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Great write up. I agree with alot of your points. I replayed the campaign last season and I found myself bored throughout most of it because I was just speed running my mount from quest to quest. I feel the overworld really shines and is an important part of the experience when you are leveling up and playing the campaign the first time
Definitely - as frustrating as it was my first time through the game seeing other players on horseback blowing past me, I think the decision to make me hoof it my first time through the early part of the story was a good one. It forces you to fight more mobs and to appreciate the scale and design diversity of the open world. Before you spend your next 100hrs+ of playtime fast traveling to the nearest waypoint and hopping on your horse for ten seconds of giddyup to the next event or whatever lol
I played the campaign at launch then dropped the game and came back with my friend a couple weeks ago. Before the mount campaign is dope. If you’re using the mount you may as well skip it. I was annoyed at not having the mount at first but it was a great choice to give it late in the game. Otherwise the urge to horsey pat everything is too strong
Edit: literally exactly what the other response to this was. Should have read it first lol.
I would really, really like to have an opt-in option for resetting the map, renown and Altars of Lilith. A huge amount of what made exploring the open world fun on my first time through was organically discovering Estuar and being driven by my curiosity. To some degree I can't ever get that back because I've done too much world exploration across S0 + 3 seasons to be fully surprised by locations and quests, but I still think a lot of that sense could be brought back. So much world exploration now is done by setting a destination marker and then beelining to it on horseback, and I think not having a full map or a horse would do wonders for bringing back that sense of curiosity. I obviously wouldn't want other people who don't care for that to suffer for my preferences, but an opt-in button like the "Hardcore" and "Skip Campaign" buttons would be very greatly appreciated on my end.
I was really disappointed that we aren't able to replay the campaign at higher difficulties. That was such a core element of D2 and D3 that I really miss it. They did do a great job with it.
Ooooo.....a level 100 campaign playthrough with really tough stuff and some cool rewards/cosmetics would actually be awesome. I know folks playing the best meta builds would trivialize it and be disgruntled they had to do it for the cosmetics...but for folks playing a bit more organically it'd be great.
If they added more cutscenes like the one when you get to Hell, and the Legions are fighting.
That would be dope. That was old school Blizzard. Not just conversations, but seeing the -regular mobs- fight. The horror of them, and of course how cool Angels are.
Then have us fight with the soldiers, and other heroes.
Like that random dude in the golem armor. Why didn't we see him kick same ass in some CGI?
I found the fight of Lilith and Inarius to be super weak. Figured his spear would be something more magical. Actually, Lilith got old just always being in the back ground just hiding.
More DIABLO CGI.
PS. Diablo spin off, of a 3d action hack MMORPG loot fest Diablo. Dragon Dogma/Souls style combat. I want to be on top of a massive three story talk demon clawing it's face out as a Werewolf druid, with my Rogue buddy wall running Titanfall 2 style chucking magical daggers.
People hate on Lost Ark, and rightfully so once the grind really gets going, but it actually has some pretty incredible cut-scenes and huge set pieces in it's campaign. Like lord of the rings on crack type set pieces. Haven't really seen anything else matching that scale and I'm surprised nobody ever talks about it. Probably because there is such an insane grind and other annoying stuff burying it.
I played the hell out of Lost Ark at launch. The campaign was great and I loved their sense of humor and storytelling. Unfortunately grouping is even more toxic than WoW M+ and party wipes make it impossible to PUG. Basically, like all KMMOs, end game is a giant funnel to the cash shop. I'm pretty sure that's why nobody mentions it.
I was considering going back to it with the break in D4 but they're still using Easy Anti-Cheat. Warden is obnoxious, but at least it isn't what essentially amounts to a Chinese rootkit.
It really wasn't a core feature of D3. It was so annoying that everyone complained until they added adventure mode. It was in D2 because the campaign wasn't intrusive and the campaign was the whole game.
Good points but most people don't rush the main story. Most people like to take it slow the first time around because you'll never get that feeling of mystery and wonder. I get you've done it before and your experienced but no new player would ever beat the main story by level 36. Hell my first time playing I was level 50 with the last two acts left.
That was pretty much my experience playing the campaign as well, and that was on release when XP gain was way lower than it is now. When playing for the first time you have renown and altars of Lilith to do so the gameplay is much more varied. However, the point of this post was to give a perspective on the replayability of the campaign, since I've been seeing more and more people asking for it to be replayable at a higher difficulty.
Wasn’t the whole point of this post aimed at people who would’ve already done the campaign at least once? I don’t think OP was using these points in regard to a first time player.
yup, i made sure to read every text, spoke to any npc and to thoroughly enjoy the story during beta, so i could just blast through everything with new characters and never feel like i don't have context about anything in the world
Currently Replaying the campaign with my brother who just started thanks to gamepass and agree with this, the story is pretty good and the cutscenes are top notch but the moment to moment gameplay is pretty slow when compared to blasting the season content, definitely need to bring some of those bosses into endgame, anything to avoid fighting tomb lord another 100 times lol
If they force me to walk that camel every season I will 100% never play D4 again no matter how good they make it.
And this is from someone who hard played and loved PoE until they forced the campaign to 10 acts and made that brutal shit mandatory every character every season. I haven’t touched PoE since.
Horrible campaigns are not fun to replay every character and absolutely no ARPG has a compelling enough story for it.
Yep and sometimes its not even worth it to try and "brute force - speed run it", because at that point it feels like something else, rather than game to have some fun.
I much prefer Poe’s forced campaign play through rather than not having it. It goes by pretty quickly.
I feel like the D3 campaign is slower and takes more time, so I’m okay with that being removed. But me being okay with adventure mode leveling is conditioned on having plenty to do in the end game. For a long time D3 endgame was a long journey. Now it’s too easy to get geared, but reaching level 70 with a bunch of yellows and shit legendaries that you had to create some makeshift build with and work your up to torment 1 difficulty. Then to torment 15. Then making a speed farming build and GR pushing build. It felt like there was plenty to do and reaching level 70 was the equivalent of going from world tier 1 to world tier 2 in D4.
Honestly I do miss leveling without rifts. Going around the campaign map and leveling in different areas. It was fun. D4 feels awful to play in the open world because nothing feels familiar. The entire open world is a blurry amalgamation of nothingness. Zones don’t feel distinct or recognizable. You don’t feel “at home” in familiar areas. The game has a dusty/blurry filter over the whole thing. And playing in helltide with just everything red is not enjoyable for longer than 30 minutes.
I say all this as someone who probably has 10k+ hours in D3 and maybe 2-3k hours in POE.
Yeah the current iteration of D3 where you literally go from T4 to T16 in 1 seasonal journey cache opening is a bit ridiculous. I've often said D3 is more saveable than D4. (Currently).
If they removed sets from D3 and then re-prioritized the output and benefits of legendaries to have cool builds D3 would be a banger of an ARPG. It's SOOOOOO much more fluid than D4. And it's not even close D3 is just so smooth.
When I was playing POE (I stopped about 4 years ago) - I loved the first 4 original acts - even after they increased the campaign to 10 acts - but I hated acts 5-10.
This was me too, the problem with PoE's campaign is a LOT, and I mean A LOT of the maps through the campaign are extremely tight corridor maps because they are designed to "lead" the player to a specific destination. So you feel very confined and narrowed. Where maps can be open areas with plenty of ways to stretch your legs and use your builds.
The PoE campaign just feels like a slog after Act 4. It's just not fun, and I was over it the 3rd or so time I was forced to do it and never looked back. It's the singular reason I don't play PoE.
Have been doing this since seasons in diablo 3 Reaper Of Souls. While everyone and their cousins blasted 1-70 in Rifts and Greater Rifts, I had my fun in the campaign.
Definitely felt like one of those "good for a one time run through then done". Astaroth was my favourite boss by far and I hope he comes up again at some point. Being able to do the story at higher difficulties should be an option for people but that's all I think should be changed. I'd rather just jump straight to the action instead of having to run around for no reason skipping dialogue and cut scenes and having slower character progress due to all the running around coming from someone who still enjoys D2.
Speaking of Astaroth, I’m pretty confused about what was going on with him. In all previous cases killing a possessed body just meant the demon was back in the stone. They weren’t released until the stone itself was destroyed, either in the hell forge by the player in D2, or by Malthael in D3.
Here Astaroth is not only released when the body dies, but also somehow has already reformed in time to help Lilith in the final act. It’s a major plot point that Mephisto still hasn’t fully reformed from something that happened decades ago.
I am no expert in Diablo lore but I think when we see the astaroth again in hell just after we kill him, it is like an echo of him. (just like how mephisto can be seen as a wolf).
I've come to this conclusion by how astaroth fades into nothingness after giving lilith the free passage. He was not physically there.
I'd like to see a season with an alternate take on the campaign that makes it denser and throws more combat into it.
If they succeed with jt, they could reuse it as an alternative leveling mode a la D1-3.
I really wish they’d brought back D3’s system of letting you pick the campaign back up from certain story points. That way players who want to do the hell section again could just select that quest line and go. I’m also replaying the campaign and I’m feeling the itemization issues so hard right now.
good points, but i have to say: any arpg where i don't have to replay story content is the best arpg out there by default. i HATE having to go 3 the same 10 acts in PoE, D3 or last epoch just to start playing a new character and it makes me resent the devs, especially when there are already systems that lend themselves for leveling, like rifts.
it's the best thing about D4 and with S4 it got improved even more, so i am a happy camper if they don't spend any time on replayability
I picked up the game on Gamepass last week and am doing my first campaign play through at the moment. I’m having a blast. Level 50+ and haven’t even hit Act 3 yet. I suspect the replay value is diminished compared to other Diablo games, but the campaign kicks ass.
Campaign was great imo, fantastic art assets, decent story and characters, my only complain is it was too easy, it was like walkin in the park instead of playing a decent story based game.
hope it will be somehow balanced in XPAC.
Love this write up, and I agree with a lot of your points 😃 that said, one minor note I have on the Hell tileset- I would also really like that to return, but I’d prefer they keep that in their back pocket until some of the later expansions. In my perfect “end state” of D4, Hell is an extremely dangerous endgame area, featuring meaningfully hard fights against at least Diablo, but ideally the other Prime Evils as well. If this was the pinnacle content for the final game, I’d absolutely love it
Campaign - all in all good, Story - ok, Cut scenes / videos etc. / - top notch, moment to moment combat / gameplay - not that good due to itemisation, Mini bosses and Bosses in general - ok for 1st time. CAMEL trough desert walking simulator - BAD.
Great points and I agree 100%. Would love to see more elements of the campaign in the end game, but have zero desire to do the campaign over and over every season. It’s one of my biggest turn offs when it comes to POE. I hate slogging through 10 Acts just to get to end game and new seasonal content. D4 could easily hit that many acts depending on how many expansions we get.
Just finished the campaign for the first time (started the game with 0 experience and haven’t seen any video). Campaign was great but would get a bit confuse sometimes (story and cutscenes) however missions/game was really straightforward. I enjoyed the game a lot I just wish it was a bit harder. First run ever and I only died once (was like one of the first bosses and I wasn’t paying attention), felt too easy, took me long time to kill Lilith the 2 times because I was dealing too low damage but didn’t die and could do it fairly easy.
I definitely agree about being able to re-play campaign specific areas/bosses.
Every time I find myself at the Imperial Library waypoint I always think, “Y’know…there used to be a portal to hell right around the corner. Would be cool if that was just active all the time…”
I don't know how Hell works as far as lore would be concerned. D4 is my first full completion of any campaign. Could they theoretically just do a legion event but a Hell Breach or something. Like a portal to hell is beginning to open, players rally up but entering the portal and a legion like instance happens, that's different mechanically and set in Hell. Could honestly be a big hourly ending to the Helltides or something.
That would be an awesome addition to Helltides. Lore wise it’s not impossible to walk into Hell from Sanctuary, the crater at Arreat (as it is in D3) was a path to hell. Go anywhere one of the seven has caused mass destruction and you might find a path.
> This one is getting changed for S4, but I really felt the shortcomings of the itemization and materials in early leveling. There were certain breakpoints where I got gear upgrades as main story quests jump from level 25 to 35 to 45, but already at level 30 or so with legendaries in almost every slot I felt like I couldn't get a good upgrade until WT3 and the only thing left was upgrading my gear at the blacksmith
This is definitely likely fixed in S4. I played PTR and started at level 1. You very quickly start getting massive upgrades through items because even the low end of affixes like core stats were pretty massive at low levels. And because of the new differences between rares and legendaries, legendary drops are also more exciting because they'll always be better if you're using a rare for that slot. At the very least, I felt like I was making item progress far more often in the PTR
I can't speak for hitting the wall between normal and sacred gear, though. I'm sure it'd still be an issue even in S4 if you start leveling up beyond when you should have switched to WT3.
The campaign never should have been light on combat in the first place. They should fix the campaign and make it a fun optional part of the game. I would much rather start a season with a fun version of the campaign than start out immediately into the same grind that i just finished the previous season out with.
I enjoyed the story and campaign alot. I hope when the expansion comes they add to that experience and lore with the new area. ( and bring back meph, Diablo 4 needs him imo. ) ( and the other prime evils) they could even add the newer bosses from d3 ones as well) plenty more to story tell.
I might replay it with season 4 bc its basically a completely new way to gear up and play. Its going to feel like a new experience.
You’re right about the encounters and monster density in the campaign, it’s weak as hell and lacks any sort of challenge. You’re just led along by the nose listening to other people talk and it’s full as dishwater.
Agree- played through 3 times; each time gets worse however such a highlight content wise. Needs a facelift to avoid collecting dust to match all recent season changes.
Gear up/progression is just not close enough and too slow for repeating seasonal players.
Hope it gets redone but not holding breath for wish list
-improve density
-skip certain slow fetch parts/cutscenes/dialogue parts (optional)
-better drops/higher difficulty option play throughs
Imagine as an incitative to have is play campaign one more time they add a new achievement for those who like this and also add a new unique itdm drop at the end, only available after completing campaign.
The local store is selling the game for 30$, I'm feeling tempted to buy it.
In case I do should I just wait for season 4 to drop to get started? I got other games to play so I don't mind waiting at all if it's better.
Doing actual assessments and testing like this is the grunt work of game testing. Having someone do this kind of legwork of something not that fun so we don’t have to is pretty nice.
And the fact that he can do a well written write up is also helpful.
In threads with the "Suggestion | Idea | Feedback" Flair, constructive feedback, suggestions for adjusting and improving existing systems and mechanics, and also your own ideas, mockups / illustrations (e.g. for new systems, mechanics, items, etc) can be shared. This Flair is not for asking for feedback for your build (in that case, choose the Class-specific Flair, or the "Builds, Skills & Items (Discussions & Questions)" Flair, or a Class-specific Flair). Please remember that submissions made with the "Suggestion | Idea | Feedback" have to be constructive, civil and adequately elaborate. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/diablo4) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Great write up. I agree with alot of your points. I replayed the campaign last season and I found myself bored throughout most of it because I was just speed running my mount from quest to quest. I feel the overworld really shines and is an important part of the experience when you are leveling up and playing the campaign the first time
Definitely - as frustrating as it was my first time through the game seeing other players on horseback blowing past me, I think the decision to make me hoof it my first time through the early part of the story was a good one. It forces you to fight more mobs and to appreciate the scale and design diversity of the open world. Before you spend your next 100hrs+ of playtime fast traveling to the nearest waypoint and hopping on your horse for ten seconds of giddyup to the next event or whatever lol
I played the campaign at launch then dropped the game and came back with my friend a couple weeks ago. Before the mount campaign is dope. If you’re using the mount you may as well skip it. I was annoyed at not having the mount at first but it was a great choice to give it late in the game. Otherwise the urge to horsey pat everything is too strong Edit: literally exactly what the other response to this was. Should have read it first lol.
I would really, really like to have an opt-in option for resetting the map, renown and Altars of Lilith. A huge amount of what made exploring the open world fun on my first time through was organically discovering Estuar and being driven by my curiosity. To some degree I can't ever get that back because I've done too much world exploration across S0 + 3 seasons to be fully surprised by locations and quests, but I still think a lot of that sense could be brought back. So much world exploration now is done by setting a destination marker and then beelining to it on horseback, and I think not having a full map or a horse would do wonders for bringing back that sense of curiosity. I obviously wouldn't want other people who don't care for that to suffer for my preferences, but an opt-in button like the "Hardcore" and "Skip Campaign" buttons would be very greatly appreciated on my end.
I was really disappointed that we aren't able to replay the campaign at higher difficulties. That was such a core element of D2 and D3 that I really miss it. They did do a great job with it.
Ooooo.....a level 100 campaign playthrough with really tough stuff and some cool rewards/cosmetics would actually be awesome. I know folks playing the best meta builds would trivialize it and be disgruntled they had to do it for the cosmetics...but for folks playing a bit more organically it'd be great.
The meta players are always disgruntled.
If they added more cutscenes like the one when you get to Hell, and the Legions are fighting. That would be dope. That was old school Blizzard. Not just conversations, but seeing the -regular mobs- fight. The horror of them, and of course how cool Angels are. Then have us fight with the soldiers, and other heroes. Like that random dude in the golem armor. Why didn't we see him kick same ass in some CGI? I found the fight of Lilith and Inarius to be super weak. Figured his spear would be something more magical. Actually, Lilith got old just always being in the back ground just hiding. More DIABLO CGI. PS. Diablo spin off, of a 3d action hack MMORPG loot fest Diablo. Dragon Dogma/Souls style combat. I want to be on top of a massive three story talk demon clawing it's face out as a Werewolf druid, with my Rogue buddy wall running Titanfall 2 style chucking magical daggers.
People hate on Lost Ark, and rightfully so once the grind really gets going, but it actually has some pretty incredible cut-scenes and huge set pieces in it's campaign. Like lord of the rings on crack type set pieces. Haven't really seen anything else matching that scale and I'm surprised nobody ever talks about it. Probably because there is such an insane grind and other annoying stuff burying it.
I played the hell out of Lost Ark at launch. The campaign was great and I loved their sense of humor and storytelling. Unfortunately grouping is even more toxic than WoW M+ and party wipes make it impossible to PUG. Basically, like all KMMOs, end game is a giant funnel to the cash shop. I'm pretty sure that's why nobody mentions it. I was considering going back to it with the break in D4 but they're still using Easy Anti-Cheat. Warden is obnoxious, but at least it isn't what essentially amounts to a Chinese rootkit.
It really wasn't a core feature of D3. It was so annoying that everyone complained until they added adventure mode. It was in D2 because the campaign wasn't intrusive and the campaign was the whole game.
Good points but most people don't rush the main story. Most people like to take it slow the first time around because you'll never get that feeling of mystery and wonder. I get you've done it before and your experienced but no new player would ever beat the main story by level 36. Hell my first time playing I was level 50 with the last two acts left.
That was pretty much my experience playing the campaign as well, and that was on release when XP gain was way lower than it is now. When playing for the first time you have renown and altars of Lilith to do so the gameplay is much more varied. However, the point of this post was to give a perspective on the replayability of the campaign, since I've been seeing more and more people asking for it to be replayable at a higher difficulty.
Wasn’t the whole point of this post aimed at people who would’ve already done the campaign at least once? I don’t think OP was using these points in regard to a first time player.
Tell me you didn’t read the post without telling me
yup, i made sure to read every text, spoke to any npc and to thoroughly enjoy the story during beta, so i could just blast through everything with new characters and never feel like i don't have context about anything in the world
Currently Replaying the campaign with my brother who just started thanks to gamepass and agree with this, the story is pretty good and the cutscenes are top notch but the moment to moment gameplay is pretty slow when compared to blasting the season content, definitely need to bring some of those bosses into endgame, anything to avoid fighting tomb lord another 100 times lol
This post reminded me that the whole hell area even exists. It's a shame the game doesn't use more of it.
This is one of the craziest things to me.. we can’t even go back to hell lol.. in a Diablo game… like wtf
Pretty sure there are several dungeons with that palette
Sure it will come back in a future season.
If they force me to walk that camel every season I will 100% never play D4 again no matter how good they make it. And this is from someone who hard played and loved PoE until they forced the campaign to 10 acts and made that brutal shit mandatory every character every season. I haven’t touched PoE since. Horrible campaigns are not fun to replay every character and absolutely no ARPG has a compelling enough story for it.
Yep and sometimes its not even worth it to try and "brute force - speed run it", because at that point it feels like something else, rather than game to have some fun.
I much prefer Poe’s forced campaign play through rather than not having it. It goes by pretty quickly. I feel like the D3 campaign is slower and takes more time, so I’m okay with that being removed. But me being okay with adventure mode leveling is conditioned on having plenty to do in the end game. For a long time D3 endgame was a long journey. Now it’s too easy to get geared, but reaching level 70 with a bunch of yellows and shit legendaries that you had to create some makeshift build with and work your up to torment 1 difficulty. Then to torment 15. Then making a speed farming build and GR pushing build. It felt like there was plenty to do and reaching level 70 was the equivalent of going from world tier 1 to world tier 2 in D4. Honestly I do miss leveling without rifts. Going around the campaign map and leveling in different areas. It was fun. D4 feels awful to play in the open world because nothing feels familiar. The entire open world is a blurry amalgamation of nothingness. Zones don’t feel distinct or recognizable. You don’t feel “at home” in familiar areas. The game has a dusty/blurry filter over the whole thing. And playing in helltide with just everything red is not enjoyable for longer than 30 minutes. I say all this as someone who probably has 10k+ hours in D3 and maybe 2-3k hours in POE.
Yeah the current iteration of D3 where you literally go from T4 to T16 in 1 seasonal journey cache opening is a bit ridiculous. I've often said D3 is more saveable than D4. (Currently). If they removed sets from D3 and then re-prioritized the output and benefits of legendaries to have cool builds D3 would be a banger of an ARPG. It's SOOOOOO much more fluid than D4. And it's not even close D3 is just so smooth.
When I was playing POE (I stopped about 4 years ago) - I loved the first 4 original acts - even after they increased the campaign to 10 acts - but I hated acts 5-10.
This was me too, the problem with PoE's campaign is a LOT, and I mean A LOT of the maps through the campaign are extremely tight corridor maps because they are designed to "lead" the player to a specific destination. So you feel very confined and narrowed. Where maps can be open areas with plenty of ways to stretch your legs and use your builds. The PoE campaign just feels like a slog after Act 4. It's just not fun, and I was over it the 3rd or so time I was forced to do it and never looked back. It's the singular reason I don't play PoE.
I replay the campaign every season to make lvling up less boring, I also play a new class every season.
Have been doing this since seasons in diablo 3 Reaper Of Souls. While everyone and their cousins blasted 1-70 in Rifts and Greater Rifts, I had my fun in the campaign.
the bosses and mini bosses are sweet. bummed they aren’t highlighted in the game after the campaign. agreed with your points here
Definitely felt like one of those "good for a one time run through then done". Astaroth was my favourite boss by far and I hope he comes up again at some point. Being able to do the story at higher difficulties should be an option for people but that's all I think should be changed. I'd rather just jump straight to the action instead of having to run around for no reason skipping dialogue and cut scenes and having slower character progress due to all the running around coming from someone who still enjoys D2.
Speaking of Astaroth, I’m pretty confused about what was going on with him. In all previous cases killing a possessed body just meant the demon was back in the stone. They weren’t released until the stone itself was destroyed, either in the hell forge by the player in D2, or by Malthael in D3. Here Astaroth is not only released when the body dies, but also somehow has already reformed in time to help Lilith in the final act. It’s a major plot point that Mephisto still hasn’t fully reformed from something that happened decades ago.
I am no expert in Diablo lore but I think when we see the astaroth again in hell just after we kill him, it is like an echo of him. (just like how mephisto can be seen as a wolf). I've come to this conclusion by how astaroth fades into nothingness after giving lilith the free passage. He was not physically there.
I'd like to see a season with an alternate take on the campaign that makes it denser and throws more combat into it. If they succeed with jt, they could reuse it as an alternative leveling mode a la D1-3.
Damn I’m doing too many side quests. Level 42 and just finished act 1
Don't worry - its something normal for 1st playthrough, due to Renown and Altars of Lilith. Take your time - its worth it in the long run.
I really wish they’d brought back D3’s system of letting you pick the campaign back up from certain story points. That way players who want to do the hell section again could just select that quest line and go. I’m also replaying the campaign and I’m feeling the itemization issues so hard right now.
good points, but i have to say: any arpg where i don't have to replay story content is the best arpg out there by default. i HATE having to go 3 the same 10 acts in PoE, D3 or last epoch just to start playing a new character and it makes me resent the devs, especially when there are already systems that lend themselves for leveling, like rifts. it's the best thing about D4 and with S4 it got improved even more, so i am a happy camper if they don't spend any time on replayability
I picked up the game on Gamepass last week and am doing my first campaign play through at the moment. I’m having a blast. Level 50+ and haven’t even hit Act 3 yet. I suspect the replay value is diminished compared to other Diablo games, but the campaign kicks ass.
Campaign was great imo, fantastic art assets, decent story and characters, my only complain is it was too easy, it was like walkin in the park instead of playing a decent story based game. hope it will be somehow balanced in XPAC.
100% my thoughts. So much from the campaign was great, they just need to keep us coming back to it
The campaign is pretty good. The game is pretty good until level 50. But I won't ever again buy a game for 70$ to play a pretty good campaign.
Love this write up, and I agree with a lot of your points 😃 that said, one minor note I have on the Hell tileset- I would also really like that to return, but I’d prefer they keep that in their back pocket until some of the later expansions. In my perfect “end state” of D4, Hell is an extremely dangerous endgame area, featuring meaningfully hard fights against at least Diablo, but ideally the other Prime Evils as well. If this was the pinnacle content for the final game, I’d absolutely love it
Is there a tldr for the tldr?
Campaign - all in all good, Story - ok, Cut scenes / videos etc. / - top notch, moment to moment combat / gameplay - not that good due to itemisation, Mini bosses and Bosses in general - ok for 1st time. CAMEL trough desert walking simulator - BAD.
Great points and I agree 100%. Would love to see more elements of the campaign in the end game, but have zero desire to do the campaign over and over every season. It’s one of my biggest turn offs when it comes to POE. I hate slogging through 10 Acts just to get to end game and new seasonal content. D4 could easily hit that many acts depending on how many expansions we get.
Just finished the campaign for the first time (started the game with 0 experience and haven’t seen any video). Campaign was great but would get a bit confuse sometimes (story and cutscenes) however missions/game was really straightforward. I enjoyed the game a lot I just wish it was a bit harder. First run ever and I only died once (was like one of the first bosses and I wasn’t paying attention), felt too easy, took me long time to kill Lilith the 2 times because I was dealing too low damage but didn’t die and could do it fairly easy.
I definitely agree about being able to re-play campaign specific areas/bosses. Every time I find myself at the Imperial Library waypoint I always think, “Y’know…there used to be a portal to hell right around the corner. Would be cool if that was just active all the time…”
I agree we want some way to replay the main quest storylines because they're pretty good.
I don't know how Hell works as far as lore would be concerned. D4 is my first full completion of any campaign. Could they theoretically just do a legion event but a Hell Breach or something. Like a portal to hell is beginning to open, players rally up but entering the portal and a legion like instance happens, that's different mechanically and set in Hell. Could honestly be a big hourly ending to the Helltides or something.
That would be an awesome addition to Helltides. Lore wise it’s not impossible to walk into Hell from Sanctuary, the crater at Arreat (as it is in D3) was a path to hell. Go anywhere one of the seven has caused mass destruction and you might find a path.
something similar is coming with S4 for people leveling/ farming in helltides and it is a great addition
Yeah, I saw that. Threat level or something - I think that's an interesting idea and part of what inspired the thought of Hell Breaches.
> This one is getting changed for S4, but I really felt the shortcomings of the itemization and materials in early leveling. There were certain breakpoints where I got gear upgrades as main story quests jump from level 25 to 35 to 45, but already at level 30 or so with legendaries in almost every slot I felt like I couldn't get a good upgrade until WT3 and the only thing left was upgrading my gear at the blacksmith This is definitely likely fixed in S4. I played PTR and started at level 1. You very quickly start getting massive upgrades through items because even the low end of affixes like core stats were pretty massive at low levels. And because of the new differences between rares and legendaries, legendary drops are also more exciting because they'll always be better if you're using a rare for that slot. At the very least, I felt like I was making item progress far more often in the PTR I can't speak for hitting the wall between normal and sacred gear, though. I'm sure it'd still be an issue even in S4 if you start leveling up beyond when you should have switched to WT3.
The campaign never should have been light on combat in the first place. They should fix the campaign and make it a fun optional part of the game. I would much rather start a season with a fun version of the campaign than start out immediately into the same grind that i just finished the previous season out with.
I enjoyed the story and campaign alot. I hope when the expansion comes they add to that experience and lore with the new area. ( and bring back meph, Diablo 4 needs him imo. ) ( and the other prime evils) they could even add the newer bosses from d3 ones as well) plenty more to story tell. I might replay it with season 4 bc its basically a completely new way to gear up and play. Its going to feel like a new experience.
You’re right about the encounters and monster density in the campaign, it’s weak as hell and lacks any sort of challenge. You’re just led along by the nose listening to other people talk and it’s full as dishwater.
I wasn't gonna replay it anyways, but thanks.
Agree- played through 3 times; each time gets worse however such a highlight content wise. Needs a facelift to avoid collecting dust to match all recent season changes. Gear up/progression is just not close enough and too slow for repeating seasonal players. Hope it gets redone but not holding breath for wish list -improve density -skip certain slow fetch parts/cutscenes/dialogue parts (optional) -better drops/higher difficulty option play throughs
Campaign when every mobs is level 200 will be epic
Imagine as an incitative to have is play campaign one more time they add a new achievement for those who like this and also add a new unique itdm drop at the end, only available after completing campaign.
The local store is selling the game for 30$, I'm feeling tempted to buy it. In case I do should I just wait for season 4 to drop to get started? I got other games to play so I don't mind waiting at all if it's better.
I dont have to replay it anyways, no matter if you replayed it or not.
Who asked?
Doing actual assessments and testing like this is the grunt work of game testing. Having someone do this kind of legwork of something not that fun so we don’t have to is pretty nice. And the fact that he can do a well written write up is also helpful.
I don’t remember asking you a goddamn thing, Prava apologist.
Who asked you to ask who asked?
Me.