Blizzard is solving Diablo 4's big battle pass problem in the most low-effort way
Diablo 4's battle pass doesn't reward enough of its paid currency, and things will only slightly improve with Season 2.
Of the many, many major improvements Blizzard is making to Diablo 4 with the start of Season of Blood and the release of patch 1.2.0 next week, the developer appears to have ignored a lot of the discussion around the game's battle pass.
There's one issue in particular that came up just as Blizzard introduced the concept of the battle pass to Diablo 4, and while it is being addressed with Season 2, the solution is nowhere near good enough.
The big problem with the Diablo 4 is just how stingy it is when it comes to rewarding Platinum, the paid currency in the game. Typically, battle passes award players that finish it enough currency to buy the next one, basically allowing the most dedicated to pay for battle passes once - so long as they finish every one.
Diablo 4's battle pass, however, leaves you a couple of hundreds short, so even if you finish the full battle pass, you still won't have enough Platinum to buy next season's battle pass. That decision never quite made sense, especially given how much of Diablo 4's monetisation system is modelled after Call of Duty - Activision Blizzards other major franchise-turned-live service.
But what's even less excusable was that the total Platinum one could earn for finishing the battle pass was not even enough to buy a single item in the store. Blizzard stayed on theme, making it so players earn 666 Platinum by the end of the battle pass, which, while cute, doesn't help anyone.
Blizzard is actually making a couple of changes to the battle pass with Season of Blood, but its "fix" for the Platinum problem is especially frustrating. As detailed in the 1.2.0 patch notes, finishing the battle pass will now award you... 700 Platinum!
That's a whopping 34 extra Platinum! If you're familiar with Diablo 4's paid currency store, you'll know that 700 is the lowest end of what the store's cosmetics typically cost. It's usually enough for a mount trophy or a backpack. More meaningful cosmetics start at 1,200, and could go up to 2,800 for the major bundles.
It's a little insulting, especially as Blizzard teased a whole new range of cosmetics coming to the store with Season of Blood, so it's not like prices are going down or the content will be easier to acquire in any way.
Adjusting how much Platinum is awarded is not likely to change until the Season 3 battle pass - if it does at all. It's probably backed into the battle pass at this point, but we'll have to see how Blizzard responds when Season 2 kicks off October 17.