The Necromancer:
The skills felt very “copy/paste” from Diablo 3. I didn’t feel or notice anything new with the class. The body types could use some adjusting. I generally play characters with a female/feminine body type. It was hard to tell I was playing a feminine character while in game. I like the emaciated look of the Necro, it’s just a bit too much.
The Barbarian:
This is the first Diablo game where I actually enjoyed playing a Barb! Specializing in a weapon felt a bit difficult. I kept passing on better weapons because I didn’t want to stop using the type I had equipped. Staying with the same weapon limited progression; swapping them all the time made specialization feel pointless.
The Sorcerer:
My favorite class across all Diablo games and I love it in D4 as well!
The Rogue:
This one felt like a whole new class with some throwback to the previous ones. This one also felt the most interesting and customizable. Looking forward to revisiting this one at launch.
Character Creation:
Overall, good. I would like to see more face and hair options. For hair, preferably some longer hair options (around shoulder length or longer) that are not pulled back in a ponytail (guessing this was avoided to reduce any clipping that may occur with outfits).
Level Scaling | Crafting, Upgrades, and Such …
I both love and hate Level Scaling. With the type of game D4 is, I understand why this direction was taken. However, it takes away the feeling of progression from the player. No matter how much stronger my character gets, it always feels like it takes just as long to kill something at level 25 as it did at level 1.
With level scaling, the gold cost of crafting should be reduced. I was constantly running out of gold trying to craft or upgrade things in order to feel more powerful. By the time I’ve gathered enough resources, I’ve leveled again and everything else around me has as well.
Also, why are there sooooo mannny crafting materials?!? This just feels excessive.
Solo Play:
Please add back the ability to pause the game while in a solo area!
Cellars, Caves, and Whatnots …
Need a bit more variation. Every cellar or cave I went into was exactly the same! Emersion was completely broken and seemed pointless to go in them. Even more so when you kill the elite and all you get is a few gold, a potion or two (that I didn’t need) and a blue item.
UI:
I’m really hoping we get a different UI for PCs. There was a lot changed in order to support controllers and consoles. Some things had a very “in your face” interface. A few times where a note was being read aloud, the text of the note took up most of the screen while I was being attacked. It made it very difficult to see my character. Even after closing the audio description, the note lingered for way too long.
Quest completion notifications need to be pushed out to the left a bit more. They are too close to the center and are distracting. I would also like to see the Event Started notifications moved to the left as well. Again, they are too close to true center and are distracting. Never hide my character with pop-ups and notifications while playing.
Final Thoughts:
I am genuinely excited to play Diablo 4. Overall, it seems really good and I’m enjoying the story so far. Hopefully Blizzard left a few surprises in Act 1 for launch day!
Some other issues I had with the game I won’t mention here. They were probably just related to the time crunch of the beta and me trying to cram in as much as I possibly could before it ended.
Can’t wait to sit back and enjoy the game how it was meant to be experienced.