-Two button game - click left click to win. There are few buttons to press, there are no skillshots - the gameplay is dull.
-Too simple. Zero challenge, just spam left click to win 95% of the time. You can easily fly in and kill any crowd of mobs already at the lowest levels exept for a few elite packs. The bosses are also not difficult, but fat - click them for 5 minutes to kill.
-No sense of progress. Due to scaling, there is no feeling that you are becoming stronger, and because of simplicity, there is no joy that you have leveled up. It’s already easy, why even bother to level up?
-Gear is not interesting to change - stats do not give much, there is no feeling that I have become stronger after i changed piece of gear. It’s not fun to gear up, it’s not fun to level up, it’s not fun to press your buttons. Why endure grind?
In such genres as Diablo, the character capabilities should be limited at the beginning of the game (little mana, inventory space, damage, hp, everything), but you must level up to remove these restrictions by getting new of talent points and gear. This makes this games interesting.
Plus, the mobs should destroy you at low levels, but the higher level you are, the stronger, on the contrary, you start to destroy them. This approach should be enjoyable because of the sense of progress.
In Diablo 4, your character is already, from the very beginning, not limited by anything and destroys huge crowds of monsters just woth right click (I play as druid, and right-click with a blow of a bear, ONENSHOTS any crowd mobs already at level 5). The character is so strong from the beggining, with the new level it does not become particularly stronger, and due to scaling (feels like) character becomes even weaker.
At the same time, to level up - you should go do quests in the style: the merchant owes me, bring me the gems. Or: I need to feed everyone and bring me 15 ghoul hearts.
At the beggining of the main quest, there was an interesting story about how I was poisoned and how Lilith subdued the villagers, but then the main quests became in the same style: go to that garrison and find out something, now go there find out something…
I see all this and think: WHY DO I PLAY THIS? What is the point? Why should I go get 15 Ghoul Hearts? For what? Why should i even bother leveling up? I am already strong. The plot does not motivate me to do this either. The two-button nobrain gameplay is also not interesting for me and im am not motivated level up to become stronger.
How gameplay in such a game should look like:
If you just fly into a pack of mobs, then you die.
You should have buttons like lifesteal, damage reduction, mass stun, something.
You have to fly into a pack of mobs, press these buttons, survive at the expense of this buttons and kill this pack.
So there is a feeling that you did something to be able to overcome them.
On the early levels, there may not be such buttons, but you should NOT be able to kill packs of mobs at the early levels. Gradually, with the discovery of new abilities, you must master more and more groups of monsters.
In Diablo 4, I have two buttons until level 10 - left click and right click to deal damage. But this is absolutely enough in D4! And I just destroy everything in the game with these two buttons!!! I can kill 40 monsters in a few seconds with only this two buttons. That is rediculus. What for do i level then? Even in D3 i had to get good gear and use all of my abilities to become so strong.
Yes, I see that defensive and utility abilities will appear in talents later. Well, I spent talant points on them at level 11. And now a simple game (where I destroy everything on my way without any challange) has become even easier.
Apparently again, as in a typical modern Blizzard game, fun gameplay will only begin at the maximum level.
And those stairs. The developers are probably directly proud that they came up with a system of shortcuts.
But it’s just ridiculous. What is the point of such a system if it is available to everyone from the very beginning of the game and is marked on the map? What does this system gives besides stealing a couple of seconds to climb down these stairs?
Normally, this system should work like this: these shortcuts should really exist from the beginning of the game and help cut the path, but they should not be available to the player to use at the beginning of the game.
Some classes should have abilities that can immediately give them access to these shortcuts.
The other clasees must do some kind of quest that will give them an item that will grant them the ability to use shortcuts. And it is desirable that this quest was not simple. You can make different quests for different types of shortcuts.
Then these shorts will make sense.