Geeknamese
Explorer
I think 4E leaned heavily in some ways in the direction of an MMO to the point that many players disliked aspects of it because of it. With no gold piece value for magic items, 5E appears to be reacting (or overreacting) to that and hearkening to the days of 2E and avoiding the fact that cost was part of 1E, 3E, and 4E. I am a bit surprised that WotC would do this considering that if a given DM doesn't want magic item costs, he can ignore them. But if a given DM prefers the cost concept that has been around for 3 editions out of 4, he has nowhere to go except to do the work himself and set up his own costs. That just seems like a bad design decision considering that many DMs might expect that to be part of D&D.
I suspect that I will be using a lot of influence from 1E and 3E costs (although even there, one has to take into account that a +5 3E ring is probably the same as a +3 5E ring, etc.), but I shouldn't have to. IMO.
I'm kind of hoping that WotC puts up an online document for specific magic item costs in the future.
I think what they are trying ton so is leave it in the DMs control on how much magic items will cost. That's why there is no mention of how much gold should be received per encounter or any mention of treasure in the monster stat blocks. There is no mention of it because it's up to the DM I believe (until the DMG comes out lol). Right now there is no expected treasure per encounter by level measurement that would even hint at how much magic items should cost to be within reach of x player by x level.
I've played many of the modules in Adventurer's League and Horde. You don't really get that much gold. I prefer it that way but I'm well aware that many people have gotten accustomed to the "expected gear by level" type of play. Right now, there's no expected gear by level and no expected gold by level so it's kinda hard to have expected costs for magic items. As soon as there is a published expected cost for a magic item, players/DMs will automatically think, hmm...I should have that item by level x, so with as many encounters per day we've been having, I should be receiving this much gold per encounter. What the hell is wrong with you cheapskate DM? We should be receiving way more gold per encounter because we need to be able to buy such and such magic item by level x.
If the DM controls the cost of magic items, he can figure out how much gold he needs to start incorporating into treasure.