I’m going to try and make it as brief and concise as I can (it won’t be), and probably best to start off with the positives, because it is pretty easy to just sh*t on stuff right off the bat.
Pros:
- Art/graphic design/map & dungeon atmosphere/character models/mob/monster models & music. Really grim and gnarly imho, although this is down to personal taste of course. I hope there is more music in different areas too btw, and maybe a bit of a throwback to the Tristram theme at some point? Would love to hear it.
- Gore - simply on point. Something magical about seeing a bunch of ghouls get torn apart as you whirlwind through them with a 2hander, seeing your character get covered in blood etc. Although I got few suggestions on how this could be made even better.
- Exploration - someone already said it on here, feels calming. Almost therapeutic, very immersive. I’m glad that monsters aren’t literally everywhere, and that there are breaths to be taken between engagements.
- Arsenal system is cool, and I like that they’re actually made barb interesting in this game. More comments on this in suggestions though.
- Alchemy - it’s a nice introduction, but it’s a bit too shallow and hidden. More in the suggestions.
- Combat feels good so far, but I maxxed out Barb first, and so playing Rogue & Sorc after was not very objective as they received bonuses from the altars etc, and felt like they were coasting through content. From the bare bones it felt challenging, impactful & fairly interesting. Boss fights were actually challenging (Up to a point where I was swimming in legos, will be discussed in cons). World boss fight was a fun thing to ‘watch’, but in the end it ended up being a big flashy piñata. Got some suggestions for it.
- Cutscenes/cinematics are great. Storyline… seems less lame than D3 so that’s a plus. Lilith’s design is pretty damn cool, it almost feels like she is not ‘evil’ until you see what follows after the initial intro (kinda like my ex), this is a nice take as Diablo has been pretty cut & dry when it comes to main antagonists. I actually really loved the way the game started. Oswen’s humming and the slow paced horror like introduction was really building a solid immersion for me, I was actually concerned as to what was going to happen to my character, even though it’s a Diablo game and - cmon we know what’s coming! That’s a result, so well done to whoever came up with that beginning. The wolf arc seemed intriguing, although felt like it got really rushed with the Tristram vision. I would’ve like that to have been more explored perhaps? Or at least would like to see more of flashbacks that actually reference the past and explain some time gaps. Unfortunately, there are negatives, so let’s get round to them.
Cons:
- So let’s transition straight to the storyline negatives. Lorath doesn’t feel like a ‘hermit’. He has better social skills/demeanour than most humans coming out of the pandemic. Feels like he should be more eccentric/crazy, especially after years of seeing what he has seen (Isn’t he the young horadrim from D3?). He also suggests that the copy & paste adventurer girl story arc (basically the D3 Leah arc) is going to play a bigger role than we currently realise… She better not become an oblivious host for Diablo’s return or I WILL be asking for refund on that basis alone. Bottom line, it would be a shame if the highlight of the storyline was the opening 10 minutes of the game. Voice acting is hit & miss so far, although Inarius sounds awesome. I hope there will be some more complexity to his story as well as opposed to just a homesick dude who’s line is ‘no matter the cost’ - it feels like he’s gonna be wanting to turn on humanity sharpish in this whole arc of him wanting to just get home.
- Cellars/hideouts - they either need to get randomised/more interesting layouts, or the content itself needs to be more interesting. There is one that is a puzzle that caught me off guard nicely, but other than that; copy and paste and cheap cannon fodder. In fact feels like a waste of time near the ‘end game’, and 25 is not even an end game so… yeah no.
- Dungeons - actual map layouts often repeat couple times over in a one single dungeon, which made me get proper deja vu several times going through dungeons. I don’t like this. Feels cheap & rushed. The ‘leave’ dungeon also feels cheap. But in all fairness I have no good suggestion to fix that. They all have the same vibe in that sense - gather/kill two or three things to open main door to kill boss, purge mobs or release prisoners. Maybe some puzzles to open doors would be a cool addition too? But it’s mainly the layout of them that needs to be improved. So far it is in stark contrast to whoever made the beautiful job of actually designing the look of dungeons in the first place.
- Bring back runewords (& grey items from D2) first of all! Crafting. Well it’s not crafting. It’s salvaging for materials you quickly stop giving a toss about. The upgrade option doesn’t feel like it’s worth the money you spend on it. Repair? Stuff only gets damaged when you die, feels like it’s just a mechanic that is there for the sake of being there because it was there in previous games. Either make durability a viable concern throughout the playthrough or ditch it. Maybe it would be better to just reserve crafting for set item creation for end game thing where you have to actually collect specific parts from rare bosses to make the items. No point for regular item crafting in a loot finding based game imho, but I could be wrong. I’ve done too much crafting/grinding in other MMORPG to care for it at this point in Diablo. It’s a hack & slash, just gimme weapons.
- Items. I hope this was just purely because of temporary access/short time and early beta, but legos appearing already identified and basically dropping 2/3 times per dungeon is far too much for my liking. It worked for me this time round simply to be able to experiment with different builds (Managed to try out a pretty solid bleed build, as well as whirlwind and mealstrom build, and if this was the intent, awesome. But please wind it back on the real release. Personally I would want to take some joy in finding and owning a legendary object. Making this game into a rat race would be a huge detriment to how pleasant the game through actually is in general. I know there are also ‘unique’ items, but honestly I just think if you’re going to make legos drop as often as they did, just make them into the current ‘rares’ and change the uniques into ‘legendary’ ones, and then perhaps if you really want another tier for some godly stuff once in a blue moon, than have a unique/ancient weapon, but don’t make it a grindable thing, but rather pure lucky chance aspect of the game.
So let’s go on to some more solid ideas I had:
Suggestions:
- Blood should stay on a character until they visit the town healer and replenish potions, only then should all the old stale blood disappear, this would be a nice touch.
- Gore - I’d like to see more unique animations for monster deaths that really stand out, something like mobs turning to ash when hit by chain lightning spells hitting crits etc. There is one for burning effect and poison effect which is cool, but I’d love to see more. Arrows staying in monsters after they get shot would be pretty cool too and the incinerate animation should be more like an actual flamethrower - where the is an actual explosion/lick of flame surging forward on the beginning of the animation, rather than just a static line of flame appearing. The looks of the fire are already brilliant, but incinerate animation start/end makes it feel super cheap unfortunately.
- Barb Arsenal system - I’d like to see an option to choose which weapon could be used for which skills at my own will (to a reasonable extent of course). I am still unsure whether for e.g. if you have ‘life on kill’ spec on a sword you carry, but then kill mobs with a skill that do not use it, do you get the benefit of that sword spec? I’m guessing no - in which case I want to decide what weapons my barb is using for which respective skill.
- Combat - as much it is already quite impactful, I’m still traumatised by the anime speed swing/attacks from D3. Not sure to what extent this could be done but I would like to see even more weight to barbarian swinging a big mace/hammer, as opposed to the hammer feeling like it’s just a foam toy flying through the air.
- World boss - could introduce more co-op minded mechanics, say; operating a big contraption that traps the boss or something of the sort, something that has to be activated by couple people at once, whilst someone is taking the aggro.
- Alchemy - closely related to the previous point. I think alchemy could play a large part in end game/world boss/special mob bounty content. If you’re going to make us run around and care about smelling flowers, give us a good reason to do so (Not just to be able to complete a random side quest either). I suggest making it possible to use multiple potions at once, and making it almost necessary to have concoctions of those for big world boss fights that deal silly amount of specific damage type. Say having to chug down a poison resist potion simply to survive around the aura of Ashvara boss, and then also having to use a specific damage type for Ashvara’s weakness, or if it was a really fast hitting boss, maybe some high dodge chance potion that helps you survive that way. (This could prove abusive in PVP though if the potion was OP) Another cool potion idea would be to have to make a potion to be able to see a shadow realm boss, and you can only see it (and therefore can only hit it) if you drink that potion that gives you this shadow realm vision. Otherwise you’d be seeing a big blur that ‘dodges’ your attacks if you try and hit it, but can totally annihilate you. Alchemy can honestly become a really fun part of the game if you let it. But it can easily just be a forgotten mechanic just like ‘upgrading’ or ‘repairing’ your weaponry. It would be a shame…
That’ll do for now. I got loads more in my head after this weekend. I feel this game could be something else, if the next 3 months were spent on brutally honest elimination of pointless ‘meh’ mechanics and content, and putting time and effort into ones that have potential. I know it’s not always easy recognising what ones are worth putting effort into and what ones aren’t. But it looks like Blizzard already has plenty of constructive feedback to refer to from the community in case they struggle to figure it out. So best of luck to them, and I look forward to the open beta as well, especially if it means I can get my druid game on.