Blizzard is punishing me for playing – that’s enough!

How happy I was when finally a Diablo game was released for smartphones. Finally I was able to grind endlessly, collect legendary items and that everywhere where it wasn’t possible before. But after a month I’m out of breath because Blizzard doesn’t let me play Diablo on my smartphone the way Diablo is actually played.

A commentary by Peter Hryciuk.

Diablo has accompanied me for many years. I’ve never really played much Diablo 1 and 2, with Diablo 3 got me the grind though. Slaughter endless monsters and be rewarded with great legendary items. But at some point I lost interest in the game. In the meantime, I’ve noticed that I prefer to play mobile games. Not because the mobile games are better, they aren’t, but because it suits my current lifestyle more. Gaming on the laptop in the garden is no fun. Playing in the garden with the Steam Deck is really great. That’s why I celebrated the release of a mobile game, Diablo Immortal. So the grind started on June 2, 2022.

Diablo Immortal’s story works

When you play Diablo Immortal, it all starts with the story. You need about 10 to 20 hours for this. Depending on whether you really want to experience the story or just skip through to get to the endgame. For me it was a mix of both. Slowly at first, then faster and faster to finally get started with the grind. There are a few stumbling blocks here and there but basically getting started works for me.

Then the endgame started with my berserker. The daily tasks are quickly completed, the shadow lottery is successfully won and further options are unlocked there. But already after a few hours I got the weird feeling that my character just seemed weak. In Diablo Immortal, you really can’t get too skilled. In the course of the story, all skills are automatically leveled and you can choose the best skills for you and switch at any time.

Diablo Immortal is punishing me for playing

And then after a few days I noticed the first limitations. The hard grind suddenly made no sense. Diligence is punished, not rewarded. What is this Diablo that I can’t grind endlessly? As a 3-hour-a-day gamer, I was pushed to my limits. In the Battle Pass, I reached the battle point reward before it expired. Quests were also no longer open. The elder portal is not worth it in the long run because there is a limit there too if you don’t pay any money. And somehow I’m not getting any stronger, because as a Free 2 Play player I hardly ever get legendary gems.

But surely you can level to get stronger? puff cake! There is a limit here too. Blizzard wants as many players as possible to remain on the server Paragon level, which increases by two levels every day. If you play a lot, you exceed the server level and get less experience. Who came up with something like this?

Second character reveals even more problems

Well, then I made myself a shadow runner as a second character next to my berserker. It’s cool, I’m playing far below the server level and will rewarded with a 400 percent experience boost. So play through the story and level up. This also works well, but becomes a problem. Because while I was able to play with my Berserker at the server start from around Paragon level 28 in Hell 2, where you should play with Paragon level 30 – 130, it doesn’t work with the shadow walker.

Because I’ve leveled up so quickly, I lack the equipment and remain incredibly weak for a very long time. Only with Paragon level 42 (!) and still clearly too weak did I switch to Hell 2 and snuck into strong farm groups where I lucked out and found three legendary items that got me at least very close to the combat rating I need for Hell 2. And although I’m already Paragon level 48, with a combat rating of 1,208 I’m still 12 points too weak for Hell 2. My berserker with Paragon 64 has a combat rating of over 1,600. But even then it will be difficult to get ahead. I need 2,000 for the next boss. How am I supposed to achieve that if I’m not putting any money into it? I don’t even want to talk about the shadow runner.

Diablo Immortal needs to change

My criticism of Diablo Immortal is not about the pay-2-win issue at all. I’m sure we can all agree that this is a catastrophe. What sane person sinks hundreds of dollars into a game to get stronger, only to be prevented from grinding by that game at the same time. Because even the whales, who put thousands of euros into the game, cannot play endlessly and are restricted. But exactly this endless grind actually stands for Diablo. Again and again dungeon runs to get legendary items. It’s just no fun here.

Diablo Immortal is completely out of balance for me. Both for free-2-play players and the whales who will soon run out of normal players who can simply be flattened because they simply lose interest in the game – like me after a month of Diablo Immortal. Was it a complete waste of time? No, because I thoroughly enjoyed Diablo Immortal.

While I hardly ever play on PC or console anymore, this game has managed to motivate me to play again. How I play has simply changed over time. And I actually find it all the worse that pay-2-win, loot boxes and microtransactions are so normal in the mobile sector. Games specifically aimed at children are hidden games of chance with no chance of actually winning anything. Now I understand why the Netherlands and Belgium ban such games. I hope that this will be extended to the whole EU. This is the only way mobile games can get better.