[SmilinIrish]

5th edition was plagued by poor editing, freelancers working in a vacuum (resulting in poorly coordinated rules mechanics), an apparent lack of playtesting, and lack of errata to fix errors .  Prominent members of this gaming community often made very logical cases about why some mechanics were very poor. 

I'm wondering if any CGL employees or freelancers can speak to these questions

Do we have any reason to believe that 6th edition editing will be better this time around? 

A game like D&D 5th was extensively playtested, with feedback and changes resulting from feedback.  Obviously, there was no open playtest for 6th, as it seems to be a surprise that we have a new edition at all.  But was there a decent pool of experienced Shadowrunners that playtested these rules? 

I saw a comment that an errata procedure was already in place.  Is this the case?

I'm not completely excited for a new edition, I liked a lot of things about 5th, and was hoping for an "anniversary edition" to clean up a lot of things.  I like some of what I've heard about 6th, not sure about other things.  I've only played fifth, so I have no attachment to "legacy" mechanics.  I liked initiative as it was, and I like sustaining spells, and handling drain differently from the casting roll.  I'm going to keep an open mind and see the new system as it comes out.  Ultimately, I'll be playing whatever edition my group chooses to play.  I'm just hoping for a better product this time around. 

[Michael Chandra]

Sustaining and drain rolls are still in. Theory is some QSR rules caused confusion.

As for the errata stuff: unless you assume Catalyst would lie about it.

[SmilinIrish]

Thanks for the reply Michael.  Were you involved in playtesting?  Is admitting to that something that is likely blocked by an NDA? 

[adzling]

There is an errata process in place for 6e and the team is already hard at work on it.

I just started reviewing 6e last night.

I cannot speak to any playtesting as I have no idea of anything beyond errata.

I haven't even read enough of the core book yet to understand if this edition will be better, worse, or something else.

All I can say is that at least we will have errata on publication...fingers crossed.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I can't say either how complete the errata process will be by Gen Con, but indeed 6e is different than 5e in that there's already a team in place and working on it.

[Michael Chandra]

Thanks for the reply Michael.  Were you involved in playtesting?  Is admitting to that something that is likely blocked by an NDA?

I am not posting anything that comes directly from playtesting, I am basing all of my statements on already-publicly-delivered material. Banshee has been providing clarifications both on this forum and in a gather-document, regarding stuff including Drain and Sustaining. He's been involved with a significant bit of the book.

[Banshee]

Yes, I have been involved with Sixth World from very early on, so while there are still plenty of things that I can not discuss in detail due to NDA until the book actually goes public I have been at least trying to play damage control on clarifying what information is out there.

 I can say there was a very open communication team that worked collaboratively to develop the basic rules from day one

Editing is definitely better, perfect no but better yes

Yes we had a dedicated group of playtesters, it was a closed group with mixed participants from casual players, to CDT team members, and game developers themselves. We spent over a year going through various incarnations.

And yes the errata team is already in place and working on it

[SmilinIrish]

Thank you so much for the straighforward answers.  Very relieved to hear about the misunderstanding about magic changes. 

[Professor_Ocecat]

As someone fairly new to Shadowrun, and having seen the comments on 5e, the responses to this post inspire hope for 6e to be a better system that listens to feedback. Regardless, I have fallen fast for both the setting of shadowrun and the 5e rules, and some of the new changes (such as the mentioned initiative) I'm not a huge fan of. Home rules exist for a reason though, and I look forward to the new system! (Worst case scenario is new tech to convert!)

[topcat]

SR has always had needlessly overcomplicated and unbalanced rules.  SR did well with each edition change previously, but this feels like it will be even more unbalanced and replace one brand of complication (every modifier) with another (edge, with varying exchange rates and constant comparisons to determine earnings).  The unarmed vs. melee thing seems particularly egregious - the kind of thing literally any playtesting would've exposed - so I'm hoping that something has been missing from descriptions so far.

I mean, I'll buy it because I buy everything SR.  I'm as big a fan of moving to new editions as anyone I know, but this just seems off.  Hoping things aren't as bad as I and others seem to fear.

[SunRunner]

Ok guys lets be cautiously optimistic here. Its super early to be all doom and gloom about 6th. We simply dont have enough info as the only people who have a clear picture of the rules are bound by NDA's and cant say much about them.

2nd lets think about the State of any edition of SR with just the core rule book available. Most of them had problems or weaknesses that got fixed by the expansion books like the cyber book, the magic book ect. I see everyone going crazy over the new initiative system and its seems mostly due to perceived loss of actions and OMG my Wired to the max street sam will not on average be able to take 6 actions anymore he will only get 2! We dont have enough info about how this works out to judge just how good or bad this is and we also dont know what the Cyber book will bring out right now the big thing I see is the 4 minors = a Major exchange rate. 1 piece of cyber that improves this to 3 to 1 or even 2 to 1 would quickly bring you back up to previous edition action totals. And we simply dont know if that exists or not.

[topcat]

I'm not even remotely worried about the changes to actions.  Everyone in my group has 3 actions now, barring a spectacularly good or somewhat bad roll.  The changes on the matrix side sound great so far, too

Currently, I'm worried about: 1) cost-benefit balance in the game for similar actions (e.g. melee vs. unarmed); and 2) whether edge is actually worse than the clunky modifiers it replaced.  I've never worried about SR releasing a bad change before, even in the information blackout before GenCon, but this one has me nervous.

[Shinobi Killfist]

SR has always had needlessly overcomplicated and unbalanced rules.  SR did well with each edition change previously, but this feels like it will be even more unbalanced and replace one brand of complication (every modifier) with another (edge, with varying exchange rates and constant comparisons to determine earnings).  The unarmed vs. melee thing seems particularly egregious - the kind of thing literally any playtesting would've exposed - so I'm hoping that something has been missing from descriptions so far.

I mean, I'll buy it because I buy everything SR.  I'm as big a fan of moving to new editions as anyone I know, but this just seems off.  Hoping things aren't as bad as I and others seem to fear.

The thing I somewhat hang my hope on is our understanding of the rules comes from one groups reading of them. Catalyst has a history of making their rules a bit obfuscated. So hopefully yes str effects melee damage not just unarmed.

The play seemed to indicate it’s a flat damage and that unarmed is str based but bone lacing replaces it with a flat damage.

Now every edition I felt bone lacing added too much to damage for what is essentially brass knucks. I’m not sure a flat 3 dmg for titanium reflects that and honestly 1 str brass knucks being the same as a heavy pistol seems insane. A troll swinging a axe hitting the same as a pixie insane. 

Given that they went overboard in making str effect damage in 5e I expected a correction. Not affecting damage at all would be crazy pants. It’s possible though that it’s indirect in that str is the stat for your melee die pool. But again the play indicated it was agility.

[kyoto kid]

...my concern is Missions changing to 6E midstream in the Neo Tokyo arc where suddenly all you have available is what is in the core rules and nothing more.

[PiXeL01]

Tokyo is most likely going to become double statted