D&D (2024) Class spell lists and pact magic are back!

[Chaosmancer]

I still hope they will include variant rules that some love and some hate in the DMG or a tasha like book.
Probably that is the right place for them. For the PHB going the safer route might be better.

One of the articles linked earlier is an interview with Crawford where he pretty much said they would. Now, what you mean by "some love and some hate" and what he meant by "some systems that tested well" may not much up 100%, but they are certainly planning on keeping some of these systems for later books.

 

[mamba]

And your answer to everything is to continously insist that WoTC isn't doing what they are doing.

no, I have said where what they are doing has some weaknesses that affect the rate they are getting, not the same thing. Somehow you never tried addressing that, you just dance around it with your unfounded claims, as if they have any relevance

You've presented false information, misinformation, and flat out speculation constantly. You insist on having the objective truth, when half the time you don't even seem to understand what WoTC has said about their own process.

talk about projection...

And yes, I still hold up a bleeping DECADE of using this survey method to make sucessful products as a pretty BLEEPING strong point that IT IS WORKING.

well, it isn't, causation and correlation and all that, but of course you keep insisting on it, anything else would be a surprise

 

[Chaosmancer]

They aren't taking random samples from all the different kinds of players in all the different ways the game is played. They are sampling only those people who go online and want to partake in the survey. Self-selected passionate surveyors don't represent the bulk of their players who are causal. They are bungling it here.

And they know that? Remember when we talked before about how to account for biases? And they know that the passionate players are the ones who help influence the casuals.

This one is decent. I don't think the questions themselves have a lot of bias. They're just being used incorrectly to get a resulting percentage that is inherently off base.

No they aren't.

Yes. They are bungling this one as well. there are sometimes 12-15 of the same exact question over and over. Feat #1, Feat #1, Feat #3..... Feat #15. Spell #1...

Which I admitted was likely a mistake. But also... again this was literally never a point you were making until just now.

Aware of outliers isn't what it's talking about man. It doesn't matter if they are well aware of the outliers if they are ignoring them. It's saying that the outliers can deliver the most important information and WotC has said that they ignore the outliers every time. We know this because if something hits 80%, the outliers be damned. Same with 70%. They are messing this one up.

Except they aren't ignoring them. They listen to those outliers, that's why the read the comments and follow the social media community.

They just don't let the outliers shape every aspect of the game... because they are outliers. Read the article, it is about "are you getting the knowledge" such as knowing why those outliers think your product is too similiar to your competitor. Do you honestly think WoTC isn't hearing ANY of the commentary from people who say "this sucks, Pathfinder does it better"?

You can't just assume they are ignoring those voices simply because their general process means seeking 70% consensus.

You have to be joking. Crawford said straight out that they were doing this. He went on camera and said that they are putting in questions knowing or having a very good idea of how it will turn out before they ask the question and were just looking for confirmation.

And many times Crawford has straight up said "wow, this surprised us!". Also, guess what, Crawford isn't the guy reading the raw data and making conclusions. Even if they expect a certain answer, that doesn't mean they twist the data to get it. You can have expectations, built from knowing the community, and NOT have confirmation bias.

No. That's the error you are making in assuming that the surveys are the reason the game is doing well.

And still has nothing to do with the surveys. Also, seriously? The thing the team credits to their success isn't the thing that is contributing to the success of the game? How do you square that circle? WoTC is too dumb to know what is or is not working for them? They don't know that they used survey data and got good results?

Yes, Correlation isn't Causation, but that doesn't mean you can deny causation when it happens just because you don't like it.

No. They made multiple mistakes.

Nope

Are you deliberately acting this way? Because playtests is a plural word. How about you go look at all 7 and see if things are remaining stable?

So, you want to compare seven static snapshots of a slow moving process to a political campaign, where minute by minute new information and interference from dozens of sources are all working on an active system. And say those are the same thing?

By the time a political pollster has collected data and spent a week going over it, every single thing they were looking at could have changed. Crimes revealed, gaffs made, successful rallys, new funding from dark money, foreign interference, a massive societal upheaval like a mass shooting.

By the time WoTc takes their data from playtest 7 and spend a week going over it... nothing much has likely changed for the playtest. It is all still pretty much how it was a week ago.

Then do it. Show me how you can get an exact rating of 80% satisfaction by doing the math of 1000 people said they were very satisfied, 583 people said they were satisfied, 1200 said they were unsatisfied, and 188 said they were very unsatisfied. Do that math and come up with an exact satisfaction percentage that includes all of those voters.

I'm betting that you're going to ignore the subjectivity in ratings such that you could be satisfied by a rating of 66% but I might be satisfied at 61%.

You want me to take data that is nearly evenly split, and get an 80% approval from it? Like, you want me to take data, and make it fit a percentage point, to prove that they can take data and find the real percentage point...

Do you even hear yourself right now? We both know that me forcing data to match a value you choose is nothing like what they are doing.

Now, using a basic weighting method, I can get a value of ~70%, but that doesn't mean that I used the same weighting method they did.

I'll wait for you to show me above that it is possible.

Okay, I took your numbers and got a ~70% approval rating. Now what?

If they are asking direct questions that don't include reworking the ability, and you are correct that they are not indirectly asking that, then they can't possibly get a correct answer for when to rework an ability, because they don't have any information at all from us saying that we want it reworked. They are just making unfounded assumptions.

No. They are making business decisions based on their studied consideration of the metrics they want to hit.

Again, I started this conversation with this, but they'd be idiots to ask a question like "do you want us to improve this feature" because the answer is obviously "Yes!". Who would ever say "No, don't improve this"? But they have determined that if a feature has tested below a certain threshold, it isn't worth the time and effort to reiterate on that feature instead of defaulting to what they have and what works.

Because, here's a thought, how do you know that most of the features in the game from 2014 weren't testing in the 60 to 70% range? Maybe they know, from their market research, that simply going back to 2014 is acceptable, so they don't see a need to risk 50%'s when they know that means it is doing worse than what they had prior.

 

[Chaosmancer]

no, I have said where what they are doing has some weaknesses that affect the rate they are getting, not the same thing. Somehow you never tried addressing that, you just dance around it with your unfounded claims, as if they have any relevance

No, I'm not dancing around it. I've said before that WoTC is ignoring perfect in favor of good. And they've said that. And you keep insisting it is bad and a mistake because you don't think they should do that. And I've simply continously pointed out... it isn't a mistake. They are doing exactly what they are intending to do, and it is working for them exceedingly well.

talk about projection...


well, it isn't, causation and correlation and all that, but of course you keep insisting on it, anything else would be a surprise

You know just saying "correlation doesn't equal causation" doesn't mean you are right, correct?

Because WoTC themselves have credited their success with 5e on their playtest and survey method. I'm not saying these things because I made up a fact somewhere. Seriously, Correlation doesn't equal causation applies when two events are unrelated. Such as wearing lucky underwear and winning a game. But this is their ACTUAL METHOD for developing games, and those games are successful, and they themselves say they are successful because of their method.

You'd basically have to, yet again, say that WoTC is too idiotic to know what they themselves are doing to seriously present this as an option. If they say it is the causation, what makes you so certain that they are wrong?

 

[mamba]

You know just saying "correlation doesn't equal causation" doesn't mean you are right, correct?

yes, but it sure as hell does not mean that you are either. I never used this to show that I am right, you constantly fall back on it

 

[Umbran]

that is your real answer for everything. You have never had anything else to say for four weeks, no matter what the topic was.

Mod Note:
And, what do you do? Rather than just pass it over as of no value to you, or using the ignore list... you make a public insulting stink?

Great move. You're done in this discussion.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
That makes three people booted from the thread.

Please don't make yourself the fourth.

 

[Maxperson]

And they know that? Remember when we talked before about how to account for biases? And they know that the passionate players are the ones who help influence the casuals.

So it's your position that they are taking into account the vast majority of gamers that they aren't getting information from, and then using that non-information to modify the large selection bias that they are getting from the passionate players?

How exactly are they accounting for the selection bias with the non-information that they have?

Which I admitted was likely a mistake. But also... again this was literally never a point you were making until just now.

Just add it to the rest of the mistakes.

Except they aren't ignoring them. They listen to those outliers, that's why the read the comments and follow the social media community.

So either they approve stuff that hits 80% and ignore the outliers or they don't and they lied to us when they said that they approve stuff that hits 80%. Which is it? It can't be both.

You can't just assume they are ignoring those voices simply because their general process means seeking 70% consensus.

They literally can't be doing anything but ignoring them if they have a set percentage that will mean success. It doesn't matter what the outliers think if the non-outliers hit 70%.

And many times Crawford has straight up said "wow, this surprised us!". Also, guess what, Crawford isn't the guy reading the raw data and making conclusions. Even if they expect a certain answer, that doesn't mean they twist the data to get it. You can have expectations, built from knowing the community, and NOT have confirmation bias.

So your counter to the confirmation bias that they have said on video that they engage in is that they suck at confirmation bias?

And still has nothing to do with the surveys. Also, seriously? The thing the team credits to their success isn't the thing that is contributing to the success of the game? How do you square that circle? WoTC is too dumb to know what is or is not working for them? They don't know that they used survey data and got good results?

They argued that dozens of executives whose job it is to know how to read contracts and the highly paid lawyers that drafted those contracts ALL missed that the new OGL would allow them to just steal people's work. Mind you it was instantly apparent to those of us lay people who let out a big outcry.

Either they are that dumb or they lie to us. Either way what they say can't be trusted.

Yes, Correlation isn't Causation, but that doesn't mean you can deny causation when it happens just because you don't like it.

You've proven no causation. Nor have they.

So, you want to compare seven static snapshots of a slow moving process to a political campaign, where minute by minute new information and interference from dozens of sources are all working on an active system. And say those are the same thing?

The playtest is quite literally the campaign to the next edition. And it has taken 13 months to get to playtest 7. That's more time than candidates spend campaigning.

By the time WoTc takes their data from playtest 7 and spend a week going over it... nothing much has likely changed for the playtest. It is all still pretty much how it was a week ago.

Have you paid attention to the various forums? People talk about the surveys and going over things. The debate happens for a long time and opinions do change.

You want me to take data that is nearly evenly split, and get an 80% approval from it? Like, you want me to take data, and make it fit a percentage point, to prove that they can take data and find the real percentage point...

Get any exact approval rating, which is not by the way the average of those who approve vs. disapprove. They are different things, which based on your arguments I don't think you understand. Let me show you the following.

700 people vote very satisfied. 100 vote satisfied. 100 vote unsatisfied. 100 vote very unsatisfied.

That 80% of people approve, but it's not an 80% approval rating because...

100 people vote very satisfied, 700 vote satisfied. 100 vote unsatisfied. 100 vote very unsatisfied. means that even though 80% of people are satisfied, they are far less satisfied than the first set above.

Within each category is a range of percentages. Within each person is a variable amount of personal satisfaction to achieve each category. These things mean that it's impossible for WotC to come up with an 80% approval rating , even if they can say that 80% of people approve at some level.

To further confound things, if they aren't weighting very satisfied and satisfied with different percentages, there's literally no point in offering both of those results. Same with dissatisfied and very dissatisfied. If all they are looking for is 80% of people approve at some level, then a simple binary "Are you satisfied or dissatisfied?" is sufficient.

Again, I started this conversation with this, but they'd be idiots to ask a question like "do you want us to improve this feature" because the answer is obviously "Yes!". Who would ever say "No, don't improve this"? But they have determined that if a feature has tested below a certain threshold, it isn't worth the time and effort to reiterate on that feature instead of defaulting to what they have and what works.

That would be an example of a poorly worded question.

Because, here's a thought, how do you know that most of the features in the game from 2014 weren't testing in the 60 to 70% range? Maybe they know, from their market research, that simply going back to 2014 is acceptable, so they don't see a need to risk 50%'s when they know that means it is doing worse than what they had prior.

I don't remember those polls, but they ignored us plenty be releasing a bunch of stuff we never playtested.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That just results in bland mushy porridge.

Probably. Or a McDonald's burger. Think about that.
That seems to be the way to success.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Probably. Or a McDonald's burger. Think about that.
That seems to be the way to success.

The reason it doesn't produce porridge is that it's not "a McDonalds burger". It's producing a menu with different classes designed to do different things, and most people understanding that and wanting different things from fighters and wizards.

And this is why the DMing side doesn't work so well. The players have a menu of things that are allowed to be different. The DM side tries to get one size fits all.