Diablo Immortal - Catch All

Diablo Immortal - Blizzard Entertainment
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows

I've been playing this and thought I'd create a catch-all for it. Let's discuss:

  • Experiences playing the game
  • Cons of the microtransaction model
  • What features should or shouldn't be carried forward to Diablo IV

So far I have a lv 60(34) Necro and lv 60(31) Wizard. Just completed the Battle Pass for my Necro. I've shelled out for the Enhanced Battle Pass so far. Not sure it's that essential but it's supposed to be the best value purchase at the moment if you just want to tip the devs some money.

There's been some good discussion already in the iOS and Diablo IV threads:

some other zach wrote:

I have a level 48 wizard - shavi - on Hadriel if anyone wants to group up.

Been playing on an iPad with all the extras downloaded. Runs well and doesn’t feel too uncomfortable holding it for upwards of an hour and half or so.

Haven’t spent any money and still feel I'm advancing in level and power. Might buy the season pass at some point but I really need to look into the benefits first.

Maclintok wrote:

I'm now approaching 500 Combat Rating in Immortal and still cannot find a group to do the Lassal raid.

Vargen wrote:

Immortal has some good stuff, like how the Legendaries work with the skills and how skills combo with each other. I also really like how many of the skills move you, your enemies, or both around the battlefield in important ways.

But there's also the horribly predatory monetization model. The PC market is a lot less tolerant of that stuff though, and I don't think Microsoft will want that kind of thing on Game Pass either.

Vargen wrote:

Diablo Immortal is a fine game that can be enjoyed independent of its monetization.

The actual monetization is about as shady as it gets. They try to groom you to buy ever more expensive bundles in the campaign. All of the space bucks bundles but the $100 one leave you frustratingly short of being able to afford that last crest. There are like 2-3 battle passes. At least one of those requires daily logins, and the rewards are concentrated at the end of the time period, so if you don't have nigh perfect attendance then you don't get them... unless you go ahead and buy another month because the track doesn't reset. But then that means you're already out the back end of the second month of the pass, and if you still don't log in every day it just slips even more. And none of that is really getting into how Legendary Gems work.

I've been playing Immortal a lot since it launched and have enjoyed it. The skills are fun to use and interact in interesting ways. The legendary weapons and armor system is great as well; incidentally it's way more forgiving than it first seemed and it didn't seem that bad. But that doesn't change the fact that the monetization is set up to extract a ludicrous amount of money from people who are susceptible to their tricks.

Shadout wrote:

Mixing campaign and "activities" is the best thing about D:I (well, also the only good thing imo).
I hope D4 does the same. It is confirmed that it merges campaign mode and adventure mode, but it is unclear what that really means. Like, if you just play through the campaign, and then endgame activities unlock, it might technically be one mode; but things are still separated. Best if the various activities open up as you lvl, preferably quite early on, allowing people to do one, the other, or both, as they want.

fangblackbone wrote:

If you can restrain yourself then yes you can get by just fine in D:I
The problem is, they purposefully leave the monetization light at lower levels to hook you. Starting as low as the high 30's they start creeping in the cash shop. So you can't even level to cap without $$$. Look at Ranterax's video where he clearly states that you can easily reach a point where you can play 100's of hours and not progress your character. That would be tolerable if it were reserved for the highest levels but it happens much quicker.

Also, don't expect to play PvP or if you do, I hope you don't mind losing. You will go against whales where you can at best take 10% of their HP and they can mostly one shot you as F2P or even if you spent a little money on a battle pass.

Its unconscionably egregious.

They tried the RMAH in Diablo 3 and got rid of it in short order. I guess they didn't learn because they are trying again. It is something that nobody wants but Blizzard is going to do it anyways. That does not bode well for the future of the game.

I haven't really felt a lack of meaningful progress, but I'm not quite done with the story nor am I quite to the level cap. I will say that the "pause the story until you're level XX" interludes have gotten long enough that they've gone from a refreshing change of pace to a bit of a drag.

I also suspect that I've gotten pretty lucky with my Legendary drops. The first wave of them synergized pretty darn well, and as I replaced them I felt like I was getting weaker. Eventually I decided that I didn't have a long-term interest in the game so I didn't need to care about collecting all the Legendary infusions and could just go ahead and overwrite my higher level stuff with the affixes I had been enjoying. That brought me back to having enough fun that I figured I'd go ahead and finish the story.

When I started to see my second round of Legendary upgrades I discovered that I could still extract the original power from the pieces that I had changed. Fortunately when I went to scrap them the game said "you haven't extracted this power yet, are you sure you want to do this?" and I was able to run to the extraction NPC instead. So swapping to the powers that I prefer in the moment hadn't actually screwed me out of collecting everything in the longer-run. That's a nice touch that I hadn't expected.

My sample size is 1 character, so I don't know how typical my experience is. Right now I'm interested in collecting Legendaries and seeing what builds they unlock. If that slows down, either due to drop rates or my character power not keeping pace with monster difficulty, then I'm probably out once the story content is done.

I got a necro to 60(20) and started to hit the progress slowdown. Levels still come at fairly regular intervals, and monster difficuty is still fine, but improvements in gear are getting much fewer and farther between. I'm probably done with it for now as the prospect of spending hours and hours every day repeating the same maps isn't that appealing to me, and the forced grouping is really offputting as a predominantly solo player.

I actually ended up at lv 60 well before finishing the game. I think the only time I hit a level roadblock was Frozen Tundra on my second character, I was lv 54 and needed to be 55 or 56? I found the model worked pretty well. I'd play through the main quest, then it would introduce me to a new daily/weekly. I'd do that until bored or I'd exhausted the rewards, then go back to the main quest. So, I was well into Paragon before finishing the campaign.

In terms of gear, I'm at the point of trying to get gear that is going to enhance my current build. Trying to get the green sets is a bit frustrating, the drops seem a little stingy. The gold drops seem frequent enough. I got an ability that turns my necro's golem into this flaming monster, so cool.

I just defeated the Ancient Evil to get the second to last vessel for the Horadrim Heritage. Now I only need the vessel that apparently randomly drops from opening Sanctum chests so that could be a while. If you need more Aspirant keys, the Shadow Faction Assembly daily is a good way to get them (and buckets of XP).

One thing I'm confused about is I'm support to defeat Vitaath to get the next essence for the Helliquary. They're supposed to be in the Frozen Tundra but don't show up for me. Weird...

Mixolyde wrote:

For me, the most disappointing part of Diablo: Immortal is just how overwhelmingly similar to Diablo 3 it is. There's new content, of course, and there's all this mobile garbage, which is annoying, but fine. But gameplay and mechanics are really similar to D3, and that's kinda sad. They didn't make a Diablo game from a mobile game. They made a mobile game from D3. Still kinda fun, though.

Posted in the thread of a recent conference call episode. I have a mid-40s Necromancer on Hadriel named Invisigona, that I play 10 - 30 minutes of every day. A little story and a little of the side quest stuff. Still haven't done a Helliquary thingie, yet.

Edit: Mixolyde#1403 on battle.net.

Hey Mr GT Chris! Thanks for starting this thread.

I'm feeling kind of unmotivated and stalled out at Paragon 34 with my DH. I don't have much interest in the PvP (have yet to try it though) and I don't know what else to work towards besides trying to hit 1000+ CR and breaking into Hell 2 difficulty and then...?

Got any tips for "end game" activities that I may be overlooking?

Haven't read PA in years but saw this one the other day and yep that covers it.

I don’t get it. The first panel is a statement of fact. But I t misses the point that, in a group of 4, you get embers based on the crests that the entire group contributes. The Rare Crests are easily obtainable, one a day for logging in, by completing the free battle pass, or trading with hilts at the hilt trader. Hilts themselves are obtained by, well, playing the game. I get that the overall model sucks but of all the examples to base a comic on… of course, they note below that neither of them played the game so…

Certainly, the most potent bit is in the write-up, a pretty pithy response to a lot of the "Yes, But" coverage I've seen:

Did you think they were going to make an ugly, boring trap?

I miss the days of the Shenmue and Xbox ‘Duke’ controller comics. Like when they were actually funny. Still, 20 years would be a long time for any artist to stay on top of their game. Better than the dick wolves comic I guess!

I haven't played the other classes much, but I'd say that Monk in Immortal feels sufficiently different from Monk in Diablo 3. In D3 I feel like I'm stacking passive effects in support of one or two main damage dealers. In Immortal I'm trying to actively combo my 5 moves together in the most effective way, while leaving enough stuff available to deal with the next pack.

Granted I'm not at Immortal's endgame yet while D3 is nothing but endgame these days. It might not be a fair comparison.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

If you need more Aspirant keys, the Shadow Faction Assembly daily is a good way to get them (and buckets of XP).

The what now? I was under the impression that the Shadow and Immortal stuff was all endgame PvP. I'm lukewarm on PvP at the best of times and I don't really have any interest in being cannon fodder for a whale.

Based on what I've seen of the chests that you use Aspirant Keys on, it's impossible to not "need" more. There's a ton of the things and they take increasing amounts of keys to open. It's pretty obvious that they want you spending Platinum, the real-money-auction-house currency, to get your fill.

How often can you do that Aspirant's Challenge thing, anyway? I think I've been back once since the game introduced it to me. That was when I shifted gears from "I must be conservative with my resources for the long run" to "I'm not sticking around for the long run so I'll spend what I got while I'm here" so I went back and dumped all the keys I had. It was kind of underwhelming, given that the rewards were a bunch of upgrade currencies that I couldn't spend yet. I've only got two of those things to upgrade and they both want blue, and it looks like most of the rest are stuck behind endgame difficulty levels that require at least a second person.

Ooo, okay I can help with that!

Maclintok wrote:

Hey Mr GT Chris! Thanks for starting this thread.

I'm feeling kind of unmotivated and stalled out at Paragon 34 with my DH. I don't have much interest in the PvP (have yet to try it though) and I don't know what else to work towards besides trying to hit 1000+ CR and breaking into Hell 2 difficulty and then...?

Got any tips for "end game" activities that I may be overlooking?

Vargen wrote:

The what now? I was under the impression that the Shadow and Immortal stuff was all endgame PvP. I'm lukewarm on PvP at the best of times and I don't really have any interest in being cannon fodder for a whale.

Based on what I've seen of the chests that you use Aspirant Keys on, it's impossible to not "need" more. There's a ton of the things and they take increasing amounts of keys to open. It's pretty obvious that they want you spending Platinum, the real-money-auction-house currency, to get your fill.

How often can you do that Aspirant's Challenge thing, anyway? I think I've been back once since the game introduced it to me. That was when I shifted gears from "I must be conservative with my resources for the long run" to "I'm not sticking around for the long run so I'll spend what I got while I'm here" so I went back and dumped all the keys I had. It was kind of underwhelming, given that the rewards were a bunch of upgrade currencies that I couldn't spend yet. I've only got two of those things to upgrade and they both want blue, and it looks like most of the rest are stuck behind endgame difficulty levels that require at least a second person.

I actually had half a post typed out on my phone earlier today and Chrome decided I must want to refresh the page, thanks Chrome!

These are the upgrade paths for me as I see them.

- Get gold equipment drops (much more common on Hell I difficulty). Try to get ones that align with your skill selection or, alternatively, adjust your skills to align with the best equipment you have. The Essence Transfer NPC allows you to store the essence of gold drops (destroying the equipment in the process). Once you’ve done that, you can apply that essence to other equipment of the same type ie. helmet -> helmet etc. It seems a bit broken IMO, but in a good way. So, if you really love that ability in your current helmet, but the new helmet has way better stats, then just apply the essence to the better helmet and away you go. From what I can tell, once you store a particular essence in your log, you can apply it as many times as you want. Gotta catch ‘em all!

- Get green accessory drops that align with your build. Try to get at least 2 to get the set bonus. For example, as a Necro, I’m using a set that powers up my minions. The benefits improve when you have 4 of a set, or even 6 of a set. Now, these definitely don’t drop as much as I would like and only in dungeon instances. You can get a few as part of the Prodigy path which gives you benefits every 5 levels of Paragon and it does allow you to choose what set you want.

- Upgrade your Helliquary and fill it with demon essences obtained by completing raids. If you follow the tutorial, it will take you through beating the first raid and getting the Flame-Twisted Claw which you then put in your Helliquary. I still haven’t found the second raid (boo). The Helliquary itself can be upgraded via Scoria, earned as drops from completing the raids (up to once per week per difficulty level). You also get a little Scoria from the Battle Pass.

- The Legacy of the Horadrim is in Iben Fahd’s Sanctum. You earn shards throughout the game which you put into different slots in the shrine. You then play through a short dungeon to get to some chests. These chests contain special materials that upgrade the shards and increase the bonuses. The chests are unlocked using special keys. These keys drop from the enemies in the dungeon, usually 2-5 a run. The dungeon can be done once a day. More usefully, you can also buy 5 keys a day from the Hilt Vendor (for 250 hilts). This should be one of those first things you do when you log in. Actually, the best way to get keys (without using real money presumably) is to join the Shadow Faction and do the Assembly activity (up to 6 days a week). If you complete it successfully, you’ll get around 12-15 keys, pretty badass (plus way too much XP really, like half a Paragon level for 5 minutes). So, that’s almost 25 keys a day. The shards themselves are actually not difficult to get except one. If you get stuck let me know, I can outline the easier ones to get.

- Install Legendary Gems in every piece of equipment, up to 6. At first, you’ll just want to put in whatever gems you can get your hands on. But, later, replace them with ones that match your build as much as possible. Then, upgrade them by feeding in more Legendary Gems. It’s a bit of an expensive process but makes a big difference.

- Install regular gems on all your accessories. These can also be upgraded, just by feeding them more gems of the same type.

The Shadow is available as soon as the Tutorial lets you know about it, is it level 40 or so? You’ll start seeing notifications about a Shadow Lottery. After that you just talk to the Mysterious Person, sign up for the lottery (odds are good), and you can become a member. If you’re in a Clan that is not a “Dark” Clan, it’s probably just easiest to quit the clan because you can’t become a Shadow unless your clan leader commits to the process (it’s a bit long-winded to explain).

Anyway, doing all of the above is definitely a solid 1-2 hours of play a day, which works for me for a mobile title. If you just plow ahead, like 5-10 hours a day, you will run into daily/weekly drop limits for various things.

Hope that helps!

While Shadows vs Immortals is endgame pvp, that's only for actually dethroning the Immortal (and becoming the new one). You can just participate in the Shadow's long build up to the fight as a lowly peon and still benefit.

Hey, don’t call me a lowly peon, I just reached the rank Hunter 1! Immortals bow before me! :p

*looks at the Legendary Gem grind that takes half a million dollars to fully shortcut*

I think we're all peons at this stage of things.

I still wonder if I would bother to play the actual game if I just bought all the upgrades. I suppose you can’t buy XP, maybe use a bot with the PC version?

I did just get my first Legendary gem to lv 5, which supposedly gives you a +5% to magic drops. Doubt it’s noticeable though.

The second raid has finally launched. A bit surprised at the required combat rating, 2000. For reference, the first raid has a required combat rating of 400, or 1200 for the second difficulty level. I have two characters, one at ~1000 and another at ~1150. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up scaling down the requirements/difficulty because my impression is that very few players would even be able to access it.

I finally beat the first raid (Lassal). Today I learned you can queue up for a raid party and then go do other normal stuff while waiting for it to fill up. I also joined the shadows and started some of that contents. Lots of parallel quest stuff now, and still working the main story and looking for a clan or active warband.

So I've got this gem. It's only 2/5 stars, but the effect on it looks like it'd be pretty useful if I ever get around to making a support build. It's also worth like 35 upgrade doodads, and the rest of what I have totals up to 4. And there's a progress screen that says my gem upgrade progress is poor. Should I crunch this up now to feed the gems I'm using? I don't actually like half the gems I'm using, but they do do some things with the skills I'm using, unlike this one...

I've had no luck with warbands. I mean, I can check the box of joining a warband. But, in terms of doing any activities with the other members... It really seems to be only something for 8 IRL hardcore players who can schedule stuff with each other. So, hopefully I won't be locked out of too much content. It would be pretty nice to have 4 regulars to cruise around with I'm sure.

Clan is definitely worth joining ASAP, ideally as close to 100 as possible. Also, you should go into the Shadows Assembly area, and enquire about joining Dark Clans now you're a Shadow member. That will give you access to a lot more bonuses. As for the utility of clans, if you ever in need of a party of 2-4 to do something (Hell I is 2 minimum for example), having 10-20 always online clannies is pretty useful. I've worked out that people will just invite you to join instances. You don't even need to be in the vicinity. And, yeah, the custom seems to be that people will pretty much join you when you invite them.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up scaling down the requirements/difficulty because my impression is that very few players would even be able to access it.

Isn't that the purpose though. It is mostly the credit card warriors who can reach it, and they want more people to pick up that particular weapon. Lost Ark is designed the same way with its content releases.

Judging by the gap, splashing out a few hundred dollars wouldn’t get me there. Sure, encourage people to spend money, but even the true whales still need peons to fill out parties, make them feel good about themselves etc. So they might have misjudged this one.

I’ve run into a bug with my first character. I joined the Shadow Faction, then joined a Dark Clan (something you can only do if you are a Shadow). Anyway, I guess my clan was a bit sucky because they got tossed out early in the PvP comp which reverted their status to a regular clan and also threw every member out of the Shadow faction. Anyway, I went through the process of applying to the Shadow lottery which got me two tokens. Normally you use one token to join the Shadow Faction and then you can use the second token to recruit someone else. However, if you’re already in a clan, members of that clan need to contribute 30 tokens to a clan pool. After that, the clan leader elects to convert the clan to a Dark Clan.

Anyway, the story is, myself and enough other members contributed our tokens to get to thirty. I waited a few days for the clan leader to convert to a Dark Clan but, finally, decided screw it and quit the clan so I could just join the faction directly. I’d already contributed both my tokens to the clan so I figured I’d need to sign up for the lottery again to get more tokens. However, the game doesn’t seem to recognize that I no longer have tokens. When I talk to the Mysterious Person he just acts as if I’ve completed the lottery and trial and asks if I’m ready to sign up. But, presumably since I don’t have a token, there’s no sign up button. So my character is locked out of the Shadow faction which is rather annoying because there are significant bonuses you get for minimal effort.

Anyway, if anyone has a spare token and could friend me up and invite me, well I’d appreciate it! Please let me know here or PM.

Make sure you submit a report. Which server are you on?

Actually, I went into the interface to submit a support request. But, at least according to the way I understood it, the only option is for me to submit it on the forums as a general game bug upon which, if I was lucky, it would maybe go into the queue to be patched sometime in the future. So, perhaps I should still do it for the good of other players, but if I want to resolve it anytime soon, I’ll need to work around it myself.

I’ll check the server name in a bit. But I think you’ll need my battle.net tag.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Actually, I went into the interface to submit a support request. But, at least according to the way I understood it, the only option is for me to submit it on the forums as a general game bug upon which, if I was lucky, it would maybe go into the queue to be patched sometime in the future. So, perhaps I should still do it for the good of other players, but if I want to resolve it anytime soon, I’ll need to work around it myself.

I’ll check the server name in a bit. But I think you’ll need my battle.net tag.

Yeah, definitely need both. Unless you're on Hadriel, I would have to create a rescue character and get to level 40+.

Here it is:
MrGTChris#1607
Server: マノルク

Just wrapped up the battle pass for both characters, coming in under the wire!

Grr... I've got like 5-7 of each of the blue rarity runes. Except for the one that makes a gem I actually want... I have just the one of those.