5e Feedback survey

[cobaltstarfire]

Wizards has put out a feedback survey (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/fifth-edition-feedback-survey), go fill it out I suppose. It mainly asks about your satisfaction with particular classes, how strong you think they are in relation to each other, how satisfied you are with the abilities of each class, and how satisfied you are with each of the feats.

They seem to imply they'll be doing more than one, which makes sense, since this current survey will mostly only tell them what most people think is weak, and what people are most happy and most unhappy with.

[CrusaderJoe]

Wizards has put out a feedback survey (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/fifth-edition-feedback-survey), go fill it out I suppose. It mainly asks about your satisfaction with particular classes, how strong you think they are in relation to each other, how satisfied you are with the abilities of each class, and how satisfied you are with each of the feats.

They seem to imply they'll be doing more than one, which makes sense, since this current survey will mostly only tell them what most people think is weak, and what people are most happy and most unhappy with.


Sadly there really isn't a lot of spots to explain why you rated the topics you did. Without the "why" wotc can't really work with their data set with any confidence.

With the two or so spaces that you can type in being spread so far apart and such... Makes me think they won't even look at those parts.

Its like when they ask which is more powerful, the rogue or the sorcerer. First off they don't define what powerful is. Is it versatility? Is it the ability to kill? Or is it a combination?

So you have all these people using different metrics to answer the same question.

You don't actually learn anything from this faulty data, you only infer from this data set... Which is a bad way of going about things.

[Eslin]

I like the idea, don't like how it was done. Which is more powerful, rogue or monk? I like them both, they're good at different things. Yet I had to pick sides?

Rate the class feature! Am I rating it too low because I think it's too good or too crap? They don't know!

[Yagyujubei]

oh snap debate time folks:

8. Please evaluate the classes below. Which is most powerful, and which is least powerful?

[More powerful ][ Class ][ Less powerful ]

.......................Warlock.................... .....
.........................Monk..................... ......

WHICH to choose?...

yeah these are stupidly implemented, how could you pick this...

where is the "together they form batman" answer...thats what i want to pick

[pibby]

I'm 17% into the survey and I really don't like the way they presented the current question I'm on. (Not sure if I can share the exact question in the survey so I won't but you'll know when you come across it.) It's more or less a black or white question, which doesn't bode well for me on how they'll view the responses.

EDIT: Yagyujubei's post is precisely the question I'm on. I'm not even sure I want to continue. Like are they going to nerf the classes that were picked as "More Powerful"?

[CrusaderJoe]

oh snap debate time folks:

8. Please evaluate the classes below. Which is most powerful, and which is least powerful?

[More powerful ][ Class ][ Less powerful ]

.......................Warlock.................... .....
.........................Monk..................... ......

WHICH to choose?...

yeah these are stupidly implemented, how could you pick this...

where is the "together they form batman" answer...thats what i want to pick

Batman? They are way more than Batman, look at his villains. Do you think the D&D Monk/Warlock would have issues with them? Nah. They are closer to Superman or the Fantastic 4...

[Eslin]

I'm 17% into the survey and I really don't like the way they presented the current question I'm on. (Not sure if I can share the exact question in the survey so I won't but you'll know when you come across it.) It's more or less a black or white question, which doesn't bode well for me on how they'll view the responses.

Which is more powerful, bard or wizard?

This is the kind of question I'm used to fielding from new players who don't know how the game works, not people who are supposed to know it so well they can design it.

I answered the whole thing as best I could, but now I'm kind of regretting it. I have no idea how they'll take my answers - I said paladins were more powerful than sorcerers because of the charisma to saves aura, but all they got from it was paladins>sorcerers.

[CrusaderJoe]

Which is more powerful, bard or wizard?

This is the kind of question I'm used to fielding from new players who don't know how the game works, not people who are supposed to know it so well they can design it.

This is the scary part.

Also, you would think a professional company would hire/put out professional work. This does not seem to be the case.

Edit::

I regret it too.

[Yagyujubei]

Batman? They are way more than Batman, look at his villains. Do you think the D&D Monk/Warlock would have issues with them? Nah. They are closer to Superman or the Fantastic 4...

implying that batman couldn't beat superman or the fantastic 4......but that's a can of worms that doesn't belong here. I was saying it in the regard that it gets you a shadowy martial artist with a bunch of extra "tricks" up his sleeve for various situations. pretty batman-esque in my opinion.

aaaanyway, yeah I just stopped halfway through, it's ridiculously done. I can't rate these class features as satisfied or dissatisfied. For fighter it's like, well dueling and GWF are kinda OP so am i satisfied or dissatisfied? and it's like that for every feature..ugh WotC why u do dis?

[CrusaderJoe]

implying that batman couldn't beat superman or the fantastic 4......but that's a can of worms that doesn't belong here. I was saying it in the regard that it gets you a shadowy martial artist with a bunch of extra "tricks" up his sleeve for various situations. pretty batman-esque in my opinion.

aaaanyway, yeah I just stopped halfway through, it's ridiculously done. I can't rate these class features as satisfied or dissatisfied. For fighter it's like, well dueling and GWF are kinda OP so am i satisfied or dissatisfied? and it's like that for every feature..ugh WotC why u do dis?

Eh, with the way writers write the batman versus superman stuff you could replace batman with a toddler and it makes as much sense.

I wish I stopped half way, I envy you for that.

[Once a Fool]

I suspect that their thinking on these black/white questions is that they will get roughly an even split of answers, unless there truly is something wrong.

Not providing a place to explain your vote indicates that they have no intention of fixing what ain't broke. Which I approve of. In theory, if an obvious majority sees an imbalance, the designers ought to be able to identify it without having to read each and every respondent's explanation.

That said, I find that I care very little about the very few balance issues I've seen so far, so I don't really have any reason to actually take the survey.

[CrusaderJoe]

Friend of mine actually joined twitter to send them a message. He's trying to start #faultyD&Ddata haha.

He's a bit excitable sometimes.

[Yagyujubei]

@once a fool though: rather than How satisfied/dissatisfied are you with (x) though, I think making the question how powerful or useful/weak or useless do you think (x) is.

that way you can still have a 6 point scale or whatever and you don't need to read the novels I'm sure many of us would write if given the chance to comment on each thing.

is (x)

too weak....slightly underpowered....balanced....slightly overpowered....too strong....don't know

I would have been much happier with that.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

I suspect that their thinking on these black/white questions is that they will get roughly an even split of answers, unless there truly is something wrong.

Not providing a place to explain your vote indicates that they have no intention of fixing what ain't broke. Which I approve of. In theory, if an obvious majority sees an imbalance, the designers ought to be able to identify it without having to read each and every respondent's explanation.

That said, I find that I care very little about the very few balance issues I've seen so far, so I don't really have any reason to actually take the survey.

I had a similar impression. I think they are going to take the answers in aggregate and look for trends, to see what sticks out from the pack and re-evaluate.

Mostly I threw some lower ratings for particular aspects of Ranger, Moon Druids and the boring/weaker feats. And choosing which class was more powerful was hard, but I could see how after hundreds of answers you could maybe glean something.

[Once a Fool]

@once a fool though: rather than How satisfied/dissatisfied are you with (x) though, I think making the question how powerful or useful/weak or useless do you think (x) is.

that way you can still have a 6 point scale or whatever and you don't need to read the novels I'm sure many of us would write if given the chance to comment on each thing.

is (x)

too weak....slightly underpowered....balanced....slightly overpowered....too strong....don't know

I would have been much happier with that.

But if they intend to do the analyzing on their own, that's just extra data to ignore. It would actually make it harder to spot trends.

[CrusaderJoe]

I had a similar impression. I think they are going to take the answers in aggregate and look for trends, to see what sticks out from the pack and re-evaluate.

Mostly I threw some lower ratings for particular aspects of Ranger, Moon Druids and the boring/weaker feats. And choosing which class was more powerful was hard, but I could see how after hundreds of answers you could maybe glean something.

The problem with the data set though is that you can't actually find true trends. They are using faulty data to get faulty trends.

Sadly

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

The problem with the data set though is that you can't actually find true trends. They are using faulty data to get faulty trends.

Sadly

Care to explain the difference?

[CrusaderJoe]

Care to explain the difference?

The parameters of the question is vague. Are you happy with X, doesn't tell you the problem with said data. Is it too strong, too weak, fluff is wrong, or is the class feature in the wrong class?

Power is also vague. What is powerful for some (DPR) is not power to others (Versatility). Are you rating an ability high (satisfied) because it is broken (high strength) and you like that or because it is broken (too weak) and that's what you like?

You don't know what people are telling you. You have to assume.

So you take all these assumptions and come up with answers that might or might not answer anything.

Now they could get lucky, and right now that is all they can bank on.

[Eslin]

The parameters of the question is vague. Are you happy with X, doesn't tell you the problem with said data. Is it too strong, too weak, fluff is wrong, or is the class feature in the wrong class?

Power is also vague. What is powerful for some (DPR) is not power to others (Versatility). Are you rating an ability high (satisfied) because it is broken (high strength) and you like that or because it is broken (too weak) and that's what you like?

You don't know what people are telling you. You have to assume.

So you take all these assumptions and come up with answers that might or might not answer anything.

Now they could get lucky, and right now that is all they can bank on.

Personally I rated an ability highly when it was well balanced and fun, low when it was too good or too crap. Others will rate the powerful abilities high and weak ones low. How can this ever result in useful stats?

[CrusaderJoe]

Personally I rated an ability highly when it was well balanced and fun, low when it was too good or too crap. Others will rate the powerful abilities high and weak ones low. How can this ever result in useful stats?

No clue.

I vote that these surveys are being put out as a cover. If they change or don't change anything a majority of people will believe the "see we listened to the fans!" bull crap.

Edit:

Here is another example of vague. Eslin's version of balance may be different from mine.

Eslin could be balancing abilities in thought against the Diviner Wizard while I may balance abilities based against the Champion Fighter.

[Once a Fool]

How can this ever result in useful stats?

My guess is that they don't care. I think they have no intention of changing anything unless there is such uniformity of opinion that it is obvious, even through the vague questioning.

In this scenario, the vagueness is intentional; it weeds out the responses they don't care about. Which would be most, if not all, of them.

Some might find this approach disheartening; I find it reassuring.

[CrusaderJoe]

My guess is that they don't care. I think they have no intention of changing anything unless there is such uniformity of opinion that it is obvious, even through the vague questioning.

In this scenario, the vagueness is intentional; it weeds out the responses they don't care about. Which would be most, if not all, of them.

Some might find this approach disheartening; I find it reassuring.

Bolded is impossible for statements already stated.

If you find being lied to reassuring then good for you, but I don't think many people will agree with that line of reasoning.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

Bolded is impossible for statements already stated.

If you find being lied to reassuring then good for you, but I don't think many people will agree with that line of reasoning.

Wouldn't people be using different personal metrics no matter how you posed the questions? Vaguely or specifically? Unless the question is asked in such a way that the answer is numerically calculable or can be found through pure logic, but then you don't need survey data to answer the question in the first place.

This mainly reads like a poll on the general feelings of players. They clearly aren't looking for mathematical proofs to back up peoples opinions. If people are generally dissatisfied with something, that will show in the data.

And I'm really not getting the lying part, you seem to be reaching there.

[archaeo]

Personally I rated an ability highly when it was well balanced and fun, low when it was too good or too crap. Others will rate the powerful abilities high and weak ones low. How can this ever result in useful stats?

Having just taken it, the questions are pretty clear about asking about your satisfaction with the ability/subclass/feature. Obviously, people have different reasons for being "satisfied" by something, but if a bunch of respondents all crowd around one issue, it's worth paying attention to.

This isn't exactly a mega scientific survey or anything, but it'll quickly come together for analysis, and when they find majorities of people who are unhappy about something, it doesn't really take Sherlock Holmes to find out why people might be dissatisfied with a given issue. We've been writing about all our problems non-stop since the edition came out. Presumably, they just want to hear from as many people as possible, not just the ones who are motivated enough to post on forums.

Really, the only thing that struck me as probably useless was those comparisons, but maybe there's some a/b testing stuff going on there.

[Once a Fool]

Bolded is impossible for statements already stated.

Sorry. I thought that "relative uniformity" was implied by that statement. Didn't mean to confuse you.


If you find being lied to reassuring then good for you, but I don't think many people will agree with that line of reasoning.

How can a series of questions lie?

[CrusaderJoe]

Sorry. I thought that "relative uniformity" was implied by that statement. Didn't mean to confuse you.



How can a series of questions lie?

There is no relative uniformity! Because the questions are too vague. You need specific in order to have your uniformity. Knowing that X people think sorcerer is more powerful than the rogue doesn't tell you why. Why is what tells you what to do with the data.

Should we increase the rogue's power? What is power? DPR? Versatility? Should we downgrade he Sorcerer? You have no way of getting any of this information from what they ask.

I'm sorry you are confused but the series of questions aren't what I was saying would be lying. The only use you can get out of this sort of vague survey is to say "see we are listening to the payers" when they really aren't. Wither they do anything or do nothing most people will believe them.

They can go along with any business design or plan and use this/more surveys like this as an excuse.

So unless they come up with a real informative survey they can't use "we listened to our audience" because they have no way of knowing what their audience have said.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

There is no relative uniformity! Because the questions are too vague. You need specific in order to have your uniformity. Knowing that X people think sorcerer is more powerful than the rogue doesn't tell you why. Why is what tells you what to do with the data.

What you do with the data is make a second survey with questions based on statistically significant answers.

[DireSickFish]

There is no relative uniformity! Because the questions are too vague. You need specific in order to have your uniformity. Knowing that X people think sorcerer is more powerful than the rogue doesn't tell you why. Why is what tells you what to do with the data.

Should we increase the rogue's power? What is power? DPR? Versatility? Should we downgrade he Sorcerer? You have no way of getting any of this information from what they ask.

I'm sorry you are confused but the series of questions aren't what I was saying would be lying. The only use you can get out of this sort of vague survey is to say "see we are listening to the payers" when they really aren't. Wither they do anything or do nothing most people will believe them.

They can go along with any business design or plan and use this/more surveys like this as an excuse.

So unless they come up with a real informative survey they can't use "we listened to our audience" because they have no way of knowing what their audience have said.

It will pinpoint areas to look at. If the Sorcerer is more powerful than the rogue, or if majority of people see 1 class as stronger than all others and 1 as weaker than all others it will provide a point of investigation. This is not a survey to provide answers.

They are already getting a lot of verbal feedback on specific issues, and it would be difficult to compile the large amount of information on various issues if we each had to write an essay.

As a survey it serves its purpose to find out what people like and what people do not like about the system.

I also like how they had an area to fill in for gender so people that do not identify as male or female can identify as such. Reminds me a lot of the gender section in the PhB.

[Joe the Rat]

Why isn't the point here. The point is what. This is trying to identify where the issues are before diving into a pile of nerd rage over why a particular class or feature isn't working.

I get the idea behind the better/worse pairings. And you are free to not answer them if you don't think there's a difference between them. (WotC has fallen into the classic trap of thinking people will actually read the blurb of text at the top. If you want people to choose to skip items, remind them.)

I would have made this a 3-point scale anchored on each end with the classes compared, so that you can separate "classes are equally powerful" responses from "this is stupid" responses. But forced choice is an old and hallowed tradition, and honoring tradition is what 5th is all about :smallwink:

[JFahy]

I hope that, when I said I wasn't satisfied with Feat X, they don't take that to mean "Feat X isn't good enough"... :smalleek:

[Gnomes2169]

Anyone else thinking that maybe they just want to figure out which parts of the game people are most satisfied/ disasisfied with, so that in future surveys they don't have to make 300 questions of ratings for each and every class/ class feature and a box underneath to explain why the each class and feature recieved the (subjective) rating it did? As far as general surveys of game play and balance go, this is a passable way to figure out which classes/ feats need to be looked at first, since they would be the parts that the most people are most dissatisfied with. I fully expect further surveys to be more specific and interactive than this one, and to specifically deal with the results from this survey.

If I had to guess, I would probably have to say that the next survey will likely be about the ranger, druid and maybe berzerker barbarian and champion fighter.

[Person_Man]

I rated based on whether they are fun.

For this reason, even though I rated the overall system as Very Satisfied and most classes as some kind of Satisfied, I oddly ended up rating most class abilities as some kind of Dissatisfied.

For example, I don't think abilities that add +X to whatever are more fun. They're mostly just fiddly modifiers added for simulationist reasons. (My Fighter must deal slightly more damage with a two-handed weapon then the Wizard, damit!) So for example, all of the Fighting Styles got rated as Very Dissatisfied. I prefer active abilities that actually do fun things.


Oddly for me, I didn't consider game balance in my rankings. The weak abilities were already rated poorly for being non-fun. The strong abilities are a mix of fun and non-fun, which I rated accordingly. And the only true brokenness in 5E comes from a small number of spells, and they didn't ask my opinion on them.

[cobaltstarfire]

Anyone else thinking that maybe they just want to figure out which parts of the game people are most satisfied/ disasisfied with...

This is what I'm hoping they will do, maybe I should have put more emphasis in the OP on that they stated this is just the first of several surveys (did I even mention that? I can't remember what I wrote...)


I'm expecting they'll get super coarse results from this survey...and maybe that's what they want right now anyway, but I do share some of the worries other posters in this thread have expressed too over the survey at the moment.

[Balor777]

For example, I don't think abilities that add +X to whatever are more fun. They're mostly just fiddly modifiers added for simulationist reasons. (My Fighter must deal slightly more damage with a two-handed weapon then the Wizard, damit!) So for example, all of the Fighting Styles got rated as Very Dissatisfied. I prefer active abilities that actually do fun things.
Yes i had this in mind to with the "profficiensy" system.
A 16 STR wizard and a 16 STR human fighter will do the same damage and have the same accuracy when attacking with the same weapon..Its very odd.
1 level dip to fighter for the proficioancies/Style and wizard after that makes the wizard do the same damage till 11 level since he can cast Haste on him...
Paladin2/SorcX hits like a _____.And still can cast spells burning people to the ground with grace from range...
Also the barbarrian has only 30hp higher at 10 level from the 10 level wiz/sorc with this new take the average+1 system for HD when you level up...
Actualy the tough feat taken by wiz/sorc will make them have the same hp with the d10 classes.It should give 3hp per level to the barbar,2 to all others except sorc/wiz that should give them only 1hp per level.
The way it is at the book this feat will make the average wizard very "tough" compared to other wizards and the average barbarian a little bit bettercompared to other barbarrians.
There are many thinks that were intentionaly left half-odd for the sake of simplicity in this version.


small number of spells, and they didn't ask my opinion on them.
+1 on this.
I wanted to play Necromancer."Grim harvest" Nice! i will heal a lot of hp with horrid wilting with this.Ill check whats the damage on this spell.
... hmmm...wtf ! No horridwilting...What?...! no wail of the banshee too.

[kaoskonfety]

Looking at the questions that people are grabbing from the survey for examples the survey was written from marketing, not from game balance.

Ranger is weak seen as weak eh? Well then people will be likely to buy the Ranger splat book with new options and features, or we can push new ranger options into another product (dungeon module, setting book etc.) to help push sales on that product.

Fighter feats are rating favourably well compared to caster feats? Caster splat book/focused setting.

I could, VERY easily, be wrong. But I've worked in market research and this is what the data from these sorts of questions would be used for.

[DireSickFish]

Looking at the questions that people are grabbing from the survey for examples the survey was written from marketing, not from game balance.

Ranger is weak seen as weak eh? Well then people will be likely to buy the Ranger splat book with new options and features, or we can push new ranger options into another product (dungeon module, setting book etc.) to help push sales on that product.

Fighter feats are rating favourably well compared to caster feats? Caster splat book/focused setting.

I could, VERY easily, be wrong. But I've worked in market research and this is what the data from these sorts of questions would be used for.

Well I doubt they are going to go back and errata much from the base game. So guiding future development seems like a much more likely option. Perhaps with new classes/sub-classes to "fix" what people see wrong with the old ones. Or just to help design decisions on any new classes or feats they want to implement.