I got a Druid (the class I was most excited for) up to 25 and it was a slough. It seems similar to Barb in that it might take a while to get the class going. But where Barb gets into it around 15, 25 isn't really doing it for Druid. That said, there are two key aspects to Druid they are keeping out of the Beta. One is the lvl 15 Spirit Aspect customization that all the other classes get (passive spells for Sorc, weapon mastery for Barb). The other is a unique mechanic to Druid called Crushing Blow. Apparently it takes a set percentage of the enemy's life bar off if it hits. Their absence are dragging the class down. Plus, and this might be my luck only, the legendary items I'm getting for Druid aren't all that great. It seems like it takes 2 or even 3 specific legendary items working in tandem to get the class going. Every other class I've played had several singular legendary items that are game changers (double hydras, I'm looking at you).
Overall, I'm still excited for Druids, but only in June. They're pretty lackluster for the beta.
Like the barb they're gear dependent at the lower levels... Mine felt very powerful and got him to 25 very easily, but had some decent gear drops.
Blizzard came out and said that there isn't balance parity between the classes at lower levels so it's not a surprise that depending on drops some classes feel weaker than others.
Necros on the other hand are just f*cking broken. You'd think that over the years they know how popular corpse explosion is and how powerful it is. They need next to no gear to be powerful and are just flat out broken if they're able to get some that synergizes with CE.
With the druid I found a build I liked but it was little more than half as effective as the competent classes.
I've been playing earth Druid all weekend, and also checking out some other builds streamers are doing. There are at least three disgustingly powerful druid builds that I've seen. There does, however, seem to be a divide between classes that have innately strong skills out of the gate, and classes that have powerful legendary aspects that drastically change the way they play. Druid appears to be the latter, and I suspect Barbarian is as well.
Flamu's Pulverize build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtUa...
Fextralife Toxic Werewolf:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeEj...
And something similar to what I was using, SmackDaddyKing's Earth/Storm build (note the Legendaries he talks about):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBVD...
There's lots of variants of this, but essentially you leverage Crowd Control hits to stack guaranteed crits on Landslide, and then stack crit damage. You then use Petrify on bosses for an additional 50% ... and yeah.
The spirit aspect class mechanic was similar to the barb's mastery. Except instead of skilling up through use, it is drops from kills that you sacrifice at altars in the druid outpost. There were different animal altars that buffed unique things. It was incremental and as I recall, not very game changing. (perhaps stronger over time like the masteries)
Crushing Blow in D2 was 25% health reduction. That would definitely change things if it is implemented as in D2.
RE: Spirit Aspect
I just meant that it is a core mechanic that all the other classes have access to that the druid doesn't.
I know it probably isn't a popular opinion (nothing new there), but Druid felt reasonably balanced. It is the other classes that are too overpowered, killing monsters, including bosses, before they even have a chance to show their combat mechanics. Played all classes except Barb in the beta, and in general, had more fun with the weaker builds, as the combat got a chance to shine for those.
There is an issue with being overly reliant on gear however. Builds should work before you add legendary affixes - especially at lower difficulties. Those affixes should just make them work better. But that is not exactly the case here, and maybe especially for Druid and Barb.
I'm not a huge Diablo player. I probably put 40 or 50 hours into D3, never played 1 or 2. I thought the beta was fun and I'll buy the game but it also felt...safe. D3 came out over 10 years ago. D4 felt like it could be a D3 expansion as opposed to a sequel after 10 years. Maybe I'm forgetting stuff about D3 and there are big changes, but I didn't feel it.
Probably depends on when you played D3. This game is closer to original D3 than current D3. At least for now.
RE: Spirit Aspect
I just meant that it is a core mechanic that all the other classes have access to that the druid doesn't.
barb doesn't have access to either because it's in the level 30+ zone and wasn't available in the beta
IUMogg wrote:I'm not a huge Diablo player. I probably put 40 or 50 hours into D3, never played 1 or 2. I thought the beta was fun and I'll buy the game but it also felt...safe. D3 came out over 10 years ago. D4 felt like it could be a D3 expansion as opposed to a sequel after 10 years. Maybe I'm forgetting stuff about D3 and there are big changes, but I didn't feel it.
Probably depends on when you played D3. This game is closer to original D3 than current D3. At least for now.
I played a lot more of D1 and D2 than D3 because I didn't like the direction they went with character advancement and didn't move the needle on exploration. I like the direction D4 has gone with both of those.
Character development has you choosing skills / passive abilities again so you're building a character rather than in D3 where every class had every skill and only the loot differentiated them. This is much closer to D2's progression system but with more diverse options. The only thing we're missing is getting to pick ability points like in D1 and D2. I'm not sure if I miss that or not since that was the easiest way to ruin your progression in D2.
Exploration is improved by how they do events across the map as well as much better small dungeon design. Having random online people join you in events is a smart move and just works organically. Side quests give you reason to seek out dungeons and the dungeons have their own mini-goals regardless of finding the side quests. The bonuses you pick up from completing dungeons is also a smart move and gives you reason to try different classes after you unlock them. It also feels like you run through areas slower again while D3 was like a constant race for how fast you could blow up the screen. I will always love D1 for the dungeon crawl feel it gave. That may just be a low level thing though for D4.
I've only played the Sorcerer to 22 and the Barbarian to 10. I liked the Sorcerer spells that came back from D1 and I like the direction they went with Barbarian having active weapon slots for every type rather than being forced to go down one path. So far all of the progression I've seen shows a lot more attention to giving the player agency in their build than D3 which pretty much forced you into builds depending on what drops you got.
So I’m not sure if anyone else feels the same, but I’ve decided to hold off on getting D4 until a few weeks after launch once they work out server and balancing issues. I’m definitely buying it for the story and atmosphere but I’m not convinced it will be baked at launch.
Otherwise, the bosses in this game are making me feel my age. I died at least 4 times to evil blood mom as a Druid and my main takeaway is “wow I’m feeling really slow and really old.”
Ended up playing every class. Like many, came away underwhelmed with the Druid.
Ended up really enjoying the Barbarian with a classic whirlwind build. Sorcerer was a massive amount of fun and is visually stunning.
Necromancer was actually kind of boring because it felt almost completely unchanged from D2 & D3.
Rogue seems like it has a lot of options but I put the least amount of time into it.
Overall, really looking forward to the final release.
So I’m not sure if anyone else feels the same, but I’ve decided to hold off on getting D4 until a few weeks after launch once they work out server and balancing issues. I’m definitely buying it for the story and atmosphere but I’m not convinced it will be baked at launch.
I'm likely going to wait a week or two. The pre-order bonuses are pointless and I have no confidence that they won't have server issues.
Character development has you choosing skills / passive abilities again so you're building a character rather than in D3 where every class had every skill and only the loot differentiated them. This is much closer to D2's progression system but with more diverse options. The only thing we're missing is getting to pick ability points like in D1 and D2. I'm not sure if I miss that or not since that was the easiest way to ruin your progression in D2.
Yeah I really agree with that.
As for attributes, you do get to choose those in a way, toward endgame.
Minus the attributes the D3 was an improvement on D2. It allowed you to skip the inevitable need to create a new character to contain the stats you needed. Because don't forget...D2 was just as much about the gear as D3 is. D4 is just continuing that idea and removing some randomness and allowing you to meld to the gear you have.
Electric Sorcerer is very fun. 
So should we leave the beta code in place, hoping that it will just be updated to final in June, or wipe it and regain the space?
It's always been wiped unfortunately.
Diablo II and III were about item powers at the end game. If you were just playing the story through once then all you really needed to worry about was making item numbers bigger as you went.
Diablo IV seems to be trying to start the legendary item game much earlier in the process. That's a welcome change for those of us who have done the item CCG before, but we are just a portion of the audience.
Well I had fun getting my sorcerer to level 20 in the Diablo IV beta. My brief time with the druid was underwhelming but had a blast with the sorcerer and the barbarian seems promising as well. Gameplay wise there's really nothing new there, just Blizzard shipping a really well refined version of a genre.
My only real complaint is that I don't love the grimdark aesthetic; the story seems kinda depressing and the return to more "serious" form comes through in the environments and makes things feel pretty bland. I know D3 got a lot of criticism for its visual style but I personally really liked the more vibrant colors and lightheartedness. But I've grown tired of the "TV-MA" approach of all media these days so that's probably a me thing.
Cross progression worked perfectly. Was able to hop between PS5 and PC with no issues. That was fantastic. Also played great with a controller on PC which is awesome as well; I far preferred Diablo 3 on consoles due to controller support so it's great to see that be a standard control scheme.
Note this is all coming from someone who is a pretty casual Diablo fan. I've enjoyed all the mainline games but I'm not the type to sink hundreds of hours into it and push the end game content.
Overall though enjoyed what I played, will likely pick it up.
Diablo IV seems to be trying to start the legendary item game much earlier in the process. That's a welcome change for those of us who have done the item CCG before, but we are just a portion of the audience.
Drop rates were increased during the beta for testing purposes: https://twitter.com/RodFergusson/sta... so the beta experience isn't representative of the final game in terms of drop rates.
Which could end up biting them in the ass unlike in D3.
Being gear dependent seems the norm in D4. Some classes like the druid start earlier and some classes give you the impression that they are gear independent. (sorc, necro) But I'm guessing that will change no later than level 40-50.
The necro being nothing new is sort of not giving it enough credit and also not realizing that the Diablo devs are boxed into a corner. Do you know the net rage if corpse explosion wasn't top tier? And as to the former, I really like the skeleton and mage customization. The golem was bland but the other 2 and how the summoning skill summons both skels and mages and buffs them when they are fully summoned is a nice touch and great way to make summons more active.
In the other beta, my favorite sorc enchantment was spawning a hydra head when a burning enemy dies. It was so much fun to gradually pepper the battlefield with hydra heads. They got rid of it, of course, but I am hoping that it makes its way into a legendary affix and I am having fun with the fireball enchantment that causes a fireball explosion on kill at 50% strength
I have a feeling that D4's default legendary drop rate will be greater than D2 or 3's. Mostly because that's how Immortal worked and Legendaries seem to be filling a similar role here. They aren't quite as integral--the sorts of effects that D4 puts on the "pick one of these two" branches were on Legendary items in Immortal--but the systems around them and the timing of the "go extract a power" tutorial quest make them seem pretty important.
From a design perspective there are a lot of good reasons to put a lot of a character build into item power. If you add a new item the players a like "cool! new item!". If you add a node to one class's skill tree the people playing other classes will feel left out and complain. New items also don't require any new UI work. And they don't add any complexity for players who haven't encountered them yet.
So the Codex of power only gets filled up through first dungeon clears?
I wish there was a way to take an extracted aspect and inscribe it into the codex.
If you add a node to one class's skill tree the people playing other classes will feel left out and complain.
Sadly most of the items are very class-based in D4, so there isn't much of a difference in that regard.
Played a lightning sorcerer to 25 during the closed beta weekend, very fun and there were moments of pure panic that I needed teleport to get out of. During open beta I respecced to defensive buff/ice blade summoning and oh dear, that is a monster, cleared out a stronghold face tanking the boss without the need of a healing potion.
Tried a bear form druid up to 20 but fizzled out as I was routinely being rezzed by the lower level Necro I was running around with.
Necro is just straight easy button. Found legendary pieces that gave +2 to both skelly knight and mages. My only death, including solo clearing all of the strongholds, was soloing the lvl 35 dude on the east side of the map, killed him but didn't realize how low my health was and didn't realize he exploded on death. Got splatted when I ran over to get my loot.
Can't wait for June, I'm struggling to want to play other games right now after having so much fun with the betas.
I played a lightning sorcerer to 20, but avoid the panics (mostly) by adding a Hydra to my rotation. Worked like a charm.
Why write posts when you can input parts of a conversation and one-liners of your first impressions into ChatGPT and ask it to convert them into a coherent post?
After playing the Diablo 4 beta, I have mixed feelings about the game. The fact that force move disables interact is a major drawback that makes it necessary to left-click move and cast, which can be frustrating. Additionally, I'm not impressed with the skills of the necromancer, and I'm having more fun watching others play the game than playing it myself. The controls are also problematic, as I keep pressing qwert instead of 1234 to cast spells, leading to wasted potions or opening the MMO wheel.I also find it silly that equipping a two-handed sword increases damage, and NPCs don't acknowledge the player's class, which makes the game seem bland. Compared to Path of Exile, Diablo 4's skills feel less engaging and impactful. Even if the endgame is great, the uninspired classes and skills make it difficult to enjoy. The UI is also bulky, and certain skills could benefit from better graphics.
However, I do think there is potential for Diablo 4 with Blizzard's solid foundation. It will be interesting to see how the game evolves in a year and the changes made to content outside of expansions. The melee gameplay in Diablo 4 is worse than Path of Exile, and the druid class is particularly disappointing. Additionally, the game has visual clarity issues, but this may be due to not being used to reading the screen at a glance.
The towns in Diablo 4 are unnecessarily large and spread out, making players walk around like idiots and see other players' mtx. Furthermore, the game's class balance is incompetent, and the developers' design philosophies on balance are questionable. The fact that the barb class is intentionally bad at lower levels is a cooked take.
Overall, Diablo 4 has the potential to improve, and issues like the control scheme and NPCs not acknowledging player class can be fixed. However, the real beta test will be the time between launch and the first season. The game has elements of both Lost Ark and Path of Exile, but there is room for improvement.
....Lost Ark, you say...?
Edit - Oh, right, not my style. Sigh.
Necro easy button moment
....Lost Ark, you say...?
Edit - Oh, right, not my style. Sigh.
Not my style too, visually, but I think you should at least try to play it for a few hours to feel what the combat is like. It's satisfying, punchy and impactful. I was hoping D4 to still feel like Diablo in terms of combat, but borrow a bit more from the feel of Lost Ark as that is by far the best combat feedback feel I've experienced in these types of games.
Why write posts when you can input parts of a conversation and one-liners of your first impressions into ChatGPT and ask it to convert them into a coherent post?
After playing the Diablo 4 beta, I have mixed feelings about the game. The fact that force move disables interact is a major drawback that makes it necessary to left-click move and cast, which can be frustrating. Additionally, I'm not impressed with the skills of the necromancer, and I'm having more fun watching others play the game than playing it myself. The controls are also problematic, as I keep pressing qwert instead of 1234 to cast spells, leading to wasted potions or opening the MMO wheel.I also find it silly that equipping a two-handed sword increases damage, and NPCs don't acknowledge the player's class, which makes the game seem bland. Compared to Path of Exile, Diablo 4's skills feel less engaging and impactful. Even if the endgame is great, the uninspired classes and skills make it difficult to enjoy. The UI is also bulky, and certain skills could benefit from better graphics.
However, I do think there is potential for Diablo 4 with Blizzard's solid foundation. It will be interesting to see how the game evolves in a year and the changes made to content outside of expansions. The melee gameplay in Diablo 4 is worse than Path of Exile, and the druid class is particularly disappointing. Additionally, the game has visual clarity issues, but this may be due to not being used to reading the screen at a glance.
The towns in Diablo 4 are unnecessarily large and spread out, making players walk around like idiots and see other players' mtx. Furthermore, the game's class balance is incompetent, and the developers' design philosophies on balance are questionable. The fact that the barb class is intentionally bad at lower levels is a cooked take.
Overall, Diablo 4 has the potential to improve, and issues like the control scheme and NPCs not acknowledging player class can be fixed. However, the real beta test will be the time between launch and the first season. The game has elements of both Lost Ark and Path of Exile, but there is room for improvement.
I couldn't be bothered to read that massive post and so asked ChatGPT to summarize it in 40 words or less.
The writer has mixed feelings about Diablo 4 beta. The game has issues with controls, class skills, NPC interaction, and game mechanics. However, they see potential for improvement and acknowledge the solid foundation Blizzard has built. The real beta test will be the time between launch and the first season.
What are people playing to bide the time until the full release? The beta gave me an itch to play an arpg. I don't have a lot of experience with them. PoE is too overwhelming for me. GOG had a spring sale and I picked up a few games for cheap, like Warhammer Chaosbane and the The incredible adventure of Van Helsing Final cut. Both were less than $5. But I'm not sure they are what I'm looking for. Anyone have thoughts on Last Epoch? Is there a gwj group or thread. I searched and didn't find anything.
That was a 50 word summary, Math....
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