Diablo Immortal is the real POE killer

4 year old phone does not like DI.
Will try it out on the Mrs's tablet and see if that is any better.

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DoubleU wrote:

4 year old phone does not like DI.
Will try it out on the Mrs's tablet and see if that is any better.

So it seems the Oceanic servers have settled. I played a bit while on the toilet to see how my phone handled it -- fairly well. Then, just because this is the age we live in, I finished my business, returned to the study and loaded it up on PC to continue. Of the three modes, I think I prefer the 11" tablet the most. Easier to see than the phone, but still using the native control system (m+k doesn't work very well for what is essentially a twin stick shooter at times).

A special thank you to Nintendo, for realising how important it is that Gen X gamers be able to play during their increasingly frequent bathroom visits. Sure, I was kind of grossed out the first time a friend took his switch to the loo to continue our Mario Kart race but damn, isn't technology amazing?

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awesome999 wrote:

Yikes! I thought people would learn enough to stay the hell away from "f2p" games.

'People' spend more on free to play games in a month than PoE is worth, total. So if you thought that, you've been living under some sort of rock. Which, admittedly, Path of Exile's community sort of is. Seriously, it's like an alternate dimension in here sometimes. Then you go read pretty much anything else and you realise just how out of touch the PoE community really is. I'd like to say that GGG are similarly out of touch (with their players, I think that's true) but no, they're 100% aware of how 'people' have not learned to stay the hell away from "f2p" games. Diablo Immortal was such a huge gift to them -- we'll see if they can capitalise on it for real or if they'll squander it in their own myopia.

Because nothing says 'come play our game, it's better and it's still free' like a rival releasing one that is objectively worse in almost every way...on the same platform as your game. All those ARPG fans encountering the ridiculously unabashed p2w of D:I on their PCs (rather than their phones) should be easily swayed to PoE...and after the faceplant that was 3.18, GGG could do with a win. Blizzard are virtually handing them one on a plate here.

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Phrazz wrote:

If GGG one day add an in-game pop-up in any way, shape or form, I'm probably out. So I guess that's my "catch".

What, 'press m to support' in the chat doesn't count? Or the daily deals at log-in? I very quietly tested 3.18 the past few days (posted comprehensive feedback on a different account, was completely ignored -- the power of a name, eh?), and seeing those daily deals on log-in, combined with the absolute horrorshow of Lioneye's Watch aka One Very Expensive Looking Disco, felt pretty 'in my face'.

As for D:I's, by mobile standards the push to buy is surprisingly subtle. I know, fucking shocker, but take it from someone who's been playing f2p games for years, especially gachas. The game doesn't encourage you to spend until that Elder Rift moment (in short -- you ran a Map, you did good, now pay extra to increase the loot from it), which I think for a lot of casual Diablo fans will be the breaking point. The test. Before that, the cash shop is sort of set aside because, as with Genshin Impact, Diablo Immortal's entire story is the bait. So it's interesting to me: PoE's big claim of 'all content free, forever' might have seemed rebellious back when f2p gated content ('freemium') but these days it's actually almost always the case: make all content free, monetise your endgame.

I do have to wonder if they learned it from GGG.

__

So I've been reading DI reviews for the past half hour or so, and the consensus is unsurprising to me as an alpha tester (Australia was a testing ground -- not 'that' sort of alpha): it's a genuinely good 'sequel' to Diablo 2 IF you can ignore the monetisation. It has a better story than Diablo 3 (damned with faint praise, sure), deeper connections to Diablo 2, a very easy to get into gameplay rhythm, minimises fucking about with gear and stats (sorry Exiles, but in the real gaming world that is considered a big plus), super fucking high production values, responsive controls...in the mobile gaming world where players have been thirsty AF for a true Diablo game, D:I is a huge hit.

But no review has ignored the predatory pay to win nature of the game's repeatable content. They simply can't. Not when it's so bad it gets classified as gacha and thus banned in the gacha-free Lands of the Nether and Belgium. And yet these are curiously not a deal-breaker because, at least in my experience, it really did feel like two different games. As long as you don't succumb to the game's loop, you can get a good 10-20 hours of fun out of it for free. And I think it's much easier to stop there or start a new character than it is to stop playing PoE once it makes clear you need to pony up for storage.

Which is to say, if we get back to the fishing metaphor, D:I's bait is far juicier than PoE's and the hook is much easier to avoid. I mean, it's a huge fucking hook so that's not surprising. PoE's hook is, much like GGG in the days of yore, far humbler and more in-line with what one would consider fair for the amount of 'free' gameplay you get up to that point. That, to me, is a much harder hook to avoid -- but then there's the argument: should you avoid it? You've played this pretty good ARPG for days, maybe even weeks, surely you can throw some money their way for the experience, especially if it's not overt p2w. Damn, such a great hook. Any wonder Tencent bought them.

So when I see everyone here banging on about how evil D:I is and how greedy Blizzard are, all I can think is: what, don't you have the willpower to play what is otherwise an excellent Diablo game for free and to know when to stop? Because who cares what others do, right? It's not like the game is PvP; if they want to pay to be stronger than you, how does that affect you? Play your way and all that, isn't that what Exiles are constantly parroting when someone points out how cruel PoE can be to anyone who hasn't, to paraphrase Chris regarding Maplords, 'given their soul to GGG'?

edit: correction -- there is apparently PvP, but it's not exactly the focus of the game. I think we all learned how much of an anomaly PvP is in ARPGs when GGG tried to replicate it.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Because nothing says 'come play our game, it's better and it's still free' like a rival releasing one that is objectively worse in almost every way...on the same platform as your game. All those ARPG fans encountering the ridiculously unabashed p2w of D:I on their PCs (rather than their phones) should be easily swayed to PoE...and after the faceplant that was 3.18, GGG could do with a win. Blizzard are virtually handing them one on a plate here.

I was wondering how much money does Blizzard make. From what I understand they estimated it to be able to make as much as $300 million per year. If they do, it is really Blizzard that should be laughing. Take that win in virtuous behaviors while I take all these mouth-watering profit.

Blizzard will make absurd amount of money with the game simply because its target audience is China (and the rest of the world is just an addition). I wont be suprised if 90% of the money DI will make will be from China alone.

Not really only China, rest of the world isnt any better. Long time ago i played Shaiya, very nice game and even better p2w. There were players spending 10k $ monthly. They even had event called "tiered spender" where the last reward was for like 30k $ and some players were getting it, every single time.

Poeple here dont know what real pay to win is.

DI is worse than Lost Ark, it has no business with POE, maybe POE mobile will share some of the market with it.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

...All those ARPG fans encountering the ridiculously unabashed p2w of D:I on their PCs (rather than their phones) should be easily swayed to PoE...and after the faceplant that was 3.18, GGG could do with a win. Blizzard are virtually handing them one on a plate here.

This one put a sad smile on my face - it would be 100 % true if PoE wasn't so inaccessible and hostile toward anyone other than the most hardcore crowd.

Just like DI is unlikely to have any impact on PoE's player base, the convertibility of DI players into PoE is likely to be close to zero percent.

Somehow the satire here went over so many peoples' heads. Heh. -_-

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

As for D:I's, by mobile standards...

There's the problem, ey?

By the way, I covered the "in your face" part in a previous conversation with you. No, I don't feel the small advertisement in the text box is "in your face", especially as this is a text box you can make as small as you want, with as small text as you want. As for the login window, that is not in-game, and doesn't affect my gameplay. Advertisement is one thing, prompts are another.

As I've said before; we all have our personal line. Personal grade of ethics/morals. GGG do step over my line in a couple of cases, mostly the mystery boxes. But when someone uses well-know, well-researched psychological tricks in the middle of your gameplay, targeting your endorphins regarding loot and progression, I certainly do draw a line.

In my eyes, PoE and D:I shouldn't even be mentioned in the same discussion, let alone the same sentence. Is that due to one being a mobile game, and the other being a PC/console game? Shouldn't fucking matter. They are both monetized games.

Sorry, but I don't think I've ever been this upset over a game release before. When a well-known, well-respected multibillion dollar company uses one of the most respected IP's on the market to make a more or less blatant cash-grab just because "they can", it's absolutely worth a discussion.

We're on the PoE forums now, so naturally PoE will be used as a comparison. But can we seriously compare D:I to other "AAA PC titles turned mobile" without D:I looking like a monster in comparison?

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Gescom wrote:

Somehow the satire here went over so many peoples' heads. Heh. -_-

Nah, some people are just capable of ignoring the initial troll attempt, and actually have a decent debate, disregarding the crap.

lol Diablo Immortal is a full fledged Gatcha game, I don't know what there is to defend. [Removed by Support]