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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7438078" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't agree with this.Mearls wrote a lot during the 5e design period about 4e's inability to retain new players: that lots of new players tried it, and had some fun with it, but didn't stick with it. He attributed this to various things, but the two I remember are (i) marketing complexity (the &quot;wall of books&quot; thing), and (ii) PC build complexituy (the number of choices needed to build a starting fighter character).Between the data that Mearls' ruminations were based on, and informed common sense grounded in a deep experience of game design and game marketing, I think it is possible to identify things that new players look for in a game. And in the absence of either data or deep experience, I speculate that one of those things is a chance to make &quot;good&quot; play decisions. In MtG this means building a good deck, or playing a clever combo. A designer (I am assuming) wants to build these possibilities into the game. And I think it's hard to build a common framework that both provides those sorts of possibilities to a new player, while at the same time immunises the system against exploitation of those possibilities by an experienced player.Of course some, even many, experienced players self-immunise in some fashion or other (rewrite the MM; make up new feats; ban feats and just don't build too many optimised warlocks or sorcerers; play only casters; etc). But I'm not surprised that there are some experienced players, like the OP, who are having the sorts of problems the OP reports.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7438078, member: 42582"] I don't agree with this. Mearls wrote a lot during the 5e design period about 4e's inability to retain new players: that lots of new players tried it, and had some fun with it, but didn't stick with it. He attributed this to various things, but the two I remember are (i) marketing complexity (the "wall of books" thing), and (ii) PC build complexituy (the number of choices needed to build a starting fighter character). Between the data that Mearls' ruminations were based on, and informed common sense grounded in a deep experience of game design and game marketing, I think it is possible to identify things that new players look for in a game. And in the absence of either data or deep experience, I speculate that one of those things is a chance to make "good" play decisions. In MtG this means building a good deck, or playing a clever combo. A designer (I am assuming) wants to build these possibilities into the game. And I think it's hard to build a common framework that both provides those sorts of possibilities to a new player, while at the same time immunises the system against exploitation of those possibilities by an experienced player. Of course some, even many, experienced players self-immunise in some fashion or other (rewrite the MM; make up new feats; ban feats and just don't build too many optimised warlocks or sorcerers; play only casters; etc). But I'm not surprised that there are some experienced players, like the OP, who are having the sorts of problems the OP reports. [/QUOTE]

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