Beta signup Diablo 4

[Nilinor]

Good to see they are keeping the Diablo theme going.

They need to watch the Carbot D2 series :P

Sorceress does everything lol

[korijenkins]

This feels like a massive step backwards after D3 tbh.

Granted there's like 25 more levels but, I'm not impressed.

It's nice that someone here isn't just blindly fellating the beta. The skill tree and scaling enemies are a brutal experience. You have essentially nothing to look forward to on leveling up other than, most likely, a very boring talent, and you never feel as if you're gaining meaningful power when the mobs continue to grow with you in the campaign.

It wouldn't be a problem normally, but alas, everyone and their uncle has decided the key to success is to slap open world onto whatever game they're making, which necessitated the scaling enemies. Also a minor pet peeve in how quickly we started encountering more powerful demons in the game. I enjoyed how D3 treated it, with enemies in the early game being mostly weaker demons and generic skeletons, and enemies in acts 3 and 4 being the more powerful, higher ranked ones.

Idk, I'm moving into "hope the other 75 levels rescue the game" mode because 1-25 was not impressive in the slightest, and as a few have said, this is what they WANTED you to see. The complete lack of ability customization in the skill tree, and the fact that you can look ahead to see it (and paragon tree is already known) doesn't instill confidence. D3's ability rune system was much better.

[Beastiel]

Really blown away by their commitment to atmosphere this time around. No giant glowing elites, no mobs that shoot homing missiles, ground effects that aren't so absurd, actual music. Really some of the most immersive stuff blizzard has put out.

Can't say much about the rest of the gameplay though. Combat is just so bland and bog standard, even just comparing it to the act 1's of other games. Every single boss fight just feels like such a slog, even the ones where dying is an actual possibility.

[Nymrohd]

I am sure most who have played an ARPG before would agree that the default difficulty is too easy. Veteran (whatever its called) feels about right for starter difficulty from most feedback I have seen online and in-game.

I think it's nice they have a real easy mode as well. Simply doing the campaign and then clearing every zone seems like well over 80 hours of gameplay so people could play the game for the world and the story if they want to.

[RH92]

So I've played the game a bit this weekend and I got to say I am not impressed. I actually cancelled my pre-order this morning. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game but nothing spectacular by any means and I feel like I can do better with my time going forward.

Gameplay was obviously good. Combat felt fluid and responsive as is a standard for Diablo game. Personally I really enjoyed the landscaping with all the climb up, down and jumping across the cliffs. It really made the dungeons much less streamlined (but I would suggest hiding it on mini-map unless you discover it). However there were not enough monsters to slay in my opinion, most of the time I felt like I was just running around searching for enemies.

Talent builds though? I didn't actually feel like there was much diversity, very few synergies tied to specific flavor. Because of that I actually enjoyed playing Barbarian the most because I felt l could combine their skills whatever the way I wanted. Maybe it was me, but I also felt like gaining a talent point wasn't much of a big deal. Just a small alteration, it never changed the way I want to use the ability.

Itemization is okay I guess, hard to tell on low level but legendaries were hit or miss.

Story was top notch when it comes to atmosphere and vibe. The actual story however was overly slow paced in my opinion and way too... How do I say it, streamlined I guess. I was just doing what they told me to do and there was nothing along the way that would expand on main story itself. The side quests felt like random WoW quests where you help them with whatever mundane task they ask you.

I don't know, it was rather strange experience. You get this high octane combat that is fun but everything else is designed in order to slow you down. And I just didn't enjoy the contradiction.

[KrayZ33]

It's nice that someone here isn't just blindly fellating the beta. The skill tree and scaling enemies are a brutal experience. You have essentially nothing to look forward to on leveling up other than, most likely, a very boring talent, and you never feel as if you're gaining meaningful power when the mobs continue to grow with you in the campaign.

It wouldn't be a problem normally, but alas, everyone and their uncle has decided the key to success is to slap open world onto whatever game they're making, which necessitated the scaling enemies. Also a minor pet peeve in how quickly we started encountering more powerful demons in the game. I enjoyed how D3 treated it, with enemies in the early game being mostly weaker demons and generic skeletons, and enemies in acts 3 and 4 being the more powerful, higher ranked ones.

Idk, I'm moving into "hope the other 75 levels rescue the game" mode because 1-25 was not impressive in the slightest, and as a few have said, this is what they WANTED you to see. The complete lack of ability customization in the skill tree, and the fact that you can look ahead to see it (and paragon tree is already known) doesn't instill confidence. D3's ability rune system was much better.

I do also enjoy D3 and have always been on the side that defended the rune system.

What I dislike the most in in D4 is the number of skills you can actually use. The only reason to pick more than 1 basic, 1 core (or 2 cores if equipment allows to ignore basics) and 4 skills is if you are too lazy/poor/whatever to respec.
Every point after unlocking your ultimate will be spent on passives. +Ranks of ablities you don't own on equipment have no meaning, because you don't have room to select the skills. That's completely different from what they said they can be used for when they introduced them (back again). I can understand WHY this is the case. Rogue has so many skills that essentially increase survivability and movement that they, by themselves, are worth picking up over passives or skill levels - but since you can't use them you don't pick them.

I wonder if consoles are to blame for that, but even consoles could use a button to switch the hotbars back and forth.


I disagree with the mindset that you are not gaining meaningful power though.
Your gear and new skill unlocks outscale the enemy power they get from a simple level up. It's not much different from D3.
The scaling is based on character level, not gear power (which would be a different thing).

What I don't understand however is why you say:

The complete lack of ability customization in the skill tree

how is it completely lacking? Every skill has 3 enhancements of which 2 are exclusive to each other and just by glancing over it I saw different reasons for picking them.
Build diversity shouldn't be a problem and abilities are customized according to your build.

It's not completely lacking, it's just "less" than D3's rune system, although realistically, even D3's rune system didn't actually use every rune but it had the "benefit" of adding elemental damage to the skill which might lead you to pick a certain "version" of the skill you would normally not do.


edit: another **big** issue in D4 is going to be the season system.
Yeah... sure... I'm certain that I want to click all the Lilith statues and explore every region again every 3 months... (so that you get mandatory skill points and paragon points)
MMO progression-systems and including seasons, that kinda tells me Blizzard, once again, doesn't know what the hell they are doing.

The "world boss" idea is flipping stupid as well. I'm getting Lost Ark vibes here.
be online at XX:XX on day Y or you are missing out on 4-16 legendaries. Not sure why it had to be different from WoW, their very own game.

[RH92]

edit: another **big** issue in D4 is going to be the season system.
Yeah... sure... I'm certain that I want to click all the Lilith statues and explore every region again every 3 months... (so that you get mandatory skill points and paragon points)
MMO progression-systems and including seasons, that kinda tells me Blizzard, once again, doesn't know what the hell they are doing.

The "world boss" idea is flipping stupid as well. I'm getting Lost Ark vibes here.
be online at XX:XX on day Y or you are missing out on 4-16 legendaries. Not sure why it had to be different from WoW, their very own game.

Agree with that take. I for one dreaded the always online aspect and the only time I saw other players was in towns and during events.

Can't say I liked it but I was glad it didn't bother me. However as you are saying, the seasons will be tied to this and honestly I find the world events and bosses quite dull. It's not designed to be engaging, it's just overtuned numbers so multiple players have to parcitipate in order to complete them. Mechanically it's just not fun. Eventually it will all become a chore like the dailies and then world quests did in WoW.

But then again, I think I am probably a dinosaur by this point. Maybe that's what young players want.

[Orby]

I hope the game has more customization options on release. Kinda sad that Diablo: Immortals customisation is far superior than Diablo IV so far. So maybe I put it down to beta restrictions.

One thing I wanna praise is the soundtrack. Blizzard going back to more ambiance music style was great, and has given me some of the best Blizzard music I have heard since.... probably WotLK. Now maybe its because I am a sucker for ambient music, but I sure as hell felt immersed.

also the art team killed it, loved the worlds, especially in the towns, everything looks so lived in and worn. Reminded me a lot of diablo 2 art style which had a similar feeling around town areas, like Lut Gholein or Harrogath

Only sad thing is, this version of the game doesn't feature the monetization. If it was to release like this: Game of the year, easily. But I know once all that monetization is added to the game its gonna drag everything down. Its a shame too, because as the beta is, the passion is right there. Its a shame they cannot release a version with no monetization lol. I guess the end game is really where the monetization really starts hitting you.

[Mamut]

As a sorc, get a +1 to Hydra count legendary, set Fireball Enchantment. Put points in both.

See it annihilate whole rooms with 2 button presses from a screen away. It's practically Rogue Twisting Blades build only with 5 times the area and 30.times the range.

And that's not the only OP build for sorc already.

I saw some dude using lightning build with firebal enchant and he was destroying whole packs. Got me interested builds but I dont know how he distributed points.

[Daedius]

Only just realised after re-watching the Intro cinematic the Barbarian in it is a woman despite looking like Christopher Walken...

Speaking of which, playing the Barbarian they have it a lot tougher taking damage compared to ranged. Trying a Bleed setup.

Prefer my Bow+Trap Rogue... just hope there'll be a way to make the area of traps larger, currently using Caltrops , with Chill, on top of traps to keep enemies it in to take more damage. Can melt bosses and elites with it.

[ParanoiD84]

Sorcerer is so above and beyond the other classes atleast at these low levels just take hydra and chain lightning with the Rune that makes it do more damage if it bounces of you for single target, even bosses like the spider that i had a rough time with on my 25 Rogue was very easy on the sorc.

[Gaidax]

I saw some dude using lightning build with firebal enchant and he was destroying whole packs. Got me interested builds but I dont know how he distributed points.

Yes Fireball Enchant is the key really and all you need to do is just slot it and it will blow everything up to bits. It's like Sorc version of corpse explosion, but passive.

As for other skill to go for - Hydra easily. Nothing else compares to that damage output.

The rest is fluff - you can do whatever. There are some really good combinations with enchants and passives, but we just don't have the points for it all at the moment. That said I am pretty hyped that with this limited amount of points we already can go ahead and do nuclear carpet bombing builds that make everything blow up. Very satisfying.

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The "world boss" idea is flipping stupid as well. I'm getting Lost Ark vibes here.
be online at XX:XX on day Y or you are missing out on 4-16 legendaries. Not sure why it had to be different from WoW, their very own game.

D4 overall seems to take quite a few Lost Ark ideas and I like it.

World Boss was pretty cool and I hope they do more with those. I absolutely don't mind timer events in moderation, like let's say 1/5 of stuff daily you do in Lost Ark + their calendar to track it would be great.

Mokoko See... I mean Lilith Shrines tho - I REALLY hope they will make it one and done thing for seasons. They missed a mark there - Mokoko Seeds were 95% cosmetic, the remaining 5% of power was by collecting just a first few. Lilith Shrines on the other hand 100% power, bad decision, IMO.

I also hope they take another page off Lost Ark book and make a few actual engaging dungeons. Heck even Diablo Immortal has better dungeons.

And I do hope Blizz will make raids too, but probably they won't because Diablo community will be screeching murder about defiling the sanctity of their ARPG.

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Sorcerer is so above and beyond the other classes atleast at these low levels just take hydra and chain lightning with the Rune that makes it do more damage if it bounces of you for single target, even bosses like the spider that i had a rough time with on my 25 Rogue was very easy on the sorc.

Yes sorc pumps. I leveled Sorc first and then Rogue and Rogue is not even close despite having its own Twisting Blades lego + Shadow Infusion memes.

Sorc does all that, but from a screen away range while drinking tea and watching some streams.

[Darkarath]

Only sad thing is, this version of the game doesn't feature the monetization. If it was to release like this: Game of the year, easily. But I know once all that monetization is added to the game its gonna drag everything down. Its a shame too, because as the beta is, the passion is right there. Its a shame they cannot release a version with no monetization lol. I guess the end game is really where the monetization really starts hitting you.

I have not play the game yet and I REALLY hope that you are right but... Game of the Year? Diablo 4? I do not think that after playing just one act about a game that is all about endgame one can make such an statement. I am reading and watching a lot of media about the game because I am VERY interested in it, and they are very mixed for the moment. I would have a better idea when I play it but for now it seems that is going to be another D3 in the sense that it will need an expansion and a lot of patching to be a game that keeps you playing for years.

[chiddie]

Yes Fireball Enchant is the key really and all you need to do is just slot it and it will blow everything up to bits. It's like Sorc version of corpse explosion, but passive.

As for other skill to go for - Hydra easily. Nothing else compares to that damage output.

The rest is fluff - you can do whatever. There are some really good combinations with enchants and passives, but we just don't have the points for it all at the moment. That said I am pretty hyped that with this limited amount of points we already can go ahead and do nuclear carpet bombing builds that make everything blow up. Very satisfying.

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D4 overall seems to take quite a few Lost Ark ideas and I like it.

World Boss was pretty cool and I hope they do more with those. I absolutely don't mind timer events in moderation, like let's say 1/5 of stuff daily you do in Lost Ark + their calendar to track it would be great.

Mokoko See... I mean Lilith Shrines tho - I REALLY hope they will make it one and done thing for seasons. They missed a mark there - Mokoko Seeds were 95% cosmetic, the remaining 5% of power was by collecting just a first few. Lilith Shrines on the other hand 100% power, bad decision, IMO.

I also hope they take another page off Lost Ark book and make a few actual engaging dungeons. Heck even Diablo Immortal has better dungeons.

And I do hope Blizz will make raids too, but probably they won't because Diablo community will be screeching murder about defiling the sanctity of their ARPG.

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Yes sorc pumps. I leveled Sorc first and then Rogue and Rogue is not even close despite having its own Twisting Blades lego + Shadow Infusion memes.

Sorc does all that, but from a screen away range while drinking tea and watching some streams.

They can do even 1000 ppl raid, as long as there’s no exclusive loot power wise they can add all the multiplayer crap they want.

ARPG players are against loot tied behind group activities, not against group activities per se.

I’ve always been told to go to Diablo if I wanted single player loot equal to group loot, now I can say “go to WoW if you want M+/raid loot system”.

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I have not play the game yet and I REALLY hope that you are right but... Game of the Year? Diablo 4? I do not think that after playing just one act about a game that is all about endgame one can make such an statement. I am reading and watching a lot of media about the game because I am VERY interested in it, and they are very mixed for the moment. I would have a better idea when I play it but for now it seems that is going to be another D3 in the sense that it will need an expansion and a lot of patching to be a game that keeps you playing for years.

Endgame loop is important, but the huge effort they put in the story, the graphics and the sound is undeniable. It’s really immersive.

Unless you are a blaster, the campaign will easily be 40-50 hours.

[Mamut]

Im leveling sorc now after getting rogue to level 25 and its just way more fun. Damage is insane with the chain lightning and hydra and I just got legendary staff that leaves ice spikes while ice armour is active. So I can use the ice armor and walk through pack while the spikes explode and kill them.

I did not really liked the bow build on rogue, I enjoyed much more the explody twisting blades and it was strong build but on bosses I felt too dependant on clone CD to do big chunk of damage. Did not really tried trap builds but that could also be interesting.

Next beta gonna try necro and druid, Im not interested in barb at all. I think I will have hard choice between necro and sorc tho.

[Orby]

I have not play the game yet and I REALLY hope that you are right but... Game of the Year? Diablo 4? I do not think that after playing just one act about a game that is all about endgame one can make such an statement. I am reading and watching a lot of media about the game because I am VERY interested in it, and they are very mixed for the moment. I would have a better idea when I play it but for now it seems that is going to be another D3 in the sense that it will need an expansion and a lot of patching to be a game that keeps you playing for years.

I mean I am very reserved. And always sceptical especially on Blizzard games post 2010. I wont spoil the opening of D4 for those who don't want spoilers but it felt very Resident Evil 7/8 but yet remained the dark and gritty style of Diablo that I loved.

I don't think the game feels very Diablo 3... but I also do not think it completely returns to the Diablo 2 feel. I do think if its between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. Its got pieces of both in different aspects. Even the story tones back the high fantasy of 3 and gives us more the gothic dark fantasy of Diablo 2. But at the same time, there is some writing and dialogue that does come off very Diablo 3 at times. But the music/score for sure returns to the Diablo 2 aesthetic of ambient sounds. I have heard some people say there's some Diablo 1 feel in there, and yea I can see that, the atmosphere does have a very forboden presence like Diablo 1 had. for those that played Diablo 1, everything about that game even being in town gives off this uncomfortable feeling like something isn't quite right, and I do think Diablo 4 has that.

but yea the rest of the game we haven't seen and yes, it could be just rubbish. But so far I like the game from what I have seen and heard looks promising, and already like the direction more than Diablo 3.

My only worry is Blizzard blew their load on story at the start, because the story at the start of the game up to Lilth in the church was awesome and there wasnt anything on that level post that. Maybe blizzard are not done yet, maybe there is better to come and we haven't seen it, but the earlier half of act one just trumps the later half.

For me personally I am more of a in and out for story person, I have no interest in the MMO aspect of what the game is trying to sell us, and with that said, it doesn't feel as MMO as I was expecting, which for me was good. I know people want that for Diablo 4, for me I want more of the same of previous Diablos, a single player experience with multiplayer optional content. And if that's what they aim for thats fine, I only plan to play through the story and quit, and maybe play with friends a second time for a short stint, I won't be hard coring this game, I don't think Diablo is the type of game I want to play as an MMO. As long as the option is there for and against that it shouldn't matter either way.

[hulkgor]

Besides a 1h queue right after launch, it was a very smooth experience for me.

Did most of Act1 (exploration, side quests, dungeons, etc) as a Rogue on Hardcore and it was a blast. Fluid gameplay, build diversity, cool animations. Nearly died (and had to run away) from the World Boss though. I felt like it wouldn't be a good idea on hardcore, and this further solidified my opinion (need info on its scaling with gear\level, other players, etc).

Was apprehensive after seeing alpha gameplay, but this completely convinced me as far as gameplay goes. The end game (replayability and diversity) is my only concern for the actual game release.

[crusadernero]

Havent played it yet, just seen a couple of streams and YT videos. Looks OK enough, but worth preordering at these prices? Not at all. I might buy it a couple of days after launch, but most likely when the price is lower.

I still remember when D3 launched. People were SO hyped for that game, it was insanity. No wonder after the first two Diablo games and all the years waiting for a new game. Then it launched and.. well, it wasnt all that people had hope it to be. Cant say im feeling the same uber-hype now as then, but theres still a big hopium for this game. Cant really say what people expect from it either, really.

[Fencers]

Although some things can be scaled back, like chain lightning is so OP, completely agreed. Difficulty seems just right.

On another note, just found me a horse on a treasure goblin. Looks gnarly. Can't use it though =(

I got all classes to 25 and have yet to find a single goblin.

[Mamut]

I might buy it a couple of days after launch, but most likely when the price is lower.

theres still a big hopium for this game. Cant really say what people expect from it either, really.

I don't think so the price will lower in like first six months or even a year.

As for the hype I was against all those "D4 is so revolutionary, flawless and incredible game" videos posted on YT, it does more harm than not saying anything. I did not expect D4 to be perfect and its not. But so far its just very solid game and i think even "standard" playthrough with some exploration will give me like 100 hours of gameplay easily.
Personally for me D4 is just superior to D3 in every way because I just don't like rifts as endgame in D3 and in D4 there alot more activities to do like dungeons, all those events scattered around the world, strongholds, world bosses etc. Obviously after some time it won't feel that fresh after 50, 100, 200 dungeons but still I think its way better than rifts.

The real question for me hovewer is what Blizzard will do in seasons. Because this will decide if the game will keep me occupied for few months or fow few years.

I got all classes to 25 and have yet to find a single goblin.

I killed him like 4x on my rogue. Got alot of gold and some legendary but overall it wasn't some big loot explosion. Pretty fast and tanky bastard tho, had fun chasing him.