It's looking pretty cool, but I guess I'm old school. I'm not sure I'm ready to input all of my characters until I know I will have access to my characters offline and also have the ability to print out my characters on a proper character sheet if my DM requests it. For DDAL play, that would include Adventure Log Sheets.
It's looking pretty cool, but I guess I'm old school. I'm not sure I'm ready to input all of my characters until I know I will have access to my characters offline and also have the ability to print out my characters on a proper character sheet if my DM requests it. For DDAL play, that would include Adventure Log Sheets.
Don't worry, the developer team have you covered - this is functionality that will be added.
It's been about a year since this post, so I'm beginning to worry. I was at Origins this past week and my connection kept getting dropped during play. Fortunately, I had my characters printed out for reference, but that's not the same as using the app and not what I'm paying for. There needs to be an app that's loaded on the device, that has all of the functionality without relying on a network connection. The mantra of "this feature is coming" is starting to leak water. Also while DMing.. some of my players had the beta version of the iOS "reference PDFs" and they were very clunky to use and find material. The beta app is not really an app at all, it's just a PDF viewer. Having the annotated PDF and viewing it using PDF Expert would actually be more user-friendly.
We really need to see some progress on a usable mobile app. This is beginning to drag out.
It's been about a year since this post, so I'm beginning to worry. I was at Origins this past week and my connection kept getting dropped during play. Fortunately, I had my characters printed out for reference, but that's not the same as using the app and not what I'm paying for. There needs to be an app that's loaded on the device, that has all of the functionality without relying on a network connection. The mantra of "this feature is coming" is starting to leak water. Also while DMing.. some of my players had the beta version of the iOS "reference PDFs" and they were very clunky to use and find material. The beta app is not really an app at all, it's just a PDF viewer. Having the annotated PDF and viewing it using PDF Expert would actually be more user-friendly.
We really need to see some progress on a usable mobile app. This is beginning to drag out.
I agree with this. I get they're working on a lot of stuff, but this has been something on the back burner for a long time, hence the year gap in time stamp. Needs to become higher priority imo.
There needs to be an app that's loaded on the device, that has all of the functionality without relying on a network connection.
This feedback is understood, however please understand that this is your personal situation and may not be relevant to the majority of users (I don't have access to all the feedback data that the staff team do).
By necessity, the development team will prioritise development of features that will have the greatest benefit to the largest number of users.
With regards the speed of development, I'm with you on that - it has felt agonisingly slow, but there are real reasons for that. I can say though that I fully believe that the pace of feature delivery is going to really pick up during 2018.
There needs to be an app that's loaded on the device, that has all of the functionality without relying on a network connection.
This feedback is understood, however please understand that this is your personal situation and may not be relevant to the majority of users (I don't have access to all the feedback data that the staff team do).
By necessity, the development team will prioritise development of features that will have the greatest benefit to the largest number of users.
With regards the speed of development, I'm with you on that - it has felt agonisingly slow, but there are real reasons for that. I can say though that I fully believe that the pace of feature delivery is going to really pick up during 2018.
I'm glad to hear things will be moving quicker. I will say that I don't think this is even remotely my "personal situation and may not be relevant to the majority of users." D&D Beyond was initially billed as an "App". But we got a website. A cool website, but still just a website. From the get-go, expectations have always centered around the ability to have an electronic character sheet and resources at the table. This goes back to the days of the 4e character generator, all the way through the failed morningstar project. When D&D Beyond started we all asked for an electronic character sheet, which in my opinion, implies an occasionally connected and installed app on the device, to be truly useful as such. To imply now that this is some kind of edge case is a little off-putting. Please don't underestimate the community demand for this requirement.
Happy to discuss, but let's deal; with correct facts. :)
D&D Beyond was not initially billed as an app and has never been billed as primarily an app - it has always been a website and that message never changed. There was a lot of discussion about mobile-responsive layouts, especially during the initial beta, because the staff team understood how important it would be that user can access the site on their mobile device.
The D&D Beyond website has been available since March 2017. The idea of a mobile app was never really discussed until November/December 2017, when the early prototype app was shown.
With all the discussion around mobile though, I can understand your desire for focus on a mobile app character sheet - it'd be pretty cool and it's something that the mobile app developer team are working on. I doubt it can ever be as sophisticated as the web-based character sheet though, just due to the constraints placed on the app.
It's not something that's considered an "edge case" either - the team are fully aware that a significant number of users want character sheets on the mobile app (I am making some assumptions here - I don't have access to all the metrics and feedback that staff do).
What I said is very different - I said that the priority would be on delivering the greatest benefit to the greatest number of users.
The numbers below are totally made up as an example - say we have the following choices for development:
40% of users wanted mobile character sheets and it would take 8 person-months of effort to deliver.
60% of users want better campaign tools and that takes 4 person-months to deliver.
80% of users want granular sharing (ability to turn off sharing of specific books) and that takes 6 person-months to deliver.
It's fairly clear that items (2) and (3) deliver more benefit to the overall community, so should be prioritised. There's an argument that (2) could be prioritised over (3) due to the shorter development time, but it's clear that (1) should be prioritised later.
item (1) still has 40% of users wanting it and, yes it's frustrating if you're one of those 40%, especially if you find yourself in circumstances where you really NEED that feature to be able to game properly.
The development process is, and always will be, about delivering most benefit to the greatest number though.
Happy to discuss, but let's deal; with correct facts. :)
D&D Beyond was not initially billed as an app and has never been billed as primarily an app - it has always been a website and that message never changed. There was a lot of discussion about mobile-responsive layouts, especially during the initial beta, because the staff team understood how important it would be that user can access the site on their mobile device.
The D&D Beyond website has been available since March 2017. The idea of a mobile app was never really discussed until November/December 2017, when the early prototype app was shown.
With all the discussion around mobile though, I can understand your desire for focus on a mobile app character sheet - it'd be pretty cool and it's something that the mobile app developer team are working on. I doubt it can ever be as sophisticated as the web-based character sheet though, just due to the constraints placed on the app.
It's not something that's considered an "edge case" either - the team are fully aware that a significant number of users want character sheets on the mobile app (I am making some assumptions here - I don't have access to all the metrics and feedback that staff do).
What I said is very different - I said that the priority would be on delivering the greatest benefit to the greatest number of users.
The numbers below are totally made up as an example - say we have the following choices for development:
40% of users wanted mobile character sheets and it would take 8 person-months of effort to deliver.
60% of users want better campaign tools and that takes 4 person-months to deliver.
80% of users want granular sharing (ability to turn off sharing of specific books) and that takes 6 person-months to deliver.
It's fairly clear that items (2) and (3) deliver more benefit to the overall community, so should be prioritised. There's an argument that (2) could be prioritised over (3) due to the shorter development time, but it's clear that (1) should be prioritised later.
item (1) still has 40% of users wanting it and, yes it's frustrating if you're one of those 40%, especially if you find yourself in circumstances where you really NEED that feature to be able to game properly.
The development process is, and always will be, about delivering most benefit to the greatest number though.
Sorry for the wall of text. :)
The wall of text is actually appreciated. Communication is a good thing.
You are correct about the "billed as an App" comment. I overstated my point there. However, prior to D&D Beyond being announced, there were tons of discussions about the App that was on the horizon because the community thought that's what we were going to be getting, primarily I think because of the Morningstar project. Was that misguided? in hindsight, apparently so. The point I was trying to make is that the users that WERE expecting an App solution were not necessarily disappointed with D&D Beyond, but were disappointed with the lack of features an app solution provides.
As far as comparing the demand for an App to new features of the existing website, then it's always going to lose that battle. If that is the metric being used to determine when it gets attention, I fear we will never get it. Once the current hot feature is delivered, the demand for the next feature goes up and now it's the new "shiny" thing desired by a majority of the website users. The demand for improved features of the product in use will seemingly always win over the demand for a new product. I would think It has to be treated as a new product, not a feature of the existing product. My opinion.
Happy to discuss, but let's deal; with correct facts. :)
D&D Beyond was not initially billed as an app and has never been billed as primarily an app - it has always been a website and that message never changed. There was a lot of discussion about mobile-responsive layouts, especially during the initial beta, because the staff team understood how important it would be that user can access the site on their mobile device.
The D&D Beyond website has been available since March 2017. The idea of a mobile app was never really discussed until November/December 2017, when the early prototype app was shown.
With all the discussion around mobile though, I can understand your desire for focus on a mobile app character sheet - it'd be pretty cool and it's something that the mobile app developer team are working on. I doubt it can ever be as sophisticated as the web-based character sheet though, just due to the constraints placed on the app.
It's not something that's considered an "edge case" either - the team are fully aware that a significant number of users want character sheets on the mobile app (I am making some assumptions here - I don't have access to all the metrics and feedback that staff do).
What I said is very different - I said that the priority would be on delivering the greatest benefit to the greatest number of users.
The numbers below are totally made up as an example - say we have the following choices for development:
40% of users wanted mobile character sheets and it would take 8 person-months of effort to deliver.
60% of users want better campaign tools and that takes 4 person-months to deliver.
80% of users want granular sharing (ability to turn off sharing of specific books) and that takes 6 person-months to deliver.
It's fairly clear that items (2) and (3) deliver more benefit to the overall community, so should be prioritised. There's an argument that (2) could be prioritised over (3) due to the shorter development time, but it's clear that (1) should be prioritised later.
item (1) still has 40% of users wanting it and, yes it's frustrating if you're one of those 40%, especially if you find yourself in circumstances where you really NEED that feature to be able to game properly.
The development process is, and always will be, about delivering most benefit to the greatest number though.
Sorry for the wall of text. :)
The wall of text is actually appreciated. Communication is a good thing.
You are correct about the "billed as an App" comment. I overstated my point there. However, prior to D&D Beyond being announced, there were tons of discussions about the App that was on the horizon because the community thought that's what we were going to be getting, primarily I think because of the Morningstar project. Was that misguided? in hindsight, apparently so. The point I was trying to make is that the users that WERE expecting an App solution were not necessarily disappointed with D&D Beyond, but were disappointed with the lack of features an app solution provides.
As far as comparing the demand for an App to new features of the existing website, then it's always going to lose that battle. If that is the metric being used to determine when it gets attention, I fear we will never get it. Once the current hot feature is delivered, the demand for the next feature goes up and now it's the new "shiny" thing desired by a majority of the website users. The demand for improved features of the product in use will seemingly always win over the demand for a new product. I would think It has to be treated as a new product, not a feature of the existing product. My opinion.
But they now have a dedicated app development team, so the speed should increase now.
But they now have a dedicated app development team, so the speed should increase now.
Yup, actually they have for a while - partially due to necessity (different skills for app development over web development) and partially strategic direction to ensure that multiple development streams can progress.
As I've said elsewhere, without going into detailed explanation why, I am pretty confident we're going to be seeing an increase in the speed of feature delivery.
Happy to discuss, but let's deal; with correct facts. :)
D&D Beyond was not initially billed as an app and has never been billed as primarily an app - it has always been a website and that message never changed. There was a lot of discussion about mobile-responsive layouts, especially during the initial beta, because the staff team understood how important it would be that user can access the site on their mobile device.
The D&D Beyond website has been available since March 2017. The idea of a mobile app was never really discussed until November/December 2017, when the early prototype app was shown.
With all the discussion around mobile though, I can understand your desire for focus on a mobile app character sheet - it'd be pretty cool and it's something that the mobile app developer team are working on. I doubt it can ever be as sophisticated as the web-based character sheet though, just due to the constraints placed on the app.
It's not something that's considered an "edge case" either - the team are fully aware that a significant number of users want character sheets on the mobile app (I am making some assumptions here - I don't have access to all the metrics and feedback that staff do).
What I said is very different - I said that the priority would be on delivering the greatest benefit to the greatest number of users.
The numbers below are totally made up as an example - say we have the following choices for development:
40% of users wanted mobile character sheets and it would take 8 person-months of effort to deliver.
60% of users want better campaign tools and that takes 4 person-months to deliver.
80% of users want granular sharing (ability to turn off sharing of specific books) and that takes 6 person-months to deliver.
It's fairly clear that items (2) and (3) deliver more benefit to the overall community, so should be prioritised. There's an argument that (2) could be prioritised over (3) due to the shorter development time, but it's clear that (1) should be prioritised later.
item (1) still has 40% of users wanting it and, yes it's frustrating if you're one of those 40%, especially if you find yourself in circumstances where you really NEED that feature to be able to game properly.
The development process is, and always will be, about delivering most benefit to the greatest number though.
Sorry for the wall of text. :)
The wall of text is actually appreciated. Communication is a good thing.
You are correct about the "billed as an App" comment. I overstated my point there. However, prior to D&D Beyond being announced, there were tons of discussions about the App that was on the horizon because the community thought that's what we were going to be getting, primarily I think because of the Morningstar project. Was that misguided? in hindsight, apparently so. The point I was trying to make is that the users that WERE expecting an App solution were not necessarily disappointed with D&D Beyond, but were disappointed with the lack of features an app solution provides.
As far as comparing the demand for an App to new features of the existing website, then it's always going to lose that battle. If that is the metric being used to determine when it gets attention, I fear we will never get it. Once the current hot feature is delivered, the demand for the next feature goes up and now it's the new "shiny" thing desired by a majority of the website users. The demand for improved features of the product in use will seemingly always win over the demand for a new product. I would think It has to be treated as a new product, not a feature of the existing product. My opinion.
actually from what I've seen on the app reviews 60-80% of the low rating comments are due to lack of a character creator, therefore my bet is that it shall be released soon enough, possibly with the sheet revamp
In the December 6 developer update, Adam said that getting the character sheet on the app was “upcoming,” meaning that coding hasn’t started for it yet, but it expected to as soon as development resources are available for it (i.e. as soon as the mobile team has finished what they are currently working on). It won’t be until sometime in 2019, as December is a time for them to address “tech debt” and to take some time off.
It's looking pretty cool, but I guess I'm old school. I'm not sure I'm ready to input all of my characters until I know I will have access to my characters offline and also have the ability to print out my characters on a proper character sheet if my DM requests it. For DDAL play, that would include Adventure Log Sheets.
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Any idea when we get offline characters and Adventure Log support. For cons and outside the home play this will be a big feature to have.
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Still no news?
Very! Interested in this feature...+1
Hope we get this soon!
Published Subclasses
It's been about a year since this post, so I'm beginning to worry. I was at Origins this past week and my connection kept getting dropped during play. Fortunately, I had my characters printed out for reference, but that's not the same as using the app and not what I'm paying for. There needs to be an app that's loaded on the device, that has all of the functionality without relying on a network connection. The mantra of "this feature is coming" is starting to leak water. Also while DMing.. some of my players had the beta version of the iOS "reference PDFs" and they were very clunky to use and find material. The beta app is not really an app at all, it's just a PDF viewer. Having the annotated PDF and viewing it using PDF Expert would actually be more user-friendly.
We really need to see some progress on a usable mobile app. This is beginning to drag out.
I agree with this. I get they're working on a lot of stuff, but this has been something on the back burner for a long time, hence the year gap in time stamp. Needs to become higher priority imo.
Published Subclasses
This feedback is understood, however please understand that this is your personal situation and may not be relevant to the majority of users (I don't have access to all the feedback data that the staff team do).
By necessity, the development team will prioritise development of features that will have the greatest benefit to the largest number of users.
With regards the speed of development, I'm with you on that - it has felt agonisingly slow, but there are real reasons for that. I can say though that I fully believe that the pace of feature delivery is going to really pick up during 2018.
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I'm glad to hear things will be moving quicker. I will say that I don't think this is even remotely my "personal situation and may not be relevant to the majority of users." D&D Beyond was initially billed as an "App". But we got a website. A cool website, but still just a website. From the get-go, expectations have always centered around the ability to have an electronic character sheet and resources at the table. This goes back to the days of the 4e character generator, all the way through the failed morningstar project. When D&D Beyond started we all asked for an electronic character sheet, which in my opinion, implies an occasionally connected and installed app on the device, to be truly useful as such. To imply now that this is some kind of edge case is a little off-putting. Please don't underestimate the community demand for this requirement.
Happy to discuss, but let's deal; with correct facts. :)
D&D Beyond was not initially billed as an app and has never been billed as primarily an app - it has always been a website and that message never changed. There was a lot of discussion about mobile-responsive layouts, especially during the initial beta, because the staff team understood how important it would be that user can access the site on their mobile device.
The D&D Beyond website has been available since March 2017. The idea of a mobile app was never really discussed until November/December 2017, when the early prototype app was shown.
With all the discussion around mobile though, I can understand your desire for focus on a mobile app character sheet - it'd be pretty cool and it's something that the mobile app developer team are working on. I doubt it can ever be as sophisticated as the web-based character sheet though, just due to the constraints placed on the app.
It's not something that's considered an "edge case" either - the team are fully aware that a significant number of users want character sheets on the mobile app (I am making some assumptions here - I don't have access to all the metrics and feedback that staff do).
What I said is very different - I said that the priority would be on delivering the greatest benefit to the greatest number of users.
The numbers below are totally made up as an example - say we have the following choices for development:
It's fairly clear that items (2) and (3) deliver more benefit to the overall community, so should be prioritised. There's an argument that (2) could be prioritised over (3) due to the shorter development time, but it's clear that (1) should be prioritised later.
item (1) still has 40% of users wanting it and, yes it's frustrating if you're one of those 40%, especially if you find yourself in circumstances where you really NEED that feature to be able to game properly.
The development process is, and always will be, about delivering most benefit to the greatest number though.
Sorry for the wall of text. :)
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
The wall of text is actually appreciated. Communication is a good thing.
You are correct about the "billed as an App" comment. I overstated my point there. However, prior to D&D Beyond being announced, there were tons of discussions about the App that was on the horizon because the community thought that's what we were going to be getting, primarily I think because of the Morningstar project. Was that misguided? in hindsight, apparently so. The point I was trying to make is that the users that WERE expecting an App solution were not necessarily disappointed with D&D Beyond, but were disappointed with the lack of features an app solution provides.
As far as comparing the demand for an App to new features of the existing website, then it's always going to lose that battle. If that is the metric being used to determine when it gets attention, I fear we will never get it. Once the current hot feature is delivered, the demand for the next feature goes up and now it's the new "shiny" thing desired by a majority of the website users. The demand for improved features of the product in use will seemingly always win over the demand for a new product. I would think It has to be treated as a new product, not a feature of the existing product. My opinion.
But they now have a dedicated app development team, so the speed should increase now.
How to add Tooltips
Yup, actually they have for a while - partially due to necessity (different skills for app development over web development) and partially strategic direction to ensure that multiple development streams can progress.
As I've said elsewhere, without going into detailed explanation why, I am pretty confident we're going to be seeing an increase in the speed of feature delivery.
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Improper usage of semi-colon detected. Initiating extermination protocol...
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
It's just a mis-key due to doing too much typing while looking at multiple screens. :P
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
actually from what I've seen on the app reviews 60-80% of the low rating comments are due to lack of a character creator, therefore my bet is that it shall be released soon enough, possibly with the sheet revamp
Has there been any update to this?
In the December 6 developer update, Adam said that getting the character sheet on the app was “upcoming,” meaning that coding hasn’t started for it yet, but it expected to as soon as development resources are available for it (i.e. as soon as the mobile team has finished what they are currently working on). It won’t be until sometime in 2019, as December is a time for them to address “tech debt” and to take some time off.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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