Diablo 4 review: Console feel and Seasonal experience

[ChristopherPaig]

 

 

 

1. Console feel

I am a PC gamer. I communicate with the machine through keyboard and mouse. And if a key is not working properly or my mouse has dust beneath it, it is of utmost importance for me to fix these, because besides being a PC gamer, I am also a competitive gamer.

The most competitive games online have a top-down view and I am extremely happy this is the case in Diablo 4, just as it was in previous games from the series.

An isometric top-down view compared to other types of views allows the player to have a full awareness of what is going on around him. Such kind of view is great for games with complex and diverse paths. But do we have such in Diablo 4?

From what I saw of the gameplay shown at the panels, the dungeon corridors and paths are linear and narrow. Just as in console games. It creates the feeling that you are going through a tunnel made by some evil trapper, not randomly spawned by nature. This tunnel is the same no matter if you go left or right - its size, width and appearance are not that random as these would be in nature.

Maybe this kind of stuff is not that common to witness, but my fear is that the random procedural map/tiles generator is not on the level I want it to be. Or it is, but it is creating console-like environments, because consoles have more priority than PC profits wise.

Diablo 4 needs superb randomization of map areas, zones and dungeons. This should be always a top priority for an aRPG game, especially one of the caliber of Diablo 4. I wrote many times the random generation of maps in D3 lacks quality. I don't want to witness the same in Diablo 4.

Another console-like feature in Diablo 4 is the UI. One of the most hated D3 features from all the community was its UI. Why not simply give us the freedom to move the UI in Diablo 4 as we want it to be?

I for example want my skill bar in center bottom. Other person would want it in different position. Some would prefer life/mana orbs in top left, while the map in bottom left. Why lock everyone in a console-like UI? If your concern is competition related, then simply give us 5-6 options for UI we can switch between. The majority of PC players will surely prefer a different one than console players. And your game will look great on Twitch no matter the UI positions. Don't lock everyone within the same UI!

Last in this section are the flashing effects when hitting enemies. If I want flashing effects every second I'd go to a trance party, the music there is better kappa. Again, as many of us mentioned thousands times in the D3 topics - the solution is pretty simple - give us an option to turn off the flashing effects. Allow us to experience the Diablo 4 world without constant flashes when fighting. It may look cool on Twitch and promote your game, but think about those people like me who find this annoying.

2. Seasonal experience

The Seasonal experience in Diablo 4 will be the game's main focus. The itemization, which I am discussing in next chapter, and other systems in the game speak for this pretty well. The Diablo 4 team wants the players to have different gameplay experience with each new Season by creating unique Seasonal mechanics serving for meta game shifts. Finally! Seasons will feel different than Non-Season and the item farming and build priorities will switch not due to power creep rather due to new interesting mechanics introduced with each new Season! Very, very cool!

This however means the dedicated NS players will be somewhat left behind compared to D3, but is this really a problem if everyone is having much more fun due to completely fresh Seasonal experience changing on regular basis?

What that regular basis would be, namely would Seasons refresh each month, or each two or three months is still unknown and will largely depend on how popular the game would be. The more popular and played Diablo 4 becomes, the more shorter Seasons we might enjoy since the Diablo 4 team would become larger and capable of delivering us more content per year.

Personally I would enjoy a flat one month Seasons as in Hearthstone. Here is what I would like to see from such monthly Seasonal experience:
- During first week the player is making the step to legendary items
- During second week the player is creating his endgame build with legendary items
- During third week the competitive player is ranking at the LB, while other players continue to improve their characters
- During last week a major world event with multiple world Bosses happens in-game and all players aim to finish that event together as a team fighting separately through the world, which is now cursed and each player receives unpredictable unique changes to his own skills, which will be there until all world Bosses are alive aka Season's end

Such world event at the end of the Season would serve for new gameplay experience for all groups of players accessible only during that time of the Season. In-game AI could properly "evolve" each character's skill bar into new one depending on how the player interacted with the game environment until now.

 

Source-article link: https://www.diablo4item.com/

Edited December 28, 2022 by ChristopherPaig

[KOPPEN]

@ ChristopherPaig

Hi,

 

The source you posted goes to the game's official site, not the source article. please be more careful next time if you don't want to be sanctioned. This time I will just close the topic!

 

• You must include a centred, representative image at the beginning of the topic, and a link to the source-article at the end of the topic. Violation of the rule leads to receiving a verbal warning and closing the topic.

Edited December 29, 2022 by KOPPEN