Hello everyone. I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts having completed the story content in the beta. I am not the type of player to grind legendaries and spam events to roll cool gear in a beta, so refined thoughts on that kind of thing wont be here.
I only played a sorceress, as this is what I played in d3, and none of the other classes particularly appeal to me. While the combat overall was very solid, the talents feel very lackluster. looking down the tech tree, there were very few things that seemed exciting to try, and the few things that were, were entirely passive effects that you would activate by doing the same thing you do at level 1. Theres no archon wizard build, no disintegrate, or anything else that stands out as something exciting coming down the line.
Right out the gate, I wasnt that happy with the character customization. Its passable, and sure, you are barely going to see your characters face in the moment to moment gameplay, but given the game has decided to focus on your player model in cutscenes, its a bit of a let down to see a character that you arent that happy with but know that this is probably the closest it could be.
My sorceress also has the personality of a stale saltine cracker. Where is my way overconfident sorceress from d3? The best way I could describe her is “protagonist personality type A: I’m here to help.”
another thing is the damage of the different schools of magic is way way way too different. Chain lightning is just heads and shoulders above anything else. I messed with quite a few builds, but the best decision always seemed to be to buff chain lightning up to max and then get every defensive you can, because the other damaging skills do significantly less damage than chain lightning, therefore spending mana on them is not worth the effort. how boring is that?! I sincerely hope that we did not see the full talent tree in this beta build. Because even if chain lightning were balanced better, the alternatives to it aren’t that exciting to play.
Theres a lot of running around in act 1. Maybe I missed the quest to unlock mounts somewhere along the way, I found myself making minutes long treks to what seemed to be the other side of the map on way too many occasions. I logged off for a day seeing this once. I just couldnt be asked.
Speaking of quests. We need to be able to track multiple quests. I dont want to have to manually track a side quest every time I pick one up. At least give me 3 or 4 spots.
I found myself much more interested in the story than in d3, but theres a small problem in that I find myself kind of on Lilith’s side? If thats intentional then job well done! shes a cool character that seems like she could have a bit more depth than the antagonists im used to in this franchise. Im fully willing to enjoy a story that portrays some demons in a more positive light, even if at the end of the day they are still the enemy.
Overall, despite the criticisms I laid out above, I did overall enjoy the beta experience. But it took me several days to get through. The lack of a goal in the talent tree really put a damper on my excitement to keep playing, so after a couple hours I would find myself deciding to play something else. At end game, I cant imagine this is the kind of game I can see myself sinking hundreds of hours into. in its current state the tree just isnt customizable enough to keep things interesting. Though, who knows, maybe the later game legendaries are so transformative that this weakness can be mitigated. Im not sure im willing to sink the hours I would need to realize that though.