Last D&D Survey Results In! Plus What's Up With The Ranger?

As you may know, WotC has a monthly survey/feedback system going. I report on it each month. Last month's survey was about product expectations Gen Con, and the results report was much shorter than usual - just a couple of sentences. "In terms of product, setting books and monster books proved the most popular. We were also happy to see that many of you had played in our published campaign worlds or wanted to try them out. We also saw plenty of support for new character options, with a consensus that most players are happy with our current pace of "slow but steady." I personally feel that my - anecdotal - experience with the online community says the opposite about the current pace, but a survey's a survey!

There's a new survey up, covering the recent Ranger playtest. As WotC mentions, the Ranger is the least popular class, and they intend to approach the class in a number of different ways over the coming year. The Ranger is interesting, because it attracts a lot of snotty comments (not as many as the very concept of a Warlord, but that's another thing).

Click here to take the Ranger survey.

 

[Shasarak]

It might just be me, but that sounds ridiculous.

If WotC looked at my usage of the online character builder to see what I liked and what I didn't they would get the wrong impression because the majority of my built characters were me just taking a look at something to see if it seemed entertaining enough to bring to the table and deciding that it didn't, or characters which seemed entertaining enough to bring to the table but after playing them I found I didn't enjoy them as much as I hoped.

But if WotC asks me what characters I like, I tell them the ones I actually liked playing.

I mean, sure, the builder can tell them how many people built X class and leveled it up to Y and picked option Z-1 more than Z-2 - but that information isn't useful if it can't differentiate between [thought experiment] and [played character], let alone between [didn't enjoy] and [definitely my favorite].

I dont know why looking at real data would be considered ridiculous compared to hoping people sit down and take their survey.

Especially since the people most likely to take your survey are the ones not happy with the what ever they want to complain about.

 

[Parmandur]

If too many options resulted in people not buying anything then most people would have a ton of savings instead of always being in debt. Most people spend money like water on tons of crap they don't need... just look at yard sales if you need proof of that. Capitalism ensures that people have tons of options all the time and I don't see the average person suffering from analysis paralysis because of it.

Well, it's not that I wouldn't spend money; I'd just not give it to Wizards and buy a Catan expansion ot whatever instead.

 

[Parmandur]

I suspect the average fan wants more.

Apparently the actual data contradicts your theory, which is why Wizards is releasing the amount they are: the average fan does not want more, and will buy more when less is released. They have said repeatedly this is the result of feedback.

 

[Louis Brenton]

You're right, we don't know for sure. It's all just speculation on our part. However, I doubt that an extra couple of 32 page adventures each year would strain the staff too much.

Now THAT would be an interesting way to approach it. I'm fine with the current release schedule because it's not too much of a financial strain to have to purchase a 250 page, $50-ish MSRP book twice year. Also, my group only plays every 2-3 weeks, so we're way behind, published adventure-wise. (We're about half-way through Rise of Tiamat right now).

I could get behind buying something (like a 250 page book) maybe quarterly without feeling much financial pressure. If that were the case, I'd like it better if it were in some sort of rotation like crunch book--adventure--information sourcebook--adventure. I also wouldn't mind so much if they weren't so big & pricey. I'd be quite happy to have more Phandelver-sized adventure books.

On a different note, how do you guys process the fact that we had a mid-September release for the Out of the Abyss Adventure, but now we have a November release of the some-crunch-and-some-sourcebook Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide approaching.

Is the timing of that an aberration, or does this indicate a speed-up of releases?

 

[Bupp]

I'm perfectly fine with the release schedule. I don't spend much on gaming, and I want my money to count when it does. Between the UA articles, the Homebrew forum and stuff different blogs put out, I have an embarrassment of choices to make, be it classes, races, monsters, spells, magic items or adventures.

As for the ranger, the core ranger + hunter subclass work pretty well. I do like the ambuscade, combat stealth and 2d6 hit dice, though. They should be core.

I've never gotten the pet thing. Played plenty of rangers in 1e and 2e, and never wanted for one. I still understand that plenty of people want one, though, so make the beastmaster a viable subclass and problem solved.

The spell-less ranger from the previous UA was mostly crap in my opinion, but did have some decent bits that could be stolen.

The spirit animals from this last UA could be kept as a distinct subclass choice. I don't think I'd ever play one, but I like the option being there.

I do like the ranger using the wilderness as a tool. Was it Pathfinder that had the trap making rangers? I like that as a choice, gives the ranger that Rambo vibe from First Blood.

 

[Shasarak]

2E put TSR our of business, and 3E went bust. They are trying to find a model that works for fans, and works for business: they apparently have found what works for the majority of fans, and they seem to be doing OK business wise.

And 4e put DnD out of business for 2 years, so I also hope that 5e is doing OK business wise.

 

[JohnLynch]

During 4e (the first edition I played) I bought most of the first party products (until Essentials) and a smattering of 3PP products. With 5e I'm doing the opposite. I'm buying a lot more 3PP products and much less 1PP products. When I look at all the books I bought for 4e and never used, I am quite happy with doing it this way.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I dont know why looking at real data would be considered ridiculous compared to hoping people sit down and take their survey.

Especially since the people most likely to take your survey are the ones not happy with the what ever they want to complain about.

I explained how the "real data" doesn't actually give the part of the picture that WotC needs to know, since there is no "How satisfied with this character are you?" rating set into the character info for them to look at - making character I hated and re-tooled a dozen times look like I enjoyed it more than the one 1 built once and thought was great and played happily for a full year.

As for the people most likely to take the survey being the ones that aren't happy and wish to complain... I think that isn't the case, or we would be seeing results other than the generally satisfied results that we have been seeing.

...but maybe I am just assuming myself as the statistical norm, which we humans are so prone to do, because I've been answering every survey even though I am entirely satisfied by the core books, the release schedule, and basically everything except that I don't feel like their is much use in trying to make a "new ranger" because I actually like the one in the book already, beastmaster included - and the feedback results have generally matched my personal feedback (excepting the ranger, and how many folks seem to expect 5th edition to fall apart at higher levels because they've never seen a version of D&D that doesn't).

 

[Shasarak]

I explained how the "real data" doesn't actually give the part of the picture that WotC needs to know, since there is no "How satisfied with this character are you?" rating set into the character info for them to look at - making character I hated and re-tooled a dozen times look like I enjoyed it more than the one 1 built once and thought was great and played happily for a full year.

I am not sure why you would not try and at least sort your data. You could easily filter out orphan character sheets from your data set and get a relatively good picture on the characters that have been updated steadily over a year from the ones that have not.

As for the people most likely to take the survey being the ones that aren't happy and wish to complain... I think that isn't the case, or we would be seeing results other than the generally satisfied results that we have been seeing.

...but maybe I am just assuming myself as the statistical norm, which we humans are so prone to do, because I've been answering every survey even though I am entirely satisfied by the core books, the release schedule, and basically everything except that I don't feel like their is much use in trying to make a "new ranger" because I actually like the one in the book already, beastmaster included - and the feedback results have generally matched my personal feedback (excepting the ranger, and how many folks seem to expect 5th edition to fall apart at higher levels because they've never seen a version of D&D that doesn't).

That is why one persons survey is another persons anecdote i guess.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I am not sure why you would not try and at least sort your data. You could easily filter out orphan character sheets from your data set and get a relatively good picture on the characters that have been updated steadily over a year from the ones that have not.

You've missed my point again, so let me try it out in a more brief fashion:

The data that character builder could gather is inherently lacking the most important piece of info; the person's opinion - how many times I've built a fighter and how often I've leveled up that fighter is not necessarily proportional to how much I enjoy the fighter class, for example, I might actually like the wizard I only ever built once and never updated in the builder (but did on paper) a lot more. That's been what I've been getting at all along; my favorite 4th edition character would appear to be my least favorite if character builder data was to be interpreted without my input.