March 19th, 2023
Dear Blizzard,
After playing a fair bit of the beta I have come to some conclusions on what I like and dislike about the game so far.
For what I enjoy , lets talk about the itemization for leveling, seeing as that is all we have access too. Most ARPG’s, even this one, gate skills behind a level or stat requirement. A good thing about this game is that we can drop items that possess +1 to skills we cannot other wise use or level, allowing us to use them early. For me getting an early item with shadow imbue made clearing on my rogue night and day better. With the ability to trade being in the game I see this feature being very useful in leveling more classes in a season.
Another good point is the ability to transplant legendary aspects from one item to another. This is very helpful with the speed at which you progress through the acts, allowing you not to be tied to the rolled stats of an item, especially a lower level item. I didn’t notice a real crafting system for rare items yet in the beta but if there is one in the future of the game, I see this feature of imprinting being very convenient and interesting for itemization.
First would have to be the inability to retain the ability to left click loot and interact when you hotkey move to left click. This makes the game feel very clunky and slow. This seems like a very easy fix and one that would greatly improve playability and enjoyment.
Second, there seems to be a few areas in the game, mainly dungeons, where the minimap shows an open space but in reality there is an invisible wall preventing movement through. Again an easy fix either with showing it as impassable on the minimap or removing said barrier.
Third, the minimap like other arpg games should be able to be seen as a semi opaque overlay over your screen for easier navigation through zones and dungeons.
Fourth, there seems to be a wide spread memory leak causing memory usage upwards to 90% even on rigs with 32 or 64gbs. This leads to massive stuttering, hitching, crashing and lag.
Fifth, I know that we will be getting a mount to use during over world transportation, but seeing as we didn’t have that during the beta I hope that its given rather early. The scale of the zones are VERY large with few packs of monsters making traveling feel boring, annoying or too long.
This leads into my final and most pressing issue. Pack size In Act 1 and what it might mean for endgame and future Acts. The pack sizes in Act 1 feel very inconsistent at best to non existent at worst. Since this is just Act 1 it is reasonable to assume that the pack sizes do improve in later acts. Sadly seeing as we haven’t seen any later content nor heard any info on pack sizes later in game, it leaves me very worried for the game overall.
On a whole, this was an OK beta experience. I really enjoyed rogue and itemization, and the combat while there were enemies to kill and not stuttering or suffering from the memory issues, was fun and engaging. But I hope you all are keeping a close eye on feedback, and will be open about what you have heard, what you are willing to address/fix, what your hard lines are and where you are unwilling to move, to best give players a good idea on what type of game Diablo 4 will be.
Sincerely,
A fan