Enlargeable Class / Level field for Aliases? Useful for PbP...

[Oceanshieldwolf]

It seems that the Class/Level field under each alias is being used as a "quick scan" area for Aliases that are characters in PbPs. Quite a bit of useful information can be contained including HP, AC (base/touch/flat-footed), Saves and all sorts of other information such as initiative, perception, CMD/CMB - I've even seen people Spoiler all sorts of stuff in there.

Problem is that the space is incredibly hard to navigate and utilize as it requires scrolling to get to the requisite section when editing.

Is there any way to create a function that allows this Class/Level field/window to expand like the "About xxx" field? Or create another field that would appear just under the Alias' name to contain this PbP-useful information?

Thanks for your consideration!

[Unruly]

I'd love a specific section(s) to put quick reference info for PbP. HP, ACs, saves, and commonly used skills are what I typically see the most of.

[Kip84]

Unruly wrote:

I'd love a specific section(s) to put quick reference info for PbP. HP, ACs, saves, and commonly used skills are what I typically see the most of.

Specific sections that showed up under an alias post for Hp, AC, Saves and spell slots would be awesome!

[DajellyMan]

I 100% agree. When I'm home on my desktop it is not such a big deal, but the field is almost impossible to navigate from a phone! Individual sections for a "quick reference" tag would be so convenient, and make it much easier to run and play in the PbP campaigns!

[PirateDevon]

I agree with this thread!

[JDragon_ITTS]

Sound like good suggestions to me.

JD

[waiph]

Perception and Init, as well. those are big ones that come up often.

If your GM make some rolls like that for you in secret, it makes life a little easier if they are posted.

a field for misc. resources, rather than specifically spell slots
things like rage, performance, LoH, smites, challenges, spells, are all tracked and a spot where we can write that that will show up in an expandable would be awesome!

[Doomed Hero]

Devs and Mods, please make this change! Many games do this already with the tools they already have. Fixing it to make what we already want to do more convenient would be wonderful.

[motteditor]

That's a fantastic idea.

I'll add that if it could be edited from the game/discussion thread (instead of having to go into the alias' page and then hit edit...), I'd love you forever. (I'm not a designer, so I have no idea if that's even possible or how difficult it'd be with the message board setup as it is.)

[Oceanshieldwolf]

Wow! I hadn't even thought of that. Nice idea motteditor... though I do think that might be beyond the realm of probable Paizo possibility...

[Gary Teter]

Thanks for the suggestion—we've got some improvements to PbP and campaigns planned and will take a look at this when we get closer to implementing them.

[Oceanshieldwolf]

Gary Teter wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion—we've got some improvements to PbP and campaigns planned and will take a look at this when we get closer to implementing them.

Glad to hear it Gary! Thank you again for your consideration...

[motteditor]

What OSW said. Thanks for the consideration.

[Unruly]

PbP has become my only means of playing anymore because of my work schedule and a dearth of local players. So hearing that there are improvements on the way is great news!

[Yanos]

Honestly, so much of you can already do easily. If you just type the info into the Class/Level, Race, and Gender section, it will appear as such, and the three lines can hold a lot of text, include the various board codes.

It doesn't seem to work outside of the game threads, but if you click HERE, all the pertinent info is displayed each time the avatar posts.

Having specific sections I think would be bad, because depending on what type of character I play would cause me to what to make certain things much more prevalent or closer to the front, and forcing some sort of standardization is not going to be what everyone wants. Some people like, for example to have most of their common rolls ready to go so they can just copy it, add the last bracket and past without needing to type everything out each time, (particularly like someone mention when they play from their phone or tablet a lot). So what sounds good to one small group would be terrible for the other, and if a new format triples the load time phones need to see a quick post, I'm not sure that's worth the "benefit".

[Oceanshieldwolf]

A good point on load times*, and yes you can fill those three fields with a boatload of information - but editing that information within the fields is a pain even on a desktop.

Note I'm not asking for specific sections, just increasing the usability of the currently existi fields. After all, many of us use them for a lot more than thefields say they are for...

* I'm sure the techteam will keep a cost/load-benefit analysis uppermost intheir considerations.

[DM Beckett]

<Same person as Yanos above> I'm curious how it's difficult? I don't man that as an insult or anything, I just do not see the issue

I created this as a DM avatar for games, (Link for example), and I also link the current maps for each scenario I run in the same fashion so it will appear every time I post in a game. It's not very difficult to set up, and when I play the two things that most commonly change are HP (take damage) and AC (buffs or no shield). When I originally set it up, I do so in the character's description, leaving out the final "]" in all the codes, and just straight copy/paste most of it.

You might also be interested in the Wayfinder PbP App. Less for the altering the stats in an avatar, but just for general PbP on Paizo boards with hotkeys for the various BBCodes paizo uses.

[Oceanshieldwolf]

I am familiar with the Wayfinder App, thanks Yanos/DM Beckett. I'll take another look at it, though it didn't immediately impress me initially.

As for the ease or difficulty of using the fields, scrolling along the field is much more painful than having an expandable field, especially is you want to Spoiler a bunch of skills, abilities or similar - note I do not personally do this, but there are aliases in PbP's I play in that do.

Entering a spoilered amount of text into a line field must not be fun, and I would only conceivably do so with an open text/document or larger field to work in. This and the Wayfinder App are workarounds requiring outside programs to function.

If your only concern is load time then that has been heard. I don't see any further point discussing why not to make improvements, and improvements to make usig the site and the site alone simpler, quicker and easier?!?

I do most of my PbP play by smartphone, and I dont find using the coding difficult or overly taxing at all. And also note that even the expanding field we do have currently doesn't expand on my phone.

[Unruly]

While Wayfinder can be handy, it's terrible for DMs. At least in my opinion. Primarily because of the fact that you can't use it to preview or edit posts. I like to be able to preview my rolls as a DM, so that I can adjust descriptions and events accordingly. I also don't always get everything right the first time around, so sometimes I need to make edits and fix things. Wayfinder just doesn't allow me to do either of those things, and because of how I understand it to work I doubt it ever will. It's really only good, as a DM, for simple conversation or description posts that don't include any rolls. If you're a player, it's typically fine all around because usually you don't need to know what your rolls actually are. Though even then it often helps you add flavor to your posts if you know them.

There's also the seemingly 50% chance of the app crashing after making a post with it and the lack of a manual refresh option outside of shutting down the app and restarting it. Oh, and there's the times when it just fails to load the thread in general. It will load a handful of older posts and then fails to load the more recent ones. I usually encounter this the most when the posts that it tries to load are across two pages on the forums. And you can't go back and reference posts further back than what it loads(about 40 posts is the most I've seen it do).

As I said, Wayfinder can be handy. It's just very limited in what it can do, and it needs a few improvements. I'd much rather see improvements be made to the forums in general than to have to rely on a third-party app to do things.

And besides, if they added extra fields for PbPs, who would force you to use them, let alone use them solely for what they're intended? We already use the Class/Race fields for things way beyond their intention, so it's not like adding a "weapons" or "attacks" field would suddenly mean you 100% had to put your commonly used attacks in that spot.

I think that anything they could do to accommodate more people is a good thing.

[DajellyMan]

@DM Beckett: The issue, at least for me, is not that it is difficult to necessarily do, especially if you have the ability to post regularly from a computer, but it comes down to trying to edit things from a phone.

For example, if I want to edit my HP or the current combat link from my phone, I almost always have to delete the whole line and retyping (or pasting) it, because navigating the entry field from my phone (which is supposed to be smart) just doesn't work 90% of the time.