CB's biggest failing by far: No custom content possible

[DNH]

The thread title says it all: as far as I am concerned, the online CB is fine as far as it goes but the fact that custom content is simply not possible, and yet it WAS in the offline version, is the CB's biggest failing by far. I mean, I can accept that it might be difficult to implement properly but they have a team of programmers dedicated to this thing. (If they don't, then what are we all paying £7 a month for? It doesn't cost them that to put a few PDF files up on a website.) I can even see that allowing custom content for some game elements (races, classes) could be problematic (although there has to be a way of implementing that). But even so, just a simple thing like allowing me to TYPE IN the name of my character's deity would be a big step forward.

I run a game set in Mystara that utilises that setting's rich and varied information for religion and languages and all other kinds of things, but I cannot use that information directly in the CB. No, the CB forces me to leave the deity section blank (or select one of the "official" gods as a placeholder). Worse, when it comes to languages, I cannot type in Thyatian or Minrothadder but I cannot leave it blank either. I am obliged to select from the officially-sanctioned languages (Common, Dwarven, Goblin etc).

Sorry WotC but this is simply not good enough. We all pay a subscription to DDi and we expect a service and a range of products that suits our needs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Actually... you pay for a service that they provide for you. If it doesn't fit your needs, then you should stop paying for it.

 

[DNH]

Actually... you pay for a service that they provide for you. If it doesn't fit your needs, then you should stop paying for it.

Which I absolutely will do if my concerns are not addressed.

 

[Herschel]

Actually... you pay for a service that they provide for you. If it doesn't fit your needs, then you should stop paying for it.

Exactly. We didn't need another thread about how "wronged" someone was because Product X isn't exactly what they wanted. Especially when there's already a compain thread about 6 posts down.

 

[eamon]

As much as it's stylish nowadays to blame the online character builder... this never really worked in the offline builder either.

You couldn't make any custom rules element that would actually affect the stats. Not even in the simplest of ways. You couldn't (and still can't) customize the layout in more than the most basic of ways.

Neither tool approaches what was available years ago for 3e, and that's despite a ruleset that's much more amenable to automatic implementation (fewer wacky exceptions).

The value of the CB lies in its seamless integration into their content database and the fact that plain RAW largely works. Flexibility? Fuhgeddaboudit. That was never a feature, and I'll bet it never will be either.

 

[OnlineDM]

What bugs me is that the online Character Builder doesn't let you customize the layout of your character sheet and the power cards that get printed the way the offline version does. I hate having three pages of crap before I even get to the powers.

I've taken to hacking the PDFs to create my own one-page versions (here's another example), but that's a pain in the butt. I live with it - the online Builder still meets most of my needs - but this does still annoy me. Here's hoping that's a function they bring back someday! At least give us some one-page template options or something.

 

[DNH]

Exactly. We didn't need another thread about how "wronged" someone was because Product X isn't exactly what they wanted. Especially when there's already a compain thread about 6 posts down.

Sorry but unless customers complain about a product, it will never change, because the developers will assume that everything is a-ok.

And tagging my concerns onto somebody else's "complain thread" does not make them more visible to the people who can do something about them, quite the opposite.

If you don't want to read this kind of post/thread, then don't read it. I thought the body of its content was perfectly clear from the title.

 

[Dedekind]

I sympathise with the frustration of not having this customizability that seems simple to add. Cannot they just add a box to check for every possible choice that says "Customized" and just leaves the feat/language/power open to be filled in by the user? Even if it is with a pencil after you print the sheet out!

However, I can't agree with the "fix it or else" mentality. The CB creates too much value, even as an imperfect product. It is worth it (at the price) because: 1) Full access to the catalogue of powers, classes, races, and feats and 2) The calculation of all the numbers. I don't need the books now and my numbers will generally be correct.

While it ain't perfect, those two items far offset the fact that I have to write in that I worship Tsolindril and that I have Deep Morse code as a language.

 

[Riastlin]

Sorry but unless customers complain about a product, it will never change, because the developers will assume that everything is a-ok.

And tagging my concerns onto somebody else's "complain thread" does not make them more visible to the people who can do something about them, quite the opposite.

If you don't want to read this kind of post/thread, then don't read it. I thought the body of its content was perfectly clear from the title.

Not to nitpick but posting a thread here doesn't really do anything either. Your best avenue for being heard is to send the complaint directly to WotC (not even posting on their forums). As an example, when I made the decision a few months ago to stop using credit cards I was disappointed to learn that ordering DDI through PayPal still required a credit card. As such, I was unable to renew my subscription to DDi.

Personally, I think its dumb that they require a credit card. I understand their reasoning, but the way PayPal works now, including the ability to make auto-payments for subscriptions, there's no need for it. The decision is one made by Digital River, btw. At any rate, when I let my subscription expire, I sent a message to one of the more visible WotC employees working on Dungeon/Dragon/etc. letting him know why I had not renewed (since simply not renewing doesn't tell them much). I got a response back a couple hours later saying he had passed the info on to the business team, thanking me for letting him know the reasoning, etc. Although I don't know if its changed yet or not (I'm guessing not) I still think the business team is likely to take it more seriously when they have one of their employees telling them what's going on than just seeing #s going down, wherein likely they won't know the exact reason.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, the inability of the CB to handle even the most basic custom content makes it utterly useless to my players. Each of them has at least one custom item, power or paragon path.

To me it seems as though supporting house rules would be a top priority. Every dm makes custom content, don't they?