Well, it’s been an enjoyable, and short-lived, Beta! In typical Blizzard fashion, there’s a lot of good and some bad…with the latter producing a decent volume of annoyance from the community.
Personally, I think that the game should be delayed a bit longer…and I’ll explain why later on when detailing what I believe to be the issues with new journey into the world of Diablo.
The Positives:
- Graphics
- Storytelling
- Cinematics
- Atmosphere
- Character Creation
I’ll keep this short, because we all know what’s great about the game: the amazing graphics, stellar storytelling, phenomenal cinematics, and immersive atmosphere are all things that we’ve come to expect from a Blizzard game. It’s what they’re good at and Diablo 4 is certainly no exception to the rule.
The inclusion of character creation is an extremely welcomed step forward in the Diablo series. With that said, it struggles with what every other new mechanic suffers from…lack of depth.
The Issues:
- Character Creation
- Event System
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- Paragon System (?)
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- Replayability (?)
With the positives out of the way, let’s talk about the various issues…
The addition of character creation is great but it’s extremely barebones, and within the pursuit of obvious-inclusivity, you’ve managed to exclude many others.
The female Necromancer is a lithe/androgynous male body; I know this because I had that exact body shape for the majority of my life, and I have the photos to prove it! I chose the female Necromancer for that exact reason, which is saddening because I want that damn body type for a male Necromancer and Rogue.
Without getting too controversial, even an anorexic woman has more breast development than the current female Necromancer. That isn’t the problem though, it’s not, the problem is a lack of choice!
I FULLY understand that the development team has a vision for how they wish to present each class, but we are in desperate need of sliders for each, and both sexes, that provide a range within that vision…from the extreme to the fringe.
Having a female Necromancer that’s entirely flat is fine, but give more options for those who desire different figures within the scope of the vision you have for Necromancers.
Same goes for every class…design sliders that allow people to work within the overall style of that class and sex. This is going to give as many people as possible a chance at getting an overall look that they enjoy. You want a burly bear for a female Druid? Great! …but what about those who want a figure that more-so reflects the wolf form? What about those who want a form that reflects the much more delicate facets of nature like the doe?
You see what I mean?
You have the extreme that emulates the overall look the development team are going for, like the bear, then you have something more intermediate, the wolf, followed by something that’s on the fringe but still makes sense for the class…the doe.
I know that the character customization is where you’re looking to monetize, likely with hair styles, tattoos, jewelry, eyes, etc…but please provide us with a robust character creation from the start and have that future monetization build upon it. …and faces, my gods…add more faces, please.
Moving on…
You’ll see quite a few people talking about how the MMO-Overworld takes away from the immersion when they’re constantly seeing folk traversing about slaughtering various enemies along the way. I don’t really think that this will be a problem when the entire map is opened up and everyone isn’t stuffed into a single region.
However, the real issue is that the current social-mechanics within the overworld aren’t really interesting enough to justify their inclusion…and that’s if you even make it before someone else has cleared them.
There’s been plenty of occasions where I’ve either arrived to find an event had already been cleared, or I made it just in time to receive the reward…despite the fact that I never even had a chance to participate.
I’ve seen other players lament over the same or, worse yet, have someone far stronger come along and absolutely annihilate their engaging challenge…leaving them feeling somewhat robbed of an event.
Furthermore, the events seem to have a very generic overall feel to them that I believe is going to become very old fast. I say this because they remind me a lot of the events in Magic: Legends, another MMOARPG that never managed to launch.
Blizzard, of course, presents it much better…but while still remaining just as simplistic in their execution. These events should evolve in as many ways as possible to further the complexity and enjoyment of engagement.
For example, if a new player enters into an event before it’s completed…the duration, threat, and reward should ramp up. If even more players enter into the event, it should then shift even further…reacting to the volume of players now engaging.
You could be battling a small pack of ghouls that attacked a caravan and began feeding upon the dead. When another couple of players enter into the event, maybe some of those corpses rise up as zombies…extending the event, increasing the threat, and raising the reward.
Now, when even more players enter into this already extended event…maybe the event evolves into something entirely different. Perhaps when you’ve slain all the ghouls and risen zombies, you think it’s over…only to watch in horror as those corpses are mysteriously pulled together and rise anew as a fleshcrafted monstrosity. The duration is extended, the threat is increased, the rewards become even more lucrative. You now have an event where you never feel cheated if another player rushes in, because it makes the challenge even more engaging.
These events could even trigger other events upon completion. Perhaps taking on a pack of Khazra would normally have no impact beyond that event alone…but maybe if others enter into this event, the Khazra call forth reinforcements. You and your allies massacre them, but the event ends with a couple fleeing in horror…vanishing without a trace. You complete the event and go about your adventures…
After ten or so minutes, you hear that the nearby town is now being ravaged by Khazra seeking vengeance for the event you participated in. Those who fled rallied more of their kind into an army now terrorizing the town as you and others rush to its defense.
The more complexity within these systems, the more people who don’t currently like them are going to actively enjoy them…because that complexity will justify the inclusion of a massive-multiplayer overworld.
This lacking complexity plays a theme and while I can’t confirm on what the final result may be, I can provide thoughts towards what’s needed based upon what we’ve seen and what’s been leaked…like the Paragon System.
For the love of whatever you deem holy, please don’t make the Paragon System just basic and boring stat increases… That is the most boring and uninteresting way to get people to keep pushing forward when they’ve reached end-game. At the very least, there should be some nodes there that fundamentally change how an ability works…
Examples of such could be…
Steel Grasp
Maybe there’s a node that turns Steel Grasp into a single chain that can permanently hook into an enemy and allow the Barbarian to convert their chain into a meat-flail, Hulk smashing other enemies with the hooked body of their former comrade…dealing damage based upon the hooked creature’s health.
Shadow Step
Maybe there’s a node that allows you to perpetually shadow step if each target dies from the ability, allowing you to zip around the area like Nightcrawler in that X-man film where he was mind-controlled and attempting to scare the president through a mock-assassination attempt. I was actually surprised that something like this wasn’t given to us as an ultimate, but such is life…
Even a couple of nodes that fundamentally change abilities would be an absolute delight that would make working through the Paragon System interesting.
Although, I must say…the current skill tree isn’t even that complex to begin with, and somewhat lackluster. I understand if the development team doesn’t want to get as convoluted as POE, but right now…it feels like you’re all still dipping your toes into the water, rather than actually getting into the pool. Any further complexity to the base skill-tree would be a godsend…if you all can manage without having to worry too much about balance. It would be greatly appreciated.
With that all said, if you want people obsessed with the game and the replayability factor ramped up high…I truly think all of the above would be a great step in that direction.
Atop of that, dungeons could take on the same sort of complexity that the event system should have. There may be parts of a dungeon that are completely inaccessible to you early on, leaving you puzzled as to why you couldn’t reach those areas until you get to the late game and find some sort of information out or are, otherwise, aided in accessing.
Dungeons could change based upon your actions within them. Maybe you enter into a dilapidated castle overrun by bandits that have been terrorizing the local town and slaughter them…only to find that when you come back later, that same dungeon is now infested with the undead corpses of those same bandits because some fiendish horror took up residence within…capitalizing off your massacre.
This is going to encourage people to keep delving into these dungeons after they’ve reached the late-game…and the more complex you can make them, the more fun that’ll be.
After you get to the end of the game, the entire world may have changed in your wake for you to explore anew…so long as the overworld itself remains unchanged, that can be worked in. If we’re told by NPCs along the way, rather than UI indicators, even better! Hell, it would be more immersive if we were getting our event rewards from NPCs too.
Blizzard is a AAA studio now owned by the absolute powerhouse of a company, Microsoft. There shouldn’t be any reason to play it safe with this new installment, go big! Blizzard certainly has the capabilities to enhance upon all of this and flesh the overall design out further…even IF not by launch with the more extravagant ideals.
It’s obviously going to be a success either way though… What we have thus far is enjoyable, very much so…it’s just a little sad to see it so bare-bones and safe, rather than setting a new bar in MMOARPGs. I don’t want to sound greedy or anything, but give us moar.
Just my thoughts though…small fish, big pond and all that. I, somehow, accidently made this thread on the EU forums and am reposting it here…and I’m baffled as to how I even ended up there.
I wanted to update this after the leaks:
1: Leaked information looks good.
2: Leaked information doesn’t change my thoughts in the OP though.
Still, everything I heard from the leaks seems like it’ll be great.