Free offers the blandest armor skins you can think of(base game skins look better) and a crappy title that you can put on your character that no one will notice.
Paid gives you mid cosmetics and 666 of their microtransaction tokens. Except the cheapest item in the store is 800 tokens. So you get to pay money so you can pay money again to actually use the rewards from the paid track. It's a slap in the face and I'm glad I didn't buy ultimate edition.
I don't regret paying the $70 because before the latest patch the game was actually pretty damn fun. But I have absolutely no reason to keep playing anymore. I'm going to remember my times with d4 fondly and forget that the game still exists.
I put so many hours into D2 growing up, but refused to touch D3 when it rolled around. This summer some old friends tried to get me to jump aboard the D4 train, but for some reason I didn't feel it. Part of it I think was that I've played enough of the genre (D2 & PoE) that I'm kind of not hungry for it anymore, but another big part was definitely because I wouldn't trust Blizzard with a free lunch.
Not sure if it makes me happy or sad to see my suspicions weren't unwarranted.
Paid gives you mid cosmetics and 666 of their microtransaction tokens. Except the cheapest item in the store is 800 tokens.
I know this is just textbook mobile game style monetization bullshit and I should desensitized to it by now, but stuff like this still pisses me off.
I'm out of the loop with D4. What are these free/paid reward tracks? Some sort of new money making sceme? As if paying out for the game isn't enough already.
D3 had seasons where you did things and got points towards cosmetics and titles. This was all included with the game and you just had to put the work in to earn them.
D4 took that and said "What's this? Something that isn't asking players for money? Wow how can this be?" and turned it into a battle pass.
I posted another comment here about what the battle pass actually offers and why I uninstalled.
You remember correctly, at launch D3 had the RMAH (real money auction house). It was a bit of a mess and they ended up removing it from the game not long after launch.
Path of Exile is the closest thing I've played to a worthy D2 successor. D3 was fun and worth the money, but isn't really like D2. D4 has been fun so far too, but I'm still on the fence as they obviously have a lot to sort out, just like they did with D3. Definitely wouldn't say I regret buying D4 at this point, it just needs work.
Honestly games from that era just had a "simple complexity" and a difficulty that doesn't seem to exist with modern games. And that seems to apply across genres.