On March 22 2024 06:12 Simberto wrote: How is the monetization model in that? I heard that it is a bit of a microtransaction hell?
For D4? Nah, that's all optional and doesn't affect or interrupt gameplay.
Sorry, to clarify, i was asking about Last Epoch.
You probably think about Lost Ark
I mean, that depends on the perspective. I personally think both LE and PoE are microtransaction hells, just not in a p2w sense.
What do you mean by this? I don't remember how it was in PoE, but in LE, the microtransaction shop is basically invisible for the entire game, unless you go out of your way to proactively find the one button that opens up the shop. I actually didn't even realize that microtransactions were in the game until after dozens of hours of playing, because the developers do such a good job of not annoying you with cosmetic/optional purchases that cost real money. On the other hand, Diablo 4's microtransactions are a lot more visible (not that you're ever required to purchase anything, and I never found it a big deal to just ignore the occasional indicator or offer).
Did you just mean that the items in the shop are expensive?
On March 22 2024 06:12 Simberto wrote: How is the monetization model in that? I heard that it is a bit of a microtransaction hell?
For D4? Nah, that's all optional and doesn't affect or interrupt gameplay.
Sorry, to clarify, i was asking about Last Epoch.
You probably think about Lost Ark
I mean, that depends on the perspective. I personally think both LE and PoE are microtransaction hells, just not in a p2w sense.
What do you mean by this? I don't remember how it was in PoE, but in LE, the microtransaction shop is basically invisible for the entire game, unless you go out of your way to proactively find the one button that opens up the shop. I actually didn't even realize that microtransactions were in the game until after dozens of hours of playing, because the developers do such a good job of not annoying you with cosmetic/optional purchases that cost real money. On the other hand, Diablo 4's microtransactions are a lot more visible (not that you're ever required to purchase anything, and I never found it a big deal to just ignore the occasional indicator or offer).
Did you just mean that the items in the shop are expensive?
LE is less intrusive for sure. It "just" has an illuminated button in the main menu if you press "esc". PoE is more intrusive with the green button in right by the action bar, hotkey for shop is on "M" by default (the key you usually open the map with in RPGs) and stuff like the "free" battle pass, where they pretend it's part of the lore and annoy you with pop ups, announcements in chat etc. In both games most rare equipment mostly looks like dogshit. Tbf, most stuff ingame looks like dogshit as well but that's because "shiny blingbling" is not my thing. If that's your thing, you are out of luck if you are looking ingame. Also, you can't turn off effects by other players, which means every time you seem them it breaks immersion because a lot of the visual effects are just that ridiculous.
That said, I think D4 is much worse than both because it's a full price game with microtransactions and battle pass which pop up everywhere in menus and so on.
D4's advertising is definitely in your face. But the world is bleak and gray and I haven't noticed any of the cosmetics being out of the ordinary. Either that or I haven't seen any because nobody can afford them.
But at the same time, some companies have made billions selling cosmetics in first person games.
On April 23 2024 03:40 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: I'm sorry Blizz... there is no coming back from this. AI is now making songs about how bad the game is, what's worse the songs are actually good.
The next few seasons better knock it out of the park. No time hoping the expansion saves you.
So catchy, funny how that one last blizzard fan boy keeps trying to post here with new account :D. How this mental disorder is called? (Other than "Hey lad, D4 bad")
Also there was a dev stream yesterday talking about Season 4. Which is essentially just fixes, and overhauls. Will Season 5 be focused on overhauling skills? They also need to bring Colin for every stream.
I heard they have 2 teams. Team even has been superior to team odd so far. I'm pretty hyped for season 4. We'll see if they have anything exciting for season 5 or if they're going to punt everything to season 6 once again.
On May 07 2024 01:36 andrewlt wrote: I heard they have 2 teams. Team even has been superior to team odd so far. I'm pretty hyped for season 4. We'll see if they have anything exciting for season 5 or if they're going to punt everything to season 6 once again.
This was known before Microsoft took them over. What I want to know is, who or how many people on the D4 team lost their jobs due to corporate restructuring and redundancies. Maybe ATM, they have only 1 team left to come up with future seasons & mechanics.
Considering the seasons so far, one of the teams has had smaller budget, headcount and/or support. It is just there to tread water while the other team makes the bigger changes.
They aren't the only videogame company to have had layoffs over the past year. The obsession over graphical fidelity, among other things, has lead to bloated budgets. AAA games have costs on par with the biggest superhero movies and something is going to give eventually.