Okay,
Since there’s no beta/feedback sections I’ll leave it here.
General World Aesthetics - Honestly better then Diablo 3 and closer to Diablo 2 which is a good thing. I think some colors need to be more muted as they can come off as overly “bright”. That doesn’t mean it has to be a dab colorless world because it’s not. But a overly bright blue can be jarring compared to a more muted color.
Class balance - Honestly broken right now. I’ve heard some acknowledgement regarding Barbarian and I’ve had the chance to play every class. From what I’ve found is all melee based characters just feel weak while ranged feels overly strong. Necromancer and Sorcerer feel outright broken in comparison to the other classes. I only died on those when I objectively wasn’t paying attention to my HP or openly made a mistake (dodging into a CC).
Barbarian - The class I played the most until level 22-23. Not only do the hits feel weak but the biggest concern was the gap closers and movement. The abilities like charge and leap have such a long cool down and many enemies like to run away which makes some fights unbearable. I like the idea behind the arsenal system but the way the current skill setups work it doesn’t feel like all of the weapons get used properly. The biggest things to help this class seem to be adjusting melee damage (increase) while looking at how to tweak his movement based abilities.
Druid - I started off with a werebear build and like Barbarian it felt weak. I then decided to switch to a lightning based “Thor” build and had quite a bit of fun. I ended up getting a legendary that buffed the tornado ability and switch to a wind based build which while feeling weaker didn’t feel worse overall.
Necromancer - Easily the most broken class I played. By level 10 I realize how powerful the class is. But rather then seeking Necro getting nerfed it’s power felt right so you should look at buffing other classes to the Necromancers level (lift up not lower down in terms of balancing).
Rogue - I started off as dagger rogue and didn’t enjoy it. Switched to a ranged based build and had for more fun. Which follows the trend that melee is currently gimped in the game.
Sorcerer - Like Necro it feels strong. I did the level 15 stronghold near Nevesk at level 11 and only died once due to not watching my HP pool while fighting the boss. Went back watching my HP the next time and crushed it.
Itemization - I would say it doesn’t feel great but it’s still early game. I do have issues with certain aspects of it though.
Visual - I get designing gear visually around “class identity” but I think it’s done incorrectly in game. This was a major turn off for me in Diablo 3 because gear just didn’t look great at times or was completely unrealistic. Whereas in Diablo 2 gear largely looked identical on most classes (a skull cap looked like a skull cap etc). Rather then going for the visual style that we have where it doesn’t make sense at times (Like the tunic being more or less a shawl for most classes or even a necklace for druid) what you should do is design the piece to look the same for everyone. Then add minor bits to it for class identity.
For instance let’s take a look at a basic helmet. You first start with a basic design like a skull cap. A Barbarian might add small paint markings to it, while a Necromancer might attach things like finger bones to hang from the side of it. A rogue might cover their lower face with a mask or utilize a hood/cloak over it. A sorcerer/ess might add a small magic foci or gem to it, maybe draw magic runes onto the helmet. A druid might add their own different runes, maybe even animal parts like a rabbits foot. But fundamentally through these visual differences we should see the same visual piece of gear. This way it shows a more shared connected world and a player can say “hey this player has X piece of gear”.
Legendary items - I noticed getting the same legendary items with different effects. Legendary items should be unique in both visual design and power. So rather then getting a legendary bracer that buffs X skill or barbarian only to later get the same bracer but it’s legendary buff is more general they should be different.
Stats - I like how the stats have more uses but I dislike how it’s still too close to Diablo 3’s system with really just one primary stat for damage that people will sink into. Rather then that you should balance stats by skills. For instance some skills should rely on strength while other skills rely on willpower. There’s two ways to do this reasonably I think.
- The first way is to separate the skills into Physical, Magical, or Spiritual and define. Physical abilities (usually melee abilities) are tied to Strength and Dexterity. magical abilities are tied to Intelligence and a lesser extend willpower. And finally willpower is tied to Spiritual abilities. While a overly melee focused class like Barbarian will rely mostly on strength and dexterity some abilities would be tied to willpower like the shouts.
- The second way is tie a bonus to each ability that scales on a specific stat. Like before a Barbarian shout could get a bonus to power scaled on willpower where ground slam gets a bonus based on strength. Frenzy on barbarian could get a bonus that scales on dexterity since dual wielding items usually requires you to be ambidextrous etc.
- You could also increase the benefits more universally for classes such as having a higher dexterity rating can unlock additional charges of your dodge/movement ability, extend it’s range, or lower it’s cooldown.
Dungeon inscriptions - I liked the idea of upgrading rare items to legendary ones with the system. But from my understanding prior to the beta is you’re supposed to have the ability to pull a legendary power from a item and transfer it. Maybe that just wasn’t in the beta but I did like the incentive to dive down into one of the bigger dungeons to get these powers. I do feel like this creates an incentive to do those and skip those small cellars and caves. Maybe boost the item rewards out of those small instances to better incentivize them as loot wise it never felt compelling to go in there.
Boss Balance/Fights - Honestly I actually really enjoyed the fights. There’s more thought to the fight then just “hit until they’re dead” there’s stuff to dodge and mechanics to deal with. That being said they do need some balancing but I think it’s tied to class balancing more then boss balancing. But in terms of balance there was a werewolf boss I crushed the first time as Barbarian then 3 levels later went back due to a quest and I couldn’t touch it and got destroyed. And this was with more abilities and stronger gear.
Skill tree - I like the branching options off the skills and the fact that it creates a choice with one or the other in terms of buffs rather then bot. That being said some of the point increases don’t feel strong. Like level 1 unlocks it and level 2… gives it a 2-3 damage increase. I feel like this needs to be addressed unless it really begins to scale differently in the full release.
Cutscenes - I do appreciate the work that’s been put into the games in-game cutscenes to use the players unique model. This is not only done well but does create a more immersive story. That being said what pisses me off about the whole thing is that unnamed priest in Nevesk got a better cinematic end then Deckard Cain did in Diablo 3.
Minor issues - Engaged a loot goblin on my sorcerer and after 2-3 seconds it just outright vanished. hadn’t had this happen before and felt unfair. Even during low user times there seems to be a loading/lag issue when quick transitioning zones especially when using a town portal. The leave dungeon option on the emote wheel should be applied by default. Just have the emote wheel unlock when you find the hermit.
Story/Writing - I feel like considering the god awful writing on Diablo 3 compared to 1 and 2 this is going in a better direction. But I don’t hold out much hope for for the story overall. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems to be Inarius will ultimately be the bad guy since it seems like he’s made his entire religion into a vehicle so he can return to heaven. Lilith was banished because she ultimately wanted to use Sanctuary to her advantage in the eternal conflict and while what we’ve seen is not enough to fully flesh out it seems like she’ll be a surprise good guy given how other Blizzard stories have gone when she shouldn’t be. The story for the Diablo games was always “angels mostly didn’t give care about humanity (save Tyrael) and demons want to use humanity to gain power”.
Honestly as a company you lost my trust a long time ago. I can say I’m generally hopeful given what I have seen of the game. There’s definitely things for you to fix and address. It’s not a day 1 purchase or a pre-order for me. I can applaud you for creating a beta designed around actual testing rather then a pre-release showcase.