FoundryVTT @lemmy.ml jasparagus @lemmy.world 1y ago

What did you prioritize on the V12 Patreon poll, and why?

My top two ended up being measured templates and placeable items. The former because of how valuable I think it is to have spell auras automatically appear (without having to make a macro using Token Auras). The latter was because I often want to put items on the map for players, but have to make a journal container for them, which is decently annoying.

I also threw terrain and cover in there, because it's a little annoying to determine, and I'm starting to play more PF2e, and that's a really cool aspect of that system.

Curious to hear about others' use cases and priorities, or what workarounds they use for the issues I mentioned above.

7 comments

Here's the proposed feature list for anyone that missed it: https://foundryvtt.com/article/v12-patreon-vote/

I'm not a Patreon voter, but my take is that I'm much more interested in the 11.5 stuff than the 12 stuff. My experience is that the parts of Foundry that frustrate me are WAY disproportionately oriented around module management... Running the game is already pretty great. The module-compatibility-checker and built-in backups seem welcome additions on this front. Though I think it hasn't gone far enough until the compatibility checker is driven by user-compatibility reports, similar to https://appdb.winehq.org/ . What we need to see from the version-checker is the summary of user reports for a given module/Foundry version pair. I'm hopeful that they'll improve the compatibility checker in future releases, but I'd love to see them jump straight to a proper user-report-driven compatibility db.

For the 12 features, I'm most excited about...

(5), manual fog-of-war. This solves so many visibility frustrations when calculated vision causes some problem.

(6), placeable items. Though without the stretch goal of bundles I find it of limited use. Fantasy Grounds has item parcels that provide similar functionality, and they made prepping and distributing loot a breeze.

I'm cool with additional media features and will use them occasionally, but Foundry is already beyond the limits of the "production values" I can support for my game. Using all the existing lighting, sound, and media features overwhelms my prep time. After having experimented with a few high-production set pieces (that the players and I really enjoyed), I'm scaling back to rely most on basic maps/tokens and imagination. This streamlines the media side of my prep a lot and is a lot more sustainable for me as a GM. I'll still do big productions occasionally, but a few times a year as a memorable event. And Foundry provides 95% of what I want for that already.
- I am on the same side regarding the "production values". As much as i like nice features, in the end I have limited prep time. If I can spare prep time though usability features I would rather use it to prep more content than to use more features. This also extends to the actual play session. If there are too many features I often have to think about how to use them and that is distracting during the session.
  
  Therefore I like the improved fog of war and I like the scene types.
- Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for how capable foundry already is. It's easy to burn a lot of prep time on all the snazzy features. I do still have mechanical frustration tracking spell auras, so that's why I want that one tweaked a bit... otherwise I'm mostly excited for polishing of core stuff. Fortunately, the devs obviously love their SW, so it seems to continuously improve in that department. To that, the 11.5 stuff seems like a great move.
- I am a bit disappointed that the poll is only available for Patreon subscribers and not just paying customers. I own a Foundry license but do not subscribe through Patreon, so I guess I just have to hope that the features I like are the ones people vote for.
  
  Yours sound great to me so I'm hoping those get attention.
  
  I am a bit disappointed that the poll is only available for Patreon subscribers and not just paying customers.
  
  I get feeling left out, but there's no other company I deal with where being a paying customer entitles me to voting rights on their roadmap. Plus, Foundry decides what goes on the list... it's voting among a pretty narrow range of stuff.
  
  If I want to influence the vote, I write stuff that Patreon subscribers can read and get convinced by... or pony up to subscribe. It doesn't really bother me either way. Honestly it feels like a customer poll that goes out only to people with a current paid support plan rather than everyone who ever bought a license. All seems fair enough.
Looking forward to that integrated backup system, just because of how often I've had to migrate instances early on.

I'll admit I haven't upgraded to v11 yet entirely because I'm nervous about all the compatibility issues.

And, frankly speaking, v10 already does everything I've needed of it to date. All the feature offerings in v11 & v12 are just gravy.
- All the feature offerings in v11 & v12 are just gravy.
  
  Honestly true, though I partially love Foundry for how much that kind of thing improves quality of life (e.g. integrated backups). I used to use Roll20... prep was awful, even with very few bells and whistles. Now I can prep so much faster, with a way better "product".

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