DIABLO 4 - Feedback

PC General Discussion
1

D4 Early Access and Open Beta Feedback

My Background:

I have been playing every ladder in D2 since 2000, and now also D2R of course. I also play POE as I personally feel POE is the spiritual successor to D2. I have also played D3 “a lot” even though its not a real Diablo game IMO, but can still be a “fun” action-game for 12 to 24 hours on season start.

Diablo 4 BETA Feedback:

Act: 1
Max Level: 25
Classes: Barb, Sorc, Druid, Necro, Rogue

The Good

  • Graphics, Attention to Detail and overall Visual World-Design

  • Atmosphere

  • Music

  • Sound Effects

  • Solid visual/World Foundation to work from and Improve in the future

  • Opportunity to introduce the Paladin with iconic D2-Like Skills

  • Opportunity to build deep ARPG-Like Character Power Customization in the form of Skill Trees, Charm Systems, Class Specific Questlines a player can choose from to receive bonuses, while preventing other Questlines. (So Choices and Character Building Decisions Matter) Example: Once in End-Game, in each Act, each Class can choose 2-3 Questlines to complete out of 20 that give very specific Bonuses from that Act.

The Bad

  • D4 Designers appear to have severe lack of D2 and general ARPG Knowledge

  • Terrible and clunky UI

  • PC UI is terrible because D4 is designed for Consoles FIRST, and PC second it appears

  • UI option to move the Skill-Bar and Orbs to the left, but unable to move it to the Right

  • Unable to play with Map Overlay and instead limited to Minimap which can’t be zoomed out (On the plus-side, this makes combat better as the player focuses on combat, instead of Map Navigation first)

  • No Option to hide Shortcut Information in the Skill-Bar UI

  • Centered Skill-Bar UI can not be moved down to the bottom of the screen, and “hangs in the air” instead.

  • Unskippable NPC Quest Dialogue, Animations and Video Sequences at times

  • Skippable Quest Dialogue is unresponsive in the first couple seconds (need to hit ESC multiple times to register)

  • Skill Tree should be much deeper and offer much more Choices to specialize in

  • Every class appears to feel the same in terms of Resource Generator and Spender Design (Feels Anti-ARPG IMO)

  • Item Design feels very “standardized-Bland”, despite having some decent interactions between legendary affixes

  • Dungeons lack any kind of large wide open Rooms/Caves, and are instead restricted to D3 style “Tunnels”

  • Monsters scaling with Player levels feels Anti-Diablo and Anti-ARPG

  • World Bosses requiring multiple players to kill feel out of place in Diablo/ARPGs

  • Mounts feel out of place in Diablo 4, and there is no need for Mounts, since Waypoints exist which allow instant travel to all areas within the game, and also Classes have Movement Abilities.

  • IMO Fast moving Mounts will make the World feel much smaller as a result.

  • All Cellars should be loaded automatically in the background when a player has to load into the zone with a loading screen (Such as when the Waypoint is used). Currently, Cellars dont justify the “long” Load Times for only one small Room with a handful of mobs in it.

  • Cellars should have been designed in a way where they have a chance to have hidden Doors or Walls that can be opened when something like a tiny lever or similar is clicked in the room, and then lead to hidden rooms or nooks with special chests or hidden Goblins.

2 Likes
2

[Amazing Game]

Ok, I am a ODG (Original Diablo Gamer) and have been playing the game since its original release in 1996. You can verify this with my account. Furthermore, I am no fanboy worshipper of Blizzard. I am far from it. I raised my three kids playing this game and now I am gaming DII-R with my grandkids. I was lucky enough to be a Beta tester for D-III and had access several months before its release. Enough with the intro about me…

I am very happy with your progress (to put it mildly). The quality, game-play, graphics, artwork, customization, and etc… are second to none in the Diablo gaming series. It is amazing. Gameplay is addicting and fun both multiplayer and solo. I really like how you have combined aspects and elements from all the versions of the Diablo series. I am very excited about the new things your are introducing to Diablo IV. The intro to the MMO World Events and the season pass which should help to fund the continued development and support of the game. I recall Diablo III was such a let down, and the PVP element that was never delivered.

The MMO environment and World Events were really fun and I enjoyed participating. I was worried about the MMO environment since I mostly game solo. However, you have done well balancing the MMO environment and I like what I see and feel so far. I must say… Nicely done. I am looking forward to the release and I believe this will be the best Diablo game to date. The dungeons and the amount of content in this fractional preview was incredible. Nice work. I am so happy with what I have experienced playing the…
B E T A.
You have left me wanting to play your game much… much… more.

The biggest challenge will be supporting the MMO network demand. I hope this goes better than other MMO releases…

Please be careful to whom you listen too the most… Don’t let the people who live to complain discourage you. Furthermore, keep in mind 99.99 percent of the gamers are not streamers. Please listen to people who are casual-gamers and not people who play 24/7 and have no life outside of the game. You really have done well. I have heard so many complaints and having played almost non-stop both B E T A weekends, it just amazes me how much people like to complain about nothing. It reminds me of the NEWS.

I hope you learned what needs tweaking and they are easy fixes. Soon we will know… Looking forward to 06/06/23.

Kind Regards

1 Like
3

DI, DII, DIII & DIIR player. 67 hours played for DIV beta test.

What I enjoyed most:
The atmosphere is good after the tutorial.

The art department is a 10 out of 10.

It feels really good to move around and explore. Also casting ability timings felt really good.

The story seems better than before and still as exciting and dark as the first two games.

The chance to edit how you look like feels great and give a reason to search for very different gear designs.

The boss fights feeling were awesome in terms of atmosphere too. Even if they could be more unique and challenging. Good games got repetition activities but you still enjoy doing it again and again.

The 360 degrees open map concept feels amazing. I assume won’t be map restrictions other than monster level warnings in the final version.

The skill trees felt OK since it is open to be improved by time.

Character and environment 3D models look almost perfect and natural. I do not remember polygon models around.

I enjoyed almost every second of play.
Sorceress concept is perfect and fun to play.

Improvement suggestions:

Gem/skull affixes are very disappointing. Defensive ones are better but offensive ones feel meaningless. Bring me reasons to decission making.
How can I feel power coming from situational enhancement like overwhelmed damage or damage over time.
I just limited my gameplay to basic skill improvement in order to dodge situational numbers. I found the overwhelmed attacks not easy to understand for average player. Zero fun affixes.

Necromancer pets look embarrasing.
I know you are making them darker but still feel like DIII designs. They should look scary instead of plastic toys and clay-dolls. Benefits from book of death can be improved.

My barbarian just have shouts and basic frenzy. Why should I carry 2 hand weapons if I am a dual weilder only? Why not use something similar to necromancer pet sacrifice to benefit Heavy weapon only or dual weapon only barbarians. It looks weird having so many tools on you. Interesting mechanic as a concept but I cannot imagine my character walking around with 4 weapons at the same time.
Barbarian ultimates felt a very thin spectrum. I took none since as support none of them matched my fantasy.
The passive improvements from weapon mastery are meaningless. No motivation at all and you feel zero change when rising its levels. A rookie blade should feel different than a master perfection one.

Druid feel pretty boring. I tried to change build again and again and never felt as confortable than I did with the others. I died many times just testing builds and always got damage being glass cannon or tank having not damage inputs. In expected pets to be funny but were weak and crows did not feel working as I thought.

I did not enjoy dungeons. So blank concepts. Short and nothing special out there.

The legendary passive dungeons were strange since they feel great but most of the times you will check this powers to imbue an item with when playing a different class. I never wanted a skill modificator for an ability my character cannot use.

The menus look generic and cheap. Weapon designs are perfect 3D but not as good in 2D.

The secondary missions feel disconnected and boring stuff. Skip, skip, skip…

Most of the times conversations were slow and killing the action rhythm or pace. I dislike it very much. It feels like a step back in the series. The game will be better without that pokemon scripted talks that block you until the conversation finish.

The tutorial cinematic is weird. If you were unconscious with your full bottom out of a forklift track, How can your legs stay rock solid?

It is interesting you attempted to add our character creations to ingame cinematics but for me they look so poor and with very weird camera angles. We will skip it after the first time and they collide with the perfect Act cinematics quality standard.

Something about the enemies adapting to my character level kill my power enhancement feeling.
Something about the game interactions with NPCs feel generic or Lost Ark alike in the worst meaning. Like lacking charm. It feels like you are not living an adventure but clicking missions with soul-less persons.

Potion improvement should have more personalization and different passives instead of just more healing slots and higher numbers.

Legendary power sacrifice system to imbue rare items were not understandable for me. At least in the beta.

Clan functions should be deeper.

Focus support on fun to play and not just buffing/nerfing numbers. Everything fun to play no matter what instead esport alike balance that reduce my decissions to check META options somewhere.

1 Like