Quote from Finnyous >>

 If it's that much harder to offer the toggle option so many have suggested, then why is it not so difficult for other sites to do so?? Your logic is invalid.

 

Because different websites are completely different? I can easily counter that no other website has nearly the integration with their system as dnd beyond does and that different websites are made differently lol. 

Why didn't they just make it so that you couldn't use 2014 classes with the character creator if their goal was "greed" and trying to push people into just the new content? Maybe because (as it's been explained well by others) one thing is much easier to do then another. 

The people who code for dndbeyond and make the game/rules LOVE the game. They want people to like what they're doing.

 The people who actually code for dndbeyond do not get to vote for the feature set.  They do as they are told or they are replaced.

Quote from gksmithlcw >>

Quote from Disclair >>

Depends on what you mean by easy. 

On a subscription based website I think it's unreasonable to say Hasbro do not have the resources to do something as universal in modern web design as a toggle between an old and a new text file. (They do manage to toggle just fine between historic and standard MTG cards on their other MTG services for example.)

So the question is "Does the business care enough to do it?"

If the answer is yes then I think it's reasonable for the company to ask for time. 

If the answer is no then I think it's reasonable for people to be upset that a website they have been paying a subscription fee to has less filter features than a website designed by a crypto scam artist.

 

Except you're forgetting that they've made the promise that the 2024 rules will be available on 9/3. So it's not as easy as asking for time either. No matter what way they go, they're messing someone up. Unless they fork the site and call it a day. #DDBClassic

 That is a perfectly acceptable short term solution to this dumpster fire.

Quote from KINGOFNAVY45 >>

Hi

Hello!

Quote from GandalfDaGrey >>

Quote from gksmithlcw >>

Quote from Disclair >>

Depends on what you mean by easy. 

On a subscription based website I think it's unreasonable to say Hasbro do not have the resources to do something as universal in modern web design as a toggle between an old and a new text file. (They do manage to toggle just fine between historic and standard MTG cards on their other MTG services for example.)

So the question is "Does the business care enough to do it?"

If the answer is yes then I think it's reasonable for the company to ask for time. 

If the answer is no then I think it's reasonable for people to be upset that a website they have been paying a subscription fee to has less filter features than a website designed by a crypto scam artist.

 

Except you're forgetting that they've made the promise that the 2024 rules will be available on 9/3. So it's not as easy as asking for time either. No matter what way they go, they're messing someone up. Unless they fork the site and call it a day. #DDBClassic

 That is a perfectly acceptable short term solution to this dumpster fire.

Agreed. I've been advocating for that solution all weekend. #DDBClassic

Quote from Athanar90 >>

The more I think about it, the more I realize this is a stupidly simple solution. All they would need to do for spells is:

1. Instead of overwriting the spell entries, create new entries for the 2024 versions of spells. (Easier done than some might think, since just like monsters and races, spells have a number in the URL as part of their indexing. New spells can just use later numbers.)
2. Tag the old spells as Legacy using the existing system.
3. Set up a list with 2 columns; First is the 2024 names, second is the 2014 names of spells. Most of these are the same; a few are not. Each entry in the column should link to the correct entry in the database.
4. Implement a legacy toggle for spells in the Character Builder.
5. As long as the toggle is on, the Character Builder looks at the second column for spells instead of the first.
6. In the Spells search page, include a new dropdown in the same style as the recent addition of Partnered Content labeled Legacy Content that allows us to search that.

By doing this, the new content would be the default like they want and we'd lose nothing. A similar toggle could be done for the tooltips, but each of those could be handled separately.

This wouldn't take very much work on their end with the infrastructure they already have, a lot of this would just be copying code.

Would be a bit wonky when someone is mixing a legacy race without a replacement (like half-orc) and 5.5 spells, but should work. They'd just need to enable legacy during race selection and then turn it off when selecting spells. But as the official statements from WotC have always been that under 5.5 if there's a 5.5 option then it shouldn't be unexpected that the sheet wouldn't naturally support mix-and-matching 5.0 and 5.5 spells on the same character. At which point, "homebrew is the workaround" becomes an acceptable answer.

It could also get tricky when they try another ruleset in the future, but by that point they better have gotten their act together and redesigned the underlying structure.

It was perfectly clear from the email I got the other day. You're pulling the rug out from under my usage of the character builder. All the spells used by my players will automatically change to updated versions which may or may not be the same as the versions I want in my game. I'd rather not have to look up in a physical book or (deity forbid) the compendium to get the details of something I should only have to click in the character builder.

Sounds like back to paper and physical books for us.

Feel the need to pile on to express displeasure with the plan. I would much prefer a tick box to select 2014 or 2024 content across the board. The current plan is going to make it 'beyond' difficult to use the toolset for an in-progress 2014 campaign -- unnecessarily so. I get the desire to drive adoption and sales, but the current approach is literally half-assed in that regard; it's not a complete deprecation, and it's not friendly to your customer base. It's like you're taking every opportunity to make the 2024 rollout as convoluted and painful as possible.

Pro tip: pulling the rug out from underneath your customer base isn't good business practice.

I think in an ideal situation you'd have an overall Legacy toggle for the sheet, but also individual toggles for different features, e.g. have overall legacy toggle for character creation and to decide which rules\references are shown on the sheet, but then when adding spells etc be able to switch between the two lists.  Once you've got a main toggle in place and everything tagged it shouldn't be too much work to add more toggles elsewhere (and could be a later update rather than being needed for release).

Quote from DCTrekkie >>

3) They have been telling us for months that we can still use the old rules. They should not have said this if they are not capable of supporting them.

This is an entirely unforced error on WotC/DDB's part. They decided to bring out a new ruleset without putting in the resources to implement it, and they've advertised something that they had no capability of providing.

If they'd said months ago that they wouldn't support 2014 rules, sure there'd be complaints, but we would have had time to switch to 2024 or move elsewhere. Instead they've promised something then pulled it away at the last moment.

Worst of all, they're trying to hide it. Most users of this site aren't on the forums or looking at changelogs. This should be a main article ob the front page of the site. Instead they've snuck it out where most people won't see it, so that when people complain later they can say "Look, we did announce it, not our fault no-one read it".

This really can't be emphasized enough.

For months there's been threads from users asking if current content will still be usable once the 5.5 books drop. The official answers from mods were always "We don't have that information. We'll tell you when there's a statement."

Now to be clear I do believe the mods didn't know. And that they hadn't been given that information.

But I also have to believe D&D Staff saw this question. Take LaTiaJacquise for example, odds are she probably asked someone, "Hey, this question comes up. Can you give me information so we can let them know what's going to happen?" And whether they didn't give her the info, there was a gag on when to say it, or whatever. That's a failure on WotC's part with informing us.

Because like you pointed out, there's no way this was a decision made just last week. (And if it was then I don't even know...) I purchased the DMG during the summer sale because it was a really nice price. And I purchased it with the assumption that I'd get the functionality it had. If I'd know I was actually "pre-ordering" a subset of 5.5 rules I would not have bought it. And I have to believe WotC knew their plans by that time.

There might be a case for breach of contract here. For those who have paid money, the agreement was essentially that we'd have access to the stuff we purchased. They're revoking that access in part (in the character sheet) and/or degrading the service we agreed to pay for.

One more Ugly thing Beyond did is - Big sale not so long ago. Imagine Doing a sale on 5e content and then after a bit telling all the people who bought the books on sale that your books are WORTHLESS! We got you! Ha Ha! You thought you were buying stuff for cheap and will be able to use! Well guess what! You`re not! Ha! Now so long sucker! Your money is now ours!

Sure, they will let you use that content you purchased for 5e.2014, but only on paper.  The integration with character sheets ( which is the only thing you really purchase ) is broken with hopes you will give up having to "home brew" every dang thing you've used for the past 10 years and buy new versions off all the books you already "purchased".

This is my point though, this isn't actually true. It's just spells and items that have the same name as 2014 content. Everything else you have is still working.So at the most you can write down the description of the spells and items you use or just pull up the compendium on them in a separate tab etc.. 

Other then that all other 2014 content works with the digital character sheet. 

And - OMG - people would continue paying for it. As it stands now, I'll have to decide post-rollout if it's even worth it to me to continue my sub.

Quote from VitusW >>

Quote from DCTrekkie >>

3) They have been telling us for months that we can still use the old rules. They should not have said this if they are not capable of supporting them.

This is an entirely unforced error on WotC/DDB's part. They decided to bring out a new ruleset without putting in the resources to implement it, and they've advertised something that they had no capability of providing.

If they'd said months ago that they wouldn't support 2014 rules, sure there'd be complaints, but we would have had time to switch to 2024 or move elsewhere. Instead they've promised something then pulled it away at the last moment.

Worst of all, they're trying to hide it. Most users of this site aren't on the forums or looking at changelogs. This should be a main article ob the front page of the site. Instead they've snuck it out where most people won't see it, so that when people complain later they can say "Look, we did announce it, not our fault no-one read it".

This really can't be emphasized enough.

For months there's been threads from users asking if current content will still be usable once the 5.5 books drop. The official answers from mods were always "We don't have that information. We'll tell you when there's a statement."

Now to be clear I do believe the mods didn't know. And that they hadn't been given that information.

But I also have to believe D&D Staff saw this question. Take LaTiaJacquise for example, odds are she probably asked someone, "Hey, this question comes up. Can you give me information so we can let them know what's going to happen?" And whether they didn't give her the info, there was a gag on when to say it, or whatever. That's a failure on WotC's part with informing us.

Because like you pointed out, there's no way this was a decision made just last week. (And if it was then I don't even know...) I purchased the DMG during the summer sale because it was a really nice price. And I purchased it with the assumption that I'd get the functionality it had. If I'd know I was actually "pre-ordering" a subset of 5.5 rules I would not have bought it. And I have to believe WotC knew their plans by that time.

 Very well said. The intentional lack of transparency is an ongoing problem with WotC. When pre orders went live, why not let DDB users know that 2014 support is going to be phased out?

WotC marketing has been pushing the idea that 2014 and 2024 content can be mixed if players want to use things not available in 2024. This created an impression that 2014 wasn't going to be deleted from the character sheet the day 2024 launches. From a legal standpoint they never promised 2014 support on DDB, but the implication was to consistent and nuanced to be accidental.

Blinded by hope, I thought the awkward and nuanced references to this not being a new edition were based upon market research indicating that players didn't want to buy 6e. It seemed weird and improbable to me, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Now it seems very likely that this was intentional deception by the top executives at WotC.

In the span of a few days I have gone from eagerly anticipating buying the physical 2024 books at my local gaming store, to serious contemplating leaving D&D behind forever. There are many fun and well designed systems available for me to play. D&D was my first, and I thought it would also be my last...

Quote from samzukwu >>

One more Ugly thing Beyond did is - Big sale not so long ago. Imagine Doing a sale on 5e content and then after a bit telling all the people who bought the books on sale that your books are WORTHLESS! We got you! Ha Ha! You thought you were buying stuff for cheap and will be able to use! Well guess what! You`re not! Ha! Now so long sucker! Your money is now ours!

This is inaccurate. The 2014 stuff isn't going away. Some character sheet functionality is being updated to 2024 but all the 2014 stuff is still fully useable outside of DDB AND most of it is still useable in DDB. It's compatible with the 2024 update.

"The future is digital."  We see now how they intend to treat their digital customers...

if i cant use it FULLY in character sheet as its was intended AND ADVERTISED then its not usable.  its like a car but engine is outside of a car. yea i have a car i can sit in it, pretend that i drive it but thats all. with out engine in it  its just junk. 

The result of this is that you will lose subscribers. You've already lost me. I hope you appreciate the direct relationship between this decision and loss of revenue.

Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is usually the best one.
Sagan Standard: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.