Diablo 4

[KingOfPain]

How is this still a thing!?
After decades of online gaming experience, many lessons to learn from, with all these new techs and improvement on internet speed, backed by both Blizzard/M$ unlimited resources....

Finally login after 45 minutes of Error Messages
Played 10 minutes and got booted
Got back on with a 115 minutes queue for login

Here's hoping I'm not in queue for error messages and get booted to back start the queue again.

Not complaining about the game at all, just saying...

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[Dr.Disaster]

How is this still a thing!?
After decades of online gaming experience, many lessons to learn from, with all these new techs and improvement on internet speed, backed by both Blizzard/M$ unlimited resources....

Finally login after 45 minutes of Error Messages
Played 10 minutes and got booted
Got back on with a 115 minutes queue for login

Here's hoping I'm not in queue for error messages and get booted to back start the queue again.

Not complaining about the game at all, just saying...

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That's at least one classic Blizzard won't change ;-)

[KingOfPain]

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to change my mind later™

D4 is pretty much D3 DLC or D3 Resurrected, whichever you prefer.

Different skins, same combat system.

That's my takeaway after one day of Open Beta...so take it with a grain of salt or MSG.

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[Boro]

So a purely stat based one with little room for creative positioning and crowd control (including bosses, like clay golly + decrepify, or feeding an iron maidened boss with golems (or thorns-ed summons))?

[KingOfPain]

So a purely stat based one with little room for creative positioning and crowd control (including bosses, like clay golly + decrepify, or feeding an iron maidened boss with golems (or thorns-ed summons))?

No.
You get no stat points to distribute. All I do upon lvlup was to spend my skill points on your guess is as good as mine at this point. IT IS ALL ABOUT ITEMS just as in D3. The multitude of variety and stats is confusing (of course at first) I never bothered to look at the stats. If Shift-Compare shows me a green number, I equip it.

The character are restricted to use weapons for their classes only - so no bow wielding Sorc. Toons can equip multiple weapons, especially, the Barb can equip up to 4 weapons, and the game will choose which to use based on the skills it uses. That's a good thing. I am thinking, there must be a way to assign your preferred weapon of choice to skills....

There are certain improvements over D3 of course. The tiles are well designed, and the areas are huge, like it would in a MMO. Lots of walking. If the game engine allowed free camera views I would be walking around enjoying many hours of sight seeing; like I did with GuildWars. GW was a beautiful atmospheric game. It was a thinking man's RPG game (too bad it was ruined by Izzy's obsessive balancing for PvP - too much, too often). I still take a stroll with my Pre-Searing character once in a blue moon.

The skills trees is pretty well the same as D3 although it is less linear, you still have that (D3) Skill +couple of Rune effect. Monsters pretty well get all those same annoying Player-Controlling skills, spinning clock laser, walls to trap players, player freezing and mine fields....

I had some fun trying to beat down some bosses, and even died trying. That's probably because at those levels, the game is balanced.
It's like you just got to WSK @ lvl30 with a lvl1 Frozen Orb with not quite enough mana to spam it stage. I am guessing the game gets easier as you lvlup with better skills and items. If the Blizzard's so called endgame trend continues, it would just get even more ridiculously mindless.

People who like a slaughter fest as it is D3, would love D4. It's the same game.... which makes me wonder why it took so long to develop.


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[Boro]

I'm sure ANet purposefully ruined GW1 to nudge players towards GW2.

So far your description of d3.5 isn't too enticing. "It's all about gear" can also be said about Grim Dawn, but there is plenty of gaming around that, and we have stat / skill point allocations.

[KingOfPain]

D4 or D3(n)?

With limited time for gaming, it was my priority to get a character to clvl20 before the Beta ends so I can grab the Beta Rewards. It is no big deal, but why not? That is why I am not going through the game with a fine tooth comb, and why I chose a Baba as a starting toon instead of using a Sorcerer as usual.

Same Weapon system as D3. The weapon system looks a little too much for me to want to spend Beta time on. Note that I am clvl 18 and my best weapon are clvl 2-3. There are a lot of mods (me think over complication) so there can be a great variety of weapons. Variety is a good thing. Too much variety can dilute the chance of getting uberlicious items. And if you can only carry/use a limited amount from the pool.....



The Skill Tree
Different skin but more of less the same as D3. First you get WW, then you can upgrade the skill with Enhanced WW, then Violent WW



And finally, How Artillery Shrine works. Is this not D3?
Artillery Shrine VS Whirlwind



D4 excels in many things and not so much on others, there's fun to be had. I am not going to rate it. All I am say is, it is D3 Resurrected. If you like D3, you will love D4. 


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[KingOfPain]

So I made the mistake of making my first character a Baba to try and lvlup quick. As it turned out, my Sorceress had a much easier time.

As much as I am insisting D4 is D3 Resurrected, I am not dissing the game. I am having fun playing it while it lasts. I mean, D3 was at least fun to run a few characters through. And there were a few memorable moments, specifically for me, I thought the battle fighting the way out of the castle in the beginning of Act3 was epic.

And, D4 has many things that are much improved over D3. Not the huge arse boss monsters that takes forever to kill. I still think that's just stupid in any game. A handful of minutes (at most) giving the boss a pedicure, is enough to test a player's skill or a toon's skills. Anymore than that is just a test of patience.

This one hour long video by Kripp does an awesome job of breaking down the game, making the system more understandable. I enjoyed watching it over a few sessions, and probably re-watch until some of the stuff sinks in. If you are planning to join the open beta, this is well worth the time to watch.





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[Kylearan]

I won't have much time to play the beta unfortunately, but some people on YouTube said D4 is less dependent on items than D3 because skills matter more. Apparently you won't be able to play naked like in D2, but they say at least your character build (skill choices) has much more impact on gameplay than in D3, where items dominated everything.

Would you agree, based on your experience? Although I wonder if this question can really be answered based on the first 25 levels alone...

[KingOfPain]

Not having done a deep dive into the game, I am not sure how I can qualify that. Sure the skills has synergies hidden in some odd places, at least it seems that way right now. It looks to me the itemization of D4 is no less important, what with all the stuff you can (or have to) do to the items you use.
That is even true with D2 post v1.10. Items can more than double the power of the skills.

In a way, those are less important to me personally. Those are just a spreadsheet game. What matters is how the game play and feel. They can change the name of skills, upgrade the graphics but it still plays like D3. Case in point, Whirlwind in D4 has no feel, much less than it does in D2. Still D2 has less feel than D1. Remember how horrifying it was in D1 to be mauled by a lowly hidden as a mage, and how satisfying it was to slash down a squishy hidden? How you can feel your shield is breaking every time you successfully block an attack?

Another example. I can clear the first few areas in D4, grab a few levels, have skills distribution with synergies already, all the while with out caring which skills i picked because I cleaned house plowing through the mobs. And at the beginning levels I can already get shrines that can one hit kill whole mobs. While in D1, I would have been running scare from a couple of skeletons.

The spreadsheet can get super ultra complex for all that matters, they are just numbers, if it all ended up a slaughter fest.... to give people a false sense of skill...

So I wasn't paying much attention to the skills or items as much as how it feels.