So, after the beta weekend, my thoughts echo most of what was said by different youtubers about D4:
PROS
- I like the graphics and atmosphere
- skill tree matters more than in D3
- achievements - I am such a sucker for achievements...I wish D2R had them on PC...
CONS
- dungeon layout and quests are annoying
- dungeon tiles are repetitive and uninnovative
- can't skip certain conversations in side quests and you have to wait till the voice over ends
- skill tree doesn't matter as much as in D2
- endless running and running...especially in quest places. For example, once you start the quest where you follow Lilith down the dungeon, if you interrupt your gameplay and start the game later again, you have to run from the last WP (which is quite some distance) to that dungeon again. Open world should allow for more free movement, but guess what? I think I had more freedom running around in D2 than in D4, simply because there are such narrow passages where you have to squeeze through in order to get from A to B, even in the open world, but especially in dungeons. Due to those annoying "destroy 3 thingys to open door" quests you have to fully explore and clear most dungeons and quest dungeons. And I say this annoys me as a single pass tournament enthusiast...
- shared progress for all heroes: gold, Altar of Lilith, Paragon - this is just not to my liking. On the other hand, with soooo many Altar of Lilith, it would also be annoying to have to hunt for every single one again and again. My solution would be to drastically reduce the number of shrines, buff the effect, but make it for the current character only.
- itemization I: man do I still get confused by those decimal fraction numbers of mods. Does it REALLY have to be that? 6.3 over 6.2% damage to overpowered enemies?
- itemization II: speaking of damage types - there are far too many special case damage types for my taste: critical hit, more damage against crowd controlled, stunned, frozen, ... monsters, overpower, +damage to basic attacks, and some more I almost certainly forgot. Some will like this, but I think it gets far too much
- itemization III: Aside from the legendary powers, most items are pretty D3y...so blue items are worthless. In D2, there were at least some blue items that could be best in slot, but rares are always better than blues in D4. Why have blue items at all then? Or white items? Just for salvaging/selling them?
- itemization IV: why is my Druid not allowed to use crossbrows? Why can't my Rogue use Scythes? It doesn't make any sense from a realistic point of view and narrows down build variety.
- forced MMO experience. I am allowed to disable cross-platfrom playing, but not multiplaying? Makes me a sad panda.
- online only
- characters are uninnovative and rebrands from D2 and D3
- combat is too much like D3 - into the fray and click click click click away! You can't even see the cursor, so just keep on clicking!!! You could do that in D2, but you could also fight more strategic.
- some boss mods are just...meh. Walling? Laser beams? ... oh my, someone did want to reuse those coding lines from D3, did they?
- boss fights: I know most ARPGS nowadays handle it that way, but I don't like to be in a cage fight with bosses where you can only end the fight, if one of you dies...and then you have to start all over again. PMH/Poison was a fantastic way in D2 to stop bosses from regenarating if you died and had to reenter the fight or if you had to return to town.
- scaling levels of monsters: When I leveled up, I actually got weaker quite often until I found better gear, because - guess what? Items and item damage do still matter more than skills!
MIXED FEELINGS
- itemization IV: one the one hand, there are some interesting legendary affixes that open up entirely new builds. On the other hand, you can strip them from the item and put them on any item you want. This is great if you like crafting, but imagine if you could just put Schaefer's Hammer's abilities on any other item...yeah, right? I don't like it that much.
That is just from the top of my head, and man is that a big con list. Writing this down really helped me to figure out, that my feeling of being 50:50 torn on whether to buy this game or not was just based on a Diablo-nostalgia and my wish for D4 to be great. I think, D4 is simply catering to a different audience than me, and that is ok. I don't say it is a bad game, but just not a game I would enjoy as much as other games.
So I will probably not buy the game or only later once there is a discount. I realized I still have to finish the story lines of Grim Dawn, Titan Quest, Sacred 2, Nox and Children of Morta...that should be pretty enough ARPGS for the next 20 years