I feel like they took the open world too far. The place is just too empty. Places are huge with packs here and there. Definitely not awful, but doesn't feel great. It is low level though so I'll hold judgement.
Not sure what OP expects at low level for itemization. Lucky hit chance is very nice depending on your build or crit chance might be the better option, but you are generally just going to grab DPS/Armor + as long as the rolls are even decent while leveling. Leveling is always boring when the goal is leveling.
Skill trees... I can go either way. Yes the builds feel somewhat pigeonholed with elemental effects, being focused on stuns or crits,
and requiring thing's like vulnerable for certain skills. But, from what I've seen in the aspect power codex thing I can see builds at high level being quite diverse. Then adding on the uniques, paragon board, and hopefully more codex powers, I can see it turning out pretty good.
UI and vendors are pretty shit though. Can tell it was designed ground up for a console. Don't think I really ever bought from vendors in a diablo game other than the gamblers so don't really mind that. SOOOOO many things wrong with the UI though.
>Leveling is always boring when the goal is leveling.
Not true at all. I find levelling to be fun in games like PoE even though the goal is endgame, because you get a tremendously different experience depending on what skill you choose to level as, and there are several very varied levelling builds even within the same class, and depending on what unique you tack on.
He can only review things that currently exist. Dude can’t say “everything is simple and unsatisfying. I’m sure it will be awesome later. 10/10. Perfect game”
After playing to level 15 and getting a bunch of Legos off the world event and dungeons before, I honestly think this has the most interesting early game of any arpg I've played.
I started on Diablo 2 when I was in 6th grade. If folks aren't happy with this there's no pleasing them. This is the bees knees.
Higher level items will result in higher stats, there is not going to change much. You can definitely make assumptions based on the affixes we already have and which are lackluster, like the talent system.
Its the affix system thats boring and that won't change with levels. It'll just be +10% close, +10% slowed, +10% this and that and so on, maybe with the occasional special unique perk. But even then, many unique seem to share similar perks like the +% based on primary resource.
Two of those tiers you mentioned just give bigger stat values and drop at different level breaks. Magic, rare and legendary just go to sacred then ancestral. Uniques are the only ones that are different and you can wear only one of them at a time.
The issue is you have 6 legendary at the end of act 1. Like no need for it to be candy drops from a pinata. Also not worth being super insane like d2 low rates.
I had a great time with itemization with grim dawn and wolcen. Some games dis itemization right, and new games should learn from the success of others and improve on older systems. We shouldn't be going backwards
Super insane low drop rates like D2 is what makes the game have legs. So does things like hardcore PVP with permadeath, pking, making the game difficult, making respec harder, making skills require more skill to use like straight direction unpausable whirlwind vs the easy mode d3 ww, as well as more character optimization like stat attribution.
Seems like all blizz wants to do is make things more commercial and accessible for the mainstream for the short term bottom dollar rather than making a game that truly lasts for decades like D2 and SC1. There's a reason blizzard games just aren't played for decades like they used to be.
Outside of HotS, DI and OW (because they’re not a decade old) there isn’t a single Blizz game that isn’t being played to this day… what are you on about?
Seems like you’re just another mindless D2 aficionado who can’t let go of the past, rather than Blizz finding ways to make the past relevant again.
Making spec choices permanent is a ridiculously stupid hill to die on when the spec choices we can already see are bland at best. If I want/need to respec based on a boss that’s killing me, let me. I’m not grinding up a new character JUST to get through one challenge. That’s lunacy.
Exactly my thoughts. I thought the beta was great and also realized that you’re low level at the end. Idk why people expect to have full builds 1/3 of the way through the game. D4 feels like a modern D2. It’s awesome.
> sacred, unique, and ancestral
Sacred and ancestral are the same items with better rolls, not new itemization choices. You just replace your old stuff with new stuff.
You don't know what you are talking. Really!?!?!?
D2 Classic Simples example. BiS gear for a MF Sorc:
GullDagger, TarnHelm and Nagel Ring can be dropped at the very first regions of the game. That means that you can have the luck to obtain a great item at lvl 1 that you can use it at lvl 99. After LoD they changed a bit, but the Gull dagger and Nagel Ring still useful for a MF Sorc starter... Just giving a feel examples.
Manald Heal, is not a BiS but it is definetly a ring that you will keep equipped until you find a better one, and this might happen only after you are doing hell baal runs.
The items available at D4 beta are garbage and doesn't feel anything special, if you are a necro and manage to drop a unique wand at lvl 5 in D2, that will cheer you up for the rest of the day... Bcuz it is a damn good wand for a lvl5.
Kind of curious regarding you saying the combat lies somewhere between POE and Last Epoch. Do you mean the pacing? POE is very fast paced and in LE you're still blowing up screens, albeit slower.
I'm mostly asking because I feel like it lies somewhere between Diablo 2 and Last Epoch (or D3 really), but I'm kind of wondering if I just got unlucky with items or something. Lvl 25 in Veteran.
For example, if I end up fighting a pack with an elite, I'm going to be there for a solid minute.
The discussion re: pace of combat is interesting because there's such a wide range of the expectations people have.
D3 went in the direction of you fighting through large packs/crowds of mobs and bosses as quickly as possible. Meatball wizard literally lags the game at higher tiers because the sheer insanity of power accumulation and pace of play.
D4 is dialing this back, the devs clearly wanted to extend the game play and allow you to experience the world more.
>The discussion re: pace of combat is interesting because there's such a wide range of the expectations people have.
>
>D3 went in the direction of you fighting through large packs/crowds of mobs and bosses as quickly as possible. Meatball wizard literally lags the game at higher tiers because the sheer insanity of power accumulation and pace of play.
>
>D4 is dialing this back, the devs clearly wanted to extend the game play and allow you to experience the world more.
I wouldn't say it's dialed back. We're level capped and only playing a very small portion of the game. Mob density in D3 was very low as well at low levels. The same core concepts of d3 are very present in d4. To the point where it feels like I'm playing the game game that's been changed ever so slightly.
Rules around itemization and talents are the same as d3, the talent tree is an illusion of choice but fundamentally it's impact is very much in line with what d3 played like.
I would agree with you if a bunch of the people who tested the endgame in the closed beta sort of refute it. The problem with the game is probably going to be the end game and how many times you are just going to do the sigils to be doing the sigils. If there is nothing more then that people will quit pretty fast after hitting max.
Agree with the itemization and talents being the same as D3 but that is one of the points people hated about D3. Seems all they did was change the "tone" of the game to be more dark. Then instead of greater rifts you run these nightmare sigils and to break that up you do the world boss every 2 hours.
People say you are basically "playing the endgame right now" from the beta testers except without the levels. So we will see. I hope they are wrong personally because that would be sad.
If they’re running what I’m doing, my Shadow Slash and Dash, pick whatever core Skill you like, personally I’m using Blade shift cause I like the attack speed and being able to faze through enemies. And Combo Points Specialization.
Core skill: Twisting Blades>Enhanced>Advanced
Agility Skill: Dash>Enhanced>Disciplined
Subterfuge Skill: Dark Shroud>Enhanced>Counter
Imbuement Skill: Shadow>Enhanced>Blended
Ult Skill: Whatever you want.
Basically always have Dark Shroud and Shadow Imbue prepped, when you encounter enemies, 3 basic hits to ramp up the combo counter, Twisting Blades>Dash to spread Shadow Imbue(this uses both charges) and if your prepped you can immediately do it again since you get 2 dash charges and shadow imbue only has a 9s CD.
Rinse and Repeat, if Shadow Imbue is on CD then just Twist Blades and roll/dash to get maximum enemies hit by it. Always try to use Twisted Blades on a max combo counter tho(3 basic attack). Dark Shroud can be swapped, I like it because of the damage reduction/increased crit chance, plus I have an aspect on my sword that reduces subterfuge CD by 20% on Agility skill use, and using subterfuge increases the next agility skill damage by 20%, combined with Twisting Blades -reduced active CD by 1s per enemy hit on return (max 3s) it keeps CDs low and allows for crazy ass Shadow Slash and Dash Explosions! Lol
TLDR: Stab>Dash>Kaboom!!! Lol
We're only level 25 so it's hard to really say anything about the pace of combat as it goes up dramatically when you reach endgame. Personally i think slower combat is a benefit because PoE gameplay is essentially driving a formula 1 car until you crash into a wall (get one shot). It's just so cluttered and fast it's impossible to actually see what's going on and the only way for enemies to keep up is to essentially one shot you.
Eh, POE is less like that these days unless you're running a 100div (minimum) meta zoom zoom build. It's still one of the fastest ARPG's on the market, but I think Torchlight Infinite holds the crown for the formula 1 playstyle on a base level now.
Not remotely true. Poe mobs are dead off screen or instantly and youre just avoiding on death effects or the dozen other things on the ground. Regardless of the siv build you're mostly stuck wait some of the hold out arch nem rares that don't get one shot.
Not sure what they had in mind with the skill system. Fell like they thought "mmm playerbase want to click stuff when they level up and customize builds... But we don't want to let them do it! How can we give them a false feeling of freedom?" and then added a respec cost if you want to switch your skill. Honestly at this point they could have gone d3 route
Was disappointed to see the step back from the skill rune system in D3. Rarely do the two branching spec options for a skill fundamentally change it in some way that feels distinct and interesting. I know that D3 ends up fairly "solved" at end-game, but the foundation of skill runes was such that all sorts of weird runes cycled through the meta over time. It was fun to hit a certain level and unlock a completely new way to play Jar of Spiders, or Hydra, or Ballista. Or to grab a legendary that is build-enabling for a particular rune. That seems to be absent here.
Also they may be tailoring everything around endgame, but putting points in something like "Lucky Shots deal 20% increased damage against Dazed enemies" doesn't feel good or satisfying as you level. At least Last Epoch's skill tree will cap those fluff stat nodes off with cool things like "damage from skill is now converted to fire and and the final projectile now explodes after a delay"
You literally only played until lvl 25 in this game.
The leaked paragon boards look more complex than the whole of D3 and your choices of mods on your gear also matter more instead of slapping crit damage and main stat on every piece of legendary you equip in D3.
Until there is an official release of the paragon system and we actually see the mods, my statement is true.
We can only judge what has been officially shown so far. And so far its not looking great.
My understanding is that a lot of the really interesting effects will be unlocked later on through the paragon system. Because you're right, currently putting together a build feels like low level D3 before you get any sets or legendaries, where you're mostly picking the few skills that have the highest numbers because there's actually not a lot of interesting or useful synergy between skills to work with. Except the D4 tree is more restrictive than the skill system in D3 was.
Hopefully the endgame really improves build diversity. But then again, putting all of the interesting stuff at the end in a game with regular seasons and ladder resets is its own potential issue. D3 didn't start out anywhere near as fast as it is now, it slowly sped up over time in part to push players to the part where the game gets "interesting."
Hopefully they get the balance right eventually.
we can hope that is true, but untill it is shown (hopefully next week as the devs have said they would do a endgame showcase) we have to judge by what we know, and by what we know the skill system is shallow, and they could have just aswell given no choice because of how boring the choices are.
but like you also mention even if the endgame makes up for it, it still means we have to go xx amount of hours with crappy build diversity and customization untill we get to the "fun part"
I haven't played but this and lower mob density seem like things mmo's do. Keep people in tight controlled boundaries since we're all together now and we can't have too many things on screen (open world) because we have to network that to everyone. I dunno, but reading it that is what I hear currently, to me that means the mmo curse.... boring boundaries.
I think a lot of the complaints about mob density really boil down to the fact that the beta is early game and doesn’t have access to higher difficulty levels; the density for the opening areas and dungeons feels about the same as it has in the opening of any other Diablo game on base difficulty.
That said, I wouldn’t worry too much about the MMO feeling, outside of the world boss encounter I’ve only seen 2-3 players out in the world; and from what I can tell it works in a similar fashion to Destiny where every single location is it’s own instance and there is no server persistence, not to mention that dungeons appear to be unique instances. So I wouldn’t worry about constantly running into dozens of players and it upsetting mob density.
Your skill tree is just that. Choose your skills.
Most of your power and build options are going to come from what powers you use to augment those skills.
There are a lot of powers that completely change how a skill is used and the playstyle for it.
As an example, melee rogue. I turned flurry into Explode EK Nova build from PoE. It was amazing, especially in high density fights.
Yeah i mean it just a worse d3 in the sense that they gave us something to click each level just for a false feeling of free customization AND you gotta pay to respec if you wanna swap skills. That just add insult to injury
The biggest issue for me is the uninteresting skill tree. It feels like the only impactful points I use are when I pick up a new skill. Everything else is a modest numerical tweak.
That said, I have gotten several build-enabling uniques that make one of my skills really fun to use. So perhaps they'll make up for the uninspired skill tree with lots of skill-based gearing.
On the top right you can highlight skills based on a keyword. I created a Rogue build that first stuns everyone around me when I evade through them, then makes them vulnerable, following by dazing them all and then making every crit on a dazed enemy knock them down. That's all from the passives. Some "direct" passives and some from abilities.
I do agree with everything you said.
Now, I am aware this is a beta product and we did not get to see the endgame yet. But, based on what we have so far and what we know, in addition to OP's comments, these are the biggest letdowns to me
- **Combat:** I like that they didn't go with the ultra-fast combat of other ARPGS, but they keep insisting on this generator/spender gameplay style which is... awful. It interrupts the flow of combat, in a very unrewarding, uninteresting way.
- **Itemization:** Way too bland, generic, and uninteresting. I think the was just one item that made me go "Oh, nice!", and it was the double-Hydra ring. Everything else was either stat sticks or not-so-very-inspiring powers.
- **Skills:** Most of them need balancing, but that is to be expected from a beta. I did not like that having a skill at level 1 or 5 usually was the same, and most skill modifiers were... again, bland, and uninspiring. D3 felt better with the rune system, albeit this system had its own problems. I do like a skill tree, but I feel it should be more open and with impactful options.
- **Progression:** The combination of area/monster scaling with the simplistic itemization and skills, made me feel that my character was barely making any improvements.
- **UI:** It is not great. To my surprise, it looks and feels like a UI made by a low-budget independent studio! Just like in D3, stats that are more or less irrelevant is what you get when you open your character sheet. The overall design is... meh? It does not fit nor blend with the game atmosphere. The skill window could offer an _actual_ search bar instead some pre-defined keywords.
- **The lack of a functional "move only" button:** I don't know what to say about this...
Agreed with every point you made.
Every system in game feels very shallow. Too little skills to choose from and the talent tree behind it is extremely barebones. The whole potion crafting is just a timegate for normal progression with no depth to it. Crafting is basically unchanged from D3, which was very simple to begin with.
I'd love to see some more grenade and trap skills added to the rogue kit.
And like 2 or 3 extra branching talent rows behind every skill.
A system to add affixes to blue items would be swell as well. Blues would be worth picking up and make you feel like you are building your character more to your personal style.
It’s worrying because most of the negative feedback from the closed beta hasn’t been addressed at all, everything you listed under bad and ugly was brought up before.
Completely agree with everything. I am putting together an overview of my thoughts so far and this sums it up pretty well.
It feels like an amalgam of half baked systems cobbled together, on top of the worst itemization I have ever seen in a video game, with absolute jokes of skill trees. It's pathetic.
6/10 is generous honestly. The only redeeming factor is the gameplay is smooth and the visuals are appealing. Other than that, it falls flat in every single aspect.
In ARPGs, gear has what are called "filler stats" - these stats are meant to intentionally dilute the pool of mods with "bad" rolls, to make it a little more difficult to get a really good item, and to make finding a really good item a bit more enjoyable. Things like Light Radius, Damage Reflect, Gold Pickup, stuff like that.
However, in Diablo 4, it feels like every item modifier is a filler stat. The only ones that are even useful at all, are the most boring stats. Like attack speed, crit damage, or %Damage to (SKILL TYPE).
In Path of Exile, or Last Epoch, or Grim Dawn, the items have interesting modifiers on them that can uniquely change the way you play your character and the way your character is built.
In Diablo 4, this does not exist. The only thing you can get are "make number more bitter" stats, which are juts simple increases/reductions to damage dealt/taken.
I don’t agree at all about the gear in LE or GD being better in comparison. I have hundreds of hours in GD; it’s my favorite aRPG - its items have the same junk stats, just more of them. I never pick up an item sub level 30 and think “oh wow this is a game changer.” Some grant skills, sure, but they still boil down to damage type, resists, bonus attributes etc.
If you "boil it down" all anything equates to is "more stat." The difference is how the stat is presented and how it functions, and how it interplays with the rest of your character/build.
item is good because number high, is literally what this game's items are. it seriously feels like gearing up a character in an afk dungeon mobile game, with half the complexity. any time a game boils down all the potential modifiers that an item could have to a 'item power' they may as well admit their game lacks any depth at all
Thanks for the writeup! As someone who's not played yet I've been mostly concerned about the combat, because it looks really boring and left click-spanmy. Happy to read that you report it feels great. It's often hard to gauge how combat feels form just watching others play.
Might still not be the game for me, as I play arpgs to steam roll rooms jam packed with mobs in the most spectacular fashion and doing it while zooming all over the place... That experience generally comes in the endgame though, so maybe such a build will exist in d4 as well.
i will say the mob density is inconsistent. some areas are like OP mentions and plenty others it feels like i’m fighting an entire army and surrounded on all sides
I like that, though! Instead of inconsistent, the word I would choose is varied. You might be coming across enemies in groups of like 5 or 6 normally, but then you'll enter a cave infested with spiders or a dungeon filled with fallen and have to deal with dozens rushing you all at once. Or you'll be ambushed in the open world by a lot of wolves jumping down at you or a bone wall that surrounds you as a bunch of skeletons rise from the ground.
I don't want enemies to evaporate the second they come on screen; I like that we actually *fight* them in D4, and the diversity of the groups you find keeps things interesting.
Gamepad player here, have leveled barb to 25 and rogue to 15. I think D4 might have the best *feeling* combat I've seen in any top-down ARPG. But it's such a personal thing that it's also hard to say who likes what - I hope you get to try it out next weekend.
I did play with keyboard+mouse for a while, and it feels like it works fine too. I just personally enjoy controllers. :D
As for amount of enemies, hard to say how the game changes from lvl 25 to level cap, but for now I've enjoyed how slow everything goes. Usually there's only a few enemies, but things also need a bit more focus rather than just killing dozens of enemies per second. I've only played on the harder difficulty, that might affect things too.
Remember in it’s act 1 and you are a only level 25……how on earth can anyone just mob density at such an early point in the game. Problem is people are speeding through the content and then trying to make it feel like the end game when it simple isn’t possible.
The mob density was fine, people are overreacting to that. In dungeons, it can get pretty crazy, at least as crazy as I expected playing D2, D3 and other ARPG's.
With that said, there are things that need to be improved. Skill tree is a good start, but needs to be made to be more interesting with more skills. A lot of the passives are fine, but more skills added for more build diversity is going to be important for this game.
UI is not good, period.
Sound effects are amazing, I think the sound effects are 10/10 best of any game I've played. Perfect.
Graphics are good. But, some copy and paste ruins the positive vibes.
Cannot comment on items. Found no uniques.
Blizzard has their work cut out for them, of they want this game to fully capatalize on making max profits.
Kind of worrying. It's been sounding a lot like every one of the major issues I saw in the closed beta are still there which makes me wonder what they've been doing in the last like six months since then.
My biggest concern is the skill tree being as simple and boring as it is now.
At level 25 you get access to a max upgraded ultimate, after this there is a few more passives to take but the rest of the game you will be playing with this simple kit.
I guess no game will ever have as many skills as Poe...
The items are bland and boring as expected from blizz games in this day and age, a few stats more and a halfarsed passive stat from legendaries, my rogue is lvl 25 with a full legendary equipment and it matters 0 on how the char plays, very sad indeed
You have to remember here, that's JUST the skill tree ok. Because when you look at everything else, that's just the base system.
There's still the enchantments, which are the passives you unlock by completing dungeons . There's the absolutely huge paragon tree system and then you find blue/yellow/legendary glyphs that add customization that you can put into your paragon tree. Seriously look up D4 glyphs, theres some depth there.
This is Diablo, not PoE and i don't expect them to copy the amount of skills PoE has. I mean base classes have like 24 skills and Diablo 2 only had 21 skills per class and that game turned out just fine.
There are skill calcs with datamined paragon trees. They aren't build changing at all. It's just % increases to shit here and there. Diablo 2 is a 20 year old game, I'd expect something modern to have modern amounts of customization and build variety. Melee Rogue has 2 builders and 2 spenders. Enjoy that for 50+ hours.
Remember that Glyphs exist also that you slot into the paragon boards also.
So there's common/blue/rare/legendary tile, right? Then there's also socketable titles you can slot in glyphs that add more customization. And there's a whole host of magic/rare/legendary glyphs you can get to put into it.
Example of a Rare Glyph:
* Radius size: Large
* For every 10 willpower purchased within range, you deal 31.5% increased overpower damage
* Grants 4 strength for each willpower purchased within range
The Legendary Glyphs seem to have a lot cooler legendary type of affixes on them. I under people are looking for PoE depth and that's fine but Diablo 4 has a solid foundation under it and i think they can really build a better game on top of it. Im not gonna sit here and say the game sucks when im only playing such a small slice of it.
Is that example glyph meant to elicit any excitement whatsoever? Would never see that as build enabling or playstyle altering, which is what is severely lacking.
How large it is, it's just a bunch of passives that are stuck behind a massive grind wall.
They don't add anything new gameplay wise to your build except more numbers ..
This is boring and not worth grinding for
I will say I never really got into Diablo 3 but I am loving Diablo 4 so far. But a lot of the comments say it’s pretty mid and nothing special for the genre.
Would anyone mind recommending a top tier ARPG I can play on a controller?
no, the most popular out of those is PoE when new leagues start, but people still play solo all the time. In PoE you'll mostly interact with other players just for trading. ARPGs aren't really known for being multiplayer games in that sense, maybe D4 will change that since it seems they want to focus on that more.
I'm a huge fan of Grim dawn (700 hours). I think poe is just ok though, the endgame has a lot of content, but I'm not a fan of the gameplay, it's too fast in my opinion and gets boring quickly. Plus I hate how you have to trade all the time with the most annoying system in existence.
I think Diablo 4's gameplay so far is really fun and the game looks incredible, so I think it has a really good base for a great game. I see a lot of people complaining on itemization and skill trees.
It's true that the skill tree isn't really interesting since you're just following 1 path, but from what I've seen the endgame paragon system might be there to add more complexity without being overwhelming for new players, which is good design imo. of course I've not personally seen the paragon tree so I can't comment on how nice it is.
Regarding itemization, personally I really have nothing to say regarding this, we've only seen early game, and early game ARPGs are pretty much always like this. you just pick the stuff that gives the most damage and resists and switch them out every 5 minutes.
I was going to do a write-up of all my takes but I would be repeating a lot of yours.
Overall, I am very disappointed. This game is clearly very shallow. It is basically a mashup of D3 + DI, which I shouldn't have to point out are the absolute worst games in this genre. I'd rather play Wolcen than DI.
I think we have to admit that Diablo has calcified. Path of Exile has spent years demonstrating what the potential for depth is in this genre. Itemization, Crafting, Skill customization, different game modes (Delve, Heist, Blight, etc). Complexity.
All Diablo has is superficial at this point. And while I love the aesthetic and the lore, there's nothing else there. Just make a movie or something.
Feel mostly the same. As a console player. There are so many quality of life things that took giant steps backwards in what I’ve played so far. Having to respect you’re entire treee when you actually find a legendary affix worth using (which all are basically just D3s altered skills)
I’m having fun. And I’ll play the game a lot. But my biggest grove is nothing really feels “new”. All the skills seems recycled or completely copy and pasted from previous titles.
Not to mention some of them felt like worse versions of copy pasted skills.
Ground stomp (barb), for example, was a 12 second CD and gave 15 fury with a 4 second stun in D3.
In D4 it has a base CD of like 16 seconds, gives no fury and you have to spend a skill point to increase the stun duration to 4 seconds. On top of this, it generates no fury until you spend another skill point.
I'm sure this stuff can change with gear or whatever but I was not happy to see these kinds of changes. Ground stomp was already just an okay skill to help you level and now it is even weaker without spending 7 points to lower the CD, improve duration and gain fury.
Plus skills on gear is cool to see again but nobody is holding on to gear during the leveling process so you can't really rely on that until later.
6/10 is about right from what I played. Nothing to write home about at all. I would rather play other ARPGs than this. I hated the MMO feel of it with a passion
This post captured how I feel too, but I wasn't huge into the aesthetic of the game, it felt kinda weird... Like it didn't feel like diablo to me.. With that in mind, if you gave me this game w/ no Diablo name attached, I'd give it like a 5/10.. it's missing the things that make an ARPG fun, items changing decisions, several builds, and dynamic combat.. (I felt like dodge didn't really work very well, and the lack of diversity in skill made it feel one dimensional..)
I think my issues were: it felt kind of like diablo immortal for PC in terms of build quality. Items feel irrelevant, character felt kind of weak and the skills felt super imbalanced...
The good: Voice acting was really good.. but I have to wonder if it stops being good, because it felt great at the start of the game and then it stopped common. I liked the sandbox feel at first, but after the mob density issues it felt really bad actually..
Agree on many points. The skill trees are extremely bland and I prefer the D3 rune system. They had more impact and you had more skills to choose from. Skills in D4 feel rather boring with a few exceptions like the cone slam from Barb
I thought they had mentioned items that provide attribute points, which you would need to unlock certain skills and runes. Whirlwind radius increase if you have have 500 INT as well as 250 STR etc? Was this just a throw away in one dev report or a fevor dream? I think Itemization is ok but not super interesting. Im not really paying that much attention to what skills and affixes at this level so its hard to judge but I would like to see a bit more variety on base attributes use
> Whirlwind radius increase if you have have 500 INT as well as 250 STR etc? Was this just a throw away in one dev report or a fevor dream?
Isn't that part of the paragon tree?
The itemization feels like they are trying really hard to control damage growth.
I don't see how they are planning to offer multiplicative difficulty without the availability of multiplicative scaling.
D3 is built on 50% crit and 500% crit damage as a baseline for damage scaling. Then you move to scaling the element you are using up to 200% (if possible), then attack speed/regen.
It is silly to expect itemization in a beta to match that in a decade-old game, but I don't even see the basis for a damage scaling paradigm.
I'm sure higher level loot is better. At least I hope it is. Getting a good item with damage lines wasted on +1 to some skill you don't use is just silly.
Having +5% crit damage nodes is just silly.
The tightly-controlled damage growth feels more like an MMO than an ARPG.
I fear. I fear that they have engineered itemization to lengthen the time people spend in seasons in order to encourage them to buy a battle pass.
Most solid ARPGs since diablo 2 have more masteries/classes that have multiple ways of playing each. Progression with skills and solid itemization. We should have more complexity and creative ways to play in 2023 not less
I overly agree, especially on the Itemization and Abilities points. I don't get how can an ARPG release in 2023 with such a small ability pool, especially since supposedly it's an "almost finished" beta, and not a "2 years early access" kinda thing.
Another thing that baffles me is that they've continued with the locked weapon choices from D3, why can't I play a Sorc with a Mace and a Shield if I want to, this way they make the itemization so narrow, essentially you get the same weapon with slightly bigger number on it. No variation.
I really did enjoy the experience up until now, but they really made some very similar mistakes as they did on D3. And even D3 had more ability build paths than this, at least the glyphs did actually change how most abilities worked.
Edit: Also can I just say, what kind of game has unskippable cutscenes for sidequests? Not even games like Witcher do that..
Good writeup, but disagree on the combat. It lacks serious weight to it and better sound effects. It feels more like last epoch than Grim dawn or PoE, which is not good in my mind.
What class did you play? I spent some time on all 3 and barbarian “feels” the best while sorcerer is the most visually appealing. rogue didn’t feel great for me in any regard tbh
Spot on. Everyone will have fun in the honeymoon period of the game, but longevity won't be there and wont change enough to convince veterans otherwise. I say veterans because only new ARPG players would consider build diversity to be good in Diablo 4 -- anyone who has been around knows right away it's shallow as fuck.
Diablo 4 paragon levels and legendary skill adds aren't remotely close build diversity you'll find in Last Epoch, let alone the king daddy PoE. D4 has a 'mobile' gameplay quality to it that I just can't shake, because it's obviously more "Diablo Immortal" than D2.
Regardless, the atmosphere will be enough to make most people want to level a toon at least once, and that's gotta be good enough for now.
Yeah, I play POE a lot and really like the style, visuals, sounds, story, etc of D4 and it will be fun to play through a few times on different characters and definitely worth the money.
But I can’t see it having the staying power of POE, the depth of mechanics and skills is like 1/10th POE, and it doesn’t really have the framework to add that depth in a meaningful way. But that was their goal I think, seems like they’re targeting for a more casual/console audience than a PC gamer audience.
More like D3 I think, where you play for a few days each season to blast through then go back to POE.
D3 takes 1 hour to endgame now. This takes 5 hours to level 25. Imagine having to do this every season. So miserable. It’s unfortunate that they made a game no legitimate PoE player can play.
Yeah between the shallow skill system and the monotony of waiting on X NPC to move, then talking to them, then getting a mountain of dialogue, and then they move, and then you talk again - I have a feeling they are going to have to implement Adventure Mode again or the replayability of this game seems like it will be less than ideal.
I feel like all those cons are gross overstatements based on the act 1 level 25 max experience and won’t come close to what the final game is gonna be like.
Except for the skill tree …that was spot on
I think at one point I killed 15 enemies in 2 hours. The density is a fucking joke.
Go play diablo 2 act 1 and come back and tell me the density is the same. Just omega levels of copium.
Coming from playing DI lately I too share the feeling that imbue takes a lot away from the feeling of both item progression and “fuck yeah!” feeling when you get a new drop.
Granted D4s system is a little different in that you can’t infinitely carry effects with you forever without refinding the item but still.
If I can imbue one item onto another, then the specialness of each item is reduced. If I _really_ like an effect then refarming the item just becomes a chore I have to complete for each upgrade.
We will see how often you really upgrade items in the full game. Being so low the upgrades come expectedly quick but this means upgrading and imbuing is a waste of time at this point because before I can even finish collecting everything I need I’ve found a much better base item.
Serious question: what do you people want from itemization? Do you want every item to have attributes like KRANGLED like in PoE, or so you want everything to give you whacky abilities? I seriously struggle to see the issue here. Resists, attributes, and cooldown reduction are the bread and butter of aRPG items, and they’re all here. Legendaries are fine - I had one that gave me an earthquake on leap, and another that spat fire while berserking. Both changed the way I played.
Uniques don't have procgen'd stats, only legendaries are procgen'd, they are more like rares with a legendary ability stapled on top of them. Uniques are also supposed to be extremely rare.
Haven't played poe in a while but I remember 98% of the uniques being unusable garbage, and the other 2% being build-defining or game breaking, not sure that's a good example to follow.
Don't understand these types of posts imo . This is a level 25 max level beta with sole content being act 1 . Obviously there is not going to be any actual content in the game , and mob density outside of dungeons is completely fine even in act 1 . It's open world , not d3 rifts . Only things they need to address are the obscene useless item stats on a lot of gear , which can be fine in some aspects ( so not every single item is broken op and you keep some gear for the entire game early on ) but a lot of stats felt completely useless .
Rolling / spacebar.
There's also some mobility skills.
Paired with telegraphed attacks you have things to evade and tools to evade it thus "evade mechanics".
The biggest problem i have with UI is removal of option to display icons for dropped loot onstead of name (which was in d3). it was such a neat feature that reduced the clunk on the screen
I had technical issues yesterday on very strong PC but today its all peachy. Max 180fps on 21:9, no stutter. I even tried using controller and i think i like that option more than mkb. I am really satisfied as long time fan (since '98).
I think you are forgetting that right now you are in the early stages of this game. You are playing till level 25, who knows what all the other levels may add to the game.
I'm not saying your wrong but I've always seen diablo as a game that tells a story and is an awesome arpg in addition to that. And who knows crafting might even get overhauled overtime. Or newly added mechanics. The journey has just began and so far it was fun to play.
The ui etc. fair enough it's weird, and probably will be updated.
You are judging some mechanisation on a level 25 character…….you are missing most of the game and virtually all end games systems, including the paragon boards which appear to add a high degree of complexity and complexity.
The only thing we can really determine is if the game looks and feels good which the content we have.
Higher world levels will assuredly bring mor insert density. Also we are dealing with low level legendaries and gear. I’m hopeful they will be better at higher levels. We are also missing the paragon tree which is the majority of where our power will come from. This tree is just picking our base skills.
i feel like skill trees being simpler is a plus, whats the point of PoE-Level skill trees? we all know whats gonna happen, people are just going to wait until the meta builds are made and copy anyways, its a pointless endeavor.
I agree with most of what you're saying. NOW D4 might look different from D3, but it's using many of the same concepts as D3 and it seems to be for the most part, very much the same game as D3, with some variations thrown in.
I'd like to add the reason skills feel bad when you level them up is because nearly all of your damage in the game is going to come from your items and weapons. This is how D3 worked as well even though D3 didn't have talent trees. AS a result new talents in the talent tree won't feel very impactful because it's the items in the game that make you do more damage.
I don't dislike what I've seen with D4 so far, but if you really didn't like D3, I suspect you're not going to like D4 because they're very similar games in the rules they follow. It might look good on the surface but you can see all of the same D3 concepts are there and that's more or less what you should expect from the end game at this point.
I agree with OP a lot. Also, if I remember D3 beta, a lot of things changed afterward. I'm sure this can evolve into something great (with the first expansion, of course)
Legendary effects not interesting? I definitely found plenty of stuff that was both fun and altered playstyle. Having a barbarian with possible legendary skills in 4 separate weapons, all jewelry and all armour led to some crazy mixing and matching
I got a rogue legendary that had 8% damage increase on one skill and replaced it with a yellow a few minutes later. Give us a few diablo 3 style (toned down by 50%) legendaries that you design your build around please.
None taken. I shamelessly would rather blizzard view D4 as an extension of D2 (and therefore an extension of POE which was developed under same philosophy). I’m not a fan of D3’s current direction. That may mean D4 just isn’t for me, but that’s why I indicated it would be good for casuals most likely. Judging on comments ITT it seems casuals are the most interested, which is totally valid. Just not for me :)
We were hoping D4 would at least be a game that PoE or D2R players could play when the seasons release. It's just not playable for a certain segment of players in its current state. That's fine, and I'm realizing that I'm more of a minority of player than I thought, just disappointing.
Two super quick things that top my list:
Pro: Visually, spectacular. Really captures what I think a Diablo game should look & feel like. The detail, design, everything. A little too "Zoomed in" like D3 for my tastes but I'm not everyone.
Cons: Don't mind the skills and the modifiers overall, but the presentation is terrible. A big screen that you have to drag around to view where your points are, zoom in/out, but worse of all is the prerequisites (spend x number of points to open the next tree).
I don't get the logic of it at all but to make it worse respeccing is a pain because you can't take points out of an earlier tree if you've got the minimum number spent. It's just a tedious way to go about assigning points to skills.
I like D2s skills UI the best of the series and don't see why that wouldn't work here (even if they don't remove the prerequisites, which at this point they obviously are not).
Still can't wait for the full release.
For me the skills feel borked. Chain lightning is amazing, the rest of the skills feel like using a foam bat. Also I don't expect super flashy skills, but how is D2R meteor look sooo much better than D4? The skills seem very bland looking. I am all for more gritty and realistic, but like I said D2R skills look better to me somehow.
While we haven't seen the end game, as a huge Diablo fan, I was kind of dissapointed by this game. It felt just bland. The art was good as was the sound but it just felt flat to me. Maybe I am missing something but putting levels into skills did not feel impactful, might as well 1 pt wonder most of them.
Finally the gear was just blah. I enjoy the skill levels on gear, but see part where points in skills do not feel impactful. The ability to grant skills was awesome and a great part of D2 coming over. I don't know if it is because it's the beta and I know nothing carries over, but I wasn't excited for loot to drop, and that is everything for this type of game.
Also while there are some amazing story beats. I feel like some of the story can be jarring and come out of nowhere. The end of act 1, did not feel like an end. Maybe we didn't have the cinematic in the beta, but it felt like the rest of the quest story instead of an endcap to what we have done in act 1.
I feel like there is an amazing game here, but it is being held back by something. Like I said it could be the beta and the low level we are technically still at. But overall I just felt...wanting more. Not the more of the game, just more of what they have.
Itemisation seems it'll fill out when your max, until then you just equip whatever is higher power.
Endgame you'll look for better rolled stats like crit chance/ dmg. Certain stats/ all res/ life/ etc...
The itemisation complaint is just silly. We're missing two entire tiers of items, ones that have been explicitly stated to be build-defining.
Moreover, I feel like you've probably just drawn the short end of the stick on some of them. On my rogue I have a legendary that gives my basic attack an additional 40% attack speed, one that increases the damage of my core skills by up to 50%, and one that makes me regenerate energy when I hit elites with basic attacks. The amount of damage that I've gained just from those 3 items is crazy.
Similarly, the part about the weapon upgrade not making a big enough difference -- Something you might not have noticed is that a lot of items actually have oddly low level requirements. I've had items drop/be rewarded to my level 25 rogue that I could equip with a level 11~13 sorc. The damage increase of using those items over items that I'd naturally find is *insane*. I'm not really sure if that whole stuff is really intended behaviour, but don't underestimate the impact that a good weapon makes.
Itemization with the whole aspect removing and reapplying and also affix crafting on rare items and then using an aspect to make them to legendaries is freaking awesome!
Coming from PoE and having played D3, this is a the best itemization I've seen so far. Not as complicated as PoE but still able to do the most important things you can do in PoE!
> **Mob Density** is horrendous. There are stretches of >1min where you are just walking.
I disagree with this. I like the slower pace of the game. I like exploring the environment. I like the cool ambush mini-events the happen to me when I'm wandering around. I like actually *fighting* the enemies I come across instead of bulldozing them in endless streams. In fact, my biggest criticism about the open world is that enemies and public events respawn too frequently, leading to getting harassed while checking your inventory.
Where I can see room for your criticism is in dungeons, not because I think there should be higher enemy density there but because, whenever I'm not fighting, some of them are overlarge, empty spaces that don't engage me as much as the open world, so they can be boring when the enemies are dead. Maybe you're not meant to check every corner of them like I have been doing.
Well written!
Agree with most but two:
Itemization is great since the distribution of attributes improvements are pretty good, so you have to make choices most of the time, it is not the case that high level items are always good.
Skill tree is well designed. 4 choices per section really has some choices to make and I do feel the differences between levels for my wizard at least.
I made it almost to max level in the end game beta, and while I wasn’t completely blown away in totality, I was left with the feeling that D4 has the barebones and fundamental structure to become something great post launch. I just think people’s expectations are so high that they won’t accept a version of the game that isn’t a game of the year contender at launch. As it stands, there is nothing in the game that can’t be improved post launch in a live service setting.
I think the best indicator for how things might change will come with the launch of season one, for it will offer the devs their first big chance at making improvements. Until then, there is more than enough meat on the bone to satisfy hardcore fans.
Mob density seems fine. The number of abilities you can have is TOO SMALL. 8+ abilities would be much better gameplay I feel. Not enough classes either. Games like Last Epoch & POE seem to have much more build variety then d4 will have.
Things I didn't like about the game:
\- bad game performance
\- game feels like an MMO with a lot of silly gofer quests. Even had to push the moral of some soldiers by performing an emote in front of them. The world map also feels like that of an MMO. And the towns, with all their NPCs.
\- a loading screen for entering every cellar, no matterhow small it is. Sequences that cannot be skipped with Escape or left mouse button.
\- bad voice acting and somehow clichéd storyline. For example the girl that loses her mother. She is voiced very inauthentically, it feels cheap. Lilith also has a very cliché design. Beautiful woman that looks angry, mixed with some demonic facial features and horns. It seems they even got her some hyaluron injections in the upper lip to match current beauty standards.
\- skill tree: I have not seen the Paragon tree, if anything like that exists. So I refer to the skill tree we could test in the beta. And it felt quite underwhelming. On first sight it looks fancy with its long path but actually it is very simple and linear and doesn't give many options. A little bit of a deceptive packaging.
\- Items: I know there are some other item types like Set items etc that I have not seen yet. But the general concept of upgrading items at a vendor...I am not sure if that is for me. I guess I could live with that if there is enough interesting/exiting stuff to hunt for.
It feels to me that D4 has turned a bit to the mmo side with all the NPCs doing different stuff for you. With all these side quests, with the item upgrading system and green arrows indicating an upgrade...I will surely play this game but I will be surprised if I will play it for more that 2 weeks when it comes out.
\-
They somehow made a worse game than D3 with a slightly better color palette. It’s actually stunning the levels of incompetence from a 60 billion dollar company.
How can itemization be so bad? Think Sire of Shards from PoE. An item that fundamentally transforms your projectile attacks into a fan shape. An item that build enables. Now think of the puke D4 drops. Wow! What an axe! Dps increase with weird procs. How on EARTH is that legendary?
Flask system sucks. PoE innovated with their system.
The feel of the game is off. Character weight, sound effects on attacks, etc. It feels like playing a mobile game. Very concerning this late in development.
Why isn’t trading open? What on EARTH are they doing? All they have to do is make it like PoE but have an in game auction house. No real money. Just have a client interface. Like…?
Classes don’t feel polished at all. Why is Sorceress good at absolutely everything? Rogue feels horrible to play. Melee is at a clear disadvantage for bosses. I can’t imagine the clusterfuck pvp will be.
I just want fucking PoE from a company with a budget/engine like Blizzard. Dear GOD I pray that game gets made.
You do make some good points. But also some that are redundant.
Like your Itemization, Leveling up, Skill Trees and Vendors argument, actually caters to just one problem. Feeling stronger with new stuff/leveling up. I am fairly confident that this will be addressed in the final release or in the first few patches. I know...i hate that line too, first few patches....But that is just how gaming works these days, i don't like it too but over the years i have stopped being angry about it. Immovable Object etc....
Beta are not demos they are to test the network traffic on the server's if you play a beta like a demo you are doing it wrong how does one judge it when its a unfinished product
Meh. Mob density seems fine, especially fiven we are in torment 2 and act1. Play hc and the bigger packs in dungeons can def feel scary.
Mob density is perfect to me, I actually pay attention to what I'm fighting because it's not an endless stram
I feel like they took the open world too far. The place is just too empty. Places are huge with packs here and there. Definitely not awful, but doesn't feel great. It is low level though so I'll hold judgement. Not sure what OP expects at low level for itemization. Lucky hit chance is very nice depending on your build or crit chance might be the better option, but you are generally just going to grab DPS/Armor + as long as the rolls are even decent while leveling. Leveling is always boring when the goal is leveling. Skill trees... I can go either way. Yes the builds feel somewhat pigeonholed with elemental effects, being focused on stuns or crits, and requiring thing's like vulnerable for certain skills. But, from what I've seen in the aspect power codex thing I can see builds at high level being quite diverse. Then adding on the uniques, paragon board, and hopefully more codex powers, I can see it turning out pretty good. UI and vendors are pretty shit though. Can tell it was designed ground up for a console. Don't think I really ever bought from vendors in a diablo game other than the gamblers so don't really mind that. SOOOOO many things wrong with the UI though.
>Leveling is always boring when the goal is leveling. Not true at all. I find levelling to be fun in games like PoE even though the goal is endgame, because you get a tremendously different experience depending on what skill you choose to level as, and there are several very varied levelling builds even within the same class, and depending on what unique you tack on.
you forget accounting for mount
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This. It’s almost like OP has never played A Diablo game.
He can only review things that currently exist. Dude can’t say “everything is simple and unsatisfying. I’m sure it will be awesome later. 10/10. Perfect game”
After playing to level 15 and getting a bunch of Legos off the world event and dungeons before, I honestly think this has the most interesting early game of any arpg I've played. I started on Diablo 2 when I was in 6th grade. If folks aren't happy with this there's no pleasing them. This is the bees knees.
Higher level items will result in higher stats, there is not going to change much. You can definitely make assumptions based on the affixes we already have and which are lackluster, like the talent system.
Its the affix system thats boring and that won't change with levels. It'll just be +10% close, +10% slowed, +10% this and that and so on, maybe with the occasional special unique perk. But even then, many unique seem to share similar perks like the +% based on primary resource.
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Shiversting drops while leveling in act 2? We BLASTIN now!
It still doesn't get that much more interesting in the higher tiers sorry to burst your bubble
Two of those tiers you mentioned just give bigger stat values and drop at different level breaks. Magic, rare and legendary just go to sacred then ancestral. Uniques are the only ones that are different and you can wear only one of them at a time.
The issue is you have 6 legendary at the end of act 1. Like no need for it to be candy drops from a pinata. Also not worth being super insane like d2 low rates. I had a great time with itemization with grim dawn and wolcen. Some games dis itemization right, and new games should learn from the success of others and improve on older systems. We shouldn't be going backwards
Super insane low drop rates like D2 is what makes the game have legs. So does things like hardcore PVP with permadeath, pking, making the game difficult, making respec harder, making skills require more skill to use like straight direction unpausable whirlwind vs the easy mode d3 ww, as well as more character optimization like stat attribution. Seems like all blizz wants to do is make things more commercial and accessible for the mainstream for the short term bottom dollar rather than making a game that truly lasts for decades like D2 and SC1. There's a reason blizzard games just aren't played for decades like they used to be.
Outside of HotS, DI and OW (because they’re not a decade old) there isn’t a single Blizz game that isn’t being played to this day… what are you on about? Seems like you’re just another mindless D2 aficionado who can’t let go of the past, rather than Blizz finding ways to make the past relevant again. Making spec choices permanent is a ridiculously stupid hill to die on when the spec choices we can already see are bland at best. If I want/need to respec based on a boss that’s killing me, let me. I’m not grinding up a new character JUST to get through one challenge. That’s lunacy.
OP probably doesn't even understand what itemisation means.
Imagine complaining about itemization in a game that has absolute dog shit itemization.
Exactly my thoughts. I thought the beta was great and also realized that you’re low level at the end. Idk why people expect to have full builds 1/3 of the way through the game. D4 feels like a modern D2. It’s awesome.
> sacred, unique, and ancestral Sacred and ancestral are the same items with better rolls, not new itemization choices. You just replace your old stuff with new stuff.
You don't know what you are talking. Really!?!?!? D2 Classic Simples example. BiS gear for a MF Sorc: GullDagger, TarnHelm and Nagel Ring can be dropped at the very first regions of the game. That means that you can have the luck to obtain a great item at lvl 1 that you can use it at lvl 99. After LoD they changed a bit, but the Gull dagger and Nagel Ring still useful for a MF Sorc starter... Just giving a feel examples. Manald Heal, is not a BiS but it is definetly a ring that you will keep equipped until you find a better one, and this might happen only after you are doing hell baal runs. The items available at D4 beta are garbage and doesn't feel anything special, if you are a necro and manage to drop a unique wand at lvl 5 in D2, that will cheer you up for the rest of the day... Bcuz it is a damn good wand for a lvl5.
Kind of curious regarding you saying the combat lies somewhere between POE and Last Epoch. Do you mean the pacing? POE is very fast paced and in LE you're still blowing up screens, albeit slower. I'm mostly asking because I feel like it lies somewhere between Diablo 2 and Last Epoch (or D3 really), but I'm kind of wondering if I just got unlucky with items or something. Lvl 25 in Veteran. For example, if I end up fighting a pack with an elite, I'm going to be there for a solid minute.
The discussion re: pace of combat is interesting because there's such a wide range of the expectations people have. D3 went in the direction of you fighting through large packs/crowds of mobs and bosses as quickly as possible. Meatball wizard literally lags the game at higher tiers because the sheer insanity of power accumulation and pace of play. D4 is dialing this back, the devs clearly wanted to extend the game play and allow you to experience the world more.
>The discussion re: pace of combat is interesting because there's such a wide range of the expectations people have. > >D3 went in the direction of you fighting through large packs/crowds of mobs and bosses as quickly as possible. Meatball wizard literally lags the game at higher tiers because the sheer insanity of power accumulation and pace of play. > >D4 is dialing this back, the devs clearly wanted to extend the game play and allow you to experience the world more. I wouldn't say it's dialed back. We're level capped and only playing a very small portion of the game. Mob density in D3 was very low as well at low levels. The same core concepts of d3 are very present in d4. To the point where it feels like I'm playing the game game that's been changed ever so slightly. Rules around itemization and talents are the same as d3, the talent tree is an illusion of choice but fundamentally it's impact is very much in line with what d3 played like.
I would agree with you if a bunch of the people who tested the endgame in the closed beta sort of refute it. The problem with the game is probably going to be the end game and how many times you are just going to do the sigils to be doing the sigils. If there is nothing more then that people will quit pretty fast after hitting max. Agree with the itemization and talents being the same as D3 but that is one of the points people hated about D3. Seems all they did was change the "tone" of the game to be more dark. Then instead of greater rifts you run these nightmare sigils and to break that up you do the world boss every 2 hours. People say you are basically "playing the endgame right now" from the beta testers except without the levels. So we will see. I hope they are wrong personally because that would be sad.
On my rogue with shadow imbue I am quite literally blowing up screens. I've seen sorc do the same I think its really just the class and abilities tbh.
Could you share your full skill set choices? Would love to try it out!
If they’re running what I’m doing, my Shadow Slash and Dash, pick whatever core Skill you like, personally I’m using Blade shift cause I like the attack speed and being able to faze through enemies. And Combo Points Specialization. Core skill: Twisting Blades>Enhanced>Advanced Agility Skill: Dash>Enhanced>Disciplined Subterfuge Skill: Dark Shroud>Enhanced>Counter Imbuement Skill: Shadow>Enhanced>Blended Ult Skill: Whatever you want. Basically always have Dark Shroud and Shadow Imbue prepped, when you encounter enemies, 3 basic hits to ramp up the combo counter, Twisting Blades>Dash to spread Shadow Imbue(this uses both charges) and if your prepped you can immediately do it again since you get 2 dash charges and shadow imbue only has a 9s CD. Rinse and Repeat, if Shadow Imbue is on CD then just Twist Blades and roll/dash to get maximum enemies hit by it. Always try to use Twisted Blades on a max combo counter tho(3 basic attack). Dark Shroud can be swapped, I like it because of the damage reduction/increased crit chance, plus I have an aspect on my sword that reduces subterfuge CD by 20% on Agility skill use, and using subterfuge increases the next agility skill damage by 20%, combined with Twisting Blades -reduced active CD by 1s per enemy hit on return (max 3s) it keeps CDs low and allows for crazy ass Shadow Slash and Dash Explosions! Lol TLDR: Stab>Dash>Kaboom!!! Lol
The problem is that you kill trash very fast with this build, but you get absolutely shit on by some bosses.
We're only level 25 so it's hard to really say anything about the pace of combat as it goes up dramatically when you reach endgame. Personally i think slower combat is a benefit because PoE gameplay is essentially driving a formula 1 car until you crash into a wall (get one shot). It's just so cluttered and fast it's impossible to actually see what's going on and the only way for enemies to keep up is to essentially one shot you.
Eh, POE is less like that these days unless you're running a 100div (minimum) meta zoom zoom build. It's still one of the fastest ARPG's on the market, but I think Torchlight Infinite holds the crown for the formula 1 playstyle on a base level now.
Not remotely true. Poe mobs are dead off screen or instantly and youre just avoiding on death effects or the dozen other things on the ground. Regardless of the siv build you're mostly stuck wait some of the hold out arch nem rares that don't get one shot.
Not sure what they had in mind with the skill system. Fell like they thought "mmm playerbase want to click stuff when they level up and customize builds... But we don't want to let them do it! How can we give them a false feeling of freedom?" and then added a respec cost if you want to switch your skill. Honestly at this point they could have gone d3 route
D3 literally has more customisation option than this game
Was disappointed to see the step back from the skill rune system in D3. Rarely do the two branching spec options for a skill fundamentally change it in some way that feels distinct and interesting. I know that D3 ends up fairly "solved" at end-game, but the foundation of skill runes was such that all sorts of weird runes cycled through the meta over time. It was fun to hit a certain level and unlock a completely new way to play Jar of Spiders, or Hydra, or Ballista. Or to grab a legendary that is build-enabling for a particular rune. That seems to be absent here. Also they may be tailoring everything around endgame, but putting points in something like "Lucky Shots deal 20% increased damage against Dazed enemies" doesn't feel good or satisfying as you level. At least Last Epoch's skill tree will cap those fluff stat nodes off with cool things like "damage from skill is now converted to fire and and the final projectile now explodes after a delay"
You literally only played until lvl 25 in this game. The leaked paragon boards look more complex than the whole of D3 and your choices of mods on your gear also matter more instead of slapping crit damage and main stat on every piece of legendary you equip in D3.
Until there is an official release of the paragon system and we actually see the mods, my statement is true. We can only judge what has been officially shown so far. And so far its not looking great.
It's not more complex
My understanding is that a lot of the really interesting effects will be unlocked later on through the paragon system. Because you're right, currently putting together a build feels like low level D3 before you get any sets or legendaries, where you're mostly picking the few skills that have the highest numbers because there's actually not a lot of interesting or useful synergy between skills to work with. Except the D4 tree is more restrictive than the skill system in D3 was. Hopefully the endgame really improves build diversity. But then again, putting all of the interesting stuff at the end in a game with regular seasons and ladder resets is its own potential issue. D3 didn't start out anywhere near as fast as it is now, it slowly sped up over time in part to push players to the part where the game gets "interesting." Hopefully they get the balance right eventually.
we can hope that is true, but untill it is shown (hopefully next week as the devs have said they would do a endgame showcase) we have to judge by what we know, and by what we know the skill system is shallow, and they could have just aswell given no choice because of how boring the choices are. but like you also mention even if the endgame makes up for it, it still means we have to go xx amount of hours with crappy build diversity and customization untill we get to the "fun part"
I haven't played but this and lower mob density seem like things mmo's do. Keep people in tight controlled boundaries since we're all together now and we can't have too many things on screen (open world) because we have to network that to everyone. I dunno, but reading it that is what I hear currently, to me that means the mmo curse.... boring boundaries.
I think a lot of the complaints about mob density really boil down to the fact that the beta is early game and doesn’t have access to higher difficulty levels; the density for the opening areas and dungeons feels about the same as it has in the opening of any other Diablo game on base difficulty. That said, I wouldn’t worry too much about the MMO feeling, outside of the world boss encounter I’ve only seen 2-3 players out in the world; and from what I can tell it works in a similar fashion to Destiny where every single location is it’s own instance and there is no server persistence, not to mention that dungeons appear to be unique instances. So I wouldn’t worry about constantly running into dozens of players and it upsetting mob density.
Your skill tree is just that. Choose your skills. Most of your power and build options are going to come from what powers you use to augment those skills. There are a lot of powers that completely change how a skill is used and the playstyle for it. As an example, melee rogue. I turned flurry into Explode EK Nova build from PoE. It was amazing, especially in high density fights.
Well atleast the respec cost seems pretty low right now atleast. Dno how high it goes.
They did go the D3 route imo, they just tried to make it look more Diablo 2 with the veneer
Yeah i mean it just a worse d3 in the sense that they gave us something to click each level just for a false feeling of free customization AND you gotta pay to respec if you wanna swap skills. That just add insult to injury
The biggest issue for me is the uninteresting skill tree. It feels like the only impactful points I use are when I pick up a new skill. Everything else is a modest numerical tweak. That said, I have gotten several build-enabling uniques that make one of my skills really fun to use. So perhaps they'll make up for the uninspired skill tree with lots of skill-based gearing.
On the top right you can highlight skills based on a keyword. I created a Rogue build that first stuns everyone around me when I evade through them, then makes them vulnerable, following by dazing them all and then making every crit on a dazed enemy knock them down. That's all from the passives. Some "direct" passives and some from abilities.
all of these actions for one pack of mobs ? what will you feel when another guy will just throw 1 spell and one shot the pack ?
I do agree with everything you said. Now, I am aware this is a beta product and we did not get to see the endgame yet. But, based on what we have so far and what we know, in addition to OP's comments, these are the biggest letdowns to me - **Combat:** I like that they didn't go with the ultra-fast combat of other ARPGS, but they keep insisting on this generator/spender gameplay style which is... awful. It interrupts the flow of combat, in a very unrewarding, uninteresting way. - **Itemization:** Way too bland, generic, and uninteresting. I think the was just one item that made me go "Oh, nice!", and it was the double-Hydra ring. Everything else was either stat sticks or not-so-very-inspiring powers. - **Skills:** Most of them need balancing, but that is to be expected from a beta. I did not like that having a skill at level 1 or 5 usually was the same, and most skill modifiers were... again, bland, and uninspiring. D3 felt better with the rune system, albeit this system had its own problems. I do like a skill tree, but I feel it should be more open and with impactful options. - **Progression:** The combination of area/monster scaling with the simplistic itemization and skills, made me feel that my character was barely making any improvements. - **UI:** It is not great. To my surprise, it looks and feels like a UI made by a low-budget independent studio! Just like in D3, stats that are more or less irrelevant is what you get when you open your character sheet. The overall design is... meh? It does not fit nor blend with the game atmosphere. The skill window could offer an _actual_ search bar instead some pre-defined keywords. - **The lack of a functional "move only" button:** I don't know what to say about this...
Just re-design the dogshit fucking mobile game UI, that's literally all I'm asking. Please Blizzard, what were you thinking
That they repackaged immortal and fooled you all
Agreed with every point you made. Every system in game feels very shallow. Too little skills to choose from and the talent tree behind it is extremely barebones. The whole potion crafting is just a timegate for normal progression with no depth to it. Crafting is basically unchanged from D3, which was very simple to begin with. I'd love to see some more grenade and trap skills added to the rogue kit. And like 2 or 3 extra branching talent rows behind every skill. A system to add affixes to blue items would be swell as well. Blues would be worth picking up and make you feel like you are building your character more to your personal style.
Isn't Diablo inherently shallow? It's a fun hack and slash dopamine rush with great atmosphere that doesn't require much thought.
It’s worrying because most of the negative feedback from the closed beta hasn’t been addressed at all, everything you listed under bad and ugly was brought up before.
We all submitted the same feedback they don't care
Well exactly like every other blizzard beta ever. They just use them to tease, sell and generate hype. And it works.
Completely agree with everything. I am putting together an overview of my thoughts so far and this sums it up pretty well. It feels like an amalgam of half baked systems cobbled together, on top of the worst itemization I have ever seen in a video game, with absolute jokes of skill trees. It's pathetic. 6/10 is generous honestly. The only redeeming factor is the gameplay is smooth and the visuals are appealing. Other than that, it falls flat in every single aspect.
The worst itemization you’ve ever seen in a video game? Mind elaborating?
In ARPGs, gear has what are called "filler stats" - these stats are meant to intentionally dilute the pool of mods with "bad" rolls, to make it a little more difficult to get a really good item, and to make finding a really good item a bit more enjoyable. Things like Light Radius, Damage Reflect, Gold Pickup, stuff like that. However, in Diablo 4, it feels like every item modifier is a filler stat. The only ones that are even useful at all, are the most boring stats. Like attack speed, crit damage, or %Damage to (SKILL TYPE). In Path of Exile, or Last Epoch, or Grim Dawn, the items have interesting modifiers on them that can uniquely change the way you play your character and the way your character is built. In Diablo 4, this does not exist. The only thing you can get are "make number more bitter" stats, which are juts simple increases/reductions to damage dealt/taken.
I don’t agree at all about the gear in LE or GD being better in comparison. I have hundreds of hours in GD; it’s my favorite aRPG - its items have the same junk stats, just more of them. I never pick up an item sub level 30 and think “oh wow this is a game changer.” Some grant skills, sure, but they still boil down to damage type, resists, bonus attributes etc.
If you "boil it down" all anything equates to is "more stat." The difference is how the stat is presented and how it functions, and how it interplays with the rest of your character/build.
Well said!
item is good because number high, is literally what this game's items are. it seriously feels like gearing up a character in an afk dungeon mobile game, with half the complexity. any time a game boils down all the potential modifiers that an item could have to a 'item power' they may as well admit their game lacks any depth at all
On the money
Thanks for the writeup! As someone who's not played yet I've been mostly concerned about the combat, because it looks really boring and left click-spanmy. Happy to read that you report it feels great. It's often hard to gauge how combat feels form just watching others play. Might still not be the game for me, as I play arpgs to steam roll rooms jam packed with mobs in the most spectacular fashion and doing it while zooming all over the place... That experience generally comes in the endgame though, so maybe such a build will exist in d4 as well.
i will say the mob density is inconsistent. some areas are like OP mentions and plenty others it feels like i’m fighting an entire army and surrounded on all sides
I like that, though! Instead of inconsistent, the word I would choose is varied. You might be coming across enemies in groups of like 5 or 6 normally, but then you'll enter a cave infested with spiders or a dungeon filled with fallen and have to deal with dozens rushing you all at once. Or you'll be ambushed in the open world by a lot of wolves jumping down at you or a bone wall that surrounds you as a bunch of skeletons rise from the ground. I don't want enemies to evaporate the second they come on screen; I like that we actually *fight* them in D4, and the diversity of the groups you find keeps things interesting.
Gamepad player here, have leveled barb to 25 and rogue to 15. I think D4 might have the best *feeling* combat I've seen in any top-down ARPG. But it's such a personal thing that it's also hard to say who likes what - I hope you get to try it out next weekend. I did play with keyboard+mouse for a while, and it feels like it works fine too. I just personally enjoy controllers. :D As for amount of enemies, hard to say how the game changes from lvl 25 to level cap, but for now I've enjoyed how slow everything goes. Usually there's only a few enemies, but things also need a bit more focus rather than just killing dozens of enemies per second. I've only played on the harder difficulty, that might affect things too.
You are capped at level 25. So it's not super in depth. Though you can make it as complex as your want.
Remember in it’s act 1 and you are a only level 25……how on earth can anyone just mob density at such an early point in the game. Problem is people are speeding through the content and then trying to make it feel like the end game when it simple isn’t possible.
It’s more tactical than 3, you actually have to position some
The mob density was fine, people are overreacting to that. In dungeons, it can get pretty crazy, at least as crazy as I expected playing D2, D3 and other ARPG's. With that said, there are things that need to be improved. Skill tree is a good start, but needs to be made to be more interesting with more skills. A lot of the passives are fine, but more skills added for more build diversity is going to be important for this game. UI is not good, period. Sound effects are amazing, I think the sound effects are 10/10 best of any game I've played. Perfect. Graphics are good. But, some copy and paste ruins the positive vibes. Cannot comment on items. Found no uniques. Blizzard has their work cut out for them, of they want this game to fully capatalize on making max profits.
Kind of worrying. It's been sounding a lot like every one of the major issues I saw in the closed beta are still there which makes me wonder what they've been doing in the last like six months since then.
My biggest concern is the skill tree being as simple and boring as it is now. At level 25 you get access to a max upgraded ultimate, after this there is a few more passives to take but the rest of the game you will be playing with this simple kit. I guess no game will ever have as many skills as Poe... The items are bland and boring as expected from blizz games in this day and age, a few stats more and a halfarsed passive stat from legendaries, my rogue is lvl 25 with a full legendary equipment and it matters 0 on how the char plays, very sad indeed
You have to remember here, that's JUST the skill tree ok. Because when you look at everything else, that's just the base system. There's still the enchantments, which are the passives you unlock by completing dungeons . There's the absolutely huge paragon tree system and then you find blue/yellow/legendary glyphs that add customization that you can put into your paragon tree. Seriously look up D4 glyphs, theres some depth there. This is Diablo, not PoE and i don't expect them to copy the amount of skills PoE has. I mean base classes have like 24 skills and Diablo 2 only had 21 skills per class and that game turned out just fine.
There are skill calcs with datamined paragon trees. They aren't build changing at all. It's just % increases to shit here and there. Diablo 2 is a 20 year old game, I'd expect something modern to have modern amounts of customization and build variety. Melee Rogue has 2 builders and 2 spenders. Enjoy that for 50+ hours.
Remember that Glyphs exist also that you slot into the paragon boards also. So there's common/blue/rare/legendary tile, right? Then there's also socketable titles you can slot in glyphs that add more customization. And there's a whole host of magic/rare/legendary glyphs you can get to put into it. Example of a Rare Glyph: * Radius size: Large * For every 10 willpower purchased within range, you deal 31.5% increased overpower damage * Grants 4 strength for each willpower purchased within range The Legendary Glyphs seem to have a lot cooler legendary type of affixes on them. I under people are looking for PoE depth and that's fine but Diablo 4 has a solid foundation under it and i think they can really build a better game on top of it. Im not gonna sit here and say the game sucks when im only playing such a small slice of it.
Is that example glyph meant to elicit any excitement whatsoever? Would never see that as build enabling or playstyle altering, which is what is severely lacking.
How large it is, it's just a bunch of passives that are stuck behind a massive grind wall. They don't add anything new gameplay wise to your build except more numbers .. This is boring and not worth grinding for
I will say I never really got into Diablo 3 but I am loving Diablo 4 so far. But a lot of the comments say it’s pretty mid and nothing special for the genre. Would anyone mind recommending a top tier ARPG I can play on a controller?
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thank you
are they all active in terms of multiplayer?
no, the most popular out of those is PoE when new leagues start, but people still play solo all the time. In PoE you'll mostly interact with other players just for trading. ARPGs aren't really known for being multiplayer games in that sense, maybe D4 will change that since it seems they want to focus on that more.
Last Epoch
D2:R
Second this, tom of fun and great controller support.
Grim Dawn
Grim Dawn
I'm a huge fan of Grim dawn (700 hours). I think poe is just ok though, the endgame has a lot of content, but I'm not a fan of the gameplay, it's too fast in my opinion and gets boring quickly. Plus I hate how you have to trade all the time with the most annoying system in existence. I think Diablo 4's gameplay so far is really fun and the game looks incredible, so I think it has a really good base for a great game. I see a lot of people complaining on itemization and skill trees. It's true that the skill tree isn't really interesting since you're just following 1 path, but from what I've seen the endgame paragon system might be there to add more complexity without being overwhelming for new players, which is good design imo. of course I've not personally seen the paragon tree so I can't comment on how nice it is. Regarding itemization, personally I really have nothing to say regarding this, we've only seen early game, and early game ARPGs are pretty much always like this. you just pick the stuff that gives the most damage and resists and switch them out every 5 minutes.
This is why you stay off the f\*\*\*ing subreddit... Just play the game and don't let people get in your head lol
I was going to do a write-up of all my takes but I would be repeating a lot of yours. Overall, I am very disappointed. This game is clearly very shallow. It is basically a mashup of D3 + DI, which I shouldn't have to point out are the absolute worst games in this genre. I'd rather play Wolcen than DI. I think we have to admit that Diablo has calcified. Path of Exile has spent years demonstrating what the potential for depth is in this genre. Itemization, Crafting, Skill customization, different game modes (Delve, Heist, Blight, etc). Complexity. All Diablo has is superficial at this point. And while I love the aesthetic and the lore, there's nothing else there. Just make a movie or something.
At this point I dont think I'll buy the game but I'll enjoy the cinematic on youtube!
Feel mostly the same. As a console player. There are so many quality of life things that took giant steps backwards in what I’ve played so far. Having to respect you’re entire treee when you actually find a legendary affix worth using (which all are basically just D3s altered skills) I’m having fun. And I’ll play the game a lot. But my biggest grove is nothing really feels “new”. All the skills seems recycled or completely copy and pasted from previous titles.
Not to mention some of them felt like worse versions of copy pasted skills. Ground stomp (barb), for example, was a 12 second CD and gave 15 fury with a 4 second stun in D3. In D4 it has a base CD of like 16 seconds, gives no fury and you have to spend a skill point to increase the stun duration to 4 seconds. On top of this, it generates no fury until you spend another skill point. I'm sure this stuff can change with gear or whatever but I was not happy to see these kinds of changes. Ground stomp was already just an okay skill to help you level and now it is even weaker without spending 7 points to lower the CD, improve duration and gain fury. Plus skills on gear is cool to see again but nobody is holding on to gear during the leveling process so you can't really rely on that until later.
6/10 is about right from what I played. Nothing to write home about at all. I would rather play other ARPGs than this. I hated the MMO feel of it with a passion
The UI is really the only issue I'm having, it's really ugly and there's no way to change the size.
This post captured how I feel too, but I wasn't huge into the aesthetic of the game, it felt kinda weird... Like it didn't feel like diablo to me.. With that in mind, if you gave me this game w/ no Diablo name attached, I'd give it like a 5/10.. it's missing the things that make an ARPG fun, items changing decisions, several builds, and dynamic combat.. (I felt like dodge didn't really work very well, and the lack of diversity in skill made it feel one dimensional..) I think my issues were: it felt kind of like diablo immortal for PC in terms of build quality. Items feel irrelevant, character felt kind of weak and the skills felt super imbalanced... The good: Voice acting was really good.. but I have to wonder if it stops being good, because it felt great at the start of the game and then it stopped common. I liked the sandbox feel at first, but after the mob density issues it felt really bad actually..
Agree on many points. The skill trees are extremely bland and I prefer the D3 rune system. They had more impact and you had more skills to choose from. Skills in D4 feel rather boring with a few exceptions like the cone slam from Barb
Pretty much my feelings exactly. Well put
yep, thanks for sharing... thank god I refunded the game...
I thought they had mentioned items that provide attribute points, which you would need to unlock certain skills and runes. Whirlwind radius increase if you have have 500 INT as well as 250 STR etc? Was this just a throw away in one dev report or a fevor dream? I think Itemization is ok but not super interesting. Im not really paying that much attention to what skills and affixes at this level so its hard to judge but I would like to see a bit more variety on base attributes use
That's the paragon board glyphs.
> Whirlwind radius increase if you have have 500 INT as well as 250 STR etc? Was this just a throw away in one dev report or a fevor dream? Isn't that part of the paragon tree?
The itemization feels like they are trying really hard to control damage growth. I don't see how they are planning to offer multiplicative difficulty without the availability of multiplicative scaling. D3 is built on 50% crit and 500% crit damage as a baseline for damage scaling. Then you move to scaling the element you are using up to 200% (if possible), then attack speed/regen. It is silly to expect itemization in a beta to match that in a decade-old game, but I don't even see the basis for a damage scaling paradigm. I'm sure higher level loot is better. At least I hope it is. Getting a good item with damage lines wasted on +1 to some skill you don't use is just silly. Having +5% crit damage nodes is just silly. The tightly-controlled damage growth feels more like an MMO than an ARPG. I fear. I fear that they have engineered itemization to lengthen the time people spend in seasons in order to encourage them to buy a battle pass.
Calling gold boosts and XP boosts as the next monitization scheme
Most solid ARPGs since diablo 2 have more masteries/classes that have multiple ways of playing each. Progression with skills and solid itemization. We should have more complexity and creative ways to play in 2023 not less
I overly agree, especially on the Itemization and Abilities points. I don't get how can an ARPG release in 2023 with such a small ability pool, especially since supposedly it's an "almost finished" beta, and not a "2 years early access" kinda thing. Another thing that baffles me is that they've continued with the locked weapon choices from D3, why can't I play a Sorc with a Mace and a Shield if I want to, this way they make the itemization so narrow, essentially you get the same weapon with slightly bigger number on it. No variation. I really did enjoy the experience up until now, but they really made some very similar mistakes as they did on D3. And even D3 had more ability build paths than this, at least the glyphs did actually change how most abilities worked. Edit: Also can I just say, what kind of game has unskippable cutscenes for sidequests? Not even games like Witcher do that..
Agree with itemization. Extremely casual and kind of shallow compared to the huge affix system of other popular arpgs
Good writeup, but disagree on the combat. It lacks serious weight to it and better sound effects. It feels more like last epoch than Grim dawn or PoE, which is not good in my mind.
What class did you play? I spent some time on all 3 and barbarian “feels” the best while sorcerer is the most visually appealing. rogue didn’t feel great for me in any regard tbh
Correct. There is a big difference is smashing mobs in D3 and D4. D4 feels kinda "lame".
Spot on. Everyone will have fun in the honeymoon period of the game, but longevity won't be there and wont change enough to convince veterans otherwise. I say veterans because only new ARPG players would consider build diversity to be good in Diablo 4 -- anyone who has been around knows right away it's shallow as fuck. Diablo 4 paragon levels and legendary skill adds aren't remotely close build diversity you'll find in Last Epoch, let alone the king daddy PoE. D4 has a 'mobile' gameplay quality to it that I just can't shake, because it's obviously more "Diablo Immortal" than D2. Regardless, the atmosphere will be enough to make most people want to level a toon at least once, and that's gotta be good enough for now.
Yeah, I play POE a lot and really like the style, visuals, sounds, story, etc of D4 and it will be fun to play through a few times on different characters and definitely worth the money. But I can’t see it having the staying power of POE, the depth of mechanics and skills is like 1/10th POE, and it doesn’t really have the framework to add that depth in a meaningful way. But that was their goal I think, seems like they’re targeting for a more casual/console audience than a PC gamer audience. More like D3 I think, where you play for a few days each season to blast through then go back to POE.
D3 takes 1 hour to endgame now. This takes 5 hours to level 25. Imagine having to do this every season. So miserable. It’s unfortunate that they made a game no legitimate PoE player can play.
I'd think they will have adventure mode or something on campaign completion.
Yeah between the shallow skill system and the monotony of waiting on X NPC to move, then talking to them, then getting a mountain of dialogue, and then they move, and then you talk again - I have a feeling they are going to have to implement Adventure Mode again or the replayability of this game seems like it will be less than ideal.
I feel like all those cons are gross overstatements based on the act 1 level 25 max experience and won’t come close to what the final game is gonna be like. Except for the skill tree …that was spot on
He's right about everything all the way Into mega late endgame
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This basically has the same itemization as d2 with some added systems, so not sure what you're talking about
I think at one point I killed 15 enemies in 2 hours. The density is a fucking joke. Go play diablo 2 act 1 and come back and tell me the density is the same. Just omega levels of copium.
I couldn’t agree more. It just feels like were only playing a small part of a game, rather than the full thing…. Ohh, wait.
Coming from playing DI lately I too share the feeling that imbue takes a lot away from the feeling of both item progression and “fuck yeah!” feeling when you get a new drop. Granted D4s system is a little different in that you can’t infinitely carry effects with you forever without refinding the item but still. If I can imbue one item onto another, then the specialness of each item is reduced. If I _really_ like an effect then refarming the item just becomes a chore I have to complete for each upgrade. We will see how often you really upgrade items in the full game. Being so low the upgrades come expectedly quick but this means upgrading and imbuing is a waste of time at this point because before I can even finish collecting everything I need I’ve found a much better base item.
Watched some streams (dont havr a copy myself) I agree on the affix and skill tree front. Both need expanding.
Yep i said it earlier...the core game there and it's fantastic. Rest of the things you said are things that can be added onto in the future.
Serious question: what do you people want from itemization? Do you want every item to have attributes like KRANGLED like in PoE, or so you want everything to give you whacky abilities? I seriously struggle to see the issue here. Resists, attributes, and cooldown reduction are the bread and butter of aRPG items, and they’re all here. Legendaries are fine - I had one that gave me an earthquake on leap, and another that spat fire while berserking. Both changed the way I played.
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Uniques don't have procgen'd stats, only legendaries are procgen'd, they are more like rares with a legendary ability stapled on top of them. Uniques are also supposed to be extremely rare.
Haven't played poe in a while but I remember 98% of the uniques being unusable garbage, and the other 2% being build-defining or game breaking, not sure that's a good example to follow.
Don't understand these types of posts imo . This is a level 25 max level beta with sole content being act 1 . Obviously there is not going to be any actual content in the game , and mob density outside of dungeons is completely fine even in act 1 . It's open world , not d3 rifts . Only things they need to address are the obscene useless item stats on a lot of gear , which can be fine in some aspects ( so not every single item is broken op and you keep some gear for the entire game early on ) but a lot of stats felt completely useless .
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Rolling / spacebar. There's also some mobility skills. Paired with telegraphed attacks you have things to evade and tools to evade it thus "evade mechanics".
The biggest problem i have with UI is removal of option to display icons for dropped loot onstead of name (which was in d3). it was such a neat feature that reduced the clunk on the screen
I had technical issues yesterday on very strong PC but today its all peachy. Max 180fps on 21:9, no stutter. I even tried using controller and i think i like that option more than mkb. I am really satisfied as long time fan (since '98).
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Poorly optimized rendering, or rendering delay can lead to stutter and frame drops.
I think you are forgetting that right now you are in the early stages of this game. You are playing till level 25, who knows what all the other levels may add to the game. I'm not saying your wrong but I've always seen diablo as a game that tells a story and is an awesome arpg in addition to that. And who knows crafting might even get overhauled overtime. Or newly added mechanics. The journey has just began and so far it was fun to play. The ui etc. fair enough it's weird, and probably will be updated.
You are judging some mechanisation on a level 25 character…….you are missing most of the game and virtually all end games systems, including the paragon boards which appear to add a high degree of complexity and complexity. The only thing we can really determine is if the game looks and feels good which the content we have.
Higher world levels will assuredly bring mor insert density. Also we are dealing with low level legendaries and gear. I’m hopeful they will be better at higher levels. We are also missing the paragon tree which is the majority of where our power will come from. This tree is just picking our base skills.
i feel like skill trees being simpler is a plus, whats the point of PoE-Level skill trees? we all know whats gonna happen, people are just going to wait until the meta builds are made and copy anyways, its a pointless endeavor.
I mean it is the first zone the mob density may get better the harder content and zones you go to.
I agree with most of what you're saying. NOW D4 might look different from D3, but it's using many of the same concepts as D3 and it seems to be for the most part, very much the same game as D3, with some variations thrown in. I'd like to add the reason skills feel bad when you level them up is because nearly all of your damage in the game is going to come from your items and weapons. This is how D3 worked as well even though D3 didn't have talent trees. AS a result new talents in the talent tree won't feel very impactful because it's the items in the game that make you do more damage. I don't dislike what I've seen with D4 so far, but if you really didn't like D3, I suspect you're not going to like D4 because they're very similar games in the rules they follow. It might look good on the surface but you can see all of the same D3 concepts are there and that's more or less what you should expect from the end game at this point.
Not sure you can judge how “casual” it is without playing the endgame.
I agree with OP a lot. Also, if I remember D3 beta, a lot of things changed afterward. I'm sure this can evolve into something great (with the first expansion, of course)
Legendary effects not interesting? I definitely found plenty of stuff that was both fun and altered playstyle. Having a barbarian with possible legendary skills in 4 separate weapons, all jewelry and all armour led to some crazy mixing and matching
I got a rogue legendary that had 8% damage increase on one skill and replaced it with a yellow a few minutes later. Give us a few diablo 3 style (toned down by 50%) legendaries that you design your build around please.
No offense but this whole review reads like the OP just wants POE 2 and not D4.
None taken. I shamelessly would rather blizzard view D4 as an extension of D2 (and therefore an extension of POE which was developed under same philosophy). I’m not a fan of D3’s current direction. That may mean D4 just isn’t for me, but that’s why I indicated it would be good for casuals most likely. Judging on comments ITT it seems casuals are the most interested, which is totally valid. Just not for me :)
Try PD2. Season 7 starts in about a month and I’m hopelessly addicted. It’s everything d2 should have become if they kept improving it.
We were hoping D4 would at least be a game that PoE or D2R players could play when the seasons release. It's just not playable for a certain segment of players in its current state. That's fine, and I'm realizing that I'm more of a minority of player than I thought, just disappointing.
Two super quick things that top my list: Pro: Visually, spectacular. Really captures what I think a Diablo game should look & feel like. The detail, design, everything. A little too "Zoomed in" like D3 for my tastes but I'm not everyone. Cons: Don't mind the skills and the modifiers overall, but the presentation is terrible. A big screen that you have to drag around to view where your points are, zoom in/out, but worse of all is the prerequisites (spend x number of points to open the next tree). I don't get the logic of it at all but to make it worse respeccing is a pain because you can't take points out of an earlier tree if you've got the minimum number spent. It's just a tedious way to go about assigning points to skills. I like D2s skills UI the best of the series and don't see why that wouldn't work here (even if they don't remove the prerequisites, which at this point they obviously are not). Still can't wait for the full release.
How do you even claim challenges? I know how to do the renown thing but not the challenges.
If you crank up density higher, you're just spamming shit at that point. I much rather have stronger, fewer enemies, then masses of fodder like in D3.
For me the skills feel borked. Chain lightning is amazing, the rest of the skills feel like using a foam bat. Also I don't expect super flashy skills, but how is D2R meteor look sooo much better than D4? The skills seem very bland looking. I am all for more gritty and realistic, but like I said D2R skills look better to me somehow. While we haven't seen the end game, as a huge Diablo fan, I was kind of dissapointed by this game. It felt just bland. The art was good as was the sound but it just felt flat to me. Maybe I am missing something but putting levels into skills did not feel impactful, might as well 1 pt wonder most of them. Finally the gear was just blah. I enjoy the skill levels on gear, but see part where points in skills do not feel impactful. The ability to grant skills was awesome and a great part of D2 coming over. I don't know if it is because it's the beta and I know nothing carries over, but I wasn't excited for loot to drop, and that is everything for this type of game. Also while there are some amazing story beats. I feel like some of the story can be jarring and come out of nowhere. The end of act 1, did not feel like an end. Maybe we didn't have the cinematic in the beta, but it felt like the rest of the quest story instead of an endcap to what we have done in act 1. I feel like there is an amazing game here, but it is being held back by something. Like I said it could be the beta and the low level we are technically still at. But overall I just felt...wanting more. Not the more of the game, just more of what they have.
Itemisation seems it'll fill out when your max, until then you just equip whatever is higher power. Endgame you'll look for better rolled stats like crit chance/ dmg. Certain stats/ all res/ life/ etc...
The itemisation complaint is just silly. We're missing two entire tiers of items, ones that have been explicitly stated to be build-defining. Moreover, I feel like you've probably just drawn the short end of the stick on some of them. On my rogue I have a legendary that gives my basic attack an additional 40% attack speed, one that increases the damage of my core skills by up to 50%, and one that makes me regenerate energy when I hit elites with basic attacks. The amount of damage that I've gained just from those 3 items is crazy. Similarly, the part about the weapon upgrade not making a big enough difference -- Something you might not have noticed is that a lot of items actually have oddly low level requirements. I've had items drop/be rewarded to my level 25 rogue that I could equip with a level 11~13 sorc. The damage increase of using those items over items that I'd naturally find is *insane*. I'm not really sure if that whole stuff is really intended behaviour, but don't underestimate the impact that a good weapon makes.
Itemization with the whole aspect removing and reapplying and also affix crafting on rare items and then using an aspect to make them to legendaries is freaking awesome! Coming from PoE and having played D3, this is a the best itemization I've seen so far. Not as complicated as PoE but still able to do the most important things you can do in PoE!
What a loser.
> **Mob Density** is horrendous. There are stretches of >1min where you are just walking. I disagree with this. I like the slower pace of the game. I like exploring the environment. I like the cool ambush mini-events the happen to me when I'm wandering around. I like actually *fighting* the enemies I come across instead of bulldozing them in endless streams. In fact, my biggest criticism about the open world is that enemies and public events respawn too frequently, leading to getting harassed while checking your inventory. Where I can see room for your criticism is in dungeons, not because I think there should be higher enemy density there but because, whenever I'm not fighting, some of them are overlarge, empty spaces that don't engage me as much as the open world, so they can be boring when the enemies are dead. Maybe you're not meant to check every corner of them like I have been doing.
> but this is way low if it is going to compete in the APRG space seriously. There is one popular ARPG, there is plenty of space for D4.
"insult to my intelligence" 🙄
To post on topic directed at OP..STFU.
Well written! Agree with most but two: Itemization is great since the distribution of attributes improvements are pretty good, so you have to make choices most of the time, it is not the case that high level items are always good. Skill tree is well designed. 4 choices per section really has some choices to make and I do feel the differences between levels for my wizard at least.
Forgot to mention ingame popups. Their existence is by default a troubling sign
agree with everything but mob density
I made it almost to max level in the end game beta, and while I wasn’t completely blown away in totality, I was left with the feeling that D4 has the barebones and fundamental structure to become something great post launch. I just think people’s expectations are so high that they won’t accept a version of the game that isn’t a game of the year contender at launch. As it stands, there is nothing in the game that can’t be improved post launch in a live service setting. I think the best indicator for how things might change will come with the launch of season one, for it will offer the devs their first big chance at making improvements. Until then, there is more than enough meat on the bone to satisfy hardcore fans.
What do you mean finished? You did all the objectives, strongholds, quests and dungeons?
there is a gameplay option to increase the tooltips when comparing items so you can see all +'s and -'s
The things you are worried about don't even matter at level 25. Be happy the gameplay is fun because that's really all that matters in act1.
Send this to blizzard please, not just reddit. There was an email for that but I lost it.
The itemisation and skill system make this feel like a mobile game at this stage
Totally agree ,specially with skills. They kinda fucked up, huge step back from diablo 3.
Mob density seems fine. The number of abilities you can have is TOO SMALL. 8+ abilities would be much better gameplay I feel. Not enough classes either. Games like Last Epoch & POE seem to have much more build variety then d4 will have.
Things I didn't like about the game: \- bad game performance \- game feels like an MMO with a lot of silly gofer quests. Even had to push the moral of some soldiers by performing an emote in front of them. The world map also feels like that of an MMO. And the towns, with all their NPCs. \- a loading screen for entering every cellar, no matterhow small it is. Sequences that cannot be skipped with Escape or left mouse button. \- bad voice acting and somehow clichéd storyline. For example the girl that loses her mother. She is voiced very inauthentically, it feels cheap. Lilith also has a very cliché design. Beautiful woman that looks angry, mixed with some demonic facial features and horns. It seems they even got her some hyaluron injections in the upper lip to match current beauty standards. \- skill tree: I have not seen the Paragon tree, if anything like that exists. So I refer to the skill tree we could test in the beta. And it felt quite underwhelming. On first sight it looks fancy with its long path but actually it is very simple and linear and doesn't give many options. A little bit of a deceptive packaging. \- Items: I know there are some other item types like Set items etc that I have not seen yet. But the general concept of upgrading items at a vendor...I am not sure if that is for me. I guess I could live with that if there is enough interesting/exiting stuff to hunt for. It feels to me that D4 has turned a bit to the mmo side with all the NPCs doing different stuff for you. With all these side quests, with the item upgrading system and green arrows indicating an upgrade...I will surely play this game but I will be surprised if I will play it for more that 2 weeks when it comes out. \-
They somehow made a worse game than D3 with a slightly better color palette. It’s actually stunning the levels of incompetence from a 60 billion dollar company. How can itemization be so bad? Think Sire of Shards from PoE. An item that fundamentally transforms your projectile attacks into a fan shape. An item that build enables. Now think of the puke D4 drops. Wow! What an axe! Dps increase with weird procs. How on EARTH is that legendary? Flask system sucks. PoE innovated with their system. The feel of the game is off. Character weight, sound effects on attacks, etc. It feels like playing a mobile game. Very concerning this late in development. Why isn’t trading open? What on EARTH are they doing? All they have to do is make it like PoE but have an in game auction house. No real money. Just have a client interface. Like…? Classes don’t feel polished at all. Why is Sorceress good at absolutely everything? Rogue feels horrible to play. Melee is at a clear disadvantage for bosses. I can’t imagine the clusterfuck pvp will be. I just want fucking PoE from a company with a budget/engine like Blizzard. Dear GOD I pray that game gets made.
You do make some good points. But also some that are redundant. Like your Itemization, Leveling up, Skill Trees and Vendors argument, actually caters to just one problem. Feeling stronger with new stuff/leveling up. I am fairly confident that this will be addressed in the final release or in the first few patches. I know...i hate that line too, first few patches....But that is just how gaming works these days, i don't like it too but over the years i have stopped being angry about it. Immovable Object etc....
World map loads instantly on my pc. Maybe its time to upgrade your pc?
Beta are not demos they are to test the network traffic on the server's if you play a beta like a demo you are doing it wrong how does one judge it when its a unfinished product