After playing the first part of the beta and watching some other people opinions and reading some articles, i come with my opinion on the game. First, i know it’s a beta and many errors, bugs and unexpected things were bound to happen, especially the first day. From this i hope the learn that for the second part will have a lot more people trying to enter at the same time, especially first hour of the opening, so hopefully they will be prepared for it, and then multiply this effort for the launch day.
Next point for me would be the story, more precisely the viewpoint seen from the character. In the previous games we have the character having his responses towards the events, a few sentences said here and there, just like we have in here. My problem this time is that each character says the EXACT SAME THING in every part, taking away the personality of the character in the situation. As an example, in D3 after helping Haedrig the character tells him to not lose himself in his work overe grieving, but each class says so in a different way, showing a somewhat different type of wisdom for the same event. I’d love having this small but meaningful details to be present, for i’d love to have a different interaction in the main story for the necromancer when going with all the Rathma deal, or the barbarian with the bear camp.
Next would be performance issues: i had a lot of lag in town, and for some strange reason, while using the barbarian at all times, even when alone. I started playing with the rogue, and had a lot of lag there during the cinematics where the sound was completely out of sync; my guess here is because of all the problems they had with the queues. This brought several rubberband issues during combat, especially at start, moving from one zone to another was awkward, for i was watching my character getting dragged by invisible walls while standing still and even some times where those invisible walls wouldn’t let me get through; the most signifficant time was when i tried to get out of the main city through the eastern exit but an invisible wall wouldn’t let me get out until i went back to town and tried again. I read somewhere that there also seems to be an issue with the ram performance, where it is needing more than the 16 blizz told us; seems to be a bug, but having just the 16 when needing more seems to be a bit of an explanation to me for why it was acting as it did. I expect them to fix this, obviously; it’s a big problem, after all.
Dungeons: i didn’t play much of them, but watching and reading about people that spent a lot of time in them i do see their main problem of them being repetitive. And it is sadly true, one has to go for 2 key items to open a door, and then doing backtracking for either find that one last thing that you missed. Also it is a bit boring having to fight the same guy so many times. My case for this is the blood priest, who has to be defeated 1 time for story and 2 times for sidequests, greatest problem here is that each time you fight him in a different place. For the sidequests you have to fight him in 2 different dungeons, and the final boss from the campaign is named differently but it’s just the same guy… but with waves. I’m guessing, since it’s a beta, these bosses are not in their final form, either because they haven’t implemented what they’re planning to use in the full release or because they each will change with higher difficulty. But the opinion i heard somewhere is true: people will be doing this A LOT in endgame, and having both the same mechanic, in the same place, with the same boss at the end will kill it quickly as a game.
Finally, i’ll talk about what i did like. Fortunately all the issues that i had were not that big for me not having fun. I loved the combat, i loved that we finally got a dodge, i had a blast against the world boss even though (or because?) i died 10 times fighting it. The sidequests are great, having all the Diablo ruthlessness that characterize them; also several changes to enemies, especially the fallen shamans becoming a great threat now that they can revive the overseers or several enemies when they are elite. I found out after it ended that the Butcher is a random encounter; for how i say it, it’s obvious i didn’t fight him, but i LOVE the idea of the Butcher appearing from nowhere yelling “Fresh meat!” and having to survive.
On the gear and build side, i like it. Probably because i have one of the most rotten luck in existence, i never got a legendary power that fit my tastes; i wanted to play cold sorcerer, all the powers i got were for lightning, i wanted to play ranged an agile ranged rogue, all the powers were for traps and melee, i wanted to play a hard hitting barbarian, all the powers were for bleeding. Still i liked how malleable it is to gear and changing of the skills. I like that everything costs gold in a way that you don’t get a ridiculous ammount of it just sitting there like in D3; i was lucky enought that gambling gave me several legendaries quickly, but i’m guessing it’s becasue it’s either beta or low level; i ended up changing them all later for something better. I saw somewhere that the legendaries should change their names to “epic” or somethig of the sort, for having a lot of them takes away the “legendary” part.
I love Diablo, and this beta seems to be a good step for having a sequel after the 2nd we all could be happy for. I hope the best for it, i’m having a lot of fun with the beta and i can’t wait to try out the druid and necro in the next beta. I hope they find a way to avoid the bad repetitiveness from the dungeons and give us a long and fun experience for our grinding. Expectations 9/10