I want to make it clear before I begin this, that I am not trying to say the D&D Beyond is a horrible thing that people should not use or anything, and I do not wish to tell people to not spend their money on this site or anything of the such. I quite love this resource, and my many gripes with it and how it seems to be managed is what leads me to post my honest, full opinions on this site here, and what I would like to see from it going forward. Additionally, this is from my perspective as a consumer who doesn't know how things are working behind the scenes, so if I seem a bit ignorant here, I apologize, but this is how I'm seeing it, and while I don't know how many people agree with me, I know that there are at least a good portion that do.
That said, I love D&D beyond. It's search functionality, if a bit odd to work with, is an incredibly helpful resource, and the character builder is amazing. However, I have many issues with the site, and mainly with how it seems to be managed.
Firstly, the HB creator is a mess that is hard to work with, that gives the illusion of being versatile while failing to do so between restrictive options for seemingly no good reason and several functions literally not working at all. Such things as when giving a choice of an ASI to improve you can only use sets of options already seen in official content and the complications of adding spellcasting to a subclass where spells are always prepared (in that you can't really do it) restrict the options to make HB and forces workarounds to be used, some of which make the content unpublishable. At the same time, certain functions don't work how it seems they should, if at all. Subclass spells meant to be granted at levels in that class are granted at character levels instead, and there isn't any way to do it differently, nor even an indication that it will work that way due to it's phrasing. Additionally, the filters for publishing content are so messed up that it keeps legitimate content out, while allowing content that the filters should catch to go through. Additionally, given how the filters scan things (in that it's only scanned when saving the main piece, but not when saving parts of the piece), people that don't know how the system works (and it isn't stated anywhere except in answers to questions on forums) will find themselves confused, lost, and frustrated. Long story short, it's a system that makes you not want to use it.
Second, broken content takes far too long to be fixed. Ravnica backgrounds took most of two years to have their spellcasting implemented, and it still doesn't work with custom backgrounds. Dragonmark spells took about 9 months. And these are things that shouldn't be too hard to implement... why does it take so long. For a month after Eberron released you couldn't filter hb artificer subclasses, and that was a long time after the UA artificer was released and it didn't have one either until then. The armorer UA subclass and the infusions that came with it still don't work, and they came out in January. The UA Eldritch Adept feat is still broken as well, and thats been months for a very simple fix. These are things people pay for to have functional, and then are delivered faulty (yes, I know the UA isn't paid for, that was simply adding to a point).
Finally, the part that puts this all together and really shows why this frustrates me so much- the focus on adding things that people don't want. Digital Dice was a neat function, but when it costs 15 dollars for a set of digital dice and over a month of updates, now there's the problem. Continuing to implement new dice and charge people for it before fixing things that are broken that people have already paid for is an abysmal sale strategy that makes people who gave their trust in the form of their hard earned money feel betrayed. The player app was good and something people really wanted, but at the same time the old app that still holds the quite valued compendium portion is left to rot in obscurity and nonfunction on an old barely supported app. And now the updates to book formatting, which while cool and good and all, are still instead of fixing things that are truly broken.
Overall, while I still love D&D beyond for what it has, having broken functionality in many areas and opting not to fix it in favor of adding new, unneeded things, or things not in the way people wanted keeps me from praising it how I wish I could, and keeps me from paying for it's services and instead taking advantage of content sharing campaigns courtesy of my DMs because I do not wish to spend my money on this source. The site needs a lot of work and focus in it's management and functionality to gain my trust and appreciation. And until it gets that, I'm afraid that my money will be going elsewhere. To anyone who took their time to read this, I thank you, and I would love to hear your opinions on this as well. And to any D&D beyond staff that reads this, I hope you can understand my points here, why I have made them, and hopefully somehow this will make some amount of change in doing so. Thank you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
So far this session I have hit my teammates twice, flat-out missed 3 times, and only hit the enemy twice. Trust me, you don't want to borrow my dice.
Agree with a lot of your points. The site in general can be clunky, especially the search function. The dev updates aren't really that helpful either as they will say they're working on something but not really detail how. As well as things like class feature variants ultimately just getting delayed until Tasha's.
For those who come into this thread, I would encourage everyone to be constructive with any feedback. Don't attack viewpoints, debate criticisms and if you are going to be negative, try to be constructively negative.
So here's my take. A large amount of this is "Homebrew and UA". The fact is UA and Homebrew will never work properly, and by properly I mean as doing everything that everyone wants at any given point because at ANY point Wizards can come through and go "Nope, not official" and it will disappear or they release something officially and now the official stance invalidates the UA/Homebrewed. I think we've seen the priority of D&D Beyond over the years with regards to the licensed content, changes to the licensed content, and how they prioritize it vs homebrew/UA and the reality is Homebrew has always been a part of D&D but with a digital toolset, it's never going to satisfy everyone in terms of the implementation.
For the things that are legitimate though? Life Clerics and their bonus to healing taking 3 years? Yeah, I don't know why this has taken that long. Anything released officially that wasn't ready when the book shipped, is a valid concern.
The Dev Updates? The site staff has been in dialogue to try and get us more useful information but at the end of it, they can only give what Adam Bradford gives. If you have issues with those updates, take it up with him. Politely and professionally, of course.
Ultimately, I've been able to do everything I want with Homebrew within the constructs of my game. Maybe I'm just not going all out enough to completely break the site though.
I very much agree with the whole being constructive here, like stated before, this is meant to simply represent my opinions on the problems with the site and what I feel needs addressed.
As for the Homebrew, it works okay for most simple purposes, but there are several more niche things that just don't work well if at all I've found, not to mention how the filter works for publishing things as well as the overall unintuitive interface. As for UA, like I stated, those were merely examples of other times that I personally have seen where things that should be simple and not take long to fix have taken an eternity.
As for the updates, really I don't feel that the dev updates are the problem, and they do convey their information well, its just that when there isn't information to present but they try to present it anyways, you do end up with things being promised, but not given a date, and given their record of how long things take, its hard to put much faith behind what is meant to be an announcement that should hype up the community.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
So far this session I have hit my teammates twice, flat-out missed 3 times, and only hit the enemy twice. Trust me, you don't want to borrow my dice.
I happen to be able to shed some light on the points you have raised. I hope this might be informative.
Sincerely, Sposta
To your 1st and 2nd points:
they are actually the same problem. The homebrew creator was never intended to be a homebrew creator. It is the same exact system the DDB team uses to implement the official content, only we don’t have admin privileges so we cannot accidentally/intentionally create anything that could potentially crash the site. (Yes, that could have been a theoretical possibility without those safeguards.) The reason it was never actually intended for public use is because WotC had originally expressly forbade DDB from implementing any homebrew tools whatsoever. That decision was a reaction to the dumpster fire over at the D&D Wiki. To actively dissuade any future discussion on the subject, they told DDB that the creation software they designed must meet two criteria (paraphrased):
It be capable of implementing everything officially published by WotC.
It must not be designed to implement anything not officially published by WotC.
The DDB Devs looked at the WotC content put out at that time, realized that everything was just the same sorts of things rearranged and recombined. They figured that WotC had exhausted the list of stuff they were prepared to implement, and wasn’t likely to break any new molds mechanically speaking. So they followed their contractual obligations to create a system to meet that interpretation of their “IRL RAW.” So the DDB Devs took the now tear stained blueprints for what might have been the jewel in DDB’s crown, and stuck in in a drawer like a sheet for a character one knows they will never get to play. They had a moment of silence and then set about designing the minimalist system we had until recently since that was all they were told to make, and they knew they could finish it quickly.
Turns out, WotC poor wording struck again. Their RAI was that DDB’s software had to be capable of creating anything on command, but only WotC’s commands were to be recognized and no one else’s.
But over the first year and change after the site launched, DDB had proven itself to be a more responsible (and reasonable, and reachable) content host than the aforementioned dumpster fire. Meanwhile, that whole time people kept asking for it, and asking for it, (and asking for it....) and BadEye kept pestering WotC. Eventually he personally went over there with stacks of binders filled with thousands of pages of requests from customers to DDB to please allow them to homebrew since that impediment was preventing them fro playing D&D their way on this “Official Online D&D Resource.” Under the literal weight of all of those requests from customers, WotC capitulated. So DDB did the only thing they could, they jerryrigged the original content creator to make it safe enough for publicly use and flipped on the switches for us.
Meanwhile, around that same time, the newer WotC designs were already starting to strain the capabilities of DDB’s creation software. When Ravnica came out, the team realized that a major overhaul to the creation software was imperative. But first, they had to address just one glaring issue with that plan, everything was on a Monolith. To a Monolith, the Creation Software, the accumulated Content (all the official stuff and all of the 87 gagillian homebrews), and the user interface (Character Sheet Framework) were all so fully integrated as to functionally be all one thing, kinda like the Borg. (That’s why everything was so fast before.) Unfortunately, much like the Borg, one single system cannot be overhauled without it affecting every single piece of the whole system. If they made any mistakes, those would have potentially resulted in existing content breaking. And Homebrew was especially susceptible as a lot of it had interactions not intended under the initial design. After all, that’s kinda the point of homebrew, and it was made by normal people using software designed to be used only by the experts who built it. If suddenly half of all the homebrewed content people had created on the site people would have lost their bananas, both individually and collectively.
So, the Devs knew they would have to untangle the Monolith’s Gordian Knot of 1s & 0s, and put the content on its own server nice and safe from any unintended consequences. But, yet again the Monolith itself stood in the way of that process. The lines between creation software and content were indistinct. And, since everything on the Monolith was all designed to reference itself, the Character Sheets wouldn’t be able to find the Content. And even it the sheet could get the data, it wouldn’t all necessarily fit together the same.
So first, DDB had to take all of the invisible things that work behind the character sheet so it displays everything properly, and basically redesign it all from scratch, and replace the old Character Sheet Framework almost in its entirety. That took just over 10 months, and then about another two months to work out the bugs. Once that was done, the Devs had to surgically excise all of those countless pieces of content and relocate it to its own server in such a way as to not break any of it. Almost everyone noticed the update to nearly complete replacement of the Character Sheet Framework. That was inevitable, like having to break eggs is inevitable when making an omelette. But relocating all of the content happened so seamlessly that the average user never even noticed that it happened, and the average homebrewer barely noticed the lights flicker for a couple days. In fact, the only part of it that most folks have noticed is that updated homebrews sometimes take just a little longer to reflect on the character sheets. That was it. (Eat your heart out David Copperfield!)
Once all of that was accomplished, they could finally begin the “planned overhaul” to the Creation Software. (That term utterly fails to convey the sheer scope of the project.) And within a few relatively short months they have implemented a lot of stuff: Spells of the Mark, the Bug Bashes, and putting in an express lane to get the upcoming Tasha’s Content.... I simply cannot convey the absolute leaps and bounds that represents.
So, in response, I am pleased to inform you that they have been working on addressing your points more than a year before you even made this hread. 👍
To your third point:
The Devs that do the graphic designs for the dice are highly specialized and are completely different programmers than the ones who do stuff like recoding the entire Content Creation Software from the ground up. Like, the best chefs in the world all go hire fantastic Pastry Chefs because cooking ain’t baking. Sure, Bobby Flay can bake a cake, but a specialist could do it better. Or, for a D&D metaphor, Wizards can make melee weapon attacks, but if they have to them that means everything has already gone terribly, horribly wrong.
I want to make it clear before I begin this, that I am not trying to say the D&D Beyond is a horrible thing that people should not use or anything, and I do not wish to tell people to not spend their money on this site or anything of the such. I quite love this resource, and my many gripes with it and how it seems to be managed is what leads me to post my honest, full opinions on this site here, and what I would like to see from it going forward. Additionally, this is from my perspective as a consumer who doesn't know how things are working behind the scenes, so if I seem a bit ignorant here, I apologize, but this is how I'm seeing it, and while I don't know how many people agree with me, I know that there are at least a good portion that do.
That said, I love D&D beyond. It's search functionality, if a bit odd to work with, is an incredibly helpful resource, and the character builder is amazing. However, I have many issues with the site, and mainly with how it seems to be managed.
Firstly, the HB creator is a mess that is hard to work with, that gives the illusion of being versatile while failing to do so between restrictive options for seemingly no good reason and several functions literally not working at all. Such things as when giving a choice of an ASI to improve you can only use sets of options already seen in official content and the complications of adding spellcasting to a subclass where spells are always prepared (in that you can't really do it) restrict the options to make HB and forces workarounds to be used, some of which make the content unpublishable. At the same time, certain functions don't work how it seems they should, if at all. Subclass spells meant to be granted at levels in that class are granted at character levels instead, and there isn't any way to do it differently, nor even an indication that it will work that way due to it's phrasing. Additionally, the filters for publishing content are so messed up that it keeps legitimate content out, while allowing content that the filters should catch to go through. Additionally, given how the filters scan things (in that it's only scanned when saving the main piece, but not when saving parts of the piece), people that don't know how the system works (and it isn't stated anywhere except in answers to questions on forums) will find themselves confused, lost, and frustrated. Long story short, it's a system that makes you not want to use it.
Second, broken content takes far too long to be fixed. Ravnica backgrounds took most of two years to have their spellcasting implemented, and it still doesn't work with custom backgrounds. Dragonmark spells took about 9 months. And these are things that shouldn't be too hard to implement... why does it take so long. For a month after Eberron released you couldn't filter hb artificer subclasses, and that was a long time after the UA artificer was released and it didn't have one either until then. The armorer UA subclass and the infusions that came with it still don't work, and they came out in January. The UA Eldritch Adept feat is still broken as well, and thats been months for a very simple fix. These are things people pay for to have functional, and then are delivered faulty (yes, I know the UA isn't paid for, that was simply adding to a point).
Finally, the part that puts this all together and really shows why this frustrates me so much- the focus on adding things that people don't want. Digital Dice was a neat function, but when it costs 15 dollars for a set of digital dice and over a month of updates, now there's the problem. Continuing to implement new dice and charge people for it before fixing things that are broken that people have already paid for is an abysmal sale strategy that makes people who gave their trust in the form of their hard earned money feel betrayed. The player app was good and something people really wanted, but at the same time the old app that still holds the quite valued compendium portion is left to rot in obscurity and nonfunction on an old barely supported app. And now the updates to book formatting, which while cool and good and all, are still instead of fixing things that are truly broken.
Overall, while I still love D&D beyond for what it has, having broken functionality in many areas and opting not to fix it in favor of adding new, unneeded things, or things not in the way people wanted keeps me from praising it how I wish I could, and keeps me from paying for it's services and instead taking advantage of content sharing campaigns courtesy of my DMs because I do not wish to spend my money on this source. The site needs a lot of work and focus in it's management and functionality to gain my trust and appreciation. And until it gets that, I'm afraid that my money will be going elsewhere. To anyone who took their time to read this, I thank you, and I would love to hear your opinions on this as well. And to any D&D beyond staff that reads this, I hope you can understand my points here, why I have made them, and hopefully somehow this will make some amount of change in doing so. Thank you.
So far this session I have hit my teammates twice, flat-out missed 3 times, and only hit the enemy twice. Trust me, you don't want to borrow my dice.
Agree with a lot of your points. The site in general can be clunky, especially the search function. The dev updates aren't really that helpful either as they will say they're working on something but not really detail how. As well as things like class feature variants ultimately just getting delayed until Tasha's.
For those who come into this thread, I would encourage everyone to be constructive with any feedback. Don't attack viewpoints, debate criticisms and if you are going to be negative, try to be constructively negative.
So here's my take. A large amount of this is "Homebrew and UA". The fact is UA and Homebrew will never work properly, and by properly I mean as doing everything that everyone wants at any given point because at ANY point Wizards can come through and go "Nope, not official" and it will disappear or they release something officially and now the official stance invalidates the UA/Homebrewed. I think we've seen the priority of D&D Beyond over the years with regards to the licensed content, changes to the licensed content, and how they prioritize it vs homebrew/UA and the reality is Homebrew has always been a part of D&D but with a digital toolset, it's never going to satisfy everyone in terms of the implementation.
For the things that are legitimate though? Life Clerics and their bonus to healing taking 3 years? Yeah, I don't know why this has taken that long. Anything released officially that wasn't ready when the book shipped, is a valid concern.
The Dev Updates? The site staff has been in dialogue to try and get us more useful information but at the end of it, they can only give what Adam Bradford gives. If you have issues with those updates, take it up with him. Politely and professionally, of course.
Ultimately, I've been able to do everything I want with Homebrew within the constructs of my game. Maybe I'm just not going all out enough to completely break the site though.
I very much agree with the whole being constructive here, like stated before, this is meant to simply represent my opinions on the problems with the site and what I feel needs addressed.
As for the Homebrew, it works okay for most simple purposes, but there are several more niche things that just don't work well if at all I've found, not to mention how the filter works for publishing things as well as the overall unintuitive interface. As for UA, like I stated, those were merely examples of other times that I personally have seen where things that should be simple and not take long to fix have taken an eternity.
As for the updates, really I don't feel that the dev updates are the problem, and they do convey their information well, its just that when there isn't information to present but they try to present it anyways, you do end up with things being promised, but not given a date, and given their record of how long things take, its hard to put much faith behind what is meant to be an announcement that should hype up the community.
So far this session I have hit my teammates twice, flat-out missed 3 times, and only hit the enemy twice. Trust me, you don't want to borrow my dice.
I understand the frustration completely. In short, you are paying for a service and not receiving that service in full which is always very annoying.
Dear Smart_TJ,
I happen to be able to shed some light on the points you have raised. I hope this might be informative.
Sincerely,
Sposta
To your 1st and 2nd points:
they are actually the same problem. The homebrew creator was never intended to be a homebrew creator. It is the same exact system the DDB team uses to implement the official content, only we don’t have admin privileges so we cannot accidentally/intentionally create anything that could potentially crash the site. (Yes, that could have been a theoretical possibility without those safeguards.) The reason it was never actually intended for public use is because WotC had originally expressly forbade DDB from implementing any homebrew tools whatsoever. That decision was a reaction to the dumpster fire over at the D&D Wiki. To actively dissuade any future discussion on the subject, they told DDB that the creation software they designed must meet two criteria (paraphrased):
The DDB Devs looked at the WotC content put out at that time, realized that everything was just the same sorts of things rearranged and recombined. They figured that WotC had exhausted the list of stuff they were prepared to implement, and wasn’t likely to break any new molds mechanically speaking. So they followed their contractual obligations to create a system to meet that interpretation of their “IRL RAW.” So the DDB Devs took the now tear stained blueprints for what might have been the jewel in DDB’s crown, and stuck in in a drawer like a sheet for a character one knows they will never get to play. They had a moment of silence and then set about designing the minimalist system we had until recently since that was all they were told to make, and they knew they could finish it quickly.
Turns out, WotC poor wording struck again. Their RAI was that DDB’s software had to be capable of creating anything on command, but only WotC’s commands were to be recognized and no one else’s.
But over the first year and change after the site launched, DDB had proven itself to be a more responsible (and reasonable, and reachable) content host than the aforementioned dumpster fire. Meanwhile, that whole time people kept asking for it, and asking for it, (and asking for it....) and BadEye kept pestering WotC. Eventually he personally went over there with stacks of binders filled with thousands of pages of requests from customers to DDB to please allow them to homebrew since that impediment was preventing them fro playing D&D their way on this “Official Online D&D Resource.” Under the literal weight of all of those requests from customers, WotC capitulated. So DDB did the only thing they could, they jerryrigged the original content creator to make it safe enough for publicly use and flipped on the switches for us.
Meanwhile, around that same time, the newer WotC designs were already starting to strain the capabilities of DDB’s creation software. When Ravnica came out, the team realized that a major overhaul to the creation software was imperative. But first, they had to address just one glaring issue with that plan, everything was on a Monolith. To a Monolith, the Creation Software, the accumulated Content (all the official stuff and all of the 87 gagillian homebrews), and the user interface (Character Sheet Framework) were all so fully integrated as to functionally be all one thing, kinda like the Borg. (That’s why everything was so fast before.) Unfortunately, much like the Borg, one single system cannot be overhauled without it affecting every single piece of the whole system. If they made any mistakes, those would have potentially resulted in existing content breaking. And Homebrew was especially susceptible as a lot of it had interactions not intended under the initial design. After all, that’s kinda the point of homebrew, and it was made by normal people using software designed to be used only by the experts who built it. If suddenly half of all the homebrewed content people had created on the site people would have lost their bananas, both individually and collectively.
So, the Devs knew they would have to untangle the Monolith’s Gordian Knot of 1s & 0s, and put the content on its own server nice and safe from any unintended consequences. But, yet again the Monolith itself stood in the way of that process. The lines between creation software and content were indistinct. And, since everything on the Monolith was all designed to reference itself, the Character Sheets wouldn’t be able to find the Content. And even it the sheet could get the data, it wouldn’t all necessarily fit together the same.
So first, DDB had to take all of the invisible things that work behind the character sheet so it displays everything properly, and basically redesign it all from scratch, and replace the old Character Sheet Framework almost in its entirety. That took just over 10 months, and then about another two months to work out the bugs. Once that was done, the Devs had to surgically excise all of those countless pieces of content and relocate it to its own server in such a way as to not break any of it. Almost everyone noticed the
update tonearly complete replacement of the Character Sheet Framework. That was inevitable, like having to break eggs is inevitable when making an omelette. But relocating all of the content happened so seamlessly that the average user never even noticed that it happened, and the average homebrewer barely noticed the lights flicker for a couple days. In fact, the only part of it that most folks have noticed is that updated homebrews sometimes take just a little longer to reflect on the character sheets. That was it. (Eat your heart out David Copperfield!)Once all of that was accomplished, they could finally begin the “planned overhaul” to the Creation Software. (That term utterly fails to convey the sheer scope of the project.) And within a few relatively short months they have implemented a lot of stuff: Spells of the Mark, the Bug Bashes, and putting in an express lane to get the upcoming Tasha’s Content.... I simply cannot convey the absolute leaps and bounds that represents.
So, in response, I am pleased to inform you that they have been working on addressing your points more than a year before you even made this hread. 👍
To your third point:
The Devs that do the graphic designs for the dice are highly specialized and are completely different programmers than the ones who do stuff like recoding the entire Content Creation Software from the ground up. Like, the best chefs in the world all go hire fantastic Pastry Chefs because cooking ain’t baking. Sure, Bobby Flay can bake a cake, but a specialist could do it better. Or, for a D&D metaphor, Wizards can make melee weapon attacks, but if they have to them that means everything has already gone terribly, horribly wrong.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
From a person just starting to Homebrew items and subclasses, has the homebrew system improved that much from 2020 to 2023?
As far as I can tell, the system hasn't been developed at all since 2018.