As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
Well we are all adults here. But some of us still can't quite fathom how in Europe you would not get away with selling an online service to someone then taking it away literally the very next day. Also: I have my doubts you'd simply shrug off this site's demise. Wizards' constant defenders seem to spend half their waking hours here. And most of them defending Wizards and not even bloody well playing the game.
Doubt if you wish. I lost more when the 4th Ed subscription service died than I will lose here for another few years of buying services. These things happen. If you think for a moment that I won't be able to find an alternative to D&D Beyond, should it fail, you are kidding yourself. Beyond just happens to be the most easy solution for my needs with the bonus of being "official."
Also, if you only have a vague understanding of EU law, then it would make sense why you are out of your depth and can't fathom the reality. You, of course, are always welcome to research the law and share here what parts you think are relevant.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
Well we are all adults here. But some of us still can't quite fathom how in Europe you would not get away with selling an online service to someone then taking it away literally the very next day. Also: I have my doubts you'd simply shrug off this site's demise. Wizards' constant defenders seem to spend half their waking hours here. And most of them defending Wizards and not even bloody well playing the game.
Doubt if you wish. I lost more when the 4th Ed subscription service died than I will lose here for another few years of buying services. These things happen. If you think for a moment that I won't be able to find an alternative to D&D Beyond, should it fail, you are kidding yourself. Beyond just happens to be the most easy solution for my needs with the bonus of being "official."
Also, if you only have a vague understanding of EU law, then it would make sense why you are out of your depth and can't fathom the reality. You, of course, are always welcome to research the law and share here what parts you think are relevant.
You completely missed my point. It wasn't about D&D Beyond as a platform on which to play going bye-bye. But these forums. On which Wizards' most loyal appear to spend more time than they do playing. Me I don't care enough to do such research. You are the one who seems to believe Wizards' terms of service and even parts of it that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand are infallible and infinite in the eyes of the law. You do it.
I'm not terribly interested in doing your argument for you. Especially when it seems you are not even sure what you are arguing.
For those that come later, do be sure you enter into online purchases either assuming you are trading money for access to ephemeral materials or take the time to read and understand the TOS associated before purchase. Either option will save you spending a few forum pages sounding silly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I'm not terribly interested in doing your argument for you. Especially when it seems you are not even sure what you are arguing.
For those that come later, do be sure you enter into online purchases either assuming you are trading money for access to ephemeral materials or take the time to read and understand the TOS associated before purchase. Either option will save you spending a few forum pages sounding silly.
You are playing a game of semantics. It is not about the "materials" or how ephemeral they are.
How many times do you need to have it explained it you that it is about the service people have paid for and that ONE DAY before they were going to remove that service from customers they were still selling it to them ?
The wording in that purchase is that customers have access to the content in the book they are buying and do so in the tookit.
You cannot say that ONE DAY before taking away that very same access to that very same content. That is so grossly corrupt it would not have held up in court. No matter how much empty rhetoric is in the terms of service about how you don't "own" those materials. Instead of sounding like a disciple of some rampant pro-capitalist con use what pulses between your ears and think about it.
Look friend, it feels like you just want to be mad and you want to gripe about a perceived wrong (which is fine). If you don't understand why the service you are being mad about is the way it is, I'd again, suggest you actual take the time to understand the service you are spending money on and see why it is maybe not the service you had wanted.
4.7 Changes in Availability: We reserve the right to modify the availability, features, and prices of the content and items listed in the Marketplace, with no guarantee of future availability. We maintain the right to manage and adjust our offerings as needed, which includes changing fees or billing practices. Should any changes be unacceptable to you, your only recourse is to close your D&D Beyond account. Continuing to use D&D Beyond following any changes indicatesyour acceptance of these new terms.
Rights for European Union Residents:If you're a resident of the European Union, you have the right to cancel a purchase of Digital Content within 14 days, no questions asked. However, you acknowledge that this right is forfeited once we provide access to the Digital Content, as this constitutes the complete fulfillment of our Service from the moment your purchase is finalized, and the content becomes accessible on your account.
11.1 User Termination Rights: You may cease using D&D Beyond and its Services, as well as terminate your account or cancel your Subscription, at any time.
13.2 EU Residents' Dispute Resolution: For those residing in the European Union, we aim to respond to any claims or concerns within 14 days of receipt. Additionally, EU residents have the option to seek dispute resolution through any accredited out-of-court settlement body recognized by their country's Digital Services Coordinator.
14. GOVERNING LAW
14.1 Applicable Law: All interactions and agreements between you and us, including D&D Beyond and Services, are established in Washington and are governed by the laws of the State of Washington. This governance is applied withoutreference to conflict of laws provisions, and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.
14.2 Court Jurisdiction: For any legal matters not resolved through Section 20 of theGeneral Terms (which might refer to arbitration or an alternative dispute resolution method), both you and uswe agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of both state and federal courts located in King County, Washington. By agreeing to these terms, you relinquish any claim that courts in King County are an inappropriate venue for resolving disputes.
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If you are unhappy, you can always ask for a refund and use a different service. If you find the company to be in breach of their responsibilities above, you are welcome to make the point in court. As it stands, the idea that a company would sell access to a digital toolkit and actually update it as needed is not an uncommon or scandalous prospect. I have a hard time expecting a court of law to show favor to your argument that you or others were irreparably harmed because you bought something that you didn't understand, then chose not to ask for a refund and seek service elsewhere.
Again, not my first rodeo with WotC and their digital offerings. The service isn't great, the tools are passable, and the pricing structure could be better for the consumer. But I know what I am dealing with and harbor no illusions when it comes to digital offerings of any kind. We live in a world where app gacha games can announce their launch and their impending closure at the top and bottom of the same announcement post and reap millions from whales who didn't bother to read past the cute wifu art. Educate yourselves when it comes to digital purchases of any kind or accept that you are just renting time and hope the experience you want is paid for equitably.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Unbelievable. The thread is "Turning off, or disabling, 2024 content", and it devolved into an argument about the finer points of contract law in Europe.
I guess I don't understand why people get offended when someone simply asks for a choice. Early on in this thread, there was this:
On the other hand, if they annoy enough customers, they won't get enough sales to stay open either. There's a balancing act. I don't know the precise place where that lies, obviously, but I know some people are leaving over this issue. Some of them are "whales" - the kind that buy tons of books, even ones they don't have a realistic chance of using. For whatever reason, they just don't want 2024e, at least not just yet.
Well, I'm one of those "whales". I spent a ton of money on the "Big Ol' Studmuffin" package about five years ago when they had a sale and got access to every single source available at the time. I pre-ordered everything they released, got all the dice, etc. because I kind of treated it like an extension of my physical collection which includes all of the alternate cover editions of all of the 5e books. This doesn't make me special, although it probably reveals some sort of mental health issue.
I just started a game where two players are new and the other four haven't touched D&D in 20+ years. We had our Session Zero and I had everyone create an account so I could share source material from here and showed them how easy it was to track the game in the app. We had our first real session the day after the new material dropped.
Suddenly, they can't look up spells because they get a message that says "Can't find what you're looking for? Go to the marketplace.". Other searches result in things that a) don't exist, or b) are different from what they thought they knew.
Mid-session is not the time to teach new players about filters, legacy tags, etc. I know that's just rotten timing and not some intentional thing on WotC's part, but it does illustrate the problem.
I've canceled my subscription and for the reason why, I told them I'd come back if they add a toggle for 2014/2024/Both or if they gave us a way to put a global filter on our account so we don't have to select sources every single time we do a search. I fully expect this to not matter at all to them as it's only $50-ish per year, but it felt like the best decision for me.
If they want new book sales, then they should put out content that people want. They probably did that because this was supposed to be player-driven. However, if they want to maintain the revenue stream from the DDB site, then they should give subscribers what they want. An unhappy subscriber is very unlikely to purchase new content anyway, so not giving us what we want isn't going to somehow increase content sales.
While I won't argue that the current situation makes it easy to use the 2014 content exclusively, I believe that most of the people who are complaining just didn't actually scroll down far enough when they chose their character class when building their character. I am not super familiar with the D&D Beyond character creator (as I have made most of my characters on Roll20, essentially by hand), but I had already made up 2-3 characters here before made a Creation Bard for a new 2014 campaign. Originally I just picked the first "Bard" that came up on the list of classes, and then saw that I was getting the 2024 features. I had to toss that attempt out and scroll down a bit further to the "Legacy Bard" character class, and then everything stayed within the 2014 parameters for the most part. I think there might have been a few times when I had to make sure that I picked the Legacy spell when I was choosing them, but I have had no issues otherwise.
So, to sum up, a toggle would be easier, but if you just make sure to scroll down and pick a Legacy class when making a character, I think 99% of the problems people are grousing about here would be solved.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
<sigh>
As has been noted a thousand times on this board. All of the 2014 content is still there. When choosing your class scroll further down for the 2014 legacy classes.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
<sigh>
As has been noted a thousand times on this board. All of the 2014 content is still there. When choosing your class scroll further down for the 2014 legacy classes.
It is there, and they have done a great job of making it very difficult for users or it would not have been noted "a thousand times on this board"
THe passive aggressive nature of this punishment is not something people would expect from a company like wizbro, they remind me of a middle school DM that had the books, and threw a fit if someone didn't play the way they wanted. It is looking like it is time to do the same thing we did back then go get our own books (switch to a better company) and play without them.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
It is also important to note that a toggle would have been a better choice and easier for users, like they did for those not wanting the legacy stuff in the '24 rules. That choice added to the absolute zero response to the many confused users of this site on how they can use this mess they have made for us when there was a far superior choice that they did make for the way they want us to play the game is rather insulting.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I just bought used copies of PHB and TCoE online for pretty cheap so I could have those at the table when we play. That way, if the players have a hard time finding it in DDB, we have the hard copies. I think I'll probably use this to wean them (and me) off of DDB altogether. It kind of sucks because I love the campaign feature where I can see all of their character sheets, but hey... we did it that way for decades, so no biggie.
I subscribed to DnDB to have an easy way to make characters for my teenage players. With all the recent changes it is not easy anymore. So why should i keep my subscription?
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
We had a functioning* site. We were then told that half** of that was going to be deleted. The fact that they decided not to delete things and instead merely made it unnecessarily difficult and confusing to use (and accidently deleted a few things anyway***) is not something to celebrate. They have not "listened to the customer base", if they had we'd be able to choose which ruleset to use and only see the chosen ruleset in the character builder/sheet. Instead they've done the bare minimum to pretend they're listening. No-one**** playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through all the 2024 options to build a character, and I can't imagine 2024 players are thrilled to have legacy rules showing up all over the sheet, or having to enable all the legacy spells etc just to access the legacy subclasses.
As for the "massive course change", that was entirely self inflicted. They'd had over two years to plan the update. The messaging for months had been that 2024 was backwards compatible, and you could still use old characters/adventures etc. They can't then announce two weeks before switchover "oh, you can keep the character, we're just deleting all***** their spells and items and giving them new ones". They should never have been planning that in the first place, and it's no defense to claim they were surprised by the response.
Even now though, if they came out and said that they had a plan over the next few months to a) fix all the bugs, b) implement the missing PHB features and c) add a way to segregate the two rulesets****** and implement some detailed filtering options******* I'd be willing to give them some time to do so. As it stands though we've had no information on what they're planning to fix, or even what they consider a bug. There's a load of features from the new PHB that are just listed as "we are unable to implement this feature", with no indication on whether they are working on it, or just don't intend to do anything with it.
* Mostly ** Not literally. Certainly an unreasonably large amount though. *** E.g. the 2014 Monk has the wrong Martial Arts Die and the legacy rules for Initiative, Inspiration, Two Weapon Fighting, Unarmed Strike, Grapple & Shove are all missing from the sheet. ****Again, not literally. I've not asked everyone yet. ***** Yet again, not literally. But the vast majority of spells and a large number of items. ****** Easiest way would be to have a choice at the start of character building, that lead to seperate options/sheets ******* This isn't just important for 2014/204, but as more and more books come out it's not helpful to have loads of books lumped under "Expanded Rules" or "Legacy Content", you really need to be able to filter by book.
Assuming WotC don't change anything for the better, or make it worse (I'm expecting more 2024 rules creep) what are the alternatives? At our table we're all neuro-spicy people, which is why D&D Beyond was such a great help for us. Printed character sheets and printed books work, but they tend to slow us down quite a bit as our brains try to figure things out while being distracted by everything else. So, while we could cancel D&D Beyond, we'd rather not.
However... What if we have to? What are some alternatives that could do the same sort of thing? Are there any? Does Roll20 have similar functionality? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated; I'd like to look into some in case D&D Beyond becomes just too silly to work with. Thanks!
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
We had a functioning* site. We were then told that half** of that was going to be deleted. The fact that they decided not to delete things and instead merely made it unnecessarily difficult and confusing to use (and accidently deleted a few things anyway***) is not something to celebrate. They have not "listened to the customer base", if they had we'd be able to choose which ruleset to use and only see the chosen ruleset in the character builder/sheet. Instead they've done the bare minimum to pretend they're listening. No-one**** playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through all the 2024 options to build a character, and I can't imagine 2024 players are thrilled to have legacy rules showing up all over the sheet, or having to enable all the legacy spells etc just to access the legacy subclasses.
As for the "massive course change", that was entirely self inflicted. They'd had over two years to plan the update. The messaging for months had been that 2024 was backwards compatible, and you could still use old characters/adventures etc. They can't then announce two weeks before switchover "oh, you can keep the character, we're just deleting all***** their spells and items and giving them new ones". They should never have been planning that in the first place, and it's no defense to claim they were surprised by the response.
Even now though, if they came out and said that they had a plan over the next few months to a) fix all the bugs, b) implement the missing PHB features and c) add a way to segregate the two rulesets****** and implement some detailed filtering options******* I'd be willing to give them some time to do so. As it stands though we've had no information on what they're planning to fix, or even what they consider a bug. There's a load of features from the new PHB that are just listed as "we are unable to implement this feature", with no indication on whether they are working on it, or just don't intend to do anything with it.
* Mostly ** Not literally. Certainly an unreasonably large amount though. *** E.g. the 2014 Monk has the wrong Martial Arts Die and the legacy rules for Initiative, Inspiration, Two Weapon Fighting, Unarmed Strike, Grapple & Shove are all missing from the sheet. ****Again, not literally. I've not asked everyone yet. ***** Yet again, not literally. But the vast majority of spells and a large number of items. ****** Easiest way would be to have a choice at the start of character building, that lead to seperate options/sheets ******* This isn't just important for 2014/204, but as more and more books come out it's not helpful to have loads of books lumped under "Expanded Rules" or "Legacy Content", you really need to be able to filter by book.
What do you mean “no one playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through…”? I just told you I am playing 2014 rules and it’s manageable so far. My group was ready to switch to pen and paper. Now we don’t have to.
The unarmed tooltips are what I mentioned need to be ignored however I haven’t given a monk a go since 2024. That is super unfortunate! Closer to a deal breaker than inspiration being called heroic inspiration instead anyway haha. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good though. I am no Wizbro apologist but it is impossible to deny that this is better than no more access to 2014 content in the character sheet at all, which was totally on the table.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
It is also important to note that a toggle would have been a better choice and easier for users, like they did for those not wanting the legacy stuff in the '24 rules. That choice added to the absolute zero response to the many confused users of this site on how they can use this mess they have made for us when there was a far superior choice that they did make for the way they want us to play the game is rather insulting.
There is a toggle. Could there have been a better toggle? Maybe. I don’t know how hard it would be for them to make the toggle something other than what they did but to claim there is no toggle is as disingenuous as the folks who want to tell you that the 2014 character sheet is the same now with the legacy content as it was before 2024 dropped.
Again, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The legacy content is pretty clearly labelled. The monk die being incorrect is the worst thing I know of but….when the home group leveled on Saturday, two of the players chose some 2024 content. It was easy to detect. The cleric/bard chose Starry Wisp and the rogue/ranger had weapon masteries. All it took to fix the problem was to remind them to scroll all the way down when choosing a class and to make sure that spells are tagged legacy. They fixed it in about as much time as it took them to level the wrong way originally. All about a billion times better than pen and paper would be in the grand scheme of things, which is what we’re comparing DDB to if you prefer 2014 over 2024.
Hopefully they fix the martial arts die at least and tune up some of the other things. TBH, I feel way it’s way worse for the 2024 players who want to play with subclasses that didn’t get republished yet so now they have to figure out how to weave the legacy stuff in with the new. We’re not early adopters so likely would not have changed but the fact that I wanted to play a Fathomless Warlock and there was no way I was doing that BS is a deciding factor for us sticking with 2014 for the campaign we started three weeks ago.
**Wanted to add that it’s not like the character sheet was flawless before 2024 dropped. It has always had a few things that you had to be careful about, things it didn’t implement properly and such. It is commonly accepted that DDB permitting something on a character sheet is not a legitimate rules test. You always had to be willing and able to look at other sources to ensure you were doing things correctly.
Kayakingpoodle, I’m not telling you or anyone how to feel about this, I am saying your criteria are skewed. If you’re thirsty and are offered a glass of water but refuse to drink only beer, is it really true or fair to say you were never offered a drink? Straight 2014 DDB was never on the table. The option to what we have now was pen and paper for legacy content. If you compare it to something that was never on offer, you’ve set yourself up so you can never be happy.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
We had a functioning* site. We were then told that half** of that was going to be deleted. The fact that they decided not to delete things and instead merely made it unnecessarily difficult and confusing to use (and accidently deleted a few things anyway***) is not something to celebrate. They have not "listened to the customer base", if they had we'd be able to choose which ruleset to use and only see the chosen ruleset in the character builder/sheet. Instead they've done the bare minimum to pretend they're listening. No-one**** playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through all the 2024 options to build a character, and I can't imagine 2024 players are thrilled to have legacy rules showing up all over the sheet, or having to enable all the legacy spells etc just to access the legacy subclasses.
As for the "massive course change", that was entirely self inflicted. They'd had over two years to plan the update. The messaging for months had been that 2024 was backwards compatible, and you could still use old characters/adventures etc. They can't then announce two weeks before switchover "oh, you can keep the character, we're just deleting all***** their spells and items and giving them new ones". They should never have been planning that in the first place, and it's no defense to claim they were surprised by the response.
Even now though, if they came out and said that they had a plan over the next few months to a) fix all the bugs, b) implement the missing PHB features and c) add a way to segregate the two rulesets****** and implement some detailed filtering options******* I'd be willing to give them some time to do so. As it stands though we've had no information on what they're planning to fix, or even what they consider a bug. There's a load of features from the new PHB that are just listed as "we are unable to implement this feature", with no indication on whether they are working on it, or just don't intend to do anything with it.
* Mostly ** Not literally. Certainly an unreasonably large amount though. *** E.g. the 2014 Monk has the wrong Martial Arts Die and the legacy rules for Initiative, Inspiration, Two Weapon Fighting, Unarmed Strike, Grapple & Shove are all missing from the sheet. ****Again, not literally. I've not asked everyone yet. ***** Yet again, not literally. But the vast majority of spells and a large number of items. ****** Easiest way would be to have a choice at the start of character building, that lead to seperate options/sheets ******* This isn't just important for 2014/204, but as more and more books come out it's not helpful to have loads of books lumped under "Expanded Rules" or "Legacy Content", you really need to be able to filter by book.
What do you mean “no one playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through…”? I just told you I am playing 2014 rules and it’s manageable so far. My group was ready to switch to pen and paper. Now we don’t have to.
The unarmed tooltips are what I mentioned need to be ignored however I haven’t given a monk a go since 2024. That is super unfortunate! Closer to a deal breaker than inspiration being called heroic inspiration instead anyway haha. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good though. I am no Wizbro apologist but it is impossible to deny that this is better than no more access to 2014 content in the character sheet at all, which was totally on the table.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
It is also important to note that a toggle would have been a better choice and easier for users, like they did for those not wanting the legacy stuff in the '24 rules. That choice added to the absolute zero response to the many confused users of this site on how they can use this mess they have made for us when there was a far superior choice that they did make for the way they want us to play the game is rather insulting.
There is a toggle. Could there have been a better toggle? Maybe. I don’t know how hard it would be for them to make the toggle something other than what they did but to claim there is no toggle is as disingenuous as the folks who want to tell you that the 2014 character sheet is the same now with the legacy content as it was before 2024 dropped.
Again, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The legacy content is pretty clearly labelled. The monk die being incorrect is the worst thing I know of but….when the home group leveled on Saturday, two of the players chose some 2024 content. It was easy to detect. The cleric/bard chose Starry Wisp and the rogue/ranger had weapon masteries. All it took to fix the problem was to remind them to scroll all the way down when choosing a class and to make sure that spells are tagged legacy. They fixed it in about as much time as it took them to level the wrong way originally. All about a billion times better than pen and paper would be in the grand scheme of things, which is what we’re comparing DDB to if you prefer 2014 over 2024.
Hopefully they fix the martial arts die at least and tune up some of the other things. TBH, I feel way it’s way worse for the 2024 players who want to play with subclasses that didn’t get republished yet so now they have to figure out how to weave the legacy stuff in with the new. We’re not early adopters so likely would not have changed but the fact that I wanted to play a Fathomless Warlock and there was no way I was doing that BS is a deciding factor for us sticking with 2014 for the campaign we started three weeks ago.
Where is the toggle to turn off the 24 content?
That is the toggle we (those unhappy with the current rollout) are talking about. Yes there are many toggles one for just about everything but turning off the 24 content. That is the gripe, I am a little surprised it had to be said, talk about being disingenuous.
A '24 toggle would clear up lots of confusion, and get rid of the bulk of the discontent with the current set up.
It is getting hard not to see the lack of a '24 toggle as the passive aggressive punishment for those not wanting to use the incomplete rules we are being forced to sift through, are see it as. It is like wizbro is just slopping the hog and waiting to get paid.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
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Doubt if you wish. I lost more when the 4th Ed subscription service died than I will lose here for another few years of buying services. These things happen. If you think for a moment that I won't be able to find an alternative to D&D Beyond, should it fail, you are kidding yourself. Beyond just happens to be the most easy solution for my needs with the bonus of being "official."
Also, if you only have a vague understanding of EU law, then it would make sense why you are out of your depth and can't fathom the reality. You, of course, are always welcome to research the law and share here what parts you think are relevant.
You completely missed my point. It wasn't about D&D Beyond as a platform on which to play going bye-bye. But these forums. On which Wizards' most loyal appear to spend more time than they do playing. Me I don't care enough to do such research. You are the one who seems to believe Wizards' terms of service and even parts of it that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand are infallible and infinite in the eyes of the law. You do it.
Pissing in the wind then. Fair enough.
I'm not terribly interested in doing your argument for you. Especially when it seems you are not even sure what you are arguing.
For those that come later, do be sure you enter into online purchases either assuming you are trading money for access to ephemeral materials or take the time to read and understand the TOS associated before purchase. Either option will save you spending a few forum pages sounding silly.
You are playing a game of semantics. It is not about the "materials" or how ephemeral they are.
How many times do you need to have it explained it you that it is about the service people have paid for and that ONE DAY before they were going to remove that service from customers they were still selling it to them ?
The wording in that purchase is that customers have access to the content in the book they are buying and do so in the tookit.
You cannot say that ONE DAY before taking away that very same access to that very same content. That is so grossly corrupt it would not have held up in court. No matter how much empty rhetoric is in the terms of service about how you don't "own" those materials. Instead of sounding like a disciple of some rampant pro-capitalist con use what pulses between your ears and think about it.
Look friend, it feels like you just want to be mad and you want to gripe about a perceived wrong (which is fine). If you don't understand why the service you are being mad about is the way it is, I'd again, suggest you actual take the time to understand the service you are spending money on and see why it is maybe not the service you had wanted.
If you are unhappy, you can always ask for a refund and use a different service. If you find the company to be in breach of their responsibilities above, you are welcome to make the point in court. As it stands, the idea that a company would sell access to a digital toolkit and actually update it as needed is not an uncommon or scandalous prospect. I have a hard time expecting a court of law to show favor to your argument that you or others were irreparably harmed because you bought something that you didn't understand, then chose not to ask for a refund and seek service elsewhere.
Again, not my first rodeo with WotC and their digital offerings. The service isn't great, the tools are passable, and the pricing structure could be better for the consumer. But I know what I am dealing with and harbor no illusions when it comes to digital offerings of any kind. We live in a world where app gacha games can announce their launch and their impending closure at the top and bottom of the same announcement post and reap millions from whales who didn't bother to read past the cute wifu art. Educate yourselves when it comes to digital purchases of any kind or accept that you are just renting time and hope the experience you want is paid for equitably.
Unbelievable. The thread is "Turning off, or disabling, 2024 content", and it devolved into an argument about the finer points of contract law in Europe.
I guess I don't understand why people get offended when someone simply asks for a choice. Early on in this thread, there was this:
Well, I'm one of those "whales". I spent a ton of money on the "Big Ol' Studmuffin" package about five years ago when they had a sale and got access to every single source available at the time. I pre-ordered everything they released, got all the dice, etc. because I kind of treated it like an extension of my physical collection which includes all of the alternate cover editions of all of the 5e books. This doesn't make me special, although it probably reveals some sort of mental health issue.
I just started a game where two players are new and the other four haven't touched D&D in 20+ years. We had our Session Zero and I had everyone create an account so I could share source material from here and showed them how easy it was to track the game in the app. We had our first real session the day after the new material dropped.
Suddenly, they can't look up spells because they get a message that says "Can't find what you're looking for? Go to the marketplace.". Other searches result in things that a) don't exist, or b) are different from what they thought they knew.
Mid-session is not the time to teach new players about filters, legacy tags, etc. I know that's just rotten timing and not some intentional thing on WotC's part, but it does illustrate the problem.
I've canceled my subscription and for the reason why, I told them I'd come back if they add a toggle for 2014/2024/Both or if they gave us a way to put a global filter on our account so we don't have to select sources every single time we do a search. I fully expect this to not matter at all to them as it's only $50-ish per year, but it felt like the best decision for me.
If they want new book sales, then they should put out content that people want. They probably did that because this was supposed to be player-driven. However, if they want to maintain the revenue stream from the DDB site, then they should give subscribers what they want. An unhappy subscriber is very unlikely to purchase new content anyway, so not giving us what we want isn't going to somehow increase content sales.
While I won't argue that the current situation makes it easy to use the 2014 content exclusively, I believe that most of the people who are complaining just didn't actually scroll down far enough when they chose their character class when building their character. I am not super familiar with the D&D Beyond character creator (as I have made most of my characters on Roll20, essentially by hand), but I had already made up 2-3 characters here before made a Creation Bard for a new 2014 campaign. Originally I just picked the first "Bard" that came up on the list of classes, and then saw that I was getting the 2024 features. I had to toss that attempt out and scroll down a bit further to the "Legacy Bard" character class, and then everything stayed within the 2014 parameters for the most part. I think there might have been a few times when I had to make sure that I picked the Legacy spell when I was choosing them, but I have had no issues otherwise.
So, to sum up, a toggle would be easier, but if you just make sure to scroll down and pick a Legacy class when making a character, I think 99% of the problems people are grousing about here would be solved.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
<sigh>
As has been noted a thousand times on this board. All of the 2014 content is still there. When choosing your class scroll further down for the 2014 legacy classes.
*sigh*
Okay. I’ll own that. I missed it. Though in counterpoint it so many people are missing it, perhaps it’s a design/layout issue?
I’m predisposed to want to stick it out. I have since the early ‘80s. The annoyance factor is high.
It is there, and they have done a great job of making it very difficult for users or it would not have been noted "a thousand times on this board"
THe passive aggressive nature of this punishment is not something people would expect from a company like wizbro, they remind me of a middle school DM that had the books, and threw a fit if someone didn't play the way they wanted. It is looking like it is time to do the same thing we did back then go get our own books (switch to a better company) and play without them.
The level of pettiness from wizbro is stupefying!
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Yeah, as a tool to build characters the very first question should be 2014 or 2024 ruleset? From there the options follow the path chosen.
This is a very clunky rollout of an update to a whole lot of stuff that could be implemented far better.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
It is also important to note that a toggle would have been a better choice and easier for users, like they did for those not wanting the legacy stuff in the '24 rules. That choice added to the absolute zero response to the many confused users of this site on how they can use this mess they have made for us when there was a far superior choice that they did make for the way they want us to play the game is rather insulting.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I just bought used copies of PHB and TCoE online for pretty cheap so I could have those at the table when we play. That way, if the players have a hard time finding it in DDB, we have the hard copies. I think I'll probably use this to wean them (and me) off of DDB altogether. It kind of sucks because I love the campaign feature where I can see all of their character sheets, but hey... we did it that way for decades, so no biggie.
I subscribed to DnDB to have an easy way to make characters for my teenage players.
With all the recent changes it is not easy anymore. So why should i keep my subscription?
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]We had a functioning* site. We were then told that half** of that was going to be deleted. The fact that they decided not to delete things and instead merely made it unnecessarily difficult and confusing to use (and accidently deleted a few things anyway***) is not something to celebrate. They have not "listened to the customer base", if they had we'd be able to choose which ruleset to use and only see the chosen ruleset in the character builder/sheet. Instead they've done the bare minimum to pretend they're listening. No-one**** playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through all the 2024 options to build a character, and I can't imagine 2024 players are thrilled to have legacy rules showing up all over the sheet, or having to enable all the legacy spells etc just to access the legacy subclasses.
As for the "massive course change", that was entirely self inflicted. They'd had over two years to plan the update. The messaging for months had been that 2024 was backwards compatible, and you could still use old characters/adventures etc. They can't then announce two weeks before switchover "oh, you can keep the character, we're just deleting all***** their spells and items and giving them new ones". They should never have been planning that in the first place, and it's no defense to claim they were surprised by the response.
Even now though, if they came out and said that they had a plan over the next few months to a) fix all the bugs, b) implement the missing PHB features and c) add a way to segregate the two rulesets****** and implement some detailed filtering options******* I'd be willing to give them some time to do so. As it stands though we've had no information on what they're planning to fix, or even what they consider a bug. There's a load of features from the new PHB that are just listed as "we are unable to implement this feature", with no indication on whether they are working on it, or just don't intend to do anything with it.
* Mostly
** Not literally. Certainly an unreasonably large amount though.
*** E.g. the 2014 Monk has the wrong Martial Arts Die and the legacy rules for Initiative, Inspiration, Two Weapon Fighting, Unarmed Strike, Grapple & Shove are all missing from the sheet.
****Again, not literally. I've not asked everyone yet.
***** Yet again, not literally. But the vast majority of spells and a large number of items.
****** Easiest way would be to have a choice at the start of character building, that lead to seperate options/sheets
******* This isn't just important for 2014/204, but as more and more books come out it's not helpful to have loads of books lumped under "Expanded Rules" or "Legacy Content", you really need to be able to filter by book.
So...
Assuming WotC don't change anything for the better, or make it worse (I'm expecting more 2024 rules creep) what are the alternatives? At our table we're all neuro-spicy people, which is why D&D Beyond was such a great help for us. Printed character sheets and printed books work, but they tend to slow us down quite a bit as our brains try to figure things out while being distracted by everything else. So, while we could cancel D&D Beyond, we'd rather not.
However... What if we have to? What are some alternatives that could do the same sort of thing? Are there any? Does Roll20 have similar functionality? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated; I'd like to look into some in case D&D Beyond becomes just too silly to work with. Thanks!
What do you mean “no one playing the 2014 rules is happy having to wade through…”? I just told you I am playing 2014 rules and it’s manageable so far. My group was ready to switch to pen and paper. Now we don’t have to.
The unarmed tooltips are what I mentioned need to be ignored however I haven’t given a monk a go since 2024. That is super unfortunate! Closer to a deal breaker than inspiration being called heroic inspiration instead anyway haha. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good though. I am no Wizbro apologist but it is impossible to deny that this is better than no more access to 2014 content in the character sheet at all, which was totally on the table.
There is a toggle. Could there have been a better toggle? Maybe. I don’t know how hard it would be for them to make the toggle something other than what they did but to claim there is no toggle is as disingenuous as the folks who want to tell you that the 2014 character sheet is the same now with the legacy content as it was before 2024 dropped.
Again, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The legacy content is pretty clearly labelled. The monk die being incorrect is the worst thing I know of but….when the home group leveled on Saturday, two of the players chose some 2024 content. It was easy to detect. The cleric/bard chose Starry Wisp and the rogue/ranger had weapon masteries. All it took to fix the problem was to remind them to scroll all the way down when choosing a class and to make sure that spells are tagged legacy. They fixed it in about as much time as it took them to level the wrong way originally. All about a billion times better than pen and paper would be in the grand scheme of things, which is what we’re comparing DDB to if you prefer 2014 over 2024.
Hopefully they fix the martial arts die at least and tune up some of the other things. TBH, I feel way it’s way worse for the 2024 players who want to play with subclasses that didn’t get republished yet so now they have to figure out how to weave the legacy stuff in with the new. We’re not early adopters so likely would not have changed but the fact that I wanted to play a Fathomless Warlock and there was no way I was doing that BS is a deciding factor for us sticking with 2014 for the campaign we started three weeks ago.
**Wanted to add that it’s not like the character sheet was flawless before 2024 dropped. It has always had a few things that you had to be careful about, things it didn’t implement properly and such. It is commonly accepted that DDB permitting something on a character sheet is not a legitimate rules test. You always had to be willing and able to look at other sources to ensure you were doing things correctly.
Kayakingpoodle, I’m not telling you or anyone how to feel about this, I am saying your criteria are skewed. If you’re thirsty and are offered a glass of water but refuse to drink only beer, is it really true or fair to say you were never offered a drink? Straight 2014 DDB was never on the table. The option to what we have now was pen and paper for legacy content. If you compare it to something that was never on offer, you’ve set yourself up so you can never be happy.
Where is the toggle to turn off the 24 content?
That is the toggle we (those unhappy with the current rollout) are talking about. Yes there are many toggles one for just about everything but turning off the 24 content. That is the gripe, I am a little surprised it had to be said, talk about being disingenuous.
A '24 toggle would clear up lots of confusion, and get rid of the bulk of the discontent with the current set up.
It is getting hard not to see the lack of a '24 toggle as the passive aggressive punishment for those not wanting to use the incomplete rules we are being forced to sift through, are see it as. It is like wizbro is just slopping the hog and waiting to get paid.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.