So I’ll preface this by saying the obvious; Diablo 4 doesn’t need to cater to me. It’s much more important to cater to the people who do enjoy Diablo 4 area.
I’m simply sharing my feedback because, hey, maybe some of these are sticking points that others feel as well, that could be addressed without modifying the integrity of the game that already exists.
I’ll try to keep this purely to things that might be flexible (the game world feels a bit muddy-looking, but that’s part of the aesthetic and not something that should be changed), although again, you’re free to take or leave any of this.
In no particular order:
- “What does that mean?”
I ask myself this question every time I see any sort of modifier on an ability or enemy. This is probably the only bit of truly harsh criticism I have for the game, but D4 is the one of the least intuitive games I’ve ever played. That’s not to say there is anything wrong with the combat design per se, but you should be able to immediately understand what status conditions are simply by seeing them, not have to memorize esoteric “this symbol means this status effect”.
Words like “Unstoppable”, “Overpower”, “Fortify” – those words don’t mean anything. I would never explain what something looks like to somebody and use any of those words. I would simply suggest changing the terms and visuals to ones more easy to naturally intuit (ie. “Hellish Rage” covering you in red fire, “Angelic Presence” more of white-grey light emanating, things like that).
- “Builds” look like analyzing an Excel sheet
Another criticism, I suppose, although some may see this as the “fun” of the game, so take it for what you will. I’m glad to leave Diablo 3’s insane numbers behind us (much as I enjoyed that game), but there are so many conditional statements in the way Legendary affixes work, and powers have all these ways to fit together, it legitimately feels like the most efficient way to play the game is literally not to play the game, but instead invest hours of time running sims, or even just plugging all these values into a literal excel sheet to figure out the numerical best. It just doesn’t feel super organic.
- Systems upon systems
I was thinking about jumping into Season 10, but after about 10 minutes of reading, it just looked liked an endless series of “systems” I was going to have to figure out and engage with. I already found the Paragon system kind of a nightmare to use (spending your points in a specific way has the potential to multiply your damage output by literally like 100x), then you’ve got runes, you’ve got your “legendary” items that you have to tetris together in some way, and those can be further modified, and then this new “Chaos armor”… It’s just all a bit much. It feels like I pretty much have to copy-paste someone else’s build if I even want to play the game, because unless your abilities are interacting in certain very specific ways, the game is virtually unplayable.
- The World is super boring
I get that Helltides exist, as does the Pit, but I’d honestly love to just be able to leave town and explore a randomly generated “world”. There are times I enjoy running speedrun or super sweaty content, but I also want to be able to just “go explore”.
Maybe add a “town” that exists somewhere in the burning hells, that has a random, procedurally generated "world” where you can just roam around, slaying demons, and uber bosses has some super rare chance to just appear and attack you. Just getting a more old-school “log in and play” design experience where you can kind of turn your brain off from “how you’re supposed to run this content”.
Or maybe bring us back to Old Tristram, and entering the Cathedral takes us into that randomly generated “hell”.
- I hate how many cosmetics are used across multiple Classes
Pretty much every Class is able to become a Necromancer, thanks to the “Wraith Lord” sets. Pretty much every cosmetic theme seems to be recycled for every class, which makes it all the more ironic they aren’t even bundled together. I truly think this undermines the classes themselves, because you’re scrubbing away all of the immersive qualities that make cosmetics so cool to begin with. And basically all of the hairstyles are shared across classes, as well; we’re only one small step away from just letting us pick whatever body and animations we want for our class, because it feels like there’s very little emphasis on unique class identity (something true of WoW as well, unfortunately).
I can at least understand it for the “Battle Pass” skins, since creating a unique set for each class would indeed be asking quite a lot. But outside of those, visuals and cosmetics are part of what defines each class – and I would argue, the greatest aspect of what makes a class “feel” unique, in virtually any game ever.
I’ll point out the one exception to this, at least at a glance, seems to be the Spiritborn,so good job there.
- There’s a whole lot happening on my screen in combat
This is another issue I feel like I face. It seems like there just a lot of “visual noise” when you start reaching higher levels. It’s not strictly a bad thing, since it can be kind of fun to feel like your character is just really unleashing havoc, but more often than not, I feel like I’m forced to just keep moving at all times, because I really have no idea whether or not I’m standing in something
- Not enough “cool stuff” to work towards
This is a big thing for me; I need “cool sh!t” to work towards. I never liked set-bonuses as a concept, but I do miss having those cool new visual sets to work towards. Since that would compete directly against the cash shop, maybe some really cool weapons, or some kind of system to unlock new visuals for some of your abilities? (ie. new Werewolf forms, bloodier and hellish Barbarian skills, etc.)? Or even just having “armor” you can unlock free, but can use Platinum to “upgrade” with fancy particle effects?
- And… that’s it.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got, at least by way of things I think could potentially fixed. The Druid’s appearance was a huge disappointment (and werebear also looks weird), but that’s obviously not changing. I’m really hoping we get our Paladin/Crusader class soon, as I could see that being a big draw for me, I’d love to play a more traditional, “heroic” sort of character. But yeah, unless a few of those points get smoothed over, I would probably just wind up falling off again.
Anyways, take it for whatever it’s worth, if anything.