It’s also only a part of the design process. After all he did say there are changes comming that will not be in the playtest. Or at least that’s what I thought he meant.

Yep. There is a lot going on, not just the public playtest.

 

[mamba]

@mamba also I dint know if they have to be designed behind a curtain. Just that D&D is a different ball game and it probably shouldn’t be.

no idea either, I am pretty sure getting feedback always helps and many do it to varying degrees (closed playtests, semi-open playtests, …).

The D&D playtest at a minimum avoids introducing something that is very unpopular, I am not sure it does much more than that however. That in itself is probably worth it to WotC already

 

[Stalker0]

More accurately, people are entitled and irrational, and when you improve service they will just take it for granted that they were always due that and you should have been doing that before.

If McDonalds started giving you half the fries they normally do for the same price, should customers just "take it"? WOTC has opened up customer interaction to a new level with 5e and the initial playtests, and now have opened the door again with a new round of playtests. So I think people have a fair expectation that their feedback is going to factor into the final product.

At the end of the day, our marketplace driven economy is built on the notion that customers have free choices and included in that is....the right to complain.

And of course, companies are free to hear or ignore those complaints. At the end of the day, its money that will talk. Maybe WOTC handling (or botching depending on POV) of the survey will be a factor in your purchasing decisions, maybe it won't matter in the slightest. Part of the difficulty of the modern company who has so many channels of communication with their customers is sifting through the legitimate criticism from idle whining. Companies operate at their peril if they don't listen to customers at all, but sometimes customers don't really know what they want until they see it.

No matter how the surveys go, I'm going to take a look at the final product. My suspicion (perhaps my hope) is that they are changing a lot more under the hood than the surveys are letting on, and once we see the final product I will be much more inspired to spend money on new books. I can say that if the amount of change the current surveys are suggesting is the whole of the changes made, that probably would not be enough to part me with my money. I don't think the changes are "bad", I just don't think its worth both paying money and retaining my players on slightly new rules.

 

[Parmandur]

I meant 98% of the design of other games.

Not 98% of all games.

Maybe I misunderstood the comment I was responding too.

Most games are so small in user base, or generally will be, that it might actually be an asset they are wholly designed behind a curtain.

Also many just dint have a big enough audience anyway, especially vs D&D.

So the concern between designing behind a curtain vs showing and asking the user base some if it is different when you are talking about D&D.

And nothing wrong with it...but data on users is probably an advantage that maintains WotC position about as much as name recognition.

 

[darjr]

And nothing wrong with it...but data on users is probably an advantage that maintains WotC position about as much as name recognition.

Interesting.

I’m not sure I’d go that far. At least not historically. But I’m certain it’s a huge advantage now.