Next One D&D play test packet?

Nerd Immersion's interview with Kyle Brink yesterday said that they would be continuing and the packets would be denser to make up for lost time. 

I imagine we'll get Martial classes next and probably weapons with properties/traits.

As for PBF I here it hs a powercreep unbalanced issue. Which doesn't surprise me as I find a vast majority of their stuff to be overpowered and suffering from balancing issues. 

Quote from BryTheOld >>

As for PBF I hear it hs a powercreep unbalanced issue. Which doesn't surprise me as I find a vast majority of their stuff to be overpowered and suffering from balancing issues. 

 At first I thought it was power creep, because the array and point buy both created higher stat lines. Then I realized that they don’t give the +2/+1 anywhere. They just fold those bonuses into scores in the first place. Which happens to be exactly what I suggested they do in the 1D&D playtest. I can only hope the designers here are paying attention. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

At first I thought it was power creep, because the array and point buy both created higher stat lines. Then I realized that they don’t give the +2/+1 anywhere. They just fold those bonuses into scores in the first place. Which happens to be exactly what I suggested they do in the 1D&D playtest. I can only hope the designers here are paying attention. 

 The problem with doing that is that it doesn't work if you're rolling for stats (I don't roll for stats, but I recognize that there are people who do).

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

 The problem with doing that is that it doesn't work if you're rolling for stats (I don't roll for stats, but I recognize that there are people who do).

 
Sure it does.  What you roll is what you get.  That's what rolled stats are supposed to be for, anyways - roll it, get it, use it.  Having no bonuses for rolled stats just means all the weird  houseruled junk people do to roll Embiggened Numbers balances out.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

At first I thought it was power creep, because the array and point buy both created higher stat lines. Then I realized that they don’t give the +2/+1 anywhere. They just fold those bonuses into scores in the first place. Which happens to be exactly what I suggested they do in the 1D&D playtest. I can only hope the designers here are paying attention. 

 The problem with doing that is that it doesn't work if you're rolling for stats (I don't roll for stats, but I recognize that there are people who do).

 from the playtest (I was going to paste it here, but I don't know if that's against the rules) for rolling they say roll 4d6 discard the lowest, 6 times and write it in for your ability scores. Then add 2 to one score that is 16 or lower and 1 to a score that is 17 or lower.

So you do get the bonuses, just not with the point buy, it seems, as it's factored in?

 So, decided to actually look at the project black flag playtest: there just doesn't seem to be a lot there. There's a large amount of cut and paste, a small number of good ideas (the changes to point buy are good but minor, the concept of heritage is solid though I'm not impressed by the examples), some random stuff (feats are renamed to talents for... reasons?), and some hideously dumb stuff (apparently they decided War Caster wasn't good enough, because their Combat Casting is massively better).

My guess is that this amounts to "opportunistic posting" rather than them having actually had something that they'd spent meaningful effort on.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

We were supposed to get test material monthly, to give the team time to iterate.  

 I'm still not seeing this promise anywhere. So far we have gotten test material towards the end of the previous release's feedback cycle. We are only 3-4 weeks off that schedule.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

We were supposed to get test material monthly, to give the team time to iterate.  

 I'm still not seeing this promise anywhere. So far we have gotten test material towards the end of the previous release's feedback cycle. We are only 3-4 weeks off that schedule.

 
It was something J-Craw said during the whole One D&D announcement back in August - they wanted to hold themselves to monthly or close-to-monthly release cycles so they had time to release multiple versions of content and iterate on it.  A thing they have manifestly failed to do.

With the OGL debacle, I can understand the delay. I don't imagine there would be such a tremendous response to surveys with the sour taste of OGL-gate fresh in everyone's minds. If I had to guess, I'd say they'll release one large (or "dense") playtest before the movie in March- or maybe 2 playtests, if the first one happens very soon (its Feb 18). They need a buffer of some kind of forward-looking positivity to try to reestablish some goodwill among core fans for the movie release. 

     In addition to player character options, I'm eagerly anticipating seeing some monster and spell changes, as well. Specifically, I'm curious to see if any monsters or spells will have effects that inflict exhaustion.  The new mechanic for exhaustion looked interesting, but will be less so if it never comes up.

     I'm also very curious about the Wizard- with all casters seemingly being preparation casters with full access to their spell lists, the whole concept of Wizards finding & learning new spells seems obsolete. What will make them different & special, I wonder? 

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

We were supposed to get test material monthly, to give the team time to iterate.  

 I'm still not seeing this promise anywhere. So far we have gotten test material towards the end of the previous release's feedback cycle. We are only 3-4 weeks off that schedule.

 
It was something J-Craw said during the whole One D&D announcement back in August - they wanted to hold themselves to monthly or close-to-monthly release cycles so they had time to release multiple versions of content and iterate on it.  A thing they have manifestly failed to do.

 Link? That sounds at best like an aspiration, not a solemn vow. If you really think they're 4 months behind, I think it's your expectations that need adjusting moreso than the release schedule so far. I'd rather them get things right than fast.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

We were supposed to get test material monthly, to give the team time to iterate.  

 I'm still not seeing this promise anywhere. So far we have gotten test material towards the end of the previous release's feedback cycle. We are only 3-4 weeks off that schedule.

 
It was something J-Craw said during the whole One D&D announcement back in August - they wanted to hold themselves to monthly or close-to-monthly release cycles so they had time to release multiple versions of content and iterate on it.  A thing they have manifestly failed to do.

 Link? That sounds at best like an aspiration, not a solemn vow. If you really think they're 4 months behind, I think it's your expectations that need adjusting moreso than the release schedule so far. I'd rather them get things right than fast.

Within the first minute of the video.

Quote from Golaryn >>

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

We were supposed to get test material monthly, to give the team time to iterate.  

 I'm still not seeing this promise anywhere. So far we have gotten test material towards the end of the previous release's feedback cycle. We are only 3-4 weeks off that schedule.

 
It was something J-Craw said during the whole One D&D announcement back in August - they wanted to hold themselves to monthly or close-to-monthly release cycles so they had time to release multiple versions of content and iterate on it.  A thing they have manifestly failed to do.

 Link? That sounds at best like an aspiration, not a solemn vow. If you really think they're 4 months behind, I think it's your expectations that need adjusting moreso than the release schedule so far. I'd rather them get things right than fast.

Within the first minute of the video.

 Ok so he says “every month or so”. The “or so” is the point some of us were making. Every month ir so could be get one, a month later get the second, then maybe a month or two, or even three, months later get the third. 

Hard to call that they are months behind what they promised. Yes it’s behind, Kyle Blink even said so and they will have bigger UA’s coming out soon to try and catch up. 

Quote from ThriKreenWarrior >>

Quote from Golaryn >>

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

We were supposed to get test material monthly, to give the team time to iterate.  

 I'm still not seeing this promise anywhere. So far we have gotten test material towards the end of the previous release's feedback cycle. We are only 3-4 weeks off that schedule.

 
It was something J-Craw said during the whole One D&D announcement back in August - they wanted to hold themselves to monthly or close-to-monthly release cycles so they had time to release multiple versions of content and iterate on it.  A thing they have manifestly failed to do.

 Link? That sounds at best like an aspiration, not a solemn vow. If you really think they're 4 months behind, I think it's your expectations that need adjusting moreso than the release schedule so far. I'd rather them get things right than fast.

Within the first minute of the video.

 Ok so he says “every month or so”. The “or so” is the point some of us were making. Every month ir so could be get one, a month later get the second, then maybe a month or two, or even three, months later get the third. 

Hard to call that they are months behind what they promised. Yes it’s behind, Kyle Blink even said so and they will have bigger UA’s coming out soon to try and catch up. 

 Regardless, Crawford set the expectations not Yurei.  Crawford said every month or so and it has not even been close to every month or so.  It has been every two months or so.

Quote from Golaryn >>

 Regardless, Crawford set the expectations not Yurei.  Crawford said every month or so and it has not even been close to every month or so.  It has been every two months or so.

Yeah, and this is annoying. Since the Open Game License situation is responsible for some of the delay (according to Kyle's interview with Nerd Immersion),  I wonder if the devs have had time to get ahead on playtest material, and hopefully the pacing will go a little faster due to that. Unfortunately, I think I'm probably being too optimistic.

Anyways, as others have pointed out, "every month or so" is different than monthly. Also, this was just one brief comment and it's possible that Crawford accidentally gave the wrong number for frequency of releases.

Every month or so says to me an average of six weeks, give or take, and we're at about every 9 weeks (roughly). So yeah, we're behind. However, if they'd planned one just as as OGL kicked off, we'd have been roughly on schedule.

Quote from BoringBard >>

Anyways, as others have pointed out, "every month or so" is different than monthly. Also, this was just one brief comment and it's possible that Crawford accidentally gave the wrong number for frequency of releases.

I mean, this is clearly super edited, the design team and vid producers could've made Crawford say whatever they wanted.  Notice it's just cuts between Todd to Craw and never a shot establishing they're in the same room at the same time.  The notion that this was recorded as an organic conversation is belied by the clear editing of this as a set of shots or takes.  

While I think "every month or so" is far from a commitment to a time table, these weren't glib off the cuff presentations. 

EDIT: I've actually sometimes posed because of this set up that Todd Kendrick and Jeremy Crawford are actually the same person with a disguise kit

I guess I don’t really fault them for adjusting their timetable. That kind of thing happens frequently in a large project. It’s more the lack of communication. It would be nice to get some details about what’s happening going forward. Maybe in the video with the next packet, we’ll get more information. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

I guess I don’t really fault them for adjusting their timetable. That kind of thing happens frequently in a large project. It’s more the lack of communication. It would be nice to get some details about what’s happening going forward. Maybe in the video with the next packet, we’ll get more information. 

 I don't fault them either, but it isn't fair to act like Yurei pulled that monthly idea out of thin air either.  

Quote from Golaryn >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

I guess I don’t really fault them for adjusting their timetable. That kind of thing happens frequently in a large project. It’s more the lack of communication. It would be nice to get some details about what’s happening going forward. Maybe in the video with the next packet, we’ll get more information. 

 I don't fault them either, but it isn't fair to act like Yurei pulled that monthly idea out of thin air either.  

Nobody said that she pulled it out of thin air. It's just that some people hadn't seen the comment, and she didn't 100% accurately represent the statement originally (probably by accident, but that can still confuse people).

Quote from Golaryn >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

I guess I don’t really fault them for adjusting their timetable. That kind of thing happens frequently in a large project. It’s more the lack of communication. It would be nice to get some details about what’s happening going forward. Maybe in the video with the next packet, we’ll get more information. 

 I don't fault them either, but it isn't fair to act like Yurei pulled that monthly idea out of thin air either.  

 Sorry if it came across like I was accusing Yurei of something. In post 14 I said I didn’t recall monthly and I thought it was Todd who said monthly then caught himself and changed it to “or so”. I don’t think we blame Yurei for anything, I know I don’t, but just wanted to get to as accurate information as possible. And I think we all agree that they are behind with releases.