Diablo 4 Beta Gameplay Impressions - Diablo 4 is an MMO 

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Having other players be present is both a hit and a miss for me. Sometimes (mainly in town) there were just so many people and it annoyed me. But in the wild it was kinda cool to run into 1 person. I'd do an event or kill a rare with 1 person then not see anyone again for a while.

I was worried about the other players also. But once I started running into other people in the wild and doing a event with them it felt fun for me. Really glad that dungeons where solo tho.

I really like how the skills are visually. One of the things that keeps me from playing some arpgs is that the combat looks like 4th of July with colors even with melee characters. My rogue in d4 felt like a melee character with a bit of magic where it was plausible (traps, imbue weapon and etc). The clean look of the skills does also help with maintaining the dark tone of the game. Hoping that it stays the same as I progress. About leveling, I can clearly see that they might sell max level packages on the store like they do on Wow. There probably won’t be any gear being sold but the leveling scaling thing does seem a way to push “max level up” items in the store. They have been doing that on WoW for years…

The only thing I'm skeptical about is the scaling. If the whole game scales like that, it really puts a damper on that feeling of getting stronger which is such a big draw of ARPGs to me.

One thing I did really like was the way that status effects were represented on your character and enemies. It made it really easy to see when enemies had a shield, or how much DoT they were going to take. The visual cues in general were done well. I actually thought the graphics were very good quality for the type of game it is and I agree the art style and music make the world feeling compelling. How the level scaling is handled is definitely the biggest concern for me, and only time will answer that one. With a higher level cap of 100, it's going to be interesting to see how they manage it. I would personally like to see them scale areas within certain ranges, but they might be taking a leaf out of ESOs book and scaling you so that all levels of players can fight the same creatures and do relative damage, it's the skills/health that make the biggest difference.

After spending time upgrading gear, their effects, and moving those effects around on certain legendary pieces I felt a lot more powerful at 25. I mess with my build all the time, (flame shield does stupid good dps) and am finding new ways to clear faster. I sm having fun so far

Loved seeing cooperation in the open world: it was fun to run into players of any level and be able to cooperate, then go on your seperate ways without the fuss of having to make groups.

For what the game is, the amount of other players felt about right. Hopefully they keep the amount the same. Towns felt like a real gathering area with 10-20 other adventurers hanging out in the main and 4-5 in the small ones. The random events I did alone about fifty percent of the time and hardly ever more than one other player or one party. Was kind of fun sharing time because it wasn't a mob, just like 2-4 joining up to save a caravan, good times! Also the main story dungeons where solo for me, if I remember correctly. At least for me, I was mostly alone in the other dungeons too. I didn't replay any dungeons and just played it to clear the map and had plenty of rare and legendary gear and materials, so don't think you have to grind dungeons. It's pretty clear it'll be easy to tailor a legendary set to your build, like you can add gem slots to drops you really like that don't have them. Or break down a legendary and then add it's ability to a rare and it becomes legendary. I found fair and rewarding so far. Also the level scaling isn't exact. Different zones only scale to certain levels and being under or over by even one level makes a difference, so don't think every area is your exact level all the time.

I like D4, the gameplay felt fun and I’m excited for release. I feel like it’s in between D2/3 and POE. I’ll probably end up playing every class

With the exemption of super big raid bosses I could do a lot alone which was nice. Sometimes there were too many people in town but I loved running into them in the wild and just doing an event

I'm also a huge fan of Diablo 1 and 2 (to the point I play 1 every so often modded and unmodded). During the beta I did feel weird at times with the mmo aspect so I agree with you there for sure. I'm hopeful theres some build variety I did get a legendary power that seemed pretty okay. I'm also hopeful more of the end game loop is enjoyable because while dungeons are still there in end game I believe theres some other things + whatever they do for season to look forward to. Will be trying necro and druid next weekend. 🤞

I agree on all points you brought up, very thoughtful review of the beta! It's an mmo in all but name, it might actually be a good mmo but it departs from what diablo has been and our expectations of it.

I got you on everything but the visuals. This visuals are amazing to me, there are not many games like this where you can zoom in and it still looks great. Your character looks just as good close up as far away as thats all the cutscenes do.

The absolute best part about Diablo 2 was the randomization of the world. Same with games like Titan Quest. It was the newness of the exploration each time you started a game I kept you interested. Without that randomization there's no wonder once you've been through it once

I definitely agree it’s a mmo for sure. I’m new to the franchise so I don’t have experience with what it was before but I personally like mmos like this so I’ve enjoyed hopping in. If this is not what the game was beforehand, I’d say now it’s very comparable to RuneScape, Black Desert Online even Elder Scrolls Online. That being said, it’s still very different compared to those two for various reasons but mainly due to the story is more immersive than both of those respective stories combined. To me, it seems Blizzard noticed the hole in the mmo genre that was left by WOW that hasn’t been really filled in any regard by anything other than RuneScape back in the day. BDO and ESO have not captured any of that same attention to their games at any point in their lifespan except for maybe the very first month of release. Diablo, however, is not only an already known respected franchise but they’ve made multiple titles already. If done correctly, this will not only net a bigger profit than previous titles but a continuous influx that could possibly last as long as let’s say grand theft auto online or even longer.

Most noticeable bugs for me were on barbarian mechanically, the lag of the game, and invisible walls not letting us go through certain ways from the main city. Also trying to fight the world boss on sorcerer got finicky because there are mechanics that require you up close and personal but your auto attack is also auto set to your movement so there were a lot of times where it would interrupt vital moments trying to do mechanics. (Yes I could just change that, but the point is to test the game as given to you since not everyone would do the smart thing)

It’s been awhile I’ve been excited for a release. Playing the beta and having fun co-op campaign, side quest and dungeons made it all fun and gave me the itch even more for the June 6 release date

Surprisingly addicting, maxed out all 3 of my classes. Optimization seems solid as well since it was running on maxed settings on my RTX 2060. Will definitely play Druid and Necromancer next weekend.

Thanks for the great review. Appreciate the fact that you not only give your opinion on game mechanics and such but also explain very well why you think that way.

my favorite part was easily the combat gameplay. I felt like the difficulty scaling was off a bit, not horribly but could use tweaking. For instance, I went into one dungeon and worked through it to the boss monster at the end. I gave it like 5 or 6 tries and couldn't beat it. So i went to town and upgraded 2 items, then went for another try and I rolled through the encounter. Maybe it was me practicing but it felt to me like the itemization was to impactful compared to the difficulty, like both ways too. I don't think I performed better with the fight mechanics than any other time.

Detail oriented and to the point, no filler or fluff, thank you.

i really like to solo grind but knowing that you are not alone in a fucked up world knowing there are players around you each town and having that option to multiplay is always a bonus for me. a full single player offline is just a sad world for a game like this.

Poe has people scattered over every single town and it still managed to not be an MMO. It'd be nice if you could toggle other players on/off when you leave town - which would also be a solution to the level scaling issue. If you toggle it off, and you play "privately" with friend invites only then scaling is turned off.

I played the early beta this weekend gone and I was too positively surprised as well. As far as Diablo goes this was what I pretty much expected but the MMO aspect and shared world breaks it for me. When D1 came out I didn't have PC nor console to play so I would go to one of my friends and we would play a couch co-op. When D2 came out I was actually happy than I can finally play it on my own PC and at my own pace. I will probably jump on board with D4 but if Blizz will carry on with this online/shared world thing then it will be my last Diablo game. Which is shame.

New to Diablo, so bear that in mind. Having said that, it felt single player to me in some ways, because even though there were a lot of players in town, and occasionally some in the open world, there didn't seem to be a party queue system. That right there stops it, for me, from being an MMO, despite having some features of MMOs. The entire beta, I ran around by myself, doing my own thing. When I entered a dungeon, I was by myself. Occasionally saw some players in the open world, and if they were headed my way, we'd do a few fights, usually an event, and then we were alone again. It was like having an NPC for a few moments. I think of FFXIV and the party queues for dungeons - none of that here. In town there's global chat and there are clans. I guess my point is they went halfway, or part of the way at least, but they're still missing things to make it feel more online, if you really wanted to. It would be great, imho, if you could have it both ways, which is how I feel it almost is now. I played the whole thing by myself (only up to level 21, no world boss), so it felt single player to me. A way to queue with some people for a dungeon would have been fun. Probably global chat would have helped me know when there was a world boss, so missing that is on me. I think my main concern is build variety. The skill tree seems sparse, and the bar has only 6 slots, so it feel like there will be 2-3 ways to play each class optimally. In PoE, choices you make on that massive skill tree greatly change how your character even operates in combat. None of that here, really. I played sorceress, and different elements mostly felt like I was playing the same with some different spells. Maybe other classes have greater impact. I'm not advocating for the huge skill tree like PoE - that's not for everyone - but I do enjoy PoE in that the 3 seasons I have played through the character was hugely different, depending on my choices. Paragon may add some nuance. I hope they add more classes than just the 6. There were only 3 classes in the first open beta, so that of course is why it felt so samey, but hopefully they bring back more classes. I'm concerned about the Battlepass, as those often make me end up hating a game after a while, as I feel like I have to log in every day, even when I don't want to, and grind repetitive things just to complete a Battlepass like I have a second job. I love to grind, so this normally would not be a problem, but Battlepasses, depending on how they are built, can burn me out if I am not allowed to just log in when I would enjoy doing so (which would often still be every day, ironically - that fact that I have to for a game mechanic has in the past wore down that enthusiasm). I had a lot of fun though. Possibly all that matters!

My biggest disappointment so far is they didn’t bring back the monk, my all time favorite class, I will however substitute it for the Druid (I prefer melee class) hopefully further down the line the monk will added (crossing fingers) !

Nice vid. Looking forward to next weekend. :) I loved Barbarian and then Assassin from D2, but the druid was pretty cool. All I want to play in the Open Beta this weekend is Druid :)

Played on the Series X, it looked and felt great. I had lots of fun and I like players on the wild. I pre ordered it right after the beta. Can’t wait for this game.

I just hope bosses have more mechanics on higher levels. You could see one or two very simples mechanics, but we should have a lot more by the end game. It feels good that you have to find out how to kill a boss rather then just keep atacking till they die

My biggest complaint so far is that the game is too zoomed in. Most of the time I played the sorcerer I was shooting at things that were off the edge of the screen.

I think level scaling is countered by build synergies. Even if the enemies scale with your level, as you get access to more skills and passives, and gear, you will start doing a lot more damage and having things that chain and enhance/multiply damage; making the pace of your damage much higher. I think at level 25 it’s probably hard to see that flushed out, but at the higher levels like 70 (end game) it probably will be more apparent. In most games designed like this, halfway or a third to the endgame levels or gear is generally not where you will feel or have access to that power curve. Because otherwise it will not be challenging after you’ve been playing for a year, etc. I personally like this system, it will add a lot of longevity and replay to zones you’ve played before. Having a side quest or mission in a prior zone will still always be an adventure.

Good review I played over the weekend and completed the main story line line and had a blast. Because its a blizzard game it will always be build for the masses for game play and pc requirements

I think knowing that we're headed into a MMO experience, with Blizzard at the helm... as cynical as people will be, it's probably a good thing. This beta is very much a stress test, so aside from launch day issues, I don't think you have to worry about queues or rubber banding. It's the same server environment WoW is played in and you really don't have issues like you're worried about here. You'll have less because no one is forced to select a single server.

The rubber banding is the 1 major annoyance that can sully the experience enough for me to not play. I enjoyed the gameplay thoroughly and share similar concerns expressed in the video. As for the level scaling, for me personally as I reset my skill points to better reflect my play style, I did notice I was clearing mobs better, so I am hopeful that with better gear and paragon leveling, that'll get even better. I just wish I could enjoy the game even if I am suffering with potato internet connection speeds for whatever reason.

Story wise and art direction, it felt more like Diablo to me. Everything else is not as much but that's not a bad thing. I let go of the idea of having something like D2 again. The game is 20 years old, and the game industry was so different back then. At least we got a solid rebuild of it, and they're actually changing stuff and adding new runewords. I'm excited to try the druid this weekend.

One thing on the area leveling I noticed with my other half. I was level 25 and the creatures for me were 25. They were level 10 and even tho they were in a group with me as leader, the enemies were level 10 for them. Not what we were expecting, but a nice thing as they weren't insta popped and when I went into their world I didn't insta kill the enemies either. I rather liked that feature. I do hope they bring in pets to gather gold again, or at least extend gold pickup.

U r right about hard-core. You get insta ganged frequently. And level scaling means there aren't any "safe" areas to farm. Even if u do farm, u HAVE to have gear improvement otherwise the monsters out scale your pure level growth. God help u if a higher level character pulls aggro to u.

I think the speed/level scaling concern will start to sort itself out when you hit paragons. I feel like the enemies will stop scaling after 50 while you continue to grow with paragon levels.

Well I probably speak for a very small amount of players when I say this, but this is my first Diablo and I absolutely loved the Beta. I guess I have the advantage that I don't have the previous titles to be angry that this one isn't like anymore 😅

Playing alone in Diablo 2/ D2:R has that accomplishing feel when you've defeated the game. Maybe it's because of getting thru everything with the right allocation of attribute and skill points and potion management, maybe I might give the beta a shot one of these days to compare.

I had my exact expectations met. Came into this genre from path of exile and put a good bit of time into that. Tried diablo 3 but hated the art style and im playing diablo 2 to get me through until this drop. I like it

I enjoyed this video very much. I found it helpful and just outright perfect before I play the open beta this weekend. I’m interested in this sorta game, I didn’t hop on the Diablo 3 wagon and when I did want to. It was to late I felt. I played path of exile for a couple months before Xmas. And I enjoyed it. So I was hoping Diablo 4 would blow me away with how path of exile is enjoyable but again it’s a repetitive game in itself. So this open world mmo style seems intriguing to me for new content and almost similar with destiny with there daily and public events.

nice I love it! it gives diablo and arpgs in general more life! playing diablo 3 I always wished there was more mmo elements like chat, group content, world bosses, dungeons etc... as a person who loves online games and only plays online games im more hyped for diablo 4! just preordered....

Thanks, you actually informed me so honestly that I realize I might not want to get D4 after all. The cons are really all that mattered for me.

Personally I love mmo’s and so I know I’ll most likely enjoy this style of Diablo but I can see this being let down for hardcore Diablo fans. Hopefully it’s an enjoyable experience for everyone

Not really a fan of MMOs anymore but I'd be willing to give it a shot if the end game isn't like raids for WOW/ESO. Where you have to have a clan/guild/randos to complete. That's part of what I loved about the Diablos. Singleplayer with the options of multi. Guess we will see when it releases.

The level scaling worked very well, especially with parties in a dungeon. My buds and I had so much fun.

The itemization is gone be really good in end game, is gone be like d2 only diff is the legendary abilities that you can transform over to rares, what makes it even better imo.

Bro you consistently make great content. Love your vids. Keep up the good work

I really hope it has a strong end game because the beta was amazing. But as we all know it comes down to what happens after you clap the last bosses cheeks

I tried some kind of Thorn-whirlewind barbarian and its pretty busted if you try to get thorn dmg on allmost every item, some bosses more or less killed them self with all my buffs up and normal mobs did like 1-2 hits before they died.

I think you nailed it with the ESO comparison.. that was my thought watching streams this week Unfortunately, I played a lot of that game and got tired of the constant 'balancing' that would ruin a build I spent time farming and perfecting D3 has had updates to sets and skills, but an MMO lives and dies on that to make players chase something new all the time This one merits a wait for final product launch, because even review copies will be incomplete without the live service enabled

I think that small enemies should scale 0.8-0.9:1 with the player, while medium and big enemies should scale 1.0-1.2:1 with the player. This way you get an increasing difficulty curve and when you finally out-level the level range and go back and spank them easily, you feel the progression. If everything just scales 1:1 you will feel like you are not making progress.

The pace not changing is a flaw with having the world level with you. I wonder if this could be alleviated by giving a slight boost vs mobs when you level... because finding good enough loot to feel powerful doesn't seem to last long enough (if you find it at all, in my case). Regardless I still had an awesome time leveling my sorc and rogue to max and am skeptically hopeful for full release.

I enjoyed my time with it when my friends and I weren't running into rubberbanding, invisible walls, or plain, not able to load into any dungeons. I like the over world. I will say during the story missions the boss fights felt like a "the floor is lava" simulators. Especially as a melee centric build this is a huge problem when I felt like me, the barb, literally watched my friends, who were both wizards, being the only ones who could even get to fight bosses given the arena, massive amounts of aoe pools or having to dodge wave attacks... never felt like I got stronger given my play time either since everything is exactly my level or higher. So I have concerns but I'll give it a chance come June.

I don't know if you just made a bad build, but my gameplay at level 25 was dramatically different than when I started the beta. I was critical popping massive groups of enemies with my melee rouge build and felt far more powerful than I did during the leveling up phase. I also played it way too much and had legendry items in every slot that had actually meaningful skills for my build. It felt like a lv 100 type of synergy, minus the one off item stats you can't get the mats to change during the beta.

I think it's got some of every diablo (123), plus its own thing. What i really didn't like about it so far, its got too much of diablo 3. i thought it was okay (d3) but i missed the creepiness and gothic feel to it, from d1 & d2, those felt very medieval. 3 & 4 are too colorful for lack of a better word. I'll see how the release goes before i make a decision to buy or not. OH! I REALLY LOVED THE CUSTOMIZATION IN D4!!! d3 had a little bit of that, but i spent a lot of time making each class look SO different.

Awesome review man! Good work as always

The scaling seems like a non-issue. In the worst case, the world zones scale to your level - but your level is only a part of it, your paragon and items are more important. I assume with those you'd still be able to steamroll old zones. But also, I feel like zones maybe only scale up to their limit? Since I did notice a lot of unavailable zones all have a high level requirement, clearly there's some hard limits in there. I assume world bosses might be exempt though, those likely always scale.

There doesn't seem to be much incentive to participate in the MMO-like features. Except for maybe the world bosses, which I wasn't able to check out this beta cycle, everything was simple enough to complete solo. Better events might help raise that incentive by providing more challenge and nuanced objectives. Maybe more of those are to come, but for now the simple objectives I've come across were pretty easy to tackle alone.

It's a bit annoying that once again our character is "the chosen one" rather than just an adventurer. Agree with most of your analysis, particularly the repetitive feeling of dungeons.

You know the mage was awesome I did a split build with hydras and blizzard and a few other things than I did a full fire build would seem the weakest I did a full shock build which seemed pretty good but the rogue seemed like marksman was super OP and melee was not and the barbarian just overall needs a lot of work it just really wasn't viable to do anything on your own. I do think that sorcerer was the best overall feeling class. I can't wait for next weekend with necromancer comes out

i super enjoyed the scaling, made everything i did relevant, power increase comes from more skills and procs etc!

Maybe Activision Blizzard intend on making a true Diablo MMO, maybe that's why there are some limited MMO features in D4, to see the reaction of the players and to see how well they fit into the game.

Pretty honest review, so thanks for that. It's rather worrisome that most of the mmo elements mentioned are basically pretty bad negatives, like queues, rubber banding and no solo mode. It really seems like it's to incentivise microtransactions. We know there's a battle pass, some sort of enhanced battle pass and the game seems exactly set up like a lot of engagement hungry ARPG's that go after your wallet. Unless the game is p2w I'll likely give it a go, but I'm not at all hyped. It felt so good to play D1 and D2 and feel the actual content and story without seeing random players dressed as chickens. Because I guarantee you it's going to happen.

I was super hyped for so long, since I loved Diablo 2 (and Resurrected), and I thought they'd learned from Diablo 3 based on earlier teasers. But... learning the details of all this MMO stuff... I think I'm out. Or at least for this year, and I keep an eye out for a future sale like I did with D3. I just want to settle into a gloomy solo game, not wait in a queue, socialise, collaborate, emote or see any random flamboyantly overdressed characters running around (other than me) ruining the atmosphere.

As long as the adjust the timed drops of the world bosses to suit different world times I'm happy with what I saw.

I agree with pretty much all your points. I like the social aspect of Diablo IV, _but_ I wish this was a toggle option. Maybe you have a statue in the hub town you can interact with that makes you play solo except for world bosses (where you'd "phase" along other players). Being a forced MMO is something I wasn't very fond of either. As for the store and battle pass, the devs made a post and said in various interviews that it'll be only for cosmetics. So unless that changes in the future (God, I hope it doesn't) I think we're fine. Also, did you have any performance issues? I've been reading an alarming number of players who have a Gigabyte RTX 3080ti GPU, and that it fried in certain portions of the game (particularly at the chapel flashback cutscene). Apparently this is only affecting _this_ specific model of GPU, but it's still very concerning.

Thanks for this review because I was wondering if I should check it out and you just saved me a lot of time

Also, one thing to note on the PC performance side of things is there appears to be a memory leak error. I have 32 GB of RAM and a 12 GB VRAM card and I was still using all of my GPU ram and 78% of my 32 gig system memory. Very odd.

Great video Fextralife, it was like listening to your mate describe what diablo 4 is like (Which is a massive positive)

i like the mmo things but i hope we get a bit more in depth with the skill tree

It's weird that there are 2 camps on the Diablo Multiplayer angle. I sit in the camp that Diablo has ALWAYS been best multiplayer. My best memories are playing with pals from D1 to D3. I do think the lag issues are a legit concern though. That said, I loved what I seen so far. I agree that there is a potential issue with the live service aspect if they handle it badly. I'm going to wait to see on that aspect to see how it looks though. Blizzard has been a bit cagey about details I suppose. I think gameplay wise the only thing I wasn't too thrilled with was all the crowd control and "poop" bosses drop on the ground. It's a lot more challenging to almost the point of frustration. I was playing on Veteran though and it does make the victories a bit sweeter. I guess they're trying to harness that souls-like vibe. Kind of shocked to hear your complaints on the graphics. I thought they were pretty solid. The in-engine cut-scenes are REALLY impressive and have that level of Blizzard cinamatic I'd expect. Anyhoo, thanks for posting your thoughts.

Regarding the graphics, what are arpgs out there that make full use of a powerful PC? I feel like most are as or less graphically impressive than D4 so I'd love to play some stand outs.

I miss when items you found were what made your character stand out and look cool, not which ones you have to purchase.

Thanks for the in-depth info. Now I know this game isn't for me. I'm not an MMO person. Kudos to all the people who will enjoy the game.

This game is everything I've dreamed of. I always wanted it to be more mmo like.

This weekend exceeded my expectations and I'm excited to really sink my teeth into this game. The character customization options are really bad though. I hope there is some work done to that system before the full launch in June. Some of the hair/facial hair options I'm convinced were bugged and not the end product blizzard was looking for.

Weirdly, level-scaling for instances is not at all a common feature in MMOs, either, even though it totally should be. So it's good to see that, here.

The lvl scaling is gonna slow you down so much if you wanna go to act 2 quicker your just gonna have to skip dungeons and side quests or your gonna be 30 plus vsing quills

Well the level scaling makes sense if you can go all over the map or essentially start anywhere. That would be silly to allow you to go to some far side of the map where characters are level 50 and they wipe you out but they said you can go anywhere and start whatever quest you want

Biggest change I'd want to see is drop rates for rare and legendary loot. It could be because it's a beta, and maybe they want us to be exposed to the gear we could be getting while on the grind, but they were dropping just way too often. I know Uniques weren't part of this beta because they are behind World Tiers 3 and 4, and those are supposedly the new "Legendaries". But if the grind will be for me find great Aspects from Legendary gear, and to apply those potentially to Rare items I really like or already have, I feel they are just being thrown around too easily from what I played in beta.

I dont mind the MMO aspects too much (though RIP hardcore players) but the thing that most concerns me is the level scaling. ARPGs have always thrived on the cycle of progressively getting weaker as you progress only to find a broken overpowered piece of gear that catapults you back up in power. Im afraid level scaling will negatively affect that gameplay loop.

With all due respect we had one small area available. So of course if you’re spending 20 to 30 hours playing this beta, it’s going to become mind numbingly repetitive however, with the amount of dungeons that were in this area, I think, compared to other aRPG’s it really wasn’t that repetitive

I had the exact same thought. Really liked the game, but I feel it is heading towards an MMO model

I had issues running into invisible barriers constantly. Also triggering items. Seemed like a lot of bugs but I loved playing.

I think Diablo should have been MMO like diablo 4 since diablo 3. Just makes sense for this genre of games. But I also think you should be able to play alone through the story.

I’m more excited now if it really has the MMO features. Especially the scaling.

Honestly the endgame is what I really need to see for this game. None of the rest matters if the endgame isn't repeatable. What I've seen from the beta so far isn't worth 70 dollars.

That's good to know, it's seriously making me reconsider buying this game

Game is awesome my only complaint is the health pots I think an auto pot or some sort of vibration or screen effects for low health to help with management. Seemed like I was having to check my bar too much and broke concentration. Also was hard streaming the game from being so dark without adjusting some in game settings. That’s all my gripes hahahaha such a great game so far and it’s just the beta!

The game is very good but I do agree that the current beta does feel a lot like playing an MMORPG. I personally do not play MMORPGs because I find that kind of gameplay just doesn't fit story-driven games with cutscenes or reading. I remember playing World of Warcraft when it came out and having people in my party nagging me to hurry up because I was taking time to read all the lore. That was pretty annoying and instantly put me off playing the game. And even if I could still play the Diablo IV beta without interacting whatsoever with anyone else - which I personally didn't - then I still find it annoying seeing other people running around all doing the same quests as me. This is completely immersion breaking for me and makes my character feel a bit less special because basically everyone else is also doing the same quests as me. I really do want an option to play the game completely solo, like I did Diablo III, even if I realise I would still have log in to play it.

The level scaling, always online and Blizzards performance with D3 release have left me too cautious. I will wait for the post release reviews and see. I hope Blizzard doesn't mess it up.

I honestly feel like if I wanted to play a game like this I would just play lost ark. The skills seem more fun, the builds are more vast, there is more content and visually it just looks better. I feel like diablo 4 looks like a watered down version of lost ark with the theme of diablo but it doesn't feel like a diablo game. I hope i'm wrong and this game turns out to be great. The beta just has me worried. Thanks for the in depth review, it's definitely given me a lot to think about. I'll try again with the open beta and see if keeping in mind some of the things you mentioned can help me keep an open mind.

To be honest I would have loved if they had done away with seasons. I'm burnt out from having to re-level each season just to stay in the "ladder" pool. They mentioned 4 seasons a year which means having to re-level every 3 months or so. I'd have loved to be able to just continue to progress on a single character.

Completely agree with your takes on this and all those are valid if you have a good internet, and can take time off work. Diablo and MMO really don’t match up.

Its very true about D4 being a MMO first and a single player game second, I feel its a lost opportunity there to define the diablo franchise. The problem with making it a MMO first is because diablo with it's lore doesn't fit into a MMO style game, Diablo has always been the solo adventurer fighting against evil on their own, making their own path, and along the way they meet allies to help. While MMO tend to work with lore about being part of a greater cause. It would be better if they made encounters with other players only when you in a specific trade hub location (not any town hub) or if there is a gathering of heroes for a big event like world bosses.

So, how big is the file size for the beta? Anyway, for me it's the level scaling and itemization that gets met worried. Is ti going to me somethin like in losk ark where you need a certain value of item power in order to face a particular content. And the mobs that are scaled to same level as you are kind of remove the satisfaction on overcoming a zone with higher level mobs or steamrolling through puny low lvl contents, in my opinion.

One thing with the scaling that confused me was that some zones did not scale at all like the Fort Dragan stronghold was stuck at level 25 all the time. I was hoping to clear them as I discovered them but that zone was max level all the time.