I tend to agree with you.  Since games are only to last on averge 30 min, and you already have to spend gold to upgrade your citadel, it's very unlikely that you'll see items over about 5k, if even that.  IMO, top tier items should be around 7k, so they're still very rare, but at least there's the possibility of them showing up.

Barring that, I'd like to at least see some items costing around 2k; as it is you're either spending ~1k or nearly 4k gold on items.  There's nothing in between.

I think the prices are reasonably close to the right place (perhaps a 10-15% reduction in price is needed, but surely no more than that).

In particular, I think the design of an RTS should force players to make interesting strategic decisions. If players have plenty of money to both buy all citidel upgrades and deck their demigods out in the best possible gear, then the game becomes less interesting. Therefore, I support prices that make players think about whether it's worth fighting with fewer citidel upgrades in order to afford powerful pieces of gear.

[Note: There's an important related question of whether 5000 gold worth of citidel upgrades yields a comparable benefit to 5000 gold worth of items, but that's not a question that I have enough data to answer]

The only problem i have is the all- fathers ring. It is a hell of alotr better than all of the other items that cost 20,000

It just makes it hard to gauge what is important.

Citadel upgrades are hard to ignore. Games seem to average about 25-30min for me these days, and while certain items are nice, I find myself getting a few lower to mid level items, and going in and co-op'ing on citadel upgrades. Depending on how long is left after the most important upgrades, I may get one high end item, but usually with never more than 5 min of gameplay left.

The high end items, no doubt, are nice, but some of the lower end items you can stack (from same item class), and for much cheaper, are very inticing.

If your teammates all acknowledge that citadel upgrades are primary, it changes how you play. You may feel less inclined to move ahead alone and move out as a team (together, instead of splitting up, I mean).

If you both become uber-DG's, with great items, you better be able to hit things from a distance or move fast, or it'll be in vain - no? This approach could lead to a less effective start with a stronger finish.

I'm not sure if changing anything could really help - I'm sure some minor tweaking is bound to happen at the very least.

Regardless, it will no doubt be interesting to see what happens here.

Best-

The items are definately overpriced for games that are supposed to last around 10-15 minutes.

The item price seems to me to be only temporary. It's nigh on impossible to attain most of the items anyway so I guess they want us to focus on itemless gameplay issues.

Items are you whacked most i'll spend on a item is 1000 gold i buy all the cheap stuff then citadel upgrades and potions

i spend alot on items that put all gold to citadel.