I love dnd Beyond but I feel that purchases are extremely lacking.

Meaning that, when I buy something, it doesn't really feel like anything's changed. Sure, when I go to create a character after buying the PHB I can see Forest Gnome as a subrace, but that's not really rewarding. I get no bells and whistles, no icon in a little collectors box as a visual representation of the real money I've spent on this site. I just dropped thirty bucks on a digital version of a book I already own, and I don't get any feedback from the site to represent this? Where's my serotonin?

I also just bought the Master subscription at the annual pay tier, which really isn't chump change, and had to go looking for some form of reward for doing so. I went to my character to check the frames, and none were available. A technical issue, I know, and as such not something I hold against them at all.

But what I'm trying to address here is it feels like there's no value to my purchase, despite the amount of money I'm putting in for some of these purchases (especially if someone buys a bundle!) And let me say this isn't just me complaining that I wanna be treated special, this would be to dnd beyond's benefit.

I'm gonna point to fortnite real quick (I know, boo) there's a lot of reason for their success, but a big one is their presentation. If you see a wizard skin with nebulas glowing through their clothes and eyes on fire, and you plop down some cash for it, fortnite makes sure you KNOW you just bought that. You get a big bold splash screen detailing every single thing you bought (the outfit, backpack, glider, pickaxe, loading screen, anything you got) and it feels rewarding as all get out. Here? I get a plain text receipt under my account saying I own the title.

I love this game, and I love the things this site does to help me and my friends play it, but it's really soul sucking to buy a book and subscription so your friend can choose from more than one oath, and not really have much to show for it outside of the actual character builder.

     BUT I'm not just gonna complain, I'm here to propose possible solutions.

I think a page under your account that shows everything you own would be fantastic. A banner up top that shows a plain dirty cloth texture and "commoner" for the free tier, a metal armor texture and "Hero" for hero tier subscribers, and some decadent glowing gold shit and the word "Master" for anyone with the master tier subscription (that alone would be a massive improvement imo).

Then, beneath it, you'll see a page that looks like the inside of a box or chest or something (not even anything fancy ((though changing this based on sub tier would be pretty dang cool too)) just something subtle to show this page is important) and on this page you see several rows (maybe containing like four or five columns) of greyed out squares where, if you haven't bought anything, you get the feeling something GOES there. This slot needs to be FILLED! (This would also help motivate purchases) And if you HAVE bought something, it fills one of those slots.

A really nice effect would be if you mouse over it it then glows from behind and gently drifts around ethereally, BUT I get that that's much more intensive coding wise (I still think this should be considered for later though, as it would really make your purchases more rewarding) so even just it enlarging when you mouse over it like the different menu options do would be super great.

What would be GREAT would be if you could have this page wort two modes, source books or individual items. Sourcebooks would show the book icon, or, if you only own some items from a book, it would be partially greyed out and have a highlighted portion of it in relation to what percentage of the book you owned (but buying only the compendium content shouldn't grey it out, that'd just be rude). And in the items section (you'd have different pages for magical items, feats, races, subraces, classes, subclasses, etc) You'll see the individual items you have with a name under it (Many wouldn't have icons, so there would just need to be some catch all icon, maybe one per type of section) and when you mouse over them (this ones the kicker) you get a pop up of a summary of said item, maybe similar to the summary section under a monster in the handbooks. If you click on it you are taken to the full page. 

I know that not all of this would be possible, and not all of it would even be good, I just think we need some way to reward buyers for their purchases so they want to make more, because as it is, function seems to be the only thing really driving purchases. (The new move to giving subscribers themes, dice, and frames is good, though there didn't seem to be any dice this month, unless I missed something) Also, sorry if posts this long aren't the usual, that's a lot of text.

But what do you think? Am I being ridiculous? Do you have other ideas for improving the presentation and making purchases rewarding?

TLDR;

People like to buy thinks when they're presented in a rewarding way, and right now dnd beyond doesn't present your purchases at all. Hell I'd take the Canvas submission confetti at this rate.

I also just bought the Master subscription at the annual pay tier, which really isn't chump change, and had to go looking for some form of reward for doing so. I went to my character to check the frames, and none were available. 

Subscriber perks have rolled out and as long as you have an active subscription, your account will be updated with the perks on a regular basis. This month it's a selection of brand new backgrounds, as well as a selection of popular frames previously only available as a pre-order bonus.

I think a page under your account that shows everything you own would be fantastic

If you go here you can see all your purchases, subscriptions and entitlements

A banner up top that shows a plain dirty cloth texture and "commoner" for the free tier, a metal armor texture and "Hero" for hero tier subscribers, and some decadent glowing gold shit and the word "Master" for anyone with the master tier subscription (that alone would be a massive improvement imo).

I'm not sure that 'shaming' people for using the free tier is a direction DDB wants to go in. The features that the subscription tiers include should sell them, not any kind of faux prestige.

Then, beneath it, you'll see a page that looks like the inside of a box or chest or something (not even anything fancy ((though changing this based on sub tier would be pretty dang cool too)) just something subtle to show this page is important) and on this page you see several rows (maybe containing like four or five columns) of greyed out squares where, if you haven't bought anything, you get the feeling something GOES there. This slot needs to be FILLED! (This would also help motivate purchases) And if you HAVE bought something, it fills one of those slots

I think this assumes that DDB is try to sell content from a completionist point of view, rather than it's actual approach of being a useful toolset. Again, the benefit of the tools is what D&D Beyond sells itself on, not a lootbox esque approach of "gotta unlock it all". That just feels disingenuous at best, and manipulative at worst.

People like to buy thinks when they're presented in a rewarding way, and right now dnd beyond doesn't present your purchases at all. Hell I'd take the Canvas submission confetti at this rate.

D&D Beyond doesn't try to sell stuff for the sake of ownership (although that is a motivating factor for many), but tries to sell based on providing utility. I'm not sure if fanfares and checklists of owned content is really a direction that this site should go in. Like I mentioned above, doesn't really feel genuine.

 

D&D Beyond doesn't try to sell stuff for the sake of ownership (although that is a motivating factor for many), but tries to sell based on providing utility. I'm not sure if fanfares and checklists of owned content is really a direction that this site should go in. Like I mentioned above, doesn't really feel genuine.

 Fanfare doesn't make content disingenuous, It makes you feel like your money has actually been spent on something. We're not buying physical objects, so rewarding presentation makes up for that in giving the brain something to be excited over in relation to your purchase. Your pragmatic view feels lacking, and presents a dry, utilitarian site of pure text. Even a hammer has nice packaging.

 

If you go here you can see all your purchases, subscriptions and entitlements

 I had already addressed that a dry page of text receipts is honestly beyond lack-luster, it dries out the purchases and makes them even less enjoyable than the lack of presentation did.

 I'm not sure that 'shaming' people for using the free tier is a direction DDB wants to go in. The features that the subscription tiers include should sell them, not any kind of faux prestige.

The free tier doesn't need to "shame" those that use it, but it should reward those that pay. Ain't nothing "faux" about it, I paid real money for that, the prestige is just as real.

The main difference in view here I think is this, the bells and whistles aren't the purchase, but they represent it. They are a visual cue for your mind to connect to the money you spent, because there's basically nothing that does this at the moment, and it makes purchases really flat and disappointing.

The salesmanship is to show that this is something that would benefit dnd beyond as a site, as a rewarding experience is the best way to drive customers, and if you rely solely on the utility of the product you sell to move it, you'll inevitably fall to any competitor that knows how to do both.

What you're talking about is stimulating an artificial endorphin rush at point of sale in order to create an elevated sense of value of the purchase. This is a technique used in gambling software, loot boxes and digital booster packs.

It's not something that is really applied to actual purchases; amazon doesn't give you a fanfare when you purchase a kindle book. Netflix doesn't give you a badge for each month you remain subscribed. If the convenience and utility that D&D Beyond provides isn't giving enough sense of value to the purchaser, then I think time and energy would be better spent making DDB more useful, rather than adding faux bells and whistles to trick people into getting a rush of feel good hormones from spending money.

All in all, I'm not sure I agree with this notion of value, and I personally don't think it aligns with the goals of DDB itself. Others may disagree, who knows.

While Amazon may not give you fanfare when you order a kindle book, you still have a place to see everything you've purchased, and in more than a plain text form. Even without bells and whistles, I have no place to see everything I've purchased on this site in one place. "Player's Handbook" typed on a white background doesn't tell me what spells, subclasses, and feats I've unlocked access to. It just tells me I spent 30 bucks on a book I already own.

You're trying to spin this as if presentation at any level is inherently manipulative, despite the fact that they already have much better presentation (quite a few of which line up with some of the things I've requested, especially in the base sense of being able to see my content all in one place) in the sub menus above and places like the market place and compendium. At the very least I should be able to sort these by "purchased." 

Not to mention, there's no such thing as an artificial endorphin rush, not unless they're directly injecting you with drugs every time you make a purchase. Again, What I'm asking for is that the site's presentation match and represent the value of the purchases you're already making. You don't like some of the ideas I presented? That's fine, you don't have to, not everyone would and they were merely presented as potential options to build upon or change. Throwing out the whole notion in it's entirety? That seems ridiculous.

As it stands there is absolutely no effort made to allow users to easily access all of their purchased content in one place. And the idea of letting the utility of the purchases speak for themselves, especially when a massive portion of that utility is buried in the character creator in sections you won't use frequently or at all, remains ignorant of the fact that presentation is a part of what determines somethings value. Diamond's are not priced for their strength, but their luster. Trying to come up with individual examples as if they present a black and white reason to NEVER have good presentation attached to a useful item is foolhardy.

Brains are just tryna feel good. Pretending that facilitating that has no value is ignorant.

 Nope, I'm totally with Davyd on this. You literally asked where your serotonin was. Asking for better clarity or sorting of purchased content is one thing. But a reward for the act of purchasing is a dangerous road to go down. And frankly, with the slow rate of development, I'm sure if we suddenly get banners and a balloon drop when you make a purchase, the most common response will be 'why are devs spending their time on that instead of fixing feature X that has been broken for N months?'