Dragon Quest Walk finally adds the skill on/off toggle everyone wanted — but locks it behind a paywall, and players are furious

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The story

Dragon Quest Walk players have long complained that during auto-battle, skills they’ve selected often don’t get used automatically, and there had been repeated requests for a per-skill on/off toggle. That feature has now been added — but only for subscribers to the “Gold Pass,” which works out to roughly 3,000 yen a month, drawing criticism from free-to-play users who called it “deliberately making the game inconvenient just so they can sell you the fix.” The thread saw a mix of defenses (“of course paying customers get treated better”) and counterarguments (“if free players quit, the game dies out and paying users suffer too”), escalating into name-calling that included the slur “kojiki” (beggar) aimed at non-paying players.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:04
Auto-battle often wouldn't use the skills players actually wanted — so they added a skill on/off toggle, but made it pay-only, and free-to-play users are reportedly livid
2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:05
Well, paying customers are the real customers, so isn't that just obvious?
7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:07
Re: #2
Sure, that's true, but what seems to have pissed people off this time is that they deliberately left it inconvenient and are now charging to make it normal
3AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:06
What's even the point of playing a gacha game without spending any money?
4AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:06
Just ignore the opinions of a freeloading beggar who's played 7 years without paying a cent
5AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:07
It'd be fine if you paid 1,000 yen once and could use it until the service shuts down. I don't play Walk, but isn't it a subscription?
12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:08
Re: #5
You just need to buy the "Gold Pass" — you use one per week — but keeping it going for a month costs 3,000 yen
6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:07
At least they're doing proper business with their actual "customers"
8AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:07
Most of the playerbase is free users, so if they leave, paying users will lose their sense of competition and quit too
20AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:10
Re: #8
It's not like you're competing directly against free users, so wouldn't that have no real effect?
27AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:11
Re: #20
If the mobile game's this dead, you might as well just play a console game instead
45AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:17
Re: #20
A large base of light spenders matters more than a handful of whale hardcores, and you need a ton of worthless freeloaders around to make those light spenders feel good about themselves. Placing 1,000th out of 3,000 in a ranking event feels meh, but 1,000th out of 50,000 feels great
10AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:08
If you don't like it, couldn't you just… not play it? 🤔
13AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:09
I'm the type who sells accounts and uses the profit to fund my spending — kills time and makes money at once, win-win
14AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:09
If it turns into a dead, empty game with nobody around, literally nobody's paying 3,000 yen a month for it
15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:09
Free users get things exactly as before, paying users just get more convenience — that's just normal business
24AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:11
Re: #1
I figured "fine, I'll just pay that much," but the reward you get for spending 1,000 yen in a week is honestly not worth it 🥺
63AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:24
Re: #24
Wait, it's not even a subscription? lol
That's so on-brand for a Japanese gacha game lmao
26AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:11
At this point free users aren't even customers anymore.
What year of service are we even on?
29AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:12
Re: #26
They're literally in the middle of the 7th anniversary event right now
32AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:14
I'm a NEET and yet I still pay every single time for the Gold Pass, the Gun Pass, the event pass, the hatching device, the training grounds, and the 1,000-gem gacha — about 10,000 yen a month. Being cheap about money for your own hobby — what are you even working for? Aren't you embarrassed?
36AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:16
Re: #32
That's pathetic. You're not doing that because it's fun, you're doing it basically out of obligation at this point. You'd definitely have more fun just buying two console games instead
34AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:14
The developer/operator is the same company behind Pokémon GO and Monster Hunter Now, right? So why—
41AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:17
Re: #34
The operator is Colopl, so it has nothing to do with those
43AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:17
What does it even mean to "pay for a system"? So paying money just unlocks a feature?
48AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:18
Re: #43
And since it's a subscription, they get to keep collecting money forever
52AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:20
That's way too expensive lol — for something as simple as a battle command setting
56AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:22
Re: #52
The Gold Pass already existed; this just adds a feature to it, so it's actually a better deal now. The only ones complaining are the freeloading beggars
57AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:23
Re: #52
It comes with other perks too, like getting more gacha points
58AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:23
If you don't like it, just quit. Don't complain when you're not even paying!!
66AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:26
Re: #58
In the end the paying users will just end up fighting each other, the service will shut down, and everyone gets freed anyway
71AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:29
Hardcore players spend their whole day playing a walking game ← use that time to get a job instead
76AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:36
Re: #71
Don't hardcore players just use a pendulum swinger (a device that fakes footsteps so you don't have to actually walk)?
74AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:34
I'm done with this game. The power creep is brutal, the newer weapons are too complicated to handle, and there's way too much pointless content
78AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:37
Re: #74
There are so many status effects now I honestly can't keep track anymore. Also the Megamonster gimmicks are just endlessly tedious
85AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:45
"We don't want to pay for the game, but we also don't want only the paying players getting nice things!" There are actual grown adults out there shamelessly saying stuff like this
86AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:48
Re: #85
Funny that it's a NEET saying this
95AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:57
This isn't a lecture, I'm just exasperated
99AnonymousSep 29, 2026 11:58
Re: #95
Guess even those looked down on as the absolute bottom have some pride left

Background and Key Points of the Discussion

Dragon Quest Walk will mark its 7th anniversary in 2026. The “Gold Pass” at the center of this controversy is a subscription-style paid plan that includes a discount item usable once per week, working out to roughly 3,000 yen a month. Some in the thread mistakenly assumed Square Enix was the developer/operator, but the game is actually run by Colopl — a misunderstanding that was corrected within the original thread itself. The central debate is whether it’s fair to make an already-requested feature pay-only: some saw it as simply monetizing a normal convenience feature, while others saw it as deliberately leaving the game inconvenient first and then charging to fix it. The sniping between free and paying users is a familiar routine in these threads, though it never escalated into attacks on specific individuals.

*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] Dragon Quest Walk implements a long-requested feature as pay-only, drawing a wave of criticism from free-to-play users.”

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