Diablo 4 could end up having microtransactions

[Zoibert the Bear]

Honestly, it may be the first Blizzard game I pirate since Warcraft 2.

- - - Updated - - -

Most people have come to accept MTX is the new norm. Its not leaving so adapt or find a new hobby.



However, MTX does not mean P2W. If someone wants to drop 60 dollars on a flashy Transmog set, more power to them. Just keep the P2W shit in the Mobile genre and im happy.

This is so fucking sad dude, there are actual ways where customers can actuall impact these things. Not everyone gives up as easily as you seem to want them to.

Fully agree on the MTX/p2w disctinction though.

[Exkrementor]

Really? Based on a F2P mobile game you can safely assume a B2P PC game will have p2w elements?

Yes. The standard is that pay2win games are free2play. But the standard doesnt apply to Blizzard. They still think they are some kind of premium developer when in reality they are pretty much the worst AAA developer today. But the competition is hard, Bethesda, EA and Ubisoft are fighting hard for the title. WoW is buy2play, has a subscription AND microtransasctions. Blizzard in 2022 is greed, greed, greed and so substance.

[Tojara]

Of course it will, is this even a question?

If you want D4 to be DOA you would want to pay for the base game and that's it. Successful ARPGs have revenue flow that allows several seasons a year with actual gameplay changes added to them. As much as I love D2, the amount of gameplay changes that were added to the game post D2:LoD were incredibly small. To Blizzards credit though (at least back then, it was something).

Simply put I don't want D3s design at all. Do they update it? Yes. But they rarely update the game to a point where it's progressive and adds to the game. If D3 had something akin to the cube powers being added to it every single season I would shut my mouth, but they don't. To be fair you don't have to pay for D3 beyond it's box price, but what you're getting in updates is generally a seasonal affix that's 1/10th the change of pace that you get from something like PoE, some set balance updates, and that same seasonal affix not being rolled into the base game.

To me ARPGs need to be changed up and progress upon themselves. If D4 did release without MTX I'm just going to assume it's something I play for a season or two, and get bored of because there's no growth being pushed into the game.

MTX isn't inherently bad, and PoE does it well. You earn shit in PoE for competing in seasons, or you can buy cosmetics in PoE.

I won't get into the Diablo Immortal trash talk here. Personally I think Diablo Immortal is a fine game for a mobile game and for what it is. However, I wouldn't want how Diablo Immortal is approached from an MTX standpoint being the baseline for D4.

TLDR; I want MTX in D4 despite being somebody who won't purchase shit because I see it as necessary to grow the game overtime. They aren't going to allocate resources to a game that isn't giving them consistent revenue. I don't want MTX in D4 that's akin to DI though, and I'm sure most people are in the same camp as I am.

If I had to guess D4 will probably be a constant in Xbox battle pass system, with MTX that is purely cosmetic based. This would arguably be the best value for everybody, because that pass costs 20 dollars? With added updates to the game you could pay 60 bucks (plus every other game you get to try) to try 3 different seasons of Diablo, which seems fairly value to me.

[PenguinChan]

So long as there are no P2W aspects and it funds free updates and the future expansions, I’m all for it.

[Fitsu]

I do love the mindset of "Well we're already f'd, what does it matter if we get more f'd" put simply; your response is moronic. Microtransactions have 0 benefit to gamers and only benefit shareholders. By every reasonable account, microtransactions make the gaming experience worse en masse.

- - - Updated - - -



So we're assuming blizzard is now going to do the *right* thing? omegalawl

- - - Updated - - -



Oh yea? Lot of updates to diablo 3 are there? 1 expansion and then rifts for how many years now?

Witcher 3 says Hi! Gave away how many dlc's for free again? And the important part here is; nobody said don't charge for DLC. Stop assuming.

Diablo 3 didn't have microtransactions? I am honestly shocked at the amount of free content we have gotten from Diablo 3 over the years, although we know now that's because they was half way through developing an expansion and scrapped it. Even then, the fact it gets new season themes every season is far and beyond what they need to do.

Also, I have no idea how many dlc's Witcher 3 gave away? From a quick google it looks like it's a single player game that got two content updates both needing paying for. I fail to see how this has any comparison to a game expecting to release quaterly content updates.

Can you elaborate on your comments as I honestly have no idea what your trying to say.

Sure nobody said don't charge for expansions, but I want new content every season like PoE not every 2 years. Unless your saying we pay £15 every season for the content update? Which I dunno, I guess makes sense but I prefer the micotransaction route.

In response to your other point, microtransactions 100% benefit the gamer. Games like PoE, LoL, Apex all rank as some of the best in their genre and all function on micotransactions. These games wouldn't exist without them and there existance certainly benefits the gamer. To coin the term "games as a service" there are some games, such as these where people want constant content updates. Not little balance changes or an expansion every two years but large constant content updates. There needs to be some form of monetisation to support that, you can't expect something for nothing. The system isn't bad, it's the implementation if that matters.

[froschhure]

Diablo immo is too good to stay p2w. As they realise they will change asap or lose to titles that deliver

[Rad1um]

I don't see any reason why you have to be able to upgrade a character to "bis" though. It's supposed to be a mmo that lasts "forever", s.

Nope. Short sighted and idealistic mentality.

NEXT!

[mrgreenthump]

Cosmetic certainly. At this rate a battle pass as well. Other than that we have to wait and see.

One thing that could work in our favor is that Diablo Immortal isn't performing amazingly well with revenue. They've got only 10M downloads, which does sound like a big number, but remember that it's free to play and the usual conversion is around 1-2 Dollars. The effort they've put into this they want it to make at least as much as their PC games, as they sold their remaining good will for this. And yeah if you compare it to Diablo 3 it's nowhere near in revenue and won't be for years at this rate, because there isn't really anything to play for after you reach 60 and people realise they get absolutely smashed by whales in PvP.

[FuxieDK]

And where is the problem?^^ Modern games usually have some kind of microtransactions anyways.

There is a huge different between Pay to Win and Dress to Impress.

If money makes a game easier, it's a fundamental problem, if only cosmetic, who cares?

[mrgreenthump]

I don't see any reason why you have to be able to upgrade a character to "bis" though. It's supposed to be a mmo that lasts "forever", so it kinda makes sense to have the highest rank so far away that it's basically impossible to do, especially on day one. And no, they won't ban diablo in EU, before that happens they would change stuff like they did with diablo 3's real money action house.

Thing is, you won't get there as F2P, you won't get there even by using few hundred dollars. You have to use thousands or else it will take decades to do. Maybe there will be deals that people can buy crests for cheap every now and then, but assuming they get them at 50% discount in years, it's still 50k. And currently without paying at all, you get 2-3 crests a month depending on your PvP performance. That means it's 24 to 36 a year. Assuming the pity system keeps the relative weights of 2/5 to 5/5 star gems, you need on average 1449.3 Legendary Crests to get a 5/5 star gem. Which means 40 years on average as F2P. And you need more than one of those gems to fully max out.

You might say but oh, you don't need a 5 star gem, even a 4 star gem is one in 362.3 crests on average. In fact as F2P you will likely see one to two 2/5 star gems and 3/5 star is already at freq of every 2 years.

[korijenkins]

The business strategies of Blizzard are incredibly inept. Sure, they're profiting right now, but imagine how much more they could be making with competent management. Why would you ever hire someone with this job title and description when microtransactions are as hated as they are? Why would you release DI before D4? Just insanity.

- - - Updated - - -

Doubt Blizzard will infect their actual IPs with the kind of p2w Diablo Immoral has, obviously WoW has tokens and can be used to buy boost services and such but the game is very available for everyone to compete in. Please people remember Diablo Immortal is a Netease game with Diablo skins, it's not an actual Blizzard game that's why they think they can get away with it, and they will.

It's on the Bnet app. Sure seems like a Blizzard game.

[MoanaLisa]

Doubt Blizzard will infect their actual IPs with the kind of p2w Diablo Immoral has, obviously WoW has tokens and can be used to buy boost services and such but the game is very available for everyone to compete in. Please people remember Diablo Immortal is a Netease game with Diablo skins, it's not an actual Blizzard game that's why they think they can get away with it, and they will.

It's a Blizzard game. Let's not mince words about this. It might be an engine from Netease and art assets from there and other places but Blizzard had a team responsible for working with Netease for three years. They are fully responsible for it regardless of how people view the end product.

[Strawberry]

I don't mind, but I'll have to keep an eye on WHAT the store will be about.
It would be nice and actually welcomed by me if they used something like a Battle Pass.
Rocket League is a F2P game with a great store with a Battle Pass that's not always what you want, but usually includes tons of different cosmetic stuff that makes me want to get.
Fortnite is a bit more aggressive with a shitload of (great looking skins).
If it goes the Epic F2P type of store, yeah, I'm all for it.

But:
PoE has trash looking drops because the store is all about cosmetics.
This is why I hate the game. Everything looks trash unless you spend money. And even then the game looks trash because I don't like the character design/art.
I fucking hate that game and refuse to play, even though it has tons of content.

[mrgreenthump]

Don't know if this has been posted. But think we can replace the could topic with Diablo 4 will end up having microtransactions.

[Fencers]

Gameplay video up:

[MoanaLisa]

Gameplay video up

Looks nice enough. Gameplay trailers often do.

[RobertMugabe]

They somehow seem to forget that they have to compete against PoE 2

poe has a shop too...

[MoanaLisa]

Not really off the topic: Overwatch 2 will be free-to-play. They're going all in.

[Chromell]

How is this a surprise to anyone? Specially after D:I? Of course it'll have MTX.

[RobertMugabe]

If you don't see the problem you are part of it.

Do you say the same about PoE 2?