The announcement they put up says "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" so looks like we do still get credited for anything we previously purchased but when I add anything to my cart it doesn't deduct the credit. Emailed customer service to see what they say and hopefully it's just a glitch from the change over
The announcement they put up says "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" so looks like we do still get credited for anything we previously purchased but when I add anything to my cart it doesn't deduct the credit. Emailed customer service to see what they say and hopefully it's just a glitch from the change over
Hopefully it's just a bug, but that's what annoys me the most about this update.
Also, it seems there's no filter anymore for already purchased books.
And, I might have overlooked it, but I think they also removed the bundles.
This is the shittiest thing they’ve done since the OGL debacle. Are they stupid? I mean seriously are they stupid? I ask since messing up doesn’t mean someone is stupid but repeating the same mistake without ever learning from it is pretty much the definition of stupid.
No, wotc is not stupid.Not like you think.
At best, this is a trial balloon to measure customer feedback, and more importantly total sales, for a few months before the 6e rollout. Trying out this model for a old product rapidly declining in sales has the lowest impact on the bottom line. If this backfires, wotc has time to revert back to the old model. At worst, wotc has already decided this is the new model for 6e, and has decided jettisoning some portion of the customer base still results in better overall sales.
I am betting this is just the first shoe to drop, and other significant changes are coming. But not until the VTT is complete and actually working.
I'm kind of speechless they've removed the option for individual purchases.
If I just want a feat, or a background, or a species, or a spell, or a subclass, I'm not going to get an entire book I don't want 99% of just to get that individual thing. I'll just not buy it at all.
I'm kind of speechless they've removed the option for individual purchases.
If I just want a feat, or a background, or a species, or a spell, or a subclass, I'm not going to get an entire book I don't want 99% of just to get that individual thing. I'll just not buy it at all.
Here is the thing. As much as I shake my head at wotc's behaviour in yet again another brewing controversy, the very idea of "pay to win" by buying the very best features/classes/subclasses is simply well, awful. If wotc had said "We are banning this practice because we feel it is antithetical to the game. It confirms that power-gaming is an acceptable way to play, and this is not what D&D is about", I would have respected that.
But the manner that this was rolled out, in the dark of the night, well, others have stated how that looks.The simple truth is that wotc will use the model that maximizes profits.That's it. Nothing more.
I'm kind of speechless they've removed the option for individual purchases.
If I just want a feat, or a background, or a species, or a spell, or a subclass, I'm not going to get an entire book I don't want 99% of just to get that individual thing. I'll just not buy it at all.
Here is the thing. As much as I shake my head at wotc's behaviour in yet again another brewing controversy, the very idea of "pay to win" by buying the very best features/classes/subclasses is simply well, awful. If wotc had said "We are banning this practice because we feel it is antithetical to the game. It confirms that power-gaming is an acceptable way to play, and this is not what D&D is about", I would have respected that.
But the manner that this was rolled out, in the dark of the night, well, others have stated how that looks.The simple truth is that wotc will use the model that maximizes profits.That's it. Nothing more.
This is a game with a live DM, not an MMO. It is not 'Pay to Win'
I'm kind of speechless they've removed the option for individual purchases.
If I just want a feat, or a background, or a species, or a spell, or a subclass, I'm not going to get an entire book I don't want 99% of just to get that individual thing. I'll just not buy it at all.
Here is the thing. As much as I shake my head at wotc's behaviour in yet again another brewing controversy, the very idea of "pay to win" by buying the very best features/classes/subclasses is simply well, awful. If wotc had said "We are banning this practice because we feel it is antithetical to the game. It confirms that power-gaming is an acceptable way to play, and this is not what D&D is about", I would have respected that.
But the manner that this was rolled out, in the dark of the night, well, others have stated how that looks.The simple truth is that wotc will use the model that maximizes profits.That's it. Nothing more.
This is a game with a live DM, not an MMO. It is not 'Pay to Win'
It certainly SHOULD not be. In MMO's Pay-to-win is a virus that has infected everything. Some player buying a specific spell or feat, and nothing else from a book, in D&D is exactly the same thing. Maybe wotc has recognized that and for the greater good of the game has banned that concept. LOL..who am I kidding. The reason wotc has done it was so wotc can make more money.
This is a game with a live DM, not an MMO. It is not 'Pay to Win'
It certainly SHOULD not be. In MMO's Pay-to-win is a virus that has infected everything. Some player buying a specific spell or feat, and nothing else from a book, in D&D is exactly the same thing. Maybe wotc has recognized that and for the greater good of the game has banned that concept. LOL..who am I kidding. The reason wotc has done it was so wotc can make more money.
My sibling, the balance of the features does not change if you buy them individually or as part of a book. People are always gonna cherry pick the "best" stuff out of any release; the only difference is how much they have to pay for it. Charging $2 for a busted subclass is less "pay to win" than charging $60 for the same subclass in a book full of less busted material, because the barrier to entry is lower.
Today WoTC took something great away from the community with the À la carte changes. It used to be newcomers could have agency over how fast or slow they dip their toes in the pool now you're asking them to just jump straight in with full book purchases.
I'm sure WoTC has done the math and their charts show that this will help the next quarterly report.
But what's being lost is the people who would start their journey on DNDBeyond if they can do it $5 at a time, being able to say "Here's $5! Can I please have this fun thing so I can go enjoy it on my character? THANKS!" was awesome.
It made it very easy for people to boast about how awesome DNDBeyond was as a platform. Now we have to instead explain to them that WoTC took that away from everyone. This looks bad for those of us that have sold others on DNDBeyond. This looks bad for new players considering starting to use DNDBeyond.
THIS MAKES IT MORE DIFFICULT TO ONBOARD NEW PLAYERS.
Yes there are other options, but that little guy now has far fewer options that they are in control of. They now need to find a DM to run a campaign so they can access the contents of their books.
This DEGRADES the product. Please reconsider this change. New players are your future profits. You took something from them and damaged the communities ability to onboard new players into the hobby.
This is a game with a live DM, not an MMO. It is not 'Pay to Win'
It certainly SHOULD not be. In MMO's Pay-to-win is a virus that has infected everything. Some player buying a specific spell or feat, and nothing else from a book, in D&D is exactly the same thing. Maybe wotc has recognized that and for the greater good of the game has banned that concept. LOL..who am I kidding. The reason wotc has done it was so wotc can make more money.
My sibling, the balance of the features does not change if you buy them individually or as part of a book. People are always gonna cherry pick the "best" stuff out of any release; the only difference is how much they have to pay for it. Charging $2 for a busted subclass is less "pay to win" than charging $60 for the same subclass in a book full of less busted material, because the barrier to entry is lower.
It makes pay to win more expensive, no doubt. I assume that is what wotc is actually testing with this model: Just how much are people who want to power game actually willing to pay for that privilege? I have brought the term up before. It is called "the price elasticity of demand".
I'm kind of speechless they've removed the option for individual purchases.
If I just want a feat, or a background, or a species, or a spell, or a subclass, I'm not going to get an entire book I don't want 99% of just to get that individual thing. I'll just not buy it at all.
Here is the thing. As much as I shake my head at wotc's behaviour in yet again another brewing controversy, the very idea of "pay to win" by buying the very best features/classes/subclasses is simply well, awful. If wotc had said "We are banning this practice because we feel it is antithetical to the game. It confirms that power-gaming is an acceptable way to play, and this is not what D&D is about", I would have respected that.
But the manner that this was rolled out, in the dark of the night, well, others have stated how that looks.The simple truth is that wotc will use the model that maximizes profits.That's it. Nothing more.
This is a game with a live DM, not an MMO. It is not 'Pay to Win'
It certainly SHOULD not be. In MMO's Pay-to-win is a virus that has infected everything. Some player buying a specific spell or feat, and nothing else from a book, in D&D is exactly the same thing. Maybe wotc has recognized that and for the greater good of the game has banned that concept. LOL..who am I kidding. The reason wotc has done it was so wotc can make more money.
You do realize that a DM can say 'no' to that one player, right? And that the DM would almost certainly declare it available to the entire group? What happens if one player buys a book the others do not have? They do not get to use everything or anything from it without the DM's permission.
This is no different from any given player saying "I want to play Goku" or "I want to play Batman" or "I want to play <insert any other OP character here>." A DM does not need there to be any book to allow that. But why would any DM allow it simply because a player has paid WotC for it? It isn't and never has been that kind of game.
Before DDB the only way to get a part of a book was to buy the book. Them taking that away is surprising, but not shocking, taking away the credit for piece meal purchases is egregious, though they say we will still get the old deal on anything purchased before the marketplace roll out fiasco, if so I am ok with the change, I still think it is a bad move to take the piece meal away, but outside of DDB it is the way it has and is done. What other TTRPG can you buy a single item, class, race et al and not the whole book?
Still a bold move, with the new stuff coming a whole book does not interest me at all, a piece here or there for a player or game maybe, but not a whole book. With the new store there is less information about what of the ex-peice meal items are in them, just a total count of each category no names or lists, not conducive to making an easily informed purchase. Add to that it was a cool program that few if any competitor could offer, but walled gardens are for not having to worry about the competition.
I bought the BOMT for a feat, and completely regret the purchase lesson learned.
What other TTRPG can you buy a single item, class, race et al and not the whole book?
Just off the top of my head, Lancer gives away all player-facing information (Mechs, Talents, gear, etc) for free, independent of the books those items come in. Shadowrun may not offer individual item purchases, but their supplement books are much more focused (this one has more guns, this one has more spells, this one has more races, etc) and thus much more affordable. Exalted typically releases sub-books focused on each "class". Most other games don't release $30-$60 expansion books out of which any given player might only want one thing. The barrier to entry to D&D is abnormally high; a la carte was unique to DDB because a la carte was solving a problem unique to D&D.
This feels like a real slap in the face to PLAYERS who don’t really get anything out of having a whole book. Like… why on Earth is a player gonna drop $30 on Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse to get the species they want when they, as a player and not a DM, otherwise have no use for a monster manual? They’re more likely to just homebrew what they want and pay nothing. Seems silly to me.
This feels like a real slap in the face to PLAYERS who don’t really get anything out of having a whole book. Like… why on Earth is a player gonna drop $30 on Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse to get the species they want when they, as a player and not a DM, otherwise have no use for a monster manual? They’re more likely to just homebrew what they want and pay nothing. Seems silly to me.
I mean, I bought the book for exactly that reason. Honestly, that one’s a poor example since it’s got several dozen race/species options in it, making it at least as player facing as DM facing. But I’d have bought VGtM and MToF too if I hadn’t missed that window, and I have bought Fizban’s and Bigby’s with no intention of being a DM. Don’t underestimate how many people are probably willing to pay for the whole book.
This feels like a real slap in the face to PLAYERS who don’t really get anything out of having a whole book. Like… why on Earth is a player gonna drop $30 on Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse to get the species they want when they, as a player and not a DM, otherwise have no use for a monster manual? They’re more likely to just homebrew what they want and pay nothing. Seems silly to me.
I mean, I bought the book for exactly that reason. Honestly, that one’s a poor example since it’s got several dozen race/species options in it, making it at least as player facing as DM facing. But I’d have bought VGtM and MToF too if I hadn’t missed that window, and I have bought Fizban’s and Bigby’s with no intention of being a DM. Don’t underestimate how many people are probably willing to pay for the whole book.
Sure, but I’m not talking about the players who are prepared to drop full price for a book despite not being able to use most of it. I know plenty of players who are happy to buy up books because they just like having them. My point is that there are also plenty of players who don’t want to blow money on stuff they don’t need who would rather just pay a few dollars for the convenience of using a player option that they want for their campaign.
The players who like having the whole book were gonna buy it anyway. The players who don’t are probably likely to find some kind of workaround. That’s been my experience with a lot of the people I’ve played with, anyway. I’d be very interested in seeing the data that informed this decision because the “all or nothing” approach doesn’t feel like something that is going to win any favor.
The big black box remaining is what happens to folks who previously bought part of a book - can the functionality for them to receive a discount on the cover price due to their partial purchases be retained, or alternatively, can those partial purchases be refunded?
If they solve that, then I'll still disagree with this move - but it will at least be a fair business decision.
The announcement they put up says "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" so looks like we do still get credited for anything we previously purchased but when I add anything to my cart it doesn't deduct the credit. Emailed customer service to see what they say and hopefully it's just a glitch from the change over
Hopefully it's just a bug, but that's what annoys me the most about this update.
Also, it seems there's no filter anymore for already purchased books.
And, I might have overlooked it, but I think they also removed the bundles.
Yeah, bundles are gone but if you have have bought any of the bundles, you still get the discount.
No, wotc is not stupid.Not like you think.
At best, this is a trial balloon to measure customer feedback, and more importantly total sales, for a few months before the 6e rollout. Trying out this model for a old product rapidly declining in sales has the lowest impact on the bottom line. If this backfires, wotc has time to revert back to the old model. At worst, wotc has already decided this is the new model for 6e, and has decided jettisoning some portion of the customer base still results in better overall sales.
I am betting this is just the first shoe to drop, and other significant changes are coming. But not until the VTT is complete and actually working.
I'm kind of speechless they've removed the option for individual purchases.
If I just want a feat, or a background, or a species, or a spell, or a subclass, I'm not going to get an entire book I don't want 99% of just to get that individual thing. I'll just not buy it at all.
Why let people buy things that they want when you can make people spend more money on books???
WotC has become the BBEG.
Here is the thing. As much as I shake my head at wotc's behaviour in yet again another brewing controversy, the very idea of "pay to win" by buying the very best features/classes/subclasses is simply well, awful. If wotc had said "We are banning this practice because we feel it is antithetical to the game. It confirms that power-gaming is an acceptable way to play, and this is not what D&D is about", I would have respected that.
But the manner that this was rolled out, in the dark of the night, well, others have stated how that looks.The simple truth is that wotc will use the model that maximizes profits.That's it. Nothing more.
This is a game with a live DM, not an MMO. It is not 'Pay to Win'
It certainly SHOULD not be. In MMO's Pay-to-win is a virus that has infected everything. Some player buying a specific spell or feat, and nothing else from a book, in D&D is exactly the same thing. Maybe wotc has recognized that and for the greater good of the game has banned that concept. LOL..who am I kidding. The reason wotc has done it was so wotc can make more money.
My sibling, the balance of the features does not change if you buy them individually or as part of a book. People are always gonna cherry pick the "best" stuff out of any release; the only difference is how much they have to pay for it. Charging $2 for a busted subclass is less "pay to win" than charging $60 for the same subclass in a book full of less busted material, because the barrier to entry is lower.
Today WoTC took something great away from the community with the À la carte changes. It used to be newcomers could have agency over how fast or slow they dip their toes in the pool now you're asking them to just jump straight in with full book purchases.
I'm sure WoTC has done the math and their charts show that this will help the next quarterly report.
But what's being lost is the people who would start their journey on DNDBeyond if they can do it $5 at a time, being able to say "Here's $5! Can I please have this fun thing so I can go enjoy it on my character? THANKS!" was awesome.
It made it very easy for people to boast about how awesome DNDBeyond was as a platform. Now we have to instead explain to them that WoTC took that away from everyone. This looks bad for those of us that have sold others on DNDBeyond. This looks bad for new players considering starting to use DNDBeyond.
THIS MAKES IT MORE DIFFICULT TO ONBOARD NEW PLAYERS.
Yes there are other options, but that little guy now has far fewer options that they are in control of. They now need to find a DM to run a campaign so they can access the contents of their books.
This DEGRADES the product. Please reconsider this change. New players are your future profits. You took something from them and damaged the communities ability to onboard new players into the hobby.
It makes pay to win more expensive, no doubt. I assume that is what wotc is actually testing with this model: Just how much are people who want to power game actually willing to pay for that privilege? I have brought the term up before. It is called "the price elasticity of demand".
You do realize that a DM can say 'no' to that one player, right? And that the DM would almost certainly declare it available to the entire group? What happens if one player buys a book the others do not have? They do not get to use everything or anything from it without the DM's permission.
This is no different from any given player saying "I want to play Goku" or "I want to play Batman" or "I want to play <insert any other OP character here>." A DM does not need there to be any book to allow that. But why would any DM allow it simply because a player has paid WotC for it? It isn't and never has been that kind of game.
Before DDB the only way to get a part of a book was to buy the book. Them taking that away is surprising, but not shocking, taking away the credit for piece meal purchases is egregious, though they say we will still get the old deal on anything purchased before the marketplace roll out fiasco, if so I am ok with the change, I still think it is a bad move to take the piece meal away, but outside of DDB it is the way it has and is done. What other TTRPG can you buy a single item, class, race et al and not the whole book?
Still a bold move, with the new stuff coming a whole book does not interest me at all, a piece here or there for a player or game maybe, but not a whole book. With the new store there is less information about what of the ex-peice meal items are in them, just a total count of each category no names or lists, not conducive to making an easily informed purchase. Add to that it was a cool program that few if any competitor could offer, but walled gardens are for not having to worry about the competition.
I bought the BOMT for a feat, and completely regret the purchase lesson learned.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Just off the top of my head, Lancer gives away all player-facing information (Mechs, Talents, gear, etc) for free, independent of the books those items come in. Shadowrun may not offer individual item purchases, but their supplement books are much more focused (this one has more guns, this one has more spells, this one has more races, etc) and thus much more affordable. Exalted typically releases sub-books focused on each "class". Most other games don't release $30-$60 expansion books out of which any given player might only want one thing. The barrier to entry to D&D is abnormally high; a la carte was unique to DDB because a la carte was solving a problem unique to D&D.
This feels like a real slap in the face to PLAYERS who don’t really get anything out of having a whole book. Like… why on Earth is a player gonna drop $30 on Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse to get the species they want when they, as a player and not a DM, otherwise have no use for a monster manual? They’re more likely to just homebrew what they want and pay nothing. Seems silly to me.
I mean, I bought the book for exactly that reason. Honestly, that one’s a poor example since it’s got several dozen race/species options in it, making it at least as player facing as DM facing. But I’d have bought VGtM and MToF too if I hadn’t missed that window, and I have bought Fizban’s and Bigby’s with no intention of being a DM. Don’t underestimate how many people are probably willing to pay for the whole book.
Sure, but I’m not talking about the players who are prepared to drop full price for a book despite not being able to use most of it. I know plenty of players who are happy to buy up books because they just like having them. My point is that there are also plenty of players who don’t want to blow money on stuff they don’t need who would rather just pay a few dollars for the convenience of using a player option that they want for their campaign.
The players who like having the whole book were gonna buy it anyway. The players who don’t are probably likely to find some kind of workaround. That’s been my experience with a lot of the people I’ve played with, anyway. I’d be very interested in seeing the data that informed this decision because the “all or nothing” approach doesn’t feel like something that is going to win any favor.
They've officially announced the change now, so it's not secretive: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1709-d-d-beyond-marketplace-redesign-see-whats-new-here
The big black box remaining is what happens to folks who previously bought part of a book - can the functionality for them to receive a discount on the cover price due to their partial purchases be retained, or alternatively, can those partial purchases be refunded?
If they solve that, then I'll still disagree with this move - but it will at least be a fair business decision.
The FAQ and the news post both read they will count towards the full book. But that isn't happening. Definitely need clarification on that point
https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/7747224960788-FAQ-D-D-Beyond-Sales