Diablo Immortal's 'orb debt' whales are losing access to PvP, and legit players are thrilled

Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo Immortal players who've been reduced to 'orb debt' will be restricted from PvP activities.

Earlier this month, Blizzard took action against players who had purchased Eternal Orbs from unauthorized sources, often at massive discounts compared to the official store. That left many of those players with big negative orb balances. One player was estimated to have an orb debt that would take some $35k to pay off.

Blizzard has said earlier this week that it won't be outright banning players in orb debt, though they do face certain gameplay limitations while they carry that negative balance. That decision has proven pretty unpopular, and some players are even calling on each other to stop spending money in the in-game store until the devs reverse course.

The backlash got even more vociferous, however, when players found that some players in orb debt have still been able to access PvP activities - even though they still have all the gameplay benefits they'd already spent their orbs on.

In this case, Blizzard was quick to confirm that this was not intended. As noted by PCGamesN, community manager Adam ‘PezRadar’ Fletcher says on Reddit that the studio has applied a hotfix "that will be restricting these players from Battlegrounds and other PvP activities."

The response to that news has been loudly positive. "THANK YOU I LOVE YOU," Reddit user mmo115 says. "Our prayers have been heard," kgtomov says. "Thanks God, fking finally!"

Diablo 4 is on the horizon, and Blizzard is promising that it won't be pay-to-win.