Diablo IV

According to D4 Armory website I got over 600h of playtime. Now that out of the way.

It is no secret the original producers of the game have left the project some time ago, and despite multiple closed & open betas, early tests, etc. We got an undercooked game. At launch we received:

GOOD: * Super fluid combat

* Amazing graphics and sound effects. When you hit or cast a spell, the timing and sound just feel right

* Good old Blizzard-level top notch cutscenes

NEUTRAL: * Soundtrack was overly meh IMO, nothing stuck in my mind, except a single overly eerie WB fight music which is great. But it's a subjective topic, so...

* Unlike most people, I'm kinda ok with the lack of trading of leggos & uniques. If done right, this could've been acceptable. I don't have a strong opinion for or against it, yet.

* Abattoir of Zir is a nice touch, and kinda brings the Uber-Tristram/torch farming type of grind to endgame

BAD:

* Overly mediocre but unnecessarily complicated itemization

* No resistances... in an ARPG... in 2023!

* No ladder-system, again in a live-service ARPG... which relies on seasons!

* The horse, oh the horse! Before they fixed it, the horse could drive any sane person crazy with its quirks and bugs and artificial limitations, like cooldown; the horse should have NEVER EVER left the devs' computers in this state to production, it was an abomination.

* The end game loop was boring, and still is. Crafting is basically non-existant, "grailing" would be a joke. When they make Helltides, Legion Events, ToW stuff attractive, they make them redundant again with the next NMD XP buff or whatever.

* Dependence on external websites & apps; yeah, we all want to track mystery helltide chests via a 3rd party site

* A backwards step in social features, trading & LFGs via Discord, because in-game would be too comfortable

* Boring endgame loop, and with every update they make either the Overworld redundant then fix it and then make it redundant again, in favor of NMDs or lately Uber-Bosses

* Sidequests are only for masochistic completionists. You will do the "same" cellar prob 100 times; there were a lot of copy-paste there.

* Inventory management, stash space, and character limitation. Oh come on, we don't need an infintite stash space as in some other games, or 50 char slots for mules, but 4 stash tabs? For a total of 10 chars? And all of it shared so no muling? What's the point of an ARPG whose core is *items* if you cant store them?

* That major facepalm "we load everybody else's stash into your memory when they're nearby" tweet; it might have its reasons, but still unacceptable to any developer - and I mean any developer, not just game developers because it's basic data structure and memory management - to release it as it is. Imagine WoW, POE, any MMO or ARPG doing that.

* and a ton of other missing usability features: codex & aspect management, missing search features, lootfilter in many places, random max limits on mats.

This was mostly the launch state of the game and some problems still remain after 5+ months. I am 100% convinced that if the devs & testers had done more end-to-end leveling tests instead of point tests, they would have realized many, many, many problems and fixed them.

The itemization & end-game loop are by far the biggest offenders, IMO in that order.

The affixes are very similar to each other and redundant; the DiabLol video hit the nail on its head "Damage on Thursdays" meme. First crit & vuln were necessary, then they were supposedly not anymore... but guess what they are still necessary and most other affixes are just there, in a giant vague blur.

And second, the white & blue items have absolutely zero use in the game, except until level 2 :P In D2R for example at least white, grey or blue items have a contextual use, as a runeword base, or BIS PVP item or whatever. In D4 they're just litter. The lack of an even the simplest loot-filter makes this worse. I'm still hopeful that they will find a use for these.

Yes, yes, they are still working on those, but my main critic point is NOT if current D4 deserves a full AAA price-tag (I paid for the ultimate edition mind you) after so much broad testing, feedback and numerous hotfixes, but IF it deserved the price at launch. If you tell me "yes, it did" you're either lying to me or to yourself. So I lost interest and moved on to more polished games. As the saying goes, this is literally more live development than live service: Missing features are brought in after the launch.

Tl;dr: Too early, too undercooked. Full AAA price tag completely undeserved, was so at launch and still is IMHO. If Blizzard had taken their time, say 1-1.5 years, this could have been an amazing game. As it stands it's lost many players. Regardless, I'm still full of hopium, instead of copium.

This is the best diablo. Not only that but it may be the best top down ARPG ever!

Let me give you the rundown of positives and negatives.

Positives

• You don't play diablo for the story, but this diablo has an awesome story that I did not expect to be this good. The cutscenes go HARD. I was very impressed with the story this time around.

• The voice acting. It is superb especially Lilith and Lorath.

• Map: the map is massive and diverse. Many different Biomes. The over world events are all diverse and different, never repetitive. The strongholds are a blast and each have their own mechanics and stories. So much to find and do.

• Runs at a smooth 60fps on series X, and the graphics look stellar. Very next gen feeling game despite being top down.

• Gameplay: this is why you are here and let me tell you it is the best it has ever been in a ARPG. Addictive, fun, satisfying, and challenging!

• Character progression and builds: its amazing. I am addicted. It is such a deep rpg. Each class is so different I will never hit the bottom. So mucch depth. Build lovers this is your safe space.

• quality of life stuff: you can respec whenever with little to no penalty, you can teleport in and out of any place including dungeons to sell loot etc with ease, short load times, and without losing progress.

• co-op is a blast. I played about half the campaign with a friend and it is seamless and a blast!

Negatives The quest markers mess up sometimes. Thats pretty much it.

I know many had connection issues but I have never had a single connectivity issue. I get into the game immediately, and have never disconnected or even had much lag. I think its a wifi issue not a diablo issue people are having.

So far this is my game of the year for 2023! Get it now!

I like this game. I played Diablo III for 6 years. I've been waiting for this game for a long time and recently finally got access to it.

Advantages: +Graphics +Large amount of content +Characters

Neutral: +- Story +- Large map

I don't like:

• Gameplay

Why did I write the story in "neutral"? As I said, I played Diablo III for 6 years. I played through this game many times, where at the end Malthael broke the black soul stone, inside of which was Diablo's soul. (I played Reaper of souls) At the end they even say that Diablo is free. This is where the game ends. I thought that Diablo IV would have Diablo himself, but... he just isn't there. He is replaced by a certain Lilith, about whom I am hearing AT ALL for the first time. But I like the plot itself. That's why I wrote the story in "Neutral".

So, what's next? Ah, "Big Map".... Question: "What's wrong with this? This problem is related to the gameplay, which I don't like at all, and the gameplay is the main component of the game. So what's wrong? Lilith infuriates me. No, no, don't get me wrong, the GAMEPLAY with Lilith is terrible. The fact is that we are following in the footsteps of Lilith, but we NEVER MAKE TIME! NEVER! We constantly find bloody petals, and watch wonderful cartoons of Lilith killing someone. This is okay, but we are constantly going from one end of the map to the other. And at this time we are accompanied by small, but damn strong demons, and it becomes boring to beat small demons for the second hour without moving forward in the story. This is precisely the reason for which I abandoned the passage of Diablo IV.

Result: 7/10.

This is a hard review because on one hand the graphics, controls, gameplay, music, and story is great. The game just feels good to play.

The main issue is the "always online" requirement that Blizzard implemented. The issue with this is that for some reason your character will suddenly get stuck in invisible walls, you literally cannot move, suddenly you either get teleported all over the map of if there are enemies around you, your hit detection doesn't work and they just stand there. Eventually when the server is finally able to catch up to you, you are DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!!!

Blizzards explanation is somewhere along the lines of "the server is trying to catch up with you that is why there are invisible walls." They basically said to fix this teleport out and re-teleport back in. Seriously? Is this how we can fix this issue?

I hope one day there is enough demands that Blizzard releases an off-line mode. There is literally no reason as to why you must absolutely remain online at all times except for Blizzard to spy on you like the Chinese Government.

Anyways at this state with the servers and the invisible walls and the no hit detection issues, this game is pretty much borderline unplayable. I don't what to give this but when the game is working, it is a 10/10, but because of the issues with server and stuff I just mentioned, I don't know, maybe a 1/10 cus it is unplayable at this STATE.

I have been playing RPGs since Final Fantasy original on NES, the Immortal, Lagacy of the Wizard, etc. So, a really long time.

This Diablo was extremely hard to rate. The utilization of the UI is kind of frustrating at first, but has its similarities to previous Diablo entries. This time the inventory uses a slot system measured by a maximum amount of items, where previously it was a grid to measure space and therefore the size of the item would determine your inventory space. There's some changes to navigating the UI as well, which are tedious but soon adaptable.

The gameplay is not bad at all. Controls were precise and easy to use. The graphics were great for an overhead RPG. The cosmetics were excellent all around.

All this being said, let's talk about the logistics of the game. Previously, the Diablo franchise had used chapters or "ACTS" to maintain and divide segments within the Diablo world. Here in Diablo IV, they use one gigantic map. I said, "okay, I'll go with that." However, the enemies are packed everywhere. I know that no one likes an empty map, but they should've dialed it back a notch. You were blessed to catch a break sometimes, especially if you were a Necromancer and had skeletons that would constantly run after far away enemies. Furthermore, the dungeons are no longer randomized. You do them once, get the accolade for it, and that's all. You can redo the dungeon, but it isn't any different.

The storyline was ookkaayy. The ending was confusing and left you wondering if the whole thing was a setup by "someone else," to not spoil it. The concept of Lillith was great and so was the art. There was one part of the story that I deemed to myself- unnecessary. It involves a snake. I will not go into further detail due to spoilers.

I am convinced that Diablo may be turning towards an MMO platform.

--To Blizzard--

Change takes time. You have a great game here but this is the first MMOish type Diablo release. Let's try convincing players, both veterans and casual, that Diablo is a fit franchise for this. ESPECIALLY since the studio implemented microtransactions now. Anybody can say what they will, but this was a risky decision. Other games like the Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, etc, have enough material to create their own universes, due to length of existence and story development. I guarantee you made some previous Diablo players look at it as a "really?" I know, because I was one of them. However, I do think you may have pulled it off. You were extremely lucky. Now you just have to merge previous and new generation Diablo players that this is equally acceptable amongst both.

All-in-all I think the game made some drastic changes. Were they bad? I don't think so. They're just different.

Final Conclusion: You'll be playing a great game, but is it a Diablo game?