I’m new to Diablo, but have extensive experience in many MMOs, FPSs, RPGs, and have lightly played (but not heavily gotten into) PoE and Last Epoch. Here is my feedback from the perspective of someone new to Diablo and newish to ARPGs:
— Positives —
- Great graphics/art style
- Accessible transmog
- Character customization
- Combat feels impactful/fun
- Open world events are enjoyable when multiple players are involved
- Story is engaging
— Top Negatives —
- Dungeon design
- Skill trees
- Gem management
- Level scaling
- UI
I don’t feel the need to expand on the positives I posted, but I would like to elaborate on the negatives.
Dungeon design: Currently, dungeons feel very repetitive. I understand this is early in the game, but if it’s indicative of what will be encountered in the end-game, I think it’s important to point this out now. It doesn’t feel immersive when encountering the same type of mechanic in every dungeon: go find two keys/kill two elites/activate two mechanisms to open the main door to the boss. It may primarily be due to the dungeon layout, but this results in backtracking the majority of the time, and it breaks the flow of immersion and engagement. It would be great to see expanded mechanics for these dungeons, even lower-level ones.
Skill trees: I was really excited when I first started the game, and began exploring the skill trees on the classes I was interested in. That excitement quickly diminished. The skill trees, overall, feel really lackluster and underwhelming. It’s a disappointment given how many skills there are, it seems at first glance there’d be a ton of variety and depth. But when you start reading and understanding the trees, it becomes apparent it’s very shallow. Maybe Paragon will address this? But I’m skeptical. Having dabbled in some ARPGs that are years old now, it’s somewhat surprising how much more interesting and in-depth their trees are, particularly coming from smaller studios. Also, I really feel like having access to one more skill would be so impactful and expand the build variety. 6 feels just a little too restricting, especially for certain classes. 7 would be ideal.
Gem management: All I can really say about gems currently is this… was this accidentally left out of the crafting panel? Why am I manually managing this when it’s a pain to do so when the mechanic essentially operates the same as the alchemy crafting? These really should be auto-stored in a separate inventory window or tab, preferably like alchemy ingredients. They should not be taking up space in my stash or actual inventory.
Level scaling: Something feels very weird about the scaling. I think the result of this was really a design decision to pursue MMO-lite features, and might be a necessity, but perhaps some tuning is possible. The power-curve of my character feels almost non-existent while leveling. The only time it started feeling better was at level 25 when I stopped gaining levels and my gear actually started improving my character in much more noticeable ways (but overall still minor). I’m not sure exactly what the answer is here, especially this close to launch, but some review of this feature would be great. Right now, it doesn’t feel the best.
UI: The UI for some reason also doesn’t feel great. It’s okay, but could be much better, especially for PC players. A big thing for me would be having my movement button (left mouse) separated from my basic attack ability. I think this is one thing that LE was smart about. Additionally, WASD support would be fantastic. I think some other posts do a good job of diving into the other issues with the UI, so I won’t necessarily expand too much here, but overall there is some room for improvement that would greatly increase the QoL for players.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the D4 beta and envision myself playing it. I did have fun, but I also think it’s important to contribute feedback on things that do need improvement. I hope the devs are reading these forums and will take input like this into consideration.