Interesting, but I worry that blizzard is gonna blizzard and slowly destroy it with monetization, and then never learn their lesson as people buy their games again and again.
I, uh... sort of feel like that's already happened? It's bloated with microtransactions, including horse armor, and people are still buying the hell out of it. Every season going forward is going to have a battle pass and 70% of the season rewards are locked behind a paywall. That's a new battle pass, and a new microtransaction, every season. It's designed to be predatory as possible from day one, and I don't want to go anywhere near it.
I promise I don't desire to be a corporate apologist, but that "predatory" seems a bit extreme when it's ALL cosmetic stuff. Totally optional, and NONE of the game content is behind those transactions.
The company isn't an angel by any means, but this game is pretty darn good.
^^This. Like i get it, but cmon. Its not like the crazy debacle that was the RMT store when D3 launched. Its all cosmetic and NO real items of any value. Just looks. Let the people who wanna buy cosmetics do it, its just more money for blizzard to hopefully put in to the game.
It’s a bit „old man yells at cloud.jpg“, but I don’t like that we as the target audience have accepted MT in full price titles like we did. I remember a time where a fancy cosmetic was rewarded in game for some feat and not outright bought. I remember when your initial purchase got you the whole nine yards.
And I feel that „its only cosmetics“ misses the point - looking cool IS a major part of fun gameplay for (some/many/most) people.
But yeah, that train has sailed a long time ago. I know…
Yeah, I know my disgust with MTs is partially due to the fact that my first console was the Commodore 64, and back in my day we dangnewfangledvidjagamesguldangit
But I seriously think that any time the game developers spent creating paid cosmetics and the battle pass system is time they could have spent on literally anything else to improve the base game. Other titles, like Square Enix's Avengers game, definitely suffered because the company made monetization a higher priority than ensuring quality in the initial product at launch. I don't want future titles to be cash shops that happen to have a game attached to them, but the AAA studios all seem to be going in that direction.
It seems like D4 has both, there are many cosmetic items and flairs that are only achievable through somewhat impressive gameplay feats like cosmetic pvp rewards and item drops (like a cool horse variant I got as a loot drop, unable to be purchased)
I'm not knowledgeable about this but I've heard people mention that there are indeed more rare/difficult items to achieve through gameplay that I'd rather not spoil myself on and enjoy learning about more organically so It's difficult to cite but it does exist.
Yes and No. Im with you that i wisht here wasnt a MT store in full price games, But yea that ship has sailed and is not going to stop anytime soon.
What we hope for, and so far D4 is, is that its all just cosmetics. Just extra stuff to make you look different. Not a huge deal. Personally i got the edition with the Battlepass because i like Battlepasses, it gives me more to do in the game and extra little tasks to enjoy focusing on. Its not for everyone, and luckily its completely optional.
The "Argument" i have for people is the discussion of whether the appearances would exist or not if there was no MT store. If they had 0 plan for a MT store, would they have bothered to make all those appearances? therefor its not something your $70 would have given you when you bought the game. I think most of those were made to put in the MT store Specifically, its not something they ripped from the base game and paywalled.
Aren't all new releases of franchises the "fastest selling", mainly because the number of people playing video games increases YoY? I would be more interested in a percentage number – maybe copies sold over the total number of games sold in 2023 and compare those to previous years.
I'm playing the patient gamer card on this one. I was a big fan of 1 & 2. The third one I drifted on, but when I saw the theming for 4 it peeked my interest. At this point I'm waiting a year to see how this turns out before putting any money into it.
As a fellow fan of 1 & 2, it's been a pretty disappointing experience. The game lacks soul, and feels more like a generic ripoff ARPG, rather than a Diablo game. Only good thing about the game so far, for me anyways, is the story and cutscenes.
To give you another opinion to consider, I've really enjoyed the game so far and so have all my friends. One of which is a dedicated PoE gamer with thousands of hours if that helps lend credibility to his opinion, I'm a less dedicated ARPG gamer and it's my favourite ARPG that I've tried (from a less dedicated more casual perspective)
Personally I'll wait a few months and maybe get it on sale. It's not out of character for Blizzard to pull a gotcha and maybe slowly make monetization worse, so I won't take the risk.
Same for me. I was young and dumb when 3 came out and got burned hard. I can wait on this one. I'm still catching up on Tears of the Kingdom and Vampire Survivors.
4 has been my favorite since 2. Im only in to act 3 right now but i love it.
I like the level scaling, so it doesnt matter what level you are, everything scales around you. I have one character at lvl 34 and not even in "Act 2" I have another character who was ready for Act 3 at the same level.
And unloike other diablos there isnt really an "Act" per say where yo go to a new instance. Its just a part of the story on a part of the map. You could go kill mobs there whenever.
Plus your friends can pop in at any level and do the quests your on. even main story. It scales it all properly and puts them on the same part. which is great, makes it so you dont need a new character for every friend group.
D4 feels more like a sequel to D2 than it does to D3. The style and feel is much more in line with the older titles.
The story I think is pretty solid, and though I haven't played all the ARPGs out there, it's the best one I've seen, and it's presented well.
The open world gives you a good mix of activities between the main story quests, and there are lots of side quests that you can get side-tracked with.
It's also a really polished game overall, performs well (at least on the Series X), and they've provided a decent baseline of content for a launch. Though I can't speak to the longevity or end-game activities yet.
But overall, I'd say it's almost incomparably better at launch than D3 was. As though it was made by a different company. Biggest question is how ActiBlizz handles monetization and how well they are able to improve and build upon the foundation going forward.
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