One week in, how are you all feeling about Diablo 4?

I've been going at it pretty heavily for the past week - 2 characters at endgame, one in the 50s progressing toward T4

I'm overall very underwhelmed. The game systems feel both extremely convoluted and bloated (why the million different conditional stat types?) while at the same time extremely shallow. Once in T4, there's very little build diversity, and upgrades essentially boil down to various +% damage increases.

The missing QoL is also very painful at the end game. It just seems beyond stupid that the game encourages hoarding aspects and legendaries, but then gives you 4 tabs maximum without any way to search.

To end on a positive note though, they've absolutely nailed the atmosphere, sound design, and moment to moment gameplay (minus the missing density). I was actually super bullish on the game during the opening weekend while progressing through the campaign and starting the endgame, but that's when the major cracks started to show.

So, what are your thoughts?

DarkThoughts,

Still hating the archery skills, which unfortunately confirmed my concerns I had from all the preview videos. Same goes for the overall skill system, which just feels like an even worse one than D3. The open world in general is quite nice, I enjoy some of the side quests, but whenever my character gives some generic response that has a completely different tone it throws me right out of the immersion. NPCs are like all distraught and sad, begging you for help, and you go chirpily "Oooookay! :D". Aspects, uniques and paragon boards are also not really convince me at this point, but I'm just in my early 60s and still can't beat the boss for the dungeon to get me into tier 4, so there's hopefully still some potential for builds that doesn't sound super lame. Horses are garbage. Base speed is too low, they constantly get stuck, there's some sort of dead zone in the UI at the bottom that just stops you - sometimes, and saddling up causes some weird rubber banding issue where you ride in snail speed until you do a little spin around. Managing stored aspects without dismantling them seems painful and is extremely time consuming, but I also can't just throw all of them away either. I hate the story. As predicted Lilith just became a minor cartoon villain, which is a real disappointment. I really hoped we'd ally with her instead and that they'd pull a red herring on us with the initial presentation. Kinda sad, because I really liked her design and voice actress. At least the storytelling isn't as horrid as D3, but we still did dumb shit like (mild spoiler) bragging the soulstone to Inarius or telling Elias about his lack of immortality (we literally could've killed him right then and there, but nooooo we had to tell him…).

I second the atmosphere though, graphically the game is very good, sans some weirdly blurry textures. I'm really glad they didn't go for a cartoon look.

I fear the battlepass & seasons to be honest. Right now it's calm, I don't feel pressured to play the game so I still enjoy it, but when the FOMO kicks in I feel I will lose interest in the game pretty quickly and develop some buyers remorse too. There's likely also going to be some more bullshit monetization coming in the future, if 25€ cosmetics weren't bad enough. And yes, I do care about cosmetics, more than stats even. I'm typically the guy who runs around in sub optimal gear if it means I can unlock some outfit first. Creating outfits out of different parts is something I enjoy greatly and that requires to have a huge pool of options to choose from, which is not possible if you need to be rich to get them all. I also feel that putting outfits in stores incentivizes the developers to make the outfits more ridiculous / over the top, and I personally prefer more the basic looks.

Zeoth,

My partner and I are loving the couch coop. It’s been a great way to unwind after a long day at work by smashing some demons. We are still only level 16 but it’s a blast so far and looking forward to getting through all the game has to offer. Taking our time exploring .

falsem,

The campaign is pretty enjoyable. The story was overall completely serious in tone, which was very welcome after D3, and the world building was great. Getting towards the higher levels and it feels like build diversity might be lacking at the moment but that's all fixable by tweaking numbers.

I'm not sure the pseudo-MMO thing is adding much and there doesn't seem to be much incentive to group with other people or even a way to unless you know them.

DarkThoughts,

I feel there could have been more dynamic world events. Like demons and maybe even angels fighting over areas, including settlements, which players would have to drive out. Think of GW2 open world events. Doesn't make you necessarily group up, but still work together to do them. It's one of the things I thought was pretty well done in GW2, especially as someone who typically plays solo due to anxiety. At least the world bosses and legion events are sort of similar in nature.

satan,

I am only level 30 and taking my time to do all of the side quests, so far I am finding it fine, not great but not terrible. It’s beautiful graphically but a little boring.

I’ve been having issues trying to invite people to or join parties so hopefully that is resolved.

HealGirl,
HealGirl avatar

I’m only level 19 right now but I’ve really been enjoying it. This is my first Diablo game so I have no reference for previous entries. I’m playing necromancer and having lots of fun just sending tons of skelly bois at enemies.

joolz,

The core combat and overall systems design leaves a lot to be desired. The whole builder/spender dynamic in a lot of the play styles, the limit to 6 abilities at a time, the super slow ramp up from low level gameplay… all this shouldn’t be an issue in a modern ARPG. Can’t help but compare D4 to lost ark, poe, etc and think they just didn’t do enough to improve on the formula.

Niccalo,

I'm taking my time, but I'm enjoying it immensely, I'm too busy in my personal life to end rush though.

yunggwailo,
yunggwailo avatar

Ive only played a tiny bit at a friends house but I have to say it is the worst diablo and possibly the worst ARPG ive ever played. If it didnt have stellar production value nobody would be talking about it

degrix,
degrix avatar

I'm really impressed by just about everything that Blizzard has done with Diablo 4. I haven't quite gotten through all of the acts yet, but the atmosphere and class design are fantastic. I do wish they had adopted an online/offline paradigm like Elden Ring so that the game wouldn't be completely unplayable during maintenance instances, but the servers seem to be pretty stable.

myke_tuna,
myke_tuna avatar

Been liking it a lot, but maybe not as much as I had expected. Great game though so far, I just haven't left the areas I've played 3 times already with the betas and server slam. So I'm taking my time with it as Street Fighter 6 also eats up a lot of my gaming life right now.

sgtkwan,

I felt the campaign and open world was a breath of fresh air from other arpg.

Gear doesn't really last that long because you level up pretty fast and higher level gear will have more armor which you need because enemies also level up with you meaning they will hit harder so at the moment its green arrow up put new gear so far at lv 51 so not much thought process on what gear to use since gear power creeps so fast.

Endgame so far is pretty shallow, you run the same dungeons youve been running during the campaign and the hell tide stuff.

Goronmon,

I've really enjoyed the game so far. Though the last Act is interesting in that it had some of my favorite parts of the campaign but also some of the dumbest. Not sure how I feel about the ending either.

But overall I'm pretty impressed. D4 feels more like a sequel to D2 than D3 ever was and the level of polish is great.

The build variety once you start hitting the higher world-tiers had me a bit concerned. With Barbarian it feels like you basically have to go with three shout skills, only leaving room for a couple actual options for skills outside of that. Send the legendary aspects don't seem particularly balanced. But those are all things that they can work on over time, and as the title states, it's only been a week.

lunarshot,
lunarshot avatar

My wife and I played all weekend. We had a lot of fun, I like the new set up. Playing on World Tier 1 for leveling is much more satisfying, which is what the Icy Veins guide recommended.

KarmaBurst,

I’m in the mid 60s on my main and having a blast. I’m not super sweaty when it comes to ARPGs though. I’ve tried to get into PoE several times over the years and always hit a wall before end game even strictly following guides. We’ll see if it has staying power for me when the first couple seasons roll around.

zym0x,

Hitting some walls in PoE is kind of normal, it's supposed to be a hard game. But with some experience you learn how to break through them easily.

Zomg,
Zomg avatar

I've been on the fence about buying it, but all the antics Blizzard has been up to lately are keeping me away. Is it worth it? I'm worried that it'll be microtransaction hell with enough time, and that bothers me.

lp0101,

Depends on what you value in an ARPG.

If you just want to get to a satisfying endgame loop of killing demons, getting loot, and getting upgrades, I wouldn't recommend it. The endgame is pretty dull, and there aren't many interesting avenues for upgrading/building out characters.

QoL is also kinda shit. There's just a bunch of missing basic features that even Diablo 3 has.

However, if all you care about is doing the campaign, exploring the world, etc, then I can probably recommend it. The game has a pretty solid foundation, the gameplay is honestly fun, and the story is decent fun if a bit stupid at times. All this especially if you're playing with a friend.

neonfire,
neonfire avatar

I just can't support Activision-Blizzard anymore. Make me feel gross after the phone Diablo, and OW2. The beta was fun, but it's just not worth the price tag.

Arin,

It sucks how such great developers and artists got held hostage by corporate ownership, first by Vivendi and now activision.

yunggwailo,
yunggwailo avatar

Nope. It is a fundamentally flawed game that likely will take 2-3 years of updating to get to a decent place.

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