I’m an old player who met the butcher the first time more than 20 years ago
I’m still playing D2R, and can appreciate what D3 did to the genre while not being a fan of it.
I played rogue (ranged) and sorceress (orb/blizzard/hydra) to lv25, both in solo and co-op with a friend new to the genre.
Positives
The game feels good to play at this early stage, not too slow not too fast
Having the dodge mechanic being taken into account makes boss more than just hp sponges, I’m curious to see what can be done with that in higher difficulty and further into the acts.
The atmosphere is great, between the visuals, sound design and story, it’s very moody and fitting for a Diablo game
co-op scaling, allowing players of different levels to play together easily while not being carried was a nice surprise
The story seems good, not making the angels the good guys and Lilith a simple villain. I had a bit of W40K imperial feeling from it, Vigo and the penitence machine (rip)
The respec system not too costly for now, so we can mess around and adapt a build or try new things until we know more of the working builds and what we like to play
The legendary aspects, was the biggest surprise for me, it made it very interesting to look for rare items upgrade and imbue them with the power wanted
Itemization in general looked good for so early game, having to think about which affix to look for, to keep and so on. Much better already than D3.
Exploring was fun, looking for Lilith altars, new books or scrolls to read about the lore
The way to balance 2x1H vs 2H with the aspect power scaling is really good, for once 2x1H isn’t the obvious pick, we have to choose between a stronger single power or 2 smaller ones.
The character customization and seeing it during the cutscenes.
The transmog system and options available, even at that low level I was happy with how I could make my character look.
Negatives
The party chat was broken for me, I had to use whispers instead.
Some weird hitbox detection on the rogue with a ranged weapon and iced surfaces, sometimes I had to go melee for the attack to hit, like an invisible slope making the engine not recognize that the angle is fine.
A visual bug on the aspect granting damage reduction for x seconds after using a basic skill, the mini icon displayed 0 but going into the character detailed info did show the correct value.
Having to press shift after each connection to the game in order to get the advanced compare items, having it as a fixed option would be great.
Exiting a dungeon by each time having to open the map and then click on the entrance isn’t great, also an issue when joining a dungeon mid run and not having the entrance displayed.
Gems cost are weird, they hold no resell value but cost a lot to upgrade, I was expecting to use them to generate currency in order to upgrade my gear, but the last upgrade was 230k if I remember correctly and gems were of no use at all for that, I had to sell gear instead of salvaging it
Not being able to see some skills of the party for example hydra. I know it must have been done for visual clarity and resources usage, but it’s a bit frustrating when a friend wants to show you a cool skill they unlocked and you don’t see it or barely. An option to allow to see party members effects would be nice.
A lot of dungeons had the same gimmick to unlock the boss room, having some of them with it is fine but it was too much.
No real utility to normal and magic items for now, maybe once we have the crafting system opened or higher affix drop it could change, like a +3 to a skill only possible on a magic item?
Conclusion
I’ve been very impressed with the content shown in the beta, and really looking forward to more of it!
The only things left unknown that could be a deal breaker for me are the battlepass, store cosmetics and end game loop.
Please keep the paid for cosmetics in tone with the game, due to the multiplayer nature of D4 it would kill the atmosphere to see a batman or santa glam walking around.
Mentioned earlier about items not making feel big difference while you upgrade every 2-5minutes in small steps (legendaries/rares everywhere). Also want to add - seriously why pc players have to be punished just so console players have same amount of skill slots? I have more buttons on my keyboard for skills i want to use.
It didn’t feel that way to be honest regarding the items, maybe until lv20 or so, but after that when you have solid stats or useful affix it was difficult to swap a piece.
I kept for very long a headgear because it was my only source of life regen with a +skill I used despite being lower power than every new drop.
In D2 it was mostly because defense value was useless and for most character weapons had no inherent power. If you had the runewords like Stealth, Leaf, Spirit, Lore, Rhyme and so on, your gear was kind of mapped out except for a few slots when leveling.
But it’s too early to say at this stage, we spent so much time maxed at lv25 trying to optimize when it will never happen on release, you just continue your journey
For the skills I kind of agree, having 2 more slots would be nice, swapping from shadow to poison imbue on rogue for example when dealing with a boss was a bit annoying.
But again too early to confirm, it could be aspects and unique and paragon board transform the skills so much that we will focus on a few skills and 6 slots are enough.
It’s hard to say for now.
There is a leave dungeon option in the emote wheel (E). Unfortunately, like a lot of things in the game, that isn’t explained.
I believe this is an intentional decision. D3 was basically salvage everything because money was irrelevant. Crafting materials and gold both matter a lot in D4.
The boss key design is a common complaint, and it’s easy to see both sides of it. D3 could get pretty exploitable by using pylons and such to down bosses that your build/level couldn’t handle. So they went this locked room route like other games use.
The downside is expectation. D3 was a super fast game. D2, while slower, was dominated by Teleport/Enigma. So, many players coming to D4 are accustomed to speed running dungeon content and these unlock mechanics really slow that down.
I can see why they want to slow things down. Diablo, at its core, is a game about farming efficiency. However, in an effort to maximize that efficiency it also limits content options for the players because they’ll only do the content that is the most efficient. Slowing dungeons down theoretically opens up more content.
In terms of the gimmick side of it, I think they’re just trying to spice them up a bit. Personally, I liked having some variety in how the dungeon resolved.
Oh good to know about the “leave dungeon” , weird placement for it but at least the option is there.
I get the idea behind making gold relevant, but gems aren’t costed in a logical way, they sell for 8-16 gold but cost 3k-4k to upgrade. Either they should sell for more or upgrade for less.
Interesting explanation for the dungeons, I didn’t think about that objective to slow down the rhythm. I still think having more open ended ones would be nice, assuming they scales like D2 we could have bigger dungeons without an unlock boss gimmick, it would just take longer to find.
Durance of hate in D2 is a good example of that when you go from normal to nightmare and then hell, the place becomes huge.
A mix of both would prevent the fatigue of finding a key every dungeon and still having them take a bit of time to complete.
