The core issue isn't how much a product cost in the past, it's how much it's likely to cost in the future, and how much revenue it's likely to pull in. For books where Wizards still has the layout documents, the cost of turning it into a PDF for sale is very low, so unless you are looking for a specific printing (they're going to use the most recent version of the file unless there's really compelling reason to do something else) or they messed up the rights (and thus selling it would be illegal or expensive), they have no reason not to make it available in backorder.
The core issue isn't how much a product cost in the past, it's how much it's likely to cost in the future, and how much revenue it's likely to pull in. For books where Wizards still has the layout documents, the cost of turning it into a PDF for sale is very low, so unless you are looking for a specific printing (they're going to use the most recent version of the file unless there's really compelling reason to do something else) or they messed up the rights (and thus selling it would be illegal or expensive), they have no reason not to make it available in backorder.
Making your own PDF is also both legal and easy. So if you own a physical copy and as long as you aren't distributing it, you can do what you wish.
I don't doubt its experience, or its product, I doubt its longevity. I am new to DnD Beyond, looking around I am less than impressed. I came in expecting to buy tons and walked away with nothing. Coke isn't wealthy because they sell bottles, it’s wealthy because it sells drinks. What I'm seeing on DnD beyond is bottles for sale, not the drink within. If I'm just starting this hobby, buying a digital copy is extremely helpful and fast way to get started. But if I've been in the hobby for the last two decades? I already own the book, I don't feel enticed to be on here. I might also buy secondhand books if I feel new ones are outrageously priced. DnD Beyond feels like offering me an endless supply of cups, but nothing to really drink, from my anecdotal perspective. Short term success in selling cups is great, but I only need so many.
This this analogy does not hold water (pun intended). This is not Wizards offering lesser content - you are getting the exact same content (all the rules text from your purchase book)… and more in the form of digital integration with the character and encounter builder, online access from anywhere, a search option, etc. Saying you are getting an empty glass borders on nonsensical.
Now, if you do not use the digital tools (or if you are patient enough to manually enter everything into homebrew), then that product might not be the right option for you. But it still is the right option for a whole bunch of people - so you cannot really say it is “empty.”
Making your own PDF is also both legal and easy. So if you own a physical copy and as long as you aren't distributing it, you can do what you wish.
I would not call scanning a physical book easy. Sure, it's a fairly mechanical process, but unless you have hardware designed to do it an automated manner (which likely requires destroying the book) it's quite time consuming and produces an inferior product. I would much rather pay an online store $15 to get a high quality pdf than spend three hours making my own low quality pdf.
If someone owns a hard copy (as we all should, for the reasons given about wotc behaviour), and is not planning on distributing copies illegally, why on earth would they destroy the hard copy to make a .pdf?
I assume this is responding to my comment about destroying the hard copy, even though it's not quoted? The issue is that paper feeders don't generally like bound books, so you'd have to cut off the spine (turning it into looseleaf pages) to run it through an automated scanner. You could manually open the book and scan it, but flattening it enough to produce a good scan, over the number of pages involved, will likely destroy the spine anyway.
There's always hand scanners, though those have their own limitations.
Sure. I suspect you can scan a book with a cell phone if you don't mind the quality you get as a result. The problem is that scanning a book would really prefer the pages be flat, and Wizards (like most publishers) does not use a lay-flat binding, so to actually flatten the pages you have to break the spine.
It's a temporary service, we only need to look at Xbox Live to see the truth of the matter. It's a fallacious argument to say that because an entity invested so much into a thing, that its going to stay.'
Xbox live seems like a counterargument to me. It's a service that's been there since what, the early 2000s? Microsoft are, like wizards, heavily invested in the service. It's pretty clear it's not going anywhere as long as MS are in the video game business at all. (Yes, they renamed it, and remodeled it a bit into the bottom tier of game pass, but it's still there.)
You would be surprised how many digital products Xbox had that are no longer available or accessible. Xbox live still exists for sure, but hundreds to thousands of products that are digital are unusable.
I mean it's partly a digital storefront, selling thousands of items from hundreds of studios, many of which have gone under, or have their own sublicensing to worry about. And AFAIK, everything I've ever bought from them, I can still redownload, assuming it works on the console I'm on. (And they've made significant attempts to keep that possible.)
Given that, of course things are going to become unavailable. What WotC are doing is closer to the MS first-party games, which AFAIK have remained available continuously for the consoles they run on. (But I admit I haven't checked, nor can I be bothered to just to win internet points.)
It does raise one question: how are things going to work over the long term with the third-party books?
Stadia was still millions of dollars; it doesn't matter the ratio. All digital products are equally expendable.
They really aren't. They're not eternal, but track records matter. Google, who can't even stick to a single chat system for more than five minutes, are much less trustworthy than, well, pretty much everybody established. (And Stadia was particularly speculative even for a google product.)
It does raise one question: how are things going to work over the long term with the third-party books?
I expect we would see something similar to what happened when the Rick & Morty license expired - Wizards lost the right to sell new products, but those who already purchased the content retained access to it. I am guessing Wizards structured similar licenses with the third party publishers.
It does raise one question: how are things going to work over the long term with the third-party books?
I expect we would see something similar to what happened when the Rick & Morty license expired - Wizards lost the right to sell new products, but those who already purchased the content retained access to it. I am guessing Wizards structured similar licenses with the third party publishers.
That seems likely. I'd completely forgotten Rick and Morty D&D existed.
If someone owns a hard copy (as we all should, for the reasons given about wotc behaviour), and is not planning on distributing copies illegally, why on earth would they destroy the hard copy to make a .pdf?
I assume this is responding to my comment about destroying the hard copy, even though it's not quoted? The issue is that paper feeders don't generally like bound books, so you'd have to cut off the spine (turning it into looseleaf pages) to run it through an automated scanner. You could manually open the book and scan it, but flattening it enough to produce a good scan, over the number of pages involved, will likely destroy the spine anyway.
Yeah, I agree with you. I don't understand the logic of tearing apart a hard copy to make a soft copy that you can't legally distribute. Chances are a player (or DM) is only accessing a small section of any book during a session, and it is way easier to read a full size copy compared to try to read it on a 7 x 5 screen, or maybe a 2 x 2 screen.
Location, location, location. A gaming table is not always the best place for books, and table real estate is not always in plentiful supply. For example, MM is nice book to read at home, but it is a completely utter shit tool at the table due to how clunky and inconvenient it is. I did not realize how absolutely stupid the MM is until I lugged it around, brought it to my friend's house, sat down, and then realized I am never going to crank open that book at a game, especially when I can whip out my phone for Beyond's database, or use Gale Force 9's cards if I plan my encounters in advance and do not want to use my phone for both referencing stat blocks and running the adventure at the same time. If I am cranking open a physical book at the table, it is going to be an adventure book. For a person who already bought the physical MM, but realized too late it is a shit tool, destroying the physical book is a small price to pay when you can turn it into a tool that you will actually use, like a PDF or a series of cropped images of the statblocks. Personally, I would just buy the book again on Beyond or as the monster cards (I got all three formats), but not everyone likes Beyond or Wizards, and/or they might be afraid of keeping track of so many physical cards.
And I imagine for some people, they would not even want to crank open a clunky adventure book. A lot of people have at least two devices (one old and one new phones; one phone and one tablet; or two phones and a tablet; etc.), and running an adventure on one device while referencing stat blocks on another is an extremely clean setup.
@PsyrenXY The contraction is true. Making new books was not the issue - AD&D introduced Barbarians, Acrobats, etc.later after their initial launch, and game grew, created many modules too and other materials and accessories and the game growth did well - my discussion was that today's D&D 5e was catered to players so hard 1) turned off DM's who make the games possible for players to enjoy 2) they gave players so many powers and abilities the challenge of the adventure had been lost.
Challenging PCs who have better abilities is not hard. If your last encounter was too easy, increase their APL for the next one, or use max values instead of average values on the monster statblocks, or both. Both of these work even if you're running a printed module. This grognard "back in my day" insistence that players have it easy now strikes me as little more than laziness.
If anything, upgrading makes things easier on the DM, because the power has been normalized to the more recent releases; you won't have to manage the power disparities of a 2017 Gloomstalker alongside a 2014 Beast Master/Champion Fighter, or a 2020 Mercy Monk alongside a 2014 Open Hand Monk/Thief Rogue etc.
But the risk is not worth it, especially for the price.
Given your specific situation and the effectiveness of alternatives, this conclusion does not follow to me - but it's your decision.
And why should all player characters in a fantasy sword and sorcery setting be able to fly, use any weapon, and wear full plate while casting spells all at level 3? D&D is a fantasy game, not a superhero game.
Late comment, but I think they are going to have to make the 2014 book a legacy book, and just sell and use the new one going forward as the baseline for all products. Hopefully, one of the first products in 2025 will be an update of the rest of the subclasses that are not in the new PHB. They just need to add an option in the character builder to use legacy products, just like they do for other products, for this to work.
Discussion seems to boil down to a few core items.
Digital, that's cool for some.
Hardbooks, that's cool for others.
Accessories (i.e. Spell Cards, Monster Cards, etc.), those are just awesome.
Version? Depends on you and your players. I know two groups who only play D&D 3.5e, I know one group that plays only AD&D.
I play D&D 5e because I introduce new players every month to the game and the core mechanics are unstood in minutes, of course there are things I leave out as it's not necessary to start adventuring and just get a feel for what the excitement is all about (and it's about a lot of things from story to encounters, from social to imagination).
They can always go back and fill in details if any DM cares to cater to those particulars.
But new players understand one thing when they get in the wilderness for their first time LOL
There's no way they're going to update the rest of the subclasses anywhere near that quickly. If nothing else, they're going to want large scale data on how their updates are working out in play before they look at how they're going to change other subclasses, assuming they care to bring them all forward. The power scale is supposed to remain roughly even with the current stuff, so it's not like the current options are being rendered obsolete.
You're probably right. There will be a lot of things going on as the new versions come out, and they will need to do some internal playtesting of any converted sub-classes. Nevertheless, I think they would be smart to put something like the book I am describing in the first year or so -- they have already updated some of the Tasha's/Xanathar subclasses according to the last PHB update video.
First year seems unlikely. How long did it take for us to get XGtE or TCoE? The big compilation books don't come one after the other, they're spaced out to consolidate portions of content from earlier books and round them out with other content. I give it at least two or three years before they drop a Big Book of Subclasses.
There's no way they're going to update the rest of the subclasses anywhere near that quickly. If nothing else, they're going to want large scale data on how their updates are working out in play before they look at how they're going to change other subclasses, assuming they care to bring them all forward. The power scale is supposed to remain roughly even with the current stuff, so it's not like the current options are being rendered obsolete.
Problem is there's a lot of disparity in power levels of the "current stuff." Even if you look at the original PHB, Champion fighter is considered by most players to be absolutely terrible, while Battle Master is one of the best. If you include the more recent releases, is there any reason for a cleric to not choose Twilight Domain? WotC needs to rebalance every 5E subclass, but so far, they've been extremely lax. They want all the players to buy Tasha's and Xanathar's, so including some OP subclasses in the books makes them almost required purchases to stay competitive. The same thing will happen with future content. Even if the PHB content is balanced, each later release will include the next big power increase for players.
I've had several Clerics at my table, and the only Twilight I've ever seen was mine - I was trying it out for a while in a series of one-shots. I have a player in my group now that's playing a Life Cleric. Just saying.
Anyways, they'll take their sweet time updating the Subclasses. Why? Because there'll be a significant portion of the market that won't simply upgrade what they already have because...they already have it, and want new stuff. There'll also be a significant portion of the market that will start off fine with it, but will get fatigue of it for similar reasons. As such, I think they'll intermingle updated subclasses with new ones, meaning that it'll take time to do them all.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
And why should all player characters in a fantasy sword and sorcery setting be able to fly, use any weapon, and wear full plate while casting spells all at level 3? D&D is a fantasy game, not a superhero game.
There is literally a rest variant option called Epic Heroism in the DMG. GMs also have the freedom to handout feats and magic items like candy. People can play D&D however they want. Just because you do not want to play a superhero game does not mean others cannot play it either. You do not play even play at my table nor other GM's tables, so you do not get to decide how we play or tell us how we play is wrong.
Problem is there's a lot of disparity in power levels of the "current stuff." Even if you look at the original PHB, Champion fighter is considered by most players to be absolutely terrible, while Battle Master is one of the best. If you include the more recent releases, is there any reason for a cleric to not choose Twilight Domain? WotC needs to rebalance every 5E subclass, but so far, they've been extremely lax. They want all the players to buy Tasha's and Xanathar's, so including some OP subclasses in the books makes them almost required purchases to stay competitive. The same thing will happen with future content. Even if the PHB content is balanced, each later release will include the next big power increase for players.
D&D is not a competitive PvP game where perfect balance is something to strive for. See how dumb that statement sounds? It comes off as dismissive and rude.
I agree that balance is important, but what balance means to each person and table is going to vary. I think current balance is fine within classes. It is not perfect, a few subclasses definitely feel more meh than others, but it is not unplayable either. In my opinion, where balance is more of an issue is between classes, specifically between martials and casters in noncombat scenarios. Casters just have so much more options in their toolbelt to solve a variety of problems. High level martials on the other hand still feel like mere mortals, super mortals for sure, but still just plain old mortals who do regular mortal things. Even in combat, there is definitely an imbalance in terms of cool factor. A level 20 cavalier fighter holding off hordes of enemies is definitely really cool, but it totally pales in comparison to a level 20 draconic sorcerer casting Meteor Swarm and flavoring it as them using dragon fire or something.
What is wrong with champion fighter? Its simplicity might not appeal to everyone, but that is okay. Not everyone wants to decide on a bajillion choices during every turn in combat. Some people just want to be really good at smashing things.
I can think of at least two good reasons to not choose twilight cleric. First is flavor, maybe someone wants a more evil death cleric or druidy nature cleric. Second is power, arcana cleric is by far the best since they are the only cleric who can abuse the Wish-Simulacrum combo.
First year seems unlikely. How long did it take for us to get XGtE or TCoE? The big compilation books don't come one after the other, they're spaced out to consolidate portions of content from earlier books and round them out with other content. I give it at least two or three years before they drop a Big Book of Subclasses.
If they do plan to turn XGTE and TCOE into legacy books, hopefully they organize the content better and split it into DMG2 and PHB2 instead of just throwing it all into one book. If they do throw it all into one "book", hopefully they do it in bundle style like S:AIS and P:AITM, but with enough content to actually make each individual book feel beefy, and do a book of subclasses, a book of spells, a book of magic items, and a book of DMG options. But that is just my wishful thinking; realistically, I expect Wizards to continue to do the same thing and throw everything into one book.
At the end of the day, the mess in the physical books does not really affect me that much since I have Beyond, and I can afford to have my books sitting on my shelf just looking pretty. But when Beyond does go down one day and I want to revisit 5e again in the far future, going through all the physical books without digital tools to help is going to be a real pain in the ass. Even if they give us 5e for free in PDF form, Beyond with its tools and browser layout is still far easier to go through than pages and pages of PDFs. It would be amazing if they can somehow give us an offline version of Beyond, but I highly doubt Wizards are going to do that. The closest thing would be the app, but the app currently lacks many of the browsers' tools and have some severe limitations.
The core issue isn't how much a product cost in the past, it's how much it's likely to cost in the future, and how much revenue it's likely to pull in. For books where Wizards still has the layout documents, the cost of turning it into a PDF for sale is very low, so unless you are looking for a specific printing (they're going to use the most recent version of the file unless there's really compelling reason to do something else) or they messed up the rights (and thus selling it would be illegal or expensive), they have no reason not to make it available in backorder.
Making your own PDF is also both legal and easy. So if you own a physical copy and as long as you aren't distributing it, you can do what you wish.
This this analogy does not hold water (pun intended). This is not Wizards offering lesser content - you are getting the exact same content (all the rules text from your purchase book)… and more in the form of digital integration with the character and encounter builder, online access from anywhere, a search option, etc. Saying you are getting an empty glass borders on nonsensical.
Now, if you do not use the digital tools (or if you are patient enough to manually enter everything into homebrew), then that product might not be the right option for you. But it still is the right option for a whole bunch of people - so you cannot really say it is “empty.”
I would not call scanning a physical book easy. Sure, it's a fairly mechanical process, but unless you have hardware designed to do it an automated manner (which likely requires destroying the book) it's quite time consuming and produces an inferior product. I would much rather pay an online store $15 to get a high quality pdf than spend three hours making my own low quality pdf.
I assume this is responding to my comment about destroying the hard copy, even though it's not quoted? The issue is that paper feeders don't generally like bound books, so you'd have to cut off the spine (turning it into looseleaf pages) to run it through an automated scanner. You could manually open the book and scan it, but flattening it enough to produce a good scan, over the number of pages involved, will likely destroy the spine anyway.
There's always hand scanners, though those have their own limitations.
Sure. I suspect you can scan a book with a cell phone if you don't mind the quality you get as a result. The problem is that scanning a book would really prefer the pages be flat, and Wizards (like most publishers) does not use a lay-flat binding, so to actually flatten the pages you have to break the spine.
I mean it's partly a digital storefront, selling thousands of items from hundreds of studios, many of which have gone under, or have their own sublicensing to worry about. And AFAIK, everything I've ever bought from them, I can still redownload, assuming it works on the console I'm on. (And they've made significant attempts to keep that possible.)
Given that, of course things are going to become unavailable. What WotC are doing is closer to the MS first-party games, which AFAIK have remained available continuously for the consoles they run on. (But I admit I haven't checked, nor can I be bothered to just to win internet points.)
It does raise one question: how are things going to work over the long term with the third-party books?
They really aren't. They're not eternal, but track records matter. Google, who can't even stick to a single chat system for more than five minutes, are much less trustworthy than, well, pretty much everybody established. (And Stadia was particularly speculative even for a google product.)
I expect we would see something similar to what happened when the Rick & Morty license expired - Wizards lost the right to sell new products, but those who already purchased the content retained access to it. I am guessing Wizards structured similar licenses with the third party publishers.
That seems likely. I'd completely forgotten Rick and Morty D&D existed.
Location, location, location. A gaming table is not always the best place for books, and table real estate is not always in plentiful supply. For example, MM is nice book to read at home, but it is a completely utter shit tool at the table due to how clunky and inconvenient it is. I did not realize how absolutely stupid the MM is until I lugged it around, brought it to my friend's house, sat down, and then realized I am never going to crank open that book at a game, especially when I can whip out my phone for Beyond's database, or use Gale Force 9's cards if I plan my encounters in advance and do not want to use my phone for both referencing stat blocks and running the adventure at the same time. If I am cranking open a physical book at the table, it is going to be an adventure book. For a person who already bought the physical MM, but realized too late it is a shit tool, destroying the physical book is a small price to pay when you can turn it into a tool that you will actually use, like a PDF or a series of cropped images of the statblocks. Personally, I would just buy the book again on Beyond or as the monster cards (I got all three formats), but not everyone likes Beyond or Wizards, and/or they might be afraid of keeping track of so many physical cards.
And I imagine for some people, they would not even want to crank open a clunky adventure book. A lot of people have at least two devices (one old and one new phones; one phone and one tablet; or two phones and a tablet; etc.), and running an adventure on one device while referencing stat blocks on another is an extremely clean setup.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
And why should all player characters in a fantasy sword and sorcery setting be able to fly, use any weapon, and wear full plate while casting spells all at level 3? D&D is a fantasy game, not a superhero game.
Late comment, but I think they are going to have to make the 2014 book a legacy book, and just sell and use the new one going forward as the baseline for all products. Hopefully, one of the first products in 2025 will be an update of the rest of the subclasses that are not in the new PHB. They just need to add an option in the character builder to use legacy products, just like they do for other products, for this to work.
I still have my access to other legacy books.
Discussion seems to boil down to a few core items.
Digital, that's cool for some.
Hardbooks, that's cool for others.
Accessories (i.e. Spell Cards, Monster Cards, etc.), those are just awesome.
Version? Depends on you and your players. I know two groups who only play D&D 3.5e, I know one group that plays only AD&D.
I play D&D 5e because I introduce new players every month to the game and the core mechanics are unstood in minutes, of course there are things I leave out as it's not necessary to start adventuring and just get a feel for what the excitement is all about (and it's about a lot of things from story to encounters, from social to imagination).
They can always go back and fill in details if any DM cares to cater to those particulars.
But new players understand one thing when they get in the wilderness for their first time LOL
[REDACTED]
There's no way they're going to update the rest of the subclasses anywhere near that quickly. If nothing else, they're going to want large scale data on how their updates are working out in play before they look at how they're going to change other subclasses, assuming they care to bring them all forward. The power scale is supposed to remain roughly even with the current stuff, so it's not like the current options are being rendered obsolete.
You're probably right. There will be a lot of things going on as the new versions come out, and they will need to do some internal playtesting of any converted sub-classes. Nevertheless, I think they would be smart to put something like the book I am describing in the first year or so -- they have already updated some of the Tasha's/Xanathar subclasses according to the last PHB update video.
First year seems unlikely. How long did it take for us to get XGtE or TCoE? The big compilation books don't come one after the other, they're spaced out to consolidate portions of content from earlier books and round them out with other content. I give it at least two or three years before they drop a Big Book of Subclasses.
Problem is there's a lot of disparity in power levels of the "current stuff." Even if you look at the original PHB, Champion fighter is considered by most players to be absolutely terrible, while Battle Master is one of the best. If you include the more recent releases, is there any reason for a cleric to not choose Twilight Domain? WotC needs to rebalance every 5E subclass, but so far, they've been extremely lax. They want all the players to buy Tasha's and Xanathar's, so including some OP subclasses in the books makes them almost required purchases to stay competitive. The same thing will happen with future content. Even if the PHB content is balanced, each later release will include the next big power increase for players.
I've had several Clerics at my table, and the only Twilight I've ever seen was mine - I was trying it out for a while in a series of one-shots. I have a player in my group now that's playing a Life Cleric. Just saying.
Anyways, they'll take their sweet time updating the Subclasses. Why? Because there'll be a significant portion of the market that won't simply upgrade what they already have because...they already have it, and want new stuff. There'll also be a significant portion of the market that will start off fine with it, but will get fatigue of it for similar reasons. As such, I think they'll intermingle updated subclasses with new ones, meaning that it'll take time to do them all.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There is literally a rest variant option called Epic Heroism in the DMG. GMs also have the freedom to handout feats and magic items like candy. People can play D&D however they want. Just because you do not want to play a superhero game does not mean others cannot play it either. You do not play even play at my table nor other GM's tables, so you do not get to decide how we play or tell us how we play is wrong.
D&D is not a competitive PvP game where perfect balance is something to strive for. See how dumb that statement sounds? It comes off as dismissive and rude.
I agree that balance is important, but what balance means to each person and table is going to vary. I think current balance is fine within classes. It is not perfect, a few subclasses definitely feel more meh than others, but it is not unplayable either. In my opinion, where balance is more of an issue is between classes, specifically between martials and casters in noncombat scenarios. Casters just have so much more options in their toolbelt to solve a variety of problems. High level martials on the other hand still feel like mere mortals, super mortals for sure, but still just plain old mortals who do regular mortal things. Even in combat, there is definitely an imbalance in terms of cool factor. A level 20 cavalier fighter holding off hordes of enemies is definitely really cool, but it totally pales in comparison to a level 20 draconic sorcerer casting Meteor Swarm and flavoring it as them using dragon fire or something.
What is wrong with champion fighter? Its simplicity might not appeal to everyone, but that is okay. Not everyone wants to decide on a bajillion choices during every turn in combat. Some people just want to be really good at smashing things.
I can think of at least two good reasons to not choose twilight cleric. First is flavor, maybe someone wants a more evil death cleric or druidy nature cleric. Second is power, arcana cleric is by far the best since they are the only cleric who can abuse the Wish-Simulacrum combo.
If they do plan to turn XGTE and TCOE into legacy books, hopefully they organize the content better and split it into DMG2 and PHB2 instead of just throwing it all into one book. If they do throw it all into one "book", hopefully they do it in bundle style like S:AIS and P:AITM, but with enough content to actually make each individual book feel beefy, and do a book of subclasses, a book of spells, a book of magic items, and a book of DMG options. But that is just my wishful thinking; realistically, I expect Wizards to continue to do the same thing and throw everything into one book.
At the end of the day, the mess in the physical books does not really affect me that much since I have Beyond, and I can afford to have my books sitting on my shelf just looking pretty. But when Beyond does go down one day and I want to revisit 5e again in the far future, going through all the physical books without digital tools to help is going to be a real pain in the ass. Even if they give us 5e for free in PDF form, Beyond with its tools and browser layout is still far easier to go through than pages and pages of PDFs. It would be amazing if they can somehow give us an offline version of Beyond, but I highly doubt Wizards are going to do that. The closest thing would be the app, but the app currently lacks many of the browsers' tools and have some severe limitations.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >