While there have been complaints, this is exactly why there are betas after all. Better to start tuning the balance now rather than 2-6 months into the game and piss everyone off, not just the beta players.
Again, I haven’t played the beta yet (time constraints) even though I pre-purchased, but the friend I bought a copy for found the necromancer to be insanely fun, but also faceroll level OP.
They had 2 beta weekends (closed one for people who preordered and an open one for everyone) and I don’t think there will be any more. Nothing announced at least.
The game comes out in June, so at least you won’t have to wait too long if you’ve already purchased it.
Yeah, sorry about unprecise language, I was aware of that.
Honestly, I prepurchased it since I was/am swimming in gold (and thus Blizz cash) from WoW, not from any desire to be in the Beta.
I generally wait at least 4 weeks from the official release (if not longer!) before playing even the games I’m most interested in. To avoid the day zero issues, the bugs, the multiple rebalancings, etc.
OF course, TBH, for most games I want to play, I just wait for a GOTY / ‘Gold’ / Complete edition with all DLC or the first 50% off sale before buying games.
My cheapness reigns supreme!
That’s what most of my purchases have been too!
(That and free games of course, when they have temporary offers.)
D4 is one of the rare ones I got early,
I’m with you on this but sometimes I falter and buy a new game. This is one.
Gotta say though the older Diablo games are not really less expensive/on sale. They are still pricey given their age.
Kinda like Nintendo game that never seem to go on sale.
Through 4/17 the D2 remastered is 67% off, so $13 and chance US. 
Just because they want to screw with you I suspect. But yeah, they normally charge full price with minor to major sales 3-6 times a year.
It must have some kind of single-player campaign since after you beat it once, it lets you skip it in future character creations.
That Ashava fight is rough, whew.
Wasn’t that in large part because the Boss was level 25 and the players still capped at 20? I had a friend participate and they called it a soul-crushing grind of drowning your enemy in your own blood, just a literal drop at a time.
Yes, and also because it scales to the number of players around it so having underleveled or undergeared players around actually makes it tougher.
This is accurate. I must have died a dozen times. There were attacks nearly impossible to avoid that would one-shot at 20.
But whatever. You respawn right next to the fight and jump back in. We barely killed it with seconds left. I got the cosmetic reward for release and I’m quite happy. I just had to run back to the blacksmith immediately to fix every piece of gear.
90 percent of the time that’s what I did with my PC games that way you get tall the inevitable addons and such they’re trying to get rid of that with the season pass …although civ 6 takes it to a extreme level especially the console game …
This game drops next week.
Is this game a whole game with no microtransactions? I would not count an entire expansion pack, like a full “DLC”, as a microtransaction .
I would count anything where you pay while you play the main game.
The last few months, I played Hogwarts Express and am now playing Tears of the Kingdom. Both are full games with no microtransations. You can’t pay for anything; it’s all in the game you bought.
Yes? No? They claim that most of the microtransactions are going to be cosmetics again. But to get into the early release, you’re already having to pay more ($20/30 US), otherwise you have to wait longer. And that means that you’ll always be that 4 days behind the top players in terms of exp / gear grind.
There is some conflicting information about how the Battle Pass (again, only for premium versions of the game) will/will not have boosts for leveling alts. As I understand it though, it’s stuff you can unlock with the base version of the game, but the higher tier versions will have it immediately or at least sooner.
Still, they have claimed repeatedly that there won’t be paid boosts or purchasable gear that effects actual play.
This is probably OK, but I find myself flabbergasted if I am understanding:
This is ONLINE MULTIPLAYER only? I thought Diablo offered online play, but always had a single-player campaign.
Yes, but Diablo came out in 1997, when dial up was how you connected. Diablo 4 is releasing at a time when offline games are becoming a rarity.
And to be clear, the game is very much single-player. You do need to be online to play, and you’ll see other players run around, but almost all of the content is something you can do by yourself. There are raids where you need to be in a group, and you might want to team up with people for protection if you dabble in the PvP zones, but this isn’t an MMORPG that is expecting you to team up with a group to be able to do dungeons or anything. There are systems that encourage you to team up (such as experience boosts if another player is nearby) but very little is forcing you to do so.
You do need to be online to play, though. As in, you will always be connecting to a server, and if it’s undergoing maintenance, or you don’t have an internet connection, you aren’t going to play.
If you drop the cash for the game, you don’t have to pay another dime if you don’t want to. The money they’re asking for cosmetics is a bit crazy, where you could find yourself spending $25 to have a special suit of armor (note, only appearance, no stat boosts or abilities or anything). But that’s it. This isn’t Diablo Immortal, where your character’s power is tied strongly to “Resonance”, which mostly comes from high end gems, which almost never drop unless you spend real-life money to get special boosters that guarantee a gem will drop (but you only have a 1% chance of getting the gem you actually need, so you literally spend thousands of real life dollars to reach the top end of power in the game).
I will also say that when I played the beta, the customization was really nice. I don’t just mean during character creation (which was fine, for an ARPG it was pretty good actually), but I mean that as you find loot it unlocks appearances. You can then find a powerful ugly helmet or sword and change the appearance to something you like, and even customize colors (at least on armor) so you don’t look like a color-blind hobo on a quest to save the world. All of that is free and built in. You can unlock many really cool appearances just playing the game. The only reason to use a microtransaction is if you want to run around in some unique armor that has lightning flickering around the shoulders or whatever, and then feel special because other people didn’t buy that when it was available. (There is a bit of “fear of missing out” built in.) But this isn’t Path of Exile, where unless you spend money on a cosmetic set you’re forced to always look like you let your five-year-old niece dress you up from random clothes she found in her parents’ closet.
On the subject of expansion packs, reportedly they plan to release huge chunks of content (for free) every 3 months. New dungeons, new quests, new areas, new loot, and so on. It’s set up to encourage people to play indefinitely, just like an MMORPG (without actually being one, not really).
Four days behind forever? Nah…and I cannot see that it really matters except to tell your friends you were “first.” Eventually they will all be in the late-game and it will be impossible to say who had a four day lead.
So what if someone else started four days before you?
The reviews I have seen so far, and my experience with playing in the beta, suggests this is probably a AAA game worth the price if you like the genre and especially if you like Diablo. There is loads of content, it looks good, some bugs reported but (so far) nothing really terrible (except maybe the Sorcerer’s teleport which can stick you in the landscape). Only microtransactions for cosmetic gear.
It seems Blizzard got this one right for a change. If you want early access (four days early) then buy the Deluxe edition now. Ultimate has tier skips…not sure what that is. Otherwise, standard edition is the whole game minus whatever battle pass does and a bib or bob or two. I am still unclear on all that so check.
Blizzard just opened up pre-loads for the game. So, you can install it now if you pre-ordered and play when it goes live (either Thursday evening if you got Deluxe/Ultimate or June 5 or 6 if you get Standard (I forget which day)).
Here is the IGN review (others are popping up on YouTube as well):
Can you pause? Because I won’t play anything that can’t be paused.
No, like any shared online game you can’t pause. You’re in a real-time online environment other people are in as well.
But, it’s more forgiving than most games of its type. Any time, you can summon a portal to a safe space (a town) where you won’t be harmed, and then pop right back where you were when you want to resume your adventure. It costs you no resources and has no cooldowns. Just about whenever you want.
The game gives you a lot of junk to loot and very little bag space, and no option to expand your bag. Which frustrated me for a while until I figured out that I could just portal back to town, sell my stuff, then pop right back where I was without any kind of setback. The only limitation I found is that you can’t be in combat.
So if my wife or son want to talk to me, or if the phone rings from work, or if a delivery person knocks on the door, I’m just supposed to say, “Wait a few minutes, I just have to finish this combat”? Yeah, like that’s going to happen.