I feel like at this point my attachment to Diablo Immortal is very much the definition of a “guilty pleasure”. I feel fairly guilty for continuing to play it, but I am having quite a bit of fun with it. The problem however is that none of the systems of this game seems sustainable. The core long-term rhythm of the social side of the game centers around the “cycle of strife”. Last Sunday across the world the very first Immortals were crowned, and on Monday following that everyone that was in a shadow clan was unceremoniously booted back to Adventurer status. This begins the Shadow Lottery all over again as folks start to build up a critical mass of players in order to challenge the Immortals for their status.
It feels very much like folks fought their way to “server first” in trying to claim that Immortal throne, and now have stopped playing. Megashield, the Immortal for Doombringer the server that I play on… is more or less absent from the leaderboards right now whereas he previously dominated them. It is more than that, however. The dungeon queues seem to take much longer than they did, and there are just lacking a critical mass of players to do several of the more difficult zone events like the Blood Rose. There was a push to be first, and anyone who did not manage to get that title has seemingly moved on with their lives. The restarting of the cycle is asking an awful lot of players.
I wish I had a screenshot of the original “Become a Dark Clan” page, but I appear to have failed to snap a picture. Right now we have collected 6 out of 30 signets, which means that three of our members have managed to get through the Shadow Lottery. In order to convert our clan into a Dark Clan once again, we will need to get 12 more players through the Shadow Lottery and have them choose to turn in the two Akeba Signets that they get in order to finally convert the entire clan. I am pretty sure the first time we did this the number we needed was either six or eight in total. This means every few weeks… each clan is going to have to grind once again in order to convert to a Dark Clan and gain access to the benefits of being a shadow. I have a feeling that before too much longer folks are just going to stop going through these motions.
The problem with this however is that by NOT being a Shadow, you are missing out on a large number of activities that you could be participating in. In theory, if you forgo the clan experience… you can spend a single one of the two signets you get and join the Shadows on your own. I did not choose to do this, unfortunately, and I donated my signets before realizing just how many we needed. Right now there are three members in the clan who are actively playing, with a fourth on vacation. However, that means it is entirely unlikely that we will manage to convert the entire clan before this current cycle is over. That also means that if I am still playing the game when the time next Cycle of Strife begins… that I will probably just go solo missing out on the entire clan experience. I feel like this entire design is centered around a critical mass of players joining giant cattle call clans and deeply harms any smaller more chill groups from ever participating.
All of this is unfortunate, as is the horrible monetization scheme that I have not forgotten or forgiven… because the game is rather fun. I rolled a Barbarian alt the other night just to see how that class plays in contrast to my experiences with the Crusader. I have to say it is equally enjoyable and apparently now that the Server Paragon level has been increased to 40… everyone is getting a massive dose of catch-up experience. I managed to get to 30 in about an hour of playtime just poking around and following the quest chain. If this leveling rate is sustainable, I will easily ding 60 long before I finish the main story quest. It seems like the Server Paragon level is playing the role of boosting anyone who happens to be lagging behind the pack and funneling everyone towards a shared level bracket. I mean this is good for grouping purposes, but even with that in place… I am still finding it pretty hard to find any groups as I work through the story dungeons.
Given that we are already seeing a massive drop-off in player interest, I do wonder how long before server mergers are happening. The viewers on Twitch continue to drop as do the total number of channels streaming Diablo Immortal, and it seems like the zeitgeist is starting to move past it. There was a reported $24 million dollar earnings within the first two weeks, but I do wonder how much of that profit is legitimate. I watched a streamer yesterday for a little bit that was running $25 rifts… but was going through a money laundering shuffle of taking WoW gold, converting it to tokens, then converting those tokens to Blizzard Balance… and using the Blizzard Balance to buy the Legendary Crests for the runs. Then he converted any gems that he did not need to Platinum through the in-game auction house to purchase the things he actually needed. There is an awful lot of liquid World of Warcraft gold out there, especially among those communities that sell in-game runs for gold. There is no real way for someone to “cash out” other than selling an account, but it does make me wonder how much of that “revenue” was the recycling of existing “blizzard currency”.
Anyways I am still enjoying the actual gameplay, and still following the drama surrounding it. I do think that if this game is going to exist in six months, there will need to be some serious system redesign because the current structure is unsustainable as player interest plummets.