I played Diablo 3 and had some fun here and there but hated the art style and general vibe so I put it down. Been playing Diablo 4 the past couple betas and honestly having a great time. Wonder if y’all would be interested in some feedback from a newb.
The Good
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Art style, graphics, music, and general vibe of the game. All the problems I had with Diablo 3’s general art and style is fixed here, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how gritty and dark it gets. I find the music to be incredible too. Scratches that dark fantasy itch.
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Variety in different classes and the playstyles they encourage. Playing sorcerer feels very different from playing barbarian, which is different from necromancer.
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Skill Tree— I’ve seen lots of negative feedback on it but for me I’m enjoying the control and the variety of ways you can invest points. You all know better than me how this translates to the endgame but I’m vibing with it so far.
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Story and world building—I feel like a lot of AAA live service games tend to go very campy and cheesy with their characters, but so far I’m pretty pleased with the dialogue and characters we’ve seen. Definitely a bit of fantasy cheese here and there, but I really enjoy the general tone.
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Buff Totems—Random little thing here, but I find the shrines to be way more interesting and varied than Diablo 3’s, which I’m thankful for.
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Unique Gear attributes— seems there’s a lot of different types of attributes that can encourage different play styles. I loved Hades so I was happy to find some gear that adds more dodge charges and helps cooldown there to encourage a More mobile play style.
Criticisms
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UI— Been talked to to death, but I’m in agreement here. Past preview builds had a more fitting font for certain special text/status effects, and I hope they revert back to this. Also hope there’s more in depth customization for which HUD elements appear on screen, as well as scaling, etc.
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Zoom— Agree with the majority on this too. Would appreciate some more zoom options, because the current zoom feels a bit close to the point of causing a bit of eye strain for me considering how much is happening on screen.
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HDR— Seems to be a bit broken. Game looks pretty washed out at times and it’d definitely benefit if we could make brights brighter and darks darker.
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Certain Art Elements—I’m not as bothered by the necromancer skeletons as others, but I’d definitely be happy if they did another art quality pass across the board. The grittier the better, but I get there needs to be a certain amount of readability.
Hopes For Full Release
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More unique random encounters in the world involving NPCs or unique bosses. I remember reading something months ago from the devs who described the open world as having a vibe almost reminiscent of RDR2 with its encounter designs. I’m hoping that we can come across more NPCs fighting enemies or ambushing you, or little story moments peppered throughout the landscape.
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A home-base/hideout. I’m assuming that each region will have its own major city type location with all the important vendors. But I’d love to have the ability to build up your own camp/settlement. I enjoyed Hogwarts legacy’s way of giving you furniture/decoration rewards for exploring the open world, and having a place to consistently come back to and build up wold be super satisfying for me.
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Hold-inputs—I’d love if there were certain skills that you’d be able to hold to “charge up”. Anyone know if this might be the case in the final game?
A lot of the feedback from the veterans here seems focused on dungeon quality, endgame content, class balancing, skill trees, etc. I’m just happy I seem to finally have an ARPG I can enjoy. Generally see a lot of negativity around here so I hope the devs are able to take the good criticism and feedback where they can but also stay positive since I’m sure they’re working hard.