Stay Awhile And Listen

I remember playing Diablo back at launch on Windows 95. I was instantly mesmerized, hooked, and entranced with the music, atmosphere, and the instantly addicting click-click-click type of ARPG gameplay. It was a whole new world for me and the start of a love for my favorite genre. While I never played D1 hardcore endgame, I did continue on to play thousands of hours of D2, D3, and D2R. I recently went back and completed each game in the series to prep for the DIV beta. I consider DIV to be my most anticipated game of the year although I enjoy and try to play games from all genres.

Context

Sadly, I have seen the official DIV forums and many Reddit posts with short, random complaints without much constructive feedback. So, I thought I’d share my thoughts after devouring the Early Beta and reaching Level 25 on my Sorc main, and trying out the other classes as well. I played the entirety of the beta on the Veteran/World Tier II setting. Also, for context, I did play the BlizzCon 2019 demo multiple times in person as well.

System Specs

Desktop: I7-12700k, 32GB of RAM, RTX 4090, 4TB NVMe, 42" 4K LG C2 OLED
Laptop: I7-10700, 16GB of RAM, RTX 3080, 1TB NVMe, 15" 4K OLED

The Good

After much anticipation, The Return to Darkness that the developers of DIV have mentioned several times has finally come true. The tone, atmosphere, music, art style, and lighting are all near-perfect, striking a true feeling of the Diablo we fell in love with, that D3 lacked in most departments.
The graphics, animation, art style, cinematics, music, sound effects, and environments are absolutely fantastic. I cannot wait to see the whole world and explore every inch of such a detailed game. Every cave, river, village, and dungeon ooze style and heart.
Even though I love and prefer to play magic users in ARPGs, all three classes in the Early Beta look, feel and sound amazing to play. The combat is tight, balanced, and truly fantastic to experience in every way, even the melee characters. Being able to fall in love and dive right into classes that we may not usually prefer gives us so much longevity and potential in the full game with all five classes.
Having a ton to do in any open world game is important and as long as you don’t sacrifice quality for quantity, I think Blizzard has been able to strike a nice balance as found in the DIV beta. The map isn’t overcrowded but there was plenty to see and do.
While I was somewhat concerned about the MP/open world aspect of DIV, I think the potential is endless. The sky is the limit. Adding new events, new dungeons, new world bosses, new items, etc seems to be much more seamless in a game like DIV. We just need a Group Finder per dungeon or event. That would truly bring people together or people can play solo as desired
The transmog/wardrobe feature is awesome. The character models, weapons, and armor are detailed and varied. I absolutely love unlocking new looks and what we have seen over the blurry or low-polygon characters before DIV is a massive improvement over previous Diablo titles
The world boss was exciting, the loot drops were great, and she was just awesome to behold. It will be interesting to see how the bosses scale across world tiers, as people level and gear up, etc.
Alchemist, Purveyor, etc were all underrated but awesome services that helped a ton. That was one of the biggest features of our Tips and Tricks article.
Dungeon bosses are some of the most challenging, fun, and rewarding in the series yet. They just need chests to open after each fight, especially on Tier II
The beta made me want the full game even more. I was already looking forward to the full but now, I am absolutely stoked to try the open beta this weekend for Druid and Necromancer classes. It is going to be a very long wait for the June release and hey, isn’t that the best feeling after a demo or beta?

The Bad

Diablo isn’t Diablo without it’s now famous font named Exocet (the Diablo font) - Arial/plain font doesn’t look or feel like Diablo. The Exocet font is being used for the area title on the upper right near the mini map already and in some menu areas. Give us an option to use that font for EVERYTHING like D2/D2R
The way that maps open up as you explore is confusing and overly complex. Having fog constantly over the areas you haven’t explored is much better. When I open a new sub area, I can’t tell which areas I have truly explored or not as the whole sub area opens up and unexplored areas of the subarea already look explored. For a game about exploration, we need some map options and tweaks.
Cellars are even bugged or way too limited on difficult, content, and reward. I absolutely love the idea of small, random content and encounters but there at least has to be a mini-boss with loot and/or large chest.
Having a level requirement on World Bosses or item power req would be helpful. Multiple times I got stuck with level 13-18 people in my world boss spawns that could barely do any damage to it. Better yet, give us a choice to see/filter people in our worlds by level and/or item power
Are other areas larger, smaller, or on point with Fractured Peaks? While there is plenty of content in the beta, the entire eastern side of the Peaks is quite barren. That is a bit concerning for other lands. While I think we need space between content, if there are more sizeable barren areas on the world map, there could be too much empty space in the full game.
Bring back magic find, light radius, runewords and other early affixes. Those were an absolutely critical part of the joy in D2. It adds excitement and variety to loot
We need much more control on the camera and zoom levels. More options the better and a gradual zoom level as well.
From what I saw, there is no random map for any dungeon. That is going to cause some burn out, even though the overall dungeon count is high.

The Ugly

Luckily, this section is very short but it is also the most concerning. We all know loot is one of the most important parts of any ARPG. While I had fun, in general, upgrading the look of my gear with the art of armor and weapons overall so beautiful, I didn’t feel much difference in power as I finally equipped all legendaries by level 23. Apparently, there are going to be sacred, unique, and ancient items in game but we have no details on this just yet. In a game like D2, finding a unique with Magic Find was an absolute thrill, especially earlier on in the game. I haven’t gotten any true thrill in all the gear I found in the DIV beta but also recognize that legendary loot drops may have been upped for the level 25 cap. Also, it seems like most affixes are just placeholders and there wasn’t a good explanation of the benefits or a goal in what to look for besides +damage.

Either way, if there is not a massive rush or thrill in the gear and drops, it’s all just a few numbers of improvement here and there, things could become dull very, very quickly. In the end, with no set items or unique items found in beta, with limited affixes and no magic find, the loot looked amazing but felt, a bit boring. With monster scaling this could further complicate the issue as one of the key elements to this game as we don’t feel very powerful if enemies are constantly scaling 1 to 1 with our level. Will this be different or more in depth in the full game? I sure hope so.

Conclusion

As mentioned, I absolutely loved my time with the Early Access beta. I think it is a great mix of all previous Diablo entries. While my main concern with loot is a large one, it’s fixable. The lack of exciting and meaningful loot is a massive concern but I do have to acknowledge, this is only level 25 in a beta, not a complete representation of the full game. All that concern aside, I am even more excited for a seemingly otherwise phenomenal entry in the Diablo series after my extensive time with the game. Blizzard has done a stellar job of balancing influences from all previous entries to the series and they not only alleviated most of my fears, but they also made me anticipate having the full game even more. Now, bring on the Open Beta and full game!