My biggest concern for "Season Pass" is paying for content I don't unlock

PC General Discussion
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Obviously, I hope D4 is an absolute banger. I enjoyed what I played of the beta well enough (melee characters didn’t feel powerful enough to warrant the danger of close range, though), so I definitely remain hopeful I’ll be playing for a long time.

But my one sole concern for the game’s future – and my personal enjoyment of the game – is the approach to “Season Passes”.

See, I’m fine paying money to support a game I enjoy. I appreciate that there’s no direct subscription, but obviously it takes money to keep a game like D4 up and running, not to mention adding new content. Being able to chip in for cool stuff over time is totally fine in my book.

My concern for the Season Pass is how it can and will affect play habits, and frankly, you can absolutely wind up paying for content that you don’t actually unlock, because you didn’t play enough “when you were supposed to”.

So, here’s a little psychology tip:

When people feel like they’re supposed to do something, the human brain stores that information differently. It becomes a “task” or a “chore”, instead of something they want to do. There are countless studies on that, it’s nothing really new.

Now, I’ve already heard people “defend” the current Season Pass design with replies like “then don’t pay for a Season Pass until you’ve already reached the end and you know everything is unlocked”, or “it probably won’t even take that long to unlock stuff if you play all the time”.

To the former point; the worst possible thing you can do is encourage someone not to buy your product. So that’s a stupid suggestion.

To the second point, again, it’s not just about “how much time it takes”. It’s the fact that if players feel they’re “supposed” to do something – without any intent of their own – their brain automatically treats that as a “chore”. Which can also backfire, and cause players to avoid doing such chores (one of the reasons that “games as a service” model is seeing a swift downturn in player retention across the industry lately).

My personal solution is simple:

If you pay for a Season Pass, then it remains “active” for you indefinitely. So even when the “season” ends, as long as you already paid for the season pass, then you can keep chipping away at unlocking all your little cosmetic goodies at your own pace.

So not only does buying a season pass mean you get extra content to unlock, but it also gives you the peace of mind that you can unlock it whenever you want to play, not when you’re “supposed to”.

Not only does this alleviate the issue of “paying for content you didn’t actually unlock”, it also makes buying a season pass more enticing.

But more than that, it alleviates a potential avenue that could (and likely will, judging from reports from other GaaS) lead to player-burnout.

So I would highly encourage Blizzard to consider making a change of some sort, allowing season passes to remain active and their (cosmetic) contents unlockable even after the “season” ends.

It’s honestly a Win-Win for everybody.

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I wouldnt count season pass rewards as content though, they are purely cosmetic. All i need from Blizzard in that regard is them showing like a week before a new season what the rewards of the new season pass will be, so i can decide if buy it and when i buy it, then i make sure i have enough time to get what i want from the pass.

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There is an even simpler solution. Don’t buy the BattlePass right away. Wait until you get a couple of weeks in. If you are past tier 20, you do not need the accelerated one. However, you do need to buy the BattlePass in order to get the cosmetics you have skipped.

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never buy anything from the store, unbind the key. Do not let them integrate these systems into every single franchise. if/when they try, pretend it doesnt exist. Control our content.

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SP are theoretically completely optional, so it’s up to them to come up with stuff that’s motivating enough to get people to buy the pass and then actually play. You can probably also wait to see how much you’re playing a season before deciding if the SP is worth it, without losing too much (if any) progress if you don’t buy it right at the start.

And sure, D games are all about compulsive behavior and neurotransmitter rewards, so figure that out and learn how to be the master of your own fate and don’t let either internal or external influences make you do anything you don’t want to do. This is how you become powerful. Level yo self up :slight_smile:

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Exactly. Well said sir.

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I don’t get it… you can buy the Season Pass the day before it expires. Why would you willing buy it knowing full well you won’t complete it in time? Just wait till the end of the Season to buy the thing instead.

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They’re not playable content, sure. But if you’re paying for a season pass, you’re obviously paying for the cosmetic contents (since I believe that’s all they’re supposed to be). So if you pay for a season pass and don’t unlock everything, then you essentially paid for content you didn’t unlock.

To the other folks:

I can certainly appreciate you don’t have to buy them. And that you shouldn’t unless you know you’re going to unlock everything.

But really think about that; the game just came out. Do you know how much time you’re going to play? You might be enjoying the game, but do you know you’ll enjoy the endgame? Do you know that something IRL won’t happen that pulls you away from playing as much as you’d like?

Nobody can see the future. So it really circles back to “well, just don’t buy it until you’ve already reached a level you’ll unlock everything you want”. Which, again, it literally telling people not to buy the season pass. And if you don’t play enough to fully unlock everything each season, you’re encouraged to never buy one.

Now obviously, that suits my wallet just the same, since it’s not like anyone enjoys spending money.

But it also just seems like kind of an unnecessary pain-point. And when you do pay for a pass, and miss out on the stuff you want, that can be a huge wet-blanket on the experience.

For example, I used to be a big fan of Destiny 2. I wasn’t into raiding or the most hardcore player, but I enjoyed it and played quite a bit. They ended up doing a season effectively dedicated to a character “Saint-14” (kind of a long story, but it was a big deal), and I paid for the season. However, some real-life issues came up and I wasn’t able to play enough during the season to unlock the cosmetic armor.

Now granted, Destiny 2’s season passes were particularly grueling (you were honestly looking at probably 200 hours active playtime to finish one), but the point remained: I missed out on the stuff I wanted, and I was so disappointed, I ended up quitting. Not like “I huffed and puffed and quit”, but logging into the game became a bummer for me, because I knew I didn’t have the stuff I’d been so excited to try and earn.

Just food for thought.

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Are you paying for the cosmetic contents though? As far as i see it, you are merely paying for the option to get the seasonal content, most likely for a lower price than they would have when they become available in the in-game shop, but actually paying for the cosmetics would mean to me that they are immediately bound to my account when bought.

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The solution most players reach regarding season passes is to wait until they’ve reached the max level(or the most important reward they personally care about), then buy the season pass.

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If there’s anything about the process that makes you feel bad, then I would say don’t do it. So, if you buy the pass and then feel bad every day that you’re not playing and grinding towards the last reward then holy heck that’s not worth it. Don’t end up damaging your mental state over a dumb game.

But on the other hand, if you think to yourself, well, I could play more Diablo today but do I really want to, and then remember, “oh, I’m not too far from the next SP reward, that could be fun to get”, then it could be a positive thing that makes you feel good and enjoy the game more.

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They wont add the ability to continue BP progression post season, (even though they should.)

Mostly if not only to strongarm people into panic buying the more expensive accelerated pass.

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In Fall Guys, I bought my first season pass only after I had already progressed it far enough to unlock enough coins to be able to buy the next one. And I only bought the second season pass after I had progressed that one far enough to unlock the one after.

And if I ever don’t progress a season pass enough to be able to unlock the next one for free, I won’t buy it. So I paid for exactly one season pass in Fall Guys for real world money, and that’s the most I will ever buy in that game with real world money.

But since the D4 season pass doesn’t contain enough currency to unlock the next one, I simply won’t ever buy a D4 season pass at all. And if people are doubting I can stick with that, know that I haven’t ever bought an OW2 season pass yet for the same reason.

Not that big a loss for Bliz - they lose $10 for the one single season pass that I might have bought with real world money. But it’s still $10 lost revenue for them.

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Again, this isn’t the end of the world or some unforgivable sin or anything.

But I do think the season passes would be better, for everyone involved, if they kept them active indefinitely as long as you purchased them.

  • It encourages you to buy them, even if you don’t know your play schedule

  • It encourages you to buy them, even if you don’t know if you’ll play enough to unlock them all at once

  • It encourages you to buy them, even if you aren’t planning to play in the allotted timeframe

  • It encourages you to buy them, because you can “collect ALL the cosmetics” even if you don’t know your future play schedule

  • It encourages you to buy them at the start of the season, instead of waiting and possibly even not purchasing them if you don’t reach a high enough rank for the stuff you want

  • It removes the stress of “hurrying up to unlock them” within a specific timeframe

  • It averts any feelings of disappointment from not unlocking the content you want

  • It averts any feelings of “well I’ve already missed out on some cosmetics, there’s no point trying to collect them all”

  • It averts possible player-burnout from players feeling pressured to play when they might be ready for a break

  • It averts alienating players who paid for the season pass but didn’t unlock what they wanted, which can lead to negative association and even quitting the game entirely

  • It averts the inevitable wave of complaints when the first season ends, and people didn’t unlock what they wanted (you don’t have to agree with the sentiment, but in your heart of hearts, you know it’s going to happen)

  • It averts people not paying for the pass, who might have been willing to but were on-the-fence for too long

Like I said, there are really only positives. It offers more flexibility for players, less headache or disappointment, and more purchases for Blizzard.

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I mean, technically… but they gain the revenue from all of the players who will still buy it but would’ve only had to buy one if they’d done it that way. So they lose 10 dollars total from you, but for every player who will still buy the season pass and would’ve just chained the coins to buy them, they gain 10 dollars every 3 months. lol

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Part of the idea is to create FOMO. This means that there is a limited time to get/do the thing and that it why you pay money. Also, one would hope, we get expansions, new content more often than once a year. As it stands now, Diablo Immortal is getting free new content about every three months.

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‘free’
As someone who led a clan that was top3 on the server for 6mo, who was immortal for 4+ weeks, I can tell you for a fact and with 100% certainty that nothing in diablo immortal is free. If you are free to play, it costs all your time, and if you vs someone who plays as much as you, and pays real money for stuff, you will never match up. end of story. Thats why whale clans dominate every server. The 1% cannot abide leadership/government under control of the poor masses. Not irl, not ingame.

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The Season Pass model is fine. Pay for cosmetics, put in effort for a period of time to receieve them. What bother me is the “challenges” we need to do in order to advance each unlockable. I don’t care if it’s a 3 month long journey. When I have to do “Kill 20 world boss” or “Clear a Nightmare Dungeon Solo without dying” it ain’t going to be fun.

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It wont be just cosmetic though. Not when you can purchase materials for crafting stuff, gems, runes, etc.

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The paid Season Pass is cosmetics only. The free one everyone gets on top of the paid Season pass has the Smoldering Ashes.