As discussed in our latest dev updates, development for the encounter builder is in progress and alpha access will be open for subscribers in 2019. Throughout the alpha and beta periods, we are going to be taking community feedback very seriously to ensure the encounter builder meets the need for the most people possible. I'll kick off with an example here in this thread:
The upcoming Encounter Builder on D&D Beyond will represent monster information in some places in summary form for quick viewing. To help us determine what information to include and prioritize in that summary, rank the following in order of how important the information is for you to see at a glance.
Keep in mind that all of the information points below (and the entire monster stat block) will be easily-accessible - this is simply to determine what is important to summarize for a Dungeon Master as you are running a monster before or during a combat encounter.
Also remember that gradation with your ranking is most helpful - if everything is "Always Needed," we are not able to do much with that information.
I would suggest renaming the "Never" column to that survey into "Once", perhaps?
I don't need to see a monster's size or initiative "infrequently" or "never", for example; I need to see it once, for a fight. I understand that all points will be easily accessible, but I feel the "never" thing may mislead at least a few people.
PS. Weren't you guys on vacations for the holidays? O.o
I tried to answer as best I could however a lot of answers are highly dependent on a whole range of unknown variables. I think you'll get some very skewed results from this because of the lack of context people have to judge the questions by. A mockup like what you did for the character sheet would be immensely helpful in providing this context and as a springboard to give more focused, relevant and helpful feedback.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
I tried to answer as best I could however a lot of answers are highly dependent on a whole range of unknown variables. I think you'll get some very skewed results from this because of the lack of context people have to judge the questions by. A mockup like what you did for the character sheet would be immensely helpful in providing this context and as a springboard to give more focused, relevant and helpful feedback.
We don't want to provide any preconceived context at this stage - our entire approach is based on solving the problem/ improving the experience of encounter building at its core with as much of a tabula rasa method as we can, and then build it a priori. We don't want to look at anything else out there or anything we come up with in a vacuum because those things might not solve the actual need.
Of course these answers will be skewed, as are any type of online survey results. The intent is to provide an input that is not just the 20 people we can talk to in our offices about this. It's also just that - an input. We have several others inputs that will be considered along the way, and everyone will be able to provide additional feedback at every stage with more and more context.
I addition to have a monster page like this, in the future could be have a campaign page for DMs that provides us with the AC, HP, Saves, etc etc etc of our players? It would be super useful for me, as a DM, to see these stats for all my players.
I took the survey twice because for some reason on my phone it only gave me the first three options only available. The second time I answered it properly.
On mobile, the survey doesn't resize for you by default. So you have to actively scroll left and right to see all the answers, but it doesn't really show you a solid scroll-bar at the bottom. Google Surveys can be weird like that sometimes. I use them for pre-campaign stuff from time to time, and always encourage the players to check it out on a desktop-compatible view for this very reason.
However, it makes me wonder how many people took the survey on mobile and never realized there were more options.
**Edit: I would like to qualify my above statement with "on my mobile device". It could be different from device to device, but I'm using Chrome mobile on a Pixel XL.**
However, it makes me wonder how many people took the survey on mobile and never realized there were more options.
Very few to none - the thousands of survey responses we received had a 99.+% rate of answering all the questions all the way to the end.
The Google Forms experience is indeed awkward on mobile, but I won't complain too much knowing how hard it is to want to do everything great now and not have the resources to do that. :)
So you said in the initial post that the alpha would be available 2019, does that mean now? or sometime later? Because if the option is up now and somehow I've missed it I'm excited to give it a try. But if its later on in 2019, that's all fine and dandy but I wanted to double check that I wasn't missing a tool I could be using now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
~If I were a D&D race it would be an Aarakocra, because when I DM I usually wingit.~
So you said in the initial post that the alpha would be available 2019, does that mean now? or sometime later? Because if the option is up now and somehow I've missed it I'm excited to give it a try. But if its later on in 2019, that's all fine and dandy but I wanted to double check that I wasn't missing a tool I could be using now.
No. They are just coming back from the holidays.
When the alpha is available, I'm sure they will make an announcement.
What about having the options as switches and letting each DM decide what information they want displayed?
I think this probably is what may happen near the completion of the encounter builder (as this makes the most sense). For now, I believe the purpose of the survey is just to find out what type of information is most relevant. Most likely there will be some information enabled by default (which is most likely the purpose of the survey). Having full control over what is displayed is a great idea for the finished product though.
Hello everyone!
As discussed in our latest dev updates, development for the encounter builder is in progress and alpha access will be open for subscribers in 2019. Throughout the alpha and beta periods, we are going to be taking community feedback very seriously to ensure the encounter builder meets the need for the most people possible. I'll kick off with an example here in this thread:
Take the survey here:
https://goo.gl/forms/SATOwK5yRCLAk5ob2
Thank you for this. I forwarded this to my DM. Looking forward to seeing the alpha.
I would suggest renaming the "Never" column to that survey into "Once", perhaps?
I don't need to see a monster's size or initiative "infrequently" or "never", for example; I need to see it once, for a fight. I understand that all points will be easily accessible, but I feel the "never" thing may mislead at least a few people.
PS. Weren't you guys on vacations for the holidays? O.o
I tried to answer as best I could however a lot of answers are highly dependent on a whole range of unknown variables. I think you'll get some very skewed results from this because of the lack of context people have to judge the questions by. A mockup like what you did for the character sheet would be immensely helpful in providing this context and as a springboard to give more focused, relevant and helpful feedback.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
There were plenty of things I never need to see at a glance, and infrequently seems a perfectly useful alternative for once.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
We don't want to provide any preconceived context at this stage - our entire approach is based on solving the problem/ improving the experience of encounter building at its core with as much of a tabula rasa method as we can, and then build it a priori. We don't want to look at anything else out there or anything we come up with in a vacuum because those things might not solve the actual need.
Of course these answers will be skewed, as are any type of online survey results. The intent is to provide an input that is not just the 20 people we can talk to in our offices about this. It's also just that - an input. We have several others inputs that will be considered along the way, and everyone will be able to provide additional feedback at every stage with more and more context.
What about having the options as switches and letting each DM decide what information they want displayed?
I addition to have a monster page like this, in the future could be have a campaign page for DMs that provides us with the AC, HP, Saves, etc etc etc of our players? It would be super useful for me, as a DM, to see these stats for all my players.
I took the survey twice because for some reason on my phone it only gave me the first three options only available. The second time I answered it properly.
On mobile, the survey doesn't resize for you by default. So you have to actively scroll left and right to see all the answers, but it doesn't really show you a solid scroll-bar at the bottom. Google Surveys can be weird like that sometimes. I use them for pre-campaign stuff from time to time, and always encourage the players to check it out on a desktop-compatible view for this very reason.
However, it makes me wonder how many people took the survey on mobile and never realized there were more options.
**Edit: I would like to qualify my above statement with "on my mobile device". It could be different from device to device, but I'm using Chrome mobile on a Pixel XL.**
Very few to none - the thousands of survey responses we received had a 99.+% rate of answering all the questions all the way to the end.
The Google Forms experience is indeed awkward on mobile, but I won't complain too much knowing how hard it is to want to do everything great now and not have the resources to do that. :)
So you said in the initial post that the alpha would be available 2019, does that mean now? or sometime later? Because if the option is up now and somehow I've missed it I'm excited to give it a try. But if its later on in 2019, that's all fine and dandy but I wanted to double check that I wasn't missing a tool I could be using now.
~If I were a D&D race it would be an Aarakocra, because when I DM I usually wing it.~
No. They are just coming back from the holidays.
When the alpha is available, I'm sure they will make an announcement.
Yeah I figured, thanks!
~If I were a D&D race it would be an Aarakocra, because when I DM I usually wing it.~
I think this probably is what may happen near the completion of the encounter builder (as this makes the most sense). For now, I believe the purpose of the survey is just to find out what type of information is most relevant. Most likely there will be some information enabled by default (which is most likely the purpose of the survey). Having full control over what is displayed is a great idea for the finished product though.