Diablo Immortal criticism has been harsh since it launched last week. When gamers finally for their hands on the game they also discovered how Blizzard was tacking monetisation.
Right now, Diablo Immortal is topping the Google Play rankings as seen below. It’s also sitting in sixth place for iOS. It’s fair to say that gamers have jumped at the chance to take Immortal for a spin.
Despite the positive start, player reviews have not been so kind to Blizzard with the user Metacritic score of 0.6/10 and a critic score of 76.
So why all the negativity? It’s the monetisation that’s causing the problems which is down to the systems in play within the game. There is obviously a lot more going on with the game than meets the eye.
Don’t you have wallets?
Bullhorn over in our Discord channel has been running the maths on what players will likely need to invest in the game. He’s worked out, as best he can, what he thinks is a likely scenario to try and explain the Diablo Immortal criticism that we’ve been seeing since launch.
I used a Binomial Probability Calculator to achieve these results, specifically looking at the P(X≥x) field.
TL;DR: To summarize, a player can expect to spend anywhere between $2,450 to $25,530 US dollars to get 1 fully fledged, Rank 1, 5/5* Legendary Gem drop in Diablo Immortal.
To start, the game provides the probabilities directly in-game when visiting the Elder Rift device: A 5* gem can drop from a Legendary Crest at a 4.5% probability and a pity system after 50 attempts. The fact it’s a 5* gem doesn’t mean it will actually drop with 5 stars – Any 5* gem will drop as a 2/5* (75%), 3/5* (20%), 4/5* (4%) or 5/5* (1%).
I will provide a couple of calculations, what an ‘unlucky player’ can expect (≥90% cumulative probability – meaning the amount of attempts required to have at least 90% chance to actually get the desired result) as well as an ‘averagely lucky’ player (where ≥50% is enough).
To get a ?/5* Legendary Gem with cumulative probability of ≥90% you would require 51 rolls. The ‘pity counter’ activates before at 50 rolls so that’s when it will drop.
To get a ?/5* Legendary Gem with cumulative probability of ≥50% you would require 16 rolls.
Now this is where it gets really scummy. The values above are representing just one ?/5* Legendary Gem. How many such gems would we need for at least one of them to be a full 5/5*? Note: There is NO pity system for this 2nd roll.
For a ?/5* Legendary Gem to be 5/5 with cumulative probability of ≥90% you would require 230 rolls
For a ?/5* Legendary Gem to be 5/5 with cumulative probability of ≥50% you would require 69 rolls
As you can see, the difference between an ‘averagely lucky’ and an ‘unlucky’ player is massive.
So if we need to roll 230 gems 50 times for the ‘unlucky’ ≥90% player, that’s 11,730 Legendary Crests, with each Legendary Crest costing $2.22, the sum would be $25,530 USD.
For our ‘averagely lucky’ ≥50% player, needing to roll only 69 gems 16 times, a total of 1,104 Legendary Crests or $2,450 USD.
Why all the Diablo Immortal criticism?
There are many members of the community who have been going deeper with the game and its systems. This video from Echohack explains what’s going on in the game extremely well and is worth a watch because he’s at least being objective and not simply complaining about monetisation, but more about how it’s been implemented.
When Vang and I looked at the game late last week, it was apparent there are specific features in the game designed to keep you locked out unless you stumped up the cash. While it’s often expected in mobile games, Immortal seems to be pushing that model to the limits.
Once the release excitement dies away and players have finished the story, we’ll have a much better understanding of how the game is being embraced by the community. The thing to remember before you even start playing is Blizzard expects you to spend to progress. If you’re not happy about opening your wallet for all the reasons outlined in Echohack’s video, then give this Diablo game a miss. If you’re loaded, then go for it, spend away.
Perhaps we’ll see some changes made to the game over time but right now it’s off our list of games we’re playing. So far we think the Diablo Immortal criticism has been warranted to some extent.
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