Oh Blizzard, how you have fallen (Diablo Immortal).

[chiddie]

That's the thing I don't think people grasp.

It's f2p, buy it's not really free, you're giving it your time, which you have a finite amount of.

Go spend it doing something worthwhile. If you want to spend it playing a game, there is TONS of good game options right now or better yet go develop a skill or learn something.

Don't spend it on this manipulative and shitty game, soon to be full of just shitty addicts and whales still playing it, that makes shitty people at a shitty company rich and sets a terrible precedent for the future of gaming.

You may not like the mtx model, but the game itself is far from being shitty. It’s a mobile version of Diablo and it’s pretty fun to play if you like the genre.

99% of people complaining here have not even installed the game.

[Th3Scourge]

I actually can't believe some people are shilling for the monetisation practices deployed in this game.

It's not even a good value proposition. Other F2P games like POE have an excellent value proposition whereby the most you really need to buy longer term is stash tabs, and they are

1. inexpensive
2. completely deterministic

From there I can enjoy the entirety of the game without needing to sink an annual salary to obtain the most power. If that is a reasonable value proposition to you then I don't know what you are doing on these forums. Go enjoy your yacht

The value proposition for WoW is rather reasonable. I pay a box price for the xpac (which for the last 2 I have purchased with in-game gold) of $60 AUD or whatever, and a monthly sub price of $20 AUD or whatever. Considering I play about 4 hrs every day on average, that's very good entertainment value (cost of a movie for example is like $20 AUD or some shit these days for like a 2 hr session)

For me the cost to play wow on a subscription basis is offset by the value I get out of it, and the opportunity cost of alternative entertainment options is far higher. The cost to play DI and expect to progress in character power in a meaningful way to me could exceed hundreds of dollars per session, and to obtain true end-game power would cost me the equivalent of a few months of work.

Not only that, I would have to pay money in DI just to have the chance to progress my power. What an absolute scam. The worst part is that the game is good to play, it's just the absolutely disgusting nature of the monetisation that means I will probably never put more than a dozen hours into it as a F2P game because there is little value to get out of the money spent

[Jerot]

So people can only enjoy farming things for years when it isn't a primary focus of the game? Or is it just because you say so? Isn't it strange how in once instance you say grinding for years is bad yet in the other say it is perfectly fine? Blizzard has also devalued things like TCG loot cards by adding them to the game or tying them to promotions. A few did complain but the vast majority didn't care.

You cannot be serious... That is what you took away from my argument? You might want to work on your reading comprehension.

Funny you mention TCG loot, because I have a majority of the old UDE points rewards and scratch cards, and yeah I was a little upset when they got added as promotions for classic, but it was essentially a different game. There wasn't a way to acquire them anymore outside of paying ridiculous secondary market prices. It was legacy content.

The card game they came from has been dead for years, you can't even redeem the UDE point cards anymore. So obviously the situation is very different. At least the tabards were pretty rare from the BMAH, and I don't think the original ogre disguise was ever added. But most importantly; The original source was buying them, you didn't grind to get a Spectral Tiger mount or Foam Sword Rack.

WoW pushed cosmetic/mount grinds to sell subscriptions, which I always thought was an outdated model, but you couldn't pay to skip the grind.

The only blizzard game I'm willing to give a pass on this is Hearthstone because it comes with the genre, I've played MTG for nearly 20 years and used to play/collect Pokemon and Yugioh too. Yes it has elements of gambling with packs, but what you get always has value to someone. Would I prefer if hearthstone was single-purchase or completely F2P with cosmetics? Of course, but I've accepted that TCGs and CCGs have a different model than most games. The exception was that you could earn cards by playing, not that you could pay to skip the grind of earning cards. Precedent and context matters.


If you're going to ask for peoples time to play your game, respect it. Don't purposefully waste their time just to create a market for people who will pay to skip that grind. How hard is that to understand? Sell things that makes the experience of the paying player better without making the experience of the free player worse. Don't ruin the balance of a multiplayer game for the sake of easy profits.

[Plutarch78]

I actually can't believe some people are shilling for the monetisation practices deployed in this game.

It's not even a good value proposition. Other F2P games like POE have an excellent value proposition whereby the most you really need to buy longer term is stash tabs, and they are

1. inexpensive
2. completely deterministic

From there I can enjoy the entirety of the game without needing to sink an annual salary to obtain the most power. If that is a reasonable value proposition to you then I don't know what you are doing on these forums. Go enjoy your yacht

The value proposition for WoW is rather reasonable. I pay a box price for the xpac (which for the last 2 I have purchased with in-game gold) of $60 AUD or whatever, and a monthly sub price of $20 AUD or whatever. Considering I play about 4 hrs every day on average, that's very good entertainment value (cost of a movie for example is like $20 AUD or some shit these days for like a 2 hr session)

For me the cost to play wow on a subscription basis is offset by the value I get out of it, and the opportunity cost of alternative entertainment options is far higher. The cost to play DI and expect to progress in character power in a meaningful way to me could exceed hundreds of dollars per session, and to obtain true end-game power would cost me the equivalent of a few months of work.

Not only that, I would have to pay money in DI just to have the chance to progress my power. What an absolute scam. The worst part is that the game is good to play, it's just the absolutely disgusting nature of the monetization that means I will probably never put more than a dozen hours into it as a F2P game because there is little value to get out of the money spent

Agreed.

10/char

[MoanaLisa]

It's a concern because other companies will see it as an option for them to make money and will start doing this.

If one company gets away with it, then others will follow suite. We won't have games without MTX because every game will eventually have MTX. Snip that shit in the bud before it has a chance to grow into anything. That's why people are complaining.

Mobile gaming is much larger than PC gaming at this point. 2020 was something like $80 billion vs. $55 billion with mobile gaming in the lead. I don't know what you read and look at but if you imagine that Blizzard is the first to do this that's incorrect. If anything Blizzard is very late to the market.

[rhorle]

You do realize that whenever you die in this game, they tell you to "get gud" and get better gear, right?

So it is bad to recommend ways to get better at a game? Notice how you can't buy gear that it tells you to get. That still doesn't change the fact that nothing about the games progression system is drastically changed from a standard ARPG. That means that it hasn't made things harder to acquire just to push you to the store. It is just that the normal mechanics of an ARPG naturally encourages people to want a short cut.

They try to sell you the product by making you feel miserable and then they tell you: "you need this worthless thing we just made up to be happy again"

Sounds like a personal issue. I've yet to feel miserable and have yet to spend a cent on the game. It is a fun hack and slash diversion. A diablo lite.

[Jerot]

I'm sure there will be idiots crying about that, but your argument is silly.
Nothing is devalued. Because when you get a rare drop - that's the value. And you have it. It's in your memory. Someone else getting the same lucky drop - doesn't devalue your accomplishment. So if Blizzard decides to sell it directly - it doesn't devalue anything. That's just histrionics on your part.

Your argument is just as nonsensical.

Aside from aesthetics, part of why it's valuable is because its rare, and takes either a large amount of grinding or luck to acquire. That's why Mimiron's Head is seen as more desirable than a store bought mount. Putting it in the store makes it exponentially less rare or desirable. You see a player with something unique and it creates intrigue;
"Wow, where did you get that!?!"
"How long did you grind for that?"
"You got it on the first kill, no way, so lucky!"
"I've been grinding for 3 years and it finally dropped! Woo!"

You see a player with a store bought mount and its "Oh, they spent $40.". It will never have the same appeal. Scarcity creates demand creates value, if you could print bitcoins infinitely on demand they would be worthless.

That means that it hasn't made things harder to acquire just to push you to the store.

Holy logical fallacies... nothing about what you've described even remotely proves that.

I already gave you a direct example with the D3 gem comparison and you've hand-waved it away. Too inconvenient to explain.

What a coincidence the one diablo where it takes 30x longer to max out a gem is also the only one where you can pay to skip that grind. Seems convenient that it also makes Blizzard money, but there is no way the two are related!

And you completely dropped the PvP defense when I provided evidence. Seems like you don't really know what you're talking about.

[rhorle]

It's not even a good value proposition.

Being able to do pretty much everything for fee is an excellent value proposition. I say pretty much everything because it will be harder to be the top immortal or shadow with out the higher rank paragon, gear, and legendary gems. So obviously paying gives you that perk. It is still possible you could do it while free but just harder. And all of this for free.

So if the value of WoW is reasonable beacuse a box price and a subscription and the time you can spend then doing the same thing for free has to be a better value. Yet you just got done saying the value is terrible with DI.

[KrayZ33]

So it is bad to recommend ways to get better at a game? Notice how you can't buy gear that it tells you to get. That still doesn't change the fact that nothing about the games progression system is drastically changed from a standard ARPG. That means that it hasn't made things harder to acquire just to push you to the store. It is just that the normal mechanics of an ARPG naturally encourages people to want a short cut.

Please stop and don't pretend to be an absolute idiot. You aren't fooling anyone.
You know yourself that the only reason they tell you to "get legendary gems", "upgrade your gems" etc. is because you can pay money to do that. Especially just right after you have been defeated by another player.

Do they do that in WoW when you die?
They don't.
Why not?

Sounds like a personal issue. I've yet to feel miserable and have yet to spend a cent on the game. It is a fun hack and slash diversion. A diablo lite.

It's not a personal issue at all. It's how they designed the game to be and that's just a fact, just because you aren't affected by it doesn't mean that's not how they purposely designed it. You are confusing your misbegotten ignorance with how they designed the system.

It's like saying Facebook/Meta doesn't try to make money with your data just because they never point it out directly. Stop pretending to not know this, just so you can win an argument on the internet, lmao.

[rhorle]

If you're going to ask for peoples time to play your game, respect it. Don't purposefully waste their time just to create a market for people who will pay to skip that grind. How hard is that to understand? Sell things that makes the experience of the paying player better without making the experience of the free player worse. Don't ruin the balance of a multiplayer game for the sake of easy profits.

They do respect your time. You can play and progress for free. Time isn't wasted unless you get no entertainment value out of the game. The market exists for people to pay to skip because some people don't want the grind inherent to an ARPG. It is why the D3 RMAH existed. It is why the D2 black market economy existed. It is why the Boba Fett D1 trainer existed. People have always been willing to be pay for convience.

[Majestic12]

Doesn't this just show that it isn't the game being designed to make you want to spend but that you don't like the costs of the game? And if the costs were lower it would still be designed to make you want to spend and screw over those that don't equally spend?

if they implemented a gauranteed 4/5-star pity system the costs would have been fine. The rates are atrocious and there's no good pity system to back it up. Gachas solve this by letting players pity pull, sometimes even select-pull whatever they want. Diablo Immortal does none of this, it just screws you over.

I haven't touched on the F2P aspect much as I am not a F2P player in any gacha game, but F2P players have no future in this game. There are way too many limitations in check. A traditional gacha awards currency as you progress that you can do direct rolls with. In this game, that would be legendary crests - and those you won't see more than once a month as F2P. And getting a 5-star 5-star gem is 0.025% chance.

[Mojo03]

You may not like the mtx model, but the game itself is far from being shitty. It’s a mobile version of Diablo and it’s pretty fun to play if you like the genre.

99% of people complaining here have not even installed the game.

Well, I'd argue it is innately a shitty game that uses presentation and engineering very well to mask an experience that almost entirely plays itself.

It feels like you're playing the game because they let you push the buttons, but can you even fail anything if 1) you're doing stuff intended for your gear level 2) keep all the buttons on cooldown 3) follow the clear and glaring indicators? Do any of your choices really matter? Are you just going where it tells you to go and using the glaringly obvious gear choices? Or is the game just letting you push the buttons on an almost entirely pre-determined path?

I'd say you're almost on entirely on a pre-determined path.

Which is a large part of why it's a shitty game.

[Majestic12]

They do respect your time. You can play and progress for free. Time isn't wasted unless you get no entertainment value out of the game. The market exists for people to pay to skip because some people don't want the grind inherent to an ARPG. It is why the D3 RMAH existed. It is why the D2 black market economy existed. It is why the Boba Fett D1 trainer existed. People have always been willing to be pay for convience.

"Pay to Skip" is generous in this case. It should be "Pay to have any shot at getting anything". You're not going to get anywhere as F2P in the whole game's lifetime with the current model in the game.

[rhorle]

Do they do that in WoW when you die? Why not?

They do have a recap of what killed you when you die so you can attempt to learn. And yes they should recommend ways to improve because there are a lot of people that need the pointers and tips. What a strange argument to make that just because another game doesn't do it then it has to be bad that this game does it. Of course they want to make money that is the entire point of releasing a video game. Very few are given away for free.

It however isn't the only reason for recommendations to get better and it would be a great industry wide practice to be adopted anytime you die in a game.

It's not a personal issue at all. It's how they designed the game to be and that's just a fact. Just like how Facebook/Meta tries to make money with your data even though they never point it out themselves. Stop pretending to not know this, just so you can win an argument on the internet, lmao.

It is always a personal issue when you let a game dictate your happiness. If you don't enjoy playing a game then stop playing it and find something else to do. If anything is making you feel miserable then stop doing that thing. This is entirely a personal issue because you are choosing to have those feelings in response to what the game is doing. You don't need to feel that way and can just enjoy the game with out having to worry about what others can buy or how long it takes to get "best possible items in the game".

Making money with data has nothing to do with this. Facebook also clearly indicates they make money with your data because that is their entire publicly known revenue strategy. To sell targeted ads. So stop pretending that you know something on this topic just so you can win an argument on the internet. Isn't it strange how easy your own words fit your own arguments?

- - - Updated - - -

I haven't touched on the F2P aspect much as I am not a F2P player in any gacha game, but F2P players have no future in this game. There are way too many limitations in check. A traditional gacha awards currency as you progress that you can do direct rolls with. In this game, that would be legendary crests - and those you won't see more than once a month as F2P. And getting a 5-star 5-star gem is 0.025% chance.

In PvP and leader boards maybe. But there is more to the game then just that so it is ignorant to say there is no future for free to play players.

[KrayZ33]

They do have a recap of what killed you when you die so you can attempt to learn. And yes they should recommend ways to improve because there are a lot of people that need the pointers and tips. What a strange argument to make that just because another game doesn't do it then it has to be bad that this game does it. Of course they want to make money that is the entire point of releasing a video game. Very few are given away for free.

It however isn't the only reason for recommendations to get better and it would be a great industry wide practice to be adopted anytime you die in a game.

What are you trying to say here? This has nothing to do with the argument I just made.

It is always a personal issue when you let a game dictate your happiness. If you don't enjoy playing a game then stop playing it and find something else to do. If anything is making you feel miserable then stop doing that thing. This is entirely a personal issue because you are choosing to have those feelings in response to what the game is doing. You don't need to feel that way and can just enjoy the game with out having to worry about what others can buy or how long it takes to get "best possible items in the game".

Making money with data has nothing to do with this. Facebook also clearly indicates they make money with your data because that is their entire publicly known revenue strategy. To sell targeted ads. So stop pretending that you know something on this topic just so you can win an argument on the internet. Isn't it strange how easy your own words fit your own arguments?

I see you are a lost cause. Denial. You don't even understand what you are saying yourself or what people tell you about this game.
You are delusional and ignorant.
You don't know how these practices work and you don't understand it. But that doesn't mean they don't exist.
It's human nature to have feelings/emotions when things happen. Some players can overcome them, some don't.
And this game actively tries to get money out of those that don't or can't.
It's how the game was designed, nothing you can possibly say will change that.

[rhorle]

"Pay to Skip" is generous in this case. It should be "Pay to have any shot at getting anything". You're not going to get anywhere as F2P in the whole game's lifetime with the current model in the game.

So you can't get up to Paragon 600 for free? What is the physical barrier preventing that?

[Jerot]

They do respect your time. You can play and progress for free. Time isn't wasted unless you get no entertainment value out of the game. The market exists for people to pay to skip because some people don't want the grind inherent to an ARPG. It is why the D3 RMAH existed. It is why the D2 black market economy existed. It is why the Boba Fett D1 trainer existed. People have always been willing to be pay for convience.

You can technically play for free, but you are so off base with everything else and ignoring points being made and evidence. Arguing with you is a total waste of time. Go enjoy your game, I don't know why you dedicate so much time to lying about it on the internet.

[rhorle]

What are you trying to say here? This has nothing to do with the argument I just made.

What are you confused about? You tried to say that it is bad for a game to give pointers when you die and that WoW doesn't do it. They do to a degree and it would be a great thing if every game offered pointers on how to improve when you die. It has everything to do with the point that I told you was wrong. That the recommendations are not just to push you to the store.

It isn't denial to understand that Facebook has made public for years, including in SEC filings, that they make their money off of selling ads and mining user data. The only one in denial is yourself here.

- - - Updated - - -

You can technically play for free, but you are so off base with everything else and ignoring points being made and evidence. Arguing with you is a total waste of time. Go enjoy your game, I don't know why you dedicate so much time lying about it on the internet.

So if you can play for free then I'm not off base. I'm not ignoring any points I am saying they don't apply as you just admitted because you can play for free. Of course arguing with me is a total waste of time because you literally just defeated your own post by admitting you can play for free. Lmao.

[KrayZ33]

What are you confused about? You tried to say that it is bad for a game to give pointers when you die and that WoW doesn't do it. They do to a degree and it would be a great thing if every game offered pointers on how to improve when you die. It has everything to do with the point that I told you was wrong. That the recommendations are not just to push you to the store.

If that's what you got out of that argument then you really don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

It isn't denial to understand that Facebook has made public for years, including in SEC filings, that they make their money off of selling ads and mining user data. The only one in denial is yourself here.

No... you just, once again, can't comprehend how this works and what has been said.
Neither Facebook nor D:I point out, whenever they show you something, or whenever you input some new data, that they will use it to make money and sell your information.
Everyone knows the shop in D:I exist, everyone knows Facebook uses the data.
But both "platforms" hide it while secretely leading you to spend money inside the shop or input more of your data.

When Facebook asks you "here, check out what your friends did" or "tell us what you did last night and interact with the community".
When D:I tells you "hey, this player had better gear than you, maybe you should get it too" they are both doing the same thing.

And both things aren't meant to "help you".

edit: How can you be such a fool?
Do you, for example, think that the grind at the end of Shadows of Mordor 2 wasn't done so that some players would start spending money to skip it since there is a shop that does have no reason to exist before you get to that point?

[Jerot]

So if you can play for free then I'm not off base. I'm not ignoring any points I am saying they don't apply as you just admitted because you can play for free. Of course arguing with me is a total waste of time because you literally just defeated your own post by admitting you can play for free. Lmao.

If you like being treated as a second class player, getting stomped by whales in PvP, completely glossing over every single argument I've made in this thread for what you constitute as an "easy win". lmao

My fault, I shouldn't let people like you drag me down to your level, you'll beat me with experience.

Not a single one of your arguments has been logic based or evidence backed, just "it's this way because I say it is, you are wrong.". Try finding a single credible person who isn't shitting all over the monetization of this game, not the free part, what they are trying to charge people for.