More broadly, if you look at the results of the forums survey
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=712680-88% of people who filled out the form played DOS1/2
-82% played DAO
-69% played BG1/2
-82% are familiar with the 5e rules
-65% played tabletop 5e.
If you assume that the survey sample represents those who post on the forum (not unreasonable), we see that
more people are on this forum are here because they've played DOS1&2 or DAO versus BG1&2, and 35% (not an insignificant amount) have NOT played 5e. So posters on this forum are
not overwhelmingly from BG1&2/old D&D purists. A majority, sure, but also take into account that these players, like me, may have only played BG1&2 in recent years after starting with 5e.
If you look at the answers of only those who are NOT familiar with 5e (assuming that these type of players are the "mainstream" audience Larian is looking for)
https://i.imgur.com/KAcSU4N.png, they still dislike e.g., surface effects, increased HP, and stealthing as a bonus action available to everyone.
tl;dr: I don't agree with your assertion that most people on this forum have been playing D&D for 20-30 years. And even if they are, there are still common arguments between "d&d purists" and "mainstream players"
I would ideally like to have access to the dataset so I could draw my own conclusions from it, but I will (for now) accept these numbers as given as a representation of the forums. I will add that I am not entirely convinced the language used in that survey passes a test for bias, but I don't want to be stuck quibbling about minutiae all day. With that being said, this still all comes back to my initial point that I made 2 pages ago however of, "even if it is what all of the players want, we don't know if it is what Larian wants," and until they clarify what they are and are not willing to budge on, its just a matter of us going back in forth in circular arguments.
It was mean as a compliment. If it came across as anything else it was due to the fact that I took charisma as a dump stat
It was also a "I see what did you did there" combined with a "well done". I declared myself a pleb and you challenged that. As far as ad populum there is a variant in which an argument is dismissed because it is associated with a particular elite group of people. It's a particularly powerful technique because people are rarely willing to give up their (hard earned) status as experts in a matter. The more you put yourself forth as an authority, the deeper the hole gets. For someone who hasn't had a rhetoric class you've intuited the form perfectly. I think @uncle lester's chosen word of "veteran" is a good one but I think we've found our word -- nerd. Doesn't have unfortunate connotations of expert but makes the case well.
Ok, then thanks :P
And this is where I see the form returning. Having agreed that BG2 was a nerd's game and was better for it I think you return to the "biased sample" by saying that any forum feedback is poisoned because forums are out of date.
BG 1 and 2 were made in a different era, when the market was much smaller, much less saturated and the expectations of the player were different. At the time when BG 1 and 2 were released, most people playing PC games were us nerds. You could reasonably expect the people who are playing the game, to have some understanding of the ruleset . . .
Forums are still largely visited by the same groups of people however, the newer communities in gaming prefer different mediums of communication . . . My point being, time goes on, things change.
Or, in brief, that assessment is out of date. Right? It's a way of dismissing the sense of the majority of the forum.
And it gets to the point of our disagreement -- I don't have strong opinions about how the X men movies should be made but I do their success has come, in part, because the directors have paid such close attention to the opinions of the comic book nerds. I really do think those nerds are as responsible for the success of movies I enjoyed as were the producers.
This is different to today, where I would argue that the average person playing PC games is not us nerds, it is far more of a mainstream hobby. There is another aspect of this as well, D&D itself has changed. Back when D&D was originally conceived, its roots were in war gaming. At the time of 2e, this was still present to some extent, with some of the rules like for example the different armor types being good against different damage types being present because of this.
I don't disagree with the theater of mind the mind characterization but I don't think it applies to the discussion -- I'm not critiquing the theatre of the mind aspects of the game, I'm interested in combat aspects. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give Larian a 9 on capturing "theatre of the mind feel" and a 5 on "D&D combat feel". I'd also argue that Larian markets itself as company that excels at tactical play.
As I said in my very first post in response to you, better is subjective and it depends on the person giving feedback. Better for you does not necessarily mean better for someone else.
But that's a given. In the absence of data we only have access to our opinions. Like the OP, I would like to see an official poll. Unlike you I think that if the devs listen to results of that poll and make changes it will be to their benefit.
Larian already has the loyalty of DOS fans, it needs to earn the loyalty of 5th edition fans. I'm trying to help them do that. It just so happen that a side effect of my generosity is a game I would really like to play
See response to @mrfuji3 above, I will concede that it might be the majority view for now, but as I said, even if it is, we do not know if its a topic that Larian is willing to budge on.
No. If you actually look at the threads majority are of the more mundane, superficial, mainstream nature.
The majority of the threads which are opened do not make up the majority of the discussion which is taking place. I am not going to scrape the forums to gather data to prove this point, but I think we can both agree that the majority of discussion which is occurring here, can be attributed to only a few posters, which are pushing a very clear narrative.
Additionally, the term "hardcore" and "deeply entrenched" and meaningless negative classifications that dont say anything about the actual suggestions and ideas. You just paint whoever you want with that broad brush and then take that as somehow relevant in considering how good their suggestions or ideas are. Which is completely nonsense.
Those terms were not negative. Indeed, I consider myself to have a more "hardcore" mindset and I also have some opinions which are, "deeply entrenched." If you see them as being negative, then that is entirely on you. We can quibble about whether they are meaningless or not and we can very easily remove any possibility of "meaninglessness" as well. If you want, I will define exactly what I mean by them, then you have some terms to use.
And of course according to yourself, any and all ideas and suggestions are meaningless because someone else will dislike them. I.e there cannot be anything better than anything else.
Which will of course make the whole game meaningless and not "good" because someone will dislike it. As if "someone" simply disliking something is an issue of actual quality and merit of that thing.
The Absolute relativism.
I never said that at all, although what I said was similar and I guess can be interpreted that way. What I said is, what is good and what is bad is subjective and is dependent on the person who is making the judgement call as well as whatever criteria they are using. In this case, the person who has the ultimate authority is not you, or me, or anyone else involved in the argument, it is Larian. That does not make the ideas meaningless at all, it just means that the framework in which you judge them changes depending on the circumstances. For example, I am a huge fan of both 4x games and RPGs, but if I used the criteria that I use to judge a 4x game in order to judge an RPG, I would be doing the RPG a disservice. Obviously, after a game is finished, the crowd which ultimately decides what is good or bad is arguably the market, although that doesn't stop me from personally considering things which the market hates to be "good."
