If a feature is drawing enough of your day to keep you from other things, couldn't that indicate that your customers are using it more than expected? I bet somewhere in San Francisco there's a very nice programmer looking for a job, maybe you and they could make an arrangement, and then you wouldn't have to announce that you're lopping popular functionality off your product, which can't have been fun.
Absolutely pathetic. You're completely out of touch with your customers and what they desire from the platform. Implementation is the most important aspect of what you do yet the only teams you seem interested in supporting are the microtransaction/virtual dice teams. Careful, your greed is showing.
There is nothing wrong with greed. I am sick and tired of people sitting on their moral high horse talking down to companies as if companies owe them something. Companies got human mouths to feed and bills to pay too just like you and me, and they certainly do not need this kind of disrespect. The microtransactions and virtual dice that you so detest are additional revenue streams that help keeps the Beyond team fed so they can keep working on core features and functionality. If customers were not being such pennypinching cheapskates in the first place, the gaming industry as whole would not have been forced down this path. I know because I am one of those pennypinching cheapskates; besides a small handful of items, 99% of the stuff I have on here were bought on sale or with discount codes.
I do not like the fact that they no longer support UA, and I am quite frankly disappointed by it. As much as I like UA and I want it to have the same priority as published material, for the community as a whole, it is best that Beyond drop UA and focus on implementing official publications as that is what matters most.
Not only can D&D already be played completely for free, Beyond even lets people who have financial difficulties to use their digital tools completely for free too. Beyond even went through the trouble of implementing UA as much as they can for the past several years, even though they get no financial compensation out of it. You want people to work for your benefit but you do not want to pay them for it? Who is the greedy one here?
If they would actually finish implementing all the content still missing that we've paid for before focusing on bleeding the customers then it wouldn't be an issue. Problem is, we're still missing content that came out in 2014 along with content from almost every single book released and sold. Should they expand their revenue streams? Sure. Should they finish the things customers have already paid for first? Yes.
This is such a bad move, alot of people use dnd beyond for playtesting and this just negates it. and on top of that we still dont have ui to make custom items in the games like basic weapons or armors and on top of that we still dont have a pact boon ui for the warlock class.
1) This is such a bad move, alot of people use dnd beyond for playtesting and this just negates it.
2) and on top of that we still dont have ui to make custom items in the games like basic weapons or armors and on top of that we still dont have a pact boon ui for the warlock class.
1) With all due respect, I think most of these people don't really playtest so much as use playtest material a bit and see how it feels. Actual playtesting is a bit more complex than that, if you want to do it properly.
2) This would the kind of stuff DDB could be focusing more on by not dedicating resources to UA instead.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If a feature is drawing enough of your day to keep you from other things, couldn't that indicate that your customers are using it more than expected? I bet somewhere in San Francisco there's a very nice programmer looking for a job, maybe you and they could make an arrangement, and then you wouldn't have to announce that you're lopping popular functionality off your product, which can't have been fun.
As mentioned previously, hiring people still costs money. It makes no sense for Beyond to hire someone to implement UA if customers do not pay for UA. If you are not willing to use the homebrew tools yourself for free, then why should Beyond do it for free?
If they would actually finish implementing all the content still missing that we've paid for before focusing on bleeding the customers then it wouldn't be an issue. Problem is, we're still missing content that came out in 2014 along with content from almost every single book released and sold. Should they expand their revenue streams? Sure. Should they finish the things customers have already paid for first? Yes.
Expanding revenue stream and finishing products are not mutually exclusive. It makes no sense to do things one at a time when you can do multiple things at a time, and doing secondary things does not impact the speed of your primary things.
The difference between dice and UA is that the team that handles dice is different from the team that handles implementing rules and features. Beyond has multiple teams, but each team is specialized in working in different parts of Beyond. UA sucks up time and resources of the main team, it cannot be offloaded to other teams, and it does not generate any revenue. Just because you and I think dice is dumb does not mean other people think it is dumb. Beyond is slowly working on a VTT. While I do not want them to go in that direction because I play in person and I do not care about having an online VTT (and I do not think it is a good idea to jump into that space when there is already two heavy weight competitors in that field), plenty of other people on the site want Beyond to work on a VTT, and Beyond is allocating some resources in that direction. Dice, encounter builder, etc. are all building blocks towards a VTT, and while I do not care about those features too much, those features are additional tools that can help people who play in person.
A hospital has different doctors, but it makes no sense to have a heart surgeon help a brain surgeon to speed up surgery. UA for Beyond is the same as a hospital using a brain surgeon to give people free head massages. It is a nice gesture, but patients are not paying the brain surgeon for head massages, and the hospital can no longer afford to have the brain surgeon waste time giving head massages because they are swamped with brain surgeries that still needs to be done. Just because the brain surgeon is swamped does not mean the hospital cannot hire a heart surgeon to save more lives and generate more revenue at the same time.
One of the reasons why I started buying books on D&D Beyond and supporting your company was that I really loved that you also supported Unearthed Arcana in your digital toolset which I have a lot of interest in. Removing a huge feature like this when so many of your users/customers find it so useful and enjoyable feels like a betrayal and being stabbed in the back. Just because you are not directly making money from UA doesn't mean it has no value. I feel like this is a short-sighted decision.
Also you already have the current UA material online so why is it so hard to keep it available for use at the very least?
Maybe you just don't care because the customers you already have drawn in with UA already have purchased books from you so they feel stuck in the platform and can't do anything about it anyways. Thanks a lot. I'm really disappointed.
Also you already have the current UA material online so why is it so hard to keep it available for use at the very least?
As said a couple of times by now, because WotC requires DDB to archive UA material when the corresponding playtest is over. It's not hard or easy, it's simply not an option.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Huh? What's free? I'm paying a monthly subscription, plus I've already bought several books. In fact, I pre-ordered Ravenloft specifically because I enjoyed the UA's for the gothic lineages before they came out. Hiring people for things that make you money is a viable business model.
This is a huge disappointment and is going to make me very cautious about spending money on this site in the future. I've paid for literally everything dndbeyond has offered except dice options and it was in large part because I felt confident dndbeyond understood that it's core business was a full featured character builder that allowed players to be up to date with pc options. I presumed that dndbeyond would keep updating its system for long enough that my investment into sourcebooks, adventures, and subscription fees wouldn't be wasted. The primary reason I felt confident was because dndbeyond had always been on the ball with offering unearthed arcana content quickly after it was released. There have been many points where I was concerned that basic options haven't been offered but I was able to still those concerns because at least all the new UA options were available. Now that you're taking away the one thing that allowed us to really keep up to date with new player options the fact that dndbeyond hasn't even "figured out a way" to add a simple checkmark box for patron dice tracking from Tasha's or offer any way to play the new sidekicks becomes impossible to justify. Rolling out inventory tracking that does nothing for us mechanically and which should have been available months ago is far from enough to justify cutting core functionality.
As someone who's seen the incredible speed of foundry vtt development over the last year it is apparent that fandom either isn't providing the support dndbeyond needs to stay competitive or they are acting under the mistaken belief that being slightly faster to develop new things than roll20 is good enough. While I was excited about the dndbeyond encounter builder and combat tracker a year ago at this point they're irrelevant because I can do both better inside foundry. Improvements like the ability to save combats simply mean dndbeyond is falling slightly less far behind. I'm sad and disappointed that something I've spend so much money on may become irrelevant but I started using dndbeyond because it let me stay up to date with the latest player options. If they don't plan on continuing to offer that functionality then I have grave doubts about the future of this service.
Huh? What's free? I'm paying a monthly subscription, plus I've already bought several books. In fact, I pre-ordered Ravenloft specifically because I enjoyed the UA's for the gothic lineages before they came out. Hiring people for things that make you money is a viable business model.
Just because the UA integration with the digital tools influenced your purchase decision does not mean it is an effective marketing tool. Similarly, while Beyond and Google are wasting their time and money advertising Beyond to me via personalized online ads (I already bought almost everything and I check the site almost daily, so there is not really any point in targeting me with Beyond ads), that does not mean Google Ad Sense is a horrible marketing tool. Anecdotal evidence is not reliable.
If you are aggregating everyone's experience on here though, that would be a more reliable data set, and it seems like most people rather discontinue UA to have quicker implementation of the books and core rules, especially most of the paying customers.
Even if not all the UA makes it into the books, it is still something that has to be planned for and implemented if/when the actual books release and i doubt it was the subclasses and more the larger features such as expanded spell lists etc that were causing more issues (ex. variant features), I'm just having a hard time getting my head around the fact that even when they were releasing UA and preplanning features, when the books came out they still were not working correctly or completely implemented and yet somehow getting rid of UA will magically make that development of new features faster. Saying UA could be a time sink is one thing, removing it somehow becoming the magic pill that fixes the implementation of broken features from official books is something i doubt.
There have been many points where I was concerned that basic options haven't been offered but I was able to still those concerns because at least all the new UA options were available.
You can have your priorities, I'm perfectly ok with that, but to me this is completely backwards. To me - I repeat, to me - getting UA options (that are often overpowered and will, if they ever get published in the first place, get changed considerably) is in no way a justification for the actual stuff that people pay for being missing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Saying UA could be a time sink is one thing, removing it somehow becoming the magic pill that fixes the implementation of broken features from official books is something i doubt.
Realistically, I think it's probably more a case of DDB realizing - after the last few complicated UAs - that keeping up with playtest material is going to weigh even more heavily on the backlog.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
People, keep in mind, UA was the most in flux area of DDB's 'official' content. (basically anything but homebrew). Things came and went and were archived all the time. I'd wager it's a real pain in the butt to implement and enforce. Give them some slack.
Huh? What's free? I'm paying a monthly subscription, plus I've already bought several books. In fact, I pre-ordered Ravenloft specifically because I enjoyed the UA's for the gothic lineages before they came out. Hiring people for things that make you money is a viable business model.
Just because the UA integration with the digital tools influenced your purchase decision does not mean it is an effective marketing tool. Similarly, while Beyond and Google are wasting their time and money advertising Beyond to me via personalized online ads (I already bought almost everything and I check the site almost daily, so there is not really any point in targeting me with Beyond ads), that does not mean Google Ad Sense is a horrible marketing tool. Anecdotal evidence is not reliable.
If you are aggregating everyone's experience on here though, that would be a more reliable data set, and it seems like most people rather discontinue UA to have quicker implementation of the books and core rules, especially most of the paying customers.
How about the fact that there are a bunch of people on this thread who all report the same experience with paying for dndbeyond because they saw that it supported UA? Does that count as relevant evidence that a lot of people are upset that we are losing something we relied on when paying hundreds of dollars for digital books and services?
Also, where is there any actual quantification to the idea that we'll get quicker implementation? I see a lot of people expressing hope and optimism but not a single shred of evidence it will happen. All I see is an attempt by fandom to cut overhead by not hiring the one extra person needed to keep implementing UA.
What I find really interesting is that we see some people on this thread arguing we shouldn't be worried because homebrew is so fast and easy that anyone can easily fill the gap created by the lack of UA support at the same time as people who are arguing that UA is just such a huge resource drag on the devs who make the homebrew that they can't possibly support it. So it's both so easy all of us should have to do it ourselves (and not be allowed to share it) but it's just too hard for the full time dndbeyond devs to possibly do it? How does that work again?
As someone who's made a fair amount of homebrew, once you've spent enough time to understand the tools it's not that bad but there is a hefty learning curve to figuring out how to make things work the first time. There's also a smaller learning curve every time you take weeks or months off and then come back to make something new and a significant learning curve every time you try to make a new type of homebrew. For instance, I feel confident with making magic items and backgrounds but I would have to do a lot of experimenting to get up to speed making homebrew subclasses or races. This is part of why it is such a disappointment and why I consider it anti-consumer to offload the work for creating UA onto the players, particularly when we won't be allowed to work together to make the task easier.
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If a feature is drawing enough of your day to keep you from other things, couldn't that indicate that your customers are using it more than expected? I bet somewhere in San Francisco there's a very nice programmer looking for a job, maybe you and they could make an arrangement, and then you wouldn't have to announce that you're lopping popular functionality off your product, which can't have been fun.
If they would actually finish implementing all the content still missing that we've paid for before focusing on bleeding the customers then it wouldn't be an issue. Problem is, we're still missing content that came out in 2014 along with content from almost every single book released and sold. Should they expand their revenue streams? Sure. Should they finish the things customers have already paid for first? Yes.
This is such a bad move, alot of people use dnd beyond for playtesting and this just negates it. and on top of that we still dont have ui to make custom items in the games like basic weapons or armors and on top of that we still dont have a pact boon ui for the warlock class.
If wizards wants to foot the bill for UA support then they can step up, otherwise its not their choice.
1) With all due respect, I think most of these people don't really playtest so much as use playtest material a bit and see how it feels. Actual playtesting is a bit more complex than that, if you want to do it properly.
2) This would the kind of stuff DDB could be focusing more on by not dedicating resources to UA instead.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As mentioned previously, hiring people still costs money. It makes no sense for Beyond to hire someone to implement UA if customers do not pay for UA. If you are not willing to use the homebrew tools yourself for free, then why should Beyond do it for free?
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Expanding revenue stream and finishing products are not mutually exclusive. It makes no sense to do things one at a time when you can do multiple things at a time, and doing secondary things does not impact the speed of your primary things.
The difference between dice and UA is that the team that handles dice is different from the team that handles implementing rules and features. Beyond has multiple teams, but each team is specialized in working in different parts of Beyond. UA sucks up time and resources of the main team, it cannot be offloaded to other teams, and it does not generate any revenue. Just because you and I think dice is dumb does not mean other people think it is dumb. Beyond is slowly working on a VTT. While I do not want them to go in that direction because I play in person and I do not care about having an online VTT (and I do not think it is a good idea to jump into that space when there is already two heavy weight competitors in that field), plenty of other people on the site want Beyond to work on a VTT, and Beyond is allocating some resources in that direction. Dice, encounter builder, etc. are all building blocks towards a VTT, and while I do not care about those features too much, those features are additional tools that can help people who play in person.
A hospital has different doctors, but it makes no sense to have a heart surgeon help a brain surgeon to speed up surgery. UA for Beyond is the same as a hospital using a brain surgeon to give people free head massages. It is a nice gesture, but patients are not paying the brain surgeon for head massages, and the hospital can no longer afford to have the brain surgeon waste time giving head massages because they are swamped with brain surgeries that still needs to be done. Just because the brain surgeon is swamped does not mean the hospital cannot hire a heart surgeon to save more lives and generate more revenue at the same time.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I would rather have more fully featured inventory management than UA.
Most of the time, the content in UA comes out eventually anyways, and the the UA version is janky or broken anyways.
This really doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
Homebrewed by PhantomTim: Weapons | Items
What happens when you level up a UA character?
Nothing. The UA content is still there.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
One of the reasons why I started buying books on D&D Beyond and supporting your company was that I really loved that you also supported Unearthed Arcana in your digital toolset which I have a lot of interest in. Removing a huge feature like this when so many of your users/customers find it so useful and enjoyable feels like a betrayal and being stabbed in the back. Just because you are not directly making money from UA doesn't mean it has no value. I feel like this is a short-sighted decision.
Also you already have the current UA material online so why is it so hard to keep it available for use at the very least?
Maybe you just don't care because the customers you already have drawn in with UA already have purchased books from you so they feel stuck in the platform and can't do anything about it anyways. Thanks a lot. I'm really disappointed.
As said a couple of times by now, because WotC requires DDB to archive UA material when the corresponding playtest is over. It's not hard or easy, it's simply not an option.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Huh? What's free? I'm paying a monthly subscription, plus I've already bought several books. In fact, I pre-ordered Ravenloft specifically because I enjoyed the UA's for the gothic lineages before they came out. Hiring people for things that make you money is a viable business model.
This is a huge disappointment and is going to make me very cautious about spending money on this site in the future. I've paid for literally everything dndbeyond has offered except dice options and it was in large part because I felt confident dndbeyond understood that it's core business was a full featured character builder that allowed players to be up to date with pc options. I presumed that dndbeyond would keep updating its system for long enough that my investment into sourcebooks, adventures, and subscription fees wouldn't be wasted. The primary reason I felt confident was because dndbeyond had always been on the ball with offering unearthed arcana content quickly after it was released. There have been many points where I was concerned that basic options haven't been offered but I was able to still those concerns because at least all the new UA options were available. Now that you're taking away the one thing that allowed us to really keep up to date with new player options the fact that dndbeyond hasn't even "figured out a way" to add a simple checkmark box for patron dice tracking from Tasha's or offer any way to play the new sidekicks becomes impossible to justify. Rolling out inventory tracking that does nothing for us mechanically and which should have been available months ago is far from enough to justify cutting core functionality.
As someone who's seen the incredible speed of foundry vtt development over the last year it is apparent that fandom either isn't providing the support dndbeyond needs to stay competitive or they are acting under the mistaken belief that being slightly faster to develop new things than roll20 is good enough. While I was excited about the dndbeyond encounter builder and combat tracker a year ago at this point they're irrelevant because I can do both better inside foundry. Improvements like the ability to save combats simply mean dndbeyond is falling slightly less far behind. I'm sad and disappointed that something I've spend so much money on may become irrelevant but I started using dndbeyond because it let me stay up to date with the latest player options. If they don't plan on continuing to offer that functionality then I have grave doubts about the future of this service.
Just because the UA integration with the digital tools influenced your purchase decision does not mean it is an effective marketing tool. Similarly, while Beyond and Google are wasting their time and money advertising Beyond to me via personalized online ads (I already bought almost everything and I check the site almost daily, so there is not really any point in targeting me with Beyond ads), that does not mean Google Ad Sense is a horrible marketing tool. Anecdotal evidence is not reliable.
If you are aggregating everyone's experience on here though, that would be a more reliable data set, and it seems like most people rather discontinue UA to have quicker implementation of the books and core rules, especially most of the paying customers.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Even if not all the UA makes it into the books, it is still something that has to be planned for and implemented if/when the actual books release and i doubt it was the subclasses and more the larger features such as expanded spell lists etc that were causing more issues (ex. variant features), I'm just having a hard time getting my head around the fact that even when they were releasing UA and preplanning features, when the books came out they still were not working correctly or completely implemented and yet somehow getting rid of UA will magically make that development of new features faster. Saying UA could be a time sink is one thing, removing it somehow becoming the magic pill that fixes the implementation of broken features from official books is something i doubt.
You can have your priorities, I'm perfectly ok with that, but to me this is completely backwards. To me - I repeat, to me - getting UA options (that are often overpowered and will, if they ever get published in the first place, get changed considerably) is in no way a justification for the actual stuff that people pay for being missing.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Realistically, I think it's probably more a case of DDB realizing - after the last few complicated UAs - that keeping up with playtest material is going to weigh even more heavily on the backlog.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
People, keep in mind, UA was the most in flux area of DDB's 'official' content. (basically anything but homebrew). Things came and went and were archived all the time. I'd wager it's a real pain in the butt to implement and enforce. Give them some slack.
How about the fact that there are a bunch of people on this thread who all report the same experience with paying for dndbeyond because they saw that it supported UA? Does that count as relevant evidence that a lot of people are upset that we are losing something we relied on when paying hundreds of dollars for digital books and services?
Also, where is there any actual quantification to the idea that we'll get quicker implementation? I see a lot of people expressing hope and optimism but not a single shred of evidence it will happen. All I see is an attempt by fandom to cut overhead by not hiring the one extra person needed to keep implementing UA.
What I find really interesting is that we see some people on this thread arguing we shouldn't be worried because homebrew is so fast and easy that anyone can easily fill the gap created by the lack of UA support at the same time as people who are arguing that UA is just such a huge resource drag on the devs who make the homebrew that they can't possibly support it. So it's both so easy all of us should have to do it ourselves (and not be allowed to share it) but it's just too hard for the full time dndbeyond devs to possibly do it? How does that work again?
As someone who's made a fair amount of homebrew, once you've spent enough time to understand the tools it's not that bad but there is a hefty learning curve to figuring out how to make things work the first time. There's also a smaller learning curve every time you take weeks or months off and then come back to make something new and a significant learning curve every time you try to make a new type of homebrew. For instance, I feel confident with making magic items and backgrounds but I would have to do a lot of experimenting to get up to speed making homebrew subclasses or races. This is part of why it is such a disappointment and why I consider it anti-consumer to offload the work for creating UA onto the players, particularly when we won't be allowed to work together to make the task easier.