Recently, the developers announced the updates they plan to release in Diablo 4 Season 4. Because of the lackluster reception of Season 3 and the launch of other ARPG games, if Diablo 4 is to remain relevant in the genre, the developers will really have to strengthen their game with some updates.

By looking at the fundamental changes they’ve made to the game so far along with the introduction of multiple new systems, overhauls of major items, and more, it seems like they’re on the right path to making Diablo 4 a better game.

Season 4 Risks Becoming A Pay To Win Game

But now, I’m skeptical. The first is because we don’t actually have updates yet. Secondly, Diablo 4 developers are known for making terrible changes that no one asked for. Like nerfing all the good builds to the ground before Season 1 starts, or adding expensive cosmetics to the game.

Therefore, in this guide, we will focus primarily on the immense danger to the potential success of the upcoming Season 4: this is the risk of Diablo 4 becoming a pay-to-win. We’ll discuss the impact this change has on the game, and how it itself may cause carefully crafted updates in Season 4 to become wasted.

Players Can Buy Materials From Third Parties

The ability to pay real money for items and consumables is now in the game. Players can purchase items with Diablo 4 Gold or even with real money on some websites.

In particular, the demand for buying and selling Duriel materials was and is very high. Because Uber Unique items have ridiculously low drop rates and high-power levels, players are forced to run Duriel hundreds of times.

Granted, collecting the materials to summon Duriel isn’t difficult, but overall it’s time-consuming and troublesome, so it’s no surprise that many players choose the easy way out.

Of course, paying third parties for actual in-game services is against the game’s terms, but the chances of getting banned are low. They don’t really stop many players from using wallets to get the best items in the game faster.

Uniques & Legendaries Cannot Be Traded Between Players

To this day, only rare items can be traded between players, but trading of Uniques and Legendaries is not possible. This way, players can’t simply buy all the items they need. The downside to this is that group members cannot provide each other with items they find, which creates some frustration within the player base.

Possible Impacts Of Season 4 Update

Excitingly, this will all change in Season 4. Once the new update goes live, you will trade unmodified Legendary items and Uniques. But this has some huge implications.

First, players on the same side can now easily share loot, which is a positive thing, but at what cost? It is not difficult to predict that this change will result in an increase in the number of items sold for D4 Gold. On top of that, more and more items will be sold for real money, eventually and potentially making Diablo 4 a pay-to-win game.

Now, thankfully, modified items cannot be traded. So technically, you won’t be able to get the best items.

Issues With New Trading Options

But items with Greater Affixes can be traded. These are the base items that will be used to create the best items through Masterworking.

So, with these trading options, the question becomes: Will players in Diablo 4 feel forced to use real money to get really good items? If so, this would create a similar experience to the beginning of Diablo 3, where the auction house offered far better items than you could find while actually playing the game.

The major difference between them is that in Diablo 3, transactions are conducted through a controlled system, while in Diablo 4, funds will be processed through third-party websites.

The most important consequence is that the easiest way to obtain these top items is to buy them instead of playing the game. Then no matter how good the game is, no matter how many new systems are added, no matter how hard the developers try to fix the problems, players will spend money buying items instead of actually playing the game. This will simply overwrite all the good stuff in this patch.

Most players will complain about this situation. But if the developers don’t respond to that, they’ll quit and move on to one of the other A-RPGs in the market.

All in all, I firmly believe that this new update may push Diablo 4 further towards its demise. But what do you think? Is this new patch a step towards pay-to-win game for Diablo 4? Let me know what you think and I’ll see you next time.

Diablo 4 developers had a live stream a few days ago, during which they talked about Season Journey and Battle Pass. At the same time, they also showed us some of the store’s Monetization features.

In this regard, I would like to discuss and summarize the whole thing. If you’re curious about what’s going on in this Diablo 4 developer stream, here’s everything you need to know.

First of all, I want to talk about the potential loopholes of Battle Pass, including the free and paid track in the game together, and the level restriction they talked about. As some players may be concerned that there may be potential loopholes in the acquired Accelerated Battle Pass, so I will continue to follow up on this matter.

According to Diablo 4 developers, Accelerated Battle Pass can help players greatly improve the game progress. Includes 20-tier skips and the chance to get those Smoldering Ashes earlier.

These Smoldering Ashes can be used to boost certain permanent character powers earned this season. For example, here you can get more Monsters XP, Diablo 4 Gold, Salvage, Elixirs, and Season-themed stuff that’s still being kept under wraps for now.

It's pretty neat to tie Season and Battle Pass together in this way. Because although players can still get rewards by completing tasks, brushing monsters, participating in world events and other ways.

But Battle Pass can help players clarify their season goals. It will be easier for players to form a stable game style and it has released the best way to play after the game for a long time. At the same time, players can also start new characters repeatedly, instead of just polishing the endgame for a long time.

If you’re still worried about Battle Pass, you can speed up your progression by getting a Battle Pass. Rather than just meeting the minimum level requirement to reach a certain level in Battle Pass faster. If so, Battle Pass can help you do more with less.

For example, while these assets required you to be at least a level 10 character, here it requires at least a level 20 character, so you can unlock them as you play.

Blizzard seems to be trying to steer players toward new seasonal characters with Diablo 4 content and Battle Pass rewards. But with most of the attention currently focused on Diablo 4's open world and endgame, there still appears to be tension between the two playstyles.

Adam Fletcher is the community manager for Diablo series. He said that if there are any issues with Accelerated Battle Pass, they will adjust it based on feedback from players in the community. If there is any imbalance, they will decide that all players in the game will not win any rewards, and there will be no Pay To Win situation.

So we basically have official confirmation here that there won’t be any leaks. Or if the developers find any small bug, they will fix it promptly. So that’s basically all the important points from this Diablo 4 developer stream. Hope this helps you get up to speed on Diablo 4 Battle Pass and beyond. Good luck.