I hope this is the right place to put them and there isn’t one thread I’m supposed to use.
Will try to be very specific and not mention something either A - the team already knows or B - something already great that doesn’t need improving.
I’m rocking OLED over here and the HDR implementation could be better. Hoping that does improve. Specifically - black often isn’t black, it’s a layer of dull grey, even on the title screen. The pallet is washed out (as if the entire scene is covered in a layer of SDR fog, not in a “toned down color palette intentionally” kind of way). Hopefully a lot of effects like barrel explosions are just placeholders …and this leads us into spells…
Many spell effects aren’t taking advantage of HDR lighting - or even regular lighting, the intensity of Fire-based spells and explosions is far too tame and detracts from what could be fantastically satisfying casts even on regular monitors and screens. The torches on the walls look way better than the fireball casts,… and that just shouldn’t be. Compare that to lightning whip (basic attack for Sorc) - that looks like lightning and actually casts light - that’s the right idea. When Sorc casts flamethrower, unless the player has opted to dial down the lighting intensity, it should light up your whole room IRL. Why not let it be configurable at least? I want every spell to cast wild lighting everywhere, like the dev footage has I think.
Physics - the physics feels under-utilized. The team built these great destructible objects all over the place. Now we have Barb flying into them with a windmill attack… and they just fall over? Or a Sorc throws an exploding fireball at it and it just collapses in-place? Come on team, dial it up. Set Havoc = 10, apply, kablam. Make it feel fantastic every time we hit something. Don’t waste these physics, this stuff wasn’t possible a few years back now we can absolutely go to town on it. The shadow explosion effect is not visually the best (should cast purple lighting, at least for a split second!) but how it sends stuff flying violently is awesome - and the sound effect of that explosion is one of the coolest sounds ever.
“Why is he going on about this?” - because this is actually the bread and butter of the game and was a huge wasted opportunity in D3 on every class except Barb. It’s not just the loot, it’s the combat, the “punch” when you land a big hit. And the final pillar of the experience is that the combat is tactical and not just button-mashing (unless you choose to play on the easiest level of course, that should always be an option).
I have an idea that town should provide a bit more of psychological “safety” to the player, it should feel warmer and more comforting. Players should actually like hanging out there a bit. Not sure how to do that but I think it would feel better … it’s a bleak world there should be some counterbalance to that theme. The towns right now feel like they’re moments away from being overrun by demons and wiped off the map, it doesn’t even feel like your character is safe when he’s standing at his stash.
I’ll mention lighting one more time: Let players at least choose the intensity of the spell effects, say from 1 to 5, where 5 is like… fire looks like real fire and lights up your whole house if you have HDR and makes your mom run downstairs wondering what’s going on. This is the way. I want to have seizures from casting too many spells if I choose to. Chain lightning should be painful to look at directly. Go go go.