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

[Elim Garak]

What are you even talking about? "Not really"?

Of course it's "yes really" buddy. It's not a "balancing decision", it's just a business decision that all.

If you say so.

[mrgreenthump]

Not true, you can still get unbound legendary gems dropping just like that. I had 3 so far and I play for only 2 days total. You can also just craft them.

What legendary crests do is that they guarantee a legendary gem drop for the rift run.

What is true that as F2P player you will have much less unbound gems to trade and of course much less chances to even see a worthwhile gem.


There is plenty toxic monetization there, but I do have to say that players need to calm the fuck down, because quite frankly - it's like every game ever, give it a month or two and the supply as well as value of top gems will drop, as well as people realizing that it's not some zero sum game where you either are decked with 5-stars or may not bother.

I also bet that like every Diablo game ever - they will release update/expansion down the road that will soft-retire this all anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

And before people draw their pitchforks out, I reiterate - Blizz could put half the bullshit they put out in the store and still make wads of $$ just fine. Some of the shit there is just pure greed and it's very unfortunate, because the game itself is pretty good.

I have no doubt that Immortal will bring Blizz ungodly $$ and will be pretty successful. I just hope they won't be encouraged to fill Diablo 4 with this crap to such an extent.

I thought the only tradable x/5 star gem F2P can trade is the random crafted one with FA runes? Not that it matters cause you can only craft 1 of those per month and it's still likely to be quite worthless if your goal is 5/5 star gem.

But yes, in general this is pretty much as greedy as a company can be. The time skips are huge, basically 2 Dollars is 1/3th a month with legendary gems. And not only that to even awaken your gear, you have to pay, so it's fully paywalled. But guess if someone gets a rank 10 gem any time soon they are probably whaling. So the additional cost isn't going to feel like anything for them.

[Gaidax]

If you say so.

Yes, if I say so.

What I hope for Immortal is that with enough player pressure it will be relieved of some of this shit, just like D3 was relieved of RMAH. And various weirdos who sit here trying to justify the most toxic P2W parts of the game only shoot themselves in a leg.

It's ok, the game does not need 2 Legendary Crest types, it does not need 3 different types of passes and it does not need a dozen currencies which only exist for the cash grab purpose. Half of each of that would do just fine, if not outright 1/3.


See, I am a kind of a guy that came to accept that microtransactions will exist going forward in just about any multiplayer game. But there are "ethical"(ish) microtransactions and there are cancerous ones and unfortunately Immortal is pushing all the way to the toxic ones full speed ahead.

A shame, given the game plays well and has great ideas and game modes, besides defaulting to the rifts.

[PC2]

I finally got to 60 and learned about most of the game features. I've only thrown $60 at the game so far and all it did was speed up the power leveling process. Everything important is FTP and there is plenty to do in the game that is more than just grinding monsters for their item drops and XP-on-kill. The FTP players who were claiming that important/core parts of the game were off limits to them are simply wrong as far as I can tell.

[Ghost of Cow]

I make a point of never clicking on a single video that does this, and if it shows up on my front page I immediately tell youtube to stop reccomending that channel.

I knew some common ground could be found in this thread!

[mrgreenthump]

I finally got to 60 and learned about most of the game features. I've only thrown $60 at the game so far and all it did was speed up the power leveling process. Everything important is FTP and there is plenty to do in the game that is more than just grinding monsters for their item drops and XP-on-kill. The FTP players who were claiming that important/core parts of the game were off limits to them are simply wrong as far as I can tell.

? You cannot Awaken your gear without paying. So that's not wrong. You pretty much cannot get high PvP rating on servers with a lot of whales and hence the circle of strife is dogshit for everyone(even those who spend <$100). It's always been said you can get through to 60 without paying, I got there very casually and I've spent 0 on the game. The main complaint we have is that you are heavily incentivized to spend on the cash shop. And then you get to the end game and realise that only thing that really matter are the legendary crests, so you may have just wasted majority of that $60. The game doesn't end at 60, it's only the journey to the end game. If you used $60 to speed up to 60, you got a bad deal coming and Paragon will be slower and you are 20+ levels behind.

You effectively cannot get a 5/5 star gem without buying. Yes there is a chance, but it's so low that majority will never see one.

The end game heavily revolves around PvP and partly challenge rift leaderboards. Challenge rifts can be somewhat fun as F2P/casual spender, but in battlegrounds you get absolutely smashed by everyone who used money on this game. It's not even close, whales have 2-3x your health and they aren't even done yet. For you to get there you have to spends thousands. When they aweken their gear they get a lot more powerful. To where the difference is 4x or more to F2P. That is what we complain about. We don't care about you wasting $60 to level, as you even said you didn't need it to get there.

Sure, apart from Awekening, a F2P player "can" get fully 5/5 starred gems. And be as powerful as the mega whales haven't even reached. But that's gonna take a few hundred years. What are the chances there are new things added to the game next year that whales get to spend money again and F2P are in the same situation, where they could only catch up a bit and now the gap is even wider.

[Jerot]

Not really, it is most likely a balancing decision. Out of 10M who downloaded the game no more than 3M have paid. Which means that 7M will be doing regular rifts for their gems, if they got unbound gems aplenty the market would be flooded and there will be gem inflation. So they have most likely adjusted the drop rates to account for the greater mass of gem producers.

If only there was some mechanic by which gems got deleted from the economy. Oh right, you have to sacrifice them to level up the gems you want to use. And you require more gems than you can reasonably acquire as a paying player, let alone as a free-to-play. 1x 5 star gem which is only ~2,000 times as rare as a 1-star gem takes over 4,000 1-star gems worth of power to fully rank up. The demand is setup to always be higher than the supply, or else it would hurt the value of buying crests and not hitting jackpot rolls.

The main source of inflation should be the infinite platinum being pumped into the market by paying players compared to the few mechanics that consume it, but prices are capped on both ends by blizzard to prevent over inflation or deflation of gem prices. Or more likely, to prevent free players from having a decent amount of platinum to interact with other mechanics/vendors without paying for it.

No, it completely destroys the point, just like the thing I will say next:
Any for-profit company is prioritizing profits over everything else.
It's a balance you know. Between profits and everything else.

If you don't like the balance they've got - you know where's the door, right? Vote with your wallet AND your feet.

No rebuttal for anything else I said, just another painfully obvious statement that completely misses the point?

Going for profits isn't the problem, it's how they are trying to generate them. It's a waste of an otherwise good game.

By your logic there is no reason to discuss anything. You can never argue for why things should be different than they are, or even why they should stay the same if they are being changed, because you can just walk away. So why don't you?

*laughs in ironic*

Why are you defending predatory techniques?

Of all the manipulative things blizzard does with WoW, why are you picking a single virtually harmless mechanic (Which has since been removed) from a 5+ year old expansion? I already voted with my wallet, I started playing in Vanilla and I stopped in Legion. (A / H)

Believe it or not, I'm not actually against everything blizzard does, but I'm not going to praise them for everything they got right in DI while its completely overshadowed by the bad aspects of its monetization. If you and other people can ignore it and still enjoy the game, good for you. But they are wasting a huge untapped market of players who don't want to support these kind of business practices.

[mrgreenthump]

1x 5 star gem which is only ~2,000 times as rare as a 1-star gem takes over 4,000 1-star gems worth of power to fully rank up.

You have to take into account that there is a pity system that you get a x/5 star gem every 50 gems. And you will get something else than a 1 star at times, so a 5/5 star is roughly 1060 times more rare than a 1/1 star gem. I know it doesn't make much of a difference, but mafs.

[Orby]

Imagine if Diablo: Immoral hadn't had all these MTX and predatory gambling mechanics. Imagine if Blizzard set such good standards and a precedent to what a good mobile game could be, we all know Diablo Immortal is a good game underneath all that rubbish that caked on top of it, so why did they add all these microtransactions in to begin with? (don't answer that I was being rhetorical).

Can you imagine the good will Blizzard could have gotten by proving that they could make a mobile game without microtransactions in it. Is that hard? But Blizzard gonna be all like 'fuck that shit we need to destroy any remaining good will we have in case we still haven't some left in the corners of our shitty business they call a company'

[Ghost of Cow]

Can you imagine the good will Blizzard could have gotten by proving that they could make a mobile game without microtransactions in it. Is that hard? But Blizzard gonna be all like 'fuck that shit we need to destroy any remaining good will we have in case we still haven't some left in the corners of our shitty business they call a company'

I mean, their "fans" were frothing at the mouth the second a "stupid mobile game for stupid kids and girls and non-gamers" was announced.

Pretty sure "good will" was never on the table.

[kamuimac]

It's hilarious that people are still defending this game.

]

because we have fun i nthere without spending a single cent ?

honestly why woudl you care if someone spends even 1 mln on it - how does it affect your gameplay ? because it certainly do not impact mine

[Orby]

I mean, their "fans" were frothing at the mouth the second a "stupid mobile game for stupid kids and girls and non-gamers" was announced.

Pretty sure "good will" was never on the table.

Most of the people were pissed because they unveiled a mobile game among loads of PC die hards. Just because you throw a cat in a pool of sharks doesn't mean you should kill the sharks. they were dumb enough to throw the cat in the pool of sharks.

Regardless of how it was perceived at Blizzcon, the main arguments were, 'bet they'll fill it with microtransactions' that was some of the big concerns I saw. Blizzard should have then turned around and not done that, that would have shut them up, not see that argument and think 'wow thats a good idea, more MTX, people will be so happy' derp derp.

because we have fun i nthere without spending a single cent ?

honestly why woudl you care if someone spends even 1 mln on it - how does it affect your gameplay ? because it certainly do not impact mine

No one is telling you that you shouldn't have fun, your fun is your fun, you can have as much fun as you like, we are not complaining about your ability to have fun, we are arguing in the abusive predatory MTX that may not affect you personally, and instead encourage that good game you like, instead of the cake of shit they decided to cover it with. You personal enjoyment is not the debate or argument here.

Its weird how this arguement

Argument: "This game is full of predatory gambling MTX"

Gets people to be like...

Defence: But I am having fun
or
Defence: It doesn't effect me

None of which is connected to the god damn argument lol. The problem is the MTX and gambling and what they represent in general. No one is taking your fun away... Jesus H Christ on a stick...

[Jerot]

You have to take into account that there is a pity system that you get a x/5 star gem every 50 gems. And you will get something else than a 1 star at times, so a 5/5 star is roughly 1060 times more rare than a 1/1 star gem. I know it doesn't make much of a difference, but mafs.

Just for the sake of math and accuracy.

1/1: 75.4%
2/2: 20.1%
?/5: 4.5%

For ?/5
2/5: 75%
3/5: 20%
4/5: 4%
5/5: 1%

Assuming 2,500 rolls you will trigger the pity system 50 times
1/1: 1,847.3
2/2: 492.45
?/5: 110.25 + 50

2/5: 120.1875
3/5: 32.05
4/5: 6.41
5/5: 1.6025

So I was wrong, 1,152x as rare. But practically speaking the point stands, you will need more gems to rank up. By the time you max out on all 1-star, you can awaken or start working on the 2-stars you found in the process, and so on all the way up to full 5-star awakened.

[Elim Garak]

If only there was some mechanic by which gems got deleted from the economy. Oh right, you have to sacrifice them to level up the gems you want to use.

Yeah, it's a very complex system that no amount of localized math can explain. You are looking at individual parts of a whole system as independent systems and then math it out to ridiculous levels.

If everyone just uses their gems to get fragments - sure - no one would sell them.
But that's not what the reality is gonna be. You can probably use your beloved math to calculate when players reach the point they wouldn't need gem fragments but still will be getting gems.

And then realize that most players would most likely hunt for the 5-star ones for which they need Platinum and that means selling all their lower gems on the market.

The game is new - players will figure it out.

[mrgreenthump]

Just for the sake of math and accuracy.

1/1: 75.4%
2/2: 20.1%
?/5: 4.5%

For ?/5
2/5: 75%
3/5: 20%
4/5: 4%
5/5: 1%

Assuming 2,500 rolls you will trigger the pity system 50 times
1/1: 1,847.3
2/2: 490
?/5: 110.25 + 50

2/5: 120.1875
3/5: 32.05
4/5: 6.41
5/5: 1.6025

So I was wrong, 1,152x as rare. But practically speaking the point stands, you will need more gems to rank up. By the time you max out on all 1-star, you can awaken or start working on the 2-stars you found in the process, and so on all the way up to full 5-star awakened.

Yeah, am not sure if 50 + pity or 50 including the pity. But yeah, it's a pretty silly system that unless you are an oil prince you can't really progress in any meaningful way.

[Delekii]

because we have fun i nthere without spending a single cent ?

honestly why woudl you care if someone spends even 1 mln on it - how does it affect your gameplay ? because it certainly do not impact mine

It affects your gameplay because the game is designed for him to spend 1 million dollars rather than for you to have fun.

A company that purports to put fun and players first in their mission statement released a game that puts profit first without any attempt to hide it.

If this game was designed as a fun game first and a profit generator second, the experience would be better. It's really that simple.

[Elim Garak]

It affects your gameplay because the game is designed for him to spend 1 million dollars rather than for you to have fun.

You don't need to make a game a grindfest just to make whales pay. Whales pay because they can, not because they need to. And if the game is a grindfest no one will play it even for free - and thus NO WHALES.

[Guyviroth]

I remember 16 years ago when people lost their shit at Bethesda selling horse armor in Oblivion for $2.50. Now people are okay with buying items for more than that, that gives them a chance at getting an upgrade, because its "now normal", because its "a mobile game"... as though the platform the game is released on makes any semblance of difference.

Oh well. Give it another 16 years and every game will become an endless chore/grindfest that you'll have to pay more money than an actual AAA title's RRP to get anywhere in it.

[Elim Garak]

Oh well. Give it another 16 years and every game will become an endless chore/grindfest that you'll have to pay more money than an actual AAA title's RRP to get anywhere in it.

How is that different from pay $60 bucks and playing the game with little to none grindfest? Well, paying $60 upfront doesn't leave you any choice.

[Roanda]

I remember 16 years ago when people lost their shit at Bethesda selling horse armor in Oblivion for $2.50. Now people are okay with buying items for more than that, that gives them a chance at getting an upgrade, because its "now normal", because its "a mobile game"... as though the platform the game is released on makes any semblance of difference.

Oh well. Give it another 16 years and every game will become an endless chore/grindfest that you'll have to pay more money than an actual AAA title's RRP to get anywhere in it.

I was naive like you...but i discovered why this type of games are popular after i played for the first time genshin impact.
Let me explain:

Dopamine hits with gambling
Throwing real money at the game also produces dopamine as hell
Gambling with real life money

You might look at my list and think..."wtf is this? what are you talking about?"
But long story short...is all about the dopamine hits and gambling with money.

What am i trying to say?
Im telling you WHY this "gacha" games are popular. Is because WASTING MONEY and GAMBLING is a feature for this crowd...and NOT a negative