D&D 5E D&D Beyond Announces Combat Tracker

"We're happy to announce the Alpha release of the Combat Tracker tool to subscribers of D&D Beyond! Try it out in your D&D games and your feedback will be used to make this the best it can be!"

D&D Beyond has just announced the alpha development version of a combat tracker. You can track monsters, initiative, and access quick reference information. This functionality is similar to that offered by Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.

You can read more about the combat tracker here. The Alpha version is available to DDB subscribers.

"We have been using the Combat Tracker in our home games for a few weeks, and although it is certainly not in a finished state yet, we experienced enough value that we have decided to go ahead and release it now - even in its unfinished state - to both 1) let subscribers gain some of that value and 2) get feedback as early as possible.

Please keep in mind that this is not a finished product, and we invite subscribers to help us make it the best it can be!

Who can use the Combat Tracker?

All D&D Beyond Subscribers. The Combat Tracker is in full active development right now. We will be allowing early access to NEW Combat Tracker features to our Subscribers first, to prove out concepts and new functionality. We took the same approach with the Alpha version of the Encounter Builder with much success. This delivery method allows us to digest feedback in bite sized chunks and perform testing to figure out the best user experience possible.

What is a Development Alpha?

The Development Alpha of the Combat Tracker allows us to test features and user experience.

• Functional but expecting a lot of bugs
  • Should be no core functionality bugs
• Core functionality could change with feedback
• Functionality could appear or disappear at any time

We will be working on validating bug reports and cleaning up the Combat Tracker. Once these tasks have been completed we will release to Beta, essentially meaning the Combat Tracker tool is complete."

 

[cbwjm]

Man, I come to this forum to talk about D&D, not argue about software methodology and software quality in different market segments.

Looking forward to giving this a try, as I don't think anyone's done a really good online combat tracker.

I had a quick look at it before. It's pretty good in that, if you've written up a monster in your DM notes, you can add it in as an adhoc creature and just note its name, hit points, and initiative without having to go create a monster using the tools in DnDBeyond.

Because you can assign players to your encounter, it shows all of them in the initiative and I've read that down the line (I don't think it's part of the current functionality), the players themselves will be able to enter their initiative via their character sheet rather than the DM manually entering it for them. As part of the DnDBeyond tools, this sounds like it could shape up to something really good.

 

[3catcircus]

I can't believe people are flipping out about errors in the first hours of an ALPHA release (done as "this is just something cool we've been toying with and got enough utility that we thought it might be nice if others could play with it") as if it's somehow representative of something meaningful. Yeesh, I hope you're not held at your job to the standard you are holding them to.

I know, it's the internet, so this kind of fan behavior is par for the course. I don't have to like it though.

People are "flipping out" because this is such a simple function and they can't get it right to begin with. And because there are so many other tools that already do this (and a lot more). Someone with an hour of time and access to Google Docs can build a functional combat tracker in a spreadsheet...

 

[DEFCON 1]

People are "flipping out" because this is such a simple function and they can't get it right to begin with. And because there are so many other tools that already do this (and a lot more). Someone with an hour of time and access to Google Docs can build a functional combat tracker in a spreadsheet...

Yeah, well so what? They can't get it right after the first day or release. Okay. If this kind of thing bothers a person so much, why the heck are they jumping into it to begin with?

It seems like the height of "looking for something to get bothered by" to deliberately pull up a just-released program in alpha, then get annoyed that it doesn't work very well. What were you expecting to have happen? Even if they theoretically should have been "past" this point in testing? It just seems entirely counter-intuitive to me. Just like people who pre-order a D&D book before they find out what actually is going to be in it... then get all pissy that they're going to have to cancel their pre-order.

If you throw yourself into an alpha (or beta or whatever stupid designation people want to throw onto the development state of a computer program), then you probably should do so with eyes wide open and be accepting that some junk in it is going to have a few issues. And if that's going to get your blood pressure boiling... maybe you might want to hold off a little while. No one's going to care if you choose to wait a couple more versions down the line.

 

[ART!]

It's like restaurants, man - never go to a new restaurant in the first two weeks of it being open. Leave that for the people who don't know that rule, and let the restaurant work the bugs out. Then go try it out.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's like restaurants, man - never go to a new restaurant in the first two weeks of it being open. Leave that for the people who don't know that rule, and let the restaurant work the bugs out. Then go try it out.

You aren't kidding. I did go to one that opened in my town during the first week and it wasn't that great of an experience. Food and service was 'meh'. It really wasn't a big deal, but at the same time we haven't ever had the need to go back.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It seems like the height of "looking for something to get bothered by" to deliberately pull up a just-released program in alpha, then get annoyed that it doesn't work very well. What were you expecting to have happen? Even if they theoretically should have been "past" this point in testing? It just seems entirely counter-intuitive to me. Just like people who pre-order a D&D book before they find out what actually is going to be in it... then get all pissy that they're going to have to cancel their pre-order.

Bad analogy. Because with the book, you have no idea what's in it. With alpha, you do know. Also, beta and alpha aren't the same. What do I expect? I expect exactly what you're supposed to expect in an alpha testing phase (and what was reiterated by their own words): several bugs in the areas included in the alpha testing, but no major breaks to core or existing functionality.

Yes, they say encounter builder is in BETA. But that's not really what Beta testing is, to deploy code to the entire user group for an indefinite amount of time (5 months and counting). That's not Beta (hyperlinked to definition), that's production code deploy and any errors that are found you just call it Beta (which is another indicator that raises questions about what they are doing QA wise when they are misusing terms and mis-defining testing phases, not to mention, users don't typically do alpha testing to begin with, that's usually internal testing, like what I do at my day job). Beta testing typically only lasts a couple weeks, which is industry standard for any pilot group, whether it be entertainment or finance. For practical purposes, "beta" and "pilot' mean the same thing. Additionally, something in Beta is stable. It works as designed with only an occasional bug here and there to be found because all the core testing was already done previously. A Beta build and an Alpha build are entirely different, and it's flawed to assume or imply that one should expect similar reliability between the two.

So when they deployed the combat tracker and it totally broke the encounter builder, that is a bad thing. A very bad thing in the QA industry. New code broke existing code significantly. We call it a "show stopper", and it's the highest level defect you can have. It is not expected just because it's an alpha enhancement, nor should any of us expect that to happen. No one is "looking to get bothered by it". Don't make excuses for bad testing by insulting the motivations of the people calling it out.

Also, because this was mentioned earlier, just because something has frequent updates, is no indicator of whether it's in alpha, beta, or full production. Existing core production code get updates all the time, because software is a never ending cycle of enhancements.

 

[Umbran]

People are "flipping out" because this is such a simple function and they can't get it right to begin with. And because there are so many other tools that already do this (and a lot more). Someone with an hour of time and access to Google Docs can build a functional combat tracker in a spreadsheet...

Maybe then you should go do so and not worry about this one so much?

Did they screw something up? Sure.

Should this have been a surprise to anyone? Nope. Not a whit. They presented it specifically as a work in progress. And these guys are not what we'd call a major development house at this point.

You have a choice - beat the crap out of them for a mistake*, or you can shrug, notice that the only real harm they did was to themselves, and move on.




*And while that may encourage them to not make mistakes, it may also encourage them to not give you new features, for fear of your reaction - negative stimuli have unpredictable effects.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Should this have been a surprise to anyone? Nope. Not a whit. They presented it specifically as a work in progress. And these guys are not what we'd call a major development house at this point.

This is factually untrue. As I just said above. Breaking existing code should never have happened. Believe me, that was a surprise to them as well. Do not confuse "work in progress" or "alpha" with "we broke existing functionality". They are not the same. If someone assumes that breaking existing code of a different workflow is an expected and/or otherwise not surprised behavior during a code deployment, then they don't understand anything about QA testing, no offense.

 

[LordEntrails]

My experience is that the more that players are relying on software to play the game the less the players know about playing the game, and they not only wouldn't know when the software is in error, but they become totally lost when the software isn't holding their hand.

Thanks, but no. I prefer to require players to use books. And if I feel the need to use software to manage combat during a game I'll kick the combat rules in the teeth until they're simpler to use, or else abandon that version of the game as unnecessarily complicated. If it's too much work to do it without software IT'S TOO MUCH WORK full stop. IMO

Interesting view, but software, and other things that make the game easier, are part of the reason 5E has more players than any other RPG. Accessibility and not Gatekeeping is what brings more people into the game.

Look, I still get frustrated when a player takes more than a couple second to calculate the total of a 8d6+12 roll. But I keep my mouth shut because the game doesn't need such artificial and elitist gatekeeping.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is factually untrue. As I just said above. Breaking existing code should never have happened. Believe me, that was a surprise to them as well. Do not confuse "work in progress" or "alpha" with "we broke existing functionality". They are not the same. If someone assumes that breaking existing code of a different workflow is an expected and/or otherwise not surprised behavior during a code deployment, then they don't understand anything about QA testing, no offense.

Any idea how many people D&D Beyond have in their QA department? Or if they even have a QA department?

And then again... even if something broke that wasn't supposed to... so what? Whose nose is the skin off of? Those that already have D&D Beyond for the other functionality aren't going to suddenly drop the service cause this new thing they made caused an issue for a couple hours. And those that don't already have it probably aren't checking in on this combat tracker to begin with (or using it as their decision point.)

So again... yeah something broke and they are fixing it, and yeah maybe it "shouldn't have happened". I still don't see what is the big deal and why we should care or be upset with the folks at D&DB for it.