It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal • Hacker News Board

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#291

Post by pezezin » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:22 PM UTC

yuzugit wrote: post #69

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heroin is fun too, at least at first. The problem with gambling is that it taps into the dopamine system in ways that people are not aware of, even if they know about probabilities. The effect is cumulative, and the more the person gambles, the more they will gamble, take risks, create unbalance and spend money. Now, just like with anything related to dopamine, many people will only have a mild effect. E.G: I've play…

I work on video games (not on the design side but programming) and had to implement some on those systems on several mobile games. I agree with the comment above that it’s hard to draw the line between gambling addiction and à faire amount of random that brings fun to a game. Diablo 2 has already those kinds of random behavior to retain your attention and trigger dopamine rushes but without trying to grab cash from y…

Japan has pachinko-like machines for kids (and I'm not kidding, I just saw one today and got extremely pissed off), I wouldn't count on them.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#292

Post by mromanuk » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:22 PM UTC

seventytwo wrote: post #277

elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

> There will be no self-regulation. The idea of self-regulation is a lie told by corporations who don’t want regulation. Corporations will do literally anything to maximize their profits.

Goes deeper. Self-regulation is sold by hyper liberals and libertarians as the pinnacle of freedom in capitalism. From individuals to corporation, where any form of regulation or control should be excluded

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#293

Post by mrits » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:23 PM UTC

aliswe wrote: post #276

RektBoy wrote: post #201

Game is coded horribly, nearly no server-side checks on gameplay actions. What I found so far.. speedhack, insta-ability spam, immortality(hehe). Looking for force-invite into party and drop exploit. So far nothing. Pouring more hours into this, let's see on twitch ;-)

link?

https://www.reddit.com/r/DiabloImmortal/comments/v4n35m/hack...

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#294

Post by matheusmoreira » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:24 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #274

nonrandomstring wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I managed to cure myself of this addiction by... cheating. I reverse engineered the game and wrote a bot for it. All those silly tasks were now getting done automatically, my progression was assured and the game's hold over me was destroyed. This is absolutely fascinating. It's something I kinda missed from Digital Vegan, thinking that extrication would be a matter only of self-mastery and access to good informatio…

It is an alcoholic leaping over the bar to start drinking directly from the tap. It is a violation of the rules and will get you banned, but it will not cure a true addiction. Some gamblers are addicted to the game, but some are actually addicted to the money they want to win from gambling. Gaining access to free ingame stuff by cheating might mitigate some harmful economic effects but it wont necessarily allow an ad…

> Gaining access to free ingame stuff by cheating might mitigate some harmful economic effects but it wont necessarily allow an addict to stop.

The free stuff exists to instill an habit in players. People literally force themselves to log into the game and do daily tasks because otherwise they're missing out on daily rewards.

My bot completely nullified their little scheduled rewards design. I was now free to play the game whenever I actually felt like playing. Then I discovered I didn't actually feel like it, I was just going through the motions due to negative reinforcement.

Don't underestimate the power of software. It can literally liberate us.

> It is a violation of the rules and will get you banned

Whatever. No big loss.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#295

Post by fsloth » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:24 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #279

skohan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be the greatest evil on earth, but knowingly preying on vulnerable people in society, and causing harm for your own benefit, to me is sickening and evil.

That's the thing though, vulnerable people in society don't have access to $110k.

Sure they do. Not on a one go, maybe, just wait for the interest to pile up. Shor-term unsecured loans are notorious for trapping people into financial ruin. Their legality depends on jurisdiction but the last time I checked they were present in many first-world economies.

Easy access to high-interest loans is what makes deliberate addiction mechanics for mass consumption entertainment truly insidious.

Gambling used to be branded as gambling with strict state controls, and you could expect people to recognize it as a morally questionable endeavor in which only consenting adults should dabble. Games that utilize the same psychological switches as gambling and allow microtransactions that link to these psychological switches are similar enough to gambling in my books that they should be treated as such.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#296

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:24 PM UTC

bsnal wrote: post #153

x3ro wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like... all the actual... children who play these games? Should we stop treating those like children too?

Children have parents who know what their children are doing online. In any case, children don’t have access to credit cards or any other means to pay for in-game items.

Every single statement in this post is a lie, its a bit of an achievement

1 - some children have no parents

2 - we have data to prove that parents don't know what their children do online, and never did. This is a complete fabrication

3 - children do have access to creditcards, both legally from the age of 14 or 16 depending on jurisdiction, and illegally

4 - there are many non-credit-card ways of paying for ingame items, including crypto

Anyway, given your views, I presume you are in favour of legalising cocaine and other drugs? Otherwise this whole line of argument would be hypocritical.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#297

Post by eknkc » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:24 PM UTC

discardable_dan wrote: post #234

elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

This is, honestly, why I'm focusing my children on Nintendo products. They do sometimes charge for skins, but by and large they don't succumb to the same "pay me to play" traps as other platforms.

I have a Switch (got it when I had a surgery to ease the long recovery). The Nintendo IP is almost completely bullshit free. The success of Switch is nice too.

FromSoftware is another bastion of hope. The popularity of Elden Ring is no coincidence.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#298

Post by Ekaros » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:24 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #178

Ekaros wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what we could do to legally balance this. Out right banning is bit questionable. But weekly or monthly spending reports? Some total number shown regularly to players?

I think that the option in appstores to completely hide all games with in-app purchases would be enough. Like, if you don't know they exist, you can't get hooked. Probably banning advertising such games anywhere but on the AppStores, too.

I'm all for advertisement ban. Or at least limiting periods allowed. It gets either really funny, sad or scary however you take it when you see some games like Raid Shadow Legends advertised for years extremely prominently. At least when comparing to most other mobile titles... And then the places it is advertised. Like cooking channels...

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#299

Post by lekevicius » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:25 PM UTC

Beltalowda wrote: post #267

lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

> It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds and thousands of dollars". What makes you say that? I mostly play single-player games where I just buy a game and then play it. There are loads of those out there, with more released every week. Even with my underpowered Linux laptop I have plenty to choose from.

I guess I should have added "no longer works on mobile". PCs/Consoles have plenty of good, paid-upfront games.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#300

Post by sandworm101 » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:25 PM UTC

elif wrote: post #220

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good question. Golf seems very similar to me. There's the random element. A friend described it as a feeling of continual frustration followed by a high when he hits a good shot. You similarly can buy your way to 'success' with gadgets and training or investing more time. There's the community of similar addicts that gather together and provide a social element and re-inforce each others addiction. People's…

Wait, what's the random element in golf? I play weekly and the only random element I can think of are maybe cars and animals distracting me? Golf is a game of 3D localization and mapping, wind analysis, projectile estimation, and fine-tune physique control... If you are treating those elements as "random" you are missing large aspects of the game.

It is about hitting a very small/light ball very far. It is about interaction with natural elements in real time (wind/grass etc). It may be physics but it is physics in the real non-vacuum world. Even a perfect robot could not place a golfball in the same spot repeatedly. That is the unescapable random element.