So I was wondering if I should buy D4.
I am a huge d2 fan with hundreds of hours laddering doing mf runs and trading to get those juicy rune words, both on the original game and resurrected.
Like many D2/Poe players, I was and still am hugely disappointed by D3. And I really dislike what blizzard has become.
That being said, is Diablo 4 a good game? And more importantly, a good Diablo game?
Yes please, let me hear them!
The game balance is whack. Some of the random mini-bosses or mobs can take way more time and effort to kill compared to the main quest bosses. And even if you put in the effort to kill a random OP boss, the loot you get from them is pretty lame and doesn’t make it worthwhile. And you run into these sort of mobs everywhere, making game progression slow and grindy.
As a Sorc, the gameplay isn’t very enjoyable compared to the previous games. I constantly run out of mana in the early/mid game, preventing me from spamming my main spells. D2 had mana issues as well in the early game, but at least you could stock up on mana potions and map them to a hotkey, so it wasn’t really a big issue. But even without a mana potion mechanic, D3 was still pretty fun to play as a Sorc and you could still spam spells, but I’m just not getting that feeling of fun in D4. I cast a Hydra and a couple of Chain Lightnings and I’m out of mana, so I’m forced to go back to the lame basic spell, which is not only very unsatisfactory, but does very little damage.
Furthermore, the additional of unnecessary cooldowns makes the gameplay very annoying. For instance, Teleport is a spell that any Sorc would love to (ab)use, but adding a long cooldown on it seriously nerfs it, limiting mobility and creative use during fights.
Speaking of mobility, I still haven’t come across any boots that provide a decent run/walk speed boost, so you move around at snails pace. There are horses, but you can’t get one until you complete Act III, and it is a major chore to get to there. Regardless, you can’t use your horse during a fight or inside a dungeon, so the slow movement is still an issue.
The sizes of towns / NPC spread is also bit of an issue, with key NPCs being far apart from each other and your stash, so you spend a lot of time just running around from the blacksmith to the occultist to the stash etc, and the slow running speed doesn’t help.
All of the above changes seem to be aimed at intentionally slowing down your gameplay and progression, which to me doesn’t make any sense - an ARPG, at least for me, is supposed to be fast-paced and fun, but D4 moves along at a slow and annoying pace. In this aspect, even D3 was better because it gave you a movement speed boost if you broke a certain number of objects in a short timespan, and the combination of plenty of shrines and or boosts along the way made it fun.
Not being able to adjust my attributes like in D1/D2 is very limiting. Like, what if I wanted to put more points into DEX for a max-block build? Or one that emphasized on greater mana availability at the cost of health? I can’t really do that with D4. Same with the lack of runes and runewords, which limits gameplay flexibility. I do like that you can reset your skills (at a cost), but as you get into paragon levels, the skill trees become very unweildy and a chore to reallocate if you reset them. Also, D4 hides a lot of numbers and mechanics behinds the skills/spells, which makes it hard to calculate and come up with proper builds (which is probably also the reason why we still haven’t come across any decent build site - the Sorc builds on maxroll was crap and even pretty inaccurate in some areas).
I also dislike that you’re only limited to using 6 skills at a time, and that you can’t remap them whichever way you want to, which again limits gameplay flexibility. This is especially limiting for those who play a spell/skill-heavy class like a sorc.
The loot/gear in D4 sucks compared to D2, at least, from what I’ve seen so far. “Legendary” gear drops fairly regularly, but they don’t really give you the same feeling of awe and excitement like in D2. In D2, people would lose their shit over finding something like a Shako or SoJ or something, but in comparison, the gear in D4 feels very generic and not really memorable.
Legendary items are account bound, so you can’t share your old/unwanted gear with your mates. This also means that there are no more “free” games like in D2R/PD2, where folks drop off unwanted loot.
The attributes and effects of some items also aren’t really made obvious. Like, what the heck is “Item power” on an amulet supposed to mean? And just because something has a higher “item power” doesn’t automatically make it a better gear, so what’s the point of it? I don’t really get it.
The field-of-view is weird compared to the earlier games and even other ARPGs, it’s less isometric and more top-down and too zoomed in. Because of how zoomed-in it is, you don’t get to appreciate the terrain and you only see a small portion of the world, which can be a pain for navigating and finding your way around - you need to constantly keep referring to the map.
Speaking of which, I miss the old transparent overlay automap in D2. In D4, I find myself constantly checking the big map and switching out, because the minimap is too zoomed in and kinda useless (why can’t I zoom it out?). Someone is working on making a transparent overlay map, but it’s very limited right now and there’s no guarantee that Blizzard won’t ban you for using it.
As a Sorc, the design and animations of the some of the spells suck. Chain Lightning looks weak af and not really epic looking/OP, like how it was in D2. Hydras in particular look weak and atrocious compared to D2/R.
Speaking of Hydras, I’m angry that I can’t cast more than one Hydra at a time like in D2. I believe you can get an item that may allow you to cast an additional Hydra, but I haven’t come across it as of l48. But I still shouldn’t have to rely on some rare item for what should’ve been a core spell mechanic, this makes the Hydra sorc build a lot less viable compared to earlier games.
The font makes the game look cheap and not Diablo-y. Seems like they literally just used Times New Roman for everything, and I don’t get why, it makes the game look like a cheap and generic ARPG. I mean, D2R proves that the classic Diablo font still looks awesome on modern wide-screen monitors, same with Project Diablo 2 with their new S7 graphics and HD fonts, so there’s no reason for Blizzard to ditch it. But even if they wanted to change the font just for the heck of it, couldn’t they have used something better than freaking Times New Roman?! Seriously, it looks so ugly that I get angry every time I see it.
One big issue on PC is the mouse pointer - it’s tiny and gets lost on a big screen when there’s lots of stuff happening, so as a result you end up misclicking and trying to figure out where your mouse has disappeared off to. As a sorc who likes to teleport into a mob, freeze em and fire off a chain of attacks, this disrupts my entire combo chain and I end up waiting for the long cooldown timers to expire before I can launch another attack, and as you can imagine, this is incredibly annoying. This was never an issue with D2 as it uses a large cursor that makes it very obvious where it is on the screen.
The music so far has been very unremarkable and not dark and Diablo-y. I mean, it’s not bad or anything but just not memorable, like the music in Diablo 1 and 2 - the haunting guitar strums, the middle eastern desert themed music, the spooky Indian chants in D2 A3, the epic heoric music from D2 A5. I can’t really recall any epic BGM in D4, besides the music for Tristam, which was taken from D1. Music, to me, play a huge part in creating atmosphere, and that is missing from D4.
Same with other audio effects and monster sounds. Why are the Fallen no longer singing praises of Rakanishu or Colenzo? They also don’t talk or make any funny/scary grunts, making them feel very lifeless and lacking in character.
Speaking of monsters, they are so incredibly generic that it’s mind-boggling that this is supposed to be a sequel to the Diablo series. Majority of the monsters that you fight are just humans/humanoids, or regular wild animals, with only a few actual “monsters”. The design and names in particular are so dumb, for instance, a skeleton is called “Horror”, and it’s boss would be called “Horror Captain”, also you fight humans called “Arsonists” or “Maurauders”, and then there are beasts literally called “Beast” - did someone forget to update a placeholder name? It’s like they ran out of budget and fired the creative department. Whereas in D2 the mini-bosses would get really cool sounding names which are randomly generated, sometimes giving making them sound really cool or really funny. To me, reading those monster names is just as much fun as killing them, whereas in D4 you just have to be content with fighting an ordinary looking bear called “Beast”.
Finally, the NPCs seem so lifeless as well, they don’t greet you when you talk to them, no “Good morning” etc, also there are no memorable NPCs like good ol’ Decard Cain with epic quotes like “Stay a while and listen”. Cain’s dialogs in D1/D2 are so memorable that you could even buy T-Shirts with his quotes - I don’t see this happening with any D4 NPC.
TL;DR the game is very grindy and unbalanced, it feels like a cheap and generic ARPG. It lacks soul and doesn’t feel like you’re playing a Diablo game, besides the story and cutscenes (which is probably where all the money went to).
Counter argument:
Cut some quotes to get under the 10k character limit
I’m guessing it’s the “increased health” mobs you’re talking about here. Those (minion mobs that accompany elites) were a pain at lower levels, but I don’t notice them at all now at a higher level. The way I adapted at low levels was to just ignore them - I moved on, they followed me and got eventually killed when I AOEd them along with normal mobs. Or I just ran away from them and left them far behind.
There are over 100 unique dungeons and each gives a unique Codex aspect, so my early game focus (on my first character) was to complete each dungeon quickly once. Because there were so many, at lower levels I never tried to 100% clear dungeons - I’d run past nearly all mobs along the way to objectives (unless the objective was to kill all mobs). Maybe it became a non-issue for me because I just ignored them until I was powerful enough to kill them easily.
I deliberately went with a build that didn’t use mana (Arc Lash) because of the above, but have heard others say that resource management becomes less of an issue at high levels. There’s a codex power you can get from a dungeon (Witchwater in Hawezar) called the Prodigy’s Aspect (restores 15 mana after using a cooldown skill) which can help but, your options are limited at low levels. Later on, you can get a better roll of the Prodigy’s aspect from found items, combine that with cooldown reduction and mana cost reduction to ease the pain.
After you’ve complete the game once, you get the horse from level 1 on all other characters. Personally, I enjoyed the campaign, so it didn’t feel like a chore to me.
You can also get movement speed on your amulet (not sure if it can appear on other items). On my sorcerer, between my boots and amulet, I have 130% movement speed (about 20% on boots and 10% on amulet - neither of which are max rolls), which is a lot more pleasant.
Yeah, the design of some towns make them a pain to get around or reach the locations you want. I think the devs wanted to make the towns feel like actual towns and to spread out the player population among different locations (maybe to improve performance) so they spread out the locations of the NPCs.
I prefer something more functional and that streamlines gameplay. If I know that I want only want to salvage, sell, or stash items, I’ll go to the Tree of Whispers waypoint. If I want anything besides the basics, I’ll go to Cerrigar (everything is close except for stash) or Kyovashad.
I didn’t miss the manual point allocation from D2. There’s always a mathematically optimal way of allocating points, so I’d always just look up a guide and put points into what was recommended.
You get a similar effect in D4 in the form of properties from items - items have a limited number of properties on them and you can choose items with properties that improve something you’re focusing on at the cost of other things. This becomes really obvious in hardcore when you often sacrifice damage for more life and higher defensive stats. The reverse is also possible, as is building for more mana/resource availability.
Paragon respecs definitely need an overhaul. Supposedly there will be a respec scroll in Season 1 but I don’t know how easy it will be to come by.
My understanding was that they datamine the game files for those numbers. The players don’t know the details but the builds should be fine. I can only speak for the MaxRoll Arc Lash build and didn’t have a problem with it.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding but you can remap them - hit “S” and drag and drop skills to different slots. If you mean the keybindings, you can also change those.
I’m not sure how I feel about the loot yet. There aren’t any sets. You can craft great legendaries with a rare and legendary aspect with good rolls, but that doesn’t have the same excitement as a great drop. Supposedly there are uniques that people would lose their shit over, but those sound too rare.
I found this article helpful, especially the section on breakpoints.
https://game8.co/games/Diablo-4/archives/414003
When I played the beta, it felt too zoomed in. Maybe I got used to it, but it didn’t bother me after the full release. It zooms out a bit more when you’re mounted, so I mount whenever I’m able. I don’t really mind the zoom level for the world now, but feel the minimap is too zoomed in.
I never liked or used the transparent overlay from the previous games but definitely understand why others would miss it.
Spell effects become more impressive at higher levels (note that 5/5 in a skill isn’t considered “high level” - you need items to boost it higher for the better visual effects).
https://youtu.be/ER5cgXzQGYM
This is not to say Chain Lightning and Hydra are impressive at high level (I don’t know - I haven’t seen them).
This might be because of your level - legendaries drop a lot more frequently the higher your level (edit - and World Tier). When I was playing, it felt like they just started to drop more frequently at L45. At higher level, for me, it’s an issue of having too many and stash space feeling way too limiting (stash space is one of my biggest gripes with the game currently).
From what I’ve gathered, sorcerers are considered one of the weakest classes in the endgame and need some buffs.
I actually prefer this font because I find it much easier to read.
https://uxplanet.org/why-letter-casing-is-important-to-consider-during-design-decisions-50402acd0a4e
You can increase the pointer size in the settings. I found this to be an issue too but after increasing the size to medium, it’s been fine for me. You can also increase the size a notch higher but I haven’t needed to.
This is a matter of personal taste. Out of all of the Diablo games, my favorite soundtrack is from D1. I didn’t find the music from D2 and D3 to be very memorable. There are some dungeon tracks in the D4 soundtrack that I really liked and that reminded me of D1. D1 is still my favorite but D4 comes in second for me.
I liked D3 and D1’s monster sounds the most. The Fallen do say Rakanishu, but it’s uncommon (not sure if only a certain type of fallen says it or if it’s just rare).
I don’t have a problem with general monster variety but I think they could use a lot more different end bosses in dungeons (feels like there’s a handful of bosses being reused across 100+ dungeons).
I agree with a lot of your points regarding how sorc isn’t very fun to play. I’m currently close to 70 and I only found a small handful of builds that are semi-viable and fun (not really following any of the “meta” guides though), and decided to switch to rogue for a more interactive game-play.
That said, I did find a couple of uniques for sorc (unfortunately in T3) that changed my playstyle a bit and brought back a lot of power that I formerly lacked, so maybe it’s just a matter of getting the right unique to change your perspective on your playstyle.
Regarding the fonts: I’ve always thought the old-style D2 fonts are really hard to read (you get used to it, but small-caps aren’t really designed for legibility) so I really appreciate the change in typefaces.
Edit: I think most of your points regarding quality of life (vendor-spread, FOV, etc) are spot on, and I hope the devs spend some time streamlining some things so we can go back to comparing decimal points as opposed to rubberbanding on horses.
I really hate how limited the build choices are, on sorc especially. The entire game seems heavily skewed towards rigidity rather than flexibility, which is especially ridiculous for an ARPG.
Reading through this, I feel like you have voiced a lot of concerns I had for the game, considering D3 launch and blizzard history.
Thanks a lot, I will definitely not buy this anytime soon. I might buy it if they get their shit together (I don’t have much hope) and if it goes on some serious sale.
Funny thing you mentioned the music, I made this post after listening to the Tristram ost (I love it so much) and checking if there was a D4 version. I found that it sounded pretty nice and made me reconsider not buying D4. Hence this post.
Seems like D2R will be my Diablo for a while!
I loved D2. Hated D3. Love D4 and I don’t agree with a lot of the things mentioned. Some are even false. Sad to see someone miss out on this beautiful game because of being misled.
Oh don’t worry, I see that not everyone agree, and that’s fine. As I said, I will wait some polish and a big discount, then we will see.
I still think D4 is a pretty decent investment (possibly not full-price decent) but it’s hard to assuage the hardcore crowd while also catering to (the millions of) casual players, especially on consoles. That said, it’s a pretty good time-waster for a couple hundred hours (at least for me) and when I do put it down eventually, I think I would have gotten my money’s worth.
Most of what was written was incorrect or lies. They’re one of those people that only likes D2 and if a game isn’t D2, then it’s bad. Don’t be a moron and listen to them.
It’s some form of copy-paste response that I’ve seen them make before when someone asks about Diablo 4. Though I think the list has grown since the last couple of times I’ve seen it.
Another tip - for legendary aspects that are only available from item drops (like the hydra aspect), you can try gambling for them.
For:
Damn dude, great writeup! As an old school D2 player I am very happy I decided to go with D2R instead of D4 after reading your concerns above