Two weeks of Diablo Immortal experience as $5 player

General Discussion
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About me: long time Diablo franchise fan. I am open and generally support any Diablo game. I played Diablo 1 and Hellfire, spent a lot of time in D2/D2R, a lot of time in D3 and tried D4 in Blizzcon.

I play very hard in this game for about two weeks now, grinding about 10 hours each day. I only bought the $5 battle pass and nothing else. I want to share a little bit of my experience.

If you don’t care about pvp or leaderboard or comparing with others, this game is very playable for free and you can enjoy most content. If you care about competing with others seriously, probably stay away from this game for free to play .

Right now, I am at Paragon 39 and can easily blast through hell 2 difficulty. The best players on this planet, due to the server Paragon cap are also farming hell 2 although they may have 3 times more damage than me. Every day, I am probably doing the same thing as them, quite often side by side in a dungeon.

When do pay to win show its impact?

  1. Challenge Rift Leaderboard. They can push much higher levels than me
  2. Shadow Rank. The can beat higher path of blood than me
  3. The obvious PVP. Except those super experiences guy like Wudijo or Rax, this mode is mainly about credit card power.
  4. The eligibility to attend Rite of Exile. I joined the #1 clan on our server. My power is probably top 15ish. There is no way for me to compete with them.

Fear: the gap between me and pay to win is becoming larger and larger because there are very limited way for me to improve my own power. Everybody gets the same level of hell 2 gear with some grinding. The legendary gems are way too powerful.

For a MMO game, we don’t just play as solo. We have to interact with others, but don’t try to compete because that will only lead to frustration.

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I only play 5 days to Paragon 8.
What got me are all the buildin limits, not p2w directly per se.

For example I could only do 1 shadow run per day, 1 lassal run per week, 2 bounty run per day, 1 useful rift per day (when I got my single free daily crest), all is left is running dungeons (up to 5 legendary per day after it become useless)

That has 2 problems:

  • it’s a bit hard to team up with friends, unless it’s for dungeon (or they login at the same exact time as you)
  • I didn’t enjoy dungeons that much
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With 5min bouties and time gates, The game does not appear to be designed around binge gaming but “toilet bound gaming” (Semi pun referencing an anime I’ve never watched)

STFC has about the same mtx strategy as DI. STFC has realized the feared gap between whales and minnows. But, in there, those f2p players just accept that they’ll never be as powerful as the whales.

In there, the whales purposefully stay in separate clans and distribute between factions. This helps “even the playing field” for clan and faction battles. (There’s also server “battles”, but those are “points only” competitions)

The downside, such negotiations happen outside of the game (Discord) A pseudo government is formed, complete with all the anti-goverment rhetoric.

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Interesting feedback, I am not defending the model at all as i think its very predatory, but don’t you want these Whales to progress into a league of there own anyways or are you saying they will always be in the same brackets?

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The whales in STFC are in a league of their own. The power gap helps ensure that.

Buy, not a literal league like “Team Shamu” or “Team Moby Dick”.

Yes they help out in clan vs clan competition. but a 1 whale clan with 5 f2p can be over run by a clan with 0 whales and 50 f2p players. Plus, its really a matter of “who shows up”.

Faction vs Faction and server fights are more Points Chase then pvp. The whales lead and encourage everyone to help out. In the end, everyone on your team wins.

For me, a “predatory game” requires you to pay to do “normal” end game stuff at every turn. Revive at corpse for $0.99. Find a hidden lair for $1.99. Etc.

Except for Crests, the “predatory” aspect of DI seems to be limited to whaler items. As such, it seems “predatory” aspect if DI only exists for those who desire to compete, binge play, or speed through content. (which seems to be most of PC crowd)

Hopefully, how Blizzard handles month-season will shed some light on this. (And could easily change my mind). If DI operates like STFC, we’ll get new content each month-season to encourage repurchase of the BP by the f2p players (what i suspect will be the primary source of income) . If not, DI is dead.

Reminder: when the game is no longer FUN, uninstall.

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Yeah, I am kinda on the fence, I play d2 for the magic find experience, and d3 for the rift experience, it is in fact the crests combined with the games base drop rates, that keep me from the experience I was hoping for, even in the low brackets. Not looking for any ranking, just a sense of progress. Personally, I’m just waiting to see if this is how it is or if adjustments are on the way.

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People should stop with this “Free to Play” -it’s very misleading.
Where did the money come from to developed Immortal? -probably from the sales of D3. If microtransaction stopped, will immortal continue to be Free? -of course not.
So one way or the other some one is paying for it. I do agreed with a lot of what StarRay is saying, but I would never call it “Free to play”.

Up to paragon 15 now, and have spent $24. To me: If Diablo Immortal((at current state)) was sold upfront, is not worth a Triple A game price. This game is too much like D3, and it doesn’t even have new class yet. It’s more like a mediocre D3 expansion that’s worth no more $30 with the new zones, Pvp, and legendary items. -remember there is no new class.

If D3 S27 is decent, I will probably stop playing immortal.

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I have played since the first day it became available on the app store. I didn’t spend any money until yesterday and only spent $4.99 for the empowered battle pass because I like the cosmetics and extra benefits it offers. I found myself really enjoying the game and had put a decent amount of time into it and it seems like a game I will play for some time, so it was worth it to me to put a little money into it.

I’m a more casual player who likes taking their time, so I’m only level 56 at the moment. But so far, I have been really enjoying the game and haven’t run into any pay to win issues. I liked the OP’s post because it sounds like a fair representation of the game. It seems to me that if you want to be the best and be super competitive, the game can definitely be pay to win. If you are more like me, and just play for fun and are only looking to have fun, I think the game is fine to play free.

I did some PvP yesterday for the first time and did of course got destroyed, which I honestly expected. I did kill a few people, yay! lol. I won one match and lost one, so all was fun. Honestly, it didn’t feel any different to me than WoW’s imbalanced PvP how people go in overgeared, overpowered and just destroying those who aren’t. It honestly felt not different to me than that. I don’t have any desire to get high rank or anything. I will probably just do some PvP casually on occasion for fun.

This game seems perfectly fine to play free, unless you desire to have “the best” character or top ranks. Other than that, I’m having a great time on my $5 I spent so far. I didn’t even need to spend that to progress or get more powerful. I wanted the battle pass for the extra perks and cosmetics. It did give me some gems and things that increased my power for sure, but I was doing fine before buying it, so wasn’t necessary is my point. Even as a totally free player you are given a legendary crest at battle pass level 20 I think it is.

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I don’t think you understand how it works, KuKoc. EA isn’t using specific line numbers to allocate money for game development.

D:($) is like shareware - pay what you feel it is worth. I have gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. In my opinion, it is a LOT more fun than D3 - it bores me to tears, because there isn’t anything to actually to do.

Since I started D:($), I haven’t touched D3; I suspect I won’t until I get tired of D:($), or I am selected to play the D4 beta.

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What?

D3 has more to do. DI caps you at 8 bounties a day. In Diablo 3 you can run them endlessly farming loot. Everything is DI is capped. You’re also forced to group starting in Hell 1 and even more so in Hell 2.

D3 has no caps which means it has infinite things to do.

DI you log in 1 hour a day and complete everything. Everything after that is a slow and dull. Leveling is too slow, does not feel rewarding at all. Anyone enjoying DI is a very basic gamer. Or someone who doesn’t expect much from a video game made in 2022.

The odds you actually get into the Diablo 4 beta is very low. You will probably play the open beta with a pre order or some silly event and tell all your buddies 10 years from now you played in the D4 closed beta.

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Kid, not everyone uses the same playstyle. Not to mention the fact that none of my friends actually play video games.

D:($) is a mobile game - it isn’t designed to be played like D3. You may not be leveling up very fast, but I am not in any rush and I am mostly enjoying it (I did not like stepping through a rift and having a final boss sitting on top of it - the boss had just killed another player that had triggered the boss.). Other than that - good times.

I explored every square inch of D3 in 2012; I did the same when RoS came out, and again after the Necro DLC came out.

In 2022, my D3 choices are:

Run the exact same bounties over and over (and over)
Grind the same rifts over and over (and over)

I have no interest in leaderboards - I did that 40+ years ago.

Nothing in D3 is new. When was the last time a new dungeon or exploration zone was added to D3?

Everything in D:($) is new. There are so many nooks and crannies to explore, that D3 looks like the arcade game that it is.

I do my bounties, challenge rift, greater rift, etc and slowly work my way through until I am ready to put the game down.

Yeah, in D:($) I can complete my daily grind (of content I have never seen before) in an hour or so.

That isn’t a bug - it is a feature.

I am not stupid enough to devote more than an hour a day to a video game. They are video games - not something important (like a tabletop roleplaying game, or a wargame)

I won’t be grouping for Hell 1 or Hell 2 - I am a solo player. I won’t be PvPing either. I have no interest in it.

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But why do that when all you can hope to get are what’s akin to whites and blues in any other diablo game? I mean if you just like grinding the paragon levels, I guess I understand. Curious what drives you tho.

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  1. I am farming for exceptional legendary items which can still improve my power by another 200-300 CR
  2. I am farming materials for the more and more expensive upgrade. Which can be another 200-300 CR.

I need to meet the bar of hell 3 when I am at level 80, the 2120 CR requirement. Currently I am at 1584 CR

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sorry you wasted $5. :frowning: