cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/459811
The field-of-view is weird. Seems less isometric and more top-down and too zoomed in.
As a Sorc, the design and animations of the spells suck. Chain lightning looks weak af and not fun/OP, like how it was in D2. Hydras in particular look atrocious, even the D3 Hydras looked better.
I constantly run out of mana, preventing me from spamming my main spells and enjoying playing as a Sorc. D2 had mana issues as well in the early game, but at least you could stock up on mana potions and have them available as a hotkey. Even without a mana potion mechanic, D3 was still pretty fun to play as a Sorc and you could still spam spells, but I’m just not getting that feeling of fun yet in D4. I cast a Hydra and a couple of chain lightnings and I’m out of mana, and have to go back to the lame main spell, which is very unsatisfactory.
The font seems cheap and not Diablo-y. Seems like they literally just used Times New Roman for everything, and I don’t get why, just makes the game look like a cheap and generic ARPG that we’ve seen these past few years. The fonts used in D2R shows that the classic Diablo font still looks awesome, same with Project Diablo 2 with their new S7 graphics and HD fonts.
The music so far has been very unremarkable and again, not dark and Diablo-y. I miss the Diablo 1/2 music, the haunting guitar strums, the middle eastern desert themed music, the dark Indian chanting. Music play a big part in creating atmosphere, and that is missing from D4.
Same with other audio effects and monster sounds. Why are the Fallen no longer praising Rakanishu or Colenzo?
The new attribute and game mechanics isn’t really clear. For starters, I’d like to be able to adjust my attributes like in D2, like say what if I wanted to try out a max-block build? Or one that emphasis on greater mana availability at the cost of vitality? The effects of items also aren’t really made obvious. Like, what the heck is “Item power” on an amulet supposed to mean? Also, if I equip a staff that gives an INT boost, shouldn’t the damage I deal go up? But I don’t see the damage number changing when I swap weapons with different INT, does that mean INT no longer affects the damage? If INT still affects damage, what if I equip a weapon with a low damage value but high INT, would it be better than a weapon with no INT boost but high damage?
I miss the old transparent overlay automap. With the new one, I find myself constantly checking the big map and switching out, because the minimap is too zoomed in and kinda useless (why can’t I zoom it out?)
Overall it’s been pretty unsatisfying and not worth the hype for me. I’ll begrudgingly complete the campaign though since I bought the game, and go back to playing PD2.
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I’m happy with atmosphere, music, font which was in fact already improved from Arial once, haha, but my greatest issues right now are:
- Lacking social features. I end up surprisingly solo for being an open world game!
- Open world grind at new seasons.
- Lack of new content at level 60+. Game could probably have been capped there for the launch version. It needs more mechanics to care for in WT4 to deepen gameplay and have advances feel more rewarding.
- Skill trees are weak and it feels like you’re led into “essential” paths with ~3 builds per class. I liked D3 skill runes more.
- Itemization is quite poor at this point. Resistances, chance to block and crowd control on gear is forgettable or even gone and DPS as overshadowing as in D3.
My biggest problems are with the MMO aspects (renown grinding and fetchquests), they really slow down the gameplay in a bad way to me and will not be fun to redo once seasons start.
It really detracts from replayability, I used to really enjoy starting new characters in D2/D3 but it feels like a slog in D4 since it takes so long for the game to open up.
Presentation is overall fantastic though, the character designs and equipment are great and the music is phenomenal (headphones needed), both are huge steps up from D3 for me.
Class balance and skill balance is clearly not finished yet and needs some work, endgame is extremely narrow and feels bad for some classes. That will definitely get some rebalancing, hopefully more builds can be viable by season 1.
Things I agree are bad / need work
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Sorc Mana burns too fast
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Basic abilities aren’t fun most of the time and feel weak (they should all feel as satisfying as arc lash at least- across other classes too I mean - barbarian is painful while leveling)
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No transparent Map is bonk
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Inventory needs WAY more space
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The game feels way too zoomed in at times - it feels better on the horse - this hasn’t affected me as much as I thought it would however.
But the rest I disagree with.
The music is excellent and the sounds feel impactful. I’m listening on headphones but mostly on my 3.1 theater system and it sounds great. Voice acting amazing and all the voice read quests is excellent and unexpected.
The font is such a petty thing to obsess over. The game is meant to be viewed across the room on a TV for console players so they had to go with an easy to read font. Old Diablo font wasn’t easy to read AT ALL. Times have changed- accessibility is a huge thing now.
The story and world feel great. The details in the lighting are amazing.
I’ve already got 100 hours into the game and I’ve got 5 friends playing with me - at 45 it’s unheard of to get 5 other people with kids to buy an only MMO/RPG to play - and every single one of them is having a good time.
The majority of people like it and subs are biased towards those who don’t. Largely - see here - D2 players who often have massive nostalgia glasses. Most people aren’t coming to reddit or online forums to complain, they’re busy playing the game. Almost all comments come from people who are no-lifing the game like it’s their job or people who play games as a job and have still gotten 200+ hours out of it.
People are allowed to prefer D2 that’s fine but this isn’t D2. And a lot has changed in the world since we played D2. Gaming and IRL.
This is the first game in a long time I can’t put down and I have friends who are also very much addicted at the moment.
We’ll see how the long game feels in a couple months and come back to it.
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I think the resource to spam core skills is intentional to a degree. I think they’ve stated that they want us to use more buttons.
Aside from that, I agree a lot with the PoV and map. The map barely functions, half the time I try to set a marker it sets it on my position instead of where I click on the map, and I have to close+open the map to set it properly. Super frustrating.
Agree with most of it, apart from the music and sound design. That definitely is one of the best parts of the game for me.
