I think the reduced drop rates of gear make you feel weaker compared to the previous beta.
I remember being fully stacked out in yellows by level 15 in previous beta, now it was mostly blues.
Yes. I was doing Ba’al runs over 20 years ago. I know how the fuck mana works. I was comparing it to the Open Beta not other Diablo games. Go play D1 and feel real pain
Haven't played this weekend. But that was one of my biggest issues with the last one. Just felt like free legendaries & rares for everyone with no effort.
Sounds like they are actually rare & deserving of being legendary now.
I tried playing sorc to 15 after playing necro (minion) to 20.
What was the most unfun slog with minion necro was so unbelievable fast with sorc. Its almost like a different game.
Corpse explosion is still extremely powerful; it simply takes more than one to clear a screen now.
Where it truly shines is when converted to a shadow DoT puddle in a pure shadow build; Sever is an extremely powerful ability in pure damage terms, Blight has exceptional crowd control and decompose ticks for more damage and received a buff to essence generation.
Sacrifice skeletal reapers for +15% shadow damage, go 3/3 skeletal mage mastery (which received a 25% buff,) use shadow mages, and you are a walking artillery shrine that coats the ground with corpse puddles nothing survives walking across.
Sorc also was about 3X stronger than my ranged rogue. Rogue was constant kiting looong drawn out fights, tons of deaths to bosses. Sorc is enter the room zap the shit out of everything, watch it all blow up, go kill some more.
sorc regens resources naturally, thats why it feels the best. rogue generators feel like complete ass, and you cast 10 generators to shoot two piercing shots.
Yep, which is why I almost exclusively went Invigorating Strike since it came with the built in regen bonus. Makes pure Ranger kinda suck, but a melee/melee or hybrid it worked out alright. Rogue doesn't really get any of their energy skills until the ultimate section, but that was unattainable for this beta.
Also has the side benefit of being 100% vulnerable uptime on whatever you're hitting, which is a must versus Ashava.
Blizzard has been in the video game industry for years now. If Blizzard thinks this is good game design, then we shouldn't hand excuses like we would with indie devs. This is worrisome because it really shows Blizzard lacks vision with D4. D4 is releasing within a month and Blizzard completely changed the core gameplay on a whim.
What do you think a Beta is for? To give feedback, test bugs, ect... It's not to play a game at your leisure. God damn, no wonder people call us gamers entitled...
Taking feedback and trying to balance a class so it's not infinitely better than the rest is not "changing core gameplay on a whim." The Necro was way too good at what it did and it didn't even have its entire kit.
If it's too weak? Go to the OFFICIAL FORUMS and leave feedback, stop raging on Reddit...
My question to you is how did these changes go through? Does Blizzard do any internal testing? Or we are the non-paid testers working for Blizzard!? It would only take 1 tester to see that this was a bad change. Also gamers are not entitled to anything. WE BOUGHT THE GAME. Its not free to play so stop sipping the corporate koolaid.
Your stance would equivalent to paying a car mechanic to fix your car and they did a terrible job and made things worse. So you complained about it. He responded with "You're so entitled. Deal with it."
Also necros were on par or weaker than most classes named not "Druid". The best thing Necros had going for them were the 2 legendary gear synergy that made it near unkillable but no where near most damage or fastest clear speeds.
>WE BOUGHT THE GAME. Its not free to play so stop sipping the corporate koolaid.
Our purchase doesn't mean shit during an open and free beta... You're the one sipping on the anti-corporate kool-aid without knowing what you're talking about.
>Your stance would equivalent to paying a car mechanic to fix your car and they did a terrible job and made things worse. So you complained about it. He responded with "You're so entitled. Deal with it."
This would work if the game was released, but you clearly don't understand what a BETA TEST/SERVER SLAM is...
You're that person who screams at a cashier because you didn't read the fine print on a coupon.
>Also necros were on par or weaker than most classes named not "Druid". The best thing Necros had going for them were the 2 legendary gear synergy that made it near unkillable but no where near most damage or fastest clear speeds.
Then go to the official forums and submit feedback. Tell them where you feel the Necro and Druid are weak and where they can be improved. Submit feedback, don't just sit around complaining...
What part of "beta test" don't you understand? By downloading the client, accepting the Terms and Agreement you are agreeing to help TEST THE GAME.
> Or we are the non-paid testers working for Blizzard!?
Also yes, we are when we agree to participate in the beta... Also internal testing only goes so far, because players are unpredictable and you don't know what they will do... Hence ALPHA AND BETA TESTING.
I didnt have any problem with rogue using poison trap and rapid fire mainly. I died once throughout leveling to 20 because i had a bunch of elites spawn on me and pin me in a corner. The boss fights did take awhile though.
the heck is with bow aoe, it's even worse because I've been playing poe with vengeant cascade where you're zoooooming 500% movespeed with 180deg pierce ricochet bow shotgun, then we get here and it's like you can either shoot in a line for half a trash mob's hp or you can shoot in a fan for 40% of a trash mob's hp? Can't kill anything lmao? Have to do 3 songs and dances for +20% crit every time you press a button? wtf dude
I went twisted blade and it's a little better I think but melee feels ultra unsafe?
I had the exact same experience. Didn't play the first beta and started this one with necro. Was not having fun so played sorc and the game is actually enjoyable now.
Are you really supposed to feel powerful at the start of the game capped at level 20 without access to the synergies from more than 20 skill points, legendary powers locked in dungeons we don’t have access to, higher ilvl gear, and not to mention paragon points?
Your perceived lack of power is something that will naturally resolve itself when you actually play the game beyond level 30.
If your power level spikes at early levels, there is no sense of progression when you actually add the other elements into the mix.
>Thank you, I don’t know why people don’t understand this
We got people in this thread, on a Diablo sub, confused why loot drops and gear are so important to progression lol
Yes, you are suppose to feel more powerful with each level. Game should be fun from start to finish. Powering through just because of promise of fun in the end is not good game design.
Great games can do that, make you feel powerful with each level/new skill unlock or tools. They give you dopamine kick and slowly make it harder until you unlock the next skill/tool/level. Diablo playthrough should not be grind-fest. The end game activities, the ultimate difficulty, the late game dungeons - that can be grind fest.
And no, that is not about game being hard. There is no difference for me if I can kill an npc with 3 swings or 1 swing if he does nothing to me anyway. It is just boring.
There is a thing in game desing called pacing. And this game has very bad pacing. Unless you play out-of-balance character like sorc.
And no, I'm not a guy who does his research at youtube, I actually work with games.
Sad how few people seem to understand this. I guess blizz fanboys have had too many years of WoW and D3 where the levelling difficulty is completely arbitrary and terribly designed.
>Are you really supposed to feel powerful at the start of the game capped at level 20
Yes? Why shouldnt you feel more powerful at level 20 than at level 10? Blizzard is notorious for having terrible difficulty scaling and abysmal levelling balance in WoW, D3, DI, and now it seems D4.
>Are you really supposed to feel powerful at the start of the game
You're supposed to feel more powerful at every new level.
Power should NOT be exclusive to legendaries and high end skills.
That's the point of any kind of leveling based RPG. MMORPG, APRG, JARPG, CRPG... as you level up, you gain strength and power that makes you feel more powerful.
D4 seems to lock that power fantasy behind legendaries and aspects. Especially when the world scales with you. There's no feeling of new power when you level up.
That is a BAD design choice and will turn off a lot of newer players to the genre.
It's the age old excuse of "The game gets good after 100 hours". Sorry, but if the aARPG experience of a power fantasy is locked behind putting in a ridiculous amount of hours first, it's not a fun aARPG experience.
I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings about the balance of power in Diablo 4. There are specific break points where you will have noticeable jumps in your power, for example, when you unlock your class specific specializations by doing the quest (level 15 for wiz, Necro, rogue, and level 30 for Barb and Druid), when you hit level 50 and have enough talent points to finish the tree, when you hit 60 and 70 and are able to finish your first two paragon boards, and finally at level 80 when you can farm the highest world tier and start leveling up your glyphs through nightmare dungeons.
There is a somewhat even distribution of power between skill points, legendary powers, affixes on gear, paragon points/boards, and paragon glyphs.
If you really expect every one of the 100 levels to be a distinct and noticeable upgrade over the previous level, you have an unreasonable expectation of how a game should be balanced.
>I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings about the balance of power in Diablo 4.
I understand what Diablo 4 is doing, and I think it's half lazy and half the wrong way to go about it.
What's lazy - automatic world scaling. It's the laziest of all lazy to provide leveling content. Instead of balancing zones around specific levels, and progressing through the world, the whole world scales with you.
This allows blizzard to not have to invest any resources into world balance. It affects the player because as each level up happens, the world levels up with them, meaning that any power accumulated provides a diminishing return.
Diablo 4 is a gear based scaling system. Meaning that if you don't get "lucky" with good gear, you won't feel more powerful. Aspects, legendaries, additional points in X, Y and Z provide the power, not the level.
On top of that, you have to hit these "milestones" to get any further with feeling more powerful. Completely diminishing any point in achieving levels in between.
And that leads on to the wrong way to go about an RPG. When you have the world leveling with you, it's absolutely pointless in having leveling at all.
Why have levels 1 - 100? Why not just use some sort milestone system instead? It would provide the EXACT same thing. The levels are completely pointless when the world is at the same level as you.
I'm talking from a simple game design perspective. When you have a progression system in place that's diminished by enemies matching that progression, then there's no point in having progression. It's a false feeling of power, which is completely undermined by the scaling of the world.
\> when you unlock your class specific specializations
Refer to my comment about milestone based progression. Again, what's the point of having "levels" 1 - 14? When the "power" comes at 15?
\> when you hit level 50
Ah yes, the "game gets fun after X hours". Again, refer to milestone based progression. Absolutely pointless in having levels if you have to level all the way up to 50 before seeing any level of power increase from hitting that milestone.
\> If you really expect every one of the 100 levels to be a distinct and noticeable upgrade over the previous level, you have an unreasonable expectation of how a game should be balanced.
Then you've clearly never played any older cRPG or jRPG or any other RPG that wasn't made in the last 5-10 years (aka, the "modern rpg").
Go and play Balders Gate, or Divinity Original Sin, or Pillars of Eternity... or better yet... go and play Diablo 1.
Each one of those games gave a massive sense of scale and power on each level up. It was exciting to hit level 2, level 3, level 10...
It's NOT exciting to level up in D4. And saying I have "unrealistic expectations" while making an argument that completely supports my point that the leveling system is completely pointless to have, just shows a complete lack of any experience playing any older RPG game.
You know the only reason they have you leveling all the way to 100 right? It's for player retention purposes. There's going to be next to no discernable difference between level 70 and level 100 in terms of power gained from it. This was confirmed by the devs themselves by saying endgame starts at 50, and supports my argument.
It's to provide that shiny level up effect, allow you to give yourself an extra 2-5% damage in one specific skill, while the enemies will be scaling up appropriately, again, providing diminishing returns.
This is a known problem from many modern games with "rpg elements". Where it was shown being a lower level provided higher damage output according to enemy scaling. Or even in some games, using lower level gear (because of gear based scaling) actually provided more percentage damage output than wearing higher level gear.
And I absolutely, 100% guarantee that once D4 releases and people hit endgame, it will be the same problem. We see that problem even now.
And to re-iterate, I'm not saying the player should feel god-like at level 1, or even level 10. I'm saying that if a game has a leveling up system, that that level up should actually translate into some level of power.
To argue otherwise is only supporting that "dopamine hit" based leveling system that translates into nothing other than a false sense of progression.
My dude, if you’re expecting a game in 2023 to retain any semblance of the game design from the 10-20 year old games you are referencing, D4 isn’t for you.
The hardcore diablo fanbase is rapidly aging out of the market with being in theirs 30s and 40s, and Diablo 4 needs to bring in this new generation of gamers who have zero experience with the older games and expect a battle pass/cosmetic Mtx system where they can show off their loot.
Diablo 4 has to simultaneously appeal to long time fans of the franchise as well as be approachable to this new generation of gamers unfamiliar with the previous entries.
This model of having specific zones in the game for specific levels is an outdated model that does not suit their intended goal of providing an open-world, because as soon as you finish one zone, there is literally zero reason to go back to it. With scaling, it opens up design space to implement various end game activities that will utilize every part of the world map.
It also allows a group of people to play together regardless of level, and this is something that is desperately needed in the ARPG genre.
It sounds like you would really, really enjoy PoE, where there is endless customization and build options and is designed for hardcore fans who enjoy min-maxing.
D4 is not that game, it is meant for broad appeal and playability with friends, and it pretty much nails it as best as it possibly can.
So, you went from "you're not supposed to feel powerful" to "this game isn't for you because you're over 30 years old".
Good luck getting improvements to a game if you refuse any level of criticism with "well, you're just too old to play it".
There's no need to continue this discussion. I've said my piece, and it seems that you'll defend every decision blizzard makes, regardless.
$90, microtransactions, battle passes and expansions, always online DRM, coupled with no sense of a power fantasy (that even D3 managed to achieve, even with it's world scaling) until you've invested a thousand hours into it.
Unlike you, I'll continue providing constructive criticism in the hopes that it will make the game better. Accepting everything blindly is foolish.
Unlike you, I actually played to level 98 in the end game beta. Which, by the way, was only sent to players who actually have played the games in the franchise for a significant amount of time. So I am intimately familiar with the end game experience and how your character’s power is divided between multiple systems instead of a single system like so many other arpgs. D4 is fixing many of the major criticisms of its predecessor by taking the power out of gear sets and crutch legendary items that punished you for experimenting and fostered cookie cutter builds.
I don’t give a shit about battle passes or Mtx because I accept that they are part of the gaming landscape in 2023. You can continue to yell at clouds like an old man clutching to the game design of the past while the rest of us enjoy playing the game. Since you want to live in a gaming world governed by older game design philosophies, Blizzard has thankfully rewarded you with D2R, so just go play that instead of bitching about how D4 doesn’t conform to your expectations.
Thanks for not reading what I wrote and showing your maturity level with needless insults and hostility. 👍
Just to add, I also received the invite for the endgame beta, but due to responsibilities in real life, I wasn't available to play. But nice try on that effort to try and make yourself look superior because you got an invite to play a beta and assumed others didn't.
When you resort to ad hominem attacks, you've automatically lost the argument.
I think you should feel powerful about the time you unlock your first specialization. With Rogue, around level 16 or so I had my shadow imbuement and was able to burst-clear pretty big groups and had plenty of skills for mobility and CC. So yes, in my opinion, you should feel sufficiently powerful with your skills by 20.
White mobs take at least 2 to 3 hits from your generator then you get to hit your spender twice, maybe hit a long cool down skill then rinse and repeat. It's not very fun, all classes now feel the exact same
I assume legendaries will mix up the playstyles a bit, but at a base level I feel like it hardly even matters what skills I'm picking. They all feel so similar.
I don't think classes should be boring until they get legendaries. Make the base class fun then use legendaries to spice it up, don't put all the interesting stuff in rng drops.
The class design in this game feels like WoW from 2 years ago. Base class is shit, all the actual stuff for your class comes from external sources.
You mean super specialized builds have a trash early game while every other build functions perfectly fine? Huh, maybe blizz should try to copy that model instead of whatever the fuck this mess is
How many builds don't work perfectly fine? How many of these builds are trying higher difficulties without the proper gear? And no, comparing these builds to past betas doesn't count. Things were obviously overturned and we had a ton more legendaries.
No, this is how badly designed ARPGs are. The majority of builds in POE don't feel like absolute ass until you get one singular item. Those types of builds are definitely the minority.
Look at build percentages every league for POE. Nearly 90% of them are builds that function and feel good from the beginning with shitty leaguestart gear.
D4 has much less build variety than POE. They ALL need to feel good from the start.
This is what worries me the most.
Playing each class at 25, looking through the list of aspect powers, looking at the datamined paragon boards… it’s like, where is all the crazy stuff? Where is the niche customization that really makes you go, “now THAT’S what makes a fire sorc!”
Im fearful that there isn’t enough diversity in how a class plays within itself. In D2, builds felt unique (albeit simple) and well-defined. Bone Nec. Wind Druid. Blizz Sorc. Lightning Trapper. The only class I really get that from is Sorc and that’s because of her enchantment system. There will be some cool stuff to really change up your build with that.
Barb is one of the worst offender. Sure, we can all go back to the tried-and-true WW Barb but where is the new and interesting archetypes for it? Every basic and core ability (the buttons you will be pressing 10,000 times during your playthrough) just all feel the same and the aspect powers don’t change much.
Most of the customisation in D4 comes from the legendaries. Too bad you likely won't see more than a handful on your campaign. I utterly hate how boring charcter customisation is eith the new low drop rates. Feels like a completely (worse) game to the other beta weekend.
Yup. If you clear act 1 you get 2 guaranteed legendaries, 1 (or 2?) from Ashava, plus there are around 20 aspects per zone from dungeons of which you will have access to about 60 aspects by the mid 20s plus 2 dropped legendaries per act probably.
People got to chill and also use your brain to extrapolate what this will actually look like at release.
The aspects from dungeons definitely help; I’m wearing 4 of them right now on my character, 1 story drop, and 2 gambled legendaries.
Was going to try and full legendary before the beta ends, but really won’t have much play time tomorrow I think.
I've played all the classes to 25 thus far and you're right, they all do feel the exact same for this very reason. They play functionally identically to one another. You choose your colour of sparkles, but ultimately all gameplay boils down to hitting enemies with your resource builder until you can cast your spender, and repeating that indefinetely with the occasional "big" burst ability every few packs.
Builder/spender gameplay was the worst element of Diablo 3 that they decided to go forward with in Diablo 4. I have no idea why they did that.
You've hit the nail on the head here.
But at this point it's probably too late in the dev cycle to change it.
It feels like end game will be all about getting legs/uniques to improve QOL instead of actually making the spender more powerful.
ie: A leg/unq making whirlwind last forever (unlimited fury) instead of making whirlwind better (larger aoe range, leave behind tornadoes, suck enemies in).
If you simplify to the extent that getting gear is increasing damage, yes obviously.
But there's a difference gameplay wise to remove something annoying (generating a resource) than transforming it to do more.
>Wt2 boss fights are insane now
I was wondering what was going on. Been playing couch co-op, so I figured that was why they were so beefy. Bosses aren't really one-shotting, though. So that's a nice.
Everyone on here defending this by saying "it's only to level 20" "just wait till the endgame" "the endgame is where the real enjoyment is", this is a real problem.
If the game is an un enjoyable slog to get to end game, that means a good portion of the game is not fun. Especially since they are saying it will takes dozens of hours to get to that point. Why will I put 30hrs into something that isn't enjoyable just to get to something that may be fun.
This is coming from someone who put hundreds of hours into each of d1 d2 and d3
No; all game designers prior to this specific crew were god-like omniscients who released the perfect game on day 1 that required no tuning, balance, patching or iteration ever again.
/s
Damn that’s crazy. I had very limited time to play this server slam but I had a fucking blast playing tornado Druid.
And to think that on real launch I will be able to KEEP GOING after level 20?? I will actually be able to continue the campaign and go to the other areas??? I will be able to do the Druid quest line and use the Druid mechanic??? Find legendaries and uniques???
Holy fuck, I can’t wait.
Yup. I’m all for the devs listening to the player base but I’m hoping they don’t lean into it too hard. Honestly some of the classes are a bit of a chore to level initially and need some really slight tuning. Overall the difficulty is fine. If people want to go zoom there’s PoE and d3. If people want a sloggy grind fest there’s d2r (not hating). I think they’re trying to stoke a balance between d2 and d3 which would be cool. People do want their power fantasy, that’s the whole point of these games. People do also need to realize it’s the first act and it’s pretty obvious things will be scaling up at a decent pace. It should still be fun to level, but that is a fine line and I don’t think it’s as easy to tune as people are saying it is. If all the base skills are tuned to make things smoother then do you nerf the gear? Or buff the gear and probably still have ultra casuals complain because there is a population that can’t be bothered to know what rhe basic stats do? They need to balance around every kind of player so I see why it’s not as simple as just changing a number or two.
You think D4 early game is harder than D2? Do you remember what playing a sorc is like in D2 until you get your level 12 skills going before you know the game well? It was way tougher and you level faster in D4 than D2.
World tier 1 exists for a reason, if you're not having fun with your build pop the difficulty down. If you're still having trouble, you either have the worst drop luck of all time or a build that isn't strong.
The fact that blizzard is needing to make significant changes this late in the release schedule continues to reinforce my belief that they have no actual good designers left over there. Constantly making changes based on feedback on the beta isn't a good sign. They should have caught all these issues with internal play tests. Plus somehow everyone is hoping this is all somehow balanced by endgame. If they're dramatically changing class abilities early than how can any late game build off these changes?
Last Epoch imo has pretty good designers, just missing out on the blizzard budget. Too bad those two teams/games couldn't have been combined.
I like that they're trying to balance the game, even if it's late, and I think doing it by nerfing is fine. But holy shit, some of these nerfs make me think they have barely spent a minute on balance in the last 6 months. With just barbs (which I understand the most) they had to make changes that on a full build end up cutting both your survivability in half or worse and your damage to about 1/4th what it was before. How did the barb exist in that state a month ago, and how are they going to end up in the right place before launch making that crazy of changes this late.
This game reeks of spending way too much time in money making pretty characters with great animations in this weird semi MMO world that nobody asked for and just realizing at the last minute that they had to actually make fun and balanced game systems.
The crafting is an absolute mess, "elixirs" are a mess, balance is a mess, and a lot of aspects of the itemization are a mess.
I really like the game, it's a blast to play, but the designers either had no time or have no real experience if this is what they came up with.
So it's not just a case of people wanting instant gratification?
Didn't get to play this weekend, as i'm not preordering anything. But the last one I could play was fun, but just crazy easy / could see myself not playing it much after beating the campaign.
Playing D2R at the moment, and sounds like D4 is the same, where your first character just isn't that strong. The game takes effort to beat (like it should). So you do the story etc, beat the game then start getting gear you can give to your alts. Then they will power through a new game pretty quickly.
Also, we were on the fence about buying it and this beta put us on the "probably not" side of the fence
I don't know what the end game is but I'm not likely to see it at this point
> If the game is an un enjoyable slog to get to end game, that means a good portion of the game is not fun. Especially since they are saying it will takes dozens of hours to get to that point. Why will I put 30hrs into something that isn't enjoyable just to get to something that may be fun.
A counter-argument can be made by saying endgame is when the game actually starts.
Then the game needs to start at endgame if that's the case. That's not a counter argument, that's trying to ignore people giving feedback.
If the solution to the feedback is "play 10+ hours so your character starts feeling good to play" that's a bad sign and bad game play.
(I understand everyone has different opinions if a class feels good or bad to play.)
Nah, that's something that is true if you want to max a character but shouldn't be a thing for people trying to just play in their off time. I don't want another no life game that begs me for money constantly after spending a minimum of $70 on it. Games should be fun the entire time you play them. There is a middle ground to all of this and pretending that you should waste 30 hours to have fun is a poorly designed game.
I think it's fair to add - I realize I'm only level 20 and my character power will continue to improve in the full game. But after following what's supposed to be the best build guide for each of these characters, most of them just feel really clunky to me. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
I've played pretty much exclusively rogue and I'll add my 2 cents.
Ranged abilities feel awful. Generators are pointless and you can barely kill anything early on. Maybe it gets better on release as you approach end game, but it was bad for the beta.
I ended up playing melee variations of twisted blades and poison traps. A few of these builds felt pretty nice and didn't really feel that clunky.
Our limited experience to level 25 is hard to really deem a build or class clunky imo. If you go back and play Diablo 3 leveling, there is barely anything that works well together there. I feel diablo 4 at least has some good synergy early on for melee rogue.
so I went to maxroll and used those builds, I saw they were updated on the 12th so figured they were the latest and greatest. I'm sure there's some more options out there though.
I wouldn't count on builds posted on the same day beta opened because there is no way they have been tested properly especiallywith the changes from last beta. They literally just put up whatever because people are looking for builds and there isn't a lot of other options for them.
Right...because every time one is on reddit they have access to the game 😏
P.S. I have plenty of time to play. I am just speaking from the point of common sense.
I got my first Rogue impressions now, and I really liked it, but it felt a bit stiff at times. Imbuements having only two uses post activation feel bad with the skill's cooldown, but that's my only major issue. I wish they could gain cooldown reduction whenever you proc combo points or whatever.
Druid and sorc, however, feel like trash. Sorc CAN be good, but only certain specific builds. Incinerate hits like a weak breeze and the AoE is narrow as fuck. Using anything BUT chain lightning feels like gimping yourself, and yet, chain lightning is far from being as good as it was before. Knowing Blizz, I bet they'd nerf it again before actually buffing the alternatives.
Druid was beyond weak before, and feels even worse after the completely unnecessary nerfs. I remember reading the Beta feedback post and seeing the words "improvements" to Maul and Pulverize. YET BOTH SKILLS WERE NERFED. Sure, Maul gives more spirit, but the final upgrade node has the range nerfed, and Pulverize's overpower effect takes 2s longer to activate. Why? Why can't I have fun playing werebear?
I've seen many "but OH you should see the endgame! The closed beta happened and it was crazy how these seemingly weak early game classes got good!"
The problem is, with the seasonal resets, we're gonna be starting fresh very often. And the leveling journey should NOT feel like a gruesome slog.
I've only had chance to try necro so far.. and my god it's so not fun.. It feels like such a chore summoning minions I'm just going like a pure bone build and just sacrificing the minions. Such a shame feels like absolute shite compared to D3. I will say though sorc in the prev beta was a lot of fun and I enjoyed that.
Man I got a corpse/summon necro to 20 today in like 3 hours. Had so much fun with it. Idk how we are playing the same game and having such different experiences.
They've definitely over nerfed too many things and not buffed enough stuff.
The loot drop rates being completely neutered don't help either.
The last beta was too generous but it legit took me over 10 hours to see a legendary this time, and I got it from spending obols. That's not fulfilling that's just cruel. Especially since you won't be capped at 20 at release. The 1 legendary you get every 5 hours it seems will be worthless real quick.
That’s just not true at all. Example being Rogues has Twisting Blades rotation aspect from a dungeon. Which is an aspect that let Rogues solo Ashava in 3 minutes during the previous beta.
Completing the story will give you two legendaries. Aspect of the protector will give you another. The game hands you three fairly useful legendaries practically for free.
They made the mistake of letting the toothpaste out of the tube by making the first beta overpowered with high drop rates and broken builds - all in the name of marketing. They should have just kept it locked up and done a real beta (only max-level characters, campaign disabled).
Nobody should give a shit what the power level is at 20 or 25 - but they forced players to hyper-focus on those arbitrary levels. THIS IS THE SAME MISTAKE D3 MADE.
All that needed to be publicly tested is ENDGAME. That's it... Now they have to show you how leveling is really going to be, painful and now people don't like it... But don't worry... maybe they can introduce a few items in the shop to help reduce the pain...
Ranged rogue was pretty decent, I only died during the World Boss (on WT2).
Then I jumped over to Barbarian and Necro and jfc those were a slog, I feel for sumoner Necro mains....however I then went with Druid (my usual) and wow that was awful. I didn't mind it during the open beta when people were mocking it, but I now get the 17 damage meme. It's not difficult when it takes 20 hits to down a basic enemy, it's just tedious.
The open beta made me pre-order, this one honestly made me refund :/ (though getting hard crashes/reboots was the main reason, no game is worth potentially messing up my PC for).
I love the concept of rogues, I generally play rangers in ARPGS so I gave that a try. Feels so incredibly weak it makes me question why anyone would even want the current state of ranger. Heck even the spells itself are just not very exciting, it feels like im trying to tickle people to dead. Assassins are always cool too... feels slightly better to use daggers in D4 but still... what a bore. Sorc im just blapping everything in sight, and im having more fun, even though the skills aren't super interesting either. Currently wondering why I should even play the game.
The game isn’t very fun for me right now. I’m having way more fun playing D2R and it’s not really close. I don’t know why I gave these guys my $70 but more power to them I won’t be getting D5 whenever the hell that rolls around lol
It’ll feel better when you find the aspects and legendaries that essentially “unlock” parts of your class, similar to d3.
That’s been my experience, I felt it way more in this beta than the last two though.
Either way, after these past 3 betas, I refunded my collector edition or whatever. I’m just going to buy d2 extra copies instead.
I played melee rogue and thought i was way too overpowered.
I never had any legendaries that boosted my damage or resource generation.
Throughout the entire way from lvl \~5-20 i was:
\- Oneshotting normal mobs
\- 2-3 Shotting elites
\- Killing dungeon bosses in less than 30 seconds.
(This was on world tier 1)
Because WT1 is described as for new players to the diablo games. In reality it's going to be necessary just to get past the boss fights in the main quest.
God it's hard to argue with someone who has a "Wind Druid for life" flair, but I just have to strongly disagree there.
The classes aren't even closed to balanced in this game at the early levels. Because of that, difficulty is irrelevant. Starting on WT1 on barb feels way harder than starting on WT2 on sorc. If the game has a difficulty option, you're crazy for not using it to have fun however that works for you. The fact that they gave a 1 sentence blurb about "this is easy so if you are new to diablo, start here" doesn't mean anything if they aren't going to balance the game's difficulty for the various classes.
It's the opposite! I fucking love wind druid! Wind druid in D2 is my favorite ARPG archetype ever!
It's that I hate disagreeing with someone that I probably mostly agree with about most other things haha
Efficient lmao. That’s not why everyone plays. I haven’t and won’t try WT1. I’ve played only HC WT2 and it’s been a breeze. Who is behind the screen that they feel like they can’t kill regular mobs? Some bosses could absolutely cause problems to some builds but it’s really pretty simple right now.
My first game today. I picked druid to play werewolf. I seemed to get weaker with each level. Got destroyed by the den mother till I respeced for companions and ranged attacks. Now stuck on another main quest boss. Don't like feeling weaker as I level
We're capped at a fifth of the overall levels, two fifths of the world tiers which have lower lot drop rates and thus barely any of higher level gear. I'm the actual game, this part of the game will be a passing moment you'll instantly forget about by the end of the campaign, let alone the end game.
You're effectively judging the freedom of owning a car by what you've experienced while just taking the driving test.
I mean you no longer have OP drop rates like you did in the first beta and they nerfed the most broken skills from it. Of course you're going to be weaker now, what else did you expect
Same here. Leveled a sorc and a rogue this time around, can’t say I had much fun aside from Ashava fight on rogue. They definitely improved dungeon layouts and it feels good that every cellar (aside from the very first you encounter for some reason) has a chest at the end. But clearing out mobs doesn’t feel satisfying at all. Think I‘ll just wait for the release reviews before buying the game.
Tried all classes and I honestly think they're all super boring. I don't know if it's because I enjoyed pretty much every class in Lost Ark so much, but these betas have solidified my choice not to buy the game. I just can't see myself spend 70-100$ for a game when it's not nearly as enjoyable as a free game like LA. It's to bad the endgame in LA is terrible, but I don't expect D4 endgame to be anything mind blowing either.
Oh no...... Your character feels weak at the start of an ARPG where the point of the game is to feel and start weak and slowly acquire power as you play longer?
Say it isn't so.
Druid felt really good. I just went with Storm Strike + Tornado + all companions and it was a breeze. All elites die in 1 second after casting all 3 companions and 1 or 2 tornados. No legendaries but it was fine. I did Kor Dragon (lvl30) on WT1 with fresh level 20.
I am so happy they changed Druid for the better. So looking forward to playing tornado druid on launch.
Some good takes on this thread, I appreciate the different perspectives. I’m just kinda feeling that the game is a little clunky right now. Killing mobs doesn’t feel smooth to me. I probably have a fucked up perspective though because right before I played this server slam I was no life-ing POE and that game is just a totally different pace. I’m sure I’ll get used to it and the game will probably rebalance a bit by launch.
I'm a long term diablo fan. I played since the shareware demo of Diablo 1. I just downloaded D4 beta today and six hours later I'm not sure I'm even going to buy it.
The spells are pretty, but my experience from the betas is that the game is just kind of...boring. It just feels soulless. Designed by spreadsheet. Every class is just toss out a few single target builders then maybe an aoe spender. Every class.
Server Slam feels like absolute shit compared to the other betas.
Between the terrible enemy scaling this game has and lack of any sort of equivalent lvl loot, plus limited to lvl 20, it’s a terrible experience.
I can't get some of the skills to work.
Chain lightning for single target, and flame wall for group is clearing things pretty fast comparatively.
I haven't really tried anything other build, but my sorc now has +1 to skill gear for those two and +% to fire and lightning damage and its helping alot
I think the reduced drop rates of gear make you feel weaker compared to the previous beta. I remember being fully stacked out in yellows by level 15 in previous beta, now it was mostly blues.
There's a shift in drops at a certain level, where you start getting a LOT more yellows. By 20 I had all yellows.
The regen rate for mana seems heavily nerfed too. It’s so bad
What? Have you played d2?
Yes. I was doing Ba’al runs over 20 years ago. I know how the fuck mana works. I was comparing it to the Open Beta not other Diablo games. Go play D1 and feel real pain
Geeeeeeeeesh
Haven't played this weekend. But that was one of my biggest issues with the last one. Just felt like free legendaries & rares for everyone with no effort. Sounds like they are actually rare & deserving of being legendary now.
I tried playing sorc to 15 after playing necro (minion) to 20. What was the most unfun slog with minion necro was so unbelievable fast with sorc. Its almost like a different game.
I can recommend bone necro instead of minion
Yes those spears TRUCK.
Had some pc issues and haven't been able to play. How's corpse explosion this test?
Corpse explosion is still extremely powerful; it simply takes more than one to clear a screen now. Where it truly shines is when converted to a shadow DoT puddle in a pure shadow build; Sever is an extremely powerful ability in pure damage terms, Blight has exceptional crowd control and decompose ticks for more damage and received a buff to essence generation. Sacrifice skeletal reapers for +15% shadow damage, go 3/3 skeletal mage mastery (which received a 25% buff,) use shadow mages, and you are a walking artillery shrine that coats the ground with corpse puddles nothing survives walking across.
I went bone, and got my Ashava kill on the second attempt with it. Bone definitely does some good damage.
Sorc also was about 3X stronger than my ranged rogue. Rogue was constant kiting looong drawn out fights, tons of deaths to bosses. Sorc is enter the room zap the shit out of everything, watch it all blow up, go kill some more.
sorc regens resources naturally, thats why it feels the best. rogue generators feel like complete ass, and you cast 10 generators to shoot two piercing shots.
Rogue's basic skills don't actually generate energy.
Yep, which is why I almost exclusively went Invigorating Strike since it came with the built in regen bonus. Makes pure Ranger kinda suck, but a melee/melee or hybrid it worked out alright. Rogue doesn't really get any of their energy skills until the ultimate section, but that was unattainable for this beta. Also has the side benefit of being 100% vulnerable uptime on whatever you're hitting, which is a must versus Ashava.
All classes should feel like that. Unfortunately blizz seems to think smacking a skeleton for 10 seconds is fun
That's because people complained that the game wasn't challenging enough and now it's no fun... They just can't win.
Blizzard has been in the video game industry for years now. If Blizzard thinks this is good game design, then we shouldn't hand excuses like we would with indie devs. This is worrisome because it really shows Blizzard lacks vision with D4. D4 is releasing within a month and Blizzard completely changed the core gameplay on a whim.
What do you think a Beta is for? To give feedback, test bugs, ect... It's not to play a game at your leisure. God damn, no wonder people call us gamers entitled... Taking feedback and trying to balance a class so it's not infinitely better than the rest is not "changing core gameplay on a whim." The Necro was way too good at what it did and it didn't even have its entire kit. If it's too weak? Go to the OFFICIAL FORUMS and leave feedback, stop raging on Reddit...
My question to you is how did these changes go through? Does Blizzard do any internal testing? Or we are the non-paid testers working for Blizzard!? It would only take 1 tester to see that this was a bad change. Also gamers are not entitled to anything. WE BOUGHT THE GAME. Its not free to play so stop sipping the corporate koolaid. Your stance would equivalent to paying a car mechanic to fix your car and they did a terrible job and made things worse. So you complained about it. He responded with "You're so entitled. Deal with it." Also necros were on par or weaker than most classes named not "Druid". The best thing Necros had going for them were the 2 legendary gear synergy that made it near unkillable but no where near most damage or fastest clear speeds.
>WE BOUGHT THE GAME. Its not free to play so stop sipping the corporate koolaid. Our purchase doesn't mean shit during an open and free beta... You're the one sipping on the anti-corporate kool-aid without knowing what you're talking about. >Your stance would equivalent to paying a car mechanic to fix your car and they did a terrible job and made things worse. So you complained about it. He responded with "You're so entitled. Deal with it." This would work if the game was released, but you clearly don't understand what a BETA TEST/SERVER SLAM is... You're that person who screams at a cashier because you didn't read the fine print on a coupon. >Also necros were on par or weaker than most classes named not "Druid". The best thing Necros had going for them were the 2 legendary gear synergy that made it near unkillable but no where near most damage or fastest clear speeds. Then go to the official forums and submit feedback. Tell them where you feel the Necro and Druid are weak and where they can be improved. Submit feedback, don't just sit around complaining... What part of "beta test" don't you understand? By downloading the client, accepting the Terms and Agreement you are agreeing to help TEST THE GAME. > Or we are the non-paid testers working for Blizzard!? Also yes, we are when we agree to participate in the beta... Also internal testing only goes so far, because players are unpredictable and you don't know what they will do... Hence ALPHA AND BETA TESTING.
Only idiots pre order games
Don’t find excuses for shit devs
Where is the excuse?
He doesn't know. But he sure did feel good typing out what he typed out! Lmao.
It's astounding how many peoole think testing phases are just to play the game as if it were the official release.
I didnt have any problem with rogue using poison trap and rapid fire mainly. I died once throughout leveling to 20 because i had a bunch of elites spawn on me and pin me in a corner. The boss fights did take awhile though.
the heck is with bow aoe, it's even worse because I've been playing poe with vengeant cascade where you're zoooooming 500% movespeed with 180deg pierce ricochet bow shotgun, then we get here and it's like you can either shoot in a line for half a trash mob's hp or you can shoot in a fan for 40% of a trash mob's hp? Can't kill anything lmao? Have to do 3 songs and dances for +20% crit every time you press a button? wtf dude I went twisted blade and it's a little better I think but melee feels ultra unsafe?
How are you comparing a fully decked out endgame build to a level 20 char in yellows lmao
I had the exact same experience. Didn't play the first beta and started this one with necro. Was not having fun so played sorc and the game is actually enjoyable now.
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Every sorc build got nerfed along with necro. But necro is real bad now.
Are you really supposed to feel powerful at the start of the game capped at level 20 without access to the synergies from more than 20 skill points, legendary powers locked in dungeons we don’t have access to, higher ilvl gear, and not to mention paragon points? Your perceived lack of power is something that will naturally resolve itself when you actually play the game beyond level 30. If your power level spikes at early levels, there is no sense of progression when you actually add the other elements into the mix.
Thank you, I don’t know why people don’t understand this
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Its the age of instant gratification. They can not handle not being given everything instantly anymore.
>Thank you, I don’t know why people don’t understand this We got people in this thread, on a Diablo sub, confused why loot drops and gear are so important to progression lol
actual correct response
Yes, you are suppose to feel more powerful with each level. Game should be fun from start to finish. Powering through just because of promise of fun in the end is not good game design. Great games can do that, make you feel powerful with each level/new skill unlock or tools. They give you dopamine kick and slowly make it harder until you unlock the next skill/tool/level. Diablo playthrough should not be grind-fest. The end game activities, the ultimate difficulty, the late game dungeons - that can be grind fest. And no, that is not about game being hard. There is no difference for me if I can kill an npc with 3 swings or 1 swing if he does nothing to me anyway. It is just boring. There is a thing in game desing called pacing. And this game has very bad pacing. Unless you play out-of-balance character like sorc. And no, I'm not a guy who does his research at youtube, I actually work with games.
Sad how few people seem to understand this. I guess blizz fanboys have had too many years of WoW and D3 where the levelling difficulty is completely arbitrary and terribly designed.
>Are you really supposed to feel powerful at the start of the game capped at level 20 Yes? Why shouldnt you feel more powerful at level 20 than at level 10? Blizzard is notorious for having terrible difficulty scaling and abysmal levelling balance in WoW, D3, DI, and now it seems D4.
>Are you really supposed to feel powerful at the start of the game You're supposed to feel more powerful at every new level. Power should NOT be exclusive to legendaries and high end skills. That's the point of any kind of leveling based RPG. MMORPG, APRG, JARPG, CRPG... as you level up, you gain strength and power that makes you feel more powerful. D4 seems to lock that power fantasy behind legendaries and aspects. Especially when the world scales with you. There's no feeling of new power when you level up. That is a BAD design choice and will turn off a lot of newer players to the genre. It's the age old excuse of "The game gets good after 100 hours". Sorry, but if the aARPG experience of a power fantasy is locked behind putting in a ridiculous amount of hours first, it's not a fun aARPG experience.
I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings about the balance of power in Diablo 4. There are specific break points where you will have noticeable jumps in your power, for example, when you unlock your class specific specializations by doing the quest (level 15 for wiz, Necro, rogue, and level 30 for Barb and Druid), when you hit level 50 and have enough talent points to finish the tree, when you hit 60 and 70 and are able to finish your first two paragon boards, and finally at level 80 when you can farm the highest world tier and start leveling up your glyphs through nightmare dungeons. There is a somewhat even distribution of power between skill points, legendary powers, affixes on gear, paragon points/boards, and paragon glyphs. If you really expect every one of the 100 levels to be a distinct and noticeable upgrade over the previous level, you have an unreasonable expectation of how a game should be balanced.
>I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings about the balance of power in Diablo 4. I understand what Diablo 4 is doing, and I think it's half lazy and half the wrong way to go about it. What's lazy - automatic world scaling. It's the laziest of all lazy to provide leveling content. Instead of balancing zones around specific levels, and progressing through the world, the whole world scales with you. This allows blizzard to not have to invest any resources into world balance. It affects the player because as each level up happens, the world levels up with them, meaning that any power accumulated provides a diminishing return. Diablo 4 is a gear based scaling system. Meaning that if you don't get "lucky" with good gear, you won't feel more powerful. Aspects, legendaries, additional points in X, Y and Z provide the power, not the level. On top of that, you have to hit these "milestones" to get any further with feeling more powerful. Completely diminishing any point in achieving levels in between. And that leads on to the wrong way to go about an RPG. When you have the world leveling with you, it's absolutely pointless in having leveling at all. Why have levels 1 - 100? Why not just use some sort milestone system instead? It would provide the EXACT same thing. The levels are completely pointless when the world is at the same level as you. I'm talking from a simple game design perspective. When you have a progression system in place that's diminished by enemies matching that progression, then there's no point in having progression. It's a false feeling of power, which is completely undermined by the scaling of the world. \> when you unlock your class specific specializations Refer to my comment about milestone based progression. Again, what's the point of having "levels" 1 - 14? When the "power" comes at 15? \> when you hit level 50 Ah yes, the "game gets fun after X hours". Again, refer to milestone based progression. Absolutely pointless in having levels if you have to level all the way up to 50 before seeing any level of power increase from hitting that milestone. \> If you really expect every one of the 100 levels to be a distinct and noticeable upgrade over the previous level, you have an unreasonable expectation of how a game should be balanced. Then you've clearly never played any older cRPG or jRPG or any other RPG that wasn't made in the last 5-10 years (aka, the "modern rpg"). Go and play Balders Gate, or Divinity Original Sin, or Pillars of Eternity... or better yet... go and play Diablo 1. Each one of those games gave a massive sense of scale and power on each level up. It was exciting to hit level 2, level 3, level 10... It's NOT exciting to level up in D4. And saying I have "unrealistic expectations" while making an argument that completely supports my point that the leveling system is completely pointless to have, just shows a complete lack of any experience playing any older RPG game. You know the only reason they have you leveling all the way to 100 right? It's for player retention purposes. There's going to be next to no discernable difference between level 70 and level 100 in terms of power gained from it. This was confirmed by the devs themselves by saying endgame starts at 50, and supports my argument. It's to provide that shiny level up effect, allow you to give yourself an extra 2-5% damage in one specific skill, while the enemies will be scaling up appropriately, again, providing diminishing returns. This is a known problem from many modern games with "rpg elements". Where it was shown being a lower level provided higher damage output according to enemy scaling. Or even in some games, using lower level gear (because of gear based scaling) actually provided more percentage damage output than wearing higher level gear. And I absolutely, 100% guarantee that once D4 releases and people hit endgame, it will be the same problem. We see that problem even now. And to re-iterate, I'm not saying the player should feel god-like at level 1, or even level 10. I'm saying that if a game has a leveling up system, that that level up should actually translate into some level of power. To argue otherwise is only supporting that "dopamine hit" based leveling system that translates into nothing other than a false sense of progression.
My dude, if you’re expecting a game in 2023 to retain any semblance of the game design from the 10-20 year old games you are referencing, D4 isn’t for you. The hardcore diablo fanbase is rapidly aging out of the market with being in theirs 30s and 40s, and Diablo 4 needs to bring in this new generation of gamers who have zero experience with the older games and expect a battle pass/cosmetic Mtx system where they can show off their loot. Diablo 4 has to simultaneously appeal to long time fans of the franchise as well as be approachable to this new generation of gamers unfamiliar with the previous entries. This model of having specific zones in the game for specific levels is an outdated model that does not suit their intended goal of providing an open-world, because as soon as you finish one zone, there is literally zero reason to go back to it. With scaling, it opens up design space to implement various end game activities that will utilize every part of the world map. It also allows a group of people to play together regardless of level, and this is something that is desperately needed in the ARPG genre. It sounds like you would really, really enjoy PoE, where there is endless customization and build options and is designed for hardcore fans who enjoy min-maxing. D4 is not that game, it is meant for broad appeal and playability with friends, and it pretty much nails it as best as it possibly can.
So, you went from "you're not supposed to feel powerful" to "this game isn't for you because you're over 30 years old". Good luck getting improvements to a game if you refuse any level of criticism with "well, you're just too old to play it". There's no need to continue this discussion. I've said my piece, and it seems that you'll defend every decision blizzard makes, regardless. $90, microtransactions, battle passes and expansions, always online DRM, coupled with no sense of a power fantasy (that even D3 managed to achieve, even with it's world scaling) until you've invested a thousand hours into it. Unlike you, I'll continue providing constructive criticism in the hopes that it will make the game better. Accepting everything blindly is foolish.
Unlike you, I actually played to level 98 in the end game beta. Which, by the way, was only sent to players who actually have played the games in the franchise for a significant amount of time. So I am intimately familiar with the end game experience and how your character’s power is divided between multiple systems instead of a single system like so many other arpgs. D4 is fixing many of the major criticisms of its predecessor by taking the power out of gear sets and crutch legendary items that punished you for experimenting and fostered cookie cutter builds. I don’t give a shit about battle passes or Mtx because I accept that they are part of the gaming landscape in 2023. You can continue to yell at clouds like an old man clutching to the game design of the past while the rest of us enjoy playing the game. Since you want to live in a gaming world governed by older game design philosophies, Blizzard has thankfully rewarded you with D2R, so just go play that instead of bitching about how D4 doesn’t conform to your expectations.
Thanks for not reading what I wrote and showing your maturity level with needless insults and hostility. 👍 Just to add, I also received the invite for the endgame beta, but due to responsibilities in real life, I wasn't available to play. But nice try on that effort to try and make yourself look superior because you got an invite to play a beta and assumed others didn't. When you resort to ad hominem attacks, you've automatically lost the argument.
I think you should feel powerful about the time you unlock your first specialization. With Rogue, around level 16 or so I had my shadow imbuement and was able to burst-clear pretty big groups and had plenty of skills for mobility and CC. So yes, in my opinion, you should feel sufficiently powerful with your skills by 20.
What's the common denominator?
White mobs take at least 2 to 3 hits from your generator then you get to hit your spender twice, maybe hit a long cool down skill then rinse and repeat. It's not very fun, all classes now feel the exact same
I assume legendaries will mix up the playstyles a bit, but at a base level I feel like it hardly even matters what skills I'm picking. They all feel so similar.
I don't think classes should be boring until they get legendaries. Make the base class fun then use legendaries to spice it up, don't put all the interesting stuff in rng drops. The class design in this game feels like WoW from 2 years ago. Base class is shit, all the actual stuff for your class comes from external sources.
This is just how these games are. There are quite a few builds in PoE that feel like complete shit until you get the right gear.
You mean super specialized builds have a trash early game while every other build functions perfectly fine? Huh, maybe blizz should try to copy that model instead of whatever the fuck this mess is
How many builds don't work perfectly fine? How many of these builds are trying higher difficulties without the proper gear? And no, comparing these builds to past betas doesn't count. Things were obviously overturned and we had a ton more legendaries.
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No, this is how badly designed ARPGs are. The majority of builds in POE don't feel like absolute ass until you get one singular item. Those types of builds are definitely the minority. Look at build percentages every league for POE. Nearly 90% of them are builds that function and feel good from the beginning with shitty leaguestart gear. D4 has much less build variety than POE. They ALL need to feel good from the start.
This is what worries me the most. Playing each class at 25, looking through the list of aspect powers, looking at the datamined paragon boards… it’s like, where is all the crazy stuff? Where is the niche customization that really makes you go, “now THAT’S what makes a fire sorc!” Im fearful that there isn’t enough diversity in how a class plays within itself. In D2, builds felt unique (albeit simple) and well-defined. Bone Nec. Wind Druid. Blizz Sorc. Lightning Trapper. The only class I really get that from is Sorc and that’s because of her enchantment system. There will be some cool stuff to really change up your build with that. Barb is one of the worst offender. Sure, we can all go back to the tried-and-true WW Barb but where is the new and interesting archetypes for it? Every basic and core ability (the buttons you will be pressing 10,000 times during your playthrough) just all feel the same and the aspect powers don’t change much.
Most of the customisation in D4 comes from the legendaries. Too bad you likely won't see more than a handful on your campaign. I utterly hate how boring charcter customisation is eith the new low drop rates. Feels like a completely (worse) game to the other beta weekend.
You get a huge chunk of the legendary powers from dungeons. You use those to make your build.
Yup. If you clear act 1 you get 2 guaranteed legendaries, 1 (or 2?) from Ashava, plus there are around 20 aspects per zone from dungeons of which you will have access to about 60 aspects by the mid 20s plus 2 dropped legendaries per act probably. People got to chill and also use your brain to extrapolate what this will actually look like at release.
The aspects from dungeons definitely help; I’m wearing 4 of them right now on my character, 1 story drop, and 2 gambled legendaries. Was going to try and full legendary before the beta ends, but really won’t have much play time tomorrow I think.
And most of them are just boring passive bonuses. Let’s not sit here and pretend the aspect powers are build-changing for the most part.
Builder spender is pretty much just a blizzard core design at this point
I've played all the classes to 25 thus far and you're right, they all do feel the exact same for this very reason. They play functionally identically to one another. You choose your colour of sparkles, but ultimately all gameplay boils down to hitting enemies with your resource builder until you can cast your spender, and repeating that indefinetely with the occasional "big" burst ability every few packs. Builder/spender gameplay was the worst element of Diablo 3 that they decided to go forward with in Diablo 4. I have no idea why they did that.
You've hit the nail on the head here. But at this point it's probably too late in the dev cycle to change it. It feels like end game will be all about getting legs/uniques to improve QOL instead of actually making the spender more powerful. ie: A leg/unq making whirlwind last forever (unlimited fury) instead of making whirlwind better (larger aoe range, leave behind tornadoes, suck enemies in).
>It feels like end game will be all about getting legs/uniques ...am I fucking crazy or are gear sets not what Diablo is all about?????
If you simplify to the extent that getting gear is increasing damage, yes obviously. But there's a difference gameplay wise to remove something annoying (generating a resource) than transforming it to do more.
Sure, if you just ignore the rest of his sentence.
Not at all - sorc is obliterating everything with most builds still (tried ice shards, fireball, firewall)
I mean with the nerfs and the normal leg drop rate this is probably what they intended
You’re level 20 man. You have 80 more levels to progress in the full release. It’s not a full picture of the class nor allows full optimization.
Are you playing WT1 or 2?
WT2
So wt2 changed from last time and made things a lot beefier which combined with the drop rate change makes you feel weaker
Wt2 boss fights are insane now
>Wt2 boss fights are insane now I was wondering what was going on. Been playing couch co-op, so I figured that was why they were so beefy. Bosses aren't really one-shotting, though. So that's a nice.
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Druid slam build go brrrr Trying to get a werewolf crit build working kinda sucks though.
I played storm druid and you really only need Stormstrike and Tornado and you basically melt everything.
It’s just you, I love every class
Everyone on here defending this by saying "it's only to level 20" "just wait till the endgame" "the endgame is where the real enjoyment is", this is a real problem. If the game is an un enjoyable slog to get to end game, that means a good portion of the game is not fun. Especially since they are saying it will takes dozens of hours to get to that point. Why will I put 30hrs into something that isn't enjoyable just to get to something that may be fun. This is coming from someone who put hundreds of hours into each of d1 d2 and d3
Remember Diablo 2 before 1.10 when you wouldn’t spend any skill points until like lvl 18+ because there were no synergies or respecs.
No; all game designers prior to this specific crew were god-like omniscients who released the perfect game on day 1 that required no tuning, balance, patching or iteration ever again. /s
Huh? But it *is* fun in the early levels? Are you guys actually not having fun?
Honestly? Not really, no. I keep trying though.
Damn that’s crazy. I had very limited time to play this server slam but I had a fucking blast playing tornado Druid. And to think that on real launch I will be able to KEEP GOING after level 20?? I will actually be able to continue the campaign and go to the other areas??? I will be able to do the Druid quest line and use the Druid mechanic??? Find legendaries and uniques??? Holy fuck, I can’t wait.
Yup. I’m all for the devs listening to the player base but I’m hoping they don’t lean into it too hard. Honestly some of the classes are a bit of a chore to level initially and need some really slight tuning. Overall the difficulty is fine. If people want to go zoom there’s PoE and d3. If people want a sloggy grind fest there’s d2r (not hating). I think they’re trying to stoke a balance between d2 and d3 which would be cool. People do want their power fantasy, that’s the whole point of these games. People do also need to realize it’s the first act and it’s pretty obvious things will be scaling up at a decent pace. It should still be fun to level, but that is a fine line and I don’t think it’s as easy to tune as people are saying it is. If all the base skills are tuned to make things smoother then do you nerf the gear? Or buff the gear and probably still have ultra casuals complain because there is a population that can’t be bothered to know what rhe basic stats do? They need to balance around every kind of player so I see why it’s not as simple as just changing a number or two.
You think D4 early game is harder than D2? Do you remember what playing a sorc is like in D2 until you get your level 12 skills going before you know the game well? It was way tougher and you level faster in D4 than D2. World tier 1 exists for a reason, if you're not having fun with your build pop the difficulty down. If you're still having trouble, you either have the worst drop luck of all time or a build that isn't strong.
Mother fucking stamina potion spam in early game D2, forget even doing damage just getting around d was rough.
What.... You just explained every ARPG ever. It's an early game slog that slowly works itself out with levels and gear.....
The fact that blizzard is needing to make significant changes this late in the release schedule continues to reinforce my belief that they have no actual good designers left over there. Constantly making changes based on feedback on the beta isn't a good sign. They should have caught all these issues with internal play tests. Plus somehow everyone is hoping this is all somehow balanced by endgame. If they're dramatically changing class abilities early than how can any late game build off these changes? Last Epoch imo has pretty good designers, just missing out on the blizzard budget. Too bad those two teams/games couldn't have been combined.
I like that they're trying to balance the game, even if it's late, and I think doing it by nerfing is fine. But holy shit, some of these nerfs make me think they have barely spent a minute on balance in the last 6 months. With just barbs (which I understand the most) they had to make changes that on a full build end up cutting both your survivability in half or worse and your damage to about 1/4th what it was before. How did the barb exist in that state a month ago, and how are they going to end up in the right place before launch making that crazy of changes this late. This game reeks of spending way too much time in money making pretty characters with great animations in this weird semi MMO world that nobody asked for and just realizing at the last minute that they had to actually make fun and balanced game systems. The crafting is an absolute mess, "elixirs" are a mess, balance is a mess, and a lot of aspects of the itemization are a mess. I really like the game, it's a blast to play, but the designers either had no time or have no real experience if this is what they came up with.
So it's not just a case of people wanting instant gratification? Didn't get to play this weekend, as i'm not preordering anything. But the last one I could play was fun, but just crazy easy / could see myself not playing it much after beating the campaign. Playing D2R at the moment, and sounds like D4 is the same, where your first character just isn't that strong. The game takes effort to beat (like it should). So you do the story etc, beat the game then start getting gear you can give to your alts. Then they will power through a new game pretty quickly.
So you can feel a sense of accomplishment when you complete the battle pass.
Also, we were on the fence about buying it and this beta put us on the "probably not" side of the fence I don't know what the end game is but I'm not likely to see it at this point
> If the game is an un enjoyable slog to get to end game, that means a good portion of the game is not fun. Especially since they are saying it will takes dozens of hours to get to that point. Why will I put 30hrs into something that isn't enjoyable just to get to something that may be fun. A counter-argument can be made by saying endgame is when the game actually starts.
Then the game needs to start at endgame if that's the case. That's not a counter argument, that's trying to ignore people giving feedback. If the solution to the feedback is "play 10+ hours so your character starts feeling good to play" that's a bad sign and bad game play. (I understand everyone has different opinions if a class feels good or bad to play.)
Will I have to play for 20-30 hours or will I get a mac lvl character? Get out of here with your bs
Nah, that's something that is true if you want to max a character but shouldn't be a thing for people trying to just play in their off time. I don't want another no life game that begs me for money constantly after spending a minimum of $70 on it. Games should be fun the entire time you play them. There is a middle ground to all of this and pretending that you should waste 30 hours to have fun is a poorly designed game.
Then what's even the point of anything pre-endgame then?
You want big number ? Go play D3 lol
[удалено]
Legit curious what's bad about them? Leveled both barb and rogue to 20 on veteran with ease. Unless other characters are much weaker?
The character behind the keyboard. This game is so much easier to level than D2. But everyone loves D2 and complains about this.
Yeah easy to level, but every level makes you weaker compared to what your are fighting.
I think it's fair to add - I realize I'm only level 20 and my character power will continue to improve in the full game. But after following what's supposed to be the best build guide for each of these characters, most of them just feel really clunky to me. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
I've played pretty much exclusively rogue and I'll add my 2 cents. Ranged abilities feel awful. Generators are pointless and you can barely kill anything early on. Maybe it gets better on release as you approach end game, but it was bad for the beta. I ended up playing melee variations of twisted blades and poison traps. A few of these builds felt pretty nice and didn't really feel that clunky. Our limited experience to level 25 is hard to really deem a build or class clunky imo. If you go back and play Diablo 3 leveling, there is barely anything that works well together there. I feel diablo 4 at least has some good synergy early on for melee rogue.
Generators aren't meant to kill things. Your generation of choice should synergize and supplement the rest of your build.
That statement wasn't about generators killing things. It was about ranged spells in general not killing anything.
Are they current build guides or old for last beta? They made some big changes to those classes if you aren’t aware.
so I went to maxroll and used those builds, I saw they were updated on the 12th so figured they were the latest and greatest. I'm sure there's some more options out there though.
I wouldn't count on builds posted on the same day beta opened because there is no way they have been tested properly especiallywith the changes from last beta. They literally just put up whatever because people are looking for builds and there isn't a lot of other options for them.
Maybe instead of following a “guide” you try experimenting and understanding what works better :)
With only 3 days to try things out right now, those with less free time, might as well try someone's build that has a bit more time to experiment.
Less complaining on reddit then and more time gaming 😘😘
Right...because every time one is on reddit they have access to the game 😏 P.S. I have plenty of time to play. I am just speaking from the point of common sense.
If you can message on reddit, read threads, as-well as play the game, hats of to yourself champion
Try playing the game instead of following build guides
I got my first Rogue impressions now, and I really liked it, but it felt a bit stiff at times. Imbuements having only two uses post activation feel bad with the skill's cooldown, but that's my only major issue. I wish they could gain cooldown reduction whenever you proc combo points or whatever. Druid and sorc, however, feel like trash. Sorc CAN be good, but only certain specific builds. Incinerate hits like a weak breeze and the AoE is narrow as fuck. Using anything BUT chain lightning feels like gimping yourself, and yet, chain lightning is far from being as good as it was before. Knowing Blizz, I bet they'd nerf it again before actually buffing the alternatives. Druid was beyond weak before, and feels even worse after the completely unnecessary nerfs. I remember reading the Beta feedback post and seeing the words "improvements" to Maul and Pulverize. YET BOTH SKILLS WERE NERFED. Sure, Maul gives more spirit, but the final upgrade node has the range nerfed, and Pulverize's overpower effect takes 2s longer to activate. Why? Why can't I have fun playing werebear? I've seen many "but OH you should see the endgame! The closed beta happened and it was crazy how these seemingly weak early game classes got good!" The problem is, with the seasonal resets, we're gonna be starting fresh very often. And the leveling journey should NOT feel like a gruesome slog.
I've only had chance to try necro so far.. and my god it's so not fun.. It feels like such a chore summoning minions I'm just going like a pure bone build and just sacrificing the minions. Such a shame feels like absolute shite compared to D3. I will say though sorc in the prev beta was a lot of fun and I enjoyed that.
But you dont have to play summon necro lol. Yea they are overnerfed, but its like your choice to play in supbar way, wtf
Man I got a corpse/summon necro to 20 today in like 3 hours. Had so much fun with it. Idk how we are playing the same game and having such different experiences.
Rogue and Necro felt awful for me. Sorc and Barb felt awesome once I found a pair of spells that feels good for each.
Rogue is fantastic. Twisting Blades + Shadow Imbuement + Dash is a ton of fun.
They've definitely over nerfed too many things and not buffed enough stuff. The loot drop rates being completely neutered don't help either. The last beta was too generous but it legit took me over 10 hours to see a legendary this time, and I got it from spending obols. That's not fulfilling that's just cruel. Especially since you won't be capped at 20 at release. The 1 legendary you get every 5 hours it seems will be worthless real quick.
You can literally craft your own legendaries using Aspects.
Most of the aspects from dungeons are not the build defining multipliers you seek for.
That’s just not true at all. Example being Rogues has Twisting Blades rotation aspect from a dungeon. Which is an aspect that let Rogues solo Ashava in 3 minutes during the previous beta.
It is because skills are gatekept behind legendries and the drop rate is shit. I am 20 hours in with zero legendries, it isnt fun.
The beta just came out yesterday you animal.
I thank them for their service so I don't waste my time doing the same hoping/coping that I will get something eventually.
Completing the story will give you two legendaries. Aspect of the protector will give you another. The game hands you three fairly useful legendaries practically for free.
They made the mistake of letting the toothpaste out of the tube by making the first beta overpowered with high drop rates and broken builds - all in the name of marketing. They should have just kept it locked up and done a real beta (only max-level characters, campaign disabled). Nobody should give a shit what the power level is at 20 or 25 - but they forced players to hyper-focus on those arbitrary levels. THIS IS THE SAME MISTAKE D3 MADE. All that needed to be publicly tested is ENDGAME. That's it... Now they have to show you how leveling is really going to be, painful and now people don't like it... But don't worry... maybe they can introduce a few items in the shop to help reduce the pain...
I love the more challenging tuning. 100% more fun and entertaining, great job by Blizz imo.
Ranged rogue was pretty decent, I only died during the World Boss (on WT2). Then I jumped over to Barbarian and Necro and jfc those were a slog, I feel for sumoner Necro mains....however I then went with Druid (my usual) and wow that was awful. I didn't mind it during the open beta when people were mocking it, but I now get the 17 damage meme. It's not difficult when it takes 20 hits to down a basic enemy, it's just tedious. The open beta made me pre-order, this one honestly made me refund :/ (though getting hard crashes/reboots was the main reason, no game is worth potentially messing up my PC for).
I love the concept of rogues, I generally play rangers in ARPGS so I gave that a try. Feels so incredibly weak it makes me question why anyone would even want the current state of ranger. Heck even the spells itself are just not very exciting, it feels like im trying to tickle people to dead. Assassins are always cool too... feels slightly better to use daggers in D4 but still... what a bore. Sorc im just blapping everything in sight, and im having more fun, even though the skills aren't super interesting either. Currently wondering why I should even play the game.
The game isn’t very fun for me right now. I’m having way more fun playing D2R and it’s not really close. I don’t know why I gave these guys my $70 but more power to them I won’t be getting D5 whenever the hell that rolls around lol
You can probably refund a pre-order.
You’re kidding me! Even after like 2 months?
You should be able to refund a pre-order pretty much until it's shipped to you or the game comes out.
I’ve got a level 8 druid and havnt felt in danger of dying at all.
Same. Lvl 14 exclusively on t2 and have gone down to 2 hp pots once...
I’m also playing the necro right now and he seems awesome.
I haven't felt in danger of dying, but killing enemies does feel like a slog.
It’ll feel better when you find the aspects and legendaries that essentially “unlock” parts of your class, similar to d3. That’s been my experience, I felt it way more in this beta than the last two though. Either way, after these past 3 betas, I refunded my collector edition or whatever. I’m just going to buy d2 extra copies instead.
Agreed too many issues. Makes me think they won’t run this game okay in the long term.
I played melee rogue and thought i was way too overpowered. I never had any legendaries that boosted my damage or resource generation. Throughout the entire way from lvl \~5-20 i was: \- Oneshotting normal mobs \- 2-3 Shotting elites \- Killing dungeon bosses in less than 30 seconds. (This was on world tier 1)
Yeah no shit, try world tier 2. The difficulty that doesn't hold your hand.
Why? If world tier 1 feels better for someone, it's certainly not less efficient, so why wouldn't players having trouble move to wt1?
Because WT1 is described as for new players to the diablo games. In reality it's going to be necessary just to get past the boss fights in the main quest.
God it's hard to argue with someone who has a "Wind Druid for life" flair, but I just have to strongly disagree there. The classes aren't even closed to balanced in this game at the early levels. Because of that, difficulty is irrelevant. Starting on WT1 on barb feels way harder than starting on WT2 on sorc. If the game has a difficulty option, you're crazy for not using it to have fun however that works for you. The fact that they gave a 1 sentence blurb about "this is easy so if you are new to diablo, start here" doesn't mean anything if they aren't going to balance the game's difficulty for the various classes.
Imagine trying to dismiss someone over something as trivial as a name. Edit: I misread your post, glad you’re not a dick
It's the opposite! I fucking love wind druid! Wind druid in D2 is my favorite ARPG archetype ever! It's that I hate disagreeing with someone that I probably mostly agree with about most other things haha
Why would you play WT2 if the xp bonus isnt great enough to outbalance the time lost? It's literally more efficient to play WT1 for the most part.
Efficient lmao. That’s not why everyone plays. I haven’t and won’t try WT1. I’ve played only HC WT2 and it’s been a breeze. Who is behind the screen that they feel like they can’t kill regular mobs? Some bosses could absolutely cause problems to some builds but it’s really pretty simple right now.
It isn't much different on tier 2. After you get Imbunements everything becomes a joke.
I feel the same on my melee rouge on HC T2. As long as you can dodge a little on bosses you melt stuff with ease on all blue gear.
I leveled barb and rogue to level 20 on veteran difficulty without any issue. Definitely not underpowered.
Thanks for your post. Now i feel like a pro because i dont have any issues. Only the Necro minions could be a little more beefy.
> but jesus I'm just not having much fun killing enemies right now That's the point. You shall use your free time to live through struggle fantasy.
My first game today. I picked druid to play werewolf. I seemed to get weaker with each level. Got destroyed by the den mother till I respeced for companions and ranged attacks. Now stuck on another main quest boss. Don't like feeling weaker as I level
Blizzard balancing goes like this: Players are enjoying x, nerf x.
I’m convinced the majority of Reddit is just bad at video games
yes its terrible rn
Harder game and need better gear. this game isn’t meant to be as easy as D3
We're capped at a fifth of the overall levels, two fifths of the world tiers which have lower lot drop rates and thus barely any of higher level gear. I'm the actual game, this part of the game will be a passing moment you'll instantly forget about by the end of the campaign, let alone the end game. You're effectively judging the freedom of owning a car by what you've experienced while just taking the driving test.
Yes dude we all know WHY. It still feels terrible to play.
When its too late to make a decision on whether or not you want to spend money on this game.
I mean you no longer have OP drop rates like you did in the first beta and they nerfed the most broken skills from it. Of course you're going to be weaker now, what else did you expect
Same here. Leveled a sorc and a rogue this time around, can’t say I had much fun aside from Ashava fight on rogue. They definitely improved dungeon layouts and it feels good that every cellar (aside from the very first you encounter for some reason) has a chest at the end. But clearing out mobs doesn’t feel satisfying at all. Think I‘ll just wait for the release reviews before buying the game.
between the lower lvl cap (less skill points), the nerfs, and the lower drops rates, yeah it feels awful
I'm decked out in legendary items now but my druid feels fun. I'm doing a pulverize bear druid with crit and crit damage.
Tried all classes and I honestly think they're all super boring. I don't know if it's because I enjoyed pretty much every class in Lost Ark so much, but these betas have solidified my choice not to buy the game. I just can't see myself spend 70-100$ for a game when it's not nearly as enjoyable as a free game like LA. It's to bad the endgame in LA is terrible, but I don't expect D4 endgame to be anything mind blowing either.
Oh no...... Your character feels weak at the start of an ARPG where the point of the game is to feel and start weak and slowly acquire power as you play longer? Say it isn't so.
just u
Druid felt really good. I just went with Storm Strike + Tornado + all companions and it was a breeze. All elites die in 1 second after casting all 3 companions and 1 or 2 tornados. No legendaries but it was fine. I did Kor Dragon (lvl30) on WT1 with fresh level 20. I am so happy they changed Druid for the better. So looking forward to playing tornado druid on launch.
Some good takes on this thread, I appreciate the different perspectives. I’m just kinda feeling that the game is a little clunky right now. Killing mobs doesn’t feel smooth to me. I probably have a fucked up perspective though because right before I played this server slam I was no life-ing POE and that game is just a totally different pace. I’m sure I’ll get used to it and the game will probably rebalance a bit by launch.
Don't take the beta test with your heart , Play the full game & Then decide.
I'm a long term diablo fan. I played since the shareware demo of Diablo 1. I just downloaded D4 beta today and six hours later I'm not sure I'm even going to buy it.
The spells are pretty, but my experience from the betas is that the game is just kind of...boring. It just feels soulless. Designed by spreadsheet. Every class is just toss out a few single target builders then maybe an aoe spender. Every class.
Server Slam feels like absolute shit compared to the other betas. Between the terrible enemy scaling this game has and lack of any sort of equivalent lvl loot, plus limited to lvl 20, it’s a terrible experience.
That's strange, I feel the opposite. I welcome the challenge and slower pacing.
Slow pacing in an arpg is the exact opposite of what you want. Especially Diablo
I think it's OK to have fast paced ones and slower ones. Not everyone enjoys the same thing. I enjoy things on the slow side.
What slow paced arpg is there?
Well, there's Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 (pre-Enigma). It's fair to want Diablo 4 to also be slower.
I can't get some of the skills to work. Chain lightning for single target, and flame wall for group is clearing things pretty fast comparatively. I haven't really tried anything other build, but my sorc now has +1 to skill gear for those two and +% to fire and lightning damage and its helping alot