Grant K. Smith A+, Network+, MCP x 2, BSIT/VC, MIS
Software Engineer & Dungeon Master
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." - J. R. R. Tolkien "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" - Anonymous
Clarification: it is entirely too tedious for me to manually copy and paste everything into homebrew and then update every single one of my players characters sheets in order to continue playing what we've been playing. I will not be using your service.
"Some people are okay with these changes, and some are not"
Let me correct that for you...
"A very, very, very small percentage of people are okay with these changes, while the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are not"
Semantics. People who have negative opinions are generally more vocal about their displeasure than those who are okay with something. Those who are okay with something, as I'm seeing here, are quick to be called 'shills', 'sheep', or any other negative moniker.
You don't find it weird when an accounts that have been quiet and happy for years is suddenly active only to tell you they are upset about being forced to new rules instead of making the transition in the timely manner they want?
I'm also not familiar with the architecture of the system, but whichever would be the easiest and most cost effective way to do it, should have already been done. perhaps the entire site should be, for the time being, put on hold for new content, while something new is built from the ground up, that would be able to not only accommodate current users regardless the edition of the rules they use, but be able to be forward compatible with any future large scale changes that would affect the 2024 rules users. I've seen references to spaghetti code from the original development, and rebuilding the entire thing just might be the solution for all of it.
I don' t think putting the site on hold is the answer; that means everyone that has paid for and wants the rules updates they've purchased loses out instead and isn't any better than what everyone's complaining about currently. I do agree that they should've anticipated this being a problem for some because you can never please everyone BUT they're following their policy in updating the site to the latest rules so, at least from my perspective, this was always expected.
It sucks that so many are hurt by this update and I think my proposal is a quick, easy solution even if it's only a temporary one. I have no control over WotC or the DDB team, though, I can only offer my suggestions to help the situation.
Maybe I need to clarify what I meant by put on hold. I meant put on hold the addition of new content that would generate breakages for people using the 2014 rules. That would only apply of course, if they were to rebuild the whole thing better, without internal code that could otherwise break things for everybody. Sorry about that.
Please leave in the 2014 spells under a (legacy) or (2014) tag, just like how legacy races and other content is now. It shouldn't be much different from having a filter available for 3rd party content like we have right now.
Looking forward to new content, but not looking forward to this platform losing utility.
HOWEVER, I can think of no better way of getting the typical D&D Player to reject something than by forcing it upon them.
One of my best friends and roommates worked tech service phone lines for Apple during the whole "we just gave you all U2's Album for free!"
You'd never believe how many people called in furious over being given some music they didn't have to pay for, demanding to know how to delete it from their phones.
This U2/Apple thing keeps coming up and it's very misleading, here's why:
Apple did not sell you the previous album by U2, then one day decide to prevent iTunes from playing it and instead replace it with the new and "improved" album. It didn't occur to them to argue it's still on your phone and you could still access it by jumping through a bunch of hoops like downloading some other music player.
While this isn't the perfect comparison either, it's much closer to what D&D Beyond has announced. It's not rocket science: if you disable digital content and functionality that people have paid for (because you specifically advertised that functionality at sale), it doesn't matter how great you feel about what you force them to use instead, people will be irritated. It shows a severe lack of understanding of which parts of D&D Beyond are actually the most useful for many players to point to the compendium as if that made messing with character sheets ok.
People who have negative opinions are generally more vocal about their displeasure than those who are okay with something.
This is the classic red flag of an org that is trying desperately to ignore user feedback and make it fit their internal narrative. It's not the company that made a mistake, it's just a vocal minority of users, nothing to see here.
The feedback is not being ignored. LaTia was responding to the user of the word majority. Majority or minority is irrelevant. We do care about the feedback.
The point is that we would prefer people not to direct their anger at those who disagree with them with name calling, report spamming, or other forms of harassment.
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How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat On - Mod Hat Off
"Some people are okay with these changes, and some are not"
Let me correct that for you...
"A very, very, very small percentage of people are okay with these changes, while the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are not"
Semantics. People who have negative opinions are generally more vocal about their displeasure than those who are okay with something. Those who are okay with something, as I'm seeing here, are quick to be called 'shills', 'sheep', or any other negative moniker.
You don't find it weird when an accounts that have been quiet and happy for years is suddenly active only to tell you they are upset about being forced to new rules instead of making the transition in the timely manner they want?
For how long I've been on the internet? Not at all. Negative news (and opinions) travel much farther than the positive. It's not quite a one-to-one, but the quote "A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth has time to put on pants/tie its shoes" feels relevant to me in a different way: "you will hear how much someone dislikes a thing before you will hear someone say they love it."
I never said that it was wrong to tell us how upset you are. That's what we're here for. I just don't want y'all to start tearing each other (or us) apart in the process.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her) You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On| CM Hat Off Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5]. Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
The fact that the 2014 spells are being shafted really sucks. If you're already doing the service of making legacy content for pretty much everything else, why just stop at spells? I really don't want to lose the convenience of this service, and I'd be more inclined to make additional purchases if the 5e content is just as easy to access as the new sourcebooks being created. Pushing out potential customers to force a new book reminds me of the OGL fiasco, and WoTC should remember how that went.
"Some people are okay with these changes, and some are not"
Let me correct that for you...
"A very, very, very small percentage of people are okay with these changes, while the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are not"
Semantics. People who have negative opinions are generally more vocal about their displeasure than those who are okay with something. Those who are okay with something, as I'm seeing here, are quick to be called 'shills', 'sheep', or any other negative moniker.
You don't find it weird when an accounts that have been quiet and happy for years is suddenly active only to tell you they are upset about being forced to new rules instead of making the transition in the timely manner they want?
For how long I've been on the internet? Not at all. Negative news (and opinions) travel much farther than the positive. It's not quite a one-to-one, but the quote "A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth has time to put on pants/tie its shoes" feels relevant to me in a different way: "you will hear how much someone dislikes a thing before you will hear someone say they love it."
I never said that it was wrong to tell us how upset you are. That's what we're here for. I just don't want y'all to start tearing each other (or us) apart in the process.
"May the odds be EVER in your favor!" Sounding ahh scenario LOL-
The mods and CMs probably don't like the changes either, but they're the ones who have to deal with the rule breaking and misinformation. I appreciate their efforts to at least keep things civil.
For how long I've been on the internet? Not at all. Negative news (and opinions) travel much farther than the positive. It's not quite a one-to-one, but the quote "A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth has time to put on pants/tie its shoes" feels relevant to me in a different way: "you will hear how much someone dislikes a thing before you will hear someone say they love it."
I never said that it was wrong to tell us how upset you are. That's what we're here for. I just don't want y'all to start tearing each other (or us) apart in the process.
"May the odds be EVER in your favor!" Sounding ahh scenario LOL-
I'm definitely no Effie Trinket. I'd look real bad in white makeup. :P
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her) You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On| CM Hat Off Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5]. Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
🍿🍿🍿👀 the loud Minority speaks over the silent majority every time.
So glad DnD isn't like 40k. Imagine if this was a whole new edition instead of a minor balance update and you had a new edition every 3-4 years.
Thankfully, my group is just going to transition to the 2024 rules and spells. After a short session Re-Zero shouldn't be an issue.
Treantmonk's Temple on YouTube (linked below) has done a pretty good comparison of spell changes from 2014 to 2024. For those of you wanting to use the 2014 spells as homebrew his videos can guide you in the right direction. I think there is less then 10 (big guess) spells that you'd actually want to homebrew. Also, not hard to do it now. Literally just create the spell in homebrew as a copy now before the 2024 books take effect and you should be good to go.
You failed to address the main issue, which is forcing people to play 2024 versions of classes if they wanna use the character sheet function in DnDBeyond. Continue to watch your stock fall as preorders and subscriptions are canceled.
I'm just a DM voicing his opinion and displeasure how spells and items are being handled and how its going to negatively impact the biggest aspect of ddb for me and my dozens of players. The compendiums integration with the character builder. It so greatly simplifies things and lets me not worry that they aren't doing something wrong. Unlike on other platforms where i have to read the sheet very closely. However if we have to homebrew everything, that trust I rely on, will be put into question. I don't want to change to the new material, yet, but in time I likely will.
I just want to be able to make that choice for myself. I pre-ordered the new 2024 books a while ago in excitement, and frankly my purchase and subscription feels betrayed.
Question Re: Spell Lists. Will there be a way to limit the spells that appear in the 'Add Spells' group as a DM if we don't want to include all the additions?
People who have negative opinions are generally more vocal about their displeasure than those who are okay with something.
This is the classic red flag of an org that is trying desperately to ignore user feedback and make it fit their internal narrative. It's not the company that made a mistake, it's just a vocal minority of users, nothing to see here.
I don't blame LaTia Jacquise (or the other mods) for keeping the company line and I really hope people don't get angry at them when often the people in community management aren't empowered to make structural changes even if they can show that community members are upset.
Wizards does have a pattern of assuming that angry fans will go away eventually. Lin Codega during the OGL scandal highlighted the fan response that mattered the most was people canceling their subscriptions & showing they would walk away:
The bottom line seems to be: After a fan-led campaign to cancel D&D Beyond subscriptions went viral, it sent a message to WotC and Hasbro higher-ups. According to multiple sources, these immediate financial consequences were the main thing that forced them to respond. The decision to further delay the rollout of the new Open Gaming License and then adjust the messaging around the rollout occurred because of a “provable impact” on their bottom line.
Per the latest Hasbro investor's meeting, D&D Beyond is now 50% of the revenue for the D&D ttrpg (as opposed to the larger D&D brand bucket where BG3 brought in the lion's share) so keeping people here is key; you can be vocal about being angry with changes, but what matters is showing you'll walk away from the platform and impact the D&D Beyond revenue stream. And kudos to the Roll20 marketing team who immediately started to show how you won't lose functionality on their platform to try and entice you away from D&D Beyond.
My guess the only spells people would rather have from 2024 are the Conjure spells and Counterspell. Should be able to homebre those in less than 5mins... someone could share it with the community too.
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That's unfair; unhappy people ARE in fact, generally, more vocal than satisfied people. Satisfied people don't have a reason to speak out. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-why-customers-respond-surveys-how-get-more-oleg-pikar-rtkwe/
Grant K. Smith
A+, Network+, MCP x 2, BSIT/VC, MIS
Software Engineer & Dungeon Master
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." - J. R. R. Tolkien
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" - Anonymous
Clarification: it is entirely too tedious for me to manually copy and paste everything into homebrew and then update every single one of my players characters sheets in order to continue playing what we've been playing. I will not be using your service.
You don't find it weird when an accounts that have been quiet and happy for years is suddenly active only to tell you they are upset about being forced to new rules instead of making the transition in the timely manner they want?
Maybe I need to clarify what I meant by put on hold. I meant put on hold the addition of new content that would generate breakages for people using the 2014 rules. That would only apply of course, if they were to rebuild the whole thing better, without internal code that could otherwise break things for everybody. Sorry about that.
Please leave in the 2014 spells under a (legacy) or (2014) tag, just like how legacy races and other content is now. It shouldn't be much different from having a filter available for 3rd party content like we have right now.
Looking forward to new content, but not looking forward to this platform losing utility.
This U2/Apple thing keeps coming up and it's very misleading, here's why:
Apple did not sell you the previous album by U2, then one day decide to prevent iTunes from playing it and instead replace it with the new and "improved" album.
It didn't occur to them to argue it's still on your phone and you could still access it by jumping through a bunch of hoops like downloading some other music player.
While this isn't the perfect comparison either, it's much closer to what D&D Beyond has announced. It's not rocket science: if you disable digital content and functionality that people have paid for (because you specifically advertised that functionality at sale), it doesn't matter how great you feel about what you force them to use instead, people will be irritated. It shows a severe lack of understanding of which parts of D&D Beyond are actually the most useful for many players to point to the compendium as if that made messing with character sheets ok.
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ModeratorThe feedback is not being ignored. LaTia was responding to the user of the word majority. Majority or minority is irrelevant. We do care about the feedback.
The point is that we would prefer people not to direct their anger at those who disagree with them with name calling, report spamming, or other forms of harassment.
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D&D StaffFor how long I've been on the internet? Not at all. Negative news (and opinions) travel much farther than the positive. It's not quite a one-to-one, but the quote "A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth has time to put on pants/tie its shoes" feels relevant to me in a different way: "you will hear how much someone dislikes a thing before you will hear someone say they love it."
I never said that it was wrong to tell us how upset you are. That's what we're here for. I just don't want y'all to start tearing each other (or us) apart in the process.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On | CM Hat Off
Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Useful Links: Site Rules & Guidelines | D&D Educator Resources | Change Your Nickname | Submit a Support Ticket
The fact that the 2014 spells are being shafted really sucks. If you're already doing the service of making legacy content for pretty much everything else, why just stop at spells? I really don't want to lose the convenience of this service, and I'd be more inclined to make additional purchases if the 5e content is just as easy to access as the new sourcebooks being created. Pushing out potential customers to force a new book reminds me of the OGL fiasco, and WoTC should remember how that went.
"May the odds be EVER in your favor!" Sounding ahh scenario LOL-
The one who wants to hug quite literally everyone, for no reason whatsoever. Get him to an Asylum.
Just some guy who likes memes and DND!
Some may know me as a particularly goofy vermin if you play a Sonic game where you commit blasts of robo...2...
(online Monday-Friday from 8:00 to 3:00) (Most of the time.)
First ACTUAL RP character as a SHEET!!! He's a foxfolk.
Hewwo! ^w^ You wanna see a surprise? :3
The mods and CMs probably don't like the changes either, but they're the ones who have to deal with the rule breaking and misinformation. I appreciate their efforts to at least keep things civil.
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D&D StaffI'm definitely no Effie Trinket. I'd look real bad in white makeup. :P
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On | CM Hat Off
Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Useful Links: Site Rules & Guidelines | D&D Educator Resources | Change Your Nickname | Submit a Support Ticket
XDDDD
(I read too much, send help.)
The one who wants to hug quite literally everyone, for no reason whatsoever. Get him to an Asylum.
Just some guy who likes memes and DND!
Some may know me as a particularly goofy vermin if you play a Sonic game where you commit blasts of robo...2...
(online Monday-Friday from 8:00 to 3:00) (Most of the time.)
First ACTUAL RP character as a SHEET!!! He's a foxfolk.
Hewwo! ^w^ You wanna see a surprise? :3
🍿🍿🍿👀 the loud Minority speaks over the silent majority every time.
So glad DnD isn't like 40k. Imagine if this was a whole new edition instead of a minor balance update and you had a new edition every 3-4 years.
Thankfully, my group is just going to transition to the 2024 rules and spells. After a short session Re-Zero shouldn't be an issue.
Treantmonk's Temple on YouTube (linked below) has done a pretty good comparison of spell changes from 2014 to 2024. For those of you wanting to use the 2014 spells as homebrew his videos can guide you in the right direction. I think there is less then 10 (big guess) spells that you'd actually want to homebrew. Also, not hard to do it now. Literally just create the spell in homebrew as a copy now before the 2024 books take effect and you should be good to go.
https://youtu.be/0HVkEZ25qTE?si=KmIkaAzEwFAEwor8
https://youtu.be/uHFcrbROkFA?si=zrOGulhe5hZMIsbJ
You failed to address the main issue, which is forcing people to play 2024 versions of classes if they wanna use the character sheet function in DnDBeyond. Continue to watch your stock fall as preorders and subscriptions are canceled.
I mean, I just re-added the spells to my characters, sooo...
The one who wants to hug quite literally everyone, for no reason whatsoever. Get him to an Asylum.
Just some guy who likes memes and DND!
Some may know me as a particularly goofy vermin if you play a Sonic game where you commit blasts of robo...2...
(online Monday-Friday from 8:00 to 3:00) (Most of the time.)
First ACTUAL RP character as a SHEET!!! He's a foxfolk.
Hewwo! ^w^ You wanna see a surprise? :3
I'm just a DM voicing his opinion and displeasure how spells and items are being handled and how its going to negatively impact the biggest aspect of ddb for me and my dozens of players. The compendiums integration with the character builder. It so greatly simplifies things and lets me not worry that they aren't doing something wrong. Unlike on other platforms where i have to read the sheet very closely. However if we have to homebrew everything, that trust I rely on, will be put into question. I don't want to change to the new material, yet, but in time I likely will.
I just want to be able to make that choice for myself. I pre-ordered the new 2024 books a while ago in excitement, and frankly my purchase and subscription feels betrayed.
Question Re: Spell Lists. Will there be a way to limit the spells that appear in the 'Add Spells' group as a DM if we don't want to include all the additions?
I don't blame LaTia Jacquise (or the other mods) for keeping the company line and I really hope people don't get angry at them when often the people in community management aren't empowered to make structural changes even if they can show that community members are upset.
Wizards does have a pattern of assuming that angry fans will go away eventually. Lin Codega during the OGL scandal highlighted the fan response that mattered the most was people canceling their subscriptions & showing they would walk away:
Per the latest Hasbro investor's meeting, D&D Beyond is now 50% of the revenue for the D&D ttrpg (as opposed to the larger D&D brand bucket where BG3 brought in the lion's share) so keeping people here is key; you can be vocal about being angry with changes, but what matters is showing you'll walk away from the platform and impact the D&D Beyond revenue stream. And kudos to the Roll20 marketing team who immediately started to show how you won't lose functionality on their platform to try and entice you away from D&D Beyond.
👀🍿🍿🍿
My guess the only spells people would rather have from 2024 are the Conjure spells and Counterspell. Should be able to homebre those in less than 5mins... someone could share it with the community too.