I had fun with this. It had its ups and downs. But overall, for a beta and first full onslaught of non-selected players, I have no major complaints.
I admit, I tried to dispel (;-)) any preconceived expectations. I didn’t expect to be able to log on Friday. I knew it’d be a mad house. I hope your Ops/SRE teams are getting a well-deserved rest today.
There are a few things that I’m assuming were related to the beta-ness. Some of the hair colors were not quite right (blondes especially were… weird). The character creation somehow managed to create like 8 of the same character - that may have happened while the login server was having one of its moments and I was impatient. To its credit, I was able to delete each one, even tho they had the same name, and it didn’t melt anything. The UI is janky and kinda basic. There was stutter/jitter at times … I had a few bits where the transition between the cut scene and the game hung and I had to quit.
Some progression things were kind of rough. For example, I only discovered Sunday night to hit “W” for my reward of 30+k gold and 2 extra talent points. May have been me, but I completely missed that. Also, Novesk didn’t quite connect back in to the progression versus the story line as clearly. After you leave, and you get a quest later and you’re like, where the hell is this qu… oh, wait, how come I don’t have a port to… oh yea, it was just a murder scene last I saw it.
I didn’t really try the barb, but wizard was a lot of fun. I tried daggers on the rogue and it was quite cathartic walking up to mobs and just stabbing the crap out of them. Perhaps not as effective at killing things as the mage was, but it was personal.
Other folks called out the other big gameplay issues - world boss was neat but needs stricter phasing (I left a minute or 2 in, as it was clear it was impossible - lots of low-level folks there and not enough 25 peeps to kill it) . Also liked the way things were changed - take over an area and it becomes a portal-city. Would like to see some unique things in those – over priced vendored pets or special appearances (tatts, jewelry, garb) that you can unlock?
The biggest thing that I was like “This is gonna get old fast” is the dungeon keys and stuff. I enjoyed it once or twice. After going to the far reaches to get the goofy little cubes and carrying them back to the middle, tho, I was kinda over it. I don’t see myself enjoying that mechanic at release. I get the effort, and it’s a neat idea, but I think it’ll get old fast.
Skill tree is a lot to explore - lots of variation. I’m sure the meta freaks will take at least 2 extra days to find the best permutations of talent points to do Tier 199 Greater Rifts in 2 minutes. But it was a lot to take in. Sometimes undoing things to move points was a little difficult - having to undo and then re-spend. It would be nice if you could make any changes you wanted as long as it didn’t overdraft your point budget – allow folks to negative until the changes are locked in?
OK, so. Let’s talk story. I have never enjoyed a story in a game this much. It’s so well done- I love the way your character is in the cut scenes and they’re rendered in-game. Makes a huge difference in immersion. I’m still in awe of the look on that woman’s face in that church. The. Dead. Eyes. Brilliant. You see some scary dude tell you like, “Come on in, let’s hang out in my abandoned cellar and drink.” and you’re like “NO! DON’T GO IN. THERE ARE NO PUPPIES DOWN THERE. THAT’S THE FREE CANDY CELLAR! DON’T GO IN THERE.” and you know what’s coming.
The art team really kicked butt with this. And the music as well. Usually I turn off game music, but I really enjoyed the background aesthetic.