Why Diablo went mobile

Turns out when you do something for hundreds or even thousands of hours, you get somewhat good at it. Shocker! Dark Souls is basically a meme by now because of its difficulty. I can run through that game with both hands behind my back because I played the shit out of it and know every enemy pattern in my sleep and can abuse the shit out of some mechanics. So is it easy or hard?

It also counts for PvP games btw. Like yeah, there's always someone better than you, but if you git gud enough you can blindfoldedly roflstomp the average player and then argue that the game doesn't take skill because it's so easy.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Im almost 41. Solid gen x. I embraced mobile gaming years ago, as did most of my same gen friends. This isnt about stubborn old guard. Its more elitist gen y and igen who never knew how shitty pc gaming once was, or how much we dreamed of gaming on the go at the current level.

I draw a distinction between mobile gaming and "phone" gaming

mobile gaming is great! I grew up on gameboy games and loved them, the switch is dandy

but those freemuim phone games well they kinda disgust me

sure there are exceptions and some decent phone games as well as some ports that are good but in general I do consider it casual junk

so basically its not fair to lump all mobile gaming together

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ghamadvar wrote:

I really wanted to answer. But i think it's unnecessary. You are on fire. Keep on burning. I sincerely think that this is the wrong place for this type of tonality and behaviour. Nobody attacked you like you attacked others. If this comes along with being "hardcore", i don't want to be a part of it.

and yet you still couldn't hold yourself from typing this post, analogous to announcing that you would've punched me but held back. funny. Gaming is a huge part of my life, was a huge part of my life, just like my job and my hobbies, and I don't take it lightly. Deal with it.

I could write a 10 page essay how [single player] pc gaming of 80s and 90s are asolutely superior to todays gaming due to casualization in terms of level design, player engagement, exploration and mechanical ideas. How today's games are soulless and polished turds or retreads of old ideas. And no one on this forum will be able to debunk my statements, because unlike them I actually know what Im talking about. They can argue the aspect of modern games, but I bet they would struggle to say what Daggerfall has over Skyrim, even though Daggerfall is by far and away the more superior game, even though it was made 15 years before Skyrim.

they won't be able to discuss how Thief Gold is a better stealth game than anything made in the last 15 years, yet today's gamers don't consider hiding in shadows and using sound as main props of stealthy gameplay.

I don't even think they'll be able to compare the very few modern games that DO have good level design - Dishonored 1 and to lesser degree 2 - to old games with excellent level design. because they simply haven't played enough games from those times even though they always come through first talking they played Atari this commodore that.

Also, this is off topic forum , so I thought carebearing and gentle clit stroking was out of the window when it comes to discussion here - pardon me, I owe a douche to everyone involved. excuse rough penetration, Ill try and I'll be gentler. I need to remind myself that Im talking to modern gamers here.

if you want a fiery discussion though, come by to rpg codex and see the discussion there, its fucking glorious. and we actually KNOW our games. we can talk about jagged alliance 2, baldurs gate, all of wizardry series, Ultima series. and when you talk out of your ass, people will call you out. because just like me those are gamers who cherish good games, not fast food polished animal style hodgepodge that is modern gaming



no one could answer my points that actually pertained to games. it certainly won't be Charan who can't distinguish betrayal at krondor - one of the finest rpg games in history- from return to krondor

it certainly won't be dave who Im pretty sure thinks gaming is in a better place nowadays and who thinks only elite gamers with plat rank (or whatever the fuck it is in mp games, have no clue) can say that people play mobile games are looking for a more casual superficial and non-taxing experience that is streamlined and simplified - aka definition of casualized.

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k1rage wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

Im almost 41. Solid gen x. I embraced mobile gaming years ago, as did most of my same gen friends. This isnt about stubborn old guard. Its more elitist gen y and igen who never knew how shitty pc gaming once was, or how much we dreamed of gaming on the go at the current level.

I draw a distinction between mobile gaming and "phone" gaming

mobile gaming is great! I grew up on gameboy games and loved them, the switch is dandy

but those freemuim phone games well they kinda disgust me

sure there are exceptions and some decent phone games as well as some ports that are good but in general I do consider it casual junk

so basically its not fair to lump all mobile gaming together

that's a fair distinction.

gameboy was basically a handheld 8/16 bit console though
switch is a console on the go

when people say gaming for mobile, I believe phones are implied first because thats the moneymaking audience. there aren't that many people who actually game game so they need a dedicated gaming platform like switch.

most of people who play games on phone are phone users first that play to kill time, not ones who play games first and use phone for other purposes (by the way yet another good indication of casual gaming)

its like when people talk about pc games, we're really talking about mostly windows games, as other os maybe can run games and there are ports, but market shares are insignificant for linux or macOS or other *NIX based system such as solaris or AIX

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鬼殺し wrote:

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k1rage wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

Im almost 41. Solid gen x. I embraced mobile gaming years ago, as did most of my same gen friends. This isnt about stubborn old guard. Its more elitist gen y and igen who never knew how shitty pc gaming once was, or how much we dreamed of gaming on the go at the current level.

I draw a distinction between mobile gaming and "phone" gaming

mobile gaming is great! I grew up on gameboy games and loved them, the switch is dandy

but those freemuim phone games well they kinda disgust me

sure there are exceptions and some decent phone games as well as some ports that are good but in general I do consider it casual junk

so basically its not fair to lump all mobile gaming together

Handheld gaming =/= mobile gaming. Mobile connotes 'mobile phone', and by extension android/ios. Handheld is a short version of 'handheld gaming console'. No one who uses either term confuses the two, although sites like TouchArcade will cover both.

This is still something of an arbitrary distinction these days, especially given a lot of phones and certainly even some mid-range tablets are more powerful than the current popular handheld console, the Switch. Nowhere near as convenient or dedicated to gaming, but tech-wise, they have more grunt. Coding-wise, they're FAR more flexible, for fairly obvious reasons.

Which is to say that mobile gaming, as opposed to handheld gaming, is its own thing, yes, but it's neither better nor worse than any other sort of gaming. Don't be like certain others here who can't see past that old prejudice. I can and do play full PC ports on the go. Some even have pretty good control schemes.

Mobile gaming isn't all freemium junk. Not by a long shot. That's just the glossy, attention-grabbing surface. And isn't it just a little bit ironic that some of you would be so aggressively against that...on a free to play game's forum that just happens to have some of the most expensive single-purchase mtxes in the Western-made free to play market? You can now buy a single mtx in PoE for over a hundred USD. Sure, it's a full armour set, but jesus h christ. And SURE, it's cosmetic -- but let's not pretend that stash tabs aren't essential for smooth and comfortable PoE play. It was a backdoor into pay-to-play, but PoE found it. Without a decent $50 investment into PoE, you're making things pretty hard on yourself. Is it worth it? For sure. Is it still cheeky 'free to play'? Absolutely.

Some of those freemium games you thumb your nose at? I've played them for years and put in almost nothing. Takes far less willpower to maybe NOT buy overt pay to win stuff and just see how far you can push a silly phone game than it does to get more item/skill skins and stash tabs in PoE. Far, far less.

So maybe reflect a little bit on why you are so fiercely against one free to play model that can border on pay to play when you've been suckered, gently, lovingly, into supporting another.

well on the subject of free to play I feel like games like PoE and say Warframe do it right

but free to play and freemium are very different

Ive yet to find a mobile game I really like that is not a port of an old PC game

the closest ive come is called plague inc which is more of a time waster than serious gaming

also there is a fun tower defense game thats another great time waster.

To me thats what these mobile games are, they are not gaming experiences but rather "im board for five minutes"

I can see why most gamers dont take it seriously because it seems like even the developers dont, they feel shallow and under developed. Like quick cash grabs. PoE never felt like that, its a game ive been playing for years and Yeah I bought some supporter packs as a kinda thank you (and you know stash tabs)

I think mobile games have a ton of potential but until developers start saying lets make a game and stop saying lets make a mobile game!! they well continue to be crappy little mobile games. That is to say treat it like you would a full PC or consul game.

I 100% get why people were upset about the sham of a diablo game being announced

also as a sort of caveat I would be more likly to embrace mobile gaming if I say had a tablet, phones make for poor gaming experiences, Ill strait up admit to being a bit of a PC elitist as a guy that put $3600 into a gaming PC set up im not really into spending money on any other game systems or tablets. To me the PC is king. I think if I did get something else it would be a swich, the game selection is way better than mobile and is still portable, but then the little elitist in the back of my head is yelling at me "just buy a new laptop you dumbass"

you know people talk about how fast PCs get out dated but my last PC lasted me 7 years and was still playing most games at max settings at 1080

I made my current one to make the jump to 4k and the old one was starting to have some issues

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鬼殺し wrote:

Even Warframe has some pay to win though -- and I say that as someone who's casually put a good 500 hours into it and bought some palettes and skins. Compared to PoE, Warframe *is* pay to win. So even if they're doing it right, they're still not above reproach. It may be that you're just a little warmer to them because they're on PC.

Yeah, a tablet changes everything. It was my entrance to mobile gaming too, and I only got a tablet because I wanted reading on the go and figured something that could do more than a Kindle was worth the dosh. There's no way I'd play my mobile games on my phone. So maybe there needs to be that distinction too, but since it uses the same platform, for now, mobile gaming encapsulates both phone and tablet. The biggest phone, the Samsung Note, is only a few inches smaller than the standard tablet. I had one of those for a while. Clunky bastard.

Plague Inc is one of the greats. I'm not sure why you feel the need to make 'time waster' and 'serious gaming' a mutually exclusive concept. If it makes you feel better about your serious games as 'not' wasting time, fair enough...but at least be honest with yourself that playing PoE for hours isn't exactly researching the cure for cancer either.

I think there's a certain ignorance to your call for 'let's make a game' rather than 'let's make a mobile game'. From a gamer's perspective, the distinction makes sense but from a developer's point of view, it's incredibly important to remember that mobile gaming is its own thing. There are limitations and, more importantly, there are innovations. Contrary to what you may think, mobile gaming isn't a dirty term anymore. Hasn't been for quite some time. Too many big-name publishers are now dedicating resources to mobile game development for that. And I won't pretend some of their work isn't still pretty cash-grabby but the game supporting that model is rarely anywhere near as superficial or off-the-cuff as you'd like to believe. There's serious money in mobile gaming; they'd be idiots not to make some effort to make it worth the players' time and, sure, money. That era of thinly-veiled, shallow pay to win is long gone. Browse the mobile gaming thread on here sometime if you want to be more informed as to where it is now. Or don't. :)

Jesus that's a lot to invest in something stuck in one room. As you know, I've more than enough resources to build a badass PC. It just never really occurred to me. The one I have plays the few games I like quite well. I'll confess, I've never really gotten the appeal of building a high end PC. They seem to be outdated the moment you put one together and that's one very expensive wave to try to ride.

Well the main thing that sets Warframe apart is the fact you can actually trade for Platinum. That alone changes the dynamic of the entire system. Thats why I dont mind its F2p system. I think I earned over 1k platinum and never spent a dime when I played Warframe. I loathe trading, too. But the fact all the items are the same, and you are limited by trades based on your rank, and the huge credit cost that goes with trading, its not that bad. When I played, I max my trades out in 15 minutes, and go back to playing and breaking relics. If you couldn't actually trade for Plat, they would have a real bad Pay 2 Win system, lol.

I personally think its less pay to win than PoE. I've spent a chunk of cash on stash pages, which are honestly necessary at this point if you ever hope to really enjoy the game. Having said that, I still think PoE has a good system. The best F2p systems out there for me are Warframe/PoE/Moba's like LoL. Lots of other F2p systems really reek of P2W. At least try and mask it for god's sake.

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鬼殺し wrote:

I think it's more realistic than PoE at the very least. It tempers its pay to win/pay for convenience with much lower mtx prices overall AND more built-in features like dye and flexible as fuck weapon energy effects. I've said before, now that I'm not the f2p virgin I was when I found PoE and was seduced by GGG's moral image, I'll take that over a zero pay to win f2p game with overpriced mtxes for anything as simple as an appropriate weapon effect.

Ill still lean towards PoEs model as I dont care about the price of visuals but at the same time I really dont care either way.

I dont think warframes model would work in PoE

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k1rage wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

I think it's more realistic than PoE at the very least. It tempers its pay to win/pay for convenience with much lower mtx prices overall AND more built-in features like dye and flexible as fuck weapon energy effects. I've said before, now that I'm not the f2p virgin I was when I found PoE and was seduced by GGG's moral image, I'll take that over a zero pay to win f2p game with overpriced mtxes for anything as simple as an appropriate weapon effect.

Ill still lean towards PoEs model as I dont care about the price of visuals but at the same time I really dont care either way.

I dont think warframes model would work in PoE

I think Warframe's model is unique to Warframe. I do think its probably the overall best F2p model I've ever seen. Others are probably current League of Legends, and PoE's is still good.

The main thing that makes Warframe's so good is everything in the game is obtainable without spending a dime or even grinding yourself silly. Its a grindy game, but you can easily go run some relics, trade those items for Platinum, and buy whatever it was you wanted fairly quickly. Need another warframe slot? Go run a few relics, trade them 40-50 plat, buy that slot. The fact you can actually trade for the currency people spend real money on, and use it just like you bought the platinum yourself, meaning nothing in the game is off-limits to the F2p crowd, just sets it apart from all other F2p games. Even games like League of Legends, which is incredibly F2p friendly, still have most of its skins behind a paywall. Its not P2w, but not everything is obtainable.

Also, the game has horizontal progression instead of linear. Meaning your Warframe starts out as an OP beast and is easily viable throughout the entire game with what you start with. All the other stuff you buy merely changes how you kill the monsters. So you dont ever actually need anything. This has its own pro's and con's when it comes to endgame, but thats one thing I can say for the entire time I played Warframe. I never felt I needed anything. I wanted it to want, not because I needed it to succeed.

Hell, even their trading system is amazing. Trades limited per day, meaning less people playing the market, less scamming/price fixing(when you got like 10 trades in a day, scamming a guy out of 5 plat is worthless when you can just run a relic and sell whatever junk flops out for 5 plat). And all the items are the same, so it just comes down to lowest price so you never spend more than 5-10 minutes trading anything in the game. List it, someone messages you in 5 minutes, sell it, move on with your life.

Unfortunately I burned myself out on Warframe long ago, but out of all the F2p games I've played, its probably one of, if not, the best for actual FREE 2 PLAY. I never spent a penny in that game and I have all the slots/weapon slots/catalysts/whatever I ever need and still sitting on like 1k plat just from trading off junk, since running relics was mostly what I enjoyed the most. Not to mention relics were always worth at least 3-5 plat, since the junk was tradeable to the vendor for Ducats, so your time was never wasted running relics. If you didn't trade it in for currency, someone else would buy it themselves to trade it for currency.

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir becuase all of you have played it, but I find its system a F2p system done right. But, its very unique to Warframe and I dont see it being useable in any other games unless they were designed from the start to allow it. It would never work in a game like PoE. Trading being limited does that in.

Simple maths. everyone has a smart phone and you have a name brand. Few have PC's where you made your rep. I'd do exactly what blizz is doing. But as a consumer I'd look elsewhere which most here do as well. This is oldest story in books BTW.. leaving what got you X for greener pastures.

Like Chris Rock said about OJ... I can't condone it but I understand.;)

At the end of the day we are all trying to sell some shit. I admire blizz doing so even if I dont like it.