MyMMO demon Cortyn settles with Blizzard’s Warcraft Rumble. Because after a good start it becomes clear very quickly: Pay2Win is what you need.
A little over a month has passed since the mobile game “Warcraft Rumble” was officially released. I played hard – on some days a lot more, on others a little less. But every day without exception I logged in and at least completed the dailies or did my part in the progress of the guild.
But in these four weeks I have realized that I have to take back some of my original statements. In my first review of the game I laughed a bit at the PvP and found it not particularly tactical – that’s definitely not the case. It is extremely tactical and quite demanding.
Unfortunately, I also have to take back another statement, because in the last few weeks it has become clear to me: Warcraft Rumble is strong Pay2Win in PvP.
Warcraft Rumble: Cinematic for the launch of the game
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The first matches in particular feel good. Everything seems to come down to actual decisions in the game. Which minis did you take with you? How exactly do you counter the minis your opponent uses? Do you make the first move yourself or do you just try to counter your opponent by “reacting”? Do you have minis with you that can immediately secure the treasure chests?
But as soon as you climb up the ranks a little, that changes. Because the better your rating, the more players you come across who were either extremely lucky with their minis or who simply “cashed in hard”.
Because the crucial element here is talent. You can give each mini a talent – but only once you have upgraded it for the first time. There is a larger selection of talents if you make further upgrades – but that costs a lot of gold. And gold is the limited resource that you can only get a certain amount per week, no matter how much you play. Alternatively, you can buy endless gold in the shop.
To illustrate this with an example: A Sylvanas without talent deals damage to a single target and, upon death, leaves behind a banshee that takes over an enemy mini. A talent now turns Sylvanas’s shots into an area attack that hits all minis in a row – this allows the opposing Sylvanas to eliminate entire groups.
It’s much simpler with other minis. The “Murloc tide hunters” always appear in pairs. With a talent you summon not 2, but 3 Murlocs when you buy it.
Or to put it another way: In this case, a mini with talent is simply 50% stronger than a mini without talent.
Anyone who has a large selection of talent can currently only achieve this by using a lot of real money – this is mathematically not possible otherwise, as the amount of gold won is strictly limited. In a fight between “normal” minis and minis with talents, the minis with talents will almost always win.
And unfortunately that is the definition of Pay2Win.
Solving the problem would be quite simple because: Blizzard could completely deactivate talents in PvP or unlock all talents in PvP.
Then it would be a fair, largely skill-based PvP system. But not doing that is a conscious decision. Because anyone who spends money should feel good.
FOMO and the “great feeling” of being able to buy something
I find the type of monetization chosen for Warcraft Rumble particularly annoying. There are definitely some “good” offers – such as the one-off, permanent boost on all gold winnings. You put 20 euros into it and you have this boost for life. Some people might already cluck their noses in annoyance, but I can still ignore something like that – especially because you also get all the bonus gold “retroactively” if you only complete this deal later.
What’s worse, however, are all the time-limited offers that the game regularly throws at you. There are not only weekly offers, but also ones that you only unlock as you progress through the game.
For example, if you have completed the “Dark Coast” area, you will unlock a special package in the shop. Yes, compared to the other offers, this package has a really solid value – but it also has a time limit. Because after these offers have been “activated”, you only have 2-3 days to buy them.
By the way, the same thing happens in PvP. As soon as you reach a new rank, there is a new offer in the shop to “celebrate”.
That just feels wrong. The “big reward” after completing an area is that you can buy a “great” package in the shop.
As if that wasn’t annoying enough, these packages are also becoming increasingly more expensive, so it’s quite obvious that “bait offers” are being made at the beginning, which then increase in price. Because where the “reward package” initially costs 5 euros, the costs for the next packages rise to 7 euros, then to 10 euros and probably even more – I haven’t even looked at the last ones.
This is reminiscent of Diablo Immortal’s darkest offerings, except here they don’t make absurd promises like “600% value”, but instead call the whole thing a “legendary offer” or “epic offer”.
Here you simply try to trigger the FOMO of the players, according to the motto: If I don’t buy this now, I might never get access to important resources so easily again!
I want to make it clear: I still enjoy Warcraft Rumble. Doing a dungeon run in 15 minutes or slowly working your way through the heroic campaign to complete the daily quests for big XP boosts – that still feels good. I still play it every day.
But the whole PvP aspect of the game has become increasingly less important to me and that’s annoying because in the long run that might be the only motivation left after the campaign.
Because in the end, with the same level of skill in Warcraft Rumble, it all comes down to who has the better talents and the higher upgrade level for their own minis. And in the end, unfortunately, there is one thing that decides: your wallet.
Too bad, Blizzard. A real shame.