I am actually more wizzd off by the price of the books. Both physical and digital.

The physical book prices are pretty much set. Still think they are high but hey what can you do.

The digital books though are about twice as high as they should be. They are no printing costs and very little shipping costs. The servers and internet connections do cost them though. But not that much.

Though I do think that with the new mapping functions you could raise the subscription prices by a buck and give the Hero level the ability to map.(the more people using the map feature the better it will get.)

Quote from LaTiaJacquise >>

@XXXGammaRay and @Caerwyn_Glyndwr: both very well said, and I truly want to thank you both again (and everyone else here) for voicing your frustrations. You've spoken a lot of truths here and I'm gonna try and answer your questions as best as I can:

Moving forward, are there plans to increase communication and transparency with the community? Yes! This was one of the reasons why we established the Community Update, which is written by the community management team (there are two of us). It's purposefully not meant to have a regular cadence cuz sometimes there just isn't enough stuff to share that's worthy of a full update, but it's one of the ways we intended to establish more communication with the community overall.

That being said, we're not always able to communicate things out before they happen, but that doesn't mean we don't try. We've gotta follow the guidance we're given, even if we sometimes disagree. I truly share your frustration with the changes to the marketplace, which is why I'm going so hard to gather as much feedback as I can. And I don't say that for any kind of recognition; as Caerwyn says, it is my job. I acknowledge that misstep

 

.

 I don't blame you personally. No one should. I know what it's like to be the face of an organisation but not it's (unpopular) decision maker. I hope people are treating you with respect (and if my post earlier came off otherwise, I apologise, it wasn't intended to be critical of you or to make you take the brunt). That it's your job is beside the point, we're all humans and this isn't your fault so we should be able to talk decently.

That said, and again this isn't against you, but the here's my feedback...do with it as you will.

1. Like others, I echo that this should have been communicated weeks ago. Being told then, I could have prepared by buying the piecemeal stuff I really wanted. It still would have been something I'd have objected to, but it would have removed a significant part of the sting (again, I recognise this wasn't your choice).
2. I strongly encourage a rethink. Take my personal example. I had about $60 worth of stuff that I wanted to buy piecemeal. Mostly monsters from books I own physically but would like to use in the encounter - but was waiting for the campaigns to start (in the next few months) to get them. I am not buying the entire books again, it's not worth the money, so that's, just from me and just this year, $60 that they've refused with no real upside. 
3. DDB isn't all that, to be blunt. It doesn't provide any important service that you can't get elsewhere. The one thing it was doing that made it attractive was allowing piecemeal purchases so I didn't have to buy tons of things I didn't want. There's a good reason why I'm on DDB and not buying stuff on Roll20 - and it's not because DDB has had years of experience in the VTT market. It's because I could buy what I want and largely avoid buying what I don't. That's been taken away. Why should I stick to DDB then, when, at my pricing level, Roll20 offers more?
4. One of my concerns about this is the future of DDB. It very much looks like WotC are trying to grab money rather than providing good service in the hopes of return custom. Various spins on that aside, it's the kind of behaviour that I've seen in companies a lot once they stop trying to earn customers and instead try to just grab wallets. It rarely gets better and almost inevitably leads to more and more deprecating behaviour towards the service until it really does suck. I had a decision when this move first made its presence start to be felt with BoMT, and I decided to trust WotC that it wasn't going to pull this stunt and bought the core rules and two expansions. I'm now deliberating whether WotC is going to follow the old style "provide a good service and let people come" or if they're continuing down this road of "let's try to restrict their options so they buy the stuff that we want them to buy"? One of those roads leads to me buying into the DDB ecosystem, one of them doesn't. Guess which way this corporate decision is pushing me? Which way do they think not reversing it will push me?

Again, I'll declare that this isn't directed at you. There's a lot more about WotC's and DDB's behaviour that I could talk about that's not making me feel like a valued customer or part of the community, but I think that's enough for one post. I hope it helps, and I hope you don't feel attacked by it.

Yea there go my purchasing at dnd beyond i dont think ill be renewing my subscription either looks like I'm moving to  another character building platform I literally don't like to buy the book because I do not dm and I only play certain classes by my entertainment preferences so yea no Ala cart kills my dndbeyond digital experience I don't like paying for what is extra options I won't use that only muddle up me character building options with needless options  I won't use for a build id rather build peacemeal as I play and upgrade to full books as I use those options ...such a short sighted and disappointing move

This is going to hurt the sales they get honestly  as I own physical books and digital content was same as you to only buy for character creation. roll 20 offers more bang if I bought through them but this money grap shortchanged my options and its said because now I have every reason not to use the already not optimal dndbeyond site in favor of other more economical and better working character tools/ services my new to doing dm has been pushing us to do roll 20 potentially anyway but I had pushback because of the ability to make my character n purchase as I build but without that option I feel betrayed and as if now because I won't buy digital content out right when owning physical as well I feel I'm being left behind as a consumer and a player no one whom is going to get into dnd for the first time is gonna shell out 30-bucks for a char on a while they might like the game  but a few dollars here n there sure I ever footed the cost for a players first character build on dnd beyond  but that not a option now as id either need to be dming a campaign n share resources or buy them books. The ease of digital chara ter maintaining is far easier the the physical books which often is what puts off new player imo its the same reason I don't play warhammer all the rules and the upfront cost

Quote from Metamongoose >>

Quote from BurningFalcon >>

 
Here's the problem: IT WAS DONE in secretive. Nobody cares if they post news about it AFTER they changed it.
Every person who owned part of a book, as of this moment, has the buy the WHOLE book again, and pay the FULL PRICE. 
It's contradicting to their news, and it should have been announced hours/days before the change, so people could have a chance to buy the rest of those books.

Yea, sure, they could have just not write any news at all. But you can pretty sure, that this would have exploded even more if they didn't.

 

Can I still purchase subclasses, feats, and other game listings à la carte?  

À la carte purchases are no longer supported. However, any individual items you've previously purchased will continue to be available for use on D&D Beyond, and those purchases will still be credited toward the cost of the books they originally came from.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

Quote from BurningFalcon >>

 
Here's the problem: IT WAS DONE in secretive. Nobody cares if they post news about it AFTER they changed it.
Every person who owned part of a book, as of this moment, has the buy the WHOLE book again, and pay the FULL PRICE. 
It's contradicting to their news, and it should have been announced hours/days before the change, so people could have a chance to buy the rest of those books.

Yea, sure, they could have just not write any news at all. But you can pretty sure, that this would have exploded even more if they didn't.

 I'm not going to defend WotC's PR team, Ao knows they're supremely bad at it.

But the intent seems to be that if you did a partial purchase, those purchases will count towards the full book. So "you have the buy the WHOLE book again and pay FULL PRICE" is incorrect, or at the very least a site bug that should be handled like all other site bugs, i.e. via the Support process.

 

It's really great that you both think that I'm wrong, but it's a matter of fact that the marketplace is currently not supporting what was announced in their article, which means it's I am NOT wrong. Especially since it was prior to the clarification about how we would get our discount.




Thanks to LaTiaJacquise to give some clarity in that matter, but until the marketplace works properly in this regard, instead of having a overcomplicated workaround, I'm done buying stuff on DnDB.

I just wanted to give my two cents as an educator; this sudden change makes it infeasible to continue using D&D Beyond as a tool for my students. 
Piecemeal purchases made it possible for me to afford to buy the rules options my students wanted to use without having to repurchase the entire book on D&D Beyond. I can't afford to do that if I am having to buy the entirety of every book digitally to do so.

Additionally, I have long supported my FLGS. I buy all my D&D books from them, and encourage my students to do the same. My FLGS gives my students a discount to help them get into the hobby. Being able to make piecemeal purchases on DDB made it affordable for kids to use it as a tool. This change makes it so that they have to choose between supporting their FLGS or the corporate behemoth that is Hasbro, and that is not a position my students should be in. The way this change, especially with DDB now selling hard copies directly and having a digital + physical bundle without an in-store bundle option (which people have been begging for for YEARS, and which literally all of D&Ds competitors do in some form or another), seems to edge out local stores and cut the legs out from them even further feels really sleazy and unethical. I can't in good conscious tell my students abandon their local game store; gaming cannot survive without local game stores no matter how much Hasbro tries to monetize D&D.

Given both the practical and ethical issues this change presents I am seriously considering abandoning the use of DDB for my students next school year. I currently teach D&D classes at least 5 days a week in addition to working privately with groups of neurodivergent and autistic adolescents throughout the SF bay area. DDB has been a useful tool, one I would like to be able to continue to use, but it is not an essential one. And with the revised books coming out, meaning my students are looking at having to purchase another three books just to keep up to date, I am considering whether other game systems might be a better option; they have LOVED Shadowdark when I have demoed it for them. 

The higher ups need to seriously reconsider blatantly greedy dark-of-night moves like this against their customer base if they don't want to lose the loyalty of the next generation of gamers even more than they have lost the loyalty of the current and past generations with these constant unforced errors driven by bald-faced corporate greed.

I’m just chiming in here as well to say I miss the a la Carte purchase options: I used it mainly for subclasses, races, and the occasional magic item. 
sad to see it go as most of the material in those books don’t really interest me all that much. 

I don't really see a problem here. I am sure that DDB will continue to improve the buyer experience in the marketplace. The idea is to drive ****omers to the marketplace, not drive them from it. The "new" marketplace looks really nice and easy to navigate. My only objection is that maybe they should have waited until all functionality was in place.

When it comes to individual purchases, there was a lot of fuzz about it in a negative way, like "oh no, now they are adding microtransactions" so when they don't people complain that they can't buy via microtransactions.... hmmm.

I only ever came across trolls with axes to grind complaining about "micro transactions" when it came to piecemeal purchases, to my memory. I always found it a silly comparison - microtransactions are an issue because they're the only method of purchasing and are intended to vastly overinflate the cost versus the value by hiding the true cost. While superficially similar, piecemeal purchases were literally the opposite of that. The vast majority of us (including myself) pushed them as a big selling point of DDB and encouraged people to avail themselves of it.

Quote from Zhalindor_DM >>

I don't really see a problem here. I am sure that DDB will continue to improve the buyer experience in the marketplace. The idea is to drive ****omers to the marketplace, not drive them from it. The "new" marketplace looks really nice and easy to navigate. My only objection is that maybe they should have waited until all functionality was in place.

When it comes to individual purchases, there was a lot of fuzz about it in a negative way, like "oh no, now they are adding microtransactions" so when they don't people complain that they can't buy via microtransactions.... hmmm.

 

 I’d be interested in seeing any widespread arguments that say that the á la carte options on DDB were anything but well-received. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but á la carte purchasing on DDB has been around almost as long as DDB has been around if it wasn’t there at launch, and it is widely considered to be a selling point.

I’m also not sure “microtransaction” is a relevant term here.

Quote from BurningFalcon >>

Quote from Metamongoose >>

Quote from BurningFalcon >>

 
Here's the problem: IT WAS DONE in secretive. Nobody cares if they post news about it AFTER they changed it.
Every person who owned part of a book, as of this moment, has the buy the WHOLE book again, and pay the FULL PRICE. 
It's contradicting to their news, and it should have been announced hours/days before the change, so people could have a chance to buy the rest of those books.

Yea, sure, they could have just not write any news at all. But you can pretty sure, that this would have exploded even more if they didn't.

 

Can I still purchase subclasses, feats, and other game listings à la carte?  

À la carte purchases are no longer supported. However, any individual items you've previously purchased will continue to be available for use on D&D Beyond, and those purchases will still be credited toward the cost of the books they originally came from.

 
It's really great that you both think that I'm wrong, but it's a matter of fact that the marketplace is currently not supporting what was announced in their article, which means it's I am NOT wrong. Especially since it was prior to the clarification about how we would get our discount.

On the subject of "truthiness:"

Here's the problem: IT WAS DONE in secretive. Nobody cares if they post news about it AFTER they changed it. Partially True/False. Some of us did care that an explanation, however late, did arrive eventually. 
Every person who owned part of a book, as of this moment, has the buy the WHOLE book again, and pay the FULL PRICE. False. As stated above, anyone who owns partial content will get credit for that purchase towards the full book. It may be a hoop-jump or two to accomplish this a the moment, but it is possible and the process should smooth out as time goes by and feedback is processed.
It's contradicting to their news, and it should have been announced hours/days before the change, so people could have a chance to buy the rest of those books. Charitably True. Insomuch as it is not worth arguing. It is technically wrong, but yes, it should have been announced a good month or more before the change.

Yea, sure, they could have just not write any news at all. But you can pretty sure, that this would have exploded even more if they didn't. True. This would very likely have been worse the longer the silence continued.

As what I posted mostly pertained to the actual false statement, I'm not sure what you are crowing over. You said something false and correct information was provided, both for you and for others who might read said false statement.

Quote from Zhalindor_DM >>

I don't really see a problem here. I am sure that DDB will continue to improve the buyer experience in the marketplace. The idea is to drive ****omers to the marketplace, not drive them from it. The "new" marketplace looks really nice and easy to navigate. My only objection is that maybe they should have waited until all functionality was in place.

When it comes to individual purchases, there was a lot of fuzz about it in a negative way, like "oh no, now they are adding microtransactions" so when they don't people complain that they can't buy via microtransactions.... hmmm.

 

 the "a la carte" purchasing or "piecemeal" purchasing is literally the opposite of microtransactions. We're not buying different colour character sheets or portraits for 2 dollars, we're buying a chapter of the book for a fraction of the cost of the full book, and if you wanted the rest of the book someday, the cost of that chapter you already bought was discounted off the price of the book.

It was honestly a little more like layaway shopping.

Quote from Zhalindor_DM >>

When it comes to individual purchases, there was a lot of fuzz about it in a negative way, like "oh no, now they are adding microtransactions" so when they don't people complain that they can't buy via microtransactions.... hmmm.

 
Bit of a false equivalency and there was not any fuss about the a la carte purchasing on this site.

For most games Microtransactions - the ones people don't like - are "in addition to" the full price of the game. Games do things to drive up the need for them, such as timing out access, spamming you to heck with adverts when you already bought the game and they want you to pay extra for the ad-free version, or locking out progress and such things. They are otherwise separate from full game cost. For D&D Beyond the equivalent would be paying $30 for the full book but you still had adverts on your sheet and you needed to pay to remove them, or having to pay to make homebrew. This is the type of microtransactions people hate.

Not all such microtransactions are bad. Cosmetic extra, for example, are absolutely fine. Extra dice? Fine. New portraits or themes? Spiffy. 

What we are lamenting losing is the a la carte or piecemeal purchasing. This is a different type of microtransaction. This was where you buy access to a small piece of content to use without needing to buy the whole book and if/when you are ready to buy the full book your previous a la carte purchases are factored as a discount, so you never pay to unlock the same thing twice. It's less "microtransaction" and more "spreading the cost in a more affordable way". 

Having been here since the beginning of D&D Beyond this a la carte approach was a well-received massive selling point. There was no downside, it was just a straight up "let's make this game more affordable for those on limited incomes". For many people this was the only way to afford books. Now they've taken that away and it definitely feels like a slap to the face. And with no notice, communication, survey - nothing at all in advance. Just bad faith. Loss of trust.

This is the 3rd time too. After Eberron Wayfarer/Rising crapshow and lies, to the OGL debacle and now this. 

If Pathfinder - who already offer free PDFs with some book purchases - took a look at this and went "we're now doing a la carte purchases on our Demiplane" (Demiplane is to Pathfinder, and other games, what D&D Beyond is to D&D -- and made by ex-D&D Beyond employees, so they do have experience in setting up a la carte purchases) - that's just going to steal a massive chunk of D&D's customer base, again. 

Just so very disappointing.

Quote from kayakingpoodle >>

Quote from LemonyRat >>

I think doing this was a huge mistake to be honest. I used to buy whole (physical) sourcebooks just for my own enjoyment, as well as individual piecemeal digital options for specific characters. WoTC already have been disappointing us and ruining their own reputation time and time again. I kept using dndbeyond and regularly spending money on books and piecemeal options honestly because it was convenient and i do enjoy dnd a lot, but I'm not going to buy a whole book I'm not even interested in for one damn subclass.

My friend switched to just making and calculating their own character sheets using all the content easily available for free elsewhere online  a while ago and i think I'm going to have to start doing the same.

The convenience is no longer even slightly enough for the price they've now made it. And doing this without any announcement beforehand has degraded what was left of the trust so i don't think I'll be buying any more physical sourcebooks either. Just super disappointing and a terrible business move as far as i can tell.

 Where is this "free" official content,  I would wager it is illegal, and if that is ok with you you might rethink posting promotion of theft.

Note that I didn't say "official". The internet is swimming in balanced homebrew content made by talented folk that not only is often more directly tailored to the characters a person might wanna create but is also, again, free.

If someone chooses to interpret me expressing frustration at this update as "promotion of theft" then that's quite frankly their problem.

Quote from kayakingpoodle >>

Quote from LemonyRat >>

I think doing this was a huge mistake to be honest. I used to buy whole (physical) sourcebooks just for my own enjoyment, as well as individual piecemeal digital options for specific characters. WoTC already have been disappointing us and ruining their own reputation time and time again. I kept using dndbeyond and regularly spending money on books and piecemeal options honestly because it was convenient and i do enjoy dnd a lot, but I'm not going to buy a whole book I'm not even interested in for one damn subclass.

My friend switched to just making and calculating their own character sheets using all the content easily available for free elsewhere online  a while ago and i think I'm going to have to start doing the same.

The convenience is no longer even slightly enough for the price they've now made it. And doing this without any announcement beforehand has degraded what was left of the trust so i don't think I'll be buying any more physical sourcebooks either. Just super disappointing and a terrible business move as far as i can tell.

 Where is this "free" official content,  I would wager it is illegal, and if that is ok with you you might rethink posting promotion of theft.

 They did not say  official content is free  they said free content and there is a metric crap ton of it out on the net and while not all of it is good  it is there for people to use.  It could be in the homebrew section  here on the app.  It could be something someone put in a forum post, added to a wiki , posted in Blog or an article for a gaming website and none of it is posting promotion of theft