Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8459923" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I remember some people complaining that, since the most any race got was a +1 to two stats but (non-variant) humans got +1 to every stat, it meant humans were these weird super-beings who were as tough as dwarves, as nimble as elves, as strong as half-orcs, as charming as halflings, etc… But for the most part people were ok with it and it stayed consistent throughout the whole playtest so I don’t imagine it was polling poorly. I was shocked when it was different in the final release, something must have come up in closed playtesting that made them change their minds.In some ways I think it was, but in other ways not. The biggest improvement from the playtests to the final version in my opinion was monster stats. The open playtest was really very focused on finding the right feel for PCs, they consistently insisted (despite a LOT of complaints) that they would get around to properly balancing the monster stats later, after internal playtesting, and that the open playtest was about the feel, not the math.This is largely accepted as the reason Hoard of the Dragon Queen is so poorly balanced, because it was designed with an older draft of the monster stats, before the numbers were finalized and a lot of monsters’ CRs changed dramatically from playtest to release.Let’s be honest, the open playtest was mostly a marketing stunt, with the side benefit of letting them get a decent sense of what felt too 4e to include. All the actual playtesting happened internally.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8459923, member: 6779196"] I remember some people complaining that, since the most any race got was a +1 to two stats but (non-variant) humans got +1 to every stat, it meant humans were these weird super-beings who were as tough as dwarves, as nimble as elves, as strong as half-orcs, as charming as halflings, etc… But for the most part people were ok with it and it stayed consistent throughout the whole playtest so I don’t imagine it was polling poorly. I was shocked when it was different in the final release, something must have come up in closed playtesting that made them change their minds. In some ways I think it was, but in other ways not. The biggest improvement from the playtests to the final version in my opinion was monster stats. The open playtest was really very focused on finding the right feel for PCs, they consistently insisted (despite a LOT of complaints) that they would get around to properly balancing the monster stats later, after internal playtesting, and that the open playtest was about the feel, not the math. This is largely accepted as the reason Hoard of the Dragon Queen is so poorly balanced, because it was designed with an older draft of the monster stats, before the numbers were finalized and a lot of monsters’ CRs changed dramatically from playtest to release. Let’s be honest, the open playtest was mostly a marketing stunt, with the side benefit of letting them get a decent sense of what felt too 4e to include. All the [I]actual playtesting[/I] happened internally. [/QUOTE]

Verification