What did Wizards learn from Essentials?

[OchreJelly]

D&D 4th edition combat is too complicated once you start playing it (though it was easy to learn).

Personally I'm not even sure it was all that complicated but rather that it was long. Filler encounters shouldn't take up to an hour of game-time

 

[W_K]

Here's a more complete transcription of what Mike Mearls said in response to the question:

I think the most important thing we learned from Essentials is that whenever you're managing D&D, if you have something thats more of the entry way or it's sort of like the ground floor entry into the system it's best to do that first. Because I think a lot of people when you bought the Player's Handbook in 2008 for 4th and you're playing and you're getting more experience with the system and you're building characters and designing adventures, it's a little wierd then for us to come out and say "Hey, here's a new way to enter into the system." Rather than having just a starter set, having an entire line. So I think it just caused a lot of confusion among existing players. Cause I think in a lot of ways when you meet someone who wants to start playing D&D with your group, you just teach them with the books you have. So I think in some ways we really learned was how putting the product line together trumps what the system might be doing. We really need to think of it in terms of the customer's experience and, you know, whether you're experienced or new to the game, what you see on the shelf and how we're presenting it and where we're presenting it in the history of the edition has to make sense to people. So I think if we had released Essentials in 2008, and then, say, taken Player's Handbook 1 and released that as like the Advanced Player's Handbook in 2010 I dont think we would have had any trouble. People would have just said "We get it. You did the basic entry thing. We were playing with that and liking it and now, hey, here's the more advanced options. That makes sense. I've been playing this game for a couple years now. I'm ready to get into more detail, have more flexibility, and have more and more detail in the game."

 

[SlyDoubt]

If they had started with essentials I might be playing 4E now instead of PF.

Then when they released the 'Advanced'PHB they would already have all that experience and feedback designing classes and powers that aren't so bland and uninteresting to me.

It's a shame. Essentials made me excited about 4E again. I liked everything they were doing. The Monster Vault was probably my best 4E purchase along with Dark Sun and the Rules Compendium.

Then they cancelled the one book I planned on specifically buying and it became obvious everything hadn't panned out for wotc. Essentials was just much more varied. The classes felt more like they should to myself and my group. It took them all that time to stretch the powers system and then to have Essentials fail like it did was awful. Argh! What could have been!

 

[BobTheNob]

Whether you love, hate or being indifferent to Essentials it was a very important design exercise in the evolution of D&D.

Bingo. I think thats exactly right. I know essentials split the camp, but to me it did rectify the thing which soured the 4e experience for me : classes didnt feel distinct. They all followed the same basic mechanic.

After having tried to make all classes mechanically on par in 4e, essentials pointed out to me that distinctness of classes is important for defining your character and helping the player love it, and that balance could be achieved without same-sameness.

These are important lessons to be taking into 5e.

 

[Tallifer]

The Essentials books ... are easier to read, with interesting flavor text.

Strange you should say this, because I found the Essentials books harder to read. I could easily skim through the first Players' Handbook and notice the important facts and sections which I wanted to read, and each class had a clean layout of powers. Essentials classes were walls of text to sift to find the rules for each feature and level. A power is presented in a clear, uniform format, and one can see at a glance how it is different from another power.

Flavour is all a matter of taste. Most modern fantasy and roleplaying-derived fiction is trash, so I really dislike wading through second rate prose to find the rules and explanation for a class's schtick. Far worse was when the Wizards started attaching craptastic fluff notes at the beginning of each power (in addition to the short flavour text): the Warlord class when Essentialized doubled its page count with absolutely no additional information!

 

[Tallifer]

I think by "the same problems," he was talking about the reaction to Essentials, where a lot of 4E-ers complained that it was "dumbed down." If Essentials and PHB1 had been released in the opposite order, that reaction would likely not have happened.

Heh. Ironic that many grognards accused the Fourth Edition of being a dumbed-down video game, but many Fourthers accused Essentials (which very much took the Old School for its inspiration) of being dumbed down.

 

[CasvalRemDeikun]

WotC learned that if you ignore the people giving you money while trying to please the people who aren't, you can successfully shorten the lifespan of a system.

Actually, as evidenced by the pandering they are doing now, perhaps they did not.

 

[Klaus]

Strange you should say this, because I found the Essentials books harder to read. I could easily skim through the first Players' Handbook and notice the important facts and sections which I wanted to read, and each class had a clean layout of powers. Essentials classes were walls of text to sift to find the rules for each feature and level. A power is presented in a clear, uniform format, and one can see at a glance how it is different from another power.

Flavour is all a matter of taste. Most modern fantasy and roleplaying-derived fiction is trash, so I really dislike wading through second rate prose to find the rules and explanation for a class's schtick. Far worse was when the Wizards started attaching craptastic fluff notes at the beginning of each power (in addition to the short flavour text): the Warlord class when Essentialized doubled its page count with absolutely no additional information!

IMHO, that effect is more due to the smaller page size and larger fonts. One criticism I have for the Essentials books is that it made me feel like I was reading the book through a small hole. Not that I want to go back to the 2e PHB 3-column layout, though.

 

[MortonStromgal]

hopefully they learned to playtest MORE before they release a product and listen to the complaints before dismissing them totally. WOTC devs have suffered greatly from chip on the shoulder syndrome.

 

[gloomhound]

What do I think Wizards learn from Essentials?

That a band-aid was not going to be enough.