Parcel issues

[brustmlj]

Parcels seem to be broken to me. Whenever anything is dragged to a parcel it is a copy. This means that if an item from a base module is put in a parcel then it becomes a copy. As such the copy can become stale over time. If FG changes or the modules (PHB, OOA, POA, etc.) change the parcel is stale. I am thinking this will be even more an issue when the DMG is released.

In creating modules I have resorted to using links in the story to ensure I link to the source material instead of making a copy. This is a problem if say you want to add 3 healing potions as loot for an encounter. You have to either remember to drag the link to the party sheet 3 times or put 3 links in the mod or some other such mess.

It seems to me parcels should behave much more like encounters. Encounters do not copy the NPC into the encounter the NPCs are links. They can be links to the current mod or links for any mod open at the time including MM or other base sources.

I think a similar argument can be made for the character sheet. That is items should be links.

I guess the argument against links is that they cannot be modified. This is solved with NPCs in encounters by dragging the NPC to the NPC tab which makes a copy that can then be edited. Something similar could apply.

[dulux-oz]

I used to think the same, being a Database Designer and following "best practice" RDBMS-design theory, then I realised (after spending quite a few hours coding around the Inventory/Items system) that the way its set up now is actually more useful in the long-run. Consider this example: if I have a Longsword that costs 10gp as standard but I've got one "shop"that sells it for 15gp then if all of the parcels are links how do I do it? The only way is to have 2 entries in my Module (or whatever), but I don't need to send the extra data across the net for only 1 sword which the PCs may never see anyway, and I certainly don't want to spend the extra time creating/modifying the Module.

Anyway, that's my NSHO :)

Cheers

[brustmlj]

The problem is that I would like to create a module in an automated way that has one or more healing potions in the parcel. Now in order to code that module I have to code the parcel xml. Which means I have to duplicate the healing potion data for every single module I code. This is incredibly inefficient.

I see this being much more of a problem with the addition of magic items. I can imagine a case where a magic item might change quite a bit over time. Maybe at first all the effect are not coded, maybe they only provide the base stats. Then over time the item is enhanced as features are added. This means I have to enhance my modules every single time item is enhanced. Plus every time I use the same item in a new mod I have to code it all again. And if changes occur I have to remember all the places I have to go fix it.

As a module creator this is incredibly inefficient and overly burdensome.

I am not sure I understand the sending the data over the net. If you put an item in a parcel there is data sent over the net. I am not sure the amount for a link is much different than an item.

[dulux-oz]

The problem is that I would like to create a module in an automated way that has one or more healing potions in the parcel. Now in order to code that module I have to code the parcel xml. Which means I have to duplicate the healing potion data for every single module I code. This is incredibly inefficient.

I see this being much more of a problem with the addition of magic items. I can imagine a case where a magic item might change quite a bit over time. Maybe at first all the effect are not coded, maybe they only provide the base stats. Then over time the item is enhanced as features are added. This means I have to enhance my modules every single time item is enhanced. Plus every time I use the same item in a new mod I have to code it all again. And if changes occur I have to remember all the places I have to go fix it.

As a module creator this is incredibly inefficient and overly burdensome.

I am not sure I understand the sending the data over the net. If you put an item in a parcel there is data sent over the net. I am not sure the amount for a link is much different than an item.

I must be missing something: when I'm creating a Module I Drag & Drop my Items into a parcel, then I use /export to create the Module. It only take a few minutes and isn't very tedious, even for large numbers of Items and/or Parcels. What have I missed?

[Moon Wizard]

There are actually several reasons for this design, and they all boil back to what dulux-oz is saying.

For example, what if you want to add a flaming long sword to your parcel, but this particular sword has a unique design on the pommel that is specific to your campaign story line. There's no way to add that information in the interface in advance, without duplicating the item data in the parcel and party sheet. There were other examples, but this was actually a conscious design change.

It allows for maximum flexibility for the GM at the table, even if it adds somewhat to the burden of module creators by having to potentially duplicate certain records.

Regards,
JPG

[damned]

Im siding with Dulux on this one...
Anything that deals with a reference/object than can change over time needs to make a copy of it.
And if your environment has 100 objects in it and 99 of them are always the same but 1 does change then the copy system is still best.

Your healing potions are part of the unchanging object list - but many others will vary.

[brustmlj]

I completely disagree. If see many more cases where I simply want to use all the material provided in the PHB, MM, DMG (when available). The copy means that for every parcel in a module I create that contains standard items from reference material I need to code and maintain the statistics for that item. A healing potion, a flask of oil, a vial of acid, plate mail, a shield, any potion, +1 longsword, and on and on.

I believe your use case is absolutely the exception and it makes parcels completely useless to someone trying to generate a module which uses the base reference manuals with out having to regenerate all the base content.

[brustmlj]

I guess I will have to use story pages and my own reference links because once the DMG is out I do not want to be coding the entire DMG worth of magic items myself. That is why I buy the DMG, PHB, MM, etc. I do not want to parse all those things myself. I am not using FG to generate my modules. It is way too limiting. I have no control over the eventual module xml which is created. With this implementation you are either making the fact that I purchased the base material irrelevant or you are making the parcel unusable. I can agree with your decision if it was made prior to licensing wotc content. Now that you license it I should be able to use it and not have to duplicate it in my module. Yes my module is dependent on all the wotc source content but I am fine with that. It is what I need as a DM. I do not want to spend time and effort duplicating the content in every module I create. Then maintain it all when I find a problem in what I created or new FG features are added.

[Zacchaeus]

I'm at a bit of a loss with this one.

If I want a parcel with say, a potion of healing and a flask of oil and a longsword +1 I create the parcel and it's done. When are any of these items going to change?

Even if you use xml to create your parcels rather than FG (do you really code everything in xml?) then pretty much everything is fixed and isn't going to change.

Or I'm I missing something vital here?

[brustmlj]

It is not about code once and you are done. I have upwards of 50 adventure league modules I run. They have many of the same basic items in parcels. I do not want to duplicate the definition of these items in many many modules. I want it in one reusable place and when that is a base item in phb, mm, dmg then I do not want to maintain it at all. Wizards updates there source material with different print releases. I am assuming that FG content will be updated based on wotc updates. Maybe that is a pipe dream but that is my hope. Especially with the dmg coming out I want to use that material in my modules without having to manually maintain it. I am simply asking for the same behavior as encounters. If a DM wants to make a copy that is easy enough. They should not be forced to.

[brustmlj]

Yes my items are as functional as possible fully coded in xml in all my mods. I do not want to have search the manuals during game play.

[Zacchaeus]

Indeed, any updates to the Core rulebooks will be implemented in FG, that's a given. I don't imagine though that many things will change.

I do, however, see your problem with that many modules. The only thing I could possibly suggest is that you create a single module with every parcel in it that you need and have that open so that you can pull the parcel from there rather than from anywhere else. However I'm not sure if that really helps since you will still have to create the parcels which I think is what you are wanting to avoid.

[brustmlj]

I would also like to challenge the idea that healing potions and vials of acid should never change. I would like to imaging that at some time in the future dropping a healing potion in my inventory would automatically create an action on my action tab with the heal effect. Weapons can do this why not items. Same for vials of acid, flasks of holy water, and on down the line. I will repeat myself once again when I state that with the DMG coming I can only see this getting worse.

If I have 50 mods (a number which will continue to grow) with a healing potion in it then I have to go touch 50 mods to get any future FG enhancement. But if these things are links I get this all for free. Update the PHB and all my 50 mods get the enhancement.

This is how NPCs and encounters are implemented. If you need to tweak an NPC make a local copy and then put that in your encounter. Works great. For those NPCs that do not require modification then when spells are added to the NPC sheet and the MM is updated, it all comes for free.

Things will be enhanced and made better over time. At least I truly hope so. The way parcels are implemented means I have to go touch all my mods to get the improvement. If I made a central mod (and in fact I have for other things) then I have to learn all the new xml syntax and possibly have to update my module generation tools to generate and take advantage of the new xml syntax. This is very expensive for me as a mod developer. I want the functionality of the PHB, MM, DMG which I have paid to use. I want FG to maintain and enhance it.

I do not see how making parcels links like encounters loses anything. If you need to mod an item make a local copy and link that to the parcel. That modded item will become stale over time but only the modded item. For me the overwhelming number of items in my mods are not modified. They come directly from source material.

[Trenloe]

Add your request to the FG wishlist: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

[brustmlj]

OK I did. That being said that page has hundreds of ideas on it. I do not see this as an enhancement. I clearly cannot use PHB (or future DMG) material in a parcel. The fact that it makes a copy that becomes stale is a bug. It in essence means my purchase of the PHB (and forthcoming DMG) are not usable in my module creation process.

Encounters are implemented properly parcels are not. You can say it is a design decision but if that is the case I see it as a bad one. Maybe it was valid when everyone was hacking there own PHB, MM, and DMG but with the implementation of the core modules I believe the ability to use them properly in a parcel is clearly broken.

I hope this does not simply go into a nice to have black hole. The list of desired features is hundreds long. It is hard to tell if a request get's removed from the list when it gets implemented. If it is true then that means there are hundreds of requests that are higher priority than this.

This can get labeled as a nice to have. I think that is totally wrong. I have purchased content I cannot use.

[Trenloe]

The fact that it makes a copy that becomes stale is a bug.
No it is not a bug. A bug is when software is not working as designed. The main FG developer has already told you in post #5 that this is specifically designed this way. Working as designed = no bug.

[brustmlj]

So you are saying specifically that purchasing the PHB and the future DMG cannot use items directly in parcels. Any module created with a parcel that has a base level item in it will need to be specifically modified ever time that base level item is updated in the purchased content.

I completely disagree with you. That is a bug. A wrong design decision is a bug. It does not meet required use cases. Maybe when the design decision was made that was not a use case. But the world has changed. You are selling and maintaining a number of products PHB, MM, and future DMG. I cannot use those products properly if every time they change I have to manually go change all the modules that use them as a base.

[Trenloe]

Well, I completely disagree with you. You can use item data from modules you have purchased in parcels. Your issue is that the design decision (which you have been told why it works that way) means that if there is a future release that changes the base item data your parcels won't be updated.

As I have said - this is not a bug. It is working as designed. Not working the way *you* want is not a bug.

You've constantly disagreed with everyone who's tried to explain/help you - including the main FG developer. Going on and on about it is only going to alienate the people who are trying to explain things to you or who make the decision on feature requests.

You've logged your request where the FG developers keep track of change/feature requests. The devs are aware of your desire for a feature change. Give it a rest. Thanks.

[brustmlj]

Excuse me for being dense. It seems to me the argument for this design is, in case someone wants to customize the item we need to make the parcel a copy. I do not follow this argument at all. If an item needs to be customized it will happen prior to being put in a parcel. There is no part of dragging an item to a parcel which customizes the item. So if the description or other attributes for an item have been modified that means there is a customized copy of the item already. Link the parcel to the customized copy instead of the base material. Problem solved.

This is absolutely the way encounters and NPCs work. I am now worried that this will somehow backfire and encounters and NPCs will become copies. The arguments are the same for both of these entities. They should behave the same. The design implications are the same. I guess I better shut up or encounters and NPCs will get broken too.

I would very much appreciate a clearer description as to why this is the proper design decision. What has been provided is not clear at all.

[Moon Wizard]

It was an issue very early on in the process for design of parcels from even before the 5E ruleset was created. It was a semi-regular occurrence that people would "accidentally" edit their base campaign items or module items by clicking on a parcel link in order to customize. Oftentimes, these changes were not caught right away, and information was lost.

We try very hard to avoid design decisions which can "lose" information, so it was decided to make copies of items. This has been the case for years, so this is not a recent decision.

While we are currently spoiled by the availability of the 5E material as drag and drop material, this was not always the case and our design goals are always to support GM flexibility over ease of development.

Additionally, it isn't a simple change to make, as changing a design years after the fact has repercussions that ripple across around a hundred pieces of DLC.

I will take into consideration your request as I do all requests; however, we will continue to balance priorities to meet the needs of all users.

Thanks for your feedback,
JPG

[brustmlj]

I can see that being an issue. I see that the NPC/Encounter design solved this in a different way. When a reference NPC is linked to an encounter the NPC becomes read only. At least this is the behavior of the MM links. In order to edit the MM NPC you have to make a copy. Maybe this only came later, with the introduction of the MM, but this design choice works well I think.

I can definitely understand that the product has changed over time. I have not been around all those years. I came to FG because of the fact that you are an officially licensed distributor for WoTC. I have bought all the WoTC content. I am struggling to use it. MM and NPCs work pretty good. I have a few ideas on making that better as well but I will not go there here. I find the parcel implementation makes creating reusable modules with parcels difficult. I get no benefit from having purchased the WoTC content. I have to know the coding behind all the base level items and maintain that coding. Once again I see, with the forthcoming DMG, this gets only worse.

I will simply use story pages with properly referenced links to link to base level items. This will get me out of the maintenance of WoTC material which I really want. But it means if I have a treasure parcel with 12 things in it I have to drag and drop 12 things from my story page to my party sheet to make the treasure award. This makes game play awkward. I guess I will have to live with it.