Why 4e Failed

>That's extreme imbalance, not imbalance in of itself being bad.

When it imbalance good then? As two things having different strengths and weaknesses isn't imbalance if they are capable in their strengths.

I'm saying it's a poor argument for imbalance being automatically bad if you only resort to the most extreme circumstance. Your second post had more elaboration, but not by a lot.

So when is imbalance good then? In what situation is it good to say 'X character is better than Y character as a general rule'?

When they are specialized differently because the game allows it. In example, a thief in OD&D is way worse at fighting thana Fighting Man, but not imbalanced. 4e does not allow this kind of good gameplay.

The fetishizing of balance is why I can't throw interesting encounters at my players without someone whining ' it isnt balanced'.

This is an anonymous image board user. THIS is my second post. Moving on.

If only extreme imbalance is a problem, then it shouldn't be a problem to have a campaign where one player starts at level 2 and the others are level 1.

This is obviously bad design, but it's only a small difference, so it should be ok, right?

>When they are specialized differently because the game allows it.

He said when one character is better than the other as a general rule. As in, better all around.

>4e does not allow this kind of good gameplay.

Ain't nothing stopping you from making a rogue that has low combat stats but loads of skill proficiencies and utility feats.

was for

The different classes in 4e are good at different things, which is a factual counter-example.

Balance between players is a whole different matter from balanced encounters. Making your encounters balanced or unbalanced is on you as a DM.

>In what situation is it good to say 'X character is better than Y character as a general rule'?
In a rock paper scissors situation, off the top of my head. There's a big difference between "this Overwatch character will kick THIS Overwatch character's ass" and "the wizard will kick everyone's asses." Aside from that, some imbalance can be allowed if it provides more interesting options but doesn't result in huge powe-gaps. Hell, chess is imbalanced because the white pieces always go first, but most people don't see that as a reason to bitch about it.

Spotlight balance isn't some universally good gameplay mechanic. In fact, it's often considered one of the worst ones in games that rely on it heavily (Shadowrun is the most obvious example). You can enjoy it, but just saying, it's not something that can be really argued to be universally good.

Besides, in smaller scope it still exists. If you want to protect someone or break down a door, you still want a fighter, and if you want to kill someone or unlock a door all sneakily, you still need a Thief/Rogue.

>In a rock paper scissors situation, off the top of my head.

But RPS is not imbalanced. It's one of the examples of a perfectly balanced game, in fact.

Thief is a shit class because it takes away from everyone else out of combat while sucking in it. Bad example.

Dissociated mechanics are a fine enough reason not to like a game. Every edition of D&D has had disassociated mechanics, though, ranging from abilities that have restricted usages based on when you've rested to maneuvers that work slightly counter to their description for balance purposes.

Yes, like.. what exactly? Can you even provide examples for your assertions?

If you're going into your design as ' what would be the perfect X balanced combats in a row for these X level players' rather than ' what organically makes sense based on my Gameworld to be in this area, you're playing a video game not a roleplaying game.

There's no reason at all you can't put a cavern with a bunch of piss easy to kill kobolds next to an adult dragon. Is it balanced ? No. Does it make sense? Yes.

Then it's up to the players how they tackle it.

But that was given as an example of balance in . Strengths and weaknesses.

The rogue deals more damage against surprised or flanked opponents with its backstab and stealth abilities.

The cleric can heal.

In other words, really obvious stuff that's only hard to see if you want to hate on 4e.

Can't we all just get along?

Instead of an inflammatory and arguable statement like "Why 4e failed", a more neutral statement of "What didn't work well in 4e?" and that would stop people familiar with the system from having to begin with defending it. We could all actually give it a fair evaluation, rather than the inevitable edition warring. Your entire OP doesn't even try to pretend it's not juvenile baiting, and we could do with a lot less of that here.

To begin with, 4e didn't really "fail" by any objective metric. It was the best-selling RPG while it was in print, and even afterwards it took a fair amount of time to slip behind Pathfinder. Even today it still has a decent following, and while that may be in part thanks to brand recognition, many of its mechanics and the paradigm shifts it hoped to initiate can still be found inspiring many later designs.

A lot of what's "wrong" with 4e comes down to a matter of opinion, and it's important to understand and respect that. A lot of arguments can be settled right from the get go if we recognize what is a subjective opinion, and not try to present anything we say as a fact unless it actually is. This OP in particular is entirely made up of opinionated conjecture, and I think it goes without saying that it was made to try and rouse up rather pointless arguments between people.

>Try and keep the discussion intelligent

To do this would be to ignore the OP, and hopefully discourage him from this sort of half-hearted trolling in the future.

Sure. Which sort of things would you like comparisons in? Combat, non-combat? What? Sorry but 'Every difference between every class' is a bit broad when it would be entirely possible to explain how the defenders are all different to each other.

Yes, so while the good old "oh yeah, but what about this other game" is an alright distraction, no one disassociated like 4e.

Board game user, don't say video game it gets them triggered.

Ooh, so different compared to other dnd's!

Objectively speaking it failed in the only defineable measures, money earned and number of players.

>Ooh, so different compared to other dnd's!
Then why are you complaining.

AHAHA SHITTY CASTER EDITION IS DEAD YOU MUST CHANGE TO 4E NOW EXCEPT THERE'S NO MORE OGL SO YOU USE ONLY OFFICIAL BOOKS AND FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK THEY'RE BROKEN - THEY'RE PERFECT YOU'RE JUST TOO DUMB TO UNDERSTAND THEM.

>It was the best selling RPG while it was in print
I guess that might be true, despite no evidence. If you don't count Pathfinder.

The ride never ends. It can't end, if it did both sides would lose purpose and wander aimlessly in the wasteland they created.

Mearls specifically stated every edition has outsold the last.

They're very different, they use different stats to do the same thing.

Not really a distraction. The fact is, if you don't want disassociated mechanics as a rule, D&D is not for you.

Anyway, yes. The primary difference between D&D 4e and D&D, say, 5e in this regard is that 4e has more abilities like this (as in, every martial has at least two powers that works in this way). The designers decided that if you don't mind some, you won't mind a lot.

I feel like it's not a good argument for why 4e is bad. But it's entirely a good reason not to play it. For a long time I didn't like disassociated mechanics at all, and I wouldn't have played any edition of D&D.

Then it's linked twice now. Double the fun, double the FUCK YOU YOU PIECE OF OWLBEAR SHIT!

Trying to make this into a "both sides" issue is hiding the problem here. You can't make something into a two sided conflict when one side just wanted to play a game and not be lied to or insulted.

Pathfinder is an edition of dnd? Well if you count it with 3.5 it dwarfs 4e and approaches 5e so...

>If you're going into your design as ' what would be the perfect X balanced combats in a row for these X level players' rather than ' what organically makes sense based on my Gameworld to be in this area

I didn't say you should or have to, user. I said that's between you and your group. I didn't advocate for anyone designing their games like that. It's on you design encounters and decide what players find in their world.

It's an entirely separate issue from player character balance, was what I was pointing out.

>Tries to make it out that insane 4e defenders aren't the problem
This is like Irish Catholics vs Protestants.

Not really providing me with anything to work with here. You want differences between classes, pick any two and I'll happily explain how they are different. Even if you go two as similar as the Rogue and Assassin.

Thanks for proving my point.
THE RIDE NEVER ENDS
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The problem with these discussions is that people are unable to differentiate their thoughts from their feelings.

Here comes the lying again.

I got your thoughts and feelings right here.

No! You're lying because you aren't biased to my side! I am factual and rational!
Etc.

see

The difference between 4e and 3e players is that 4e players want off the ride.

So, since rogues were brought up.

Rogues have more skills than other classes, as in every edition of D&D. They're more adept at navigating social situations in many cases, as they often want high CHA, but shine in the areas you'd expect them to shit - sneaking, thieving, etc. They have utility abilities that enhance these capabilities or grand them extra mobility. For example, the ability to tumble gracefully in a way that lets you fall in a less lethal and more dashing manner, re-roll bluff attempts, or hide actions more proficiently.

Obviously, a paladin will have very different utilities.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. You just need to know what you're getting yourself into. You could argue that the Fate Point mechanic in FATE is dissociative and you'd be right, but that's kind of the point of the game. You're not literally playing the character so much as you're playing one of many narrators, who has control over how your character acts.

No they don't! They love being the victims, it validates why their edition failed.

>They love being the victims

I mean, someone literally made a 'Your edition sucks' thread about it. We're talking in it.

"3e is the best system ever and 4e is bad!" is not a lie. This kind of subjective claim has a legal term, and that's "huffing." Consumers are held responsible for what huffing they choose to believe.

"4e players are just as bad as 3e players!" IS a lie as long as you say it while being aware of the fact that at one point the janitor of Veeky Forums deleted 4e threads and posts whenever they were flooded with pro-3e posts, and that 3e threads have never received this treatment.

You are entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to spread misinformation.

Yeah, but OP secretly loves 4e, he just likes the attention.

>if he side I like starts shit, theyr'e not the problem
>if the side I don't like starts shit, they're the problem

You bore me user.

This is how many cocks the 3.X player sucks, enough that he continues on edtion warring long after the replacement has been released. That he inserts himself into threads about an older game specifically to start shit because god forbid those people discuss the game they play and see if its a better fit for anybody than their current game of choice. But no, he does not stop there, God forbid anybody not be in the know of how many phalli a day he smokes so he starts his own, very obvious, bait thread utilizing out of context posts from a previous thread in a degrading manner as if his own shit does not stink.

Dude, did you miss the point entirely?

>Try and keep the discussion intelligent

Why would we put more effort into your thread than you did? Your "points" are intentionally overblown in multiple cases, and outright lie on what their sources indicate in at least one case.

4e certainly had multiple important issues:

The first was a presentation problem, as book decided for a much "cleaner, modern" look, with white backgrounds, and all class abilities receiving ability boxes like 2e abilities, or 3e spells, and being called "powers." This created a sense of isolation to both the powers and the edition as a whole, as it simply LOOKED different than previous editions.

The second were design choices and mathematical errors that prolonged combat in dull ways. The designers noted that their CRs may be a little high in terms of raw character challenge. (meaning that monster's dangers were overvalued: a level 8 party might have no problem facing CR 10 enemies) and their math made it easier for monsters to hit players over time, and harder for players to hit monsters. So combats at "correct" CR didn't threaten the players, but lasted longer than it should as well, creating the "slogfest" that is often mentioned. (interestingly, this problem is a much more complicated process than the constant repetition of it might make you think. 5e, for instance, is actually "slower" than both 4e and 3e in raw turn numbers, but the reduced options for the majority of the party and the resulting lack of Analysis Paralysis increase turn rates, making it seem faster, since you personally get to do something more often, even though that thing is less effective.)

The last issue is a fundamental one, and it's the most controversial one: the New Coke effect.

(cont)

...

>what organically makes sense based on my Gameworld to be in this area
You've never played old school D&D, or hell, any D&D, have you?

Good

The sales numbers aren't well known and highly contested. My personal research is that 4e was only outsold by Pathfinder during a few-month stretch where 4e didn't release any new material, as it was preparing for the switch to Essentials, and Pathfinder did.

A 3e thread has not once been deleted due to pro-4e derailment. Not once.

You can go on Veeky Forums at any time there is a pathfinder/3.x general, and there may or may not be an anti-3e post in the whole thread. Conversely, you cannot have a 4e thread go to autosage without somebody coming in to talk shit.

Don't just take my word for it. If you are legitimately curious which playerbase starts shit, just read the threads that don't start like the OP and are benign threads about a system. Hell, tally up what kinds of edition war threads get started. I'll telll you ahead of time that they tend to look like this.

Pro 4e thread
>this is why I like 4e

anti 4e thread
>this is why I don't like 4e

Talking about why you like something isn't talking shit as long as it isn't about building yourself up by tearing somebody down.

>The old 4e was only disliked due to presentation and some "minor" math problems pasta
Shit, I remember maybe 9 years ago when that was made to mock 4e players.

Objectively speaking it succeeded in the only definable measures, since it lead the market in both those categories. If it failed, every other game during its print run was an even bigger failure.

While it failed to meet Hasbro's expectations, they were actually comparing the RPG revenue to that of another WotC property they acquired, MTG, which isn't a fair comparison by any measure. Hence, why D&D got downsized, but the MTG department expanded.

RPG's have always been a difficult market to turn a profit, and even 5e, which is generally considered a huge success, is only being kept afloat with essentially a skeleton crew of designers primarily so that Hasbro can continue to attempt to milk the D&D Brand Name, which is more recognizable and profitable than all their attempts to expand MTG outside of its lucrative CCG domination. Hence, why we can look forward to more and more D&D licensed products and the upcoming D&D movies, while the actual game products are reduced to one book every six months or so.

RPGs have never been terribly profitable (companies declaring bankruptcy are a rather common occurrence), but Hasbro gambled on 4e with rather unrealistic expectations and the hope that a lot of money spent on marketing would help them expand the D&D fanbase. Their gamble didn't turn out as expected, but to call 4e a failure is still a subjective mark, and one that fails the definition you provided, since it sat firmly at the #1 spot in both players and books sold during its print run.

I liked the rogue power that let you disarm traps or pick locks as a minor action.

Just the idea of a dude Errol Flynning off a bunch of assailants with one hand while casually disarming some complicated mechanism behind his back makes me smile.

Ah, the old lie. Ryan Dancey said it didn't meet Hasbros expectations for sales so everyone adds on their own piece to make it a lie
>It just didn't compare to Magic in sales.
If that's what you need to believe for some reason.

If a movie makes 300 mil in revenue but it cost 600 mil to make and market it then it is a failure even if it is the top selling movie of the week. All I'm saying is going by number of sales is retarded when we don't know cost.

icv2.com/articles/news/view/35150/hobby-games-market-nearly-1-2-billion
>TCGs: $625m
>RPGs: $35m

How else do you explain the #1 selling game not meeting expectations, aside from the expectations exceeding the market?

It's like being the best high jumper in the world but still not qualifying because the organizers set the bar so high that no one would be able to clear it.

You're an idiot, obviously it doesn't sell as much as MTG, that's not why Hasbro canned 4e. It was because 4e wasn't able to turn a profit. They had to downsize so many employees! The idea that it just "didn't make enough compared to MTG" is a fanboy dream born from Hasbro classifying their lines differently. The real answer is that it Just Didn't make enough.

user, you don't understand what bestselling means. It means it is in the top 100 for a particular section. Being #45 best selling fantasy book is not an indicator for profit.

Your whole argument is flawed.

You keep saying "not meeting expectations" do you know what those are for a business? The difference in sales and profit?

As you may or may not be aware, back in the 80's, Coca-Cola tried to tweak their recipe for Coke. If you are aware of it, you're probably aware that this turned into a huge PR disaster for them, as people rallied around the old Coke recipe. What you might NOT be aware of is the fact that these very same people, in a taste test, would prefer New Coke. But a small vocal group (roughly 10% of those surveyed during Coke's initial market research) violently protested the idea of 'replacing Coke'. They did not CARE that even they personally preferred the new version, they still wanted the old one to be "Coke" And the resulting PR mess lead to national protests and, notably, a surge in Pepsi sales.

D&D 4e triggered this same impulse: it was a 'replacement' of a beloved brand, connected with many emotions. And 4e was in no way New Coke levels of superior, as noted. The rules presentation was aggressively syntaxed, and the combat balance "issues" compounded that fact.

To complicate matters, as noted, the New Coke mess created a (brief) window of success for Pepsi. And Wizards had, inadvertently, created its own Pepsi: Paizo, who had run Dungeon and Dragon magazines for Wizards for 5 years, creating new content, working with Wizard devs, and generally mastering the 3.5 system.

So when Wizards cut them out of Dungeon and Dragon for the new edition, and Paizo saw the building fanbase that was vehemently against the new edition, they said "Fuck it, why don't we take advantage of that market?" Wizards couldn't stop them, as the rules had been under OGL. To return to the New Coke analogy, it would be like if Pepsi had the Old Coke formula, and said "Well, shit, if they're going to make New Coke, we'll just crank out more Old Coke in a different can!"

This is not to say that the people who fought against 4e were dumb, or tricked. It's a quirk of human psychology. People prefer things they're familiar with, and don't want beloved things to change.

Do you have a citation for your theory?

>They had to downsize so many employees!
This happened during 3E's lifespan too.

Different user here, you first.

What is your info source for this pic

If there isn't one for either then it's a draw and both are conjecture right?

Because both are conjecture.

Well, they went from 77 employees to under 20, game stores started putting 4e at discount and clearance. Distributors reported lower than expected sales.

Is a thing

Do you need to invent a Too High Standards story to explain it?

I'm a different user to the one making claims about performance expectations. I'm curious about if this '4e failed so they needed to scrap people' has any actual evidence to back it up.

That's my assumption, yeah.

I think a lot of these talking points are speculative just because it's very difficult to have a conversation about the games themselves.

In a moderated debate forum, making a lot of weak points to discredit your opponent is discouraged, but nonstop attacking looks like winning. That means that rather than simply conceding some points, people would rather grasp at straws.

So let's say, theoretically, that 4e players never played offense and posted exclusively in 4e threads, and that every single 4e thread had edition war trolling in it from 3e players. This isn't extremely far from what I believe, but we don't need to treat this as more than a thought experiment for the sake of this post.

If the troll posts are ignored, they become truth by repetition, which poisons the well against 4e.

If they respond to the points calmly, it leads to a cycle of:
short, quippy, wrong point-> detailed correction short, quippy, wrong point->...
That is playing defense, which is ALSO losing in any unmoderated debate, and ALSO poisons the well.

The only thing left to do is resort to trolling, but 4e players trolling in their own threads is sort of like trying to fight people drilling holes in your ship by drilling holes of your own.

Basically, there is no way to escape a decade-long edition siege, (it's hardly a war at this point) even if you want nothing else.

Basically, we're reduced to the question of "What does it mean for an RPG to fail?"

Failing to meet the stock holder's expectations of sales? That doesn't sound like a particularly noteworthy metric.
Failing to obtain certain awards? A strange metric, since RPG awards are still in their infancy despite some being decades old.
Failing to reach a certain rung on the popularity ladder?
Failing to have a certain percentage of players?
Failure to keep the company from bankruptcy? That's an interesting one, since even TSR ended up falling apart (through a number of reasons).

Failing to return investment is an interesting metric, especially when you incorporate marketing into that equation, but everything regarding that is shrouded in mystery, and we can only extrapolate guesses from a handful of sources. 4e may have succeeded in being profitable, just not as profitable as it was expected to be, or it may have not been profitable thanks to overspending on a ineffectual marketing campaign and investments in parallel projects, since it's unlikely that the RPG development costs weren't recouped.

All in all, we're left with a vague question and an even vaguer definition.

In order, conjecture and unverified claim.

>What you might NOT be aware of is the fact that these very same people, in a taste test, would prefer New Coke.

You're depending on this to make your point, and that's largely you conflating separate points of research.

I went and checked out the article that graph is from and even the article admits that the data is not likely a full view of it (Among other reasons, because 4e had a big, established character builder and search system that meant people didn't need to google stuff related to it as well as being the in-print edition at that point and falling under generic 'D&D searches'). It's an interesting graph but it's usefulness is a bit less clear because it's a single, narrow view.

Conjecture and unverified claim to believe it was due to Hasbro having unrealistic standards?

I thought it was just needing to believe the thing you loved was good and corporate boogeymen took it away?

That's true. As someone who does actually recall the way partisan lines were drawn during the release period, it does seem to reflect the behavior of the fanbase at the time.

I mean, the parallel is pretty strong already as it ended up the same way, with the whole thing empowering a rival company.

And 4e had problems, especially in the beginning. In addition to combat issues, the suggested Skill Check DCs in the DMG were set too high. (We're talking "20 in a stat, trained in the skill, and a racial bonus" still wouldn't get you 50/50 odds on the Hard DC.)

It looked weird as shit, it TALKED weird as shit (4e created a lot of jargon for things that had existed in previous editions of D&D, and then started using them before explaining them. For instance "shifting" was the new term for movement that did not provoke attacks of opportunity, based off of previous edition's "5-foot step" rule. But you had class abilities saying "Shift 4 squares" a hundred pages before that definition was provided. ) It was replacing something beloved, fucking up the math while doing so, and it had created a market of competition through its own beloved legacy.

It was out of print towards the end of the graph, and doing generic D&D searches was more likely to get you giantitp and enworld 3e. But there is definitely vagueness

Both. So far, there has been nothing in this thread, or any others, which irrefutably proves one side or the other. The whole thread is shitposts, including my own.

I dunno, I liked these poats

I never once felt my character.

I felt like wotc ranger or wizard build.

Rules in systems, are points of emphasis. They are used to make players pay attention and suggest this should be a part of game play.

The powers hindered role play, bc they said these are actions you can't take till you unlock them. So you cease to be a character rafting to a world the best way you can, and are now a player with an available tool kit that has to be utilizied and only utilized when granted.

So, help me out.

#1 RPG. Outselling all of its competitors by a wide margin. Remaining as the #1 best seller in its category up until Pathfinder, and outselling its predecessor edition.

The most popular and played game during its print run. More players than any other game, and potentially more players than it predecessor for a large window of time.

What expectations were failed, aside from expectations based on believing in a much larger market than actually existed and that terrible advertising could somehow expand that market to an infeasible degree?

Inb4 someone comes and talks down to you because that was just the majority experience and not theirs.

Imagine wanting to hit an enemy a certain way and having a DM go "sorry, that's already in a higher level power" or "sorry, rogues do that" and you get the picture