Wizards "Playtesting" Column Sucks


4th Edition

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All I get from it is a lack of confidence and they have now convinced me to wait until the errata comes out, or at the very least until some guys in these forums have given it a stamp of approval.


~takes a big rubber stamp and puts REJECTED on 4.0e~ Oh! You want a stamp of approval! Sorry, you will just have to wait.

Scarab Sages

The latest from the Playtesting Column is here.

The column still doesn't really offer much, in my own opinion, but there were two lines that caught my eye...

Dave Noonan wrote:
...this iteration of the rules is fiendishly complex. (We’re paring it down as I write this, actually.)

Have'nt they been telling everyone how much more simplified 4E is going to be? I sure hoep they succeed in "paring" it down from being "fiendishly complex" (devilish or demonic, I wonder).

Also, there was this...

Dave Noonan wrote:
The gnome and warforged races hadn’t been written yet....

Well, I could care less about the magic robot, but at least they are hinting that a 4E version of the gnome might be worked on.


Lame as always!


Aberzombie wrote:


Have'nt they been telling everyone how much more simplified 4E is going to be? I sure hoep they succeed in "paring" it down from being "fiendishly complex" (devilish or demonic, I wonder).

Yes, they sure have been. I picked up on that right away, too. So much for streamlined play being one of the reasons for 4e. With a goal of a PHB & DMG each year, I never believed 4e would stay streamlined for long anyway.

I keep trying to view things from a neutral point of view and reserving judgment until I see the books but it seems like every time they open their mouth they immediately insert a foot.


Aberzombie wrote:

Also, there was this...

Dave Noonan wrote:
The gnome and warforged races hadn’t been written yet....
Well, I could care less about the magic robot, but at least they are hinting that a 4E version of the gnome might be worked on.

If they make Warforged a core race, that's reason enough for me to shun 4e.

Grand Lodge

Karelzarath wrote:
Aberzombie wrote:

Also, there was this...

Dave Noonan wrote:
The gnome and warforged races hadn’t been written yet....
Well, I could care less about the magic robot, but at least they are hinting that a 4E version of the gnome might be worked on.
If they make Warforged a core race, that's reason enough for me to shun 4e.

If you actually read the column, you'd find that Dave Noonan's playtest game is set in Eberron (Castle Stranglethorn itself is a giant levitating Blood of Vol temple), so having rules for the Warforged is kind of necessary for his game.

Dark Archive

I've got to agree that the "playtesting" column is horrible. Why do they even call it playtesting? How can a hombrew Eberron campaign that is converted from 3.5 to 4.0 with very little in the way of core races and classes be considered a playtest? If he had started a new game with only the material that will be found in the three core 4.0 books, then he could call it a playtest. If he wants to give it as an example of converting a 3.5 to 4.0 campaign or gave us some real info on the rules and said "This is an example of what 4.0 will look like in action." that would be acceptable. Just don't insult our intelligence by calling it a "playtest".

P.S. I'm sure it's been pointed out before, but isn't it funny he's converting his campaign when we've been told that it would be best just to start new campaigns in 4.0. I guess since he's a designer, he can handle it, but the rest of us poor sops are not up to the task.


This is a worry.

I don't mind a 4th edition. DnD isn't the first game to upgrade/simplfy/callitwhatchawant with an eye on both improving gameplay and attracting new gamers. GW does this with WH and WH40K every 6 years or so and it's no biggie.

BUT my beef comes from the 3.5 fiasco.

Yes, 3.5 was sorely needed and it tidied up the rules nicely BUT that was after 2 years of feedback from DnD gamers. And what did they get for their troubles? They had to buy the same 3 core books again with about few lines changed when an errata sheet (with an issue of Dungeon/Dragon and a downloadable pdf) would have solved everything.

Bring on 4th edition but have it playtested so we don't have to look at 4.5 in 2010 OR a 5th edition before 2014!

Scarab Sages

bal3000 wrote:
Bring on 4th edition but have it playtested so we don't have to look at 4.5 in 2010 OR a 5th edition before 2014!

That's one of the things that has me worried - that they aren't giving themselves enough time to playtest any new rules properly. This is what also, in my opinion, gives us a better than average chance of seeing 4.5/ Advanced 4th Edition/ Whatever they call the next improvement in just a year or three

Liberty's Edge

Personally, I think WotC's playtesting is a sham. From their GenCon announcement, it seems that WotC has already devised the direction and rule changes and now wink and grin with a "Wait and see, it'll be great. But all of you who think we aren't listening, we'll let you playtest ... sort of."

Ah well.

Fact is, I am interested in seeing how much WotC will be borrowing from Star Wars Saga Edition Core Rulebook.

I hope they simplify the skill inventory and dump synergies.

I am indifferent as to whether you still can buy ranks or it goes the way of trained and untrained skills.

I like the simplification of the BAB, i.e., down to one attack and feats that add umph to combat.

I hope to see talent trees.

I hope to see a condition track.

And I hope to see d20 Modern get a shot in the arm, too.

Dark Archive

Another thing that is troublesome about these "playtest" reports is that the characters are stupidly powerful for 8th level PCs. They breeze through room after room of significantly powerful foes without a scratch or significantly depleting their resources. They waltzed through a room filled with mummies and vampire spawn untouched. Where is the challenge? Where is the fear of PC death? There is none. This really reeks of catering to a younger crowd that wants an endless hackfest with no challenge or risk. That isn't what D&D is about.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

Are you looking at different playtest report because I'm not sure how you are coming to these conclusions.

Dark Archive

Well, the description of the encounter with the firey snake and azers spunded like it would be difficult, but he said that it was a pretty easy fight. In the room with the vampires an dmummies, the encounter began with the room being filled with the things. He even said thta every part of the room had something dead in it. Then after an invocaton from the warlock, a scorch, and a few hits from the warforged, and one final hit from the warlord, the room was clear. There was no mention of anyone being hurt, or of any close calls. It was just blam, blam, smack, smack. "Okay we're done!" In 3.5 that would have been a knock down drag-out encounter that would have the players on edge. There didn't seem to be any tension or risk in this enconter at all.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

I wouldn't call their descriptions anywhere near complete so I don't think that just because they didn't say they took damage doesn't mean that they didn't. The same for the length of the battle. I don't think that they said all of the actions they performed in combat.

Lantern Lodge

Another thing to consider is that they claim 4E encounters are going to be balanced for more opponents vs a typical adventuring party. So while previously you might have fought one ogre, now you might be fighting four ogres, or a mixed group of monstrous opponents, to achieve a similar challenge. They claim that fighting a group of opponents is more fun than each encounter featuring a single foe. I'm guessing that monster roles (archer, blocker, blaster, whatever) are to help team creatures up, filling the encounter play field with different challenges, obstacles to overcome (eg, defeating the blocker before you can get to the archer). I don't get the impression that rooms full of opponents will necessarily be a walk-over.


I don't fault them for re-engineering battles so that more opponents can be brought into play. In my experience, the way that 3.x combat typically went was that even rather powerful creatures such as BBEGs could go down far too quickly when encountered alone or with too few support monster. That's extremely frustrating for the DM and a big letdown for the players. Yet by the same token, in order to make fights tough enough, You risk a TPK if the party isn't as on-the-ball as You expect them to be.

While I don't think they've come out and said so, I'm really hoping that it is now feasible for encounters to have party members who differ in level to a greater degree. It always seemed rather artificial to me that everyone always had to be of the same powerlevel. I like to have things mixed up a bit more (a fairly common occurance in both fiction and RealLife™) because I think it adds to the dramatic tension and makes combat more dynamic.

Liberty's Edge

"A rogue with a great axe? Right now Logan’s rogue is using an axe because the damage outweighs the weapon’s respective penalties. I’ve allowed this to persist because I think it’s some fun flavor for a character. I do hope that at some point the developers address this problem (?) because as much fun as it is, it would be a shame if all rogues were running around with axes behind their backs."
I COPYPASTE Lifted this from EN World...

It's from Greg Bilsland's blog.

Liberty's Edge

I think it's a little more descriptive of what's going on, I mean, it has some concrete statements without "wicked bad" inserted into the phrasing...;)


Seems more of the same to me:

"Oh, man, it's really cool, but the only details I'll give you is that my rogue has an axe - and that's not right."

Gee, thanks for that.

Liberty's Edge

Yeah, but he didn't say "wicked killer bad" rogue. ;)

Scarab Sages

Heathansson wrote:
Yeah, but he didn't say "wicked killer bad" rogue. ;)

Totally wicked!


They are sending off the info for PHB to the printer Oct. 9th, so the playtesting is basically done. The play reports we are getting are the actual game.

Sad, eh?


Yeah. Doesn't sound good. Just a few weeks ago they were saying that they still hadn't figured out how to do NPC's right and hadn't gotten the multi-classing.

What I don't understand is how they're sending the PHB off to the printer on October 9th and they're only now getting playtest reports in. What, are they not going to sleep between now and then?

Liberty's Edge

That's impossible, right? So...the playtests were...done in the past, maybe? A few months back?


Saurstalk wrote:


Fact is, I am interested in seeing how much WotC will be borrowing from Star Wars Saga Edition Core Rulebook.

I like the simplification of the BAB, i.e., down to one attack and feats that add umph to combat.

I hope to see talent trees.

I hope to see a condition track.

I have to agree here. Saga edition is very well done, and if 4th is anything like it I'll probably be happy.


Heathansson wrote:
That's impossible, right? So...the playtests were...done in the past, maybe? A few months back?

Something is odd with that timeline. I don't think the PHB is off to print - I think maybe they have just completed the writing portion and now it goes into editing/layout/proofing, etc.

But, yeah, if the outside playtesting was just a week or two long, well, um, that would be bad. :)

Scarab Sages

I feel a great disturbance.....


DaveMage wrote:
Heathansson wrote:
That's impossible, right? So...the playtests were...done in the past, maybe? A few months back?

Something is odd with that timeline. I don't think the PHB is off to print - I think maybe they have just completed the writing portion and now it goes into editing/layout/proofing, etc.

But, yeah, if the outside playtesting was just a week or two long, well, um, that would be bad. :)

I think you're correct about people confusing "sending the PHB to the printer" with "sending the PHB manuscript to the people who are handling layout."

That being said, I'm pretty darn certain that outside playtesting (unless they were doing super-secret play-testing before the GenCon announcement) has only been initiated in the last couple of weeks. First there was the announcement that the RPGA playtesters had been selected, then the ones that were selected through the DDI. In both cases, they're going to be getting their external playtest data about now.

I'm guessing that R&D is pretty much assuming that the playtest reports are going to be generally positive with some complaints about a broken mechanic here or there.


Cory Stafford 29 wrote:
Another thing that is troublesome about these "playtest" reports is that the characters are stupidly powerful for 8th level PCs. They breeze through room after room of significantly powerful foes without a scratch or significantly depleting their resources. They waltzed through a room filled with mummies and vampire spawn untouched. Where is the challenge? Where is the fear of PC death? There is none. This really reeks of catering to a younger crowd that wants an endless hackfest with no challenge or risk. That isn't what D&D is about.

This is the new design paradigm of 4E. Average looking encounters will be against groups of monsters roughly the same in number as party members and won't be likely to consume any per/day abilities.


Heathansson wrote:
That's impossible, right? So...the playtests were...done in the past, maybe? A few months back?

Rich Baker's blog indicated that when the recent Cosmology article was posted that he'd written it so long ago that he'd almost forgotten about it:

Rich Baker's Blog wrote:
Well, I see that the D&D Insider fellas went and posted my cosmology article. We've all been knocking out little pieces like that for months as we find an hour or two to spare, and frankly I'd just about forgotten I wrote it.

Therefore, it would be a reasonable assumption that a great many of the articles we're reading haven't been authored recently but quite some time ago. When You consider that issues of even a magazine are finalized long before they appear on news stands, this isn't that surprising at all.


the playtesting reports are current, particularly the ones detailing the marketing group.

the invites for external playtesting only went out a few weeks ago, unless they were lying through their teeth when they said "playtest invites went out today so start checking your email inbox!!"


So.....3E was outside playtested for 2 YEARS and 4E has been outside playtested for 2 WEEKS.

Um, anyone else see a wee bit of a problem with this?

Scarab Sages

Not to mention that just a week or so ago they posted an article that said "this iteration of the rules is fiendishly complex."

They seem to be doing their best to try and justify some beliefs that 4E will be followed by some kind of update similar to the 3E/3.5E incident.

Dark Archive

Yeah, it seems that they were just playing around with ideas, and didn't really get serious about 4th edition until after the GenCon announcement. What have they been doing for the last 30 months? 3.0 wasn't playtested very well, especially at high levels, and we saw how that turned out. Does anyone else feel that outside playtesting for 4E is just going through the motions for the sake of publicity? If they are sending the PHB to editing this week, how can there be enough time for playtest reports to have any meaningful impact on the final product?This sounds like an awesome way to run a business.


Remember that 3E was such a departure from 2E as to be almost a different game, in rules and feel. 4E has more in common with 3E than 3E did with 2E.

They've doen INTERNAL play-testing, and now it's been sent out for EXTERNAL play-testing. It doesn't get in stores til May. They have the time to rectify any screwy areas.

Let's reserve judgement until it comes out.


I think I figured out the plan.

Maybe they're simply going to release the books in May, then rely on "live" playtesting once the books are sold. After 2-3 years as people have kicked it around, they'll release new core books with the errata fixed and some rules tweaked. They will NOT call it 4.5 or somesuch, but this will be their way of:

1) Avoiding having to extensivly externally playtest now; and
2) Be able to re-release the core books in 2-3 years to get the sales boost.

Of course, when they rerelease these core books they will tout that all the errata changes are already available through the D&D Insider, but I'm betting they have market data that supports the fact that the majority of their purchasers don't want outdated books, and therefore will spring for new ones.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just being cynical...


I would've thought that from October to say.. March is a pretty long time with hundreds of playtesters to extensively playtest something. I would worry if it took longer than that.

Maybe you're cynical and I'm naive ;)


FabesMinis wrote:

I would've thought that from October to say.. March is a pretty long time with hundreds of playtesters to extensively playtest something. I would worry if it took longer than that.

Maybe you're cynical and I'm naive ;)

Writing for the Player's Handbook is essentially done so any playtests at this point could not significantly affect anything therein. (It now goes to layout/art/etc.) It will probably have to go to print January 1.


FabesMinis wrote:

I would've thought that from October to say.. March is a pretty long time with hundreds of playtesters to extensively playtest something. I would worry if it took longer than that.

Maybe you're cynical and I'm naive ;)

I think it would have to be totally done way before March for the release date, but lets say March for the sake of argument.

Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar. = 6 months

Lets say that leaves 4 months for the DDI/RPGA playtesting, and 2 months for them to make whatever changes need to be made.

But then those changes need to be playtested as well, so essentially you need 2 rounds of playtesting, and 2 rounds of revision. At a mininum to do it properly, IMHO anyways.

And this is assuming that the feedback from the playtests doesn't result in something really easy to tweak and then re-test. (ie. Hey, the Greataxe is too powerful, so we should drop the crit from x3 to x2 or something like that.)

What happens if the playtest comes back and something more drastic needs to be changed? (ie. a mechanic, not just one stat for a single weapon or spell) There won't be time to make that change and retest it. And if its a decent sized section being changed, layout is affected, etc

*But I guess thats why we need DDI subscriptions for the errata, right?


But with that logic, you'd be playtesting ad infinitum, surely? They've already playtested in house for months, I think they'd have a pretty good handle on things. Ah well, I'll buy it whatever happens. The world won't end, in any case.


Did anyone check out the most recent playtesting column, "Prophecy of the Priestess"? On the one hand, at least it's about 1st level characters made in 3.5, not Eberron characters reconstructed into 4th. I would say that I'm still a bit annoyed with it, though, just because the majority of it is fluff, as usual. It stands to reason that if you're looking to get people interested in the new system, the system should be what you talk about. There was another one that was a bit more informative on that front and I wish the others would follow suit. Here it's just a paragraph at the end talking about how much easier combat is and how little they had to look at the sheet. No info beyond that, like how they managed to streamline it, an in-depth comparison or anything like that. Not "irritating or infuriating", just kind of annoying.


FabesMinis wrote:
Let's reserve judgement until it comes out.

Look. Another one.


James Keegan wrote:
Did anyone check out the most recent playtesting column, "Prophecy of the Priestess"? ...

I kinda liked it. Maybe because of the quality of the previous articles. But, I wasn't looking for any of the "crunch", just a glimpse as to how things play out. To be honest I like the set up and how this guy started his campaign, it was pretty cool.


Sir Kaikillah wrote:
I kinda liked it. Maybe because of the quality of the previous articles. But, I wasn't looking for any of the "crunch", just a glimpse as to how things play out. To be honest I like the set up and how this guy started his campaign, it was pretty cool.

The set up was neat. Im just not sure how it illustrates 4th edition. Except from his statement at the end, I would have thought it was a 3.5 game.


Sebastian wrote:

...

Really now, would it kill you to come off as smart, capable, and creative given that a significant chunk of your consumer base is pissed off at you?

Nah, they've already established that they can still sell books if they keep their customers in the dark, and treat them like gibbering 7th graders when they don't. To come off as smart, capable and creative would take more time and effort and that'd change the bottom line, i.e., they'd probably have to charge a fee for access to the playtest writeups.

Say, now... that could work...

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