Looks like they made the right choice, since those subclasses have been cancelled. The Strixhaven book won't feature them.
Yeah seems it was overwhelmingly negative feedback.
To be honest I am not surprised as it was a half-baked idea that I do not think they gave themselves enough time to work through the UA on.
It would have been a BIG change to how subclasses work and its not something you can just "fix" in 2-3 months without more internal playtesting.
I think their internal playtesting (if they actually do any at this point) is just not working....they continue to release things that are overtuned or undertuned.
Their material feels.....and I do not like to say this as I understand they are people with pride in their work....lazy. Its not inspired and its too much of a "one size fits all" approach to something that really should have some more thought/process behind it.
All UA articles are "half-baked." That's the nature of playtest documents, from the DnD Next playtest to this one. It's not lazy at all; It's unfinished. The over/undertuning is intentional, and they usually lean towards it being overpowered because that's the easiest dial to turn back. The Strixhaven book is due in November and they released the UA at the beginning of June. That's plenty of time to iterate on the idea if it's popular. Crawford even said that they knew the multiple class subclass idea was experimental and there was a not so small chance it would not be liked enough to warrant additional work on it which is why they had a contingency plan of feats and other options ready to fill in the gap and that's what happened. The fey lineages and draconic options were released on a similar pace ahead of their respective book publishing dates. And sure, they do have internal playtesting but they rely on the D&D community far more than that for feedback and they spend most of their time internally designing and developing the mechanics that test well. As for the particular UA article itself, I found the idea of multiple classes being able to take the same subclass very interesting even though it fell flat. I am happy that they are trying new things and pushing boundaries. Experiments that fail are still worthwhile and useful.
It kind of drives me crazy every time I see the phrase "it would only take a few minutes". I'm not a professional coder, I'm willing to listen to anyone else who does it for a living, but when I look in the bug report forum or the Feedback forum I usually find out what the problem is. The stuff I want most is what's in the Player's Handbook for the most part. The stuff in the DMG ought to come next, but most of the options there are meant for game styles I have no use for, or high level play, so that's kind of last on the list for me. Any of those things I'll figure out, and find a way to deal with, even if I have to write down notes by hand or use customization on the character sheets.
Some things do indeed only take a little time, and guess what, Dark Mode is there. It took them a while, but there it is now. It's got some bugs, it seems like character portraits vanish, and the issue is with Chrome variants.
A lot of what they do come down to money in the end. The purpose of Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and D&D Beyond is to make money by selling people something they want. That's why they are usually scrambling to get the latest new thing implemented, while the excitement is still fresh. The order they do things is something only they know how to deal with and what measures they need to take, and I'm not really going to question them much. I'd love to see Containers done. I'd enjoy shared ones. The shared part is probably complicated, so I'll wait, I'd delighted with each new feature, even the ones I don't have any use for. So whatever comes down the pipe, I'll be happy, even when it's for someone else.
Looks like they made the right choice, since those subclasses have been cancelled. The Strixhaven book won't feature them.
Gotta wonder about cause and effect here. When the content is much harder to actually playtest and DDB is basically just saying "...no," how much might that sway reviewers? How many positive reviews never happened because people just didn't want to scratch out their UA class on a piece of paper?
I think the concept was solid and the balance wasn't much more borked than your typical UA. Kinda sad to see some rather inspired material slapped down so quickly.
Looks like they made the right choice, since those subclasses have been cancelled. The Strixhaven book won't feature them.
Gotta wonder about cause and effect here. When the content is much harder to actually playtest and DDB is basically just saying "...no," how much might that sway reviewers? How many positive reviews never happened because people just didn't want to scratch out their UA class on a piece of paper?
I think the concept was solid and the balance wasn't much more borked than your typical UA. Kinda sad to see some rather inspired material slapped down so quickly.
I honestly have no way of knowing, but I doubt DnDBeyond is used by a large enough percentage of the D&D player base to be able to tank a UA as hard as this specific UA tanked. I also really doubt that the majority of people that fill out the surveys actually play test anything at all. In short, I really don't think it had any impact.
Don’t forget that Strixhaven Is an M:tG setting. Every M:tG setting will instantly be hated by a large minority of D&D players who don’t want M:tG in D&D. Add to that the fact that converting M:tG to D&D is always imperfect at best. And top it all off with the fact that the majority of the current D&D fan base seems to atavistically DE-SPI-SE anything that defeated from the way the rest of 5e works by more than a few degrees without ever giving it more than a half-assed read through. I hadn’t even read this UA, before I knew it was already DOA. I heard that the subclasses were cross-class compatible and bought stock in both torches and pitchforks.
It really is a shame. It needed a lot of tuning, sure, but there was a lot of potential behind it as well that was worth exploring.
Unfortunately, as Sposta says, a depressingly large number of respondents to any UA seem to actively despise anything remotely innovative, without actually understanding what constitutes a broken feature; which don't get me wrong, the Strixhaven UA had its fair share of those as well, but the number of responses I saw criticizing the concept without even remotely adressing the actually broken features was...depressing, to say the least...
I assume WotC can look past meritless responses though. Feedback from real playtests is one thing - those follow strict protocols for one thing, and are done by playtesters who know what they're doing - but I can't imagine WotC not realizing that an open feedback process from anyone with a half-assed opinion is bound to produce more chaff than wheat.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Yes and no. I can assume they're fully capable of weeding out asinine feedback from the useful, but when a sufficient number of people voice an opinion, it becomes harder to ignore regardless of it's merit.
All UA articles are "half-baked." That's the nature of playtest documents, from the DnD Next playtest to this one. It's not lazy at all; It's unfinished. The over/undertuning is intentional, and they usually lean towards it being overpowered because that's the easiest dial to turn back. The Strixhaven book is due in November and they released the UA at the beginning of June. That's plenty of time to iterate on the idea if it's popular. Crawford even said that they knew the multiple class subclass idea was experimental and there was a not so small chance it would not be liked enough to warrant additional work on it which is why they had a contingency plan of feats and other options ready to fill in the gap and that's what happened. The fey lineages and draconic options were released on a similar pace ahead of their respective book publishing dates. And sure, they do have internal playtesting but they rely on the D&D community far more than that for feedback and they spend most of their time internally designing and developing the mechanics that test well. As for the particular UA article itself, I found the idea of multiple classes being able to take the same subclass very interesting even though it fell flat. I am happy that they are trying new things and pushing boundaries. Experiments that fail are still worthwhile and useful.
In terms of making massive changes to a book on the same level as what they were looking at...no 1-2 months is not enough time.
It shows too....we were going to get several subclasses from this book and now its basically glorified backgrounds....thats a massive change from one to the other and not in a good way.
Looks like they made the right choice, since those subclasses have been cancelled. The Strixhaven book won't feature them.
Gotta wonder about cause and effect here. When the content is much harder to actually playtest and DDB is basically just saying "...no," how much might that sway reviewers? How many positive reviews never happened because people just didn't want to scratch out their UA class on a piece of paper?
I think the concept was solid and the balance wasn't much more borked than your typical UA. Kinda sad to see some rather inspired material slapped down so quickly.
I honestly have no way of knowing, but I doubt DnDBeyond is used by a large enough percentage of the D&D player base to be able to tank a UA as hard as this specific UA tanked. I also really doubt that the majority of people that fill out the surveys actually play test anything at all. In short, I really don't think it had any impact.
The people who read or know about UA at all - much less the people who actually playtest and give feedback - are already a fairly small group that are more committed to D&D than the average player. You don't think a large percentage of that group uses the only major online tool for the game that provides that material for free?
Looks like they made the right choice, since those subclasses have been cancelled. The Strixhaven book won't feature them.
Gotta wonder about cause and effect here. When the content is much harder to actually playtest and DDB is basically just saying "...no," how much might that sway reviewers? How many positive reviews never happened because people just didn't want to scratch out their UA class on a piece of paper?
I think the concept was solid and the balance wasn't much more borked than your typical UA. Kinda sad to see some rather inspired material slapped down so quickly.
I honestly have no way of knowing, but I doubt DnDBeyond is used by a large enough percentage of the D&D player base to be able to tank a UA as hard as this specific UA tanked. I also really doubt that the majority of people that fill out the surveys actually play test anything at all. In short, I really don't think it had any impact.
The people who read or know about UA at all - much less the people who actually playtest and give feedback - are already a fairly small group that are more committed to D&D than the average player. You don't think a large percentage of that group uses the only major online tool for the game that provides that material for free?
No I really don't. In reality none of the dedicated players that I personally know use DnDBeyond at all. In fact I am the only one in my area (based of the the social media groups I am in) that even comes to this site to read the forums.
Edit: Now to be fair there is only a few hundred people in these groups, but still.
The current implementation of Containers is a first-flight thing, them getting the bones in place. They've promised further updates in the future to get items like the Bag of Holding or the Robe of Useful items to respect their normal rules. In the interim, the most critical function of Containers, i.e. knowing where your junk is, has FINALLY made it in. Everything else can be jiggered until it works better, as annoying as it might be for things like variant encumbrance games to have your Strength 6 wizard "carrying" over five hundred pounds of crap on their Robe of useful Items.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please do not contact or message me.
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Yeah seems it was overwhelmingly negative feedback.
To be honest I am not surprised as it was a half-baked idea that I do not think they gave themselves enough time to work through the UA on.
It would have been a BIG change to how subclasses work and its not something you can just "fix" in 2-3 months without more internal playtesting.
I think their internal playtesting (if they actually do any at this point) is just not working....they continue to release things that are overtuned or undertuned.
Their material feels.....and I do not like to say this as I understand they are people with pride in their work....lazy. Its not inspired and its too much of a "one size fits all" approach to something that really should have some more thought/process behind it.
All UA articles are "half-baked." That's the nature of playtest documents, from the DnD Next playtest to this one. It's not lazy at all; It's unfinished. The over/undertuning is intentional, and they usually lean towards it being overpowered because that's the easiest dial to turn back. The Strixhaven book is due in November and they released the UA at the beginning of June. That's plenty of time to iterate on the idea if it's popular. Crawford even said that they knew the multiple class subclass idea was experimental and there was a not so small chance it would not be liked enough to warrant additional work on it which is why they had a contingency plan of feats and other options ready to fill in the gap and that's what happened. The fey lineages and draconic options were released on a similar pace ahead of their respective book publishing dates. And sure, they do have internal playtesting but they rely on the D&D community far more than that for feedback and they spend most of their time internally designing and developing the mechanics that test well. As for the particular UA article itself, I found the idea of multiple classes being able to take the same subclass very interesting even though it fell flat. I am happy that they are trying new things and pushing boundaries. Experiments that fail are still worthwhile and useful.
It kind of drives me crazy every time I see the phrase "it would only take a few minutes". I'm not a professional coder, I'm willing to listen to anyone else who does it for a living, but when I look in the bug report forum or the Feedback forum I usually find out what the problem is. The stuff I want most is what's in the Player's Handbook for the most part. The stuff in the DMG ought to come next, but most of the options there are meant for game styles I have no use for, or high level play, so that's kind of last on the list for me. Any of those things I'll figure out, and find a way to deal with, even if I have to write down notes by hand or use customization on the character sheets.
Some things do indeed only take a little time, and guess what, Dark Mode is there. It took them a while, but there it is now. It's got some bugs, it seems like character portraits vanish, and the issue is with Chrome variants.
A lot of what they do come down to money in the end. The purpose of Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and D&D Beyond is to make money by selling people something they want. That's why they are usually scrambling to get the latest new thing implemented, while the excitement is still fresh. The order they do things is something only they know how to deal with and what measures they need to take, and I'm not really going to question them much. I'd love to see Containers done. I'd enjoy shared ones. The shared part is probably complicated, so I'll wait, I'd delighted with each new feature, even the ones I don't have any use for. So whatever comes down the pipe, I'll be happy, even when it's for someone else.
<Insert clever signature here>
Gotta wonder about cause and effect here. When the content is much harder to actually playtest and DDB is basically just saying "...no," how much might that sway reviewers? How many positive reviews never happened because people just didn't want to scratch out their UA class on a piece of paper?
I think the concept was solid and the balance wasn't much more borked than your typical UA. Kinda sad to see some rather inspired material slapped down so quickly.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I honestly have no way of knowing, but I doubt DnDBeyond is used by a large enough percentage of the D&D player base to be able to tank a UA as hard as this specific UA tanked. I also really doubt that the majority of people that fill out the surveys actually play test anything at all. In short, I really don't think it had any impact.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Don’t forget that Strixhaven Is an M:tG setting. Every M:tG setting will instantly be hated by a large minority of D&D players who don’t want M:tG in D&D. Add to that the fact that converting M:tG to D&D is always imperfect at best. And top it all off with the fact that the majority of the current D&D fan base seems to atavistically DE-SPI-SE anything that defeated from the way the rest of 5e works by more than a few degrees without ever giving it more than a half-assed read through. I hadn’t even read this UA, before I knew it was already DOA. I heard that the subclasses were cross-class compatible and bought stock in both torches and pitchforks.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
It really is a shame. It needed a lot of tuning, sure, but there was a lot of potential behind it as well that was worth exploring.
Unfortunately, as Sposta says, a depressingly large number of respondents to any UA seem to actively despise anything remotely innovative, without actually understanding what constitutes a broken feature; which don't get me wrong, the Strixhaven UA had its fair share of those as well, but the number of responses I saw criticizing the concept without even remotely adressing the actually broken features was...depressing, to say the least...
I assume WotC can look past meritless responses though. Feedback from real playtests is one thing - those follow strict protocols for one thing, and are done by playtesters who know what they're doing - but I can't imagine WotC not realizing that an open feedback process from anyone with a half-assed opinion is bound to produce more chaff than wheat.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Yes and no. I can assume they're fully capable of weeding out asinine feedback from the useful, but when a sufficient number of people voice an opinion, it becomes harder to ignore regardless of it's merit.
In terms of making massive changes to a book on the same level as what they were looking at...no 1-2 months is not enough time.
It shows too....we were going to get several subclasses from this book and now its basically glorified backgrounds....thats a massive change from one to the other and not in a good way.
The people who read or know about UA at all - much less the people who actually playtest and give feedback - are already a fairly small group that are more committed to D&D than the average player. You don't think a large percentage of that group uses the only major online tool for the game that provides that material for free?
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
No I really don't. In reality none of the dedicated players that I personally know use DnDBeyond at all. In fact I am the only one in my area (based of the the social media groups I am in) that even comes to this site to read the forums.
Edit: Now to be fair there is only a few hundred people in these groups, but still.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I, too, love the containers. I just wish items in the bag of holding wouldn't count towards your encumbrance
The current implementation of Containers is a first-flight thing, them getting the bones in place. They've promised further updates in the future to get items like the Bag of Holding or the Robe of Useful items to respect their normal rules. In the interim, the most critical function of Containers, i.e. knowing where your junk is, has FINALLY made it in. Everything else can be jiggered until it works better, as annoying as it might be for things like variant encumbrance games to have your Strength 6 wizard "carrying" over five hundred pounds of crap on their Robe of useful Items.
Please do not contact or message me.