The diablo 4 director was fired for his involvement in the sexual harassment allegations. Here's hoping the game will turn out great because the devs won't have to worry about getting groped while working on it.
I am happily surprised with the story. It's engaging with good dialogue and even better monologues. It's not just a straight line narratively like Diablo III was.
The game looks good too, especially the environment. The dungeons have great aesthetic variety and the different zones within the same biome all look slightly different, which is great.
The gameplay though, as far as I've played (currently level 52), lacks depth with boring legendary effects and the biggest issue; few skills. It has like 1/3 the amount of skills Diablo III has.
The game looks good too, especially the environment. The dungeons have great aesthetic variety and the different zones within the same biome all look slightly different, which is great.
The gameplay though, as far as I've played (currently level 52), lacks depth with boring legendary effects and the biggest issue; few skills. It has like 1/3 the amount of skills Diablo III has.
Despite Bobby Kotick, Blizzard has done did it and made an excellent video game.
Beautiful American Game design
Great game, but a lot of problems with bying game in RU/BL region
REAL GOOD, HAS SOME PERFORMANCE ISSUES BUT NICE AND CASUAL FOR PEOPLE WHO GO OUTSIDE
Weirdly, I think sitting through a nearly 90-minute-long debate between my coworkers about whether or not Diablo 4's dash is "lazy design" has helped me clarify my thoughts on this whole affair. I'll be comparing it to Diablo 3 a lot because that's the entry that's most clear in my mind.
I think it's an improvement over 3 in most ways. I can understand that someone might be a little put off by the shift away from the third entry's maximalism, where player health could be in the millions within an hour and landing crits for billions of damage within 5-10 hours. I suppose my level 52 rogue with 1300 health in D4 might be a little underwhelming in comparison, but the gameplay effect is the same - I run up to a pack of enemies, build up stacks using one ability and turn them into a smoothie by casting a second one.
It's generally a little more accessible and a little less frustrating, though. The aforementioned dash debate was on the subject of the new, universal mobility skill: every class can press a button to do a short-range dash, and if they want more mobility they can use a skill slot to pick up a class-specific ability. It allows for more interesting builds, more interesting enemies, and even some puzzles designed around this new button. Nothing to encourage over-reliance, of course - you're not going to be using this very often - but it's certainly nice to have. You stock multiple charges of health potions instead of having just one with a cooldown, you can actually upgrade stuff at the blacksmith, and nicest of all? All those weird shopkeeper functions in D3 that required you to burn some rare resource (upgrading gems, re-rolling gear properties) just cost gold. That's it!
The best changes to the gameplay, though, come from a couple key changes.
The first is the shift away from assembling sets of gear. In Diablo 3, picking a build mostly meant finding an ability that you could buff to comical levels by wearing one or two sets of equipment. It really limited what you could do, and it meant that improving your gear took the form of upgrading gems or finding copies of the same set with better secondary stats. D4 doesn't have any gear sets. Builds are dependent on the skills you take, the ways you choose to enhance them, and then, once you've done all that, you go and you find a legendary item and you throw it in the fucking trash. Okay, that's not technically true. You take it to a vendor who rips the legendary property from the item and allows you to apply it to a different piece of equipment. I love this system. I never would've assumed I'd play a new Diablo game where the loot actually feels meaningful, where I'm encouraged to look at items below the highest tier of rarity, where I only have to upgrade gems 2-3 times.
The skill tree: Diablo 3's system of assembling complementary skills and passives wasn't bad for veteran players, but even then, it was pretty difficult to visualize the opportunity cost of picking one enhancement over another. Now, skills are broken down into clearly defined groups, and everything from a group (plus all their enhancements) is visible on one screen at the same time. Uh oh, you've just picked a passive that applies to all your "imbuement" abilities, those are scattered ALL across the tree! Mouse over each ability at the bottom of your screen and you'll see that each one is clearly tagged with a couple properties that will make it obvious which buffs apply to which abilities.
As for the player's stats, my rogue has a lot of gear with buffs to intelligence on it. If you told me this in Diablo 3 I would ask how you even managed to do that, then I would assume that fate has played a cruel joke on you. In Diablo 3 you ignored every single stat that wasn't your class' favorite and had a loot system that did most of the work for you - nearly all the gear you would get would favor your class and buff that stat. D4 doesn't do this. You'll still get gear your class can actually wear, but that gear can have any kind of attribute on it, and those stats will always provide some kind of benefit to you. Intelligence isn't optimal on a rogue, but it's not the end of the world because INT gives rogues extra crit chance. This is shuffled around for each class to remain useful, but you don't have to memorize any of this because you can immediately check what applies to you when you open your inventory.
While a lot of the decisions that directly affect moment-to-moment gameplay have been clarified, the game's biggest weaknesses are still issues with information and transparency. I have been asked several times what a "murmuring obol" is. I don't know how to explain the difference between normal dungeons, Whispers, and the Helltide stuff. The current endgame content is confusing, and while it's explained through a pop-up, all of this still feels obtuse when you're tasked with deciding what you should do next after you've finished the story. You could watch a YouTuber explain how paragon levels work this time around, but you shouldn't have to do that, and best of all: my friends who do watch these videos still find it confusing! It's weird, too, because some of the better selling points of the game - e.g. co-op scaling allowing players of any level to play together - are completely reliant on information sources outside of the game itself. The oft-derided battle pass isn't out yet, but that's what makes me fear for everything I've mentioned in this section. Information issues matter less when you know the game like the back of your hand, which is to say that a profit-focused approach to this game will cater more to the Forever Players who pump endless money into this game than the people trying the series for the first time, the people trying to show something they love to a friend, the people most affected by a lack of clarity.
I think it's an improvement over 3 in most ways. I can understand that someone might be a little put off by the shift away from the third entry's maximalism, where player health could be in the millions within an hour and landing crits for billions of damage within 5-10 hours. I suppose my level 52 rogue with 1300 health in D4 might be a little underwhelming in comparison, but the gameplay effect is the same - I run up to a pack of enemies, build up stacks using one ability and turn them into a smoothie by casting a second one.
It's generally a little more accessible and a little less frustrating, though. The aforementioned dash debate was on the subject of the new, universal mobility skill: every class can press a button to do a short-range dash, and if they want more mobility they can use a skill slot to pick up a class-specific ability. It allows for more interesting builds, more interesting enemies, and even some puzzles designed around this new button. Nothing to encourage over-reliance, of course - you're not going to be using this very often - but it's certainly nice to have. You stock multiple charges of health potions instead of having just one with a cooldown, you can actually upgrade stuff at the blacksmith, and nicest of all? All those weird shopkeeper functions in D3 that required you to burn some rare resource (upgrading gems, re-rolling gear properties) just cost gold. That's it!
The best changes to the gameplay, though, come from a couple key changes.
The first is the shift away from assembling sets of gear. In Diablo 3, picking a build mostly meant finding an ability that you could buff to comical levels by wearing one or two sets of equipment. It really limited what you could do, and it meant that improving your gear took the form of upgrading gems or finding copies of the same set with better secondary stats. D4 doesn't have any gear sets. Builds are dependent on the skills you take, the ways you choose to enhance them, and then, once you've done all that, you go and you find a legendary item and you throw it in the fucking trash. Okay, that's not technically true. You take it to a vendor who rips the legendary property from the item and allows you to apply it to a different piece of equipment. I love this system. I never would've assumed I'd play a new Diablo game where the loot actually feels meaningful, where I'm encouraged to look at items below the highest tier of rarity, where I only have to upgrade gems 2-3 times.
The skill tree: Diablo 3's system of assembling complementary skills and passives wasn't bad for veteran players, but even then, it was pretty difficult to visualize the opportunity cost of picking one enhancement over another. Now, skills are broken down into clearly defined groups, and everything from a group (plus all their enhancements) is visible on one screen at the same time. Uh oh, you've just picked a passive that applies to all your "imbuement" abilities, those are scattered ALL across the tree! Mouse over each ability at the bottom of your screen and you'll see that each one is clearly tagged with a couple properties that will make it obvious which buffs apply to which abilities.
As for the player's stats, my rogue has a lot of gear with buffs to intelligence on it. If you told me this in Diablo 3 I would ask how you even managed to do that, then I would assume that fate has played a cruel joke on you. In Diablo 3 you ignored every single stat that wasn't your class' favorite and had a loot system that did most of the work for you - nearly all the gear you would get would favor your class and buff that stat. D4 doesn't do this. You'll still get gear your class can actually wear, but that gear can have any kind of attribute on it, and those stats will always provide some kind of benefit to you. Intelligence isn't optimal on a rogue, but it's not the end of the world because INT gives rogues extra crit chance. This is shuffled around for each class to remain useful, but you don't have to memorize any of this because you can immediately check what applies to you when you open your inventory.
While a lot of the decisions that directly affect moment-to-moment gameplay have been clarified, the game's biggest weaknesses are still issues with information and transparency. I have been asked several times what a "murmuring obol" is. I don't know how to explain the difference between normal dungeons, Whispers, and the Helltide stuff. The current endgame content is confusing, and while it's explained through a pop-up, all of this still feels obtuse when you're tasked with deciding what you should do next after you've finished the story. You could watch a YouTuber explain how paragon levels work this time around, but you shouldn't have to do that, and best of all: my friends who do watch these videos still find it confusing! It's weird, too, because some of the better selling points of the game - e.g. co-op scaling allowing players of any level to play together - are completely reliant on information sources outside of the game itself. The oft-derided battle pass isn't out yet, but that's what makes me fear for everything I've mentioned in this section. Information issues matter less when you know the game like the back of your hand, which is to say that a profit-focused approach to this game will cater more to the Forever Players who pump endless money into this game than the people trying the series for the first time, the people trying to show something they love to a friend, the people most affected by a lack of clarity.
This review contains spoilers
So, Diablo IV. I feel like I say something to this effect in most of my reviews lately, but I've never really been a HUGE Diablo guy. I enjoyed Diablo III's base campaign and I played a bit of Diablo II Resurrected, but I only occasionally play the games and I don't know much about the lore. I ended up quite enjoying my time with Diablo IV, though, of course, it does have its issues. Overall, its a pretty fun top-down hack and slash style game that loves to throw tons of enemies at you, which I'm usually down for. I've been playing it exclusively when grouped up with some friends, mainly some people that tend to play on and off. I'm engaging in endgame content as of typing this review, doing Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons, and the like.
Before I talk about the real meat and potatoes of the game, I have to be honest here and say I have some complaints with Diablo IV. To be clear, the game has been pretty much nothing but smooth sailing for me as of today and yesterday and it is a fun experience, but I did encounter some frustrating, weird, or just plain funny glitches. For one, the game is...well, let's just say it was a rough launch and could have absolutely used more time in the oven. At launch, there was an annoying issue with the queue being infinite, but thankfully this was quickly fixed. There's a few minor issues, mainly with stuff like the graphics not loading in, which can make the game look like garbage (which is weird considering that the graphics in this game overall are pretty great imo). Had plenty of seemingly random lag spikes, too, but I don't know how much of that was the server's fault or my own internet or PC's fault considering I don't exactly have a top of the line gaming PC. Last minor gripe from me of note is that the power scaling felt a bit off when you're with three players, but I noticed this became a non-issue once my group got the endgame gear and abilities we needed to become very strong. If I only had small issues, though, then I wouldn't be dedicating a whole paragraph to this, so rest assured I saw some bafflingly strange glitches. The most irritating of these is that, very rarely, the game will sometimes just decide that you will not be allowed to attack at all, and I only was able to fix this when I turned the game off and opened it back up. Initially happened to only me, then spread to the person I was playing with as well. We're lucky we were in an area that was easy to escape from; if we were in a boss battle, we would have been screwed. Granted, this hasn't happened to me since, but the fact that it happened at all is truly confusing. We also once went into a dungeon that had a bugged objective, so we couldn't clear it because it acted like we were missing something that wasn't there. We checked the whole dungeon, so we knew we didn't just miss something, and other people have reported the same thing. The real kicker of a glitch - the magnum opus - was, fittingly, saved for the last boss of the game: during the final battle with Lilith, because my other party member skipped the cutscene and started the fight, I was taking damage and quickly died while the cutscene was playing. This caused the game to freak out and the cutscene was playing with no voices or subtitles, with the camera occasionally glitching out and battle effects still showing. Once the cutscene ended, I was treated to my character t-posing for a few seconds before the game showed I was dead by having my character disappear. Also I just had to move and I suddenly reappeared and was able to fight again as if I never died. I wish I recorded it, but it was very funny in the moment and there is a video showing pretty much exactly the same glitch that happened to me out there if you really want proof. I can overlook all of this, but, quite frankly, its just unacceptable for a game to be releasing with such game breaking bugs, especially if its an AAA quality game you're paying $70 for. It really makes me sad that we can't just expect these games from big developers with tons of money behind them (that also charge a lot for their games) to launch as a complete fully polished package like they used to. All that money and you can't make sure your game comes out polished?
Alright, time to talk about the actual content now. How about gameplay? Well, I think its pretty good, though I recommend playing in a party of friends. I was playing a Barbarian, so naturally my play style was simple, but it was still fun bashing my enemies skulls and stunning them a bunch. I felt just fine as far as power goes very early on, not super strong but decently powerful. Although, as I mentioned earlier, I was playing with a party of fluctuating numbers of players, and I always felt considerably weaker than my Sorcerer bro (which I sort of expected since I figured my defenses and decent crowd control made up for it). Then, once I got a little further in the story - around late Act 2 to early Act 3 - I found myself frustrated by how weak I was. That frustration persisted all the way until the end of the story and a tiny bit into the endgame, but I found that, as soon as I swapped from the talent build intended for leveling that I was using to a different build meant for endgame, I was becoming more beefy and dealing more damage just like how I felt like I should have been during the story. Now I have a bunch of very good gear and I plow through everything while barely having to think about my health bar, whereas before I was constantly dying and my damage output felt so low. I think this goes to show just how important it is to fully understand all of this game's systems and to have a guide on you while you play, though I dunno if I'll ever find out why that leveling build felt so pitiful to me. Speaking of which...
I think its very worth mentioning that, for me, Diablo 4's sense of progression was a little odd and honestly pretty overly complicated at times. There's plenty of systems to engage with, like the typical ARPG talent tree where you get points every level to sink into new abilities or bonuses to stats, some light crafting systems using the tons of materials you find through exploration, the Aspects system (Aspects are specialized effects that are either randomly added to gear as soon as you find it or can be imprinted on gear yourself once you earn some from completing dungeons or extracting the Aspects from gear you already have)...the rest of the systems are endgame stuff, but are also a little perplexing, like how you stop getting talent points after about Level 50 and instead get another separate tree called the Paragon Board, which contains little bonuses to sink your points into (think stuff like "+2.50% total health") that can also have slots for special effects called Glyphs that you throw XP into during Nightmare dungeons to then toss into this board's slots once you work your way far enough into the tree to reach the glyph slot. If you want more talent points, you need to go out and explore or finish side quests to finish certain Challenges. Even just getting rid of your old gear is something to contemplate on; do you sell them, or do you salvage them for important materials used to upgrade your weapons and armor? For me, the answer was usually to salvage everything until I reached endgame (I started selling every piece of gear I didn't need that wasn't a Legendary or Sacred item then), but some players might find the money more immediately useful. There's a ton of gems you can socket into your gear for bonus effects; how will you know which ones you need without a guide? Which of the metric tons of possible Aspects do you need for your class + build, and will you extract your Aspects from gear or go complete dungeons to have them permanently for imprinting on any gear you find? And, when you decide to do one of the main endgame content activities - Nightmare dungeons - you have to collect Sigils, which are one time use consumables that activate the Nightmare dungeons. If you want to do a specific Nightmare dungeon, you need the right Sigil to unlock it. Nightmare dungeons also have varying tiers of difficulty that different Sigils correspond to. Oh, and this isn't even getting into how there's a whole bunch of stats to consider, so finding which ones are best for your class can be a little rough (again without a guide). Sometimes RNG gives you gear with stats that aren't all perfect fits for your build, like ranks in an ability you will never use or unimportant stats. In the endgame content I was playing through last night, my Sorcerer buddy was very annoyed by the lack of gear with stats he actually needs, though maybe he was just very unlucky. I think all of this sheer amount of stuff really went over my head early on, and, while I understand it all pretty well now, quite frankly there's a lot of shit here. Maybe I'm overestimating how convoluted others may find it, though. Either way, if you're a new player, you got quite a bit to learn here.
Let's finally talk about the story. I said this before, but I'm far from a Diablo lore buff. Nonetheless, there was still some great stuff to enjoy about this story in my opinion. There's a big focus on characters here, with the idea seemingly being to have you get attached to them by seeing the sacrifices and struggles of these allies you've gathered as well as the motivations of the villains. The main villain - Lilith - is one of the Lesser Evils, the second strongest rank in the hierarchy of demons, who manages to get summoned to Sanctuary (basically the human realm) and immediately starts corrupting everyone in her path. As the main character, of course, your goal is to try and stop her. The game starts you off in a tundra with no explanation, where you nearly freeze and die until a wolf saves you. Then you find a village of Lilith cultists who seem like a helpful bunch at first, but immediately turn on you as soon as you fall unconscious from drinking whatever they put in your drink. A villager drags you out into a hut to try and corrupt you too through a common magical item of Lilith: the blood petals. A monk named Iosef that you met earlier saves you right then and there. From there, you follow him to Kyovashad, which is pretty much the main city of the game. To summarize, the story takes you on a journey all around Sanctuary, where you slowly learn more about Lilith, gain allies, and encounter some twists along the way, like how you stumble upon the mysterious Tree of Whispers in the heart of a dark swamp after taking psychedelic drugs, or how Elias was the pupil of Lorath gone rogue that managed to achieve immortality (and you also get to fight him like five times throughout the story which got annoying real fast). Perhaps the most interesting story parts of this game imo have to do with Lilith and especially the brief bit that explores her relationship with the angel Inarius. They are actually the reason humanity exists, since the Nephilim were born out of their relationship. It makes for a neat dynamic in that, despite Lilith being the Daughter of Hatred, she is still portrayed as closer to a benign figure than Inarius, who is a prideful arrogant warrior who almost seems to spit on his followers despite the immense faith they have for him. It also sort of shows why humans were so close to follow her without hesitation: Lilith's goal - or so she claims - is to stop the Eternal Conflict (infinite war between angels and demons) for good so that humans can reach their true potential. As for the best character, I liked Donan the most. He's a mage that once traveled with a group of adventurers to fight the powerful demon Astaroth, though they could not kill him and could only seal him away in a Soulstone. Everyone goes through some terrible events and has to make heavy sacrifices in this game, but Donan's is probably the most easy to sympathize with, considering that his adventurer companions are mostly dead and his son is turned into the host for that same demon he fought long ago (and we unfortunately have to kill him). The grief he feels for his son's death gets a good amount of emphasis and for good reason. From what I've seen, one of the most hated parts of this story is Donan's death, not because he died but because the way he went out was the stupidest most uninteresting way possible. When you're exploring Hell with your allies, they seem to be fighting back just fine, but Donan gets caught off-guard by a random demon tree in the background once and almost instantly dies from it. It actually made me do a double take on if that even happened; this character they built up an attachment with dies that easily? Well, regardless, I thought this story was pretty good and I had no major complaints about it other than maybe the pacing dragging out too long at times. It can sometimes feel like the narrative isn't actually progressing and you're just wasting your time.
Overall, despite the utterly bizarre but admittedly rare bugs, I found Diablo IV to be an enjoyable game. Cool story, fun gameplay, decent graphics...although its not really above a 3.5 stars for me. Keep in mind, that's not a bad score in my book. For me, 3.5 stars means I like the game but it has various problems in there that prevents me from ranking it much higher.
Before I talk about the real meat and potatoes of the game, I have to be honest here and say I have some complaints with Diablo IV. To be clear, the game has been pretty much nothing but smooth sailing for me as of today and yesterday and it is a fun experience, but I did encounter some frustrating, weird, or just plain funny glitches. For one, the game is...well, let's just say it was a rough launch and could have absolutely used more time in the oven. At launch, there was an annoying issue with the queue being infinite, but thankfully this was quickly fixed. There's a few minor issues, mainly with stuff like the graphics not loading in, which can make the game look like garbage (which is weird considering that the graphics in this game overall are pretty great imo). Had plenty of seemingly random lag spikes, too, but I don't know how much of that was the server's fault or my own internet or PC's fault considering I don't exactly have a top of the line gaming PC. Last minor gripe from me of note is that the power scaling felt a bit off when you're with three players, but I noticed this became a non-issue once my group got the endgame gear and abilities we needed to become very strong. If I only had small issues, though, then I wouldn't be dedicating a whole paragraph to this, so rest assured I saw some bafflingly strange glitches. The most irritating of these is that, very rarely, the game will sometimes just decide that you will not be allowed to attack at all, and I only was able to fix this when I turned the game off and opened it back up. Initially happened to only me, then spread to the person I was playing with as well. We're lucky we were in an area that was easy to escape from; if we were in a boss battle, we would have been screwed. Granted, this hasn't happened to me since, but the fact that it happened at all is truly confusing. We also once went into a dungeon that had a bugged objective, so we couldn't clear it because it acted like we were missing something that wasn't there. We checked the whole dungeon, so we knew we didn't just miss something, and other people have reported the same thing. The real kicker of a glitch - the magnum opus - was, fittingly, saved for the last boss of the game: during the final battle with Lilith, because my other party member skipped the cutscene and started the fight, I was taking damage and quickly died while the cutscene was playing. This caused the game to freak out and the cutscene was playing with no voices or subtitles, with the camera occasionally glitching out and battle effects still showing. Once the cutscene ended, I was treated to my character t-posing for a few seconds before the game showed I was dead by having my character disappear. Also I just had to move and I suddenly reappeared and was able to fight again as if I never died. I wish I recorded it, but it was very funny in the moment and there is a video showing pretty much exactly the same glitch that happened to me out there if you really want proof. I can overlook all of this, but, quite frankly, its just unacceptable for a game to be releasing with such game breaking bugs, especially if its an AAA quality game you're paying $70 for. It really makes me sad that we can't just expect these games from big developers with tons of money behind them (that also charge a lot for their games) to launch as a complete fully polished package like they used to. All that money and you can't make sure your game comes out polished?
Alright, time to talk about the actual content now. How about gameplay? Well, I think its pretty good, though I recommend playing in a party of friends. I was playing a Barbarian, so naturally my play style was simple, but it was still fun bashing my enemies skulls and stunning them a bunch. I felt just fine as far as power goes very early on, not super strong but decently powerful. Although, as I mentioned earlier, I was playing with a party of fluctuating numbers of players, and I always felt considerably weaker than my Sorcerer bro (which I sort of expected since I figured my defenses and decent crowd control made up for it). Then, once I got a little further in the story - around late Act 2 to early Act 3 - I found myself frustrated by how weak I was. That frustration persisted all the way until the end of the story and a tiny bit into the endgame, but I found that, as soon as I swapped from the talent build intended for leveling that I was using to a different build meant for endgame, I was becoming more beefy and dealing more damage just like how I felt like I should have been during the story. Now I have a bunch of very good gear and I plow through everything while barely having to think about my health bar, whereas before I was constantly dying and my damage output felt so low. I think this goes to show just how important it is to fully understand all of this game's systems and to have a guide on you while you play, though I dunno if I'll ever find out why that leveling build felt so pitiful to me. Speaking of which...
I think its very worth mentioning that, for me, Diablo 4's sense of progression was a little odd and honestly pretty overly complicated at times. There's plenty of systems to engage with, like the typical ARPG talent tree where you get points every level to sink into new abilities or bonuses to stats, some light crafting systems using the tons of materials you find through exploration, the Aspects system (Aspects are specialized effects that are either randomly added to gear as soon as you find it or can be imprinted on gear yourself once you earn some from completing dungeons or extracting the Aspects from gear you already have)...the rest of the systems are endgame stuff, but are also a little perplexing, like how you stop getting talent points after about Level 50 and instead get another separate tree called the Paragon Board, which contains little bonuses to sink your points into (think stuff like "+2.50% total health") that can also have slots for special effects called Glyphs that you throw XP into during Nightmare dungeons to then toss into this board's slots once you work your way far enough into the tree to reach the glyph slot. If you want more talent points, you need to go out and explore or finish side quests to finish certain Challenges. Even just getting rid of your old gear is something to contemplate on; do you sell them, or do you salvage them for important materials used to upgrade your weapons and armor? For me, the answer was usually to salvage everything until I reached endgame (I started selling every piece of gear I didn't need that wasn't a Legendary or Sacred item then), but some players might find the money more immediately useful. There's a ton of gems you can socket into your gear for bonus effects; how will you know which ones you need without a guide? Which of the metric tons of possible Aspects do you need for your class + build, and will you extract your Aspects from gear or go complete dungeons to have them permanently for imprinting on any gear you find? And, when you decide to do one of the main endgame content activities - Nightmare dungeons - you have to collect Sigils, which are one time use consumables that activate the Nightmare dungeons. If you want to do a specific Nightmare dungeon, you need the right Sigil to unlock it. Nightmare dungeons also have varying tiers of difficulty that different Sigils correspond to. Oh, and this isn't even getting into how there's a whole bunch of stats to consider, so finding which ones are best for your class can be a little rough (again without a guide). Sometimes RNG gives you gear with stats that aren't all perfect fits for your build, like ranks in an ability you will never use or unimportant stats. In the endgame content I was playing through last night, my Sorcerer buddy was very annoyed by the lack of gear with stats he actually needs, though maybe he was just very unlucky. I think all of this sheer amount of stuff really went over my head early on, and, while I understand it all pretty well now, quite frankly there's a lot of shit here. Maybe I'm overestimating how convoluted others may find it, though. Either way, if you're a new player, you got quite a bit to learn here.
Let's finally talk about the story. I said this before, but I'm far from a Diablo lore buff. Nonetheless, there was still some great stuff to enjoy about this story in my opinion. There's a big focus on characters here, with the idea seemingly being to have you get attached to them by seeing the sacrifices and struggles of these allies you've gathered as well as the motivations of the villains. The main villain - Lilith - is one of the Lesser Evils, the second strongest rank in the hierarchy of demons, who manages to get summoned to Sanctuary (basically the human realm) and immediately starts corrupting everyone in her path. As the main character, of course, your goal is to try and stop her. The game starts you off in a tundra with no explanation, where you nearly freeze and die until a wolf saves you. Then you find a village of Lilith cultists who seem like a helpful bunch at first, but immediately turn on you as soon as you fall unconscious from drinking whatever they put in your drink. A villager drags you out into a hut to try and corrupt you too through a common magical item of Lilith: the blood petals. A monk named Iosef that you met earlier saves you right then and there. From there, you follow him to Kyovashad, which is pretty much the main city of the game. To summarize, the story takes you on a journey all around Sanctuary, where you slowly learn more about Lilith, gain allies, and encounter some twists along the way, like how you stumble upon the mysterious Tree of Whispers in the heart of a dark swamp after taking psychedelic drugs, or how Elias was the pupil of Lorath gone rogue that managed to achieve immortality (and you also get to fight him like five times throughout the story which got annoying real fast). Perhaps the most interesting story parts of this game imo have to do with Lilith and especially the brief bit that explores her relationship with the angel Inarius. They are actually the reason humanity exists, since the Nephilim were born out of their relationship. It makes for a neat dynamic in that, despite Lilith being the Daughter of Hatred, she is still portrayed as closer to a benign figure than Inarius, who is a prideful arrogant warrior who almost seems to spit on his followers despite the immense faith they have for him. It also sort of shows why humans were so close to follow her without hesitation: Lilith's goal - or so she claims - is to stop the Eternal Conflict (infinite war between angels and demons) for good so that humans can reach their true potential. As for the best character, I liked Donan the most. He's a mage that once traveled with a group of adventurers to fight the powerful demon Astaroth, though they could not kill him and could only seal him away in a Soulstone. Everyone goes through some terrible events and has to make heavy sacrifices in this game, but Donan's is probably the most easy to sympathize with, considering that his adventurer companions are mostly dead and his son is turned into the host for that same demon he fought long ago (and we unfortunately have to kill him). The grief he feels for his son's death gets a good amount of emphasis and for good reason. From what I've seen, one of the most hated parts of this story is Donan's death, not because he died but because the way he went out was the stupidest most uninteresting way possible. When you're exploring Hell with your allies, they seem to be fighting back just fine, but Donan gets caught off-guard by a random demon tree in the background once and almost instantly dies from it. It actually made me do a double take on if that even happened; this character they built up an attachment with dies that easily? Well, regardless, I thought this story was pretty good and I had no major complaints about it other than maybe the pacing dragging out too long at times. It can sometimes feel like the narrative isn't actually progressing and you're just wasting your time.
Overall, despite the utterly bizarre but admittedly rare bugs, I found Diablo IV to be an enjoyable game. Cool story, fun gameplay, decent graphics...although its not really above a 3.5 stars for me. Keep in mind, that's not a bad score in my book. For me, 3.5 stars means I like the game but it has various problems in there that prevents me from ranking it much higher.
story is neat the gameplay is fire
solid 4 stars. Not much to develop here, if you like the genre diablo IV is perfect for you. They don't take big risks on the genre and just get together every good piece of modern aRPGs to make a perfectly addictive and enjoying adventure. The story has a slow and not really interesting development but the final acts are very good in every aspect and very entertaining. The game as some side quest arcs worth of exploring and the end game content is very challenging and rewarding to play solo and with friends. Blizzard really did a good job at doing it's job and nothing more. One of the best online games of this year for sure
Wonderful game
Diablo 4 is the latest installment from Blizzard in its long-running action looter RPG. Through all of Blizzard's issues Diablo still proves to be a best in genre showcase that's full of endless monsters, dungeons, and playstyles to enjoy.
Life in Sanctuary is tough, no characters, families, farms, or towns are safe from the endless doom and gloom that is pervasive in this universe, there are no happy endings here. In typical Diablo fashion you play as a nameless "champion" of sorts who is on a journey to stop the impeding demon threat/apocalypse, this time in the form of Lilith, daughter of Mephisto. The story is typical genre fare, though delivered in some really inspired and beautifully rendered cutscenes. In particular, the final full CGI scene is breathtaking, and features a cool and satisfying conclusion to this portion of the story.
Gameplay is fun and challenging, with many different options for encounters and playstyles. I played through the whole story as an arc/electric sorcerer, only switching towards the end to a firewall build that was much better. The action is quick and deadly, particle effects and gorgeous animations flash on the screen at a near constant rate during encounters. The game does feature some sharp difficulty spikes for sure, the main story is on average easier than the optional dungeons that are scattered throughout the world.
Post main story the game does get pretty grindy. After reaching level 50 you stop receiving skill points and instead earn Paragon Points which incrementally boost your character and provide mostly passive benefits. For non hardcore fans of the game/genre most of the interest will wane after the main story is completed.
All in all I never encountered a dull moment in my time rolling through the main story. The action and enemies are ever evolving and the loot and build structure of the lategame leads to endless opportunities for fun.
Life in Sanctuary is tough, no characters, families, farms, or towns are safe from the endless doom and gloom that is pervasive in this universe, there are no happy endings here. In typical Diablo fashion you play as a nameless "champion" of sorts who is on a journey to stop the impeding demon threat/apocalypse, this time in the form of Lilith, daughter of Mephisto. The story is typical genre fare, though delivered in some really inspired and beautifully rendered cutscenes. In particular, the final full CGI scene is breathtaking, and features a cool and satisfying conclusion to this portion of the story.
Gameplay is fun and challenging, with many different options for encounters and playstyles. I played through the whole story as an arc/electric sorcerer, only switching towards the end to a firewall build that was much better. The action is quick and deadly, particle effects and gorgeous animations flash on the screen at a near constant rate during encounters. The game does feature some sharp difficulty spikes for sure, the main story is on average easier than the optional dungeons that are scattered throughout the world.
Post main story the game does get pretty grindy. After reaching level 50 you stop receiving skill points and instead earn Paragon Points which incrementally boost your character and provide mostly passive benefits. For non hardcore fans of the game/genre most of the interest will wane after the main story is completed.
All in all I never encountered a dull moment in my time rolling through the main story. The action and enemies are ever evolving and the loot and build structure of the lategame leads to endless opportunities for fun.
i never played Diablo 3. i had no interest after playing the public beta -- at the time i was upset at the change in design philosophy that moved the game drastically away from what i enjoyed about its predecessor. the dark tone and hellish world (albeit problematic in its own right) abandoned for a generic epic fantasy setting, and the combat system that felt severely impaired to make work for what was obvious at the time the in-development console versions of the game. it felt in many ways too, as had happened to Starcraft, a "WoWification" of every element. everything had to scale up for the world's biggest gaming company. everything had to be grandiose, massive, for the sake of player retention.
all these years later a certain return to form has happened, even if i'm largely outside of many contexts that have come and gone. the trailer for Diablo 4 introduced the tone and world that i was missing. besides that, i no longer frankly have a gauge for what is a good loot game and what is not -- i may have tried Path of Exile a few years ago but something was missing. for me it's more a je ne sais quoi quality that i need, and Diablo 4 in its marketing pandered at least to my nostalgia of Diablo 2, so i gave it a shot.
in retrospect, i didn't think i'd find myself finishing the game and finding the narrative experience of the game the better half. the "looter" half here is frankly underwhelming and feels unfinished. upon finishing the campaign you're close if not already ready for WT3 (world tiers: determines difficulty and higher quality loot and exp gain) but at that point you're already getting the type of loot you'll see even in WT4 and up to level 100. for 50 levels you're getting the same loot over and over again and merely refining it -- there's nothing compelling there. i was on the verge of quitting the game at the realization of this but switching to WT4 early has made the game a challenge again, revitalizing it at least until i catch back up.
to claim that the narrative half here is the more compelling piece is not to say it's great or noteworthy, it's more a reflection of how dire blizzard storytelling has gotten. stripping back the stakes, removing the focus on the primal evils for a character driven, smaller scale adventure in this world's space was refreshing. there are absolutely silly narratological beats that arrive at the end (what happens to donan, neyrelle's sudden agency) which give the impression of a rushed production but again the expectations were in the pits of hell.
as a service game, as a game that exists to be replayed daily and at length, it needs a lot of work. a much more compelling endgame state needs to be developed and i don't know if i'll be playing much longer until that arrives. as it stands the grind is brutal which also puts me off starting a new character. i cannot imagine in the game's current state starting another new character with this grind.
if this isn't much of a conclusive review then i feel that reflects the fragmentary nature of Diablo 4 to the heart of what the game is. it is deeply at its core a timekiller and to those who rock with that none of these words really matter in the end.
all these years later a certain return to form has happened, even if i'm largely outside of many contexts that have come and gone. the trailer for Diablo 4 introduced the tone and world that i was missing. besides that, i no longer frankly have a gauge for what is a good loot game and what is not -- i may have tried Path of Exile a few years ago but something was missing. for me it's more a je ne sais quoi quality that i need, and Diablo 4 in its marketing pandered at least to my nostalgia of Diablo 2, so i gave it a shot.
in retrospect, i didn't think i'd find myself finishing the game and finding the narrative experience of the game the better half. the "looter" half here is frankly underwhelming and feels unfinished. upon finishing the campaign you're close if not already ready for WT3 (world tiers: determines difficulty and higher quality loot and exp gain) but at that point you're already getting the type of loot you'll see even in WT4 and up to level 100. for 50 levels you're getting the same loot over and over again and merely refining it -- there's nothing compelling there. i was on the verge of quitting the game at the realization of this but switching to WT4 early has made the game a challenge again, revitalizing it at least until i catch back up.
to claim that the narrative half here is the more compelling piece is not to say it's great or noteworthy, it's more a reflection of how dire blizzard storytelling has gotten. stripping back the stakes, removing the focus on the primal evils for a character driven, smaller scale adventure in this world's space was refreshing. there are absolutely silly narratological beats that arrive at the end (what happens to donan, neyrelle's sudden agency) which give the impression of a rushed production but again the expectations were in the pits of hell.
as a service game, as a game that exists to be replayed daily and at length, it needs a lot of work. a much more compelling endgame state needs to be developed and i don't know if i'll be playing much longer until that arrives. as it stands the grind is brutal which also puts me off starting a new character. i cannot imagine in the game's current state starting another new character with this grind.
if this isn't much of a conclusive review then i feel that reflects the fragmentary nature of Diablo 4 to the heart of what the game is. it is deeply at its core a timekiller and to those who rock with that none of these words really matter in the end.
Playing on Steam Deck... not no lifeing it. Very casual player. Seems okay. I'm not one to complain about updates and such. They don't ruin my day.
A Blizzard voltou.
This game is amazing! Having so much fun, reminds me of the great times playing grim dawn nerding out, but man the feeling you get when you use some of the skills is great. I love this game because of the druid skill pulverize, it's like throwing down an earthshatter in overwatch every 12 seconds.
"Not Enough Spirit, I'm Low On Spirit" my favorite druid quotes. Blzrzirzrad has truly revolutionized teh action RPG genre once more with their best work yet since Duplo Immoral, having to spend time riding a barely functional horse through an empty openworld is exactly what us Full Spectrum Gamers have all been craving for in our loot em ups. The itemization? Out Of This World, soMany conditional damage multipliers that rly make U think outside of the box ((Moar DAmage against slowed enemies...? HolyShit). Not to mention the incredible Game ChanGIng legendary powers like "this skill now does moar damage" or "this skill is now actually functional". My fayvorite character in the DARK and EPIC narrative was Mareyrelle Sue of course, she was sO cool and and Interesting and SMart, and I must admit I rly geekd out and even clapped when Duriel appeared and said "Looking For a Refund?". All In All I CanNot wait to purchas thePRemium BattlePass each season!!! 9.5/10
best cinematic in video game history, I get those goosebumps every time when thinking about that scene.
Remember when Blizzard got shit on for months without end for horrific sexual harassment and gender discrimination allegations? Because seems like everyone forgot.
devil mommy step on me PLEASE im begging you i can't take this no more
A cool entry to get me into the series for the first time. It's strange to join such an established genre where everyone already seems to know the swing of of things, but it's fun to explore and discover all the trappings of a franchise I've mostly ignored.
I played this like I would any other offline single player campaign game: doing a solid helping of side content, but not all, and playing the campaign at my own pace. By the end of it here, I feel like I've still barely scratched the surface. I don't think I'll end up hitting the real endgame and maxing out a character, but I'll check back to do some more in the world and maybe see how some other classes work.
The campaign itself was also pretty captivating. I really respect how it kept a consistent, mature tone, and the characters and their performances were overall great. Looking forward to seeing where this goes in expansions, and it will probably spur me to go check out some of the previous campaigns now that I have some idea of what's going on with the game itself. I'm glad I played and I enjoyed my time here, regardless of how much more I end up playing.
I played this like I would any other offline single player campaign game: doing a solid helping of side content, but not all, and playing the campaign at my own pace. By the end of it here, I feel like I've still barely scratched the surface. I don't think I'll end up hitting the real endgame and maxing out a character, but I'll check back to do some more in the world and maybe see how some other classes work.
The campaign itself was also pretty captivating. I really respect how it kept a consistent, mature tone, and the characters and their performances were overall great. Looking forward to seeing where this goes in expansions, and it will probably spur me to go check out some of the previous campaigns now that I have some idea of what's going on with the game itself. I'm glad I played and I enjoyed my time here, regardless of how much more I end up playing.
Un juego que mejora lo visto en su anterior entrega, pero lo que quiero destacar es su historia.
Blizzard vuelve a la de antes, a hacer buenas historias con personajes que te marcan por historias humanas y con un sentido para que te llegue mas o menos. Y a su vez, con una forma de escritura increible
Uno de los juegos del año y a ver como va siendo ese contenido postgame
Blizzard vuelve a la de antes, a hacer buenas historias con personajes que te marcan por historias humanas y con un sentido para que te llegue mas o menos. Y a su vez, con una forma de escritura increible
Uno de los juegos del año y a ver como va siendo ese contenido postgame
Could've been 4.5 but:
Minus half-star for a dynamic monster scaling. This feature sucks so badly. I can't feel the difference between being level 4 and level 24. It's all the same.
And
Minus half-star for an inventory UI.
Who’s the fuck decided to make items looking so small in the inventory? taking 5% of my screen space in the game where the loot is main reason why you play it. I can’t see anything. So bad.
P.S. I'm on Tier 3 now
Lowering down from 3.5 to 3 now. So repetitive and loot looks like garbage.
Basically, this guy manifests all my thoughts and feelings in a much more comprehensive and entertaining way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihZe-ABUhsc
Minus half-star for a dynamic monster scaling. This feature sucks so badly. I can't feel the difference between being level 4 and level 24. It's all the same.
And
Minus half-star for an inventory UI.
Who’s the fuck decided to make items looking so small in the inventory? taking 5% of my screen space in the game where the loot is main reason why you play it. I can’t see anything. So bad.
P.S. I'm on Tier 3 now
Lowering down from 3.5 to 3 now. So repetitive and loot looks like garbage.
Basically, this guy manifests all my thoughts and feelings in a much more comprehensive and entertaining way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihZe-ABUhsc
A fun evolution of the series, it sunk it's hook in me and is not letting go.
La Blizzard que todos creiamos muerta ha vuelto. Sorprende que la trama, la ambientación y la nueva villana sean de los mejores aspectos en un juego que, a falta de probar su high end, es increiblemente adictivo y tiene contenido para rato.
Awesome
This is an initial review and I will probably come back and modify it.
It is fun. Is it $75 fun? I would say no. I wish I had paid maybe $40 for it.
The actual gameplay, while fun, is nothing new. We've been playing this same game for years now. In all fairness, there isn't much one can do to innovate in the hack-and-slash format.
Why does it make you wait so long to get a mount? Seems odd.
The gameplay loop is already starting to grow stale and I'm not even done with the story. The dungeons have gotten repetitive and some of them feel like they were almost copy-pasted. I know a few people who finished the story and were so bored with the gameplay by that point they quit because the story was the only thing keeping them engaged.
The graphics also have not really impressed me much, the cinematic scenes excluded (those are the usual Blizzard awesome). My wife saw my screen and thought I was playing Path of Exile and I haven't been able to get that out of my head. It looks basically the same.
The story is good. I am quite enjoying it. The voice acting is so great. It is way better than D3 in this regard. I haven't completed the story yet, so no spoilers please.
They did not learn from the beta and Druids need a heavy early-game overhaul. Yes, they are effective later, but they have to go through hell (pun intended) to get there. Bosses that took me 5 minutes on my Druid took me like 10 seconds on my Rogue. They also force Druids to hike to the other side of the freaking map and beat a bloody stronghold to get their class specialization, whereas with the Rogue it was a short questline in the first area and I had it. Druids need a major early-game buff and a class quest that is far more accessible.
I don't like how the Paragon system is presented after 50. You get an XP bar and every 25% you get another point. I would prefer the D3 method of presenting it: an XP bar that fills all the way for each point. Yes, nothing would functionally change, but it would feel better to be seeing that XP bar move rather than the microscopic increases it gets now. It makes me feel like I'm wasting my time as it is right now.
The legendaries have been a lot of fun to find. The buffs they provide really do encourage you to shake things up with your spec.
I love how easy it is to respec. If you sell your gear, the respec cost quickly becomes irrelevant. That being said, I honestly don't understand the purpose in the gold cost for it.
We'll see what the endgame ends up looking like.
Update:
The post-story stuff is fun until you hit a wall. Leveling slows down to a bloody crawl. At first, you are getting new and cool gear and it is fun, but then that just suddenly stops. All the stuff dropping becomes worthless. You get uniques, but the affixes on them are pointless. You can do nightmare dungeons, but don't expect anything even decent to drop.
I did the dungeon to unlock World Tier 4. Glass Cannon doesn't even begin to describe what I am there. I can kill things fast but even a slight breeze kills me.
Honestly, thinking of uninstalling until some big changes are made. The post-story is just simply bleh right now.
It is fun. Is it $75 fun? I would say no. I wish I had paid maybe $40 for it.
The actual gameplay, while fun, is nothing new. We've been playing this same game for years now. In all fairness, there isn't much one can do to innovate in the hack-and-slash format.
Why does it make you wait so long to get a mount? Seems odd.
The gameplay loop is already starting to grow stale and I'm not even done with the story. The dungeons have gotten repetitive and some of them feel like they were almost copy-pasted. I know a few people who finished the story and were so bored with the gameplay by that point they quit because the story was the only thing keeping them engaged.
The graphics also have not really impressed me much, the cinematic scenes excluded (those are the usual Blizzard awesome). My wife saw my screen and thought I was playing Path of Exile and I haven't been able to get that out of my head. It looks basically the same.
The story is good. I am quite enjoying it. The voice acting is so great. It is way better than D3 in this regard. I haven't completed the story yet, so no spoilers please.
They did not learn from the beta and Druids need a heavy early-game overhaul. Yes, they are effective later, but they have to go through hell (pun intended) to get there. Bosses that took me 5 minutes on my Druid took me like 10 seconds on my Rogue. They also force Druids to hike to the other side of the freaking map and beat a bloody stronghold to get their class specialization, whereas with the Rogue it was a short questline in the first area and I had it. Druids need a major early-game buff and a class quest that is far more accessible.
I don't like how the Paragon system is presented after 50. You get an XP bar and every 25% you get another point. I would prefer the D3 method of presenting it: an XP bar that fills all the way for each point. Yes, nothing would functionally change, but it would feel better to be seeing that XP bar move rather than the microscopic increases it gets now. It makes me feel like I'm wasting my time as it is right now.
The legendaries have been a lot of fun to find. The buffs they provide really do encourage you to shake things up with your spec.
I love how easy it is to respec. If you sell your gear, the respec cost quickly becomes irrelevant. That being said, I honestly don't understand the purpose in the gold cost for it.
We'll see what the endgame ends up looking like.
Update:
The post-story stuff is fun until you hit a wall. Leveling slows down to a bloody crawl. At first, you are getting new and cool gear and it is fun, but then that just suddenly stops. All the stuff dropping becomes worthless. You get uniques, but the affixes on them are pointless. You can do nightmare dungeons, but don't expect anything even decent to drop.
I did the dungeon to unlock World Tier 4. Glass Cannon doesn't even begin to describe what I am there. I can kill things fast but even a slight breeze kills me.
Honestly, thinking of uninstalling until some big changes are made. The post-story is just simply bleh right now.
Terminar un Diablo siempre es un concepto muy extraño, y mas en el caso de D4 que, pese a terminar la historia principal, basicamente ha sido hacer una introduccion a su mundo, ahora empieza lo bueno de verdad.
La cuarta entrega de la legendaria saga se ha revolucionado añadiendo toques de MMO y le ha sentado super bien, un mundo bien variado, un gameplay refinadisimo y un estupendo lanzamiento en cuanto a robustez de servidores han acompañado a una historia sorprendentemente buena para lo que acostumbra a ser la saga, con una villana estupendisima y unas cinematicas que nos recuerdan a la buena Blizzard.
La cuarta entrega de la legendaria saga se ha revolucionado añadiendo toques de MMO y le ha sentado super bien, un mundo bien variado, un gameplay refinadisimo y un estupendo lanzamiento en cuanto a robustez de servidores han acompañado a una historia sorprendentemente buena para lo que acostumbra a ser la saga, con una villana estupendisima y unas cinematicas que nos recuerdan a la buena Blizzard.
Story is better. The builds are pretty interesting. The open world stuff is all fun. It hasn't grabbed me the way previous Diablo games did but I definitely am liking it. Would definitely recommend to Diablo fans but definitely doesn't eclipse the genre in any way.
Between the gameplay loop, endgame progression, and early game story progression, Diablo 4 seems like its having an identity crisis.
The core gameplay loop of this game needs some work. It's too heavily tilted towards staring mindlessly at the absolutely mind boggling mess of an overload of stats trying to eyeball whether or not the piece of gear you got is better than your equipped gear. Often it's entirely not worth it to sit and find out so you'll find yourself skimping on potentially better gear of a certain tier because it would be too much of a hassle to trudge through the garbage to find. Even after you consider that, you're still likely spending at least 5 minutes between dungeons, which is typically around the length of a dungeon if youre clearing it coop, sorting through items, making sure everything is in order before you go back in and rinse and repeat. That is an unacceptable amount of downtime for a game that has a relatively mundane looting system, with very little in the way of loot creativity, and is mostly fun for it's intrinsic combat.
Another big thing that gets in the way of it's intrinsic combat is the amount of story padding there is. People that play these types of games want to hurry up and get back to the killing, they don't want to be bored with long drawn out cinematic, of a frankly mediocre plot, or even worse yet, in game story pauses where you watch a bunch of dialogue boxes appear over flimsy character models and sit there and wonder when it is you can go back to the fun part. These things communicate very poorly with what the game excels at, what it tries to be, and what people play it for.
And that's really only the major problems. Between the annoyingly backtracky dungeon mission design, the lack of proper unit differentiation causing various mobs to either look a lot more threatening than they actually are or be a lot more threatening than they look, the hilariously cheap elite modifiers that seem entirely tailored into baiting you into getting killed by flashing shiny loot at you and getting you to walk into the bomb, or if youre more aware, just having to sit there and wait for the annoyingly long animation to finally finish and the level scaling mobs gutting any sense of gains in power you might feel and relegating gains in power to increasingly meta builds, the list of issues just goes on and on and I'm only really scratching the surface.
It seems as they iterate on these games, blizzard inevitably gets further from the mark. Not closer. It really is a good thing that they haven't forgotten how to make their core combat feel very satisfying because this game would be nothing without it.
The core gameplay loop of this game needs some work. It's too heavily tilted towards staring mindlessly at the absolutely mind boggling mess of an overload of stats trying to eyeball whether or not the piece of gear you got is better than your equipped gear. Often it's entirely not worth it to sit and find out so you'll find yourself skimping on potentially better gear of a certain tier because it would be too much of a hassle to trudge through the garbage to find. Even after you consider that, you're still likely spending at least 5 minutes between dungeons, which is typically around the length of a dungeon if youre clearing it coop, sorting through items, making sure everything is in order before you go back in and rinse and repeat. That is an unacceptable amount of downtime for a game that has a relatively mundane looting system, with very little in the way of loot creativity, and is mostly fun for it's intrinsic combat.
Another big thing that gets in the way of it's intrinsic combat is the amount of story padding there is. People that play these types of games want to hurry up and get back to the killing, they don't want to be bored with long drawn out cinematic, of a frankly mediocre plot, or even worse yet, in game story pauses where you watch a bunch of dialogue boxes appear over flimsy character models and sit there and wonder when it is you can go back to the fun part. These things communicate very poorly with what the game excels at, what it tries to be, and what people play it for.
And that's really only the major problems. Between the annoyingly backtracky dungeon mission design, the lack of proper unit differentiation causing various mobs to either look a lot more threatening than they actually are or be a lot more threatening than they look, the hilariously cheap elite modifiers that seem entirely tailored into baiting you into getting killed by flashing shiny loot at you and getting you to walk into the bomb, or if youre more aware, just having to sit there and wait for the annoyingly long animation to finally finish and the level scaling mobs gutting any sense of gains in power you might feel and relegating gains in power to increasingly meta builds, the list of issues just goes on and on and I'm only really scratching the surface.
It seems as they iterate on these games, blizzard inevitably gets further from the mark. Not closer. It really is a good thing that they haven't forgotten how to make their core combat feel very satisfying because this game would be nothing without it.