If only WotC did this degree of play testing.

[Agrippa]

Now this is an article I found on one of my favorite old-school blogs (yes I have favorite old-school blogs deal with it). There are some obvious typos though but think of it this way. If Wizards play tested more of their material this way would there be as many balance issues, or at the very least wouldn't they be more openly acknowledged?

[LordBlades]

Most likely. The game definitely needed some more destructive playtesting.

[veekie]

Destructive playtesting certainly helps, though use-case playtesting(aka, run an actual campaign), performance testing, etc, all have a role, possibly a greater role. Its easy to fix by saying no when someone pulls out the Find the City Bomb, much harder to even realize theres a systematic gap between Fighter and anything else.

[LordBlades]

Destructive playtesting certainly helps, though use-case playtesting(aka, run an actual campaign), performance testing, etc, all have a role, possibly a greater role. Its easy to fix by saying no when someone pulls out the Find the City Bomb, much harder to even realize theres a systematic gap between Fighter and anything else.

Actually, based on what I've read about 3e and 3.5 playtests, the whole way they did it was wrong. They came with a series of preconceptions of 'class x should play like this' (wizards should blast, clerics should be healbots etc.), played the characters according to them, and concluded the game was good. Nobody actually tried to to get out of the box.

[veekie]

That would be one single test type, they tested one particular use case. Open betas can help drum up attention and publicity if they want more. But I suppose they're afraid of giving stuff out for free(which is kinda senseless because all these is part of a system and they'd have to buy the system to use it properly anyway)

[Bozwevial]

WotC actually did an okay job playtesting and balancing, but they focused on a certain level range. Past that point, the gap becomes a lot more prevalent. Throw in their assumptions about how classes were meant to function and a dash of confirmation bias...