Are people honestly upset by this? I see some negative comments, but I can’t imagine being so bent out of shape over something that the players can easily make for their private use whenever they want. Homebrewing UA might even be better, because new characters can use it while that option would not be available after UA was archived. I just don’t understand the anger, I guess.
Are people honestly upset by this? I see some negative comments, but I can’t imagine being so bent out of shape over something that the players can easily make for their private use whenever they want. Homebrewing UA might even be better, because new characters can use it while that option would not be available after UA was archived. I just don’t understand the anger, I guess.
Yes, I'm really upset I paid hundreds of dollars relying on a service that is now being cut off. I paid those hundreds of dollars because I have a job and a family to support so I have better things to do with my time than create "homebrew" duplicates of official content that dndbeyond has always provided and which dndbeyond is way better equipped to make than me. I'm particularly upset because if I spend that time I'll know I'm uselessly duplicating work that hundreds or thousands of other players are being forced to do for themselves because we can't share official homebrew.
Considering that you could have used all of the UA with no subscription whatsoever and without purchasing anything at all, no, you didn’t pay fig-all for UA on DDB. You paid for other stuff. And that “one extra person to implement UA” would cost them approximately $100,000+benefits/year. So I tell ya what, you pay fandom $140,000/ year for UA on top of your subscription and they might be able to afford that extra person for ya. You got an extra $140k a year? (Hells, have you even payed $1,000 to DDB? Probably not.)
Are people honestly upset by this? I see some negative comments, but I can’t imagine being so bent out of shape over something that the players can easily make for their private use whenever they want. Homebrewing UA might even be better, because new characters can use it while that option would not be available after UA was archived. I just don’t understand the anger, I guess.
Yes, I'm really upset I paid hundreds of dollars relying on a service that is now being cut off. I paid those hundreds of dollars because I have a job and a family to support so I have better things to do with my time than create "homebrew" duplicates of official content that dndbeyond has always provided and which dndbeyond is way better equipped to make than me. I'm particularly upset because if I spend that time I'll know I'm uselessly duplicating work that hundreds or thousands of other players are being forced to do for themselves because we can't share official homebrew.
I have to agree with IamSposta, UA is available without paying. Your money always went to exactly what it says it went to: the materials you paid for and the features your subscription includes. I am sorry if you do not have time to make homebrew, though I honestly doubt this is true if you are a regular user of UA. You can share homebrew though, with those in your campaigns. I don’t think that is useless at all.
Are people honestly upset by this? I see some negative comments, but I can’t imagine being so bent out of shape over something that the players can easily make for their private use whenever they want. Homebrewing UA might even be better, because new characters can use it while that option would not be available after UA was archived. I just don’t understand the anger, I guess.
Yes, I'm really upset I paid hundreds of dollars relying on a service that is now being cut off. I paid those hundreds of dollars because I have a job and a family to support so I have better things to do with my time than create "homebrew" duplicates of official content that dndbeyond has always provided and which dndbeyond is way better equipped to make than me. I'm particularly upset because if I spend that time I'll know I'm uselessly duplicating work that hundreds or thousands of other players are being forced to do for themselves because we can't share official homebrew.
I have to agree with IamSposta, UA is available without paying. Your money always went to exactly what it says it went to: the materials you paid for and the features your subscription includes. I am sorry if you do not have time to make homebrew, though I honestly doubt this is true if you are a regular user of UA. You can share homebrew though, with those in your campaigns. I don’t think that is useless at all.
I love how people seem confident to tell me "what I'm paying for" and how I should spend my time. I'm all for this service but I'm also not going to be silent when they treat us poorly for their own profit. I respect mrsposta and his vigorous forum advocacy but Fandom is a big enough company to not force consumers to choose between UA and core options. Also I'm pretty sure how the forums work is that you don't have to pay a dev individually because you note a position on an issue and that how companies work is that individual consumers don't have to pay individual employees.
But regardless, I was simply attempting to provide my feedback to dndbeyond in the hopes that it will educate them about their customer base. I really do hope this service works as I have invested a lot into it. That being said, as I said in my original post, I want dndbeyond to be aware that at least this customer will not be spending money on the site in the way that I have in the past as a result of this decision. I have fears that if they are willing to cut off this service in order to save a few bucks that they may make the same decision a year from now about something else I care about and so am questioning whether I should be putting all my money in one place. I genuinely hope that dndbeyond will prove my caution unfounded but they have no reason to do that if they think everyone is content with their choice.
I respect mrsposta and his vigorous forum advocacy….
Thank you. (You have absolutely no idea how refreshing it is to read that.) You are then likely familiar with my inclination to jump all over DDB and Fandom (and even individuals) when I think they done us dirty. But I can’t fault them in this case. Their support of UA was always them going out of their way to do us a favor they never needed to do. How can someone get mad at somebody else for deciding they can’t keep going out of their way to do a favor for someone else like that? That’s just taking the other person’s kindness for granted at that point. Ne?
PS- Just call me Sposta, no prefixes or honoraries required. 😉
I love how people seem confident to tell me "what I'm paying for" and how I should spend my time. I'm all for this service but I'm also not going to be silent when they treat us poorly for their own profit.
With respect, no one is speaking out of turn to address a concern that you have raised. A great deal of time has been spent fighting on this hill and I wonder how much of that time could have been used to make those homebrew UA submissions you believe would interfere with your work and family. Your time is certainly your own; these are just options that have been offered in an attempt to address your concerns. You do not have to create homebrew content if you do not wish to and the decision to not support playtest material is not mistreating consumers just because you don't like it.
I respect mrsposta and his vigorous forum advocacy but Fandom is a big enough company to not force consumers to choose between UA and core options. Also I'm pretty sure how the forums work is that you don't have to pay a dev individually because you note a position on an issue and that how companies work is that individual consumers don't have to pay individual employees.
I am in disagreement that Fandom has put consumers in a position where such a choice must be made. This feels like a false dichotomy, as I currently feel that I have both UA and core options available to me on this very site and will in the future, albeit in a different form. I am unsure what point you are trying to make with respect to individual employee pay. I believe you may be confusing my posts with someone else's.
But regardless, I was simply attempting to provide my feedback to dndbeyond in the hopes that it will educate them about their customer base. I really do hope this service works as I have invested a lot into it. That being said, as I said in my original post, I want dndbeyond to be aware that at least this customer will not be spending money on the site in the way that I have in the past as a result of this decision. I have fears that if they are willing to cut off this service in order to save a few bucks that they may make the same decision a year from now about something else I care about and so am questioning whether I should be putting all my money in one place. I genuinely hope that dndbeyond will prove my caution unfounded but they have no reason to do that if they think everyone is content with their choice.
That's completely fair. Not everyone will like every decision made and offering feedback is important. I am sure a time will come where I will disapprove of a business decision made on DnDB. That said, I still do not understand the rage or fear expressed on this particular topic. A person can express a concern without girding themselves for war. Feedback has a lot more value when it is rational.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to see a perspective different from my own. I questioned whether people were truly upset by this decision and you have explained why. While I disagree with your reasoning, I appreciate the time you took to share.
While we will no longer be officially supporting this content, you are welcome to use our homebrew tools to create UA content you'd like to use.
Yeah that's great except that your homebrew tools are still a complete dumpster fire. Any plan to use some of the newly freed-up time and resources to improve that?
I honestly believe that people will complain about anything. DDB could come out and say that the entire site is now being funded by Elon Musk for all users to use for free and anything you’ve paid for will be refunded and people would still complain.
Is it unfortunate? Sure. Is it a huge deal? No. You even have a homebrew option. Iknow your time is more valuable than theirs so, sorry about that, but at least it’s an option.
In my case the campaigns I’m in do not allow UA material anyway. Once the UA material has been nerfed and released in a final product is when I and everyone I know can finally use it.
From the complaints I’m seeing, though, it seems most people start a brand new campaign every day and use nothing but UA material. I’m jealous.
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?
While there are quite a few who complain, there also seems a lot more people who do not mind UA being cut in favor of more features and quicker implementation of official published content.
Beyond never sold the digital integration of UA, and that was not even locked behind a pay wall, so customers are not entitled to that. It is like saying customers are entitled to napkins, plastic utensils, and salt and pepper packets when they order food from a restaurant; restaurants do not have to provide any of those, it is just a courtesy that they do.
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.
You will just have to take Beyond's word for it that they are going to implement things quicker. You do not have to believe them, and I personally do not have my hopes up that it is going to make any perceivable difference. While I am frustrated and disappointed, seeing how hard employees work, and especially local entrepreneurs trying to keep everything together through the pandemic, I cut businesses a lot of slack.
There is nothing wrong with cutting overhead. I can just as easily flip the script around and say that Beyond's customer base as a whole are pennypinching cheapskates who do not deserve the level of service they get because they never want to pay a fair price for anything, and that is already being generous assuming they want to pay at all. Other than a handful of options I got early on and TCOE, I do not think I have paid the full price for anything on here. Some are even worse as they are not even customers and do not want to pay anything at all, and they just want everything for free because they have the physical books.
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?
You have not been paying attention to what people are saying about UA. It is not the easy UA that is causing huge issues in development delay. It is the stuff like Optional Class Features and cross class subclasses that are outside the scope of the homebrew tools that is causing a huge amount of issues. Even if the UA is easy to homebrew, someone still has to do it and they are on company time doing it. Beyond is not getting any kind of revenue out of UA, so unless Wizards allows them to monetize it, I do not see why Beyond should continue to pay someone to implement UA when they could be paying them to do other stuff instead.
You also have clearly not been paying attention to how Beyond works either. No one is stopping you from sharing UA, and there is not any kind of enforcement mechanism stopping you from joining campaign and have homebrewed UA being shared with you. However, what is NOT allowed is the publication of UA to the general public because that is a violation of IP rights.
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.
The sooner high priority stuff gets done like Epic Boons and similar features, the sooner lower priority stuff like homebrew gets tackled.
From your view, cutting UA may seem like it is anticonsumer, but for many others who do not care about UA, cutting UA so that Beyond can focus on features they want is a positive move. I would not call something anticonsumer unless a clear majority of consumers is negatively impacted by it, and from what I see here, it seems like most people rather have quicker implementation of main features than keeping UA.
There is an entire Beyond subforum dedicated to homebrew where people teach, help, and collaborate with each other to homebrew stuff. You sound like you are figuring out and doing homebrew all by yourself, which I personally do not think is a good use of time when you can do things a lot quicker by having people telling you exactly what to do. And you will also know what the limits of the tools are, so you would not spend time trying to implement something that cannot be implemented in the first place.
So correct me if I'm wrong but your argument seams to be that beyond is cutting UA, not because of the relatively easy stuff, but for the ones that change or add things beyond is not currently capable of. This part I agree with. However you continue on to say that since the simple UA is simple to make we should make it ourselves, and save beyond the manpower doing it themselves would take. And even if the homebrew system seems complicated/convoluted to some of us we can just go to the forum and ask for help.
If the above is correct then here is my argument, and it it is not kindly inform me of where I was incorrect and I will either concede that you are correct, or more likely rework my argument to better fit.
How I think they should have handled the UA issue it that instead of stopping UA entirely. They should have released a statement saying that due to resource demands, they will no longer be supporting UA that adds and/or changes existing game mechanics. They will however still support UA content that is relatively simple to make. I believe they should have done it this way because while many of us (myself included) would have been disappointed by the change, it would not have been that much of a difference from they way things already were. After all many of the complicated UA were either delayed or just not available entirely.
And as far as the argument that we can homebrew UA ourselves. If it is that simple to do then that means that they wouldn't even need one of the programers to actually make it. They could have damn near any of their employees make the UA and release it to us.
And as far as the whole UA being free so paying a subscription doesn't affect it. That is a matter of opinion, after all as far as I'm aware beyond has yet to tell us exactly where our money go's specifically. However me specifically I pay for the subscription for character slots and to support the site and I mean everything on the site including UA. And since the money thing is my opinion that's all I have to say about it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
And as far as the argument that we can homebrew UA ourselves. If it is that simple to do then that means that they wouldn't even need one of the programers to actually make it. They could have damn near any of their employees make the UA and release it to us.
As I have already said, Beyond is still paying an employee to implement a feature that gives Beyond no revenue. While some companies may over hire in case there is a huge workload and have employees sit around doing nothing occasionally, not every company does that. Beyond's manpower is stretched thin, and I highly doubt their other dev teams are just sitting around doing nothing.
And as far as the whole UA being free so paying a subscription doesn't affect it. That is a matter of opinion, after all as far as I'm aware beyond has yet to tell us exactly where our money go's specifically. However me specifically I pay for the subscription for character slots and to support the site and I mean everything on the site including UA. And since the money thing is my opinion that's all I have to say about it.
Just because you paid for a product does not mean you are entitled to another product that you have not paid for, let alone a product that was not even for sale in the first place. When you make a purchase, you are entitled to exactly what you pay, and anything extra is just a courtesy. When you pay for subscription, Beyond tells you exactly what that money gets you, such as character slots and access to published homebrew, but none of it say UA.
Saying that you paid subscription so you are entitled to UA is no different from all those people who claim they should have access to everything on Beyond just because they purchased all the physical books.
There is a difference between making a transaction to support Beyond because you like the freebies, and making a transaction and demanding Beyond to give you the freebie because you paid them money. You paid for the transaction, but you did not pay for the freebie, as the freebie was not up for sale in the first place.
I don't think you understand something or maybe your wilfully ignoring it but the money beyond gains from subscriptions goes towards everything on the site not just subscriber perks that means it goes to the character builder, site maintenance, the homebrew system, and yes even unearthed arcana. I understand that this is apparently a hard concept to grasp. And as far as the comment saying that just because I pay money doesn't mean I have a say in things is factually wrong because I do have a say, an incredibly small say but I do have one and when other users have a similar opinion as I do, well all those small voices can end up having a rather large say in matters. And finally just like you said a few post ago just because you have an opinion doesn't mean your right that statement works both ways.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I don't think you understand something or maybe your wilfully ignoring it but the money beyond gains from subscriptions goes towards everything on the site not just subscriber perks that means it goes to the character builder, site maintenance, the homebrew system, and yes even unearthed arcana. I understand that this is apparently a hard concept to grasp.
Respectfully, the difficult concept to grasp seems to be that where the money goes isn't as meaningful as where it comes from. And as much as some users may profess that UA implementation is part of the reason why the spend money on DDB, the nominal source of revenue is all the things with a price tag on them, not the free stuff.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As far as I am aware the only things with a price tag are the books some dice and subscriptions l. And I may be wrong but I would assume that a large portion of proceeded his to wizards of the coast and the dice are cheap enough that I would assume they're a minor source of income leaving the only other thing with a price tag on it the subscription. And let's assume that the money generated by subscriptions only goes towards the things that you gain by paying for it which amounts to more characters, using homebrew, the encounter builder (I think), content sharing in campaigns, and the new monthly subscriber perks which let's be honest are incredibly underwhelming. And I do believe that's it, hell there even admitted that subscriber perks were underwhelming which is why they added the monthly perks. And finally arguing about just where the money goes to once we spend it is pointless because neither of us work here so we have no way of knowing unless they tell us.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Also I forgot to mention it doesn't matter what being a subscriber gets you because maybe just maybe I'm a subscriber because I like everything beyond offers and would like to support them. And despite what you seem to think I don't believe any of us are demanding beyond changes their mind, we were requesting it because we don't like the change being made. And we gave our reasons for feeling this way. Ok slight correction I think there was one person demanding it but thats all. I don't know why you have such a big issue with us sharing our opinion about things but you are neither a mod nor an employee of beyond so please stop telling exactly how the business side of things are decided because you don't know.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
... please stop telling exactly how the business side of things are decided because you don't know.
I wasn't. Just like I wasn't the one bringing up how someone spending money on DDB informs the business decision of no longer supporting UA.
That is you literally telling me how a business decision is made or in this case not made.
That is me telling you the fundamental basics of how a business, any business, is run. It's nothing to do with DDB specifically. I don't know any specifics about DDB business strategy, I'm not telling you anything about DDB business strategy. I do know that for any company, decisions about where money goes (investments) are based on where money comes from (revenue).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Are people honestly upset by this? I see some negative comments, but I can’t imagine being so bent out of shape over something that the players can easily make for their private use whenever they want. Homebrewing UA might even be better, because new characters can use it while that option would not be available after UA was archived. I just don’t understand the anger, I guess.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Yes, I'm really upset I paid hundreds of dollars relying on a service that is now being cut off. I paid those hundreds of dollars because I have a job and a family to support so I have better things to do with my time than create "homebrew" duplicates of official content that dndbeyond has always provided and which dndbeyond is way better equipped to make than me. I'm particularly upset because if I spend that time I'll know I'm uselessly duplicating work that hundreds or thousands of other players are being forced to do for themselves because we can't share official homebrew.
Considering that you could have used all of the UA with no subscription whatsoever and without purchasing anything at all, no, you didn’t pay fig-all for UA on DDB. You paid for other stuff. And that “one extra person to implement UA” would cost them approximately $100,000+benefits/year. So I tell ya what, you pay fandom $140,000/ year for UA on top of your subscription and they might be able to afford that extra person for ya. You got an extra $140k a year? (Hells, have you even payed $1,000 to DDB? Probably not.)
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I have to agree with IamSposta, UA is available without paying. Your money always went to exactly what it says it went to: the materials you paid for and the features your subscription includes. I am sorry if you do not have time to make homebrew, though I honestly doubt this is true if you are a regular user of UA. You can share homebrew though, with those in your campaigns. I don’t think that is useless at all.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
I love how people seem confident to tell me "what I'm paying for" and how I should spend my time. I'm all for this service but I'm also not going to be silent when they treat us poorly for their own profit. I respect mrsposta and his vigorous forum advocacy but Fandom is a big enough company to not force consumers to choose between UA and core options. Also I'm pretty sure how the forums work is that you don't have to pay a dev individually because you note a position on an issue and that how companies work is that individual consumers don't have to pay individual employees.
But regardless, I was simply attempting to provide my feedback to dndbeyond in the hopes that it will educate them about their customer base. I really do hope this service works as I have invested a lot into it. That being said, as I said in my original post, I want dndbeyond to be aware that at least this customer will not be spending money on the site in the way that I have in the past as a result of this decision. I have fears that if they are willing to cut off this service in order to save a few bucks that they may make the same decision a year from now about something else I care about and so am questioning whether I should be putting all my money in one place. I genuinely hope that dndbeyond will prove my caution unfounded but they have no reason to do that if they think everyone is content with their choice.
Thank you. (You have absolutely no idea how refreshing it is to read that.) You are then likely familiar with my inclination to jump all over DDB and Fandom (and even individuals) when I think they done us dirty. But I can’t fault them in this case. Their support of UA was always them going out of their way to do us a favor they never needed to do. How can someone get mad at somebody else for deciding they can’t keep going out of their way to do a favor for someone else like that? That’s just taking the other person’s kindness for granted at that point. Ne?
PS- Just call me Sposta, no prefixes or honoraries required. 😉
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
With respect, no one is speaking out of turn to address a concern that you have raised. A great deal of time has been spent fighting on this hill and I wonder how much of that time could have been used to make those homebrew UA submissions you believe would interfere with your work and family. Your time is certainly your own; these are just options that have been offered in an attempt to address your concerns. You do not have to create homebrew content if you do not wish to and the decision to not support playtest material is not mistreating consumers just because you don't like it.
I am in disagreement that Fandom has put consumers in a position where such a choice must be made. This feels like a false dichotomy, as I currently feel that I have both UA and core options available to me on this very site and will in the future, albeit in a different form. I am unsure what point you are trying to make with respect to individual employee pay. I believe you may be confusing my posts with someone else's.
That's completely fair. Not everyone will like every decision made and offering feedback is important. I am sure a time will come where I will disapprove of a business decision made on DnDB. That said, I still do not understand the rage or fear expressed on this particular topic. A person can express a concern without girding themselves for war. Feedback has a lot more value when it is rational.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to see a perspective different from my own. I questioned whether people were truly upset by this decision and you have explained why. While I disagree with your reasoning, I appreciate the time you took to share.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Yeah that's great except that your homebrew tools are still a complete dumpster fire. Any plan to use some of the newly freed-up time and resources to improve that?
I honestly believe that people will complain about anything. DDB could come out and say that the entire site is now being funded by Elon Musk for all users to use for free and anything you’ve paid for will be refunded and people would still complain.
Is it unfortunate? Sure. Is it a huge deal? No. You even have a homebrew option. Iknow your time is more valuable than theirs so, sorry about that, but at least it’s an option.
In my case the campaigns I’m in do not allow UA material anyway. Once the UA material has been nerfed and released in a final product is when I and everyone I know can finally use it.
From the complaints I’m seeing, though, it seems most people start a brand new campaign every day and use nothing but UA material. I’m jealous.
While there are quite a few who complain, there also seems a lot more people who do not mind UA being cut in favor of more features and quicker implementation of official published content.
Beyond never sold the digital integration of UA, and that was not even locked behind a pay wall, so customers are not entitled to that. It is like saying customers are entitled to napkins, plastic utensils, and salt and pepper packets when they order food from a restaurant; restaurants do not have to provide any of those, it is just a courtesy that they do.
You will just have to take Beyond's word for it that they are going to implement things quicker. You do not have to believe them, and I personally do not have my hopes up that it is going to make any perceivable difference. While I am frustrated and disappointed, seeing how hard employees work, and especially local entrepreneurs trying to keep everything together through the pandemic, I cut businesses a lot of slack.
There is nothing wrong with cutting overhead. I can just as easily flip the script around and say that Beyond's customer base as a whole are pennypinching cheapskates who do not deserve the level of service they get because they never want to pay a fair price for anything, and that is already being generous assuming they want to pay at all. Other than a handful of options I got early on and TCOE, I do not think I have paid the full price for anything on here. Some are even worse as they are not even customers and do not want to pay anything at all, and they just want everything for free because they have the physical books.
You have not been paying attention to what people are saying about UA. It is not the easy UA that is causing huge issues in development delay. It is the stuff like Optional Class Features and cross class subclasses that are outside the scope of the homebrew tools that is causing a huge amount of issues. Even if the UA is easy to homebrew, someone still has to do it and they are on company time doing it. Beyond is not getting any kind of revenue out of UA, so unless Wizards allows them to monetize it, I do not see why Beyond should continue to pay someone to implement UA when they could be paying them to do other stuff instead.
You also have clearly not been paying attention to how Beyond works either. No one is stopping you from sharing UA, and there is not any kind of enforcement mechanism stopping you from joining campaign and have homebrewed UA being shared with you. However, what is NOT allowed is the publication of UA to the general public because that is a violation of IP rights.
The sooner high priority stuff gets done like Epic Boons and similar features, the sooner lower priority stuff like homebrew gets tackled.
From your view, cutting UA may seem like it is anticonsumer, but for many others who do not care about UA, cutting UA so that Beyond can focus on features they want is a positive move. I would not call something anticonsumer unless a clear majority of consumers is negatively impacted by it, and from what I see here, it seems like most people rather have quicker implementation of main features than keeping UA.
There is an entire Beyond subforum dedicated to homebrew where people teach, help, and collaborate with each other to homebrew stuff. You sound like you are figuring out and doing homebrew all by yourself, which I personally do not think is a good use of time when you can do things a lot quicker by having people telling you exactly what to do. And you will also know what the limits of the tools are, so you would not spend time trying to implement something that cannot be implemented in the first place.
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 >
So correct me if I'm wrong but your argument seams to be that beyond is cutting UA, not because of the relatively easy stuff, but for the ones that change or add things beyond is not currently capable of. This part I agree with. However you continue on to say that since the simple UA is simple to make we should make it ourselves, and save beyond the manpower doing it themselves would take. And even if the homebrew system seems complicated/convoluted to some of us we can just go to the forum and ask for help.
If the above is correct then here is my argument, and it it is not kindly inform me of where I was incorrect and I will either concede that you are correct, or more likely rework my argument to better fit.
How I think they should have handled the UA issue it that instead of stopping UA entirely. They should have released a statement saying that due to resource demands, they will no longer be supporting UA that adds and/or changes existing game mechanics. They will however still support UA content that is relatively simple to make. I believe they should have done it this way because while many of us (myself included) would have been disappointed by the change, it would not have been that much of a difference from they way things already were. After all many of the complicated UA were either delayed or just not available entirely.
And as far as the argument that we can homebrew UA ourselves. If it is that simple to do then that means that they wouldn't even need one of the programers to actually make it. They could have damn near any of their employees make the UA and release it to us.
And as far as the whole UA being free so paying a subscription doesn't affect it. That is a matter of opinion, after all as far as I'm aware beyond has yet to tell us exactly where our money go's specifically. However me specifically I pay for the subscription for character slots and to support the site and I mean everything on the site including UA. And since the money thing is my opinion that's all I have to say about it.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
As I have already said, Beyond is still paying an employee to implement a feature that gives Beyond no revenue. While some companies may over hire in case there is a huge workload and have employees sit around doing nothing occasionally, not every company does that. Beyond's manpower is stretched thin, and I highly doubt their other dev teams are just sitting around doing nothing.
Just because you paid for a product does not mean you are entitled to another product that you have not paid for, let alone a product that was not even for sale in the first place. When you make a purchase, you are entitled to exactly what you pay, and anything extra is just a courtesy. When you pay for subscription, Beyond tells you exactly what that money gets you, such as character slots and access to published homebrew, but none of it say UA.
Saying that you paid subscription so you are entitled to UA is no different from all those people who claim they should have access to everything on Beyond just because they purchased all the physical books.
There is a difference between making a transaction to support Beyond because you like the freebies, and making a transaction and demanding Beyond to give you the freebie because you paid them money. You paid for the transaction, but you did not pay for the freebie, as the freebie was not up for sale in the first place.
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 >
Strong dislike.
I don't think you understand something or maybe your wilfully ignoring it but the money beyond gains from subscriptions goes towards everything on the site not just subscriber perks that means it goes to the character builder, site maintenance, the homebrew system, and yes even unearthed arcana. I understand that this is apparently a hard concept to grasp. And as far as the comment saying that just because I pay money doesn't mean I have a say in things is factually wrong because I do have a say, an incredibly small say but I do have one and when other users have a similar opinion as I do, well all those small voices can end up having a rather large say in matters. And finally just like you said a few post ago just because you have an opinion doesn't mean your right that statement works both ways.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Respectfully, the difficult concept to grasp seems to be that where the money goes isn't as meaningful as where it comes from. And as much as some users may profess that UA implementation is part of the reason why the spend money on DDB, the nominal source of revenue is all the things with a price tag on them, not the free stuff.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As far as I am aware the only things with a price tag are the books some dice and subscriptions l. And I may be wrong but I would assume that a large portion of proceeded his to wizards of the coast and the dice are cheap enough that I would assume they're a minor source of income leaving the only other thing with a price tag on it the subscription. And let's assume that the money generated by subscriptions only goes towards the things that you gain by paying for it which amounts to more characters, using homebrew, the encounter builder (I think), content sharing in campaigns, and the new monthly subscriber perks which let's be honest are incredibly underwhelming. And I do believe that's it, hell there even admitted that subscriber perks were underwhelming which is why they added the monthly perks. And finally arguing about just where the money goes to once we spend it is pointless because neither of us work here so we have no way of knowing unless they tell us.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Also I forgot to mention it doesn't matter what being a subscriber gets you because maybe just maybe I'm a subscriber because I like everything beyond offers and would like to support them. And despite what you seem to think I don't believe any of us are demanding beyond changes their mind, we were requesting it because we don't like the change being made. And we gave our reasons for feeling this way. Ok slight correction I think there was one person demanding it but thats all. I don't know why you have such a big issue with us sharing our opinion about things but you are neither a mod nor an employee of beyond so please stop telling exactly how the business side of things are decided because you don't know.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I wasn't. Just like I wasn't the one bringing up how someone spending money on DDB informs the business decision of no longer supporting UA.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
That is you literally telling me how a business decision is made or in this case not made.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
That is me telling you the fundamental basics of how a business, any business, is run. It's nothing to do with DDB specifically. I don't know any specifics about DDB business strategy, I'm not telling you anything about DDB business strategy. I do know that for any company, decisions about where money goes (investments) are based on where money comes from (revenue).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].