Hello there,
first of all I’d like to say I really enjoyed playing the beta. I was very critical at first, being a fan of the good old blizzard games, yet the beta managed to impress me nonetheless.
1.) Shared world: I do love the open world. Yes, I said it, well done. Yet my biggest issue with the entire game is still the shared world. While I can understand the “always on” appeal to you as a company, I feel that it actually makes the game worse - and that’s a shame and completely avoidable. Besides the disadvantages gameplaywise (rubberbanding, empty locations e.g.), there is one hell of a missed oportunity here.
Rolling out lan cables all over the floor to play Diablo 2 with a selected group of friends is a memory held dear to a lot of your fanbase. We don’t want random people in our games. And we are the ones that used to buy your games blindfolded, because we knew we could rely on your (back then) well earned reputation. Diablo 4 looks… well, like you again, I guess? The old you, the one we fell in love with growing up. So it puzzles me why you would risk that spark of hope for a shared world hardly anyone would miss.
I am not even talking about getting rid of it entirely. There are people who like that sort of multiplayer experience, just as there are people like us who prefer playing with a small group of friends or even solo.
So I guess what I am saying is - give us the choice to play without random people. World bosses and PvP have their own appeal without forcing a shared world on us.
Suggestion: If it is only about making a buck in the ingame shop (we did not forget immortal, sorry), make a “Hero of the day”-page where everyone sees the shiniest new armor at the start of the game. Other games do that quite successfully, so could you. Make it unavoidable, I do not care, as long as it doesn’t diminish the gameplay experience.
2.) Beta characters: Again, positive feedback, the new character creation tool is nicely done. As are the character designs in general I might add. While it is understandable that you cannot keep the level 25 beta characters, it feels a bit sad to see them tossed out entirely.
Suggestion: Is it possible to release some sort of character creation tool on the battle.net website, so we can try to rebuild these characters / or create new ones before the start of the full release?
3.) Immersion: Alright, that’s a big one. While many aspects of Diablo 3 were subject to discussions, I don’t think anyone disliked the codex entries. It was so immersive to hear Deckard Cain talk about one monster or the other, explaining their origins and so on.
Suggestion: Bring.that.feature.back.pretty.please.
You could even make it a part of the challenges. Say you have killed a thousand ghosts? Great, let one of your great speakers tell me about “the haunted souls of the departed that still roam these lands”.
Appologies for any mistakes made, I am not a native speaker.