Wizards getting character choice feedback from CB

[MerricB]

Although I am still very unhappy with the way that Wizards have been handling the changeover to the new online Character Builder, I found this Dragon editorial by Steve Winter to be absolutely fascinating.

To quote:
"From our position as game designers and magazine editors, we're beside ourselves with excitement that the new D&D Character Builder provides feedback on the types of characters that players are building. It's way too early to draw conclusions—as John Feil cautions, "the data is interesting but not yet useful." It will become useful with time, and we intend to make the most of it in our effort to keep improving the magazines and delivering articles that players will actually use."

This is something I fully support: Wizards gets feedback on which classes are popular, which races are popular and even which powers and skills are popular by what choices are made on the online CB. From there, they can see what works and what doesn't.

Of course, this leads us to wonder if an element of wikiality might enter the equation: Wizards sees a bunch of characters created by people hoping for more support of that element (such as epic level). On the other hand, it probably demonstrates an desired design element nonetheless - or will be outnumbered by real characters...

What do you think?

Cheers!

 

[blalien]

I'm sure Wizards can tell the difference between 50 epic level characters from 1 person and 1 epic level character each from 50 people.

You can't really complain about Wizards getting customer feedback. It would be cool if they did what Google did and let us vote for new features.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I think that more information is always good, but I do worry slightly about people misinterpreting that information.

For example, it's hard to play a seeker because there is so little support. I hope they don't say "so few people are playing seekers, we don't need to support them. Let's shift those resources to dragonborn fighters instead!"

 

[MerricB]

For example, it's hard to play a seeker because there is so little support. I hope they don't say "so few people are playing seekers, we don't need to support them. Let's shift those resources to dragonborn fighters instead!"

It is something mentioned.

"The core question is how to put the data into action. If fighters outpull druids five to one, does that mean we should devote more articles to fighters because they're the most popular and the most likely to draw readers? Or should we lean more heavily toward druids in an effort to boost their popularity? On an even more tactical level, if bow rangers outnumber dual-weapon rangers two to one, then what does that say about articles directed at rangers? Is the imbalance because bow rangers are a strong, popular archetype that players want to emulate, or does it mean bow rangers are just that good?" - Steve Winter

Cheers!

 

[zoroaster100]

I worry about how they might misconstrue and misuse the data in their decisions. I just fired off the email below to them, as suggested by the article, to voice my opinion:

"I read the editorial today on the DDI site, and wanted to express my opinion in favor of WOTC providing support to all the classes and roles evenly, and NOT focusing support on the more popular choices. I would be deeply disappointed if support becomes endless variations on a few of the more popular classes and archetypes. While popular choices deserve support, D&D is a group game. If you alienate the oddball player who wants to play a particular concept by providing inferior support, you can lose a whole gaming group. Or if you bore the DM who wants to run the game by providing support only to a couple of choices, you can also lose a whole gaming group. I usually DM for my groups, and I think D&D would become more boring if support was focused just on the popular choices, making me less likely to run games for the three groups I currently run. For most of those players, finding a good DM is the biggest factor to whether they play D&D and therefore buy your products, so you want to keep people like me happy even more than just a player who doesn't DM."

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think it's a chicken and egg bit.

Classes that are already well supported will continue to be highly played. Classes that are not already well supported will continue to have a few vocal champions but not a lot of play.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, they have more data then just the number of people playing certain characters. They also know how much support a particular class or race has seen, and correlate things:

1) A lot of people play X, but there wasn't much support for it yet. We can do them a favor by adding some of that and see if that changes things.

2) Not many people play Y, and there is no support for it. We should add some support and se eif that improves the chance of playing Y. We have to find out if it's the theme of the class people can't relate to, or really just the mechanical aspects.

3) Not many people playing Z, despite all the support for it. We should figure out what we are doing wrong.

4) A lot of people play A, and there's a lot of support for it. We can dial back a little on this, but not entirely.

There might be evne more - if for example certain classes are created often but the creation is canelled or the the character is deleted quickly again, it might indicate people can't make the characters work they had in mind. So mabe it's time to see what kind of support it needs.

 

[Umbran]

Of course, this leads us to wonder if an element of wikiality might enter the equation: Wizards sees a bunch of characters created by people hoping for more support of that element (such as epic level).

There should be no basic technical reason they could not tell the difference between a character that is created and left to sit there, and one that is created and periodically updated (like they were in play, and the player was using the CB to track them as they go up levels). It would take some really dedicated wikiality to skew the data in the face of that.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

The issue of their new access to this date is a distraction from the real issue: The real issue is the lack of content in the DDi versions of Dungeon and Dragon.

I want to see an editorial addressing that but, to quote something I posted in another thread, the WotC leadership seem to have had orchidectomies so there is little hope that we will see senior management taking the time and making the effort to actually engage with a fan base that seems rather browned off right now.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Data could be crossed with messageboards. Then you could see why something is less played (less popula, because does not work, and so on).

Sort of qualitative + quantitative data to think about..