I’ve just read over everything and I didn’t expect to type so much(sorry about that.) I just wanted to mention that the mega post I just created is more feedback than it is an attack on blizzard, here for anyone to agree or disagree with. even though there’s more negatives than positives I still look forward to full release and love the game overall.
So having thousands of hours in diablo 3 it’s easy to say I love the franchise, every game has it’s bumpy start and that’s why we need to give feedback. while i don’t disagree with what some of the critiques are mentioning, we have to remember: many people hated the auction house in diablo 3, people hated the lack of endgame, everyone complained. once this begun the game transitioned over the years into what we came to really enjoy.
I for one was dreading the release of the beta and actually contemplated throwing diablo in the bin so to say after that joke of a game that we will never speak of again. diablo 4 beta has removed most of my worries and I love the fundamentals of the game so far.
What I like:
- We’ve returned to dark and gory, deleting the rainbow colours and bringing us back to the dark sinister vibes of a demon infested sanctuary.
- Character customisation and the ability to change your cosmetic in the wardrobe (not item cosmetics like transmogrify)
- I love the idea of open world with random events, world bosses, rare spawns and rare loot so this is something i’m looking forward to.
- the cinematics, the lore, the expansion of the diablo story is something i love and i’m enjoying the subtle references of things in the past to connect the previous regions we’ve explored.
what I worry about:
I understand it’s the beta and feedback is needed. i also get that the bugs will likely carry on for years to come and that’s just how the game functions when such a big game is released. however to play a game’s beta and find so many graphical bugs, failing functions, exploits, broken movements i worry if this is just an act 1 open beta, will it reveal the many problems that will occur in the rest of the story.
I was looking forward to the returning hype of receiving loot in the diablo series, i understand that it was said legendries would be rarer and unique items will be very very scarce. but so far I’ve seen and heard nearly everyone getting fully equipped in legendries quickly, maxing our gear quick, and kadala 2.0 gave me 6 out of 8 attempts legendary items at level 25. this doesn’t seem even close to pre-anniversary update of diablo 3 loot rarity. i’m not saying i want to grind for an hour to only have 1 drop. but if this is possible in the low difficulty low level region of sanctuary. i feel it’s going to be harder to get magic and rare items in the late game than it is legendries and unique items.
We’ve waited a long time for diablo 4, and as much as we want to play it on 6/6 and this is a convenient date to advertise. I feel we the gamers have learnt from or eagerness to play games asap and overhype ourselves up for things such as no-man’s sky, ark’s survival of the fittest, H1Z1, shadow of war, the list goes on. They weren’t ready for launch and we overhyped ourselves to find disappointing non-functional games. I could even add diablo 3 to the list with the cursed error 37 that caused us some mental damage.
my point is, we had suspicions diablo 4 was being made in 2015/2016. we’ve waited for 7/8 years expecting to wait for 10 years after the later mention of “not even blizzard soon.” I’m sure we’d prefer to wait another 2-6 months if that meant everything was smooth, functional and and moderately balanced enough to play and love it from the start. compared to losing interest, being annoyed, reliving yet another disappointment and finally throwing diablo in the bin.
as i previously mentioned I enjoy the story, the lore, the exploration into the diablo world. I enjoyed scanning the map for interactions and bodies in diablo 3, looking for something hiding away an explorer’s journal, a sad romantic death, the beasts of the world ect. these pulled me into the world, knowing Deckard Cain’s thoughts on the story you were playing through, reading the prime evil’s demands, all of it built the suspense and had you guessing at what was next. on top of this achievement hunting was something i enjoyed as did many others in my community.
I’m yet to see meaningful lore in the open world that entice us into the story and have us making predictions of the future or curious to find part 2 of the person’s diary. Big objects with transcriptions don’t feel the same for me. The achievements I can assume aren’t being focussed currently as we wouldn’t want any spoilers in the open beta but achievements currently seem like they are directed into statistics of mob type kill counts. I worry that the lore will be left out and an open exploring will lack directive. achievements will be lazy and I’m hoping this is not the case.
The idea of dungeons and cellars and things to clear out is a great new feature of the game however in all of them they are very predictable and linear, (–kill random mobs in small room around the corner. --locate A, Kill B, bring 2 two objects and place them here to unlock the door, kill boss.)
This feels far too repetitive and while we do love to grind, the story and early game dungeons shouldn’t be grind-worthy in my opinion since they are pre-endgame. sometimes they just involve long tedious walks without a single mob between mini boss 1 and mini boss 2 and I feel there should be more context and purpose within these.
My hopes for release:
I really hope statistics can be recorded for comparison. similar to the seasonal profile view on diablo 3, I would love to see more extensive details to compare. for example as you have on the current beta achievements page a kill counter for every mob type. more examples: mobs killed by thorns, objects broken, times logged in, hours played, time spent in town, gold spent on x, y, z.
every game seems to become lazy with achievements and the tasks required, the seasonal achievements on diablo 3 and every season pass in fps games is something i really hope to never see on diablo 4. I think it would be awesome to have hidden achievements, conquests, feats of strength ect. there’s a level of satisfaction i find that comes with the completion pop up you didn’t try to complete. as with the game stats i suggest. I hope achievements become extensive and difficult to acquire.