Diablo Immortal legendary crests will get a visual redesign to differentiate them from eternal crests criticised as pay to win monetisation in the fantasy RPG
Diablo Immortal legendary crests will get a visual redesign to help differentiate them from the paid eternal legendary crests in an attempt to address concerns about ‘hidden’ monetisation mechanics in the fantasy game. Players have previously complained that Diablo Immortal’s eternal legendary crests – which can only be bought with real money and allow earned gems to be traded on the in-game market – bear almost identical resemblance to the lesser ‘regular’ legendary crests.
Furthermore, eternal legendary crests can only be bought as a standalone item in the in-game store – meaning that, because of their nearly identical designs, some players felt they had been tricked into buying real-money item bundles believing they were getting the eternal crests, when in fact the bundles contained standard legendary crests that only drop bound gems instead of tradeable ones.
Diablo Immortal lead designer Wyatt Cheng responded to a post on the game’s subreddit showing a new crest design. Cheng says that a change is in the works that will see the standard legendary crest revamped to a new, orange look instead of its purple one. The eternal legendary crest, Cheng explains, will retain its current purple design, while the non-eternal legendary crest will now have a distinct shape with an orange face.
“We want to make sure players know exactly what they’re getting when they make a purchase,” says Cheng. “Players should be able to distinguish the two quickly not only by colour but also by shape (for colour-blind accessibility).” Cheng adds that the team has been conducting accessibility tests to ensure the new designs can be clearly understood when shrunk down to smaller sizes, or when seen by new players. He continues, “In addition we’re adding the market icon to the item description of the eternal legendary crest to reinforce the difference.”
Changes are also being made to the Elder Rift itself – the place where your crests are used to guarantee legendary gem drops after a successful rift run – to more easily see how many of each you currently have to hand. “As part of the update we’ll also change the Elder Rift entrance UI so you can choose which one you want to use (if you own both) as well as easily see how many of each you own,” says Cheng.
Players responding to the post are generally expressing thanks for the change, although some lament how long it took to implement when both crests have been present in the game since launch. Others raise Blizzard’s seeming reluctance to hand out legendary crests, asking why they are so hard to come by for free. “It would help distinguish them better if we received one legendary crest every day for login,” says one user, “So we can have at least 30 pulls a month – like every gacha game out there.”
If you’re playing the RPG game yourself, we’ve got the August 17 Diablo Immortal patch notes covered. We’ve also got a Diablo Immortal tier list to help you pick which class to play, the best Diablo Immortal builds, everything you need to know about the best Diablo Immortal legendary items for each class, and a guide to Diablo Immortal legendary gems and how to craft them without using those pesky legendary crests.