One thing that I think confuses a lot of people is that content that they do not have unlocked is simply absent in many places on the sight; for example, if you're building a character with only free content available, you can only see sub-classes and backgrounds that are available for free, anything that's Player's Handbook specific is simply missing, as are many of the cool options that makes Xanathar's Guide to Everything interesting, or Eberron etc.
To address this I'd like to make a couple of suggestions:
Character Builder Previews
When making a selection that would have more options with more unlocked books, i.e- backgrounds and sub-classes as mentioned (but also spells and a few other things), D&D Beyond should show an unobtrusive, but noticeable, note that more content is available to unlock, which can be expanded to see a list of things you are missing, organised by the book they belong to. Tapping anything in the list should give a few overview of what it is.
For example, say I'm building a Warlock but don't have Xanathar's Guide to everything; when I'm choosing my patron I would get a note indicating there are more possible choices, and I would expand this to see options from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Touch Hexblade would give me a brief overview of what Hexblades are all about (Powerful mixed weapon fighting and spellcasting), with a purchase options button in the corner so I can quickly buy the sub-class, or the entire book.
Make sub-Classes and sub-Races More Accessible
Currently if I view a class or race, there isn't much of any indication at all when there are additional sub-classes or sub-races available for that class or race. It just lists the ones that are available; I don't know if unlocked ones are added (as I don't have a lot of unlocked content) but it would be useful to see the other possibilities and again, see a brief summary of what they're about and how to get them.
For example, when viewing the Bard, all I see is playtest content and the two Player's Handbook colleges (Lore and Valor), there's no mention of Swords and Whispers in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, leaving a new player none the wiser that these things exist. If there were a brief entry for them then a player would know what other possibilities and exist, and be more likely to be enticed into finding out more.
Add Proper Preview Pages
In addition to brief summaries of what a sub-class or sub-race might do on the builder and class/race pages, instead of taking a user directly to purchase options it might be nice to have a more complete preview page for an option, in particular all-new classes and races, but to a lesser extent spells and items as well.
Currently if I look at the Tortle race all I get is the very briefest description and the ability bonuses offered, there's not really a proper description of how they might actually play; I'd like to recommend some kind of stripped down class and race pages for locked classes/races that give some of the basic background sections (descriptions of what the class/race is like, where it comes from etc.) then summarised versions of some of the key abilities.
For example, for a Tortle I don't need to know everything about exactly how they work, and while the brief summary gives me some idea and I can guess at what that might be like, what I imagine them to be like is different from having a proper flavour page that might convince me to drop money on unlocking them. As it was, to know I'd be interested in playing one in future, I had to look up details elsewhere, it should really all be here on the site.
For magic spells, it would be nice to have some idea of what a locked spell is about; currently all we have is a name, a type of magic, and a level. Again it would be easier to know whether I want to buy a spell, or the book it belongs to, if I knew whether it's something I might actually find useful.
I'd like to emphasise that I don't intend for this to sound too critical, indeed many sites are worse for hard-selling their content, D&D Beyond almost has the opposite problem which is pretty rare; I'm just trying to highlight some cases where it would actually be helpful to have more information about paid options, both for new players, and also for those like myself who have some idea what most stuff is, but haven't decided yet what I want to buy next.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
One thing that I think confuses a lot of people is that content that they do not have unlocked is simply absent in many places on the sight; for example, if you're building a character with only free content available, you can only see sub-classes and backgrounds that are available for free, anything that's Player's Handbook specific is simply missing, as are many of the cool options that makes Xanathar's Guide to Everything interesting, or Eberron etc.
To address this I'd like to make a couple of suggestions:
Character Builder Previews
When making a selection that would have more options with more unlocked books, i.e- backgrounds and sub-classes as mentioned (but also spells and a few other things), D&D Beyond should show an unobtrusive, but noticeable, note that more content is available to unlock, which can be expanded to see a list of things you are missing, organised by the book they belong to. Tapping anything in the list should give a few overview of what it is.
For example, say I'm building a Warlock but don't have Xanathar's Guide to everything; when I'm choosing my patron I would get a note indicating there are more possible choices, and I would expand this to see options from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Touch Hexblade would give me a brief overview of what Hexblades are all about (Powerful mixed weapon fighting and spellcasting), with a purchase options button in the corner so I can quickly buy the sub-class, or the entire book.
Make sub-Classes and sub-Races More Accessible
Currently if I view a class or race, there isn't much of any indication at all when there are additional sub-classes or sub-races available for that class or race. It just lists the ones that are available; I don't know if unlocked ones are added (as I don't have a lot of unlocked content) but it would be useful to see the other possibilities and again, see a brief summary of what they're about and how to get them.
For example, when viewing the Bard, all I see is playtest content and the two Player's Handbook colleges (Lore and Valor), there's no mention of Swords and Whispers in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, leaving a new player none the wiser that these things exist. If there were a brief entry for them then a player would know what other possibilities and exist, and be more likely to be enticed into finding out more.
Add Proper Preview Pages
In addition to brief summaries of what a sub-class or sub-race might do on the builder and class/race pages, instead of taking a user directly to purchase options it might be nice to have a more complete preview page for an option, in particular all-new classes and races, but to a lesser extent spells and items as well.
Currently if I look at the Tortle race all I get is the very briefest description and the ability bonuses offered, there's not really a proper description of how they might actually play; I'd like to recommend some kind of stripped down class and race pages for locked classes/races that give some of the basic background sections (descriptions of what the class/race is like, where it comes from etc.) then summarised versions of some of the key abilities.
For example, for a Tortle I don't need to know everything about exactly how they work, and while the brief summary gives me some idea and I can guess at what that might be like, what I imagine them to be like is different from having a proper flavour page that might convince me to drop money on unlocking them. As it was, to know I'd be interested in playing one in future, I had to look up details elsewhere, it should really all be here on the site.
For magic spells, it would be nice to have some idea of what a locked spell is about; currently all we have is a name, a type of magic, and a level. Again it would be easier to know whether I want to buy a spell, or the book it belongs to, if I knew whether it's something I might actually find useful.
I'd like to emphasise that I don't intend for this to sound too critical, indeed many sites are worse for hard-selling their content, D&D Beyond almost has the opposite problem which is pretty rare; I'm just trying to highlight some cases where it would actually be helpful to have more information about paid options, both for new players, and also for those like myself who have some idea what most stuff is, but haven't decided yet what I want to buy next.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Its in the plans somewhere.
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360021271793-View-All-Content-During-Character-Creation