I’ve come back from a mediocre D4 experience hopefully not the last if the game gets better.
I’m an old D2 player and haven’t played D3 since release week after reaching act 2 inferno with my sorceress. I haven’t played ever since and am hesitating to get back and buy the reapers of soul upgrade.
I am familiar with the paragon system from diablo immortal but what else can I expect from all the changes and is it too late to start the season ?
I don’t mind leveling again if the experience is smooth.
Well, the gameplay experience between vanilla D3 in the early days and today… It’s quite different. Anyway, RoS is a must, there’s really very little point playing D3 without it.
Also, this should help some:
And of course, a general source of info and build guides:
Kirottu is right and RoS is even on sale right now.
About D4. I don’t play it myself (apart from trying a bit in the open beta). If I were to buy it and play it, I would definitely seek some guidance (like maxroll.gg) because many aspects of the game seem to be quite complicated.
If you haven’t played since the classic D3 release, game got better. However if you just left right after a few weeks that means you never saw the potential of the game to begin with. That means you may feel as stranger to the game as it was in the past right now.
I wholeheartedly would say give it a try, but mind you, D3 is not D2; even though it’s very similar at certain aspects. To get in, for sure, as others have pointed out, go ahead and read online guides once you have installed the game.
Just letting you know that end game would feel complicated, too fast paced and meaningless. Tweaking a build by its aspects largely rely on equipment, and you have very little control over what you can have. Itemization may appear disheartening as it is a mess of randomized affixes and it requires some dedication to get ahold of it.
That is far from easy-going nature of D2, yet it’s also very similar. Just D3 will ease you up until things starts to get really hectic for a long time and when it does, get ready to bump up a few obstacles.
If you don’t have D2R, I would get the upgrade pack for that which is a little bit more than the D2R base game purchase and will give you RoS and the Necro DLC pack too. Seriously good value. Could have dynamic pricing if you do have D2R already so take a look at the Diablo Prime Evil Collection upgrade pricing.
As others have said, D3 is a completely different beast to what it was like on release. After finishing the campaign, your time will be spent in Adventure mode and probably Seasons. Pacing of leveling is a lot faster in D3 compared to D2 or D4 which is a good thing as you want to be level 70 asap so your gear will be keepers.
Do keep in mind that end game is to gear up an OP character so it can do harder difficulties/activities. Builds are mostly based around sets with various supporting legendaries/powers. Easy to put together a working build but takes time to get it optimised. If you’re not into this sort of gameplay (which is the endgame experience of most ARPGs anyway) there won’t be much for you after the campaign for any ARPG.
The only thing D4 has going for it for me is playing through the campaign simultaneously with all 5 classes so I can share gear and also exploring the open world and ticking off on all dungeons.
The end game seems so unrefined compared to what we’re use to in D3.
It’s weird though. Some would think repeating rifts would be worse but I know my odds of getting good loot from them is better than dungeons. Yeah, I get it, we want to go back from the “loot galore” model but it’s hard to make people go backwards.
Yes, I think loot 2.0 and its drop rates scaling in both Torment and GR levels really made for an accessible ARPG end game.
People who wanted the longer grind went to PoE. Plain and simple.
There was someone who summed up D4 as “Diablo 3 but with more clicks” and that was exactly how I felt after playing the beta. D3 is so streamlined as an ARPG experience going back to a traditional system for end game will be tedious to many.
I still think D4 works better as a campaign experience better than an end game one. The open world, liberating strongholds, finding and clearing dungeons, etc… it’s like an ARPG version of Ghost Recon Wildlands. The campaign was great fun but the end game and seasons were horrible.
D4 is still a loot shower. If anything, it’s worse than D3 for loot showering. The inventory is larger in that game and it fills up just as quickly, if not faster, than D3s.
The difference is though, all the items in that game look the same. There is a fatigue that sets in just from reading hundreds of lines of stats on items when you are comparing X% of Damage to Close Enemies, X% of Damage to Distant Enemies, X% of Damage to Grandma, X% of Damage to Frozen, X% of Damage to Chilled… the list goes on. Like, WHAT?! Who thought that is a good idea?
I’ve went streaks of 20 character levels without finding any gear upgrades at all in that game. That is just disrespectful to players’ time. It feels bad to play an ARPG that showers you with absolute garbage and you get no upgrades for days. In a way, it is similar to D3 and upgrades in the very late end game → my Tal Rasha wiz right now has mostly primal gear on minus a few pieces, and even those non-primal pieces are nearly BiS.
What you are calling streamlined, I call MMO. IHMO, anybody that denies the MMO’ness of D4 is like a flat earth theorist. It’s okay for it to be MMO-like, but it’s bad right now and needs fixing.
In a couple weeks of a season, I can get every piece of gear for my class, including a few ancients. I don’t see that happening in 4. It’s more akin to 2’s loot model. In 2, I played for years and there were items I’d still never seen drop
If you plan to play Diablo 3, then Reaper of Souls DLC and Rise of the Necromancer DLC both are essential to purchase as well. They should cost you very little at this point in time.
I disagree there. In D4, as long as you have completed certain dungeons, you have access to the Aspects needed for most builds. Players are able to very quickly get gear with proper stats. It may not necessarily be BiS, but it’s good enough for 98% of the content. A Shako isn’t required to beat the game, as many have proven already. It’s just icing on the cake - except that it could take somebody 40 years of constant playing to get a Shako to drop.
I’d say the necro is not essential. I’d still recommend buying it too since the class is good and some of its builds are great, the extra 2 stash tabs are very useful and so on. But essential? No, it is not.
Shako or any other chase items. Yes, they’re not required but will likely take a long time for most to get. There are no items in 3 that I can’t get in a couple weeks. Primals may take a while but it’s still “the” item for the build I want.
Each has their own view of what they feel is “complete”.