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*TTRPGs General
What VTT(s) do you most dislike and why? (Defenders welcome to defend)
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<blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 9583762" data-attributes="member: 6796661"><p>A number of VTTs brought up here that I've not played around with. Life's busy at the moment, but I'm interested in trying some of them. I've been hearing a lot about Talespire. I've yet to dive into a 3D VTT (other than playing around with mods for Foundry, which is a rabbit hole of configuration I've saved myself from falling down).</p><p></p><p></p><p>Did you try to just use the core features? I think this here is the biggest issue Foundry has. The modability creates expectations that you can make it work exactly how you want to. If your expectations are high, especially with automation or some of the most impressive animated and 3D effects, you can spend countless hours to <em>almost</em> get there. Some user just love the process, but most get frustrated and give up. I'm in the middle, I got frustrated, when back to the just core, determined what was most important to me and slowly added mods back in with intention.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Sounds cool, I kinda want to check it out. Is it run from a browser or is it dependent on running software on your computer. I'm wondering if the performance is due to needing a beefy PC or if they just don't have enough resources on their server to deliver a good, smooth experience to users, especially during busy times.</p><p></p><p>Yep. Like many VTTs, you'll enjoy them more if you keep your wants and needs low. I could live with out good music support, because I mainly want a VTT to focus on providing good battlemap functionality. I can do voice and music in Discord. </p><p></p><p>But the lighting was dealbreaker. I really, really enjoy dynamic lighting and automatic fog of war reveal. When I was testing Roll20, I was prepping Rappan Ahtuk. Even the highest tier subscription didn't give me enough storage for all of my maps. So, I thought, okay, well I'll just prep certain maps before a session and remove them when they are unlikely to be returned to. And, given how interconnected everything in that megadungeon is, at least it is pretty easy to throw up a map and use manual fog of war. </p><p></p><p>But then I tried to prep a large set piece map. Just prepping it for dynamic lighting made it unusable. </p><p></p><p>In foundry I can run that same map with dynamic lighting, regional sound, animated tiles, teleporting locations, and atmospheric effects (rolling blood mist) with a couple hundred tokens dropped on it. It take a bit longer to load in the browser, but I ran it (hosted in the forge) on crappy work-provided housing internet in the mid-east for players in the US and ran it over two 8 hour sessions with no issues.</p><p></p><p>I've been there. But most of my playing with widgets happens outside of the game. For the most part the battlemap stuff didn't negatively affect my sessions--I would say the enhanced the sessions. What did OFTEN negatively affect my sessions until I learned better was my attempts a automation. There was ALWAYS something that would not work. The dirty secret of automation is that even if 95% of the time the automations work, that other 5% of the time, when a power doesn't work, when conditions were not applied properly, etc. it causes outsized disruptions to the game and more likely leads the DM having to mess around with the software instead of focusing on running the game.</p><p></p><p>Yeah, I hear you. But there are some DM QOL things that VTTs SHOULD be great for, but frustratingly are not for most systems. Like AOE effects. I would LOVE a computer to automate rolling saves, rolling and applying damage and applying conditions to a group of 20 goblins. It is PAINFUL to try to do that using digital NPC charactersheets when there is no automation. And for the D&D 5e system in Foundry, even with mods, I could never get to my happy place because there were too many exceptions to what "mostly" worked. I just went back to a note pad and pencil. </p><p></p><p>I believe that Fantasy Grounds handles this stuff much better, but I could never host a game from my location with my internet on FGC or FGU. I probably could now that I'm back in the US, but I'm already invested into Foundry.</p><p></p><p>I'd love to hear more about this. What core use cases do all VTTs fail to address that make you angry? For me it is poorly handling the application of damage, saves, and conditions to multiple tokens.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MNblockhead, post: 9583762, member: 6796661"] A number of VTTs brought up here that I've not played around with. Life's busy at the moment, but I'm interested in trying some of them. I've been hearing a lot about Talespire. I've yet to dive into a 3D VTT (other than playing around with mods for Foundry, which is a rabbit hole of configuration I've saved myself from falling down). Did you try to just use the core features? I think this here is the biggest issue Foundry has. The modability creates expectations that you can make it work exactly how you want to. If your expectations are high, especially with automation or some of the most impressive animated and 3D effects, you can spend countless hours to [I]almost[/I] get there. Some user just love the process, but most get frustrated and give up. I'm in the middle, I got frustrated, when back to the just core, determined what was most important to me and slowly added mods back in with intention. Sounds cool, I kinda want to check it out. Is it run from a browser or is it dependent on running software on your computer. I'm wondering if the performance is due to needing a beefy PC or if they just don't have enough resources on their server to deliver a good, smooth experience to users, especially during busy times. Yep. Like many VTTs, you'll enjoy them more if you keep your wants and needs low. I could live with out good music support, because I mainly want a VTT to focus on providing good battlemap functionality. I can do voice and music in Discord. But the lighting was dealbreaker. I really, really enjoy dynamic lighting and automatic fog of war reveal. When I was testing Roll20, I was prepping Rappan Ahtuk. Even the highest tier subscription didn't give me enough storage for all of my maps. So, I thought, okay, well I'll just prep certain maps before a session and remove them when they are unlikely to be returned to. And, given how interconnected everything in that megadungeon is, at least it is pretty easy to throw up a map and use manual fog of war. But then I tried to prep a large set piece map. Just prepping it for dynamic lighting made it unusable. In foundry I can run that same map with dynamic lighting, regional sound, animated tiles, teleporting locations, and atmospheric effects (rolling blood mist) with a couple hundred tokens dropped on it. It take a bit longer to load in the browser, but I ran it (hosted in the forge) on crappy work-provided housing internet in the mid-east for players in the US and ran it over two 8 hour sessions with no issues. I've been there. But most of my playing with widgets happens outside of the game. For the most part the battlemap stuff didn't negatively affect my sessions--I would say the enhanced the sessions. What did OFTEN negatively affect my sessions until I learned better was my attempts a automation. There was ALWAYS something that would not work. The dirty secret of automation is that even if 95% of the time the automations work, that other 5% of the time, when a power doesn't work, when conditions were not applied properly, etc. it causes outsized disruptions to the game and more likely leads the DM having to mess around with the software instead of focusing on running the game. Yeah, I hear you. But there are some DM QOL things that VTTs SHOULD be great for, but frustratingly are not for most systems. Like AOE effects. I would LOVE a computer to automate rolling saves, rolling and applying damage and applying conditions to a group of 20 goblins. It is PAINFUL to try to do that using digital NPC charactersheets when there is no automation. And for the D&D 5e system in Foundry, even with mods, I could never get to my happy place because there were too many exceptions to what "mostly" worked. I just went back to a note pad and pencil. I believe that Fantasy Grounds handles this stuff much better, but I could never host a game from my location with my internet on FGC or FGU. I probably could now that I'm back in the US, but I'm already invested into Foundry. I'd love to hear more about this. What core use cases do all VTTs fail to address that make you angry? For me it is poorly handling the application of damage, saves, and conditions to multiple tokens. [/QUOTE]
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