Removal of features?

[Dustbin]

Based on the patchnotes and a couple of threads it seems that the option to show the party sheet to players has just been flat out removed, whereas before it was an option? What is the purpose of flat out removing it? Was it bloating the program a lot or something? My players got quite a lot of use out of it, and now it's just flat-out gone, most of the games I've played in I myself as a player, and other players have decided to have it on and made decent use of it, so it's a bit of a blow to see it gone.


Will it be returning as an option for the player-side at any point, is there a mod or extension to re-enable it, or is it gone for good?

[dopefish]

Eyy yo i hafta agree with this there dust buster were dat party sheet gone doe??

[Andraax]

What ruleset? It exists in Castles&Crusades.

[Moon Wizard]

Many features were rebuilt from scratch to move to a common ruleset platform. In the process, several optional features were not implemented, partially to reduce dev time to get next version out and partly to reduce complexity in the UI.

The party sheet still exists for players to see watch order/placement and treasure distribution.

The rest of the party sheet was character summary and group inventory for the GM, which is still available for the GM.

Can you tell me which ruleset you are using?
Also, can you give me more thoughts on what your players are missing, and why it's important?

I'm trying to keep the interface as simple as possible while offering the most features, and I like to understand usage of features as well.

Thanks,
JPG

[JohnD]

Not having it was a little jarring from the perspective of expecting it to be there but... I always thought of those screens as containing confidential information for the DM's eyes only - not stuff I wanted the players to know about each other's characters.

[Griogre]

My player's really miss the skill page on the party sheet where they could see who was best at a skill. There were also some complaints about not seeing whole party's inventory, mostly for seeing what consumable items are available I think. I've had one comment about not having the main tab in 4E as they found the horizontal bar showing surge values valuable as a gauge for can they keep going or should they take an extended rest.

[Dustbin]

My player's really miss the skill page on the party sheet where they could see who was best at a skill.



It's mostly this, and the ruleset I am using is 4E.


The main reason my players are missing it is they often like to compare stats/talk about them etc without disrupting the game or chat completely, which they'd have to now by having to trade numbers or screenshots of stats and the like, they can't just show a character sheet like at a tabletop, and although the inventory got much less/almost no use in games I am in, I could still see it having some uses in games, especially where the party is entirely cooperative.

I can understand plenty of people NOT wanting this enabled, and I only have it enabled if everyone wants it, which is why I thought it being an option was perfectly fine.

[Blacky]

My player's really miss the skill page on the party sheet where they could see who was best at a skill. There were also some complaints about not seeing whole party's inventory, mostly for seeing what consumable items are available I think.
Which is why if implemented it should be an option, because for me (as a player or as a GM) not having these would be a feature. Players interpreting characters have to interact, and if not possible remember those kind of things.

[Nickademus]

PFRPG as well. I think the removal of the communication of player information was a bit abrupt and I feel similarly to the original poster.

But, as a GM, I didn't allow the players to view the stat and skill tabs because it robbed them of potential role-play content as the characters got to know each other. The content will not be missed by me. Still, that is my personal choice and the removal of the option for others made me frown.

[dopefish]

Can you tell me which ruleset you are using?
Also, can you give me more thoughts on what your players are missing, and why it's important?

4E as well as 3.5/PFRPG

The ability to quickly get an overview of the characters in a game was very useful, being able to compare skills and ability scores, AC values, see who is behind in experience and how soon everybody will level up.

There was also the ability to quickly remind yourself of what a given character's Race and Class was, as well as what languages he spoke and the inventory screen (it was a bit buggy though) let you see who was carrying that one quest item you needed.

It is a given that these features need to be optional, the GM has to be able to hide these things from the players, whatever his reason for doing so may be. Some GMs don't want you to care about who has the best scores for something and just roleplay it out.

Others find it helpful to allow the players to figure this out, especially if the other way of doing it is asking "What's your Acrobatics? Okay, what about you? What about you? What about you?" every time they want to figure out who does the primary roll and who does the assist/aid rolls for example.

The UI and code for it is already there and has been working (mostly, inventories were a bit buggy) fine for a few months now, removing them outright without giving the GM an option to enable them again seems a bit backwards.



Which is why if implemented it should be an option, because for me (as a player or as a GM) not having these would be a feature. Players interpreting characters have to interact, and if not possible remember those kind of things.
It existed before and the GM had the option to hide it. Now it still exists but the GM has no option of showing it. It's not a feature that needs to be implemented, it's been there for several months at least and was just recently ripped out.

[Nickademus]

It existed before and the GM had the option to hide it. Now it still exists but the GM has no option of showing it. It's not a feature that needs to be implemented, it's been there for several months at least and was just recently ripped out.

It existed under a different FG structure. When FG was updated to the new structure in 3.0 it ceased to exist and SW had the decision of leaving it out or spending the time and energy to recreate it using the new structure.

I think it was more a choice of spending the time to do other things rather than actively removing anything.

[dopefish]

It existed under a different FG structure. When FG was updated to the new structure in 3.0 it ceased to exist and SW had the decision of leaving it out or spending the time and energy to recreate it using the new structure.

I think it was more a choice of spending the time to do other things rather than actively removing anything.

But it's still there, just hidden from the players.

[Moon Wizard]

True, but the hiding/showing on the fly requires certain acrobatics in the code and tends to be error-prone, which is why I decided to push back on re-implementing.

Cheers,
JPG

[Griogre]

Personally, as a DM I really don't care much about the party sheet other than the skill and party order tabs. However, from observation, I think for the VTT players its the equivalent in a face to face game of a player whispering "Who's good at X?" while someone else is doing their round and the other players answering by nodding or shaking their heads. IE a quick interaction between players/characters which doesn't disturb the current flow of the game.

[Phystus]

I'll add my group's voice to the chorus asking for its return. We don't get to play very often (every 3 weeks or so), so it's hard for everyone to remember whose characters are good at what. The characters are with each other almost 24/7, but we only see them a few hours a month. So it seems natural that the characters would remember things about one another that we would have to look up.

This is naturally only a problem in fully-cooperative games. So it needs to be optional. But it really was helpful for some of us.

~P