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Diablo IV continues on Blizzard's dumbing down of design bringing games ever closer to mindless mobile games. Hope you like left clicking!
A real bummer because the art finally nails the Diablo 1 esthetic in incredibly detailed 3D, it's gorgeous. The music follows the original vibe without turning into cheesy references and having it's own voice. The story's even better than I expected!
But none of this can save the incredibly controlled game design refusing to give any freedom to whatever class you've picked.
No, you'll only unlock a few skills every few levels even though the ones available in each circles are very redundant.
No, you won't equip more than 6 skills total (including your basic attack) because why would you wan't to make complex combos, right? Forget making any elaborate multi skill trap / attack / movement synergies, D4 wants you to have a controlled balanced build and force you to play with multiple other players so that you can't do everything on your own.
No, levels won't be meaningful. In fact they feel completely useless as monsters level up instantly with you. Why would you care about getting more powerful if enemies do at the same time. This is Skyrim syndrom, everything is set to your level and it's as efficient to just run through the oversized maps filled with boring loot as to killing everything. The loot isn't even linked to the areas either, they are set to your level. You'll always find something better, which you'll need because you leveled up and made the monsters stronger in doing so. It feels so gamey and immersion breaking.
The game is filled to the brim with idiotic systems that feel right out of a mobile game, that don't quite make sense in an RPG that should immerse you in the world. The game tells you exactly how many steps and quests remaining in the current quest / act so that you know when you ve checked all the boxes: you wouldnt want to have any surprises in the story, would you? At each step of quests, gold and items magically appear in your inventory because we need to constantly feed the slot machine addict players and maintain the belief that they are "progressing".
Once you step back and look at the mechanics, it is shockingly obvious how it is designed to create a mindless loop where players are constantly given a thumbs up no different than mobile games giving you a pat on the back every 10 seconds. There is no thinking involved, builds are incredibly basic ( are you doing bleed ? no, then you're doing berserking) with each skill only having 2 specific upgrades clearly lined with just 3-4 kind of build in mind. Wouldn't want you to get creative, woah!
Surprisingly I also found the controls pretty bad with my character regularly getting stuck in walls. Would have expected that to be super slick considering Blizzard's high production quality.
D4 gets incredibly boring after a handful of hours and monotony steps in as you watch thousands of meaningly critters gib and drop pathetic piles of gold.
But hey, still better than Diablo 3 which couldn't even boast such great art direction.
If you're looking for a similar game with any kind of depth, go play Path of Exile.
A real bummer because the art finally nails the Diablo 1 esthetic in incredibly detailed 3D, it's gorgeous. The music follows the original vibe without turning into cheesy references and having it's own voice. The story's even better than I expected!
But none of this can save the incredibly controlled game design refusing to give any freedom to whatever class you've picked.
No, you'll only unlock a few skills every few levels even though the ones available in each circles are very redundant.
No, you won't equip more than 6 skills total (including your basic attack) because why would you wan't to make complex combos, right? Forget making any elaborate multi skill trap / attack / movement synergies, D4 wants you to have a controlled balanced build and force you to play with multiple other players so that you can't do everything on your own.
No, levels won't be meaningful. In fact they feel completely useless as monsters level up instantly with you. Why would you care about getting more powerful if enemies do at the same time. This is Skyrim syndrom, everything is set to your level and it's as efficient to just run through the oversized maps filled with boring loot as to killing everything. The loot isn't even linked to the areas either, they are set to your level. You'll always find something better, which you'll need because you leveled up and made the monsters stronger in doing so. It feels so gamey and immersion breaking.
The game is filled to the brim with idiotic systems that feel right out of a mobile game, that don't quite make sense in an RPG that should immerse you in the world. The game tells you exactly how many steps and quests remaining in the current quest / act so that you know when you ve checked all the boxes: you wouldnt want to have any surprises in the story, would you? At each step of quests, gold and items magically appear in your inventory because we need to constantly feed the slot machine addict players and maintain the belief that they are "progressing".
Once you step back and look at the mechanics, it is shockingly obvious how it is designed to create a mindless loop where players are constantly given a thumbs up no different than mobile games giving you a pat on the back every 10 seconds. There is no thinking involved, builds are incredibly basic ( are you doing bleed ? no, then you're doing berserking) with each skill only having 2 specific upgrades clearly lined with just 3-4 kind of build in mind. Wouldn't want you to get creative, woah!
Surprisingly I also found the controls pretty bad with my character regularly getting stuck in walls. Would have expected that to be super slick considering Blizzard's high production quality.
D4 gets incredibly boring after a handful of hours and monotony steps in as you watch thousands of meaningly critters gib and drop pathetic piles of gold.
But hey, still better than Diablo 3 which couldn't even boast such great art direction.
If you're looking for a similar game with any kind of depth, go play Path of Exile.