I have overall been enjoying myself but here’s my feedback for changes I hope to see in the future.
THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG, FORGIVE ME.
Give the option to mark skills to auto-stand still and attack. Sure, we have to hold shift to do this but that’s a bit outdated and annoying when games like PoE have the option to check a box on a skill to make you automatically stand still and use the attack no matter if it’s melee or not. With this change I feel melee itself would feel way better because you could just attack without needing a target to swing at or leap to etc.
Left Click/Interact/Attack - We need to be able to fuse the “Move” and “Interact” keybinds (but without “Basic Skill”). Also, allow binding mousewheel up/down to this. May be a bug but I turned mouse wheel zoom off and then bound MW up/down to force move and it did nothing. I had to bind it to another key then remap my mouse through razer synapse to make MW up/down that key which i shouldn’t have to do.
Please give an option to remove error texts (That Spell Is Not Ready Yet, etc.)
I know the skill isn’t ready yet but I will still spam it until it is and it’s really annoying to have this error message constantly plague my screen even after turning off the options to not hear my character tell me it’s not ready yet. This has been annoying since d3 and I’d love options like this to really specify how and what I want and do not want to see.
Give option to disable other player names if we so choose. Even give multiple options so I do see player names etc if they’re in my party or not. I know this wants to be mmo-ish but options options options is the biggest qol.
More skill bar slots please. In PoE and other similar mmo-lite games you have more than these 6 slots.
If you can get +skills on gear and use those skills without speccing into them on the tree then it feels really bad to have no room on the bar to place them or have keybind like press Alt to see your secondary skill bar and hold Alt+key to use skills on the secondary bar. Sure, maybe with min/maxed gear you won’t have any extra +skill on gear that you aren’t actively specced into. However, I do see there being openings in builds that would like even just that one skill on a piece of gear to add in there.
Give the option to disable health bars over every enemies head. Right now it looks like you can turn them off for lesser enemies but not Elites etc. I love health bars over enemies but I know others don’t.
Also give options to fully disable words or dmg numbers popping up over enemies. I enjoy them and I like to know things are exactly working as intended, but it’s also nice for others who hate these things to be able to turn them off and rely only on Icons above enemies heads and already built in visuals.
I know devs said they don’t want to give the ability to let players customize UI like you can in WoW etc and feel that addons are unnecessary and that everything you need should be built into the game automatically. Firstly, everything we need isn’t built into the game to give us all the variations of options each individual would like. Also though, for PC players at least, why not? I love how in WoW you can destroy the old skill bars and place skills with cooldown in any place on the screen to help keep track of those. Maybe D4 isn’t that serious but customization is key and would be amazing.
Also, having more than 2 UI (health/skills/resource) options would be nice if we never get the freedom to have addons and arrange things and looks ourselves. I love having different angel/demon or w/e things holding the health/resource orbs and being able to customize those the way I want from outside sources would be great.
Font choices. Some have expressed dislike for the current default font in the game so it would be nice to be able to choose different fonts and not just forced ones.
Same could go for item drop sounds. I love the D2 sounds in the game but for PC players it’d be nice to have options like in PoE to customize that the way the player wants.
Renown - I already want to explore and do side quests and having extra incentive is nice.
Strongholds - These were very fun. I did these while being under leveled but the added difficulty was really fun. Felt like a larger more fun side quest instead of just fetch quests.
Events - These were really fun. Only thing I’d change for super farming these would be to see them on the world map so you know where to go since they do have a fixed spawn point. But also shrine/chest events were really fun and I really enjoy even lesser ones that you don’t get special rewards from. Like coming upon a circle of bodies and ghosts coming out of them. Or wolves jumping out of a bush randomly to attack you. These things make the world feel very much alive and not so spread out. I’d love a lot more of these sort of things even if they aren’t tied to helltide/chest/shrine events.
Cellars - These are cool but could be more interesting. Whether special events in each one every now and then or mini-story things.
One more thing is cellars having loading screens for such little content is a bit odd. I know you had to load into a different area but this makes it time consuming and a little pointless if there’s nothing to really do in one of these.
Elite Monsters that drop specific named Rares - This is a fantastic addition to the game, but needs to have wardrobe availability on these items to make it at least a form of collectible to go explore and gain.
World Boss - I had my doubts when I first heard about these but the first one we failed and the second one we managed to kill with time to spare and ultimately were a whole lot of fun.
Resource Gathering - Had my doubts as this didn’t feel “diablo” like. But we’re exploring a bigger world now with more things in it and this does feel nice. Also having gems drop from mining node things was cool to see. Nice to have multiple places for those to drop from.
Potions - Plus you get to upgrade potions etc with resources and it’s a nice change compared to only legendary potions in d3 or spamming tons of potions in d2 or them being handed to you in upgraded forms through leveling in PoE. Would be nice to maybe have legendary/unique potions with a separate button to press and have a single usage with a way longer cooldown.
Also instant resource drops are nice. I don’t need every single MMO thing crammed into this. We’re already level gated with things like potions so resources dropping instantly is a great plus. There’s no need to go full mmo with this.
Class Balance - I’ve mained barbs since a child in D2 and I always go for this type of class in any game. Initially I thought barb felt nice. I went bleed barb which I now see is popular but felt I was still heavy carried by my friend who played rogue. Barb felt a little better when I started getting legendaries though.
Then I tried out Sorc and sorc felt really good. I made a built with sorc that had zero legendary aspects and she was far exceeding my barb in both dps and tankiness which is insane. She really popped off once I opened up my first enchantment slot. I tried rogue and they too felt way better from 1 all the way through 25 without having legendary aspects due to the awesome combo point system.
As of right now the barb has to too much heavily rely on legendary aspects to feel great. People say bleed stuff is great though! But try out the other skills without legendary aspects and it feels awful.
Now I’ve heard the class mechanic for barb opens up so you can like have a slot to choose a weapon type to always be active even when not using that weapon. So like I’m using a 2h axe but can slot in a polearm and get the bonuses from those. That may also feel nice, but due to needing to level up the weapon types to 10 each…this feels horrible compared to rogue who gets gets combo points. Or even the sorc who has the other 2 enchantment slots locked behind levels requirements as well but even just having the first enchantment slot boosted how sorc felt by miles and it was awesome and really fun.
With barb, the leveling each type even with having the extra slotting thing I’ve heard we get through the class quest…it’s a slog in comparison and only means the early game stays a slog for barb compared to other classes.
My only hope if this isn’t changed that when you do the class quest and get that special secondary slotting thing (if that’s even what it is) that it also levels up w/e weapon type you put into that. Because if I have to specifically equip each and every weapon to level them all up individually bc the class mechanic/quest special slot thing doesn’t…then holy crap this is going to be the slowest rewarding thing and puts barb who is already behind, even further behind. Barb is the slowest drip class mechanic with no real gains early on like the other classes.
Let’s not solely focus on the class mechanic. My biggest concern is being so heavily reliant on legendary aspects. Also, warcries have such little downtime and a way bigger cooldown that they just feel really awful. Barb needs a balance pass. Devs talked so much about d3 and how your class itself had no power and you were entirely gear dependent and how d4 would be different. With the barb this is still the case and aside from the bleed build it seems, all other skills are gear dependent unlike each and other other class. This has to change more than the class mechanic does.
Dungeons - My initial thoughts were holy crap these are long and extensive and I loved that. I understand other players complaints though and would love to see just MORE brought to dungeons, however that may be. But I do love how long some of them are.
PLEASE give more Butcher like surprise bosses. It was so awesome to not only see a surprise Butcher boss but to see how scary he was like back in D1. Please have more surprise bosses like this. Maybe this is already the case and maybe seeing Duriel in the gameplay trailers means he also is a random boss in another act but I beg you to please have more of this and have them happen more often. I got all 3 classes to 25 but only saw Butcher once. Even though we beat him I wanted another crack at him to try and do better. He was terrifying and it was amazing. My friend had to kite him around and come pick my body up and butcher came charging in scaring the crap out of both of us. He tried again and as soon as he picked me up the butcher chain pulled him off screen and it was terrifying and absolutely hilarious to see. Please please please more of this.
Interactables - Some interactable objects are hard to find bc they aren’t highlighted at all. You don’t know until you hover your mouse directly on top of them. They just blend in too much with the other misc stuff. Like one where you had to just press 2 switches in this one room (no gather box things, just click the switches) and one was by the door you were trying to go through but the other blended in and we didn’t know where it was and figured it was somewhere else in the dungeon but nope, it was at the beginning of this small square room and should’ve been easier to see. I don’t think there were icons on the mini map either but I’d gladly eat my words if that was the case. I know there are icons for most other things but I didn’t notice it for this one.
Skill Tree - Probably same complaint as others have had. For a starter tree, it’s fine enough as long as some builds don’t entirely outshine others even without legendary aspects.
But eventually we need more options. Right now you pick a skill, are forced to pick the first augment which may as well be baked into the base skill anyways…then you get 2 choices which mostly seem to pigeon hole you into a specific build archetype instead of creating a lot more variety.
Overall I do like the tree as it is built out. PoE stays relevant not only due to it constantly having new content every few months but also you get new skills to play with and new supports. If Diablo 4 does not add new skills to every class this game won’t keep players around nearly as long as it should. “Play another class then! try another build!” I did just that in d3 and ultimately I was bored of the same old thing. You can say new PoE skills are same as other skills with a new paint job and you’d be right…but it still gives a whole new feel and increases build variety and diversity.
Please add more passives to each skill.
Please eventually add new skills to the trees and new passives to each skill.
Wardrobe - Extracting aspects should unlock appearance in the wardrobe as well. Would also be nice to just get transmogs for all gear you just pick up instead of having to salvage them. I found myself needing money for the occultist and other things which made me lose out on tons of transmogs. Sure, these all can be collected over time but it sucks to see it go to waste like that.
Same with special rares that you can’t salvage. These should auto unlock their transmog for you just by getting them or selling them.
Teleporting to friends - While it is great having a portal in town to click on and port to a friend, it would be nice to have that either in all towns or just add another option or button on their part portrait and teleport directly to them.
Bugs:
skip dialogue glitch, forcing you to alt tab to fix.
also had one where at the beginning quest I sat through the cutscene while my friends skipped and when I finally skipped I was outside of the gate instead of in the shed where you were wheelbarrowed to. Didn’t hurt anything since they killed enemies quickly and opened the gate but was still odd.
Putting Force Move onto Mouse wheel up/down didn’t actually use force move at all (yes I disabled zoom with mouse wheel also). I had to map this force move to a specific letter then remap my mouse wheels up and down options to that button to force this to work. Hoping this is a bug so I don’t actually have to jump through hoops for this.
I’d randomly feel like rubber banding even though it wasn’t a real rubber banding due to connection issues or anything. I’d try to enter a zone, even ones I’d already been to, and I’d rubber band and be unable to enter. However, if my friend could enter then I’d go back to town and use the portal there to teleport to them and everything would be fine.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time in the beta and can’t wait to see how this game evolves over the next few months and years.
