The Good:
- Music, atmosphere, and setting are all incredible and the game feels like a true Diablo game giving me D1 vibes.
- Open World has breathed new life into the genre, and the franchise in particular. Actually being able to explore even this single region of Sanctuary is awesome. The first time we walk into the Cathedral of Light was one to remember (loved all the artwork of Inarius).
- Combat - while slower and with less density, it still feels incredible and is actually challenging for the first time in a while. I’ve come close to death a few times and the fact that you can’t spam spells like in D2 & D3 is ACTUALLY WONDERFUL. I personally love that I feel WEAK early but by level 25, my Sorc actually started feeling like she had grown in power. That is how character progression should feel imo. I don’t want to be a God at level 1, but I also don’t want to be rolled over, and D4 has nailed this for me so far.
- Itemization - while there are some definite hurdles, overall the itemization is miles ahead of D3 and slightly better than D2 for me so far. I like that there are very specific and a wide variety of affixes, because that is depth to me. I like that there is a lot of ways to influence how powerful an item is. I can get a mediocre rare and potentially make it the best item in my build after some tweaks. That means I don’t have to rely heavily on rng like in D2 and I don’t have to sift through piles of trash like in D3. Again, D4 has nailed this (with some flaws that I’ll address later).
- Character Customization - It’s absolutely perfect. Nothing else needs to be said. The amount of customization as well as the wardrobe system has added a new layer of personality to the game. Your character is your own now, not some predefined character in the world, and I personally really like that.
The Bad:
- Open World Events - while fresh and enjoyable initially, they feel somewhat half-baked and aren’t really as engaging as I hoped they would be. I was expecting something along the lines of public events in Destiny, but I feel like they’re just kind of mini-events to fill the open world. Perhaps it’s just the events in the Fractured Peaks and my opinion on this will change in the full game.
- Performance - The game runs well when in combat and adventuring, but has random stutters and hitches (on PC) when opening vendors, accessing menus, etc., which can get annoying pretty quickly.
- Itemization (affixes) - while I do love the variety of affixes and the return to some old affixes (+stats/skills), there needs to be some restrictions on how many “similar” affixes can roll on a single item. Ex: I get a chest piece with 3 different damage reduction rolls (distant/close/flat). That should NEVER happen. Those 3 affixes need to be within the same “category” of affix and should compete with each other imo, not be able to roll across the entire range of affixes. THIS NEEDS TO BE CHANGED! It especially6 reduces the effectiveness of the Enchant system which will only reduce player agency (no bueno.)
- Enemy Density in the Open World - I think for the most party density hasn’t been terrible in Dungeons, but in the open world I feel like I run forever without encountering any actual threats. I see one pack of minor enemies, throw a chain lightning at them and they die instantly, repeat. The open world could use with a huge bump in enemies (open world events could see the same change tbh.) Maybe this is something that will change later in the game or is affected by Helltides, but currently this seems like a big issue for longtime players of ARPGs. We like killing stuff, and we need WAY more stuff to kill.
The Ugly:
- The UI/UX is horribly unintuitive and painstaking to use and endure at times. It is unequivocally the WORST part of the game by far and it makes the game exhausting to play at times. There are way too many clicks to do what you want. A great example is the “Materials and Stats” button in the character panel. WHY is this a thing? Those two things (materials and stats) have nothing to do with each other and should never be connected via the same window.
- The map is pretty unintuitive to use at times, not to mention the lack of an overlay map (a key feature of the genre?). I don’t see why an overlay map can’t work in this setting, and I think the game desperately needs it back. The current minimap feels like poor man’s overlay map and it just isn’t good imo.
- Vendor UI is pretty much universally terrible for every vendor. Too much to explain in this section, but they generally just feel clunky and undercooked. I imagine this will be fixed in the full version, but it needed to be said.
Conclusion & Addressing Criticism from the Community:
Overall I feel like the D4 devs have done a wonderful job with this game, although there are some clear oversights and misses. They’ve been fairly transparent and said from the beginning that they wanted to build this game with us. Honest, constructive feedback is how they do that. I’ve been as big of a critic of Blizzard as anyone, but mindless rage and nitpicky, disorganized criticism isn’t going to help change this game for the better.
I’m loving the game so far, but I do think they could’ve let us test a little more systems in the beta because it’s become quite clear from playing the beta that ALL of the systems in the game will come together to work in sync to create a functioning build. I think there are a lot of things to fix before launch, but what they have so far is quite promising and I can only imagine that with seasons things will only continue to improve.
I would give the Beta a solid 7.5/10 currently, but I’ve only played Sorc so far. Maybe after testing Druid & Necro next weekend this will go up.