An extensive review of Diablo 4 from a devoted casual players perspective.
As it stands now. My review of Diablo 4 is this:
Anyone who gets this game will have a blast… for the first 4 days. After that, you’ll find 1 reason after the next to put it down. The game is visually gorgeous, and has the nostalgia train running full speed. But it has no soul.
I’ve played Diablo since 2002 when I discovered Diablo II. To this day I still remember the extensive amount of fun I had playing that game for years. I played any chance I could get. And I made so many characters I couldn’t begin to count. My first deployment to Iraq, I bought a laptop just to be able to play during downtime. There wasn’t a lot of that. But when I did get it, I was clicking away trying to build up my next awesome build. I played Diablo II up until around 2011 when my life got too busy even try.
Then D3 came out. And I was right back at it.
Now here we are at Diablo 4.
I’m not smart enough to be able to dissect stats, bugs, and any other technical side of things. I’m here just as a player.
First thing, guidance. Where is it. You finish the intro and get to kyovashad. Then boom. Here’s a giant open world, every area levels off of you, so you can’t tell what’s the area you’re supposed to be in vs not. All the quirks of your character (sorc enchantments, Necro book of the dead, etc) are hinted at via game tips. Why isn’t there some kind of descriptive guide at the character selection screen. Just a info tab with simple notes (this a necromancer. Necromancers use the powers of blood, bone and shadow, utilizing corpses created from enemies to summon armies or create once living weapons to enemies. Use your book of the dead, to manage and control your undead army, or sacrifice them for bonuses to yourself. Primary stat: intelligence) the current overview is like a sales pamphlet. 0 information, just lots of things that sound pretty.
This lets me know what I’m getting into and I’m no longer forced to subject myself to screening the internet to understand the character I just picked. I can. And there’s more information there, but I’ve got a starting point. Personally, I detest streamer videos. I don’t like listening to them. But this game seems to be made to help direct their players to these folks. Quid pro quo right. YouTube players encourage us to play the game, the game sends them more viewers. I get it. Still don’t like it.
The gear issues have been covered alot. So I’m gonna come from a different angle. The Devs say they wanted loot drops to feel “organic”. If that was their goal they should probably tell someone wtf their definition of organic is. But in all high fantasy I know of, special bosses drop special gear. Or. Special gear has wild fun quests, puzzles and adventures required to find it. Also. Where is it!!! Whole game and we’ve got 24 uniques (idk if that’s the actual number, but that’s definitely the feel). And. On top of that. This seasonal removal is absolute and utter garbage. There’s no nice way to put it. You worked hard to find and get this stuff that’s only offered during a certain time period… now… we’re gonna remove it from you. No. Just absolute no. That’s your incentive to get others to play. And it’s an easy market!! People who play the season get things that people who didn’t don’t. Eternal realm is where we get to show off our hard work and participation.
You don’t want everyone carrying over their malignant hearts and gear with malignant sockets. Cool. Only season pass holders can. Wanna make it harder. That’s the level 100 season pass reward. You completed the season pass . Your seasonal specific gear will remain upon completion. Now you’ve finally given someone a reason to purchase that abomination of a season pass.
Since we’re here, I bought the D4 edition that includes the season pass. What is this. No seriously, what is this. Everything is a cosmetic, in a game where cosmetics mean absolutely nothing. Thanks to your wonderful zoom settings, you can’t even see the looks you’re attempting to sell folks. So basically you want me to purchase a cosmetic thats visual at the character load screen and pause screen… totally worth it. My teenager, the king of spend money on games, went through my season pass after I finished it and told me he’d save his money for DLC. There’s nothing of value in it. Smoldering ashes for irrelevant exp boosts… about the only thing of value in 90 tiers.
Where is the seasonal unique items, keep it simple even, how about some seasonal unique elixirs. One time use, 30 minute timers, non tradable 100% exp gain pots. Or hell. Take a note from DDO, give us some exp tokens, instant XP. Just something that actually feels like a reward.
Next up. And what I feel is the most important and the biggest flaw. Was there even one play tester who went from level 1 to 100? If they did… and didn’t report the boredom and lack of fun… they lied. The feel of the game, the most important aspect of the Diablo series is fun. And that’s what’s lacking. Everything feels forced, railroaded and more of a get it done mission than enjoy the mission. The Devs play video showed just how little passion there was behind this game. There was no interest in actually playing. Their focus was on the designs they either had involvement or knowledge in, but there was no joy for actually playing the game. For the chapters they were playing, or the things they were doing. That’s what is missing from this game.
And the builds. What are these? There is no intuitive variance. So far I’ve played 4 characters for this season. A sorcerer, barbarian and 2 necromancers. I got my sorcerer to lvl 49, then just left it and went to a new character. It was dull and there seemed to be no direction where I felt I was making a viable or powerful character. I later discovered (via the characters I played) that with the exception of the bone spear necromancer, characters don’t start to feel empowered until there’s paragon points and seasonal hearts involved). Next up I made my bone spear necromancer. Omg yes. The joy came flooding back. There was gear to support. And I was having a blast. Then I broke into paragon and I wanted to try some other builds. So. Make a new necromancer. Play with blood and shadow… why do these all feel exactly like my bone spear. Go to the Internet. Why does every necromancer build need corpse explosion. Where is the variance. Blood wave and blood surge should be flipped as ultimate and core, and essence generation without corpse explosion is non existent.
Older diablos. Your character builds has variance. In D2, you got one path after another. Start as an Amazon. Then are you going bow or javelin. Physical damage or elemental. Etc. And it was the same for each character. Paladins were the king of this. Smite, hammer, zeal, so many options. D3 also has that variance. But we get to D4. And there’s one path, with a few minor variances. Come out to torment. And everyone (except druids, I haven’t played one yet but I’m seeing a lot of different skills used when I play with someone running one) is rocking the same things. The Devs claim they want us to experiment with different builds, but there’s no options. The lack of gear sets enhances that. With my second necromancer, I was adamant I wanted a sever and blood wave build , with no corpse explosion. That was my biggest factor, no corpse explosion. I’m tired of it. Got a sacrilegious heart, excited for only corpse tendrils, to manage crowds. And boom… surprise… despite the descriptions. You can still only have tendrils every 5 seconds, not every 1 seconds. Google to find there’s an “internal cool down”. So no enhanced crowd control for me. Still minimal essence Regen, and damage is still sparatic. Add in corpse explosion, and everything comes back, and we’re playing a bone spear necromancer again but with sever. And I still have to have corpse explosion to manage damage and essence. Where are the standalone skills. Or the synergies that let other skills be useful. Having a character with 26 different skills but only 3 of them will progress you, means you have a character with 3 skills.
Then let’s talk difficulty. Crowd control does not = harder difficulty. As I’m dragging Hexavir (my bone spear necromancer) through nightmare dungeons, I’m jumping up in levels. And I’m not seeing new monsters, tactics, puzzles, mob density or reduced performance from my character. Just more and more crowd control on me. Each elite is a suppressor, and casts fear, and that stupid wind wall, and there’s CC following me around. The higher up I go. The more CC I see stacked on elites. That’s their only contributing factor to being “harder”.
Theres so much more, but all of my thoughts boil down to enjoyment. There’s no feelings of it. There doesn’t seem to be any passion involved in the creation of this game. Just a lot of make it based off of analytics, and crush any variance that the players make that wasn’t planned for. Nerf, nerf, buff. Nerf nerf buff. Blizzard will live in this cycle unless they involve some actual interest in making this game good, and not just financially successful.
I’ve been a devoted player since 2002. But season 2 will be my make or break. Without improvement I’ll be done with D4, and likely any future developments from blizzard, because I can’t see myself spending money on something that I won’t enjoy, and the current spirit of the company is that they’re not making games for me to enjoy, just games for me to buy. And 4 days of fun isn’t worth the costs of the games they’re making.