Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5305034" data-attributes="member: 78116">There are numerous flaws to both magazines as of late actually. Firstly, the articles quality, not just quantity, has been going rapidly downhill. Articles have been very disappointing lately, in that the fluff is okay to not very great and has terrible mechanical support. A terrific example of this is the changeling article. Not only did it manage to contradict bits of previous Eberron lore, but it was the ultimate insult to injury in the most chronically undersupported race in all of 4E got a single terrible feat. It was immeasurably disappointing to me and I know some of my players were equally as let down. It's frustrating as well, because some classes have terrific support like the fighter and wizard and many others are just left to die in the dirt EG the "DDI exclusive" Assassin and the Artificer (do they just hate stuff from Eberron or what?).There needs to be a good thought of focusing content on what NEEDS it. Not endless wizard and fighter articles every month. Focus your attention on the undersupported, not the massively supported by absolutely everyone and their dog fighter/wizard etc.On the DM side of things, I want more articles like the Bane article with stats of the god actually, or high level servants if they are on the "epic side" of epic, like around level 36+ (and therefore not really suited for statting). I also want more monster articles, more power swap/theme type articles and similar. In terms of adventures I want MORE PARAGON AND EPIC ADVENTURES. So much heroic stuff it's choking out absolutely everything else at this point. I almost squeal with delight at anything that is above heroic tier.My other complaint is the fact wizards continues to fail to untag their maps and provide them for subscribers at a decent resolution. This frustrates me no end, because they get some fantastic cartography that I would love to use, yet ruin it horrifically with bloody circled Ys, Xs and similar crap. Honestly, I don't NEED to know that on the maps very much anyway and I usually change monster positions myself to begin with. Having beautiful maps covered in "letter vomit" (as I call it) is just massively depressing. Even if I don't use the adventures, maps are infinitely valuable and a variety of maps means a variety of adventuring possibilities!Overall I feel I am getting little value out of my DDI subscription. The delays to the tools, which is what I do use as the monster builder is my lifeline with the character builder is really getting to me now. I have only a singular adventure I actually want to run as is in my three campaigns I am running but then again, I make my own adventures - it's why I DM to be honest. But again, good untagged maps and new traps/monsters is always useful - even if I don't wish to use the adventure. The lack of adventures is another incredible pet peeve of mine as well, especially when they aren't making up for the lost content elsewhere like deity, demonomicon and whatever else articles.Overall the online magazines held a lot of promise but have become very disappointing as of late. If it wasn't for the fact my PCs love the character builder and the monster builder badly needs an update I would have already canceled my subscription. I am not impressed and I really hope once they get over the essentials "bubble" or whatever this is, we get some real content in the magazines again. This is in fact my main whinge when it comes to 4E and I am so easy to please. If I had a few decent adventures a month and some untagged maps with wizards excellent cartographers they have I wouldn't be half as unhappy.</blockquote>

Verification