Gaming Diablo IV (PS5, PS4, PC, Xbox One, Xbox S|X)

[MadMike]

I'm really loving the enchantment mechanic by the way. But the active ultimate spells were a bit underwhelming so far. Maybe they get better with the additional runes and I could imagine you could make a nice energy build at level 40 or so but at 25 they were a bit disappointing

That's also across all classes basically. Ultimates have long CDs and don't do enough to warrant a spot. They should ideally be a 7th skill, reserved just for the ultimate, but the game is designed for console first and the gamepads don't have enough buttons. It would have to be 5 skills and 1 reserved for the ultimate. And that would be nerfing everyone, as currently normal skills are more valuable than ults.

 

[MadMike]

Hydra's don't really scale off anything though, so will be pretty irrelevant at later levels. From what I heard of closed beta, Barb/Druid are the strongest classes.

What do they mean they don't scale off anything? They scale off your attack power (which is level/gear dependent), off skill level (which is capped, but again, gear can push that cap) and off capstone passives. It scales with everything basically.

 

[Shakesy]

Casting chaos cheers cantankerous cnuts.

Fecking skillful, you are.

So, it's totally worth it? I'm contemplating spending more than I can to get it

 

[do.ob]

I think the sound, visuals and overall atmosphere of the game is quite nice.

But that's about the only good thing I can say about it. I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed.

• The game is dumb. So very dumb. 95% of skill builds will be generator + spender + your class's mobility skill + your defensive skill + a non-spammable damage skill and then to give you complexity you'll have the choice between picking a second defensive skill and a large offensive cooldown.
• But wait, there's more! Yeah you will get to choose between two whole upgrades for each skill!
• I know it's a low level beta, but playing on the more difficult setting of the two I still didn't manage to drop below 50% hp.
• Combat being slow as feck doesn't exactly make the easy mode gameplay more appealing.
• Dungeons became bland after the third one. Generic objectives, some of them with backtracking even, low density, 0% challenge, 0% fun, 100% mindless...
• The open world looks pretty generic in a lot of places, yet a significant amount of time will be spent moving from a to b to c within it.
• Between world quests and the fact that players will get a mount I can already tell you that lots of the gameplay loop will be spent with mind numbing busy work, running around 1-shotting some shitty mobs to get some resource to gamble away.

I didn't expect PoE levels of depth, but this is like a poor version of Last Epoch.

Will still buy and play it of course, because too many people I know are going to buy it. Hehe.

 

[Godfather]

I expect some nerfs on Necro before live, or at least some items related to Necro, but it's basically a very well designed class in every aspect. From looks, itemisation, gameplay, unique mechanics... the lot. It was the most fun class for me to play, even without the things that made it broken in beta. So it will be a blast I'm sure.



The minions were not the problem, they're pretty balanced. Might even need a buff at higher levels.

It was a combination of two skills and a legendary item that made the class broken in the beta tests. Basically your highest damage skill as Necro is Corpse Explosion which makes a corpse explode for high AoE damage. Then there's a defensive skill called Blood Mist which makes you invulnerable to any damage and CC for 3 seconds.

And then they added a legendary item perk which makes Bloody Mist explode nearby corpses while also reducing Blood Mist's cooldown, turning a defensive skill into an offensive skill.

If you configured the rest of your build to create the maximum amount of corpses, you could basically reduce the cooldown enough to stay in Blood Mist all the time during combat. Dealing extremely high AoE damage while taking 0 damage yourself.

Watch a 30 second clip of someone just Misting around and clearing an event.


I expect the item to be removed or changed before live, if they have any sense. But Necro played impressively well even without that.

Very cool thanks for heads up. I cannot wait (with or without that item). Letting bodies explode for AoE damage is way to cool to let it pass. I'm so going for the Necro.

 

[Shakesy]

I think the sound, visuals and overall atmosphere of the game is quite nice.

But that's about the only good thing I can say about it. I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed.

• The game is dumb. So very dumb. 95% of skill builds will be generator + spender + your class's mobility skill + your defensive skill + a non-spammable damage skill and then to give you complexity you'll have the choice between picking a second defensive skill and a large offensive cooldown.
• But wait, there's more! Yeah you will get to choose between two whole upgrades for each skill!
• I know it's a low level beta, but playing on the more difficult setting of the two I still didn't manage to drop below 50% hp.
• Combat being slow as feck doesn't exactly make the easy mode gameplay more appealing.
• Dungeons became bland after the third one. Generic objectives, some of them with backtracking even, low density, 0% challenge, 0% fun, 100% mindless...
• The open world looks pretty generic in a lot of places, yet a significant amount of time will be spent moving from a to b to c within it.
• Between world quests and the fact that players will get a mount I can already tell you that lots of the gameplay loop will be spent with mind numbing busy work, running around 1-shotting some shitty mobs to get some resource to gamble away.

I didn't expect PoE levels of depth, but this is like a poor version of Last Epoch.

Will still buy and play it of course, because too many people I know are going to buy it. Hehe.

According to you, what is the best game out there that is similar to DIV?

 

[do.ob]

According to you, what is the best game out there that is similar to DIV?

PoE is the best ARPG I have played, but to be fair to D4 it has many years of (post-release) development as a head start.
Last Epoch however is still in beta and developed by a small indie company and looked a lot more promising than D4 to me in terms of actual gameplay.

 

[elmo]

I think the sound, visuals and overall atmosphere of the game is quite nice.

But that's about the only good thing I can say about it. I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed.

• The game is dumb. So very dumb. 95% of skill builds will be generator + spender + your class's mobility skill + your defensive skill + a non-spammable damage skill and then to give you complexity you'll have the choice between picking a second defensive skill and a large offensive cooldown.
• But wait, there's more! Yeah you will get to choose between two whole upgrades for each skill!
• I know it's a low level beta, but playing on the more difficult setting of the two I still didn't manage to drop below 50% hp.
• Combat being slow as feck doesn't exactly make the easy mode gameplay more appealing.
• Dungeons became bland after the third one. Generic objectives, some of them with backtracking even, low density, 0% challenge, 0% fun, 100% mindless...
• The open world looks pretty generic in a lot of places, yet a significant amount of time will be spent moving from a to b to c within it.
• Between world quests and the fact that players will get a mount I can already tell you that lots of the gameplay loop will be spent with mind numbing busy work, running around 1-shotting some shitty mobs to get some resource to gamble away.

I didn't expect PoE levels of depth, but this is like a poor version of Last Epoch.

Will still buy and play it of course, because too many people I know are going to buy it. Hehe.

So Diablo immortal but on pc?

 

[do.ob]

So Diablo immortal but on pc?

I guess it'll be a bit more complex and it supposedly won't give you a power level advantage for real life money, but I definitely got DI vibe from it.

 

[Shakesy]

PoE is the best ARPG I have played, but to be fair to D4 it has many years of (post-release) development as a head start.
Last Epoch however is still in beta and developed by a small indie company and looked a lot more promising than D4 to me in terms of actual gameplay.

Ah, thanks! I wanna get into a game like this, so I think I'll give POE a go

 

[do.ob]

Ah, thanks! I wanna get into a game like this, so I think I'll give POE a go

The game has layered game mechanic upon game mechanic for many years, so it only makes sense if you're motivated to spend a lot of time getting up to speed.

This guy makes build guides that don't bait people and are rather beginner friendly (as in strong defensively and functioning on low(er) budget: https://www.youtube.com/@Zizaran - unless he says otherwise.

 

[redcucumber]

The game has layered game mechanic upon game mechanic for many years, so it only makes sense if you're motivated to spend a lot of time getting up to speed.

This guy makes build guides that don't bait people and are rather beginner friendly (as in strong defensively and functioning on low(er) budget: https://www.youtube.com/@Zizaran - unless he says otherwise.

This is why Diablo 4 appeals to me. I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to just getting up to speed on a game, unfortunately. I really enjoyed the beta over the weekend, got my character to level 24 and was fully invested in the story, ambience and skill development of the game, without having to overly apply myself.

 

[caid]

I think the sound, visuals and overall atmosphere of the game is quite nice.

But that's about the only good thing I can say about it. I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed.

• The game is dumb. So very dumb. 95% of skill builds will be generator + spender + your class's mobility skill + your defensive skill + a non-spammable damage skill and then to give you complexity you'll have the choice between picking a second defensive skill and a large offensive cooldown.
• But wait, there's more! Yeah you will get to choose between two whole upgrades for each skill!
• I know it's a low level beta, but playing on the more difficult setting of the two I still didn't manage to drop below 50% hp.
• Combat being slow as feck doesn't exactly make the easy mode gameplay more appealing.
• Dungeons became bland after the third one. Generic objectives, some of them with backtracking even, low density, 0% challenge, 0% fun, 100% mindless...
• The open world looks pretty generic in a lot of places, yet a significant amount of time will be spent moving from a to b to c within it.
• Between world quests and the fact that players will get a mount I can already tell you that lots of the gameplay loop will be spent with mind numbing busy work, running around 1-shotting some shitty mobs to get some resource to gamble away.

I didn't expect PoE levels of depth, but this is like a poor version of Last Epoch.

Will still buy and play it of course, because too many people I know are going to buy it. Hehe.

Didn't play enough to have a firm opinion but had the same impression. Nice production values as you say but pretty run of the mill.

 

[do.ob]

This is why Diablo 4 appeals to me. I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to just getting up to speed on a game, unfortunately. I really enjoyed the beta over the weekend, got my character to level 24 and was fully invested in the story, ambience and skill development of the game, without having to overly apply myself.

D4 is still going to be a massive time sink though? Just that most of the content will be walk to x to fight a wet noodle. Then walk to y and two-shot 20 mobs to collect some questitems. Then do a dungeon and walk through it 5 times, because you have to kill all the monsters, every last one, before you're allowed to kill the end boss in 10 seconds.

 

[redcucumber]

D4 is still going to be a massive time sink though? Just that most of the content will be walk to x to fight a wet noodle. Then do a dungeon and walk through it 5 times, because you have to kill all the monsters.

How so? It's extremely easy to get to grips with, you can jump in and out easy enough without feeling like you need a refresher on how things work, you don't need to dedicate loads of time getting up to speed etc. It's a time sink if you want it to be, just like literally any other game is. I also enjoy the content, it obviously doesn't appeal to you.

 

[do.ob]

How so? It's extremely easy to get to grips with, you can jump in and out easy enough without feeling like you need a refresher on how things work, you don't need to dedicate loads of time getting up to speed etc. It's a time sink if you want it to be, just like literally any other game is. I also enjoy the content, it obviously doesn't appeal to you.

Because ARPGs are built on character progression which is built on grinding stuff and the beta is already showing us that they will further slow down the gameplay progression loop, for example by making your run around between content or punishing you for leveling up.

 

[Smores]

Must admit I'm not that taken with it but then I was always meh on other Diablo.

Beta has been fun but feel like thats basically as much as I need to see. Shallow story, combat isn't skillful and its just a grind.

Divinity Original Sins puts it to shame really even if that was a different type of mechanic.

 

[elmo]

It’s been so long since D3 released but some of the old streamers are still playing it

Hopefully alkaizer and quin will start streaming d4 when it’s finally released.

 

[elmo]

D4 is still going to be a massive time sink though? Just that most of the content will be walk to x to fight a wet noodle. Then walk to y and two-shot 20 mobs to collect some questitems. Then do a dungeon and walk through it 5 times, because you have to kill all the monsters, every last one, before you're allowed to kill the end boss in 10 seconds.

That’s just gaming in general.

 

[redcucumber]

Because ARPGs are built on character progression which is built on grinding stuff and the beta is already showing us that they will further slow down the gameplay progression loop, for example by making your run around between content or punishing you for leveling up.

I'm a casual gamer that'll drop in and out and play with friends. I'm quite content with arsing around between content. There's more than enough to keep me happy for fecking ages and not get bored.

 

[Moby]

It’s been so long since D3 released but some of the old streamers are still playing it

If I could play D2 right now I would.

 

[Simbo]

What do they mean they don't scale off anything? They scale off your attack power (which is level/gear dependent), off skill level (which is capped, but again, gear can push that cap) and off capstone passives. It scales with everything basically.

True, they do fire damage though which not many sorcs are going to be putting skill points/gear into buffing. Fire passives totally suck compared to the other tree's, including the capstone options. It's gunna fall off as more points become available. I imagine the burn mechanic might do well vs tough bosses, but for the other 99% of the game, not so much.

 

[Zarlak]

Hopefully it's an improvement on D3, and has taken lessons from PoE about how to be great.

 

[MadMike]

I think the sound, visuals and overall atmosphere of the game is quite nice.

But that's about the only good thing I can say about it. I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed.

• The game is dumb. So very dumb. 95% of skill builds will be generator + spender + your class's mobility skill + your defensive skill + a non-spammable damage skill and then to give you complexity you'll have the choice between picking a second defensive skill and a large offensive cooldown.
• But wait, there's more! Yeah you will get to choose between two whole upgrades for each skill!
• I know it's a low level beta, but playing on the more difficult setting of the two I still didn't manage to drop below 50% hp.
• Combat being slow as feck doesn't exactly make the easy mode gameplay more appealing.
• Dungeons became bland after the third one. Generic objectives, some of them with backtracking even, low density, 0% challenge, 0% fun, 100% mindless...
• The open world looks pretty generic in a lot of places, yet a significant amount of time will be spent moving from a to b to c within it.
• Between world quests and the fact that players will get a mount I can already tell you that lots of the gameplay loop will be spent with mind numbing busy work, running around 1-shotting some shitty mobs to get some resource to gamble away.

I didn't expect PoE levels of depth, but this is like a poor version of Last Epoch.

Will still buy and play it of course, because too many people I know are going to buy it. Hehe.

Mostly overblown criticism imo.

Probably 9.5/10 RPGs have only 1 or 2 mods per skill and about 20 skills to choose from. When you have only six skills available on a bar (and that’s the maximum you can fit in a console gamepad) you are absolutely going to have a one of mobility, defence, resource, spammable spender and crowd control or ult skills. It feels like you’re criticising the genre more than the game.

The difficulty of the mobs can pretty easily be adjusted. They already have different difficulty levels and they had a lot of feedback that Veteran level was way to easy for 3/5 classes.

Diablo isn’t meant to be PoE. It appears to a broader audience. It’s a more simple casual game. Not too many layered mechanics. I bet more than 3/4 of the players will buy to play only the story line and do some co-op events. Its a generic ARPG mechanics-wise, who’s biggest selling point is the polish of the graphics, cinematics and storyline.

Only significant let down for me is the repetitive dungeon design and the fact that mobs don’t respawn so you end up looping back and traversing dungeon terrain that is empty most of the time. That is bad.

 

[Zehner]

Mostly overblown criticism imo.

Probably 9.5/10 RPGs have only 1 or 2 mods per skill and about 20 skills to choose from. When you have only six skills available on a bar (and that’s the maximum you can fit in a console gamepad) you are absolutely going to have a one of mobility, defence, resource, spammable spender and crowd control or ult skills. It feels like you’re criticising the genre more than the game.

The difficulty of the mobs can pretty easily be adjusted. They already have different difficulty levels and they had a lot of feedback that Veteran level was way to easy for 3/5 classes.

Diablo isn’t meant to be PoE. It appears to a broader audience. It’s a more simple casual game. Not too many layered mechanics. I bet more than 3/4 of the players will buy to play only the story line and do some co-op events. Its a generic ARPG mechanics-wise, who’s biggest selling point is the polish of the graphics, cinematics and storyline.

Only significant let down for me is the repetitive dungeon design and the fact that mobs don’t respawn so you end up looping back and traversing dungeon terrain that is empty most of the time. That is bad.

I was pretty active during the first few seasons of D3, also in the official forums etc. And when the wizard was pretty shit in the beginning and you could only kite with hydras, orb and that defensive skill that made you survive two hits even if the enemy one shotted you (and every mob did in higher difficulties), people complained non stop that this wasn't hack'n'slay, that their character felt so weak, that Diablo was all about slaughtering countless enemies, etc. I guess you just can't make everybody happy.

For me, Diablo is a hack'n'slay and I play it while laying back in a chair and at times I watch something while playing. I like to think about builds and find synergies but I was completely fine with the level of depth so far. Doesn't mean I'm not into very complex gameplay, I've spent hundreds of hours playing Civilization for instance, and I've probably spent even more hours in very skill oriented games. But it probably comes down to what xou're expecting.

 

[do.ob]

Mostly overblown criticism imo.

Probably 9.5/10 RPGs have only 1 or 2 mods per skill and about 20 skills to choose from. When you have only six skills available on a bar (and that’s the maximum you can fit in a console gamepad) you are absolutely going to have a one of mobility, defence, resource, spammable spender and crowd control or ult skills. It feels like you’re criticising the genre more than the game.

Off the top of my head I can think of three that don't (PoE, LE and even D3), so what are the 57 games that make up the other 95%?

And "we dumbed down the game to fit it on gamepads, so we can sell more PS5 copies" might make sense economically for Blizzard, but it doesn't make the game any better for me as a user, does it? Other games may not have dozens of buttons to press either, and they don't need to, but D4's template seems especially narrow and static to me.

The difficulty of the mobs can pretty easily be adjusted. They already have different difficulty levels and they had a lot of feedback that Veteran level was way to easy for 3/5 classes.

I can only judge what I have seen for myself, not what Blizzard may or may not do in the future.

Diablo isn’t meant to be PoE. It appears to a broader audience. It’s a more simple casual game. Not too many layered mechanics. I bet more than 3/4 of the players will buy to play only the story line and do some co-op events. Its a generic ARPG mechanics-wise, who’s biggest selling point is the polish of the graphics, cinematics and storyline.

Only significant let down for me is the repetitive dungeon design and the fact that mobs don’t respawn so you end up looping back and traversing dungeon terrain that is empty most of the time. That is bad.

It's fine if people want to only play the campaign, but I speak from a different perspective, because I'm interested in the endgame.

 

[elmo]

Off the top of my head I can think of three that don't (PoE, LE and even D3), so what are the 57 games that make up the other 95%?

And "we dumbed down the game to fit it on gamepads, so we can sell more PS5 copies" might make sense economically for Blizzard, but it doesn't make the game any better for me as a user, does it? Other games may not have dozens of buttons to press either, and they don't need to, but D4's template seems especially narrow and static to me.



I can only judge what I have seen for myself, not what Blizzard may or may not do in the future.



It's fine if people want to only play the campaign, but I speak from a different perspective, because I'm interested in the endgame.

It’s Diablo, the grind is the end game.

 

[do.ob]

It’s Diablo, the grind is the end game.

Are all grinds the same?
For example on one hand you have D3, pretty shallow game, but I think it's fun to play a season every now and then, because they cut away most of the BS and you can just blast through the (G)rifts for two or three days and be done
On the other hand you have PoE with all its complexity and ways to customize the endgame experience to be how you like it to be

Then you have D4, which looks like its endgame will be: "ride your pony to a, b and c" or "cover that boring ass dungeon two to three times over before the boss spawns".

 

[elmo]

Are all grinds the same?
For example on one hand you have D3, pretty shallow game, but I think it's fun to play a season every now and then, because they cut away most of the BS and you can just blast through the (G)rifts for two or three days and be done
On the other hand you have PoE with all its complexity and ways to customize the endgame experience to be how you like it to be

Then you have D4, which looks like its endgame will be: "ride your pony to a, b and c" or "cover that boring ass dungeon two to three times over before the boss spawns".

You’re complaining about the game’s final product when your only experience is a beta

 

[do.ob]

You’re complaining about the game’s final product when your only experience is a beta

As far as I'm aware the endgame is supposed to be nightmare dungeons. I've seen dungeons, they are terrible and least of all, because of numbers tuning.

I've also seen "open world" content before.

 

[Simbo]

Things we haven't seen yet / endgame:
Gear: Unique/Sacred/Ancestral items.
Roaming 'champion' mobs
3 higher difficulty world tiers. Sigils/Nightmare seals unlocking further levels of nightmare difficulty dungeons, mobs & bosses given extra/different abilities, etc. Sounds like these probably have infinite difficulty, as you unlock higher level seals.
World quest system they are calling 'Whispers of the Dead' feeding you quests/challenges to do for scaling rewards. Negative penalties if you fail the quest.
Dungeons - They've said that dungeons will vary according to the area its in, so all in the beta area are pretty much the same. Will be more variety elsewhere in the world, but probably similar mechanics...
Helltide Events - Looks like these transform entire regions to some sort of open world Dungeon for you to complete.
PvP, with its own currency and rewards.
Paragon Boards - Will add a bunch of customisation and synergies to classes. Done in a way Blizz can expand on these forever basically, adding new boards.

Dunno if I'm missing anything, but does seem a bit limited to me. Depends on how entertained people are by chasing higher nightmare seals and pushing leaderboards.

However, seasons will supposedly be adding most of the endgame content. New questlines, gameplay features and god knows what else. The game at release is going to be a basic template pretty much, that they'll build on over the years. They literally don't want to release a perfect game on release, despite all the criticisms and feedback.

 

[Hamnat]

‘Diablo 4’ Announces Surprise Third ‘Server Slam’ Beta, Here’s When It Starts

The Server Slam third beta dates: May 12-14

So, essentially everything is the same this time with a few important differences. Same classes, same story progression, same zone progression, same level cap at 20. However:

Legendary drop rates will not be inflated this time so you can see how they will actually feel at lower levels.

24 hours after the beta starts (May 13 at 9 AM) Ashava the world boss will spawn every three hours starting at 9 AM PDT. Now if you beat Ashava with a level 20 character before the Server Slam ends, you will be granted a Cry of Ashava Mount Trophy, which appears to be Ashava’s horn attached to the ass of your horse. It’s not the horse itself.

 

[KirkDuyt]

One of my friends wrote the review for the Dutch IGN and is giving it a 9.5. Says it's brilliant.

 

[Edgar Allan Pillow]

I'll get my new laptop this Thursday, right on time for this.

 

[caid]

One of my friends wrote the review for the Dutch IGN and is giving it a 9.5. Says it's brilliant.

Is the whole monetisation aspect settled or official yet? Or is he just reviewing the game independent of that? Sounds promising regardless

 

[KirkDuyt]

Is the whole monetisation aspect settled or official yet? Or is he just reviewing the game independent of that? Sounds promising regardless

Don't know actually, he just mentioned the score he gave it.

 

[balaks]

My body is ready

 

[weetee]

My body is ready

Same.

Still got one week off so today I couldn’t resist to pre-order so I can have early access a couple of days sooner..I don‘t care for stuff like this regularly but the first beta (?) / demo got me totally hooked.

 

[El-Manos]

Always played it on pc but was thinking of switching to ps5 now

 

[GaryLifo]

I've buckled and bought the version that gives early access... shame on me, but I just love these games