Okay guys, I think we need to clear up a few things here.

We've heard you guys and we haven't closed the door to changing the item, but as of right now, that is how this item is and it works the same as every other cost reduction item in the manner of how it reduces it. (i.e. Straight cost reduction, not a reduction on the rate his price increases per level - I'm going to be straight here, none of the other items work this way so I am not sure where it came from that it would be the case here. Not trying to put blame on anyone, I just don't think it makes sense to be upset about a mechanic not working 'as intended' when it never worked like that in the first place.)

Now, onto the item and how it works. The item is multiplicative with the other items.

Here is the formula:

resultPrct = 1 - ([1 + additives] * [1 + multiplicative])

So lets say you have all the cost reduction items, of which they are: Big Plague's Chier Pet (5% reduction), Steve the XMAS Star (20% reduction), Magical Keg (5% reduction), and the Golden Trophy (10% reduction to Carl).

How does that look?

resultPrct = 1 - ([1 + 0.05 + 0.2 + 0.05] * [1 + 0.1])

which goes to

resultPrct = 1 - (1.3 * 1.1)

So we end with a reduction of 43%, so now in the case of Carl, his base level is reduced by almost half, it is now 57% of what is was (which is 1Q2 down to 570Q).

I've put this to show Carl's cost from 1 - 20, 50, then at 100 just to see, you can click here to view it. The ironic thing? It's actually a bit better than what we intended it to be when paired with the other items, but that's okay.

Additionally, "I'm not sure the devs have a real grasp of the concept behind beta testing." - there are a lot of decisions that go into release times and we released quickly today so we could finally push the fix for Android 7 to help get those players back up and running, there was also nothing really added this update, other than these items and the fix for A7, not much to test.