Scary.
Just release a game… and… The end.
Nothing else is needed. Fine to get an expansion or two. But first, focus on releasing a game worth playing.
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1, that was the only option, and tons of games, including some iconic ones, are buggy.
2, development costs were incredibly low compared to today.
3, the internet allowed for those fixes to be made, which by the way, costs money.
4, the wants of gamers have shifted towards playing less games for longer periods of time. Many want updates to them. Long gone are the days of D2 where a game can last players 10 plus years with barely anything but bug fixes and 1 addition. Devs know this, hence GaaS.
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For you maybe. Gamers have spoken loudly and want fixes, content faster than expansions can bring.
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Doesn’t seem particularly loud. Plenty of “gamers” seem to have loudly asked for the opposite.
That too is a choice.
Plenty of lower development cost, yet amazing, games are made all the time.
That seems somewhat true for young kids, only caring about Fortnite, Minecraft etc. But for the most part the opposite seems to be true. In the past people played few games for very long time, since there just wasnt that many good games per year. Now there are more great games releasing than anyone will ever be able to play.
Also why stuff like Game Pass starts to be popular. If you only play the same game for years, Game Pass would be an incredibly bad deal.
that made me cry. 
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“original Zelda” has no server cost (Not Game as a Service)
“original Zelda” has never received any fix, nor patch, nor content
“original Zelda” has nearly no active players (uncomparable to D2 / D3)
What you describe is Diablo Immortal’s Pay 2 Win Model.
Everyone agrees Pay 2 Win has to be avoided.
The proposal, if you ever read it, is completely different.
You pay to play lore adventures described in the books.
It is optional content, if players want to dive in the lore.
Well, what would the season themes be?
If they were anything like D3 seasons, selling them would be P2W.
After completion, Cosmetics are added to the pool of lootable objects.
Cosmetics provide zero advantage.
They basically are cosplays.
It just sounded like they had some themes too?
If those different rules results in more powerful characters, well…
Even though the seasons only directly reward cosmetics, which is how it should be for sure, you also still get all the normal gameplay; finding items and all that. So if you can do that better in seasons, the P2W is on.
If the seasons are more like “challenge modes”, that makes the game harder, and reward some cosmetics for taking up that challenge, that could be great fun.
I get your point.
Ex: Season 16 - Ring of Royal Grandeur bonus provides some advantage over a non-seasonal character.
One way to handle this is to contain / lock seasonal characters into their seasons.
This way the seasonal advantage never leaves its seasonal realm, thus never competes with non-seasonal characters nor other-seasonal characters.
I updated the main post to reflect this.
How would that work. A season character is just deleted after the season ends? That would be pretty brutal at least.
Anyway, even if there is no direct competition between season and non season characters, time still matters.
If you can get much further in X hours in season than in non-season, you are effectively buying a P2W Time Skip.
Imo, any season theme should be focused on adding challenges rather than making the game easier. And just make it accessible for all characters, both old ones and new ones created for the “season reset”.
It is fine if those challenges then give unique cosmetic rewards.
Well it is not always easy to properly assess. I missed last season since enjoyed s24 a bit too much with the item hunt, so I can compare s24 but not s25. Yes for most seasonal players that only play a season once in a while the bonus from those items in s24 may well have made them go further and reach higher paragon and gems they normally would have done even without seasonal play.
On the other hand someone who would have played all that time non season over the years will likely have a way stronger char and be able to clear higher and faster non season anyway. So is it p2w advantage really or just an extra for the season so people can do more in the season, but for the real powerhouses non-seasonal play is still the better way to go due to power build up over the years? Hard to say, but personally I would say the older the game gets the less it would be p2w and in a younger game the advantages of season would need to be lower compared to non-season play if that will even be a thing in D4 and seasons will not affect the whole world, which would be the better option anyway. Keep fresh starts as something the gameplay rewards you for like in original D2 and not something you need since main game became stale like D3.
Yeah things like a shared stash are a mixed blessing, especially if so all encompassing and account wide as in D3 and now in D2R. Pretty sure it will return as well in D4, so there will be a need for real fresh starts likely. Not sure though whether that should tie in with seasons (easy option, but would mean you might have to disassociate season from the normal world as disadvantage) or become its own feature.
From my point of view:
- Accessibility
- Seasonal entry fee is small: Only $1
- Equality
- Players of a given season pay the same price
- Players of a given season have no advantage from one to another
- Pay 2 Play
- Season completion objectives are ajusted to the seasonal advantage
- Players of a given season still need to play a lot to unlock rewards
- Ephemeral fingerprint
- Regularly, Characters are deleted
- Regularly, Leaderboards are reset
- Isolated
- No transfer between seasonal realms or non-seasonal realms
Main post updated with this information
Shouldnt be any power-rewards at least, but rewards in the form of cosmetics, sure.
I have nothing against fresh starts, heck, over the long run it is my preferred way to play these games, as starting without a bunch of items in your stash is just more fun.
But as good as an optional fresh start is, as bad it is when the entire gameplay becomes those seasonal fresh starts, just because the game gives insane power boosts that 1) makes non-season unviable and 2) ruins the gameplay through that immense power boost taking away all challenge.
Yeah, but why not make it something you can access on both old and new characters?Why tie it to the Fresh Start mechanism?
Seems like the season themes (without any kinds of power boosts imo) could exist just fine separately from the Fresh Starts. Of course, both the fresh starts and the season challenges could come with various cosmetic rewards.
Not a fan of this either. It should be up to people themselves if they want to delete their characters or not (well, and mistakes made in HC of course 
)
Having your characters deleted without your own input or fault would be very demotivating, and likely not help to sell those seasons to players.
One thing about price. In D:I there is a lot of talk about how expensive the P2W is, with potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars spent.
But as a principle imo, P2W does not become better just because it is cheaper. Heck, in some ways it gets worse, since it makes it even more clear that the game is designed around people paying for the advantages.
No it doesn’t. D1 and D2 say hello. Always online for “security” is BS.
Also false. There are tons of games on servers online with cheaters, and companies that create and SELL cheats.
So make the game offline like it should be.
Do Diablo fans have a disorder that restricts them from playing other games? Must they be hooked into one game their entire lives with constant mediocre patches?
Creating a game that will be fun for years without having to keep selling you stuff seems to be the problem in the industry.
Create an amazing gaming experience for one price and people will keep coming back for more. This has been tried and true and still works.
This whole “gimme something new now” every few days is getting out of hand. And the industry does not care what it does to the future of gaming as long as they get their fast cash flow, sooner rather than later. This gaming monetization scheme is more like upkeep. Like paying bills. Keep paying to keep playing to get more stuff. If you don’t pay, you’ll miss out.
I will most likely not buy D4 on principal. I alone won’t make a difference. I really don’t like your idea in trying to “improve” the monetization scheme, because it will only harm the consumers, the devs, and the face of gaming.
I and most others who care about good gaming will pay one price for a great experience and hope the game sells well enough for more games to be made.
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I mean, Diablo should have official servers. It just shouldnt be the only option.
Not online only, not offline only. Just offer both choices.
Security is a bad excuse by devs.
I often wonder that too.
There are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands games released each year. Diablo doesn’t have to keep your attention every single week for a decade.
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Clients binaries are public, can be retro-engineered and heavily cheated.
Servers binaries are private, thus a lot harder to hack.
Client displays, might even compute locally, but this is temporary data designed to improve the responsiveness of the client.
Servers are the only source of thruth when it comes to compute real numbers (location, damage, xp, loot), manage leaderboards, save progression.
Servers allow clients to play from any country and ensure 99.999% availability as saves are stored on a globally distributed storage.
Servers handle chat and multiplayers features.
Servers handle the distribution of original game, as the distribution of its updates (features, bugfix and security patches).
So yeah, servers are very handy.
That explains why all games are GaaS (Game as a Service) now.
There is no FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) involved.
Paid content is optional.
If you like it, you can buy it.
If you don’t like it, you don’t buy it.
That’s all.
That one right there is a big no from me.
another no for me.
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Yes and no.
For example, D1’s game integrity is broken and can not be mended. Later, D2’s game integrity only could heal back because D2R released; legacy D2 still have exploits. Item dupe was a common practice among the playerbase of ARPGs for example, but now it’s gone with many different synchronization checks in the netcode DRM. A game could be fun and also have its own integrity to keep its challenging content and aspects.
An isometric ARPG title being full of randomization, it uses multiplayer features to mellow out the harsh consequences of rolling bad dices. There’s nothing wrong with that. Players always take the least resistant path and like when they’re in control. Isometric ARPGs offer none of that by design and only way of gaining control is to break the game down.
When this happens eventually, players will try to judge a game by its cover and think it’s lacking integrity, a solid experience or challenge. Yet developers and designers don’t have to stand there and listen how their efforts ripped apart for years to come.
Alternatively they can offer a solo experience but this puts a great emphasis on the randomization factor of the game and this strays it away from ARPG but a rogue-lite at its bare-bones design. This is where player has to dedicate themselves to find all the intricate details that developers designed for them, also build everything they like from scratch by modding. That’s also a filter for player experience they will refrain from picking as it’d be following another title or genre’s footsteps instead of creating their own unique product.
Companies want servers to keep players under one roof so; they can reflect those numbers to their quarterly reports, keep game integrity and see full efficiency of their advertisement campaigns that they banged on millions of dollars for.
Wow. You clearly put a lot of thought into this idea. Now please stop. Not every game needs to be chopped into tiny peices and sold bit by bit in an attempt to drain our bank accounts dry.
A full, uninterrupted game experience is vastly preferable to buying a game $1 to $5 at a time.
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