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October Playtest: Yay or Nay?
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<blockquote data-quote="ZombieRoboNinja" data-source="post: 6041000" data-attributes="member: 54843"><p>I will say that around the first playtest I had a lot more confidence that WOTC knew what they were doing with the playtests and feedback. But then I saw them making changes in response to feedback (like going back and forth on Turn Undead), with Mearls directly stating that they were making these changes in response to feedback, and that made me lose a bit of blind faith in their 11th-dimensional chess game. </p><p></p><p>I think they KNOW how to make an extremely polished, well-balanced, and tactically interesting game. It's called 4e. But they also know that in making that game they alienated a lot of people (including me, to some degree) and lost some of the ineffable "feel" of D&D. So now they're trying to find a sort of middle ground, a balanced but iconic game, and that means a decent amount of flailing about to see what's really "core" to the gameplay experience.</p><p></p><p>This is a really hard task. If you asked me, I'd say it's ludicrous to keep Turn Undead as a class feature. Why waste like 1/4 of the class description on an ability that will only get used in like 5% of encounters, when it works just fine as a spell? But apparently the ravening hordes demanded it or it's Just Not My D&D, so here it is again.</p><p></p><p>The upshot is that they're VERY RESPONSIVE to feedback. They'll abandon or repurpose great class designs and elegant gameplay mechanics if enough people say it doesn't feel right (adieu, draconic sorcerer...). They'll also dig in and create awesome new mechanics if the demand is high enough (hello, CS). So it really is up to us to be loud and vocal despite not knowing their top-secret plan. </p><p></p><p>This playtest is a focus group as much as it is anything. It's our job to give overall impressions and say what turns us on and off about the playtest.</p><p></p><p>Now, obviously DEFCON has a point that the playtest may be targeted in ways we can't be sure of. For example, they probably took out the cool knockback and trip maneuvers from fighters NOT because they're gone forever, but instead in order to encourage people to use the non-maneuver versions they've added to the core combat rules. And wizards and clerics probably start with one spell now NOT because they think everyone will love that, but in order to see at what level there's a "sweet spot" for daily spells. (If the feedback says everyone loves wizards at levels 6-8, I bet we'll see wizards hovering around 6-8 spells per day next time around.) But if I say I'm disappointed in this playtest because wizard traditions are boring compared to the draconic sorcerous origin and the warlock fey pact from the last playtest, that's probably valuable information.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ZombieRoboNinja, post: 6041000, member: 54843"] I will say that around the first playtest I had a lot more confidence that WOTC knew what they were doing with the playtests and feedback. But then I saw them making changes in response to feedback (like going back and forth on Turn Undead), with Mearls directly stating that they were making these changes in response to feedback, and that made me lose a bit of blind faith in their 11th-dimensional chess game. I think they KNOW how to make an extremely polished, well-balanced, and tactically interesting game. It's called 4e. But they also know that in making that game they alienated a lot of people (including me, to some degree) and lost some of the ineffable "feel" of D&D. So now they're trying to find a sort of middle ground, a balanced but iconic game, and that means a decent amount of flailing about to see what's really "core" to the gameplay experience. This is a really hard task. If you asked me, I'd say it's ludicrous to keep Turn Undead as a class feature. Why waste like 1/4 of the class description on an ability that will only get used in like 5% of encounters, when it works just fine as a spell? But apparently the ravening hordes demanded it or it's Just Not My D&D, so here it is again. The upshot is that they're VERY RESPONSIVE to feedback. They'll abandon or repurpose great class designs and elegant gameplay mechanics if enough people say it doesn't feel right (adieu, draconic sorcerer...). They'll also dig in and create awesome new mechanics if the demand is high enough (hello, CS). So it really is up to us to be loud and vocal despite not knowing their top-secret plan. This playtest is a focus group as much as it is anything. It's our job to give overall impressions and say what turns us on and off about the playtest. Now, obviously DEFCON has a point that the playtest may be targeted in ways we can't be sure of. For example, they probably took out the cool knockback and trip maneuvers from fighters NOT because they're gone forever, but instead in order to encourage people to use the non-maneuver versions they've added to the core combat rules. And wizards and clerics probably start with one spell now NOT because they think everyone will love that, but in order to see at what level there's a "sweet spot" for daily spells. (If the feedback says everyone loves wizards at levels 6-8, I bet we'll see wizards hovering around 6-8 spells per day next time around.) But if I say I'm disappointed in this playtest because wizard traditions are boring compared to the draconic sorcerous origin and the warlock fey pact from the last playtest, that's probably valuable information. [/QUOTE]
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