We are now one week into testing for the character builder, digital character sheet, homebrew creation and sharing, and the starting point for campaign management.
Once again, we're overwhelmed and grateful for the participation and huge response. Over 100,000 characters have been created. The feedback has been incredibly valuable and we are taking it very seriously - we want the official toolset to be exactly what the community needs to enhance the D&D experience.
For this initial pass of testing, we were focused on getting your thoughts on the general UI and flow of the new features, and we have definitely accomplished that goal. A few things that we seen prominently in the feedback review for the character builder/ sheet that we are actively working on updating:
- Equipment and Spells Management. The UI for both Equipment and Spells management is too clunky and difficult to follow. We completely agree, and we've got some changes coming in the next week or two that should bring big improvements.
- Rules Validation/ Assistance. As stated, we wanted to get out the core UI and flow of the builder to see if we're on the right track - no real data validation or rules enforcement was included. We are definitely working on adding that layer in, as you'll see we've already started in the release notes below. We'll definitely iron these out in the coming days.
- Flow/ Choice Order. Some players like the current "Step-By-Step" flow that is presented in the Player's Handbook. We get the impression those skew into the "newer player" category, at least slightly. This is good if it means a way to help new players ease into the game. Others (I'm going to go ahead and throw myself into this group) use a different flow that typically means determining ability scores first, followed by race, background, then class and equipment. Some of the issue was the lack of "cascading choices" in the builder, where choosing a proficiency in one place would not remove that skill from other places. We've already started addressing that (see below). Outside of this, there will still be changes that will come in the next few weeks to present an alternate builder flow that we feel will be more useful for seasoned players (or newer players that don't want or need as much assistance in creating a character).
- Character Level and Class Levels. The way this is implemented works well on a whiteboard, but is too confusing for actual use. We've got a solution on the way that I feel will drastically improve the issues - standby for that soon.