D&D 5E Time to Stop Revising

[Jester David]

I'd rather see WotC get it right first, and then worry about a release date, and GenCon be damned.

But it will NEVER be completely right. There will always be small problems. And as long as they keep completely overhauling classes to fix problems, they'll be trapped in an endless vicious cycle revising endlessly.

There have been two major revisions of Pathfinder, and even after five years of playing and a public playtest they still didn't manage to get everything right in PF. There will always be small things missed, proud nails, and amusing hiccups.

The best way to get it most right is to stop major revisions and stick to minor revisions and small tweaks, and actually testing the game.

GenCon is just the obvious deadline. Because it's a hard deadline and because they need something to show off at the Con. There could be another deadline and any day is as good as the next, as long as they actually set a deadline sometime.

 

[Jester David]

I think the original poster is looking at it backwards.

Instead of looking at a date in the future to find the date to stop revising and start polishing, I think you have to look at the current revision and decide if it's what you want and then start polishing. It's also important that as they start polishing they don't completely freeze the revising. It's quite possible they find something that just doesn't work out as planned, but it didn't get caught because of alle the noise you have from an unpolished product.

If they do what the OP says, I think they will have another 4e on their hands. It's polished, but not really what the marked wanted. (Looking at how successful Pathfinder is).

One of the problems with 4e was they kept tweaking and tweaking up until the final writing and never really stopped to playtest what they had. They adjusted the monster math without adjusting the PC numbers creating a math imbalance at high levels. They never tested how solos played or many powers. They never seriously looked at how skill DCs worked at the table.

Ideally they should just write until it's done and then release, but art is never done because the artist only ever sees its flaws. Da Vinci never considered any of his paintings done. Writers especially often write best with a deadline.

Even then, the edition will work best if they stop overhauling what they have every 3 months and start perfecting what they have already.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I think we just have to agree to disagree Jester Canuck.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&DN is more of a meh edition to me so far. Just not that interested.

 

[gyor]

Honestly I think they're about 2 to 3 playtest packets maybe 4 from being at that point.

Right now Barbarians, Clerics, Fighters, Rogues, Wizards, Paladins, Rangers, Monks, Druids are in.

They still need Bards, Warlords, Sorcerors, Warlocks, and maybe Psions and Assassins and maybe some sort of gish class or Artificer.

I think they are closing in on most of these classes. I mean aside from fixing the dead levels from 11 to 20 the Paladin, Ranger, and Cleric only need tweeking, the Barbarian needs subclasses, the Rogue needs to revert to something closer to last packet, the fighter needs his manuvuers back same with the Monk, The Druid needs more Druids spells instead of borrow half his list from inapproate Wizard spells, the wizard traditions need an over hall and the weird bonus spell feature dropped.

Warlock were previewed in the past and only need tweeking, I believe the previous verison of the sorceror got eatten by a gish class I believe so that one will need to be redone.

Assassin may have been eaten by the Rogue given its a scheme, but thats not a certainity.

Psion might be left for a modual.

We have Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halfling so far, which only need tweeking, they need Tieflings, Half Elves, Half Orcs, Dragonborn, Elderin (its unclear if they will be seperate from elves or if high elves count or renamed), Gnomes. Possiblities include Drow (could be a elf subrace) or Aasmir (either as a replacement for Elderin if they become celestials again, or to balance the Tieflings).

Races don't take nearly as long as classes.

My prediction is we will probably be getting Bard, Warlock, Warlord, and Sorceror next packet along with Half Orcs and Half Elves and possibly more races, revised feat/specialty system, skills fixed, Multiclassing, and probably more spells.

After that in the next packet what's left of races, more subclasses for classes, and any last major rules experiment. Plus the legacy system.

After that it will be mostly adding more subclasses, feats, subraces, monsters, spells and the like and balancing the math and polishing.

I say this not to rush 5e, but just an honest assessment of thier progress so far with all the information I have gathered so far.

 

[Umbran]

Easy money says WotC wants 5e ready for GenCon 2014 if not earlier ...

I don't care if the money is easy or not. That's an arbitrary line in the sand.

We should instead think of it this way: D&D rules sales have always been a smallish fish in the WotC pond. They serve the overall brand, but are not necessarily critically economically. That means that WotC can, in general, afford to wait a while to get results. So, rather than having set an arbitrary time deadline, I would expect it more likely that they've set a budget deadline. As in, "You have $X to spend on research and development," Where X was estimated by what a good new game could drive in sales *and* in brand value overall. Given that they're trying an ambitious and new form of R&D, I would expect that budget to have been impressive, as these things go.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Any product release date is going to be dictated by a combination of market pressures, internal politics, and product readiness. Personally, my priorities would be get it ready first, with internal politics coming in last.

However, WotC is a wholly owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation, meaning demands from on high matter more to WotC's viability than I'd like. I hope that Hasbro & WotC are both on the same page, and are prioritizing design of a quality edition of the next version of D&D.

...but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Jester David]

I don't care if the money is easy or not. That's an arbitrary line in the sand.

We should instead think of it this way: D&D rules sales have always been a smallish fish in the WotC pond. They serve the overall brand, but are not necessarily critically economically. That means that WotC can, in general, afford to wait a while to get results. So, rather than having set an arbitrary time deadline, I would expect it more likely that they've set a budget deadline. As in, "You have $X to spend on research and development," Where X was estimated by what a good new game could drive in sales *and* in brand value overall. Given that they're trying an ambitious and new form of R&D, I would expect that budget to have been impressive, as these things go.

All deadlines are arbitrary. But WotC has shown a preference for GenCon and doing big things for the convention crowds.
Even if they don't have it out for GenCon 2014 they'll want it out for mid to late 2014 before the holiday season. They've gone two years without having new books and products available for Christmas, I can't imagine them missing a third. Not when they have something as a giftable as simple rules in an entry-level product.

With 2014 being the anniversary year, D&D will be in the new regardless. It would be a mistake not to have product available.
If people are interested and curious after reading about the game you don't want to tell them "well, we can't sell you the books yet, but you can participate in the unfinished and fairly unbalanced playtest or wait seven months until the books are in stores."

 

[SirAntoine]

They should have released the game FIRST, then gotten feedback and released a new, more complete version later on. They should have had a "here, try this" approach, and if it met with bad enough reception they should have waited until another go-around of a new edition discussion in-house.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The 3Ed to 3.5Ed transition proved that that tactic won't prove too popular.