Overall, pretty bad… The Core design is mid at best but every aspect of the game is 4 steps back from Diablo 3. While I’m a single drop in the Diablo community, I’ve been around since the original Diablo and this game does not represent what a Diablo game is (or should be).
// Gameplay
The core mechanics are… ok? During the beta I didn’t expect it to be super tight coming from Diablo 3, but man… The feedback in most cases are terrible and it actually took me a half a day to figure out why I was dying so often.
Which leads into the next part of Gameplay… This feels like a World of Warcraft game. I’m not sure adding Hunter / Gather mechanics to the game was ideal, but the pacing in the game is completely broken. Plus, the random generated maps seem to no longer exist (and if they do, I definitely couldn’t tell cause I keep seeing the same dungeon layouts).
The skill tree looks like it was ripped from PathFinder… #why
Combat and Skills are way off balanced… I played a Sorcerer for this weekend. There was no real way to flesh out a good combat rhythm and the strict casting of mana is game breaking imo. I could only cast 2 spells… ever. (Yes, I’m aware if the main cast to return mana, but even with skills and buffs to return mana, there was no way to get a constant influx while in combat).
I’m not sure if this was exclusive to the sorcerer, but the rogue didn’t have this issue. There was a good 60% of my deaths are where I was stunned locked… Like full 10 seconds of mobs just draining hp while I can’t move, dodge or caste spells.
Monster identification is non-existent… I didn’t even realize I died to a special mob until the respawn timer started and I could actually read all the text on the screen. Apparently there are Elites and other special monsters. Someone told me they “announce themselves” in chat??? Who is reading chat in combat?
The climbing mechanic is cool.
Town Portals be removed when you leave town… not cool.
Dodging is cool, but the same button could be to break free of CC, so its not cool.
New Potion system is cool, hopefully its as robust as Diablo 3.
Soulbound items can’t be salvaged… wut?
// Quests
This would normally be quests and story but holy bananas… what the hell is with the some of these quests. I’m not sure if some of the quest instructions still need some polish, but after look for Neyrelle for nearly an hour, only to find out that I had to click on a stupid stone wall that wasn’t even highlighting to progress a quest is quite rage inducing. This wasn’t the only one this extreme, but I did ALT+F4 the game for the day.
A lot of the quest markers are just either poorly placed, or they keep getting stuck to other map icons. There are a few where it looks like you need to go into a dungeon, but then says you’re in the wrong area when you go into said dungeon. Most of these quests we left uncompleted due to poor indicators / quest summaries.
The map completion rewards are cool I guess? but some of those rewards could be game changing for those that are not completionists…
Getting around the map is terrible too. Glad we removed sprinting, it takes several minutes to get to new locations.
// Story
Also, did you know there are cinematics in the game? I didn’t… I was watching a stream and apparently people are getting cut scenes. I did find it odd that I had to run all the way down the hallway to watch a door open and close then get told to leave.
I did have some notes about the story is just completely broken and poorly done, but turns out the content isn’t even loading for me.
// Graphics
I’m not sure what the vision was for this… but dirty cyan isn’t that pretty. The only good color palette I saw was that weird take 20 steps between loading zone. The dungeons would look okay if the player light wasn’t ruining the entire screen.
Speaking of player light… The flashlight, or whatever that light source in front of the character is, is INCREDIBLY JARRING to look at. I’m pretty sure its not supposed to have direct reflections into the camera, unless its pointing in the direction of the camera. In super wet areas its just a massive white blinding orb in the middle of the screen. Perhaps tuning this or an option to disable reflections on player light (and/or maybe turn on light emissive characters) would be great. (I’m one player that doesn’t like coming from the character).
Back to the color palette, the dungeons look good as long as the player isn’t near the geo… The ‘flashlight’ completely washes out all the color and turns everything gray. Even in dungeons where they are clearly supposed to have intense color and depth (like in the central chamber which is supposed to be full blood and stone), all turn grey (and all black / white is just grey too) when the light hits it. This happens in 8-bit and 10-bit depth. So, it seems flashlight is cranked past the point where the colors just all turn to the same value or there is an issue calculating the color space.
// TL;DR
Gameplay is mid, and feedback is poor.
Quest Nav needs work
Story doesn’t exist cause it doesn’t load
Graphics are bad in 2023
// Thoughts
Diablo was a game to sit back an mindlessly kill mobs for hours. Now, with the added complexity and skill checks its makes you wanna quit after the 17th death 2 quests in.
It’s crazy when companies have a super nice refined version of a game, say like Diablo 3 and then Diablo 4 comes to beta, and it has nothing from the previous game. Not talking content or gameplay wise, just optimization and logic in general.
Also, even if this game was in a good state in the Beta. My family and crew are SUPER hesitant to pick it up after Diablo Immortal fiasco. The fact that you guys have ad banners built into the beta already is concerning and it looks like their going to try and monetize the hell out of bunch of stuff that should be built in by default.