Unearthed Arcana WotC Surveys: Implementation vs. Interest

[Sword of Spirit]

One thing that came to mind today with regards to the new psionics UA, is that WotC surveys seem to do a really bad job of allows us to express the difference between our level of interest in certain features versus our satisfaction with the implementation.

For instance, they gave us several UAs with a new Mystic/Psion class. The last iteration (months ago, not the subclass thing today) was a lot different than the previous ones, and they haven't done much with it in a while.

Apparently they kept changing it because none of the particular implementations were satisfying for a large enough percentage of people. That's good.

However, it appears they may have abandoned the idea of a full Psion class for the same reason. This is not good. Because there is a lot of interest in a full Psion class. If there was not, they would seen the tumbleweeds and abandoned it long before taking 3-4 full UA attempts at it.

I mean, maybe they just scour Reddit and stuff looking for discussions to determine the level of interest. But wouldn't it be nice if we had some way to directly let them know whether we like a particular implementation as well as our level of interest in the concept?

Since I don't run their survey department, I can't just add those questions to their surveys, nor can I expect someone else to. So how can we do our small part in the feedback voting community to make sure we give them valuable feedback on both implementation and interest?

[Edit: I want to clarify that I'm using the psion as an example, but I'm addressing the general concept. There are plenty of other surveys that could have benefited from the distinction.]


They are asking for our feedback. They want to know what we want them to make. But they aren't asking that one really important question.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think the big problem is there's no defined Psion they can look.at and use that.

They're also trying to cover to much junk that's been added over the years. Soulknife, psychic Warrior, all those mystic subclasses.

 

[ad_hoc]

I don't want there to be a Psion class yet I still fill out the surveys.

I think the Likert scale (1-5) does a pretty good job for them. It could always be more nuanced but they're taking in a lot of numbers. I think they save the more nuanced polls for their bigger picture surveys.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I don't want there to be a Psion class yet I still fill out the surveys.

I think the Likert scale (1-5) does a pretty good job for them. It could always be more nuanced but they're taking in a lot of numbers. I think they save the more nuanced polls for their bigger picture surveys.

So do I. Can they tell from our surveys whether or not we want <X>? That's what I'm concerned about.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, "looks fine" is completely different from "I totally want to play this and I care about this".

Indeed, people that dont care about a class and say something is "fine", is often damaging to the people who care about the class and know that it isnt fine because they are more informed about what the needs and concerns are.

 

[jasper]

I hate psion in my D&D. So I will occasionally try to shoot them down.

 

[GreyLord]

In many instances there is a free fill area of a survey that you can basically fill with your comments...something to the idea of
...anything else you want to say
...or what do you like or not like
...or why do you feel this way or not

Where you can write down your idea of having it as a class or not.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I usually make quite extensive comments, both positive and negative.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I hate psion in my D&D. So I will occasionally try to shoot them down.

This is such an awful attitude. They're always going to be optional. There are tons of subclasses and races I wouldn't want in my game or setting, but I am always honest about the quality in UA, even of options I don't want, because they're just that, options. I could understand this if WotC were going to force you to include all classes at gunpoint but...

 

[dave2008]

I'm am not sure about every survey as I don't fill them out very often, but the new survey for the Class Feature Variants had lots of areas to type in comments. I imagine the subclass survey will too. That is where you should discuss implementation vs. execution.