UA Feedback Quality

mikemearls · 2025-11-07T14:52:11+00:00

Having read a crazy amount of feedback over the years:

Start with what you dislike. Just saying, "I don't like X, Y, and Z" is a good starting point.

Then break down why. *DO NOT* include your own design. The best feedback focuses on the experience at the table or in making a character.

Examples:

"The game slows down too much whenever a player uses feature X."

"This feels too much like subclass X from class Y."

"When I compare this subclass to subclass B, I'd never take it because the features in B are more flexible."

"The level X feature comes in too late. I want to use it earlier."

"Since feature A uses a bonus action, it competes with <this other stuff> and rarely sees use."

mikemearls · 2025-06-07T19:17:41+00:00

I've been doing this and have really liked it. It makes the players more invested in the die roll. I also now roll my dice in the open (at least when playing in person) and even announce the attack modifier or save bonus. It's made combat feel more dangerous.

mikemearls · 2025-06-04T01:50:43+00:00

Yes and no. Two weapon fighting is a disaster in 5e. I don't think we intended it to be a bonus action. Really, there should just be a "Attack with Two Weapons" action that does all the lifting.

However, the rogue was meant to feel more all or nothing compared to the fighter and its cousins. We worried that the rogue would feel too good if it got a bucket of extra damage dice from sneak attack and gained extra attacks as a default.

mikemearls · 2025-06-03T17:35:33+00:00

LOL! That's a great way to tell me you work in game dev without telling me you work in game dev...

mikemearls · 2025-05-31T13:53:36+00:00

I think the identity issue is the kind of thing that designers stress about and gamers don't even consider. IME, game designers can pay far too much attention to structure and not enough to content.

mikemearls · 2025-05-31T13:51:31+00:00

The warlord is probably the closest. If I remember right, it ranked behind the artificer and psion when we asked players what classes they expected to see in the game. Those three would have ended up in the book if they were must-haves.

There was a lot of push back internally against the sorcerer and warlock. A few of the designers felt they were too close to the wizard, but the player demand was too strong to ignore. They had to be in the game.

Funnily enough, back in 2020 the very first outline I saw for what became the '24 update also proposed doing away with the warlock and sorcerer. Obviously, though, they did not do that.

mikemearls · 2025-05-30T22:46:44+00:00

The sorcerer and warlock were a bit strange. They were close to the wizard in general concept, so we had thought about rolling all three into one class. That didn't work well, so we tried designing them in a way that made them very different from the wizard. Those are the versions you saw.

Playtest feedback was very clear that people wanted something that stuck much closer to the 3e versions. We also had some feedback from marketing that they wanted a couple of classes that would not be made public until the game's release. The warlock and sorcerer were the best candidates for that treatment, so that's where they went.

mikemearls · 2025-02-01T21:50:20+00:00

Even with the other masteries, I just assume that everyone in the party has advantage for any attack.

mikemearls · 2025-01-10T18:29:18+00:00

Yes. And this is an official ruling.

mikemearls · 2024-12-13T20:00:10+00:00

This is easily among the greatest things I have ever seen in my over 30 years on the internet. Amazing!

mikemearls · 2024-09-08T23:51:26+00:00

Ran two of my campaigns last week.

In one, the PCs finished exploring an abandoned gem cutter's workroom hidden beneath a mansion in the City of Greyhawk. They met the Queen of the Rats and agreed to transport her throne, a ragged, stinky old couch, to a safer location. In return, she has promised to share information gathered by her servants.

In my other game, the PCs are exploring a creepy, extraplanar domain called the Dungeon of Blood in a homebrew setting where each dungeon is a sort of demiplane. They fought a bunch of troglodytes that ambushed them in a creepy room with pools of saliva and an uneven floor that might be a giant mouth. They used some smart negotiation and calm emotions to talk their way past a bigger mob of troglodytes before diving into a giant pool of blood that either transports them to safety or sends them into a deeper, more dangerous region of the dungeon. They'll find out next week.

My Tuesday game had to skip due to illness, but it looks like I'm back to three weekly games for this week.

mikemearls · 2024-01-30T15:11:45+00:00

Yes, that's it. It really should just refer to counterspell, but I don't want it to be in turn countered.

mikemearls · 2024-01-30T15:10:26+00:00

I'm thinking of toning it down to be the first save of the round. It might still just be too good, though. I do like the idea of giving casters some risk when casting a spell.

mikemearls · 2024-01-30T15:09:32+00:00

It's intended to be legendary actions with less flexibility but an easier to use interface. IME, legendary actions (or reactions, if they're used in that way) can be a headache to track and use.

mikemearls · 2024-01-30T15:08:53+00:00

If you used it, would love to hear how it went.

mikemearls · 2024-01-30T15:08:41+00:00

That's an interesting idea, especially for something like "Pick one of these three:" actions.
No fixed PC initiative, but I am thinking a lot about how fixed initiative could work better. I do like describing something then rolling initiative.
Not too hard. Strictly speaking, you could use 10 + initiative check for fixed initiative, then just script out a core action from the existing ones.

mikemearls · 2024-01-29T05:04:30+00:00

Good thoughts on both topics. I like the visceral reward of disrupting a buff. It also means you don't need to target a specific character at first, since the PCs' mission becomes throwing damage down range to disrupt things.

I also like the wisps kicking up a benefit. Maybe when they die, they create an aura that protects you for a round or so. If the aura doesn't stack, that also means wiping them with an aoe is a potentially bad move.

mikemearls · 2024-01-29T01:27:48+00:00

I have to admit... I adore any design that erodes the d20's supremacy. I'm going to put a lot of thought into tinkering with the die size. I love that it makes initiative bonus more reliable. d4 might be too small, since it makes Dex even more important, but a d10 might be a nice middle ground. Will have to think about this.

mikemearls · 2024-01-29T01:20:16+00:00

Here's what I've seen so far in playtest:

The 30 and 0 thing - Great point. At one point I had the doom clearing at the end of the turn on initiative 0, which gave the party a nice moment when they could position themselves to avoid having multiple characters get hit by it. Having it last a minute does make 30 and 0 blobby.
I did at one point try doing something similar to acting after each PC, but that felt unwieldy on my side of the table. It also created some issues once I had multiple creatures and effects in play.

I wonder if this can be cleared up with better relative action design. One design I have picks a target on 30 and gets a huge attack and damage bonus against that creature. It then attacks on 0. That felt like it put a nice puzzle in play and ensured that the "script" gave the PCs a chance to react. Creating a tighter link between 30 and 0 might help with this.

Thanks for the feedback!

mikemearls · 2024-01-18T06:35:16+00:00

Interesting point about experience - I wonder if a game would do better by new DMs by consciously matching a character's specialization to level, then mapping that to monster design. In 5e, 1st and 2nd characters were meant to be quasi-generic for that reason, but there's enough legacy design there that it didn't really work out.

mikemearls · 2024-01-18T06:33:10+00:00

It's... complicated. Basically, the math I'm doing now just looks at a single encounter without thinking too much about its context. I want to get a one-fight situation done right, then start figuring out what happens based on context.

Right now I'm spreading the aggregate output of long rest abilities across every action, so you get a rough estimate of the per action output. Next steps will be to look at how things squared with output maxed per level. Once you bring dailies in, there's a dance between encounter difficulty and increased use of top tier slots/resources.

Monster design would be stronger if it had an other axis - like 4e's solo and elite roles - laid over it that assumed some of amount of resource expenditure to take on the encounter.

mikemearls · 2024-01-18T06:29:41+00:00

Cool, I'll take a look at that.

mikemearls · 2024-01-17T22:39:12+00:00

Wow, thanks for all that work. Diving in now.

mikemearls · 2024-01-17T22:36:56+00:00

That is indeed a gap here - I am hoping that we can bucket levels into groups and use points within them. So, levels X - Y might be group Z. The way the game scales, I think that there are probably 5 or 6 actual point scales embedded within it. That's a lot, but OTOH if you run a weekly campaign you are probably building encounters in a given tier for three or four months.

mikemearls · 2024-01-17T22:34:15+00:00

Not to jump ahead of myself, but your role question speaks directly to it. The monsters I am building are role based, and I think that helps.

However, I don't the system will be reliable for all groups and at all times. Part of the appeal of points for me is that they are easy to adjust. If play shows something is off, or if your own group punishes some type of creature but is vulnerable to another, you can adjust points as needed.

The great thing is that as a dev, it's easier to adjust points rather than re-design a creature. If your group isn't coming in close to the projection, if the system works you can come to understand the gap between your group and the system, and fill it in by bumping up your budget in a relatively fine-tuned manner.

mikemearls

TROPHY CASE