[Diablo 4 Server Slam Feedback - Google Docs]
please visit feed back from Raxxanterax and his community
very good comments please take a read
Author: Raxxanterax
Diablo 4 Server Slam May 12-14th
42 Hours Played, All Class to 20, 10 Campaign clears 2x for each class, 10 Ashava kills.
Server Slam
-
Queue - Never had one. Logged in instantly every time. Rarely DC’d. Very Impressive.
-
Bugs - Fewer than in the Beta. Waiting to see how 1.0 comes out, but clearly there have been a lot of fixes.
-
Level 20 - After playing to 25, level 20 felt underwhelming. If events like this are happening in the future, it would be great to reverse the order (20 cap in the first, 25 in the second).
-
Ashava - Was a lot better with more spawn times. Was a nice challenge for a reward. It was fantastic that you cannot change instances to gain additional loot, but you still could change them to help your friends. I think this is exactly how it should be structured going forward.
-
Dungeons - While the auto resetting of dungeons and events does “work”, I found myself greatly missing a simple button to reset them. Instead I find ways to mindlessly waste 60 seconds before going back in. Maybe this won’t be a problem in the endgame since you need a nightmare dungeon key to open it anyway, but early game it felt like a time waste.
-
Corpse Farming - A new strategy (well not new, similar to what Diablo 3 did at the start) emerged to farm Legendaries. Essentially you run clicking corpses and chests in a high level area and then logout to reset it. While this particular strategy will be obsoleted in the early game, there are some aspects to it we should consider to make sure it doesn’t reemerge:
-
Killing > Looting - 99% of the time killing the monsters should be more rewarding than clicking objects. This doesn’t have to be true if the objects are rare, don’t have a fixed spawn location, or are extremely difficult to reach. But in this Stronghold I found FAR more legendaries clicking easily accessible corpses than killing Elites 10 levels higher than me.
-
Stronghold Resetting - Not sure if there’s a fix here (or if it needs a fix), but you can clear an entire Stronghold and then log out to redo it. If there comes a Level 100 Stronghold that drops godly items later on, this could be exploited by never completing it. Something to keep in mind.
Changes from the Beta
- 100% Dungeon Completion solved with Monsters Chase You - This mechanic worked about exactly as I expected it to. In some cases it helped. The last few stragglers came after me and I didn’t have to hunt them down. There were also plenty of times where the monsters didn’t chase me, and I ended up searching for them in corners all over again. The fix that I like a lot more (or in conjunction with what you already did) is don’t require us to kill ALL of the monsters. Require us to kill MOST of the monsters. That way when we miss 3 fallen in a corner, we can just move on.
- Ashava rewards requiring you to be level 20 - Many people failed this World Boss because low level players were either a) unaware that they couldn’t contribute or earn the reward, or b) griefing. Either way out of 10 Ashava kills, every single one had low level players that just chain died. This is extremely frustrating to players actually wanting to kill these bosses. Please consider implementing a minimum level to participate in the world bosses. It doesn’t have to be insanely strict, a level 20 could fight level 25 Ashava, but there is no reason for people 15 and lower to ever take up one of the 12 slots.
- Dungeon restructuring to avoid backtracking - The changes you made definitely helped. Some of the backtracking was better. It certainly didn’t eliminate all of it, and there’s a critical change to the game I would beg Blizzard to consider. You should be able to carry multiple dungeon objective objects at a time. If you have to grab 2 stones and place them on pedestals, if my pathing takes me to Stone 1 then Stone 2, there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to leave Stone 2, go find the pedestal, then backtrack for it. It would also be fantastic if the Objectives with a clicking timer were reduced or eliminated. “Channel putting a stone on a pedestal for 3 seconds.” Please just let me instantly put the stone on the pedestal.
- Aspect Required Level Change - This was a fantastic change. Before you could place a low level aspect on an item to lower it’s required level, and now you can’t. Thanks for fixing this.
- Drop Rates - Overall the drop rates felt 1 million times better than in the Beta. Legendaries weren’t raining from the sky like in Diablo 3, and you felt great what you actually found one.
- Treasure Goblins??? - I don’t know if this was just from the Drop Rate adjustment above, but Treasure Goblins drop absolute garbage. Their loot should be buffed significantly. There were plenty of kills where they only dropped piles of gold and not a single item. These definitely need a buff.
- Silent Chests??? - Same as treasure goblins, they need a massive buff.
- Bind Scroll Wheel to Force Move - Works now after disabling Zoom, thank you.
Classes
We only played to 20 and some of the changes may be designed for the endgame. However Diablo 4 (and any game for that matter) can’t become fun 30 hours into playing. So the experience at low levels with no legendaries is still extremely important in my opinion.
-
Barb
-
Early game experience - Lunging Strike is the saving grace of Early Game Barb. It’s a gap closer, which doubles as extra Fury generation. Anyone who doesn’t take this generator is going to have a rough start. One major problem I had after leveling multiple barbs was early game weapon drops. When I spec’d Rend, I didn’t get a 2H slashing weapon upgrade until I was level 10. I even checked the vendor in town and they weren’t selling anything and it was very expensive. I was forced to either do 0 damage, or spec Upheaval b/c I found a 2H bludgeoning weapon. Giving players at least a “decent” blue drop of each 2H very early would help a lot. It would also help if the vendors sold one type of each weapon early, and the cost was reduced. This feedback is NOT “feed me godly gear all the time WAH,” it’s: give me something usable at the start until I get things going. This is a unique problem for Barbs because their Core Skills REQUIRE a certain weapon type from the start. On a sorc it doesn’t matter if I get a staff or a 1H + offhand, I can use it. Overall I felt the skills were fairly balanced. I didn’t see one way better than the other. Double Swing was the only skill I saw almost no one playing.
-
Nerfed Shouts - After reading the nerfs on paper I thought the Shouts were going to feel terrible in the early game, but actually they were still quite valuable. So as much as I hate to admit it, it was probably a good change.
-
Druid
-
Early game experience - Similar to before: resource generation is an issue unless you take Wind Shear and you have a lot of density. There is no standout skill early game that feels like the obvious winner. Tornado would be my pick because at least it does a lot of damage, but its pathing is nauseating. Shred feels unplayable, Pulverize can’t kill bosses, Landslide has 0 AOE, Lightning Storm is decent after the buffs, but it has this weird targeting and channeling mechanic to it. I would like to see a little more power put into the druid skills themselves, rather than waiting for legendary drops.
-
Buffed Companions - These definitely felt better than before. They feel far stronger on their active abilities than their passive abilities though.
-
Necro
-
Early game experience - Still extremely strong minus the skeles. Their main issue is mobility, you simply walk. Are there plans to give necro anything to move around in combat? If so, please add it earlier in the game than later.
-
Buffed Blood Lance - This skill still sucks.
-
Nerfed Bone Splinters - These still felt strong, so the nerf was probably warranted.
-
Nerfed Skeles (& Hotfixed Skeles) - The original nerfed skeletons (as noted by Blizzard per the Hotfix) were far too squishy. They were completely useless and would die on a simple trash pack. After the hotfix I still come to the conclusion that they’re still too squishy. They are helpful, but I felt more like a babysitter than a commander of the undead. One thing I cannot understand is when I summon a skele when I already have the max skeles out, why doesn’t it replace my lowest health skele with a fresh one? Instead it just seems to consume the corpse and I’m doomed to wait until they die. Alternatively, give a colossal buff to the healing of the skeletons which was so small I didn’t even realize it existed. Anything to avoid me waiting until my 1hp skele dies and THEN I have to solve the problem. On bosses they’re simply doomed currently in the early game.
-
Rogue
-
Early game experience - Everytime I play a Rogue I feel resource starved until I get Shadow Imbue with Consuming Shadows and Inner Sight. It still doesn’t feel terrible because their mobility is so high with Dash + Shadow Step. The one piece of feedback I’d give is melee Rogues seem better to play than Ranged from a damage perspective.
-
Sorc
-
Early game experience - Feels strong. Teleport early + Arc Lash + Chain Lightning (post nerf) cruises through everything. The ice builds seem pretty good as well (except Frozen Orb feels underwhelming). Fire seems to be the spec behind in the early game.
-
Nerfed Chain Lightning - Still plows, nerf was warranted.
-
Nerfed Hydra - Pretty underwhelming. It still has value because it’s passive DPS while you do other things, but it’s a pale shadow of what it used to be. It’s mostly a support skill now.
-
Nerfed Ice Blades - Used to be completely busted, now it seems fixed. Thank you
Remaining Issues
-
Unlocking the Occultist - If you don’t have a Codex of Power to unlock on an alt, you can’t use the Occultist prior to level 20. Fix: Unlocking the Occultist on any character unlocks it for all at any level.
-
Selling Aspects vs Legendaries - If you get a legendary that sells for 10k, and you can extract the aspect for 15k, you can vendor the aspect for 40k turning a huge profit. This certainly can’t be the intended design.
-
Crowd Controls from monsters are still ridiculous.
-
Cannot see all reroll options at the Enchanter.
-
Console Controllers:
-
Can’t move items in their inventory
-
Can’t break objects with certain skills
-
If we don’t get a Dungeon Reset button, can we at least get a timer for it’s reset?
-
Crackling Energy wasted on environmental objects.
-
Let us TP to party members without going to town.
-
Give the transmog if you extract a Legendary Power.
-
Show completed quests in the Journal.
-
Need a way to ping a location for teammates.
-
Separate Gem Tab.
-
Make Elites more definition on the mini map.
-
Adjustable UI / Ability to move the chat.
-
Let us compare linked items to our equipped gear.
-
Increase the auto pick up radius.
-
Add a keybind to drop items.
-
Add an autowalk keybind.
-
Add a keybind to hover over an item’s stats on the ground.
-
Add a DPS dummy.
-
Add a “Sell All” button.
-
Add DPS Meters (can be an individual report only so the casuals / bad players don’t feel bad).
-
Add Health + Resources Numbers on the UI.
-
Add Map Overlay.
-
Add Loot Filters.
-
Add Stash Search.
-
Add a Stash in every town/outpost/village.
-
Add LFG feature.
-
Add WASD movement.
-
Adjustable UI / Ability to move the chat.
