Vecna: Eve Of Ruin images links in the reference book are sometimes broken?

[Lo Zeno]

Warning for those who are playing the adventure, the picture and my post include some spoilers

I don't know if broken is the right term; however, while usually clicking on an image from the book opens up the corresponding Image record (ready to be shared with players if needed), in other cases it opens the asset preview instead, even though the corresponding image record exists.

See this attachment:
63951
the picture in the chapter 2 summary page, when clicked, opens the image record; the picture in the chapter "The Wizards Three", instead, opens the asset preview.

So far I've noted this issue with the pictures in:
Chapter 1 - Dolindar Tomb - B06: Matriarch's Chamber (picture of Kevetta Dolindar)
Chapter 2 - The Wizards Three (intro) - The Wizards Three (picture of the Wizards Three)
Chapter 2 - The Sigil Sanctum - S05: Bedroom (picture of Malaina van Talstiv)
Chapter 2 - The Wizards Three - Alustriel Silverhand (picture of Alustriel)
Chapter 2 - The Wizards Three - Mordenkainen (picture of Mordenkainen)
Chapter 2 - The Wizards Three - Tasha (picture of Tasha)
Chapter 2 - Kas The Destroyer - Manipulation in Motion (picture of Mordenkainen Bag Of Holding)
Chapter 2 - Surprise Development - A New Plan (picture of "Chime of Exile might help", Mordenkainen holding the chime)
Chapter 2 - Surprise Development - Sending Vecna Back (picture of Chime of Exile by itself)
Chapter 2 - Web's Edge - W01: False Front (picture of False Front)
Chapter 2 - Web's Edge - W03: Summoning Chamber (picture of Grottenelle Stonecutter calls on a Glabrezu)
Chapter 2 - Web's Edge - W07: Meeting Room (picture of "Lolth cultists are planning")

And then I stopped listing them because almost all of them have that problem. Even some maps in chapter 4.

[ddavison]

This is by design.

Only images that have multiple layers will actually use and need a full image record. For the others, we open the image view from the asset directly. It can still be shrunk or grown as needed. If you want to make any changes to the image other than sharing it, you can convert it into a full campaign image record.

[Lo Zeno]

This is by design.

Only images that have multiple layers will actually use and need a full image record. For the others, we open the image view from the asset directly. It can still be shrunk or grown as needed. If you want to make any changes to the image other than sharing it, you can convert it into a full campaign image record.

Check the attachment I included. If this is by design, you're not following your own design consistently within the same module.
It also makes sharing the image less convenient: when I click "share with players" in the asset window, it doesn't pop the image up in the client instances.
Moreover, if only images that have multiple layers need a full image record, then why do image records of the list I gave exist? Every image I listed above HAS an image record in the module, it's just not linked in the reference book.

[ddavison]

They should all use the preview unless they need layers.

[Lo Zeno]

Then why are you still including the image records of things that shouldn't need an image record, according to your explanation?

For example, this picture of Mordenkainen's bag of holding shows as asset record because it doesn't need a full image record:
63954

Yet the full image record exists in the Images list:
63955

I hope you can see how the first question that pops in the mind is: "Why not use this?"

[ddavison]

This was a relatively new design philosophy change that was implemented. I can't recall exactly, but this product was likely in development during that time period. Every image that did not have layers was supposed to have the image record removed and replaced with a direct link to the image asset. It looks like the developer missed a handful of them for this particular module.

You will see the older style in older D&D modules and the newer modules should exclusively be the direct link to the asset.

Once a module has been in the wild for a while, we won't go back and change them to the asset style because that would break links for people who may have linked directly to those items within their campaigns.

[Lo Zeno]

While I understand the decision behind this new design philosophy, I want to point out that it makes for a poorer user experience than before:
"Before", when going through the passages of a Book e.g. to read the description of an area, if I clicked a picture, then right-click and "share with players" from the radial menu, the players would see EXACTLY the same thing I (the DM) was seeing, and by exactly the same thing I mean the same window of the image record; and if the image had transparency, it was reflected in the window background of the standard D&D 5e Theme.
"Now", when I click "share with players" from an asset that I open by clicking the image on a book, on my (DM) instance the asset window disappears and instead I see a new window titled "shared with players", with miniatures of all the assets I have shared with my players; while my players see the asset open in 100% zoom, and if the asset has a transparency it's not reflected in the window as the window they see has a yellow background in the standard D&D 5e Theme.

I'm sure there are ways to get into a similar experience without using a full image record, but right now I'm not loving the experience of seeing the picture "close" on me as I share it to my players, nor am I loving the fact that maps show in one way (full image record) when I click them from the book, and other pictures don't (asset) even though I access them the same way from the reference book.

[ddavison]

Thanks for the feedback.

We shared this with the dev team.

[Lo Zeno]

Thanks for the feedback.

We shared this with the dev team.

There's another detail that I noticed less than an hour ago while running a game which I would like to add as additional feedback. Bear with me please, I'm not trying to argue for argument's sake, I genuinely think it's a somewhat significant step back:

One of the features of the image record is the ability to identify/unidentify the picture by showing its "title" or the alternative "unidentified" title; this becomes pretty useful if, while using the book to read a description or set up a scene, the DM wants to share an image with the players without risking a spoiler, for example to show a scene involving a new NPC without the players figuring out the name of the NPC or the fact that they're actually a minion of the BBEG (because the picture says something like "Vecna's adepts approach the characters").
The asset sharing strips all that: not only there's no identified/unidentified title, but the window doesn't even show me the filename, only the Module and the Path; when I share an asset, the players instead see the filename (which I don't see until I share it with the players), and if that filename says "Kas_disguised_as_Mordenkainen", bam! the spoiler is served without the DM even being aware of it.
The solution to it is to prep all your pictures in advance, creating image records from the assets, but: that loses the convenience of accessing those images directly from the book, making it necessary to keep the list of converted images somewhere, feels unnecessary as all the books until now gave the convenience of having the image records created for you and linked in the book, and requires extra time of preparation ahead; it's essentially a few steps back from Fantasy Ground's motto play more, prep less.

I completely understand that the image record is massively overkill to represent simply pictures to share with the players, and I can kinda imagine that one of the reasons behind the new design philosophy is the complexity of that object and maybe some issues that have popped up due to it like non-map images meant to be shared that have lighting and vision enabled by default and as such show up as completely black to the players when the DM shares them; but the simple naked asset, as it is presented now, is at the other extreme way too stripped down of features. A middle ground solution of sort would be more welcome, IMHO.

[k4071c0]

For what is worth, I second above points raised by Lo Zeno.

[Moon Wizard]

As you correctly noted, having a lot of full image controls open creates a lot of performance overhead for having books open that is not needed.

I'm just pushed an update to the beta Test channel today that separates the Share of assets via the Asset Preview window into "Share" and "Share By Name"; so you can choose whether to share the image with no name, or share by file name.

Also, as a quick note, you could always share an asset without a name by dragging to chat window.

Regards,
JPG

[Lo Zeno]

Cool, that's some improvement, thank you


Also, as a quick note, you could always share an asset without a name by dragging to chat window.

That's good to know, thanks, but I never needed to share assets before so I would have never guessed that it could have worked that way: the UI language of the asset window shows a button that says "Share with players", a button is an action indicator in UX parlance, it basically says "this is what you need to click if you want to perform the action written on me"; I had no clue that there was another way to share that I could have researched that could share without the name, especially since the previous experience was to mark an unlocked image as "unidentified".

So maybe, something to consider if in the future you'll work on another update focused on modernising the UI like the one currently in beta (which I'm loving so far): having image objects and assets do the same things in two different ways is probably one of the things that make some parts of FGU's UI feel outdated, because while internally assets and images are completely different things, to a user "sharing" is "sharing", whether it's a picture, a note, a book page, or an asset; so it should be done the same way in all the windows, not like now where everything is shared with a radial menu button except the assets that have their own button on the window itself, and should have identical effects on all the shareable things, not like now where an asset closes once the DM shares it but the other shareable things stay open on the DM's view; and if something supports sharing without name (unidentified) it should require the same buttons/context menu/actions as the other items that support it. Consistency reduces the learning curve, and makes the UI feel modern instead of outdated.

[Zacchaeus]

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying but most things that can be shared has a share button on the top bar now (NPCs, book pages, spells, classes, species, backgrounds. quests, etc)

[Lo Zeno]

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying but most things that can be shared has a share button on the top bar now (NPCs, book pages, spells, classes, species, backgrounds. quests, etc)

That's the point: most things, not every thing. Look at asset window: 63961
That's the inconsistency I'm talking about.