The only way I see there is a chance for them to add this, is if it reaches the same level of backlash as they di with the OGL chances they tried to make
There's not a secret "Buy this book and guarantee functionality". That's how I know.
You pay for the functionality of the website through a subscription. If you don't like the functionality, you stop paying. That's how the contract works. You bought the text of the book, in a digital format, which allows you unlimited access to the text of the book. They give you 'free' access to the searchable lists and you pay subscriptions to get additional functionality. According to the agreement you signed by purchasing the book, you aren't guaranteed anything more than a digital copy of the text and included images.
I only represent me, but I also read things like access rights, and terms and conditions.
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Did you agree to the same terms as everyone else? If so, you did not buy the functionality.
Perringaiden there's no reason to be a pedant over this. We all know our books have not disappeared, and what we've paid for.
The character creator, which is the incentive to pay a subscription for, is in an inferior state after to 2024 rollout. It's a separate issue than whether there's access to paid for books. Nobody is arguing what you're defending. We know the "functionality" is different now. And people are unhappy about it, and can and will state their opinion and cancel subs over it.
You're allowed to like the 2024 rules. Other people wishing to have them disabled for themselves, doesn't take anything from you. I've even argued it's an opportunity to add tiers for even older rulesets, while I personally would just like to stick to 5e.
But both in general and especially for those who wish to play exclusively 5e, the character creator is in a bad state. As is the Sources section, as it is increasingly bloated and could benefit from personal organization. Hence the outcry cancelled subs over the current state, and requests to restore previous builds, create a separate build, etc.
I can only assume you're being intentionally obtuse about it, and it's not helpful to anyone.
I've had absolutely no problem with it. With legacy choices on, it follows all the legacy systems through with very little thought. I've created 2014 and 2024 characters, and mix and match with the only 'glitch' being stat bonus priority mixing 2014 species with 2024 backgrounds. I'm sure there are others, but haven't encountered any function breaking that can be fixed on pencil and paper correction. So not sure what the huge issue is that people are throwing quit tantrums for.
BUT, I'm not against a disable function. It absolutely makes sense to include.
The lack of response is honestly quite disappointing. I used to speak very highly of DDB and the early articles, though I still assume the problem stems above the dev level. I’m certain they know quite well this could have gone and been much better.
If you check the marketplace page for each book it very clearly states that you are buying content for the character builder/maps/encounters etc, along with the digital book (I.e. compendium) content. The ToS just means you can't sue them for changing/removing content (and even then ToS's don't always hold up in court, particularly in the EU, although I have no knowledge or interest in how enforceable this one would be). It in no way makes it right, expected, or good customer service to make these sorts of changes.
The worst part is the lack of communication though. We don't actually know if any of the issues with the rollout are intentional, or which are actually planned to be fixed. The last official messaging we've had (after they changed their mind on overwriting spells) was that both rulesets will be supported. The problem is that since then there's been no official posts, the community managers seem to have disappeared, and customer service seems to have a 4-6 week turnaround. The only contact we have is the discord mods, but all they can do is pass comments on to DDB, theyre not able to get answers from them either. If the 2014 ruleset is still supported as promised, then it's entirely reasonable to ask that filters to be added to support 2014-only games.
So we don't know if they're deliberately trying to force people to switch, and are just ignoring customers until we switch or leave, or whether they're just too incompetent (or too cheap to properly resource the dev team) to implement the 2 rulesets properly, and are ignoring us until they catch up or people leave.
They need to come clean and tell us "we are fixing x, plan to fix y, but will not be fixing z as we deem it outdated/too difficult/too expensive".
Judging from recent half-baked releases however it seems their strategy is to just churn out semi-complete content the rush on to the next rather than fix any bugs. From what I've seen all the recent releases (PHB, DMG, LOTR and Illrigger) have multiple features either not working properly or just not implemented at all, and no communication on if/when they'll be fixed.
If you check the marketplace page for each book it very clearly states that you are buying content for the character builder/maps/encounters etc
Actually, the marketplace specifically says: "Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D BEYOND compendium and toolset."
While you might "feel" like you're buying that for that reason, what you're buying is the digital book. Owning the book unlocks that book's elements in the creator, but you're not buying the content "for the creator". It's just unlocking the elements in the book to allow you to use them in the creator. Which you still can, they haven't taken that away.
The thread is specifically complaining that the creator doesn't do something that they want it to do, and they paid for it. Which they never did. The Character Creator is free, and completely controlled by D&D Beyond. You buy the book. Owning the book allows you to use that content in the creator. It does not give you any control over the functionality of the creator.
To be clear, I would like them to better differentiate 2014 vs 2024. But the argument "But I paid for it" is going to be completely ignored because it's fundamentally wrong to their laywers.
If you check the marketplace page for each book it very clearly states that you are buying content for the character builder/maps/encounters etc
Actually, the marketplace specifically says: "Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D BEYOND compendium and toolset."
While you might "feel" like you're buying that for that reason, what you're buying is the digital book. Owning the book unlocks that book's elements in the creator, but you're not buying the content "for the creator". It's just unlocking the elements in the book to allow you to use them in the creator. Which you still can, they haven't taken that away.
The thread is specifically complaining that the creator doesn't do something that they want it to do, and they paid for it. Which they never did. The Character Creator is free, and completely controlled by D&D Beyond. You buy the book. Owning the book allows you to use that content in the creator. It does not give you any control over the functionality of the creator.
To be clear, I would like them to better differentiate 2014 vs 2024. But the argument "But I paid for it" is going to be completely ignored because it's fundamentally wrong to their laywers.
“For use in the toolset” is the primary reason most people purchased the content in the first place.
If just buying the content was for reference only, then a lot of people wouldn’t have joined the platform.
I can web surf and find a majority of the “compendium” material for free, and if needed do the job of the developer and use the homebrew tools to enter the material.( which is what has happened, because for whatever reason, the people that was entering the content that could be used in the toolset are no longer doing so. )
The material and content that was previously available is still there, but it’s getting replaced by the newer version, and a good portion of the userbase has repeatedly asked since the beginning of the changes for a toggle that can separate 2024 from 2014.
What we are getting is the ability to only turn off 2014 material, and not the ability to have 2024 content completely separate from 2014-23/24 material.
Some just want 2024 only, some just want 2014 only, and some want to see a editionX only toggle set that brings the toolset up to par with other competitors. When I had bought the materials from this site in the past, it was for the character building and homebrew toolset, not to just have a digital version of a book that I would have to personally enter into the system, if possible, or to have to be able to be readily access through a digital device. ( PDF’s and free software that can display them have long existed, and are just as easily accessible and attainable. )
I’m on here for the tools, the material and content are just prebuilt templates for expansion. If the new norm is that the user is now expected to do the job of the developer in entering the content from the material they( the company) have created, when previously the company had developers that where paid to do that task and that was a price users were willing to pay for the ease of.
If they, the company and the site devs, had simply decided to have a 2024 rules toggle or a separate system just for 2024, leaving the 2014+ materials as is for a time, then the whole mess of the switchover would not have happened, and people wouldn’t be almost demanding a way to separate the two.
TL;DBR I purchase material for use in the builder and tools, not for it to look pretty and not serve any useful function in those toolsets.
Make a toggle that turns off 2024 rules and materials, and allows for a 2014+ only system.
I don't disagree with the premise of a toggle. I've said as much many times.
My point is that repeating "But i paid for it" undermines the argument the rest of us are making. What you made you choose to buy the digital books doesn't matter to what you bought. The argument people should be making is "If you don't fix this, I will take my future purchases elsewhere". Your existing ones entitled you to the books. Hasbro only cares about future purchases though, so they're unlikely to want to encourage people to stay with 2014. Which is why it is far better to either threaten to go elsewhere, or actually go elsewhere.
If they have the law on their site, then yeah. The only thing people can do, is what they did when they tried to change the OGL in 2023. Have them lose money
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One of my groups just built new characters for a new campaign yesterday (the first since the 2024 content has been added to the site) and it's an absolute nightmare. I haven't paid for the 2024 content, yet it completely floods everything with no way to properly filter it out without having to manually select all of the content I DO own (which is a LOT) and we had several people at the table struggling to wade through the confusing duplicates and legacy tags.
What used to be one of the most user friendly and newbie friendly ways to learn d&d (for our group and the 4+ tables we've taught to play using dndbeyond) is now a sloppy cluster of mixed up content that we can't turn off. Every other type of content has a filter to disable and every other type of free content has been optional. 2024 rules have no way to be turned off and the free content was added to my account regardless of whether or not we wanted to use it. It's infuriating to have so much money in content here and to have several tables used to using this site only for it to be a nearly unusable mess.
As our groups begin to wrap campaigns, I hope we can start switching back to pen and paper sheets as a group unless dndbeyond actually begins to pay attention to what their users actually want.
I bought the content solely for the builder, didn’t buy the compendium stuff.
Irrelevant to the legal ownership and rights for the content.
It is relevant to discussions regarding the character builder, and this thread is about requests to add a toggle for 2024 content for things like the character builder.
Purchasing source books allows them to be used within the character builder. People are not arguing or even talking about rights to book content, they're talking about functionality of the character builder, which is in a diminished state, and some features are still broken. Again, why I have already cancelled my subscription. I'll re-sub if they fix it.
We can request they make accommodations to the character builder so that it's worth subscribing again, for people who want to strictly play 5e. That's what people are asking for. Your argument about "legally" owning the digital content is a different subject, not helpful to the request, and even after your post was edited you're coming in hostile toward a topic that you refuse to understand or engage with.
And by the looks of things, my suspicion is that 2014 content is getting wiped out of the toolset. And the only reason they stopped was because of the threat of another walkoff.
People are still willing to give them one more chance, now will Beyond and WotC listen?
Or, do people really do have to begin walking off for the company to understand all that the users want is to continue to use the “digital” toolset content they legally purchased, and the company had agreed to allow use of said content till such time as the company deemed it necessary to inform users that the purchased content would no longer be available.
( not too sure about you, but I discovered the switch only by keeping an eye on the forums. No emails, no announcements, no idea till one day, holy cow. )
To address some of the points:
They cannot legally remove the digital books from the website without announcing it and providing PDFs to download before it goes. There's a provision about legal backup copies.
Hasbro doesn't want to sell 2014 stuff, and wants everyone to move to 2024. That's inevitable and for the most part, it seems like the majority of groups intend to "in the future". So they're not producing more 2014 books etc.
Walking off is likely the only way to make them take notice, in terms of cancelling subscriptions even if you keep using the service. Subscribers are what count to them.
Regarding the 2014 Core Rules button that turned up, it was posted in the Changelog in November. Everything is in the changelog. It's always posted in the changelog, and that's what people need to pay attention to. Its the button next to Notifications.
The title of this thread is literally ‘I really need a “disable 2024 completely” button for a campaign or character’
Also, stop telling people what they paid for. The subscriptions all state what they’re for: creating characters, creating encounters, creating homebrew. So yes, complaints about “I’ve been paying for this and now it doesn’t do what it did as well anymore, which was my whole motivation to subscribe”
People re-bought books for more functionality with those tools, migrated games and their players here.
It’s frankly insulting to ignore that and lock-in to a semantic argument that isn’t what most people are actually upset about. But clearly you need to hear it so good job, you’re technically right about a specific subject. Please allow the rest of us talk about a different subject, until DDB either fixes it or finally says it’s not going to happen and I can find a better tool that does what I want it to do.
The way Beyond was marketed and the tos are at odds, people forget marketing is a type of agreement. Wizbro is banking on their size letting this fly under the radar, people only need to stop buying stuff or lawyer up to effect change. Complaining and arguing on this site does nothing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Let's keep things on topic here. Like how much we all agree there needs to be a toggle to turn off the 2024 content in builder. Don't detract from the main topic of the toggle by trying to add in other factors that aren't involved with the toggle. The toggle is what we want and need to hide the duplicate information for character builders and campaigns.
And by the way, one does not need a subscription to be able to purchase and use the content in the toolset, only a free account.
Very true, i should have clarified the incentive to subscribe is for unlimited characters etc, and/or master tier (my previous sub for 7 years, now cancelled) for sharing with the party in campaigns.
I’ve said multiple times I’d resub for even just a rolled back separate version, but with how poorly implemented this has been I have doubts they preserved that version.
It was a really good tool! It was so easy to pitch to my players to switch to DDB, but now it’s a constant source of frustration. Going back to pen and paper sounds better by the day.
The only way I see there is a chance for them to add this, is if it reaches the same level of backlash as they di with the OGL chances they tried to make
There's not a secret "Buy this book and guarantee functionality". That's how I know.
You pay for the functionality of the website through a subscription. If you don't like the functionality, you stop paying. That's how the contract works. You bought the text of the book, in a digital format, which allows you unlimited access to the text of the book. They give you 'free' access to the searchable lists and you pay subscriptions to get additional functionality. According to the agreement you signed by purchasing the book, you aren't guaranteed anything more than a digital copy of the text and included images.
I only represent me, but I also read things like access rights, and terms and conditions.
Did you agree to the same terms as everyone else? If so, you did not buy the functionality.
Perringaiden there's no reason to be a pedant over this. We all know our books have not disappeared, and what we've paid for.
The character creator, which is the incentive to pay a subscription for, is in an inferior state after to 2024 rollout. It's a separate issue than whether there's access to paid for books. Nobody is arguing what you're defending. We know the "functionality" is different now. And people are unhappy about it, and can and will state their opinion and cancel subs over it.
You're allowed to like the 2024 rules. Other people wishing to have them disabled for themselves, doesn't take anything from you. I've even argued it's an opportunity to add tiers for even older rulesets, while I personally would just like to stick to 5e.
But both in general and especially for those who wish to play exclusively 5e, the character creator is in a bad state. As is the Sources section, as it is increasingly bloated and could benefit from personal organization. Hence the outcry cancelled subs over the current state, and requests to restore previous builds, create a separate build, etc.
I can only assume you're being intentionally obtuse about it, and it's not helpful to anyone.
2024I've had absolutely no problem with it. With legacy choices on, it follows all the legacy systems through with very little thought. I've created 2014 and 2024 characters, and mix and match with the only 'glitch' being stat bonus priority mixing 2014 species with 2024 backgrounds. I'm sure there are others, but haven't encountered any function breaking that can be fixed on pencil and paper correction. So not sure what the huge issue is that people are throwing quit tantrums for.
BUT, I'm not against a disable function. It absolutely makes sense to include.
Still hoping for that toggle. Would be even more useful since they keep altering the linked rules and I don't use the 5.5e rules.
The lack of response is honestly quite disappointing. I used to speak very highly of DDB and the early articles, though I still assume the problem stems above the dev level. I’m certain they know quite well this could have gone and been much better.
2024It is Christmas season. But I highly doubt they will change it
If you check the marketplace page for each book it very clearly states that you are buying content for the character builder/maps/encounters etc, along with the digital book (I.e. compendium) content. The ToS just means you can't sue them for changing/removing content (and even then ToS's don't always hold up in court, particularly in the EU, although I have no knowledge or interest in how enforceable this one would be). It in no way makes it right, expected, or good customer service to make these sorts of changes.
The worst part is the lack of communication though. We don't actually know if any of the issues with the rollout are intentional, or which are actually planned to be fixed. The last official messaging we've had (after they changed their mind on overwriting spells) was that both rulesets will be supported. The problem is that since then there's been no official posts, the community managers seem to have disappeared, and customer service seems to have a 4-6 week turnaround. The only contact we have is the discord mods, but all they can do is pass comments on to DDB, theyre not able to get answers from them either. If the 2014 ruleset is still supported as promised, then it's entirely reasonable to ask that filters to be added to support 2014-only games.
So we don't know if they're deliberately trying to force people to switch, and are just ignoring customers until we switch or leave, or whether they're just too incompetent (or too cheap to properly resource the dev team) to implement the 2 rulesets properly, and are ignoring us until they catch up or people leave.
They need to come clean and tell us "we are fixing x, plan to fix y, but will not be fixing z as we deem it outdated/too difficult/too expensive".
Judging from recent half-baked releases however it seems their strategy is to just churn out semi-complete content the rush on to the next rather than fix any bugs. From what I've seen all the recent releases (PHB, DMG, LOTR and Illrigger) have multiple features either not working properly or just not implemented at all, and no communication on if/when they'll be fixed.
Actually, the marketplace specifically says: "Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D BEYOND compendium and toolset."
While you might "feel" like you're buying that for that reason, what you're buying is the digital book. Owning the book unlocks that book's elements in the creator, but you're not buying the content "for the creator". It's just unlocking the elements in the book to allow you to use them in the creator. Which you still can, they haven't taken that away.
The thread is specifically complaining that the creator doesn't do something that they want it to do, and they paid for it. Which they never did. The Character Creator is free, and completely controlled by D&D Beyond. You buy the book. Owning the book allows you to use that content in the creator. It does not give you any control over the functionality of the creator.
To be clear, I would like them to better differentiate 2014 vs 2024. But the argument "But I paid for it" is going to be completely ignored because it's fundamentally wrong to their laywers.
I don't disagree with the premise of a toggle. I've said as much many times.
My point is that repeating "But i paid for it" undermines the argument the rest of us are making. What you made you choose to buy the digital books doesn't matter to what you bought. The argument people should be making is "If you don't fix this, I will take my future purchases elsewhere". Your existing ones entitled you to the books. Hasbro only cares about future purchases though, so they're unlikely to want to encourage people to stay with 2014. Which is why it is far better to either threaten to go elsewhere, or actually go elsewhere.
If they have the law on their site, then yeah. The only thing people can do, is what they did when they tried to change the OGL in 2023. Have them lose money
One of my groups just built new characters for a new campaign yesterday (the first since the 2024 content has been added to the site) and it's an absolute nightmare. I haven't paid for the 2024 content, yet it completely floods everything with no way to properly filter it out without having to manually select all of the content I DO own (which is a LOT) and we had several people at the table struggling to wade through the confusing duplicates and legacy tags.
What used to be one of the most user friendly and newbie friendly ways to learn d&d (for our group and the 4+ tables we've taught to play using dndbeyond) is now a sloppy cluster of mixed up content that we can't turn off. Every other type of content has a filter to disable and every other type of free content has been optional. 2024 rules have no way to be turned off and the free content was added to my account regardless of whether or not we wanted to use it. It's infuriating to have so much money in content here and to have several tables used to using this site only for it to be a nearly unusable mess.
As our groups begin to wrap campaigns, I hope we can start switching back to pen and paper sheets as a group unless dndbeyond actually begins to pay attention to what their users actually want.
It is relevant to discussions regarding the character builder, and this thread is about requests to add a toggle for 2024 content for things like the character builder.
Purchasing source books allows them to be used within the character builder. People are not arguing or even talking about rights to book content, they're talking about functionality of the character builder, which is in a diminished state, and some features are still broken. Again, why I have already cancelled my subscription. I'll re-sub if they fix it.
We can request they make accommodations to the character builder so that it's worth subscribing again, for people who want to strictly play 5e. That's what people are asking for. Your argument about "legally" owning the digital content is a different subject, not helpful to the request, and even after your post was edited you're coming in hostile toward a topic that you refuse to understand or engage with.
2024To address some of the points:
The title of this thread is literally ‘I really need a “disable 2024 completely” button for a campaign or character’
Also, stop telling people what they paid for. The subscriptions all state what they’re for: creating characters, creating encounters, creating homebrew. So yes, complaints about “I’ve been paying for this and now it doesn’t do what it did as well anymore, which was my whole motivation to subscribe”
People re-bought books for more functionality with those tools, migrated games and their players here.
It’s frankly insulting to ignore that and lock-in to a semantic argument that isn’t what most people are actually upset about. But clearly you need to hear it so good job, you’re technically right about a specific subject. Please allow the rest of us talk about a different subject, until DDB either fixes it or finally says it’s not going to happen and I can find a better tool that does what I want it to do.
2024The way Beyond was marketed and the tos are at odds, people forget marketing is a type of agreement. Wizbro is banking on their size letting this fly under the radar, people only need to stop buying stuff or lawyer up to effect change. Complaining and arguing on this site does nothing.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Let's keep things on topic here. Like how much we all agree there needs to be a toggle to turn off the 2024 content in builder. Don't detract from the main topic of the toggle by trying to add in other factors that aren't involved with the toggle. The toggle is what we want and need to hide the duplicate information for character builders and campaigns.
Very true, i should have clarified the incentive to subscribe is for unlimited characters etc, and/or master tier (my previous sub for 7 years, now cancelled) for sharing with the party in campaigns.
I’ve said multiple times I’d resub for even just a rolled back separate version, but with how poorly implemented this has been I have doubts they preserved that version.
It was a really good tool! It was so easy to pitch to my players to switch to DDB, but now it’s a constant source of frustration. Going back to pen and paper sounds better by the day.
2024