Won’t vessel of hatred be out before this?
The things they are adding are part of the base game. Seasons in LE don’t have a gimmick for 1.0 and 1.1 when that launches.
1 Like
I think using LE as an example isn’t a great idea. they really haven’t had much in the way of seasons. I think its also very disappointing. I have played it for years. it just never became as fun as any other arpg on the market. including d4. i think it was also way overhyped.
Everyone enjoys different things. That is why I am happy to have so many options available.
The current trend of AAA game design is to capture gamers who enjoy different playstyles. Triple A game nowadays cost much more money to develop and become a risky business venture. Therefore those new games will tend to play safe by offering more options instead of pigeon-hole players to certain playstyles.
Many big game studio have halted the new game development and Microsoft also has a new round of firing affecting 3 game studios. It is really not a good time for a game to appeal to a certain niche of players and limit its acceptance of a broader player base.
1 Like
Well by that logic, financially speaking it would be time to be conservative in investments, which means doing things you already know that works.
So following this, for Diablo a franchise with more than 20 years of history with successful seasons/ladders you know what it should mean 
1 Like
The trend of gaming is evolving from time to time, there was no Open world in this type of game 20 years ago and MMORPG was the most popular along with Arena Shooter like Unreal tournament which no longer popular.
The current design trend is about sticking to the game mode with most player base from their most recent release and copying what other competitors are doing successfully. The most recent release before Diablo 4 is actually Diablo Immortal and it was the best earning game for Activistion Blizzard in their financial report.
It is also pay to win
There are many games are pay 2 win like Candy Crush and it does affect its popularity and its purpose in generate business revenue for a company. Game is a consumer entertainment product with the purpose of entertaining its customer while bringing in acceptable revenue.
D Immortal is Pay2Win for PVP, but I am not a PVP player. There are many guides in YT on how to complete all end game contents in Diablo Immortal without paying any cent. It will require much longer grind, but this kind of game is about grinding in general
100%. Seasons destroy ARPG’s. It’s time to go back to the roots where ARPG’s were story driven and not season driven. Seasonal content is not fun “endgame”. These companies that create ARPG’s need to invest in actual endgame mechanics to hold players over in content gaps.
3 Likes
Now, you want D4 to have P2W aspects too?
It is not possible for D4 to have P2W as we have paid the base game. P2W only shall apply to free game like POE.
This is not what you said in your previous comment, also unfortunately there is no rule or relationship making a game you payed for being P2W or not, many of these MMORPG are paid and are also p2w.
Regardless, I would like to point out:
D4 in its current seasonal model is already this. The game sold well, a bunch of people bought it due to what it was marketed for and keeps on playing because of this. The game made a lot of compromises to broaden its audience and I am pretty sure it is enough to keep a good stream of revenue.
I have scrolled up and read my post again and I didn’t say D4 should be P2W.
Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite sold well during the launch and the complaint only come after players play for some time. Both game has stopped release new season content. Microsoft has fire 90% of Halo Infinite Studio to cut the loose as they already hit its revenue target from the sales in launch.
Here, you implied it is ok for you to have a P2W aspects in a game as long you don’t play the said game mode, even though other players could be affected.
Yep, you can see in both of them an example of what happens when you try to make a game your core audience is not expecting nor have asked for, with negative changes to many aspects that made the franchise successful to begin with and few/none positive, specially the part of trying to fix a thing that was not broken… It is funny and true for both examples.
Nevertheless, that is not the case for D4, at least for now, near a year later and a lot of people are still playing, despite some bad seasons and mixed initial reception.
1 Like
This is simply because seasonal content just doesn’t pay the bills. PoE has a cash shop for cosmetics at crazy prices that support the dev team. The players buy such cosmetics because they support the dev team. PoE has almost endless content on their “eternal” servers and it’s constantly being updated with new things. Heck, their camp system is enough to keep you entertained for hours. Their non-ladder servers are also PACKED with players looking to group up and stuff. They also didn’t pay $70 for the base game.
Diablo 4 has an AMAZING open world with so much to it. When it launched I thought it was going to actually be an RPG again where the world would be constantly updated in forms of expansions/dlc. Seasons literally make 90% of the game irrelevant.
D4 has an upcoming expansion. This is how these games make money and continue making money. Not from seasons. People will only do seasons so many times before the popularity falls off. D3 ladder is literally just filled with bots.
I always play poe at the beginning of the season. I have played every season of d4 as well. i have a feeling i’m not alone. They have been proven to work. Getting rid of seasons is a terrible idea. if you don’t like seasons you have eternal.
getting rid of seasons isn’t going to happen. there is zero chance it will.
2 Likes
You said this about PoE, but you definitely needs to see what they say about their own leagues model and shop revenue. Just google their interviews about the topic, it is not that hard to find.
The game is literally designed and dependent on leagues to financially survive and most of their revenue comes from league starts. Every time they fail a league, they took a financial hit. So, the leagues are where their money is and that is why you see a lot of emphasis on that in the game in all spheres, even many of the MTX acquisitions systems are designed for leagues.
It is not their “Eternal” that sustain their business, but the leagues. The game evolved over the years to reinforce this idea.
1 Like
I’ve read a few of their interviews. They’ve said that they make a lot of their revenue from supporter packs. The income from these packs go into a funding account.
They also earn a lot of money from people purchasing stash tabs
When a new season launches they update their in-game shop with items/cosmetics that fit the theme of the season. The average cost of these items is $20+ with many of the support packs going for around the cost of a new game. So they see an influx in income at the start of season because of this reason. Their seasons also have more of an impact on the game. This is how PoE has become so bloated with different systems over the years.
POE has a business model that works for them and their free game. They have no other way of earning income for their game because it’s free. Even their major expansion to the game PoE 2 will be 100% free to play.
I guess PoE was a poor example because D4 isn’t a F2P game but has F2P revenue mechanics.
It was a different time, but the game that started this whole genre (d1) had no seasons and was extremely successful. D2 followed suite and was also extremely successful, but later added seasons when no more expansions for the game would be released. This kept people playing and started a whole new mindset for the diehard ARPG community.
It’s not a bad thing but someone of us fell in love with the lore of diablo and just want more story content.
Only Blizzard has data on who are the core audience, the rest are just speculation. What we know this is a game owned by Microsoft under Game pass after 70B acquisition, so we can speculate the shift of core audience unless we have real data.
All game only care about change affecting majority players, as we also don’t have data about who is the major.