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."

 

[practicalm]

I don't subscribe to D&D Beyond but can anyone who has seen it working do a comparison with the Lion's Den Gamemaster app?
I found that app to be great and the ability for me to add my own stuff to be helpful.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Encounter builder is not a core function of the application and is also testing and not yet released as part of the core.

And again, this was an error IN THE FIRST FEW HOURS OF AN ALPHA. So yeah, your reaction looks to me like an extreme exaggeration flipping-out level reaction. Not the only one that can fairly be described that way but yes yours was including in my comment.

Maybe you need to read what the description of Alpha testing is. Even by their own words. Because you're wrong. Alpha testing is not supposed to completely shut down and break other areas of the application.

But hey, keep telling me how my job works and what it entails. Maybe I should start telling you how the law really works, and not just what you think or what your experience is.

 

[Mistwell]

Maybe you need to read what the description of Alpha testing is. Even by their own words. Because you're wrong. Alpha testing is not supposed to completely shut down and break other areas of the application.

But hey, keep telling me how my job works and what it entails. Maybe I should start telling you how the law really works, and not just what you think or what your experience is.

Encounter builder is NOT part of the core application. It's also a beta testing section. It's not "key and critical areas."

And I am not telling you what your job entails, you already told us your job applies to BANKING AND FINANCE and not to something like this. But hey, why don't you make it a personal attack despite the fact you brought up your field and I didn't bring up mine? Be even more reactionary and over the top, that will convince me and others you're looking at this from a level headed perspective, right?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Encounter builder is in Beta and has been there since September. That's considered core since it's been part of the application for the general public. Alpha is this:

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

So by their own criteria, they should have have had something like the encounter builder completely break. Heck, even if encounter builder was in alpha still, they should not have had it break by the very first point.

 

[Mistwell]

Encounter builder is in Beta and has been there since September. That's considered core since it's been part of the application for the general public.

Beta testing elements are not part of the core functionality. You declaring it as such doesn't make it so, and being around as beta for 5 months doesn't make it part of the core application either.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Beta testing elements are not part of the core functionality. You declaring it as such doesn't make it so, and being around as beta for 5 months doesn't make it part of the core application either.

Wrong again. Look, I do this for my day job man. Anything that has been deployed to the production environment for all users is then considered core once the release (deployment) is done. And even if it wasn't, look at the description from their website of what alpha testing expectations and scope are. It still should not have happened.

Why you keep doubling down on telling me (incorrectly) what my job is is beyond me, but I wish you'd stop.


Edit In fact, if there is an error here, it's them keeping calling it beta when it's not longer part of a small sample test group. Because once you go prod deployment, beta testing ends, as per the definition of what beta testing is.

 

[Mistwell]

Wrong again. Look, I do this for my day job man. Anything that has been deployed to the production environment for all users is then considered core once the release (deployment) is done. And even if it wasn't, look at the description from their website of what alpha testing expectations and scope are. It still should not have happened.

Why you keep doubling down on telling me (incorrectly) what my job is is beyond me, but I wish you'd stop.

Banking and Finance isn't entertainment-related and YOU made the admission the standards are not the same. "Disclaimer: I don't work in video gaming or entertainment. I work in corporate finance. So if there are any defects going to production, head's roll in my world. Can you imagine if millions of customers all the sudden couldn't access their online banking features? So maybe my bias is a bit more strict. "

I am not telling you your job, I am repeating that you said your job isn't really about this kind of product it's about an entirely different level of industry. And now you appear to be back tracking on your own words for...reasons? And pretending I am telling you your job even though I clearly am not? Again, it's a reactionary response, and not persuasive.

Here is what they said their beta meant for the encounter builder (and by the way the encounter builder beta had it's last major update Jan 15, 2020]. "The BETA release is to stress test the environment and scale our data base to give users the best possible experience. After we have validated our testing, we will iterate on the existing Encounter Builder and future features to supplement this growing toolset."

That's it. Nothing about it being part of the core, testing has not been validated yet. In fact it's still missing a ton of features, and they list the features it's still missing, and isn't functional fully yet in beta. It's not a core release yet.

Here are the features still missing by the way even in the beta (their words):

• Running an Encounter
• Generate Random Encounters
• Save My Encounters in folders
• Expanded Encounter Details (Rich Text entry)
• Upload Maps
• Upload Images
• Integrate with Campaign (characters)
• Filter by ownership
• Encounters for Published Adventures
• Sharing Encounters Publicly

 

[Panda-s1]

Encounter builder is not a core function of the application nor is it, your words, "key and critical areas". It's also testing and not yet released as part of the core.

And again, this was an error IN THE FIRST FEW HOURS OF AN ALPHA of an entertainment-related "here's a free gift to play with" application rather than a banking and finance application. So yeah, your reaction looks to me like an extreme exaggeration flipping-out level reaction. Not the only one that can fairly be described that way but yes yours was including in my comment.

John the rules lawyer gets super specific about how combat works and UH OH looks like the tracker crashed. the DM can't remember the exact initiative order and what's this? John is punching the DM? now he's burning down the DM's house! they should've made sure the tracker was working correctly :/

Encounter builder is in Beta and has been there since September. That's considered core since it's been part of the application for the general public. Alpha is this:

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

So by their own criteria, they should have have had something like the encounter builder completely break. Heck, even if encounter builder was in alpha still, they should not have had it break by the very first point.

having the expectation of a beta or even alpha build to never crash seems ridiculously high imo

 

[OB1]

It's back up and functioning again.

 

[Sacrosanct]

John the rules lawyer gets super specific about how combat works and UH OH looks like the tracker crashed. the DM can't remember the exact initiative order and what's this? John is punching the DM? now he's burning down the DM's house! they should've made sure the tracker was working correctly :/

having the expectation of a beta or alpha build to never crash seems ridiculously high imo

Not in beta. Beta is only expecting minor issues here and there. Otherwise, it's supposed to be a stable environment. And as I mentioned above, even though they call encounter builder beta still, it's really not. Not once you deploy to production for the majority of the usergroup. Per definition of beta, it ends by then. And alpha testing, while expecting many issues, should not impact core or outside functionality of existing issues. It's in their own definition of what alpha testing expectations are that I pasted.

The bottom line is that this shouldn't have happened, to have the encounter builder completely break. That should have been identified before deploying the alpha code.