Nameplate Visible but not the token itself (Fog of War)

Noticed this just a few minutes ago as I was prepping a map for an upcoming game. I have a map using standard Fog of War (NO Dynamic Lighting). I have one Token representing the Group and as such all players have the "See" permission for the nameplate. As you can see, the nameplate is visible, but NOT the token! (This screen is from the Players view!) The Token is on the Token Layer and can be moved as it is selectable! How to Hide the Nameplate behind FoW?

Do the players have control over the token? If so, they should be able to see it.  I did some testing on this yesterday for a similar report and my experience was that they are visible to the GM, but not players, on a token they don't control. That being said, they   were   visible behind LDL walls.

As stated, yes, Players have control over the token. BUT either the token should be completely visible OR it should be hidden completely. Since Standard FoW is used, I am expecting the nameplate to be hidden behind FoW as well! (The token is even "visible" when using the "hover" option for nameplates and bars, although you do not see it at first but it is still selectable!) When using DL and token has Vision, everything is fine, but as said with FoW I expect the nameplate to be hidden as is the reason I use FoW and not DL! (I do not need DL for that map, as such no restrictions for moving in place etc.) keithcurtis said: Do the players have control over the token? If so, they should be able to see it.  I did some testing on this yesterday for a similar report and my experience was that they are visible to the GM, but not players, on a token they don't control. That being said, they   were   visible behind LDL walls.

This is actually the reverse of the problem, If I'm reading your post correctly. From the Help Center:  The only exception is that a player can see tokens they control in order to prevent players from moving tokens beneath fog where they could not recover them. The problem would seem to be that the player controlled token is invisible, not that the name plate is visible. If they can control the token, they should be able to see their token and nameplate, just nothing else.

Standard FoW is used and the token is hidden as expected! Only the nameplate is visible which should NOT be the case! Token can be controlled by ALL Players and See Permission is enabled! keithcurtis said: This is actually the reverse of the problem, If I'm reading your post correctly. From the Help Center:  The only exception is that a player can see tokens they control in order to prevent players from moving tokens beneath fog where they could not recover them. The problem would seem to be that the player controlled token is invisible, not that the name plate is visible. If they can control the token, they should be able to see their token and nameplate, just nothing else.

See my response in this thread . It's probably easier to converse in one spot

Saw it and commented on it already ;) keithcurtis said: See my response in this thread . It's probably easier to converse in one spot

To make it more clear: IF a map uses FoW, HIDE everything regardless of the Settings! (Nameplates AND Tokens). Right now (just tested it) the "CONTROLLED BY" Setting overrides everything! If this is set for all players, then they will see the nameplate regardless of the "see" permission through FoW. They are able to select and move the token (which is expected), BUT if they don't know where the token is, it does not help them! BEFORE this change, the nameplate was HIDDEN behind FoW as well as the token! How do I know? I play a campaign and DM uses FoW and hides tokens behind it... Nameplate was NOT visible before this change!

TheMarkus1204 said: To make it more clear: IF a map uses FoW, HIDE everything regardless of the Settings! (Nameplates AND Tokens). Right now (just tested it) the "CONTROLLED BY" Setting overrides everything! If this is set for all players, then they will see the nameplate regardless of the "see" permission through FoW. They are able to select and move the token (which is expected), BUT if they don't know where the token is, it does not help them! BEFORE this change, the nameplate was HIDDEN behind FoW as well as the token! How do I know? I play a campaign and DM uses FoW and hides tokens behind it... Nameplate was NOT visible before this change! That makes it harder for people to find their tokens. There is a rationale for players being able to see their tokens through FoW.  Whichever way the Devs decide to do this, there are rationales for both methods.  With that said, I am not sure why the DM is giving NPC token control to Players. Without control being given to the Players they will not see the tokens behind the FoW, nameplates or no nameplates. That bug was fixed already. 

Gauss said: With that said, I am not sure why the DM is giving NPC token control to Players. Without control being given to the Players they will not see the tokens behind the FoW, nameplates or no nameplates. That bug was fixed already.  We ONLY have control over our own Token (we do only see the nameplate of our token as well)! And as said, BEFORE this change, not even nameplate was visible behind FoW! Also: WHY do Players WANT to search for their tokens on a black map? IF GM reveals portions of the map, he can draw players to that portion with shift-Ping (long left mouse click) and can provide tokens for the players (if necessary)!

TheMarkus1204 said: Gauss said: With that said, I am not sure why the DM is giving NPC token control to Players. Without control being given to the Players they will not see the tokens behind the FoW, nameplates or no nameplates. That bug was fixed already.  We ONLY have control over our own Token (we do only see the nameplate of our token as well)! And as said, BEFORE this change, not even nameplate was visible behind FoW! Also: WHY do Players WANT to search for their tokens on a black map? IF GM reveals portions of the map, he can draw players to that portion with shift-Ping (long left mouse click) and can provide tokens for the players (if necessary)! Before the change, that could have been considered a bug, and probably was. It was contrary to the stated intent.  Regardless, I am not Roll20 Staff, I do not know their design intent.  As for why players want to search for tokens on a black map, do you know how many times my players complain that FoW obscures their names and bars? They should be on top, not below. Try it some time, clear a hallway of FoW, then put the token up against the edge of the hallway, the bars above the token were hidden, the nameplate was hidden.  Left: Production, Right: Dev server, same token, same setup.  As I stated, there are reasons for wanting both, but I think the situation where a GM has tokens that are PC controlled AND behind FoW AND need to stay hidden is more rare than the situation demonstrated in the image above.  Frankly, in the situation you describe the GM should just put them on the GM layer.  But again, not my choice. Personally, I am happy with the Devs decision on this. It returns the functionality to what has been always been the intent. 

I completely agree that once revealed the name template should NOT be obscured any more if you move your token out of the revealed areas or at the corners... BUT if the whole thing is hidden behind FoW then it should be hidden completely... ;) The only workaround for this right now is to disable Nameplate in the token settings...

Another use for seeing a controlled token would be a darkness spell or effect. The player needs to be able to find and move their token, even if they cannot see the environment. Also, many players rely heavily on Token Action Buttons to run their character's abilities. Without being able to select their token, those buttons are not available. Many macros depend on the @{selected} construct.  I certainly understand the philosophy behind the desire to hide everything, regardless. But this issue really does not have a one behavior fits all solution. Whatever you choose, someone's not going to like the choice.

Then Implement a toggle for that! Should NOT be that hard or should it?

Every time I hear someone say "It can't be that hard", I wince. :D It may not seem hard, but I have actually heard users say things like "Roll20 should just become an app. How hard could that be?" Without looking at the code, there's no telling what might be blocking implementation of an idea. A quick fix in one thing might break something critical elsewhere. Some things (like CSS) seem easy, but Roll20 was built from a combination of off-the-rack, open-source, and hand-built parts by different people of different skill levels long before they really became a solid company with real professional practices. I'm frankly amazed that they have been able to codify the forums, help center, blog, marketplace, VTT, Character Vault, and more as well as they have, considering that they probably all look very different under the hood and likely did not share a lot of the CSS hierarchy. That it runs as well as it does across multiple browsers and platforms and hardware configurations is even more amazing. The current folks have inherited a system made by pioneers who made decisions that might have seemed perfect at the time, but now have left legacy problems that are likely make it very difficult to make what seem like "easy changes". But that's my general impression, garnered from years of listening to statements and feedback. I ain't no coder. There are some things that seem like very low-hanging fruit to me, but the fact that they have not been addressed despite years of reports suggest that they are not. It may not be hard at all to put in a toggle for that feature. It may be nigh-impossible given the code. It may seem simple but when implemented turns out to cause unforeseen issues (there have been some instances of that recently). It may also be that they have a design plan that suggest that fewer choices of this nature are easier to support or actually lead to better overall customer satisfaction, despite what a number of users say they want. Dunno. Personally, I don't have strong feelings on this specific issue, and I'm not in favor of a toggle. But I would like it to be all-or-nothing, not what we have now.

keithcurtis said: Every time I hear someone say "It can't be that hard", I wince. :D  I hear that! I had a long career as a machine designer; the phrases "How hard can it be" and "All you have to do is" still make me want to throw things.

I do believe this, BUT if you cannot see the other side and don't know these things, you can only assume! My programming skills are a bit rusted but I can read and understand written code. But you are right... seeing the debacle that is dark mode VTT which STILL does not work properly and now seeing the inconsistencies with the page-wide dark mode (my thread about this where I pointed out numerous bugs) was closed by Roll20 with a hint to their Product Portal... so lets hope they will at least fix those bugs! THIS here for instance (happens when editing a post and scrolling down): Those Buttons are also malfunctioning in this case (also in light mode)! If they had fixed those bugs prior to dark mode implementation, they would not have to deal with this bug twice! Rick A. said: keithcurtis said: Every time I hear someone say "It can't be that hard", I wince. :D  I hear that! I had a long career as a machine designer; the phrases "How hard can it be" and "All you have to do is" still make me want to throw things.

I just came across this problem in my most recent session, I had tokens visible on token layer but in fog of war, however, name tags were showing even with fog of war. The tokens aren't controllable by players and when I had the same map last session, these name tags did not show up, seems like a weird bug. Only thing is, this is one of the last sessions of a two year campaign and they were supposed to be a big surprise :( If only I had modify memory for my players...

I'm having Token bars visible throughout the map, regardless of Advanced Fog of War, lighting barriers, etc, in addition to token names.  Has spoiled several surprise encounters already.

Majuba said: I'm having Token bars visible throughout the map, regardless of Advanced Fog of War, lighting barriers, etc, in addition to token names.  Has spoiled several surprise encounters already. Could you send me an invite to your game so I can look it over?

Sent

Majuba said: I'm having Token bars visible throughout the map, regardless of Advanced Fog of War, lighting barriers, etc, in addition to token names.  Has spoiled several surprise encounters already. Ok, I just looked and I found the problem. You are using Legacy Dynamic Lighting (LDL)/Advanced Fog of War (AFOW). (I should have picked up on that, you stated it outright, my bad.) LDL/AFOW support has been sunset (over a year ago) and as a result it will get progressively more buggy as time goes on.  The token updates from a month ago were not designed to work with LDL/AFOW and basically break it, for good.  I suggest updating your game to the newer Dynamic Lighting. 

Michael P. said: I just came across this problem in my most recent session, I had tokens visible on token layer but in fog of war, however, name tags were showing even with fog of war. The tokens aren't controllable by players and when I had the same map last session, these name tags did not show up, seems like a weird bug. Only thing is, this is one of the last sessions of a two year campaign and they were supposed to be a big surprise :( If only I had modify memory for my players... Just checking, are you using Legacy Dynamic Lighting and Advanced Fog of War? 

Gauss said: The token updates from a month ago were not designed to work with LDL/AFOW and basically break it, for good.  I suggest updating your game to the newer Dynamic Lighting.  Two years since "Function Parity" and I'm still not convinced the new Dynamic Lighting even works well enough to avoid just as many spoiled surprises.  Leaving this issue with LDL/AFoW and the bars unaddressed is disheartening, regardless of the official status of LDL.  I'm more likely to drop to Free or just stop having hp bars be visible than switch to New DL. Not your fault of course, thank you for taking a look.

There's been nothing but issues even with the standard Fog of War since the August updates. Tokens (all of them) visible under FoW. Tokens when newly added to a map under FoW being visible briefly. Tokens under FoW being visible while loading into a map. Tokens under FoW flickering in and out of visibility anywhere near the edges of the screen/FoW while panning. I've been bug reporting them all through the proper channels. Those first 3 and the performance/phantom issues made Roll20 effectively unusable if you relied on FoW until they were fixed. It's been well over a month now and there's still severe spoiler issues even if we're only down to that last one now. We also learned that tooltips show under the FoW as well. Which makes them virtually unusable without more fiddling for the person running the game. If "It can't be that hard", "How hard can it be" or "All you have to do is" causes you discomfort. Imagine how it is for people paying and trusting a platform for their multi-year campaigns.