Blizzard had plans to announce Diablo 4, but pulled it last minute - Sensationalist Headlines

there's some legal ramifications to announcing something big that will affect your company value and then greatly changing those plans later on. they're a publically traded company they just can't do that sort of stuff unfortunately.

Please, never use "you don't need to unlock every character" or "you aren't meant to unlock everything" as a serious argument. Also just in case: did you grab one of those "class bundles" they gave out when the HotS 2.0 update was released? Because those bundles were only available for a very short time and the 2.0 update made the grind that much worse. For a veteran player it might feel like its nothing, but for new players it's a pretty different story. Path of exile is a game where you can play the full game for free without a layer of currency grind locking you out of anything, you can't compare it with HotS, specially considering You know activision blizzard is filthy rich. You have to come to terms with blizzard and their games not being as perfect as you think they might be, you aren't being a good fan by being a blind zealot.

Nah, I think I'll keep using it because it's completely valid. Of all the free-to-play games I've played, the free rotation model is among the best, and among the MOBs I've played that used it, HoTS by far the most generous. In path of Exile, on the other hand, I've had to spend nearly 30 bucks to stop my inventory from being drown in currency and maps, and to make trading remotely convenient. no u

If you really think Hots is the most generous moba then you haven't played a lot of them. Quality of life features that you don't even need to play, convenience, isn't the same thing. I get trolling isn't banneable in the forums for some reason anymore, but come on.

Dota 2 literally gives you all 100+ characters for free, up front. I like HotS too, but this argument is obviously weak.

I've also played LoL and Dawngate, the former is it's main competitor, and the latter was shaping up to a major one before the plug was pulled. Considering the importance of trading on crafting endgame, I'd hardly call it "quality of life" Only trying to match the level of discourse

Then you have smite, which unlocks 10 characters by default + 2 more as lvl up milestones + a free rotation. The grind there isn't too bad, even without doing quests (its impossible to grind in HotS without quests, since you only get 2 digits of gold while the majority of characters cost 5 digits). And then you have the god pack that unlocks all current (98 right now) and future character releases. That bundle costs 30 bucks. You know how many characters you can get for 30 bucks in hots? 4 characters (5 if you go for old releases). Even league, which is pretty damn grindy, isn't nearly as grindy as HotS is and has a larger character rotation. Blizzard makes millions, billions with their games, they can do better, they choose not to, because they know there is people who will buy anything with their brand on it, and apparently will also think they are being generous too.

That's one I haven't played. 🤷 Though if it has anything like TF2's monetization, I consider their "We'll just keep leaving these slot machines on the front doors of gambling addicts" strategy more scummy than pretty much anything.

No, I'd say HotS is less grindy than League due to the daily quests and 500 gold per 5 levels thing. League also has a lot more characters than HotS so HotS' smaller rotation is a bit more forgivable. That's just minor things though. Smite's $30 bundle is the best choice if Dota's model isn't possible.

I never really paid any attention to how much gold I got after games, but I tend to have around 20,000 gold at any given time, and it rarely takes more than a week to get it back, and I just have to reroll loot boxes sometimes instead of most of the time.

I mean kinda? If i'm not wrong, they got a system that gives you lootboxes when you do well in matches that can get you currency and characters that supposedly make the grind actually possible. Though in hots, you Have to do those quests if you actually want to unlock anyone, its not an optional thing. It's easy to have spare currency when "you don't need every character". Some people likes variety, and being able to play any mode instead of having 90% of their playtime being just them grinding brawl.

I seem to recall that when LoL introduced those loot boxes, their Reddit complained that is was basically a much shittier version of HotS loot boxes. The quests, besides perhaps Play 3 Games as a Specialist, are all super easy, and you can get entire heroes in loot boxes or with the free gems from player milestones in addition to gold. . I'd think a minimum of 14 heroes during any given week would be enough for all the most main-adverse players.

I honestly don't believe they were planning D4's announcement at all now. https://youtube.com/watch?&v=BOVfw5O5c1g 2:08 for the quote, "We have some of our best developers working on mobile titles" and using the excuse that inside devs have personally shifted from their primary system being PC to phone/tablet.

Yeah I got to play the demo and it felt really good even in its uncompleted state. Really looking forward to it. I don't even play HotS and I get this impression from the team as well. The WoW team always acts like they have a stick up their ass and doesn't like doing anything fun.

C'mon my dude, you can't really expect small indie companies like Blizz and Riot to pull the stuff that valve does. In all seriousness, I really wish more games would follow dota or smite's style. I don't even mind smite because it feels like you're just buying a fucking game for $30 instead of grinding all the time.

Not to mention if you played last year, you got a bundle box with 20 free heroes and free gems (and they're doing it again soon according to rumors): Mega Hero Bundles The major thing that people complained about is skins that can ONLY be purchased with money, which come with the release of a new hero in a bundle. With HoTS being a F2P model, yeah there's gonna be some grind for heroes, but it's not as bad as LoL's I would say (no question DotA is better with having everything unlocked, but the price of items on the marketplace can get ridiculous for truly rare and unique stuff).