You know exactly what I am saying and are trolling at this point. Have a nice day.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
You know exactly what I am saying and are trolling at this point. Have a nice day.
I am not trolling. My point is that they should worry less about “the masses” and more about making an interesting thing. We don’t have to agree on what they should do or how it should work.
I guarantee that if Henry Ford had taken surveys and tried to make a car that made everyone happy he wouldn’t have never made anything at all because people would have disagreed. He made a decision to manufacture cars instead of breeding faster horses. He produced his vision and now there are how many cars all over the world?
But if all they do is make another breed of horse (another spellcaster) then they shouldn’t go around calling it an “automobile” (Psionicist).
We don't have to design the Psion/Mystic, Crazy. That's not our job, and frankly the average player makes an absolutely godawful game designer. Players, especially the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster known as 'The Majority', are HORRIBLE - I repeat, HORRIBLE - at knowing what they want. They have no clue what it is they're looking for and any proposition they have to fix it is a grope in the dark at best.
The only thing you can rely on players knowing is whether or not they like something. Not why they like or dislike something, ONLY that they like or dislike it. A game designer - which is to say, something with training and experience in the field, working with other people of like training and experience - can make useful determinations from that, and from watching people play their game. That's the point of playtesting - it's not "throw a document out, wait thirteen minutes, then ask people what they think of the document before they could possibly have had a chance to PLAY with the material". It's "play this for me. let me watch what happens."
It's why Wizards' stance of "we're going to let the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster design our game for us, without any care taken to do actual game design work!" is so freaking infuriating. That is NOT OUR JOB, and collectively we're all ******* awful at it. Individual players may, occasionally, have decent ideas or helpful feedback, but the more voices start fighting to be heard from the writhing, sweaty neckbearded blob of unwholesome flesh soup that is 'The Majority', the less useful any of those specific voices are. A proper game designer should be ignoring that shit.
That is the entire point of a Community Manager - a CM's job is not just to be the mouthpiece of the company, a CM's job is to sift through the endless churning babble of the Blob Monster and collate the soup of negativity, Internet drama, pointless posturing and general bull****ery into a concise list of actionable points that represent general trends. They're a dataminer whose dataset is 'The Community'. Game developers needs CMs because game developers need to NOT deal with the Blob Monster face to face, themselves, or their game is straight-up going to suck.
We don't have to design the Psion/Mystic, Crazy. That's not our job, and frankly the average player makes an absolutely godawful game designer. Players, especially the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster known as 'The Majority', are HORRIBLE - I repeat, HORRIBLE - at knowing what they want. They have no clue what it is they're looking for and any proposition they have to fix it is a grope in the dark at best.
The only thing you can rely on players knowing is whether or not they like something. Not why they like or dislike something, ONLY that they like or dislike it. A game designer - which is to say, something with training and experience in the field, working with other people of like training and experience - can make useful determinations from that, and from watching people play their game. That's the point of playtesting - it's not "throw a document out, wait thirteen minutes, then ask people what they think of the document before they could possibly have had a chance to PLAY with the material". It's "play this for me. let me watch what happens."
It's why Wizards' stance of "we're going to let the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster design our game for us, without any care taken to do actual game design work!" is so freaking infuriating. That is NOT OUR JOB, and collectively we're all ******* awful at it. Individual players may, occasionally, have decent ideas or helpful feedback, but the more voices start fighting to be heard from the writhing, sweaty neckbearded blob of unwholesome flesh soup that is 'The Majority', the less useful any of those specific voices are. A proper game designer should be ignoring that shit.
That is the entire point of a Community Manager - a CM's job is not just to be the mouthpiece of the company, a CM's job is to sift through the endless churning babble of the Blob Monster and collate the soup of negativity, Internet drama, pointless posturing and general bull****ery into a concise list of actionable points that represent general trends. They're a dataminer whose dataset is 'The Community'. Game developers needs CMs because game developers need to NOT deal with the Blob Monster face to face, themselves, or their game is straight-up going to suck.
We don't have to design the Psion/Mystic, Crazy. That's not our job, and frankly the average player makes an absolutely godawful game designer. Players, especially the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster known as 'The Majority', are HORRIBLE - I repeat, HORRIBLE - at knowing what they want. They have no clue what it is they're looking for and any proposition they have to fix it is a grope in the dark at best.
The only thing you can rely on players knowing is whether or not they like something. Not why they like or dislike something, ONLY that they like or dislike it. A game designer - which is to say, something with training and experience in the field, working with other people of like training and experience - can make useful determinations from that, and from watching people play their game. That's the point of playtesting - it's not "throw a document out, wait thirteen minutes, then ask people what they think of the document before they could possibly have had a chance to PLAY with the material". It's "play this for me. let me watch what happens."
It's why Wizards' stance of "we're going to let the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster design our game for us, without any care taken to do actual game design work!" is so freaking infuriating. That is NOT OUR JOB, and collectively we're all ****ing awful at it. Individual players may, occasionally, have decent ideas or helpful feedback, but the more voices start fighting to be heard from the writhing, sweaty neckbearded blob of unwholesome flesh soup that is 'The Majority', the less useful any of those specific voices are. A proper game designer should be ignoring that shit.
That is the entire point of a Community Manager - a CM's job is not just to be the mouthpiece of the company, a CM's job is to sift through the endless churning babble of the Blob Monster and collate the soup of negativity, Internet drama, pointless posturing and general bull****ery into a concise list of actionable points that represent general trends. They're a dataminer whose dataset is 'The Community'. Game developers needs CMs because game developers need to NOT deal with the Blob Monster face to face, themselves, or their game is straight-up going to suck.
No. Exceptions.
*holds up a boombox and presses play*
*This Is America, by Childish Gambino begins playing at full volume*
It's a pretty important and well-established principle of game design that players (as a collective) don't really ever know what they want. Good feedback is "here's how I felt about this, here are the issues I had with it." It's not players' job to offer solutions, nor are players very good at that. As IamSposta says, it's literally the designers' job to give players what they aren't able to articulate their desire for. That's what game design is.
It's a pretty important and well-established principle of game design that players (as a collective) don't really ever know what they want. Good feedback is "here's how I felt about this, here are the issues I had with it." It's not players' job to offer solutions, nor are players very good at that. As IamSposta says, it's literally the designers' job to give players what they aren't able to articulate their desire for. That's what game design is.
That may be true. I guess we will just have to wait and see what we want when they release the material. It goes both ways on this point though, maybe the players that want a full Psion class and unique mechanics don't know that they will be fine with subclasses yet. We will have to see what the overall response is when they do that.
It does go both ways. But individual players are more apt to have an idea of what works for them and what doesn't from their own experiences than the mindless morass of blabbering insanity people call 'The Majority'.
Like, for me? I am absolutely STARVING for some GODS DAMNED DEPTH in my D&D game. There are maybe two and a half classes in the game that are not insultingly oversimplified, and there is exactly ONE class in this entire game where you make a meaningful character decision past level 3. No, spell selection for spellcasting characters does not count and never has. That is obnoxious and unacceptable, if even only because those of us who like to make decisions, like to tinker with characters and bite into depth and complexity, deserve our fair freaking shot too. What form that depth takes? Dunno. I'm not a game designer. But I know what there's basically freaking none of in 5e, and that's depth.
People like to say that 5e is the most successful roleplaying game in the world by far, and that this proves its perfect superiority to everything else and it is thus flawless in every way. Thing is? 5e's success has very little to do with its design. At least, insofar as it being 'better' than other games. It has to do with the fact that streamer culture latched onto tabletop gaming and Wizards pushed 5e with its Fat Budget Dollars. 5e is fast and its oversimplified nature makes it watchable, but it's not the only game that qualifies. Critical Role has proven that it could've just as easily been a Savage Worlds game; UnDeadwood was a masterpiece and SW is just as fast and watchable as 5e is. Being watchable, however, is not the criteria by which a game is judged.
If Wizards keeps ignoring the folks who're screaming in desperation, from our little tumorous corner of the 'Majority' Blob Monster, for any degree of depth and engagement in this game? Well, eventually Pathfinder's going to come up with its own digital tool, and that'll be all she wrote for a whole lot more folks than anybody suspects.
People like to say that 5e is the most successful roleplaying game in the world by far, and that this proves its perfect superiority to everything else and it is thus flawless in every way.
It's always brought up whenever any sort of serious discussion of 5e's weaknesses and failings begins. "Well if it's so bad, why is it the most successful RPG out there, huh?!"
What's funny, at least to me, is why that seems to be the case. But honestly this is way off of topic anyways so I'll let it go. Apologies for the long derailment.
It certainly has been the most successful at drawing new players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It's a pretty important and well-established principle of game design that players (as a collective) don't really ever know what they want. Good feedback is "here's how I felt about this, here are the issues I had with it." It's not players' job to offer solutions, nor are players very good at that. As IamSposta says, it's literally the designers' job to give players what they aren't able to articulate their desire for. That's what game design is.
That may be true. I guess we will just have to wait and see what we want when they release the material. It goes both ways on this point though, maybe the players that want a full Psion class and unique mechanics don't know that they will be fine with subclasses yet. We will have to see what the overall response is when they do that.
NO. I do know what I want for psionics now that they've published multiple UA testing out psionics. They have tried the psionic subclasses 2 times now, and that will not satisfy my psionic-thirst. They tried subclasses, and I now know I want a class. They tried making it be spell-based, and I know I didn't like that. I won't like it being spell based as a subclass or class.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
My point is that, If WOTC were to pursue the Psion, it would need to make it through playtesting and surveys too. If the masses give it bad results, I doubt they would ignore those survey results because certain players want it really really bad a certain way.
First, yes they would have to playtest it. Second, they could ignore the survey results that say "I don't want this to exist". Third, again, we don't want it "really really bad" that's the exact opposite of what we want.
They would change their design to match what people want until survey results passed. I would guess you would end up with an Intelligence based Ranged Monk or an Intelligence based Psychic Warlock. The Monk version would probably be the easiest, since many of its defenses against effects and deflecting attacks would make sense.
They would. They could also just see how the surveys do among the people who want this class, and when it passes among them, it would be ready to publish.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
It's a pretty important and well-established principle of game design that players (as a collective) don't really ever know what they want. Good feedback is "here's how I felt about this, here are the issues I had with it." It's not players' job to offer solutions, nor are players very good at that. As IamSposta says, it's literally the designers' job to give players what they aren't able to articulate their desire for. That's what game design is.
That may be true. I guess we will just have to wait and see what we want when they release the material. It goes both ways on this point though, maybe the players that want a full Psion class and unique mechanics don't know that they will be fine with subclasses yet. We will have to see what the overall response is when they do that.
NO. I do know what I want for psionics now that they've published multiple UA testing out psionics. They have tried the psionic subclasses 2 times now, and that will not satisfy my psionic-thirst. They tried subclasses, and I now know I want a class. They tried making it be spell-based, and I know I didn't like that. I won't like it being spell based as a subclass or class.
I’m aware, I was more responding to the idea that the “masses just don’t know what they like or don’t like” idea, and that because they aren’t game designers they just don’t know and are wrong. That argument goes both ways, so if it invalidates the masses it also invalidates the people who think they “know” they want a full class. Again, the point is that it doesn’t invalidate anyone’s opinion either way. I believe you when you tell me your preferences on this design, it’s not that you “aren’t a game designer so you just don’t know what’s good for you but I do, even though I’m not one”
Prestige classes might well be an avenue for them to give the folks craving depth a way to get that depth without inconveniencing all the folks who hate having to think when they play D&D.
EDIT: Stupid net delays.
But yes.
Positron: why is it that it's perfectly okay for Wizards to just completely flat-out ignore what even their Head Designer Dude described as "a sizable minority"? I get that you, specifically, are thrilled and happy that they're eliminating depth at every possible turn to comply with the vanilla-pudding Majority, but man. Is there not any concern in your mind whatsoever for what happens when that 'sizable minority' finally gets fed up enough to jump ship?
*eye roll*
You know exactly what I am saying and are trolling at this point. Have a nice day.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I am not trolling. My point is that they should worry less about “the masses” and more about making an interesting thing. We don’t have to agree on what they should do or how it should work.
I guarantee that if Henry Ford had taken surveys and tried to make a car that made everyone happy he wouldn’t have never made anything at all because people would have disagreed. He made a decision to manufacture cars instead of breeding faster horses. He produced his vision and now there are how many cars all over the world?
But if all they do is make another breed of horse (another spellcaster) then they shouldn’t go around calling it an “automobile” (Psionicist).
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
We don't have to design the Psion/Mystic, Crazy. That's not our job, and frankly the average player makes an absolutely godawful game designer. Players, especially the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster known as 'The Majority', are HORRIBLE - I repeat, HORRIBLE - at knowing what they want. They have no clue what it is they're looking for and any proposition they have to fix it is a grope in the dark at best.
The only thing you can rely on players knowing is whether or not they like something. Not why they like or dislike something, ONLY that they like or dislike it. A game designer - which is to say, something with training and experience in the field, working with other people of like training and experience - can make useful determinations from that, and from watching people play their game. That's the point of playtesting - it's not "throw a document out, wait thirteen minutes, then ask people what they think of the document before they could possibly have had a chance to PLAY with the material". It's "play this for me. let me watch what happens."
It's why Wizards' stance of "we're going to let the mindless faceless Internet Blob Monster design our game for us, without any care taken to do actual game design work!" is so freaking infuriating. That is NOT OUR JOB, and collectively we're all ******* awful at it. Individual players may, occasionally, have decent ideas or helpful feedback, but the more voices start fighting to be heard from the writhing, sweaty neckbearded blob of unwholesome flesh soup that is 'The Majority', the less useful any of those specific voices are. A proper game designer should be ignoring that shit.
That is the entire point of a Community Manager - a CM's job is not just to be the mouthpiece of the company, a CM's job is to sift through the endless churning babble of the Blob Monster and collate the soup of negativity, Internet drama, pointless posturing and general bull****ery into a concise list of actionable points that represent general trends. They're a dataminer whose dataset is 'The Community'. Game developers needs CMs because game developers need to NOT deal with the Blob Monster face to face, themselves, or their game is straight-up going to suck.
No. Exceptions.
Please do not contact or message me.
This^^ Every last frickin’ word of it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
*holds up a boombox and presses play*
*This Is America, by Childish Gambino begins playing at full volume*
I don't get it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
It's a pretty important and well-established principle of game design that players (as a collective) don't really ever know what they want. Good feedback is "here's how I felt about this, here are the issues I had with it." It's not players' job to offer solutions, nor are players very good at that. As IamSposta says, it's literally the designers' job to give players what they aren't able to articulate their desire for. That's what game design is.
I think Yurei articulated the point better than I did, so I’ll pass the credit onto them.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
That may be true. I guess we will just have to wait and see what we want when they release the material. It goes both ways on this point though, maybe the players that want a full Psion class and unique mechanics don't know that they will be fine with subclasses yet. We will have to see what the overall response is when they do that.
It does go both ways. But individual players are more apt to have an idea of what works for them and what doesn't from their own experiences than the mindless morass of blabbering insanity people call 'The Majority'.
Like, for me? I am absolutely STARVING for some GODS DAMNED DEPTH in my D&D game. There are maybe two and a half classes in the game that are not insultingly oversimplified, and there is exactly ONE class in this entire game where you make a meaningful character decision past level 3. No, spell selection for spellcasting characters does not count and never has. That is obnoxious and unacceptable, if even only because those of us who like to make decisions, like to tinker with characters and bite into depth and complexity, deserve our fair freaking shot too. What form that depth takes? Dunno. I'm not a game designer. But I know what there's basically freaking none of in 5e, and that's depth.
People like to say that 5e is the most successful roleplaying game in the world by far, and that this proves its perfect superiority to everything else and it is thus flawless in every way. Thing is? 5e's success has very little to do with its design. At least, insofar as it being 'better' than other games. It has to do with the fact that streamer culture latched onto tabletop gaming and Wizards pushed 5e with its Fat Budget Dollars. 5e is fast and its oversimplified nature makes it watchable, but it's not the only game that qualifies. Critical Role has proven that it could've just as easily been a Savage Worlds game; UnDeadwood was a masterpiece and SW is just as fast and watchable as 5e is. Being watchable, however, is not the criteria by which a game is judged.
If Wizards keeps ignoring the folks who're screaming in desperation, from our little tumorous corner of the 'Majority' Blob Monster, for any degree of depth and engagement in this game? Well, eventually Pathfinder's going to come up with its own digital tool, and that'll be all she wrote for a whole lot more folks than anybody suspects.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm not aware of anyone who says this.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It's always brought up whenever any sort of serious discussion of 5e's weaknesses and failings begins. "Well if it's so bad, why is it the most successful RPG out there, huh?!"
What's funny, at least to me, is why that seems to be the case. But honestly this is way off of topic anyways so I'll let it go. Apologies for the long derailment.
Please do not contact or message me.
It certainly has been the most successful at drawing new players.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
That's not surprising, given how much it's been featured and pushed in social media, and how simple and straightforward it is as far as TTRPGs go.
I think as far as introducing more complexity into class builds are concerned, maybe they should take another crack at Prestige Classes.
NO. I do know what I want for psionics now that they've published multiple UA testing out psionics. They have tried the psionic subclasses 2 times now, and that will not satisfy my psionic-thirst. They tried subclasses, and I now know I want a class. They tried making it be spell-based, and I know I didn't like that. I won't like it being spell based as a subclass or class.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I would love that.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
First, yes they would have to playtest it. Second, they could ignore the survey results that say "I don't want this to exist". Third, again, we don't want it "really really bad" that's the exact opposite of what we want.
They would. They could also just see how the surveys do among the people who want this class, and when it passes among them, it would be ready to publish.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I’m aware, I was more responding to the idea that the “masses just don’t know what they like or don’t like” idea, and that because they aren’t game designers they just don’t know and are wrong. That argument goes both ways, so if it invalidates the masses it also invalidates the people who think they “know” they want a full class. Again, the point is that it doesn’t invalidate anyone’s opinion either way. I believe you when you tell me your preferences on this design, it’s not that you “aren’t a game designer so you just don’t know what’s good for you but I do, even though I’m not one”
Prestige classes might well be an avenue for them to give the folks craving depth a way to get that depth without inconveniencing all the folks who hate having to think when they play D&D.
EDIT: Stupid net delays.
But yes.
Positron: why is it that it's perfectly okay for Wizards to just completely flat-out ignore what even their Head Designer Dude described as "a sizable minority"? I get that you, specifically, are thrilled and happy that they're eliminating depth at every possible turn to comply with the vanilla-pudding Majority, but man. Is there not any concern in your mind whatsoever for what happens when that 'sizable minority' finally gets fed up enough to jump ship?
Please do not contact or message me.