...So it begins

[Arawn]

Finally available for download four years after being announced by Blizzard. Let's just take a peek

[davidz]

Whenever I say I like a game, there will be people say: oh, that is just a copy of Diablo… what the heck? I guess I’m going to try it out. It’s very likely more fun than WS… not the ANB though I think.

[Tolimar]

Nothing. I made it to Level 13 Demon Hunter today and have not spent one cent…yet. Lots of opportunities to spend but I have ignored them so far. The main in-game currency (Orbs, I think) mirrors the Gems strategy of Eternium, up to the $99.99 price point. Lots of free upgrades, bonuses, and rewards so far. The “Pay-to-Play” wall may come later, when Blizzard thinks most players will be so entrenched and time-invested that they won’t want to quit.

[Ozymandius]

Tolimar Thanks for your insight. I am a little skeptical of getting sucked into a game with lots of pay gates but maybe it is worth a look.

[Tolimar]

I agree, especially when one wrong push of a button can cost you $99.99 if you aren’t paying attention! I figure that it’s something to do until the next ANB comes along, as you say, worth a look.

[davidz]

It’s indeed more fun than WS, but it’s far less than ANB…

[davidz]

Don’t like the game! It’s a shitty mass… good graphics but boring and ugly story… Eternium is a million times better. Just deleted the efing game.

[Tolimar]

A little harsh, don’t you think? I’ll take a boring and ugly story over a story that has stagnated into nothing but mind-numbing repetition. Just turn up the Difficulty Level dial and Trial 5 becomes Trial 125. Don’t get me wrong, I like Eternium, I have invested a lot of time and real $$ in it. I just don’t see much of a return on the investment. Same 5 Bosses, same Daily Quests, same tiresome waste of gold and materials trying to craft outside of ANB events, same insanity-inducing farming, nothing for a Main to do but wait for new CTd gear and Push through a few more Trials. Looking forward to the next ANB, WS doesn’t provide anything that a well-developed Main doesn’t already have, just a Pay-to-Play option. With deep-enough pockets, one can play entirely by purchasing Gems. Sigh… I do appreciate and understand your comments, and in no way mean to be unkind. “We are fools to make war on our Brothers In Arms” (Dire Straits). Peace.

[davidz]

Tolimar yes, I’m a bit too harsh. I don’t have the right to say if it’s good or not since I have not played enough. Maybe I’m too old, and I just don’t like all these kind of game… it’s very similar to many other games. I don’t like their way of farming, and the gear system- smells strongly like pay-to-win. The story line is a mess, you don’t know where to start, where you should go… I just feel it’s bad right now, and I feel I will know it is really bad and how it is bad if I play it longer. In Eternium, I can make a 77 and that’s it, it’s the best. In this DI game, I probably will never be able to craft a good gear and never get the best gear after spending 200 dollars.

[Tolimar]

You have the right to say anything you wish. I just don’t think you are giving DI a fair chance. The game spells out every step, every quest you must complete, it even gives you footprints on the ground to follow! I think you are right, the Pay-to-Win wall will probably kick in when many players won’t want to quit. As far as being too old, I can almost guarantee that I am far older than you. I have played my share of RPGs since Wizardry from 1990 to Eternium today and all the big ones in between: EverQuest for 16 years, Everquest II, Diablo I and II, Dragon Warrior, and WoW. Yes, they all have many things that are similar, including that Pay-to-Win smell. You can’t deny that Blizzard does produce a slick and polished game. Just to be fair, Dragon Warrior was on Nintendo and had nothing extra to buy once you bought the game. Some were subscription based and most had expansion packs for purchase. But none of them were the voracious money pits that these “in app purchases” create, including Eternium and Diablo Immortal. I don’t mind paying to play, but I have spent far more than $200 on Eternium and seen precious little development.

[davidz]

I’ve been playing mobile games a lot not the PC game. If you ever played the mobile games such as Gameloft’s Dungeon Hunter 4 (DH4) and DH5, it will much easier for me to express my feeling clearly: I love DH4 and hate DH5. The DI game is better than DH5, but it is a lot more like DH5, and that’s why I don’t like it. Eternium is like DH4 which has been killed by Gameloft. Similarly, I love Eternity Warrior 2 (EW2), but EW3 gets much worse, and I hate EW4 which is also more like the DI game. They just do not give me any thrill… My heart pump and I can’t sleep when I play DH4, EW2 or ANB! I just get angry and my hatred and disgust just increases when I play DH5, EW4 or DI… Yes, DH5 and EW4 has much fancier graphics but they just have no fun and they are just trolling the players.

[Tolimar]

Eternium is the first mobile RPG that I have played. I saw that you had mentioned DH4 and went to the App Store to look for it but, sadly, it has been replaced by DH5, which I avoided again because of your comments. Did I see that you posted that you finished Trial 137 in this last Gold ANB!? What class, how are you doing that!? I barely finished 127 with my BH, and it was my best ANB ever. Admittedly, I know I am a really crappy player. I usually buy most of the Event Packs because I need all the help I can get. I don’t know how anyone does it with no in app purchases and the limited gem budget they say they use. Skill, of which I have little, does count for a lot in Eternium.

[Montresor]

Tolimar - i highly recommend going over to the discord and checking out the channel for your preferred class. understanding the optimal gear sets and how to use them is a giant part of success in the game. Unfortunately i don't know anything about BH, but there are people there that do.

[Tolimar]

I thought I had joined Discord but found it very difficult to navigate through it. My fault entirely, I am sometimes not very savvy about such things. For example, how are you getting that tiny picture of my avatar followed by Tolimar at the beginning of your comment?
Everyone that comments on one of my posts seems to know how to do it, I have no clue how to figure it out. I still have trouble posting screenshots.
And every time I try to use an emoji, it gets replaced by a ?. Yet I know I have seen emojis used in the forums.

Wait, how did it do that Montresor?

Well, it looks like I figured one thing out. LOL.

[davidz]

DI is much better than DH5, and its genuine online gaming is probably the best… I don’t know. For ANB, I have warriors all the time. 6 Furry warrior farms at TL 105 a lot, and then use the meta 4W2F to push. I craft with Pythia which is amazing. I’ve seen some masters farm with 6F and then push with BH.

[Tolimar]

I started Eternium way back in 2017 on an inexpensive Android Fire tablet. My first character was a Mage. I knew nothing about the game or the forums. I quit because I kept dying in the Wailing Peaks. My first reaction to Eternium at the time was probably very similar to your reaction to DI. I came back to Eternium in April 2021, determined to learn the game. At first, I tried salvaging my Mage with advice from the forums. But I think I made too many mistakes with him and ended up deleting him as a lost cause. My next character was a BH, Stalker Build. I thought I was following the Build properly, but another disappointment. All his gear is CTd, except jewelry, yet he seems to have plateaued at Trial 128. Entering Trial 129 is Instant Death. Pressing “Start” = Death ?! Every Single Time! So I went to the BH Leaderboard and looked at the Top Player who had cleared Trial 197. I wrote down every detail. I brought a new BH over from an ANB. I crafted his gear based on the information I had written down. I went to the forums and found out this was the Havoc/Demo BH Build. I followed the advice of the Veteran Players and the many excellent guides in the forums. This new BH has finished Trial 137, still needing 5 CTd items. He was equipped with two more from the last ANB, but I have not taken him back to the Trials yet. My Havoc/Demo BH from the last Gold ANB reached #2 on the BH Leaderboard for a brief, shining moment. Like you said, my heart pumps and I can’t sleep when playing an ANB. I usually finish in the first few days. This last ANB was my best ever. But I cannot bear the mind-numbing repetition of starting a Warrior from scratch. I went to the forums and looked up Warrior Builds but they all seemed way too complicated for me. I went to the Pythia website but had no clue how to use it. If I had some direction, maybe I could start a Warrior during the next Bronze ANB. You seem to know what you are talking about with Warrior Builds. Any advice?

[davidz]

There are guides and experts around this forum and discord. I’m not that good, the best warrior I had before only reached TL 153 I remember.
You probably know the following about getting to lvl 70 with warrior:

https://youtu.be/PJUeXslj9Qg

Here is Rommy’s guide about what to do after lvl 70

https://youtu.be/fBOg-JqoQdc

You then just farm at TL 100 or TL 105, and make sure you can finish it in around one minute. That will give you tons of CL and crafting materials, and maybe some really good drops. Then you can craft gears in Pythia. In Pythia you type in the level of all the qualified crafts you made, Pythia tells you what level the next craft may get. Then you save a couple hours for pushing. Make sure to watch some videos on high level pushing.

[Tolimar]

You are way better than me and than you think you are if you have reached Trial 153. I have never played a Warrior, but my best BH has only cleared Trial 137. I have downloaded 3 Warrior Build guides for future reference. My Main BH needs 3 more CTd items, so it looks like the next two ANBs will go toward finishing his build. Thanks for helping.

[davidz]

The Eternium discord is very active… you can chat with some experts there. One of the beauty of Eternium is that knowledge and skills really matter. With the same build, those expert can beat 158 while I only get 153… Boss fighting alone involves a lot of skills.

[Tolimar]

I tried going to Discord a little while ago but had no idea how to use it. It seems very complicated to me, and I found it very frustrating. I tried pushing each button to see what they do, but that didn’t help much. Is it like the forums where you look up posts, or is it like a messaging service where you actually talk to people? Very confusing. Sorry for my stupidity.

[davidz]

Just install the app and add Eternium server. A bunch of channels…

[Tolimar]

Thanks. Just went to the App Store to download. My regular internet has been down for like the last 18 hours so I’ve been running off of my cellular 5G low data mode, so it will probably take a bagillion years to get it downloaded - LOL! Thanks again!

[Arawn]

So $110k or 10 years to max out a character. Yeah, no. Uninstalling

[Tolimar]

Right there with you, uninstalled! It’s too bad, really. This huge company that could easily afford to offer a truly free to play game. Making an honest dollar and rewarding their loyal players with a great game is the big lesson they should have taken from Eternium. Let’s just hope Eternium is bringing in enough of those dollars to survive.

Watched some YouTube video reviews of DI, made by seriously hard-core gamers. Two words to describe them come up most often: sarcastic and brutal. Yet they say the developers are laughing, just waiting for that first billion $ to roll in, and they say it will! They think some of the very deep-pocket “whales” may have already spent a million $ to reach end-game. They have the top-notch gear and absolutely trounce weaker players in PvP, which they say has been ruined by the “casino” loot system of DI. People with gaming and gambling addictions will lose life-savings and fortunes playing this game. Every pay-to-play trap has been designed psychologically to suck players in. They say DI, as predatory as it is, will become the #1 game in the history of video games. I am very saddened by what Blizzard has become, because I have fond memories of WoW and Diablo 1 & 2. One reviewer said DI is D3 with the pay-to-play mechanics worked in. Another f-bombed so often it was laughable. One video had a banner across the top in huge letters for the entire video that said something like “do not pay money for this crap”. And the comments sections… phew! I think I saw that a news outlet had a story about the outrage over DI. Gameplay does looks awesome in the videos. Check some of them out while we wait for the next ANB. Peace.

[Grand_Wazoo]

Lol this is crazy.
He probably did more money with the video but still.

[Raingold]

I got the 'not compatible with your device' message when DI dropped, along with loads of people whose devices also met specs. I tried other games and went back to taking a break from gaming. Helpful to see the comments here. Disappointing that it's a money-suck. I'll pass. Too bad.

[Teebs]

I genuinely have no idea what the plethora of antipathy towards DI is coming from.

It has been officially available for exactly 10 days - I would assume that anyone who was caterwauling about Eternium after playing only for 10 days might receive a bit of derision.

Admittedly I am not a "hardcore gamer" though. As an F2P player - I haven't hit a paywall - so far it isn't pay to play anyway. I don't know about the pay to win aspect - I am not particularly competitive.

I do like the 'co-op' elements - wish there was a crew of Eternium players to get together with to play.

... ktb

[TheExorcist]

Strange?
DUnno wether to believe or not
I've just read a so and so from NZ had played DI.He had to purchased NZD 25,165.57 for the 5 star gem. After obtaining that thing not only he quit but uninstalled the DI.

Reading so many reviews etc in my honest opinion at the moment the only Diablo game that I would like to play once more just two:

1. Diablo original (I hv the original cd)
2. Maybe Diablo resurrected????( I still hv the original Diablo 2 expansion set. Bought when at college etc. hihi)

hv a nice day