Diablo IV - A Return To Darkness

Agreed. I kind of like the direction they have went with open world and instanced dungeons. got a sorc to 24 and a barb to 20 both feel good in different ways. Suppose I should try the thief now.

Barb is painfully week -on bosses- itā€™s a ton of fun versus general environments but being hobbled by dash and super fast boss move telegraphs had me really frustrated. Good thing I chose to play barb because I have zero interest in playing it next weekend or in release.

Canā€™t believe Iā€™m saying it but: Boss fights as a barb are more frustrating than Elden Ring fights.

And there really is no way to teleport to your team mates???

Itā€™s unlocked when you buy the season pass.

(EDIT: Just wanted to be clear that the above was intended as a joke)

Why I oughta

In older games, a teammate would open a town portal and since youā€™re in a party, you can go through their portal from town. Isnā€™t that how it works in this one?

In D3 you could right-click someoneā€™s portrait and teleport straight to 'em.

I almost buckled with this beta, but holding firm here. It isnā€™t like the issue that Blitzchung got punished for is now irrelevant, if anything it is more relevant now than then.

Good thing Last Epoch is around to scratch the ARPG itch while trying to stay away from D4.

The feedback from the beta early access has been interesting, it seems to be a polarising game!

Polarizing isnā€™t my take here or on Era - folks seem to very much like the taste we got.

Iā€™d just like to say that people get too attached to things in prior Diablo games. Including myself. Thatā€™s one of the reasons why I disliked Diablo 2 so much when it first came out. Suddenly you couldnā€™t save the game? There were checkpoints and if you played past them, on the next session you had to go from the checkpoint and had to kill all those enemies a second time? What in the sam hill is going on? You can die and not have to reload a save game? Instead you respawn, like in an MMO? What?

Of course, Diablo 3 was once again, completely different, and I was using this same defense with my friends, saying we had to give it a chance. Each Diablo game, for better or worse, is completely different from the other. A very gutsy way to do sequels, I must admit. And yet, even I had to eventually admit Diablo 3 was crap. By the time the console version came out, none of my friends would believe me that it was different from the PC version and it was so much better.

And now, Iā€™m kind of impressed that they are changing it up again quite a bit. I canā€™t really think of any other franchise that changes so much between each iteration.

Dragon Age says hi. Sorry, Iā€™m still bitter about Dragon Ageā€™s evolution from the firstsā€™ excellent ā€œBaldurā€™s Gate likeā€ gameplay.

Hmmm, I donā€™t really feel like each Diablo game is dramatically different from the others? I mean yeah, there are additions and changes, but thatā€™s the case for most sequels aside from something like Madden or other yearly installment kind of game.

D2 added skill trees, D3 did a rune system, D4 is back to a (different) skill allocation system. Theyā€™re all games that play basically the same where youā€™re spending 99% of your time mugging demons for their pants (which is not a complaint, to be clear).

I played the stress test, I did give it a chance. I tried it out for myself, and now I know with tremendous certainty that I donā€™t just think I hate respawning.

I had no idea the dodge could be used over and over in D3 console versions. That seems like it would incentivize poor gameplay, constantly dodging just for movement speed, and also breaks the ability for monsters to physically block your movement which invalidates a bunch of skills and legendaries useful for just that. So I canā€™t say Iā€™ve played D3 on console, so not speaking from my own experience, but that sounds like a trivially justified positive change.

Well, after playing Diablo 2, I certainly could say with certainty that I hated the new Checkpoint system and respawning players instead of reloading a save. Those were pretty big fundamental changes to the game that I really hated. At first.

Kripp on his experience with the beta. Talks about what he likes and doesnā€™t, goes into a build he put together in-depth, touches on itemisation, etc.

If you donā€™t know or remember Kripp, he and his streaming partner at the time were the first to beat D3 Inferno difficulty on hardcore before the initial difficulty nerfs. Created a heap of decent D3 content in the early days before moving on to Hearthstone.

Iā€™m halfway through, so far he is positive with some reservations. Bullish on general presentation, itemisation and build potential, reserved on current UI, monetisation model and endgame.

Oh I assure you, I will not grow to love respawning. This is not exactly my first encounter with the concept. My first time seeing MMO-style respawns in an open world was in Everquest in 1999. In a MMO this is justified. In an ARPG it is not. (YMMV of course.)

Respawning mobs is going to fucking SUCK for playing hardcore.

Like proper throw-the-controller-at-the-screen-rage-quit suck.

It really needs to be changed, if not removed. Mobs can respawn right next to a player in less than 30 seconds. Not hearsay, this happened to me personally.

If they added, say, a 2-screen minimum radius with no players and a 6 minute timer that would be much less of an issue. Iā€™d still hate it, but you know, less.

Again, that sounds like a bug to me. It only happened to me a couple of times as well, and never in dungeons. I donā€™t think thatā€™s the intended result.

I never had respawns like that happen during the beta test, even when backtracking after coming to a dead end on the overworld map, and never in dungeons. I played PC.