Xbox Empire

[Angelus]

Imaginedvl said:

Interresting :) I have a bit a of a different perspective after playing both weekend and I agree (and disagree with some points) or at least I have a different opinion, but I can clearly see that you played it enough and have a good understanding of it (and other ARPG) :)

My take after playing everyday and levelling all chars to 25 and even farming that 35 Elite to get higher level gears and bring my AP to almost 1000 to all chars 😊

Classes: The 5 classes are different, and I like that a lot with the different mechanics.
Yes the skills are all over the places but we have no clue about so many legendary powers etc.. That’s I would not really be worried about that. Like D2, some skills really start shinning only with the right gear. I expect it to be the case here and this is pretty standard for any ARPG.

Barbarian - One thing that surprised me is how I loved the Barabarian. I never really like it in D2/D3 and was the least character I played (maybe the monk in D3). But the Barbarian in D4 feels SO good. I went with a WW build and farmed all the possible legendary power and I could even almost solo Ashava (some people joined at 20% HP).
Rogue – This fucker is so OP. This is probably the one that can ditch out the most damage at least up to 25 (melee blade fury) and I tried ranged too, was pretty fun. I played around with trap/penetrating shot build too and this was the most fun imo. But not as powerful as the melee one.
Mage – My favorite class in D3 (not really in D2) and while the class was fun to play, I really did not enjoy it as much as the 4 other classes for some reason. It was actually the most painful to get to 25 because I did not have “fun” playing her like the other classe (esp. rogue) where you have to combo/synergize with other skills way more.
Necromancer – I mean… The corpse explosion is just ridiculous 😊 You cannot ditch out the same amount of damage than a rogue but seriously, you can play the whole freaking 1 to 25 with 2 buttons… That’s not for me I think for the full game but I enjoy it for what it was.
Druid – By far the least powerful class (at least in the range of the beta) but I really like it. Played mostly Rabies with Werewolves pets and it was fun all along.

Overall the class balance is not an issue for me cause this is up to 25. That’s not even important to be honest. Level 100 will be what’s important and also, I do not really care about PVP.

Dungeons (and end game) : I liked them and esp. because for me that will be perfect for the end game. Let’s face it, other ARPG are not better and this is what a endgame should look like. Those dungeons are designed to be repeated and played over an over like POE (or rifts in D3) and I agree that the “carry” this item to “to this thing” mechanics are not good and sometime when you have to backtrack it was really annoying. So if we will have to do those dungeons like POE/D3 over and over they need to either remove that or fix it…

World Boss: I loved it 😊 That was a lot of fun, esp. when I go in the first time and died few times figuring out the rotation, skills and positioning (and like you said, behind one of his legs and a bit moving around when he does that move that brings in front arms back) but that was about it and then it was a piece of cake everytime. The idea is really fun to have randoms like that to try to get this down, obviously when we got geared like hell it was killable in 2 or 3 minutes but that will probably scale after 100 only like everything. So, no big deal for me. Being able to farm more than one kill, needs to be fixed, 100% agree.

Crafting/Gear Upgrades: That's super good for me, that's why I like ARPG, the loot and how you can min/max the stats etc. I like what they did in D4. I farmed those level 420+ items from the elite and on my barb. I have almost all items 420+ item power and my weapons are 462 and 464. The fact that you are looking for good rares instead of legendaries and then need to upgrade them (before to apply a leg affix on it or it will cost so much after that), then reroll and finally apply the right legendary affix is gold to me (using the amazing imbue system). There are a lot of options and way to increase/maximize your gears and even more opportunities to find better gear. I really like the system. The +Skill is also back. Of course this was level 25, but I can def. see myself doing that at 100 with the Sacred/Sanctified items that will drop only after level 50 and then 70 etc. and keep farming for better gear. And it will take time, unlike D3 for instance (itemization sucked, let's face it...) and D2 was better but so many useless affixes at the end or the opposite, affixes that were a MUST so basically randering them mandatory which is not a really good design. 

Overall, this was a blast for me. I’m a huge ARPG fans (Diablo, POE, etc.) and this is perfectly aligned with my expectations so far!

June cannot come sooner now.

Yea, like I said, I'm not particularly concerned with the class balance at this point, cus it'll all change in the endgame, and then again by the time the first season rolls around. As a rogue main, I do wish that some of the core skills were a bit more distinctive in their flavor...like, I think I preferred the Demon Hunter abilities in Diablo 3, but it's possible that endgame gear will fundamentally change the way a lot of the abilities function, so we'll see.

Hopefully the dungeon variety and mechanics will be good in the full game. As I said, I'm fine with it being the base of endgame content at launch, at least in principle, it'll just depend on the execution of the details. We all know the core formula in these games is "repetitive grinding" regardless, so whether or not it's fun for hundreds, or even thousands of hours, really all comes down to the finer things.

And yea, again, I really like the idea of the world bosses. And I think for the purposes of an introduction to them, this one was probably fine tbh...but I'd definitely like to see Blizzard push these into a more mechanically challenging direction later in the game, or at least have some rarer world bosses in high world tiers that really demand a lot from high level player groups, rather than them just becoming some sort of guaranteed loot piñata every few hours or so.

I think the crafting and gear system looks promising. I don't wanna say too much about it until we see the sacred, ancestral, and unique pieces and all that, but yea, I think the foundation we saw for all that in the beta was promising.