Honestly the hero forge mini builder is TOO EXPENSIVE

[Nylinth]

Honestly the hero forge mini builder is too expensive. 8 buck a piece for not even the stl but the right to use. That price needs to come down. As a DM making the characters I'd like sounds great and it takes a load off talespire devs. But 8 dollars a pop. what if i want 10 different custom minis that's 80 bucks. That's way more then buying talespire. Sure if you need one it's not the worst but already i had 2 planned then a vampire later and a wizard. a king. you see where this is going. the hero forge update sounds good on paper but i can't even use it as a recommendation to buy the game.

Hey friend wanna buy a table top sim. OH you can also make custom minies.

that's cool.

but that cost extra.

Oh. You mean like DLC?

No. You have to pay for each mini. It's no big deal like 8 bucks a mini.

man that's like going out and buying the real thing!

See sounds dumb doesn't it. that price needs to be like 1 dollar or 2 at most. Then I'll make like 10 minis and they get there money down the road a cheaper mini means more money in there pocket and the easier to recommend talespire to other people. And to be clear i'm not afraid to spend 8 bucks. I Just won't pay 8 for one mini

[luc.paquin6]

basic 7.99 digital character can be made on heroforge and be cool .That a fact but many people can make(and majke) more appeling character in mixing 2 characters in one .( basickly you merge 2 digital minis in one to make more complex and creative characters ) it probalbly what mean atoastyroast .( if you use this process to craete mini its cost you effectivly 14.99 eatch... what is a bit wierd i agree that digital minis cost HF to create asset and take place on their server but 14.99 .... pixels are pixels and the merged character don t take that mutch more in term of bytes than a 7.99 character on a server or a driver ...its were its a little bit unfair..... If i buy a physical minis and i make its huge or with more pieces ( arms ,tail ,wing ect ect i understand that my physical minis will cost more money to produce ( more plastic or medium = more expense for Hf this is logic . but a few bytes for a more complex digital mini is a little bit frustrating. i can understand this.

[luc.paquin6]

that said we have now more than 3000 free minis on talespire .... let say that you ''just'' use 300 of this minis on your campaign because the rest of the minis are meuh...or just don t fit on your story ,you can probaly manage a fair amount of pnjs and assets aleready. Talespire will in a Relativly near future imput a mini creator too . My advice is to concentrate your heroforge minis credits ( choose the monthly credits package its worth it ) on heroes for your players and major antagonists or very recurrent npcs characters...And remember that a rpg game is a group hobby the Gm is aleready take is time,sweat,and (i hope not ) blood to enjoy everyones with is story. If your are one don t be shy to tell your players to contribute for heroforge minis if they want more representative mins for their characters. After all this is just justice they contribute to make the game more cooler. If they tell you this is to expansive logicly its mean for them that the game and the option are not that so important to them ...or that they are very greedy....( one hero figs for 7.99 that is exactly your character ? for a player this is notthing.one sack of chip and a bootle of coke in a game seesion cost that mutch ...)

[luc.paquin6]

for jinkaru :in the essense you right but the scalling of the price you give us are a little bit weird ( or different in your contry than mine? if so i am surprised ) this is. 19.99 for the eatch month subscription payment ( you can subscribe for a 3 month or a year subscription to save money too and this probably what you say on the first part of your text if not i don t understand ) without a subscription its cost 7.99 for a digital mini or 14.99 for a ''double one '' strangely if you take a minis on a stead ( like a horse ) its just cost you 7.99 ....so why a merged character with another one cost 14.99 ??? that is a weird heroforge price choice for me... that said you can too use 1 credit for a single character and its cost you 2 credit for a merged one... the subsrpition using the eatch month payement give you acces to the premade pack of the month for free that right and you have 5 credit for eatch month... not 15 ...the 3 month payment subscripyion give you a one shot 15 credits and the one year one 60 in total ....buying a premade pack that you don t have cost only in fact one credit.... or 7.99 .the others advantages are Jinkaru is right to have acces to a great numbers of creations by the others subscribers to choose or remodel and buy after, you have too a small preview and before time ''advantage '' to a eary access for the new assets they made for the digital characters ( and real minis ) eatch week and some gimmick tools like the lighting system to make shadow and light on your mini.... ( you can save your minis collection too on heroforge .)

[AToastyRoast]

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

AToastyRoast eredeti hozzászólása:

Yeah except now its $16 per mini like tf is inflation hitting a digital figurine.

What? It's still $7.99 and still $20 a month for 1 month sub. Even the 5 man premade packs are still $7.99.

yeah I just saw that, the sight fr trolled me it was telling me it was like $15.96 for some reason lmao
(But also because I live in Australia, the sight is in USD so its $12 for me :P )

[Fisher]

I can't believe people like this are allowed to vote.

[Zoltan]

I just use AI to make any model I want. Its free. I choose and skin what I want then I print it out and add it to my collection after I paint it.

[The God Ghetto Holy]

*Has been subscribed awhile so has 171 available minis accrued*

They give you minis every month if you subscribe and you accrue them over time, you don't even have to use them every month. That's what I did.

[Space_Girl_DFTBA]

A pro+download sub for Hero Forge is $20/month and gets you 5 credits.
Credits can be used to get digital minis (such as for TaleSpire) or stl files (for 3D printing).
If you want custom minis, 1 credit gets you 1 mini in either digital or stl format, so you're effectively paying $4/mini, if you're planning to get more than 3 mini's, that's already a better deal.
As an added bonus, you also get more options for designing your minis, and a monthly set of 5 mini's they designed within a certain theme as both digital and stl.
You can also use your credits to buy such packs from months you weren't subscribed to get even more minis for your money (although not customized to your own design).

Only caveat is that you can only use your credits as long as you're currently subscribed, so make sure to use your credits before unsubbing, or else you lose access to them until you resubscribe (they don't expire though, they're just locked away until you resubscribe).

And if you want to make more, you can get this subscription per 3 months (15 credits, you get them all right away) for $17/month ($51/3 months), for $3.40/mini if you buy custom digital minis (+3 sets of 5 designed minis in both digital and stl, and 3 months of access to all the pro features).
If you pay for a full year (60 credits, again, all right away), for $15/month, you're down to paying $3/mini for custom digital minis (+12 sets of 5 designed minis in both digital and stl, and a full year of access to pro features).
And if 60 is more than you need, you could see if your friends might need some too, have them share their designs, use your credits to get their minis digitally, and split the costs with them; with 2 people you get 30creds/person, 3 people = 20creds/person, 4 people = 15/creds/person, 5 people = 12 creds/person, 6 people = 10 creds/person

[Katsu]

The issue remains the exploitative artificial scarcity of this business model. At the $180 advertised as "best value" here (which is quite an investment for a lot of people), it's three times the cost of most AAA software sold on Steam, and you still only get limited access.

How many people here would have bought into Talespire if it'd ask you for $3-4 every single time you want to export a map? Do you really think that'd be a better deal for you than just buying Talespire once and make as many maps as you like, edit them as many times as you like?

It's smart business for HF, of course, just like it was for all the other mapmaker devs out there to only sell their product as a subscription service instead of buy-to-keep. But I just can't see why some customers defend this sales practice, regardless of how good the product is. We can like and enjoy something and still grumble about it being overpriced.

[Gracey Face]

Katsu eredeti hozzászólása:

But I just can't see why some customers defend this sales practice, regardless of how good the product is. We can like and enjoy something and still grumble about it being overpriced.

Because when you want things for free, and get those things for free, you rapidly stop getting them because the person making them stops producing them.

Heroforge and similar products give you a service that you would otherwise have to spend hundreds of dollars on (bespoke model and miniature creation is expensive) that is accessible to people who do not have the skill to make their models themselves. They charge an amount that is for most users about the same as a one time purchase such as talespire to do so, and because they get more money from power users they have a continuous income source to improve their service (add more resources for example).

One time purchase products have an innate life span for support and updates. Any life beyond that depends on the dev maintaining the product as a passion project despite not getting money from it anymore, which is not reliable and is not good for the dev either. Most people will not send donations to such a dev, even if they're regular users of the product.

[Katsu]

Gracey Face eredeti hozzászólása:

Because when you want things for free, and get those things for free, you rapidly stop getting them because the person making them stops producing them.

You happen to be commenting on the forum of a product which does "give you a service that you would otherwise have to spend hundreds of dollars on" (bespoke map creation is expensive) *without* requiring you to pay for it every single time you use it. Because you're paying for the developer effort that went into creating a piece of software inherently capable of churning out an unlimited amount of results.
Yet I do not see this "rapid stop of production". Because as it happens, these updates aren't produced for free, they are part of the pitch that makes people pay money.

I'd also argue that any product has an innate lifespan for support and updates, as we can see from the numerous subscription-based MMOs that have shut down because something else/better came along. Obviously repeat monetization creates a bigger incentive for a company to continue development, but that certainly doesn't mean less exploitative payment models would not have the same effect:

The most obvious solution would be for the *updates themselves* to be monetized (such as via clothing or weapon packs), like most videogames do it. Expansions. DLC. Bazaar-style microtransactions.
Are you really trying to say that's a worse way of monetization? Would you really buy into a game that has an endless development cycle, but charges you $3 each time you want to equip one of the new items they patched in?

[Gilgamesh]

Katsu eredeti hozzászólása:

Gracey Face eredeti hozzászólása:

Because when you want things for free, and get those things for free, you rapidly stop getting them because the person making them stops producing them.

You happen to be commenting on the forum of a product which does "give you a service that you would otherwise have to spend hundreds of dollars on" (bespoke map creation is expensive) *without* requiring you to pay for it every single time you use it. Because you're paying for the developer effort that went into creating a piece of software inherently capable of churning out an unlimited amount of results.
Yet I do not see this "rapid stop of production". Because as it happens, these updates aren't produced for free, they are part of the pitch that makes people pay money.

I'd also argue that any product has an innate lifespan for support and updates, as we can see from the numerous subscription-based MMOs that have shut down because something else/better came along. Obviously repeat monetization creates a bigger incentive for a company to continue development, but that certainly doesn't mean less exploitative payment models would not have the same effect:

The most obvious solution would be for the *updates themselves* to be monetized (such as via clothing or weapon packs), like most videogames do it. Expansions. DLC. Bazaar-style microtransactions.
Are you really trying to say that's a worse way of monetization? Would you really buy into a game that has an endless development cycle, but charges you $3 each time you want to equip one of the new items they patched in?

For something like heroforge that would be absolutely garbage monetization. I can't imagine how much I would HATE to have to buy every update as an expansion pack, instead of just paying for figurines when I want to.

Just imagine, you go to create a hero, you dont' have the bandit pack for the face mask you want, so you need to buy that. You don't have the race pack for the race you want, buy that. Don't have the weapon you want, buy that. Don't have the hairstyle you want, buy that.

Or just buy a mini at $7. Done. Buy a bundle with a subscription at a discounted price. Done.

Heroforge doesn't charge for the base product like a game does. Would you rather they charge you $50 for the builder, and then add on each expansion pack? Oof.

[Katsu]

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

For something like heroforge that would be absolutely garbage monetization. I can't imagine how much I would HATE to have to buy every update as an expansion pack, instead of just paying for figurines when I want to.

Just imagine, you go to create a hero, you dont' have the bandit pack for the face mask you want, so you need to buy that. You don't have the race pack for the race you want, buy that. Don't have the weapon you want, buy that. Don't have the hairstyle you want, buy that.

Or just buy a mini at $7. Done. Buy a bundle with a subscription at a discounted price. Done.

Oh, you didn't buy TaleSpire then?

You're assuming that the "base game" would not have the most common items already as is the norm with products like this. Taking mapmakers as an example, DLCs either tend to be organized by themes, so that for example someone who wants to create a cyberpunk character would just need the base game + the cyberpunk pack, or individual items are sold so cheaply that it'll probably still come out less expensive than even a single HF mini, even before factoring in you'd likely use those unlocks for other characters too.

Likewise, you're forgetting that all those precious updates that HeroForge keeps churning out do not retroactively apply to minis you already purchased.
What's that, so you really like that new face mask and think it'd fit well to your character? Guess you gotta buy the entire mini again. $7 for a face mask. That's the real oof, imho.
And it's actually punishing people for buying in early.

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

Heroforge doesn't charge for the base product like a game does. Would you rather they charge you $50 for the builder, and then add on each expansion pack? Oof.

I actually would. Sounds like that would still come out cheaper than the $180 that people pitch as the best HF offer here.

[Gilgamesh]

Katsu eredeti hozzászólása:

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

For something like heroforge that would be absolutely garbage monetization. I can't imagine how much I would HATE to have to buy every update as an expansion pack, instead of just paying for figurines when I want to.

Just imagine, you go to create a hero, you dont' have the bandit pack for the face mask you want, so you need to buy that. You don't have the race pack for the race you want, buy that. Don't have the weapon you want, buy that. Don't have the hairstyle you want, buy that.

Or just buy a mini at $7. Done. Buy a bundle with a subscription at a discounted price. Done.

Oh, you didn't buy TaleSpire then?

You're assuming that the "base game" would not have the most common items already as is the norm with products like this. Taking mapmakers as an example, DLCs either tend to be organized by themes, so that for example someone who wants to create a cyberpunk character would just need the base game + the cyberpunk pack, or individual items are sold so cheaply that it'll probably still come out less expensive than even a single HF mini, even before factoring in you'd likely use those unlocks for other characters too.

Likewise, you're forgetting that all those precious updates that HeroForge keeps churning out do not retroactively apply to minis you already purchased.
What's that, so you really like that new face mask and think it'd fit well to your character? Guess you gotta buy the entire mini again. $7 for a face mask. That's the real oof, imho.
And it's actually punishing people for buying in early.

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

Heroforge doesn't charge for the base product like a game does. Would you rather they charge you $50 for the builder, and then add on each expansion pack? Oof.

I actually would. Sounds like that would still come out cheaper than the $180 that people pitch as the best HF offer here.

Why are you comparing it to talespire? Talespire doesn't sell expansion packs. If they did, I wouldn't do it. If Talespire had said at launch they were charging for the base game AND the add ons, I would've passed. That's also the reason Talespire will have a life expectancy on development. They can only produce so much content off their initial sales. Then they'll, rightfully, have to move on. No one works for free.

You keep talking about it costing $180. You mean the year subscription? You planning on making 60 minis and getting another 60 minis in premade packs? Because that's what a Year sub would get you. 120 minis. $1.5 dollars a mini. Yeah, robbery. Or maybe just choose a different plan based on what you're looking for? 15 minis and 3 more premade packs (15 minis)? $50 right there. And I guarantee with your expansion pack idea, you wouldn't get the same variety in those 30 minis from the "base game". Or even just do 5 minis and 1 free pack (5 minis) for $20. I haven't come close to spending $50 on the site yet, and I've gone through two campaigns, starting a third.

If you think a DLC pack would cost less than $7 I have no clue what you're smoking.

[Katsu]

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

Why are you comparing it to talespire? Talespire doesn't sell expansion packs. If they did, I wouldn't do it. If Talespire had said at launch they were charging for the base game AND the add ons, I would've passed. That's also the reason Talespire will have a life expectancy on development. They can only produce so much content off their initial sales. Then they'll, rightfully, have to move on. No one works for free.

You keep talking about it costing $180. You mean the year subscription? You planning on making 60 minis and getting another 60 minis in premade packs? Because that's what a Year sub would get you. 120 minis. $1.5 dollars a mini. Yeah, robbery. Or maybe just choose a different plan based on what you're looking for? 15 minis and 3 more premade packs (15 minis)? $50 right there. And I guarantee with your expansion pack idea, you wouldn't get the same variety in those 30 minis from the "base game". Or even just do 5 minis and 1 free pack (5 minis) for $20. I haven't come close to spending $50 on the site yet, and I've gone through two campaigns, starting a third.

If you think a DLC pack would cost less than $7 I have no clue what you're smoking.

I am comparing it to Talespire because as per a previous post, that is - allegedly - the only way it could continue development.
So either TaleSpire is going to have DLCs, or that post was just a load of hot air and a hypothetical miniature creator wouldn't have a need for additional monetization either. If you've bought into TaleSpire, what it aims to deliver was arguably sufficient to satisfy your expectations.

And yes, of course I'm talking about the 1 year subscription, because this is what the defenders of HeroForge's current monetization kept pitching as an argument that the minis do not "actually" cost $7. Which is rather reaching when not everyone has a need for as many miniatures or wants to spend this much money up front, but it is an argument I've accepted in the spirit of having the conversation.

What I won't accept, however, is that I should price in things I didn't even -want- like those premade minis, 90% of which I have zero use for in my games because they're mostly fantasy which my games are not. Especially when it's used as an argument against unlimited(!) custom(!) minis.

Gilgamesh eredeti hozzászólása:

If you think a DLC pack would cost less than $7 I have no clue what you're smoking.

Please re-read above: For that price point I specifically said "single items". As an alternative to bundles which would give you enough stuff to make dozens of characters with.
If you don't think that works, I suggest you take a look around at how various videogames monetize their customization, such as Conan Exiles and its mix of DLC packs and individual Bazaar items (which can indeed be priced as low as $1).

Heck, at this point I'd even take an -actual- HeroForge subscription (meaning: for unlimited minis, like how subs usually work) as most of the other mapmaker tools have, even if that was my reason for buying TaleSpire.
But paying per mini really is the worst possible option for customers. Though perhaps the most profitable one for the devs, aside from selling loot boxes.