I am trying to understand why many supposedly "expert" reviews I read online don't match my experiences.
1) Most notably, many have put too much emphasis on this game's Pay To Win (P2W) contents.
Truth: you can play, complete, and replay almost all the game contents for free - and (at least for now looing forward) forever for free. The game can be expensive IF AND ONLY IF you have made the decision to spend real money on it and have spent not just 5 or 10 dollars, but as much as you can afford. In theory, you could sell your car, sell your house, sell your career, and (if you could) even your mother, to buy the in-game contents. But that doesn't mean you have to. Think about this: you are surely able to hurt your own body with a knife or something, but does that mean you have to bleed or kill yourself with a knife?
Example: I gave one of my latest Free To Play (F2P) character the name "Jan6th2023", because I created her on Jan 6th, 2023. As of today, Feb 23rd, 2023, she is class level 60, paragon level 208, awaiting to unlock Hell Level 5. I only actively played this character for about 10 days. Once she unlocked the Hell 1 difficulty, finished the main story line, and acquired all the free seasonal rewards from the battle pass, I typically only spend a few minutes a day, up to an hour or so, playing this character, mainly to get the daily rewards that don't require much time. Even without spending a dime, it's not hard to level up in this game.
Please don't tell me that sooner or later one has to spend real money for playing this game. To me, that's either a flat lie or just an illusion, though I do believe some may be very sincere in believing the false claim.
2) Diablo Immortal has a few features which I believe have given many reviewers a wrong/biased impression about the game.
- The game has no real penalty on death. As long as there is 1 in a million chance to defeat a boss, you can die as many times as necessary to defeat that boss. The result (reward) is exactly the same (reward) as you would get if you had never died. This feature makes the game deceptively easy to play. As a result, at least in PVE, there is no easy way to differentiate a good player from a not so good player. Additionally, having a higher level character doesn't mean you are a better player. Overall, the game does not encourage anyone to be a better player. In fact, it would rather want you to be a more spending and hence better equipped player than a player better at playing, though you do get a ton of free rewards even if you don't spend a dime.
- There is no real penalty (other than a few minor setbacks) in changing the class of a character. It seems that this feature has fooled many content creators to believe they have found THE best build for a class after only briefly trying the class at a high level using certain best gems and other best items that they had acquired prior to the class change. Once a player believes they have found THE best build (and hence become the owner and player of a best character) of a certain class, further gameplay will most likely become just tedious grinding. A player may lose interest in the whole game due to lack of further challenges in gameplay. However, if they had played every new class from the very beginning, they would have understood that every class has struggling times, and that every so-called best build is only situational. Additionally, not every item can be acquired or purchased in the game. If a so-called "best" build requires a specific legendary item, there is no guarantee that the game will ever drop that item for the player. In the end, any claim that a certain build of a certain class is the best for the class is just an illusion on the player side. It makes the game feel less interesting for playing/replaying, leading a player (as well as those who believe the review of the player) to an overall lower ranking of the game.
Anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed Diablo Immortal. The only major downside of this game is it's awkward to play on PC. When I started to play Diablo Immortal using the same gear for playing Far Cry 6, I found I could not effectively play (control) a Demon Hunter. I struggled a little bit until I switched to a much slower laptop using a MMO mouse.
Overall, Diablo Immortal runs beautifully in the 4K resolution with 200-300+ fps even on my old gaming laptop.
