Played through almost to the end of normal so far. Here’s my take on it.
Game is not really that similar to Diablo 2 as everyone keeps saying. Skill system is kind of similar, with the branching skill trees. Yea it’s got the waypoints, “town portal scrolls”, even a weapon mod system that’s kind of an expansion of D2’s item socketing.
However, H:L reminded me more of a FPS (yes, even the melee chars in 3rd person) than the arcadey goodness that D2 is (or was, I’ve no idea what the current state of it is). Yeah we have a lot of the elements, even a Horadric cube! But the gameplay is so completely different, mostly due to the perspective change.
Ok, D2 “sequel” or not, is it actually GOOD?
I am honestly still trying to answer that. I started off with a “wow that’s cool” attitude, and steadily dropped the longer I played it. I no longer care about the story, the characters, the loot, etc. It’s becoming an exercise in tedium and I’m not really seeing any payoff in sight. I paid for a subscription the 2nd or 3rd day I had it, and I’m almost definitely going to cancel it after the month is up. If I can still play as a non subscriber, fine I’ll slog on a bit longer. If not, well, whatever. Other than the Stonehenge area, I’m really not seeing many benefits to subscribing. The bigger stash is nice, but I tend to be a bit of a packrat, and fill my stash no matter how big or small it is. I haven’t found any weapons or armor that’s subscriber only, and the only thing I know how to do with the horadric, er, transformation cube, is make bigger health restorers.
Complaint #1: This game is very confusing to start off. There’s a device which can add properties to any item for a fee. Then there’s mod slots on weapons only (sorta like d2’s sockets). Each mod slot can only be filled by a specific type of mod (battery, ammo, relic, or tech), and also, the mod itself has to be within the weapon’s item level range. Also, you can use another machine to increase the damage and the items level, but not the mod level. So it’s possible to “level” an item too high for the mods in it, and wind up having to remove the mods (using yet another machine). Oh, and upgrading an item requires a bunch of different components like shards, which can be had by disassembling items and at least 1 nanoshard, which is mostly from rare or unique items. Then there’s blueprints… You follow any of this? Then you must’ve been playing a while. It’s very intimidating to a new player to try to figure out the absolutely surrealistic methods of upgrading/modifying items. Ok, I did manage to find some guides and do some experimentation and figure it out, but why make life so difficult?
Complaint #2: Where the heck is my single player patch? The game uses different clients for single player and online play. Something about hackers. Anyhow, multiplayer patch #3 is around the corner - details are available on the web site. ALSO, details on the NEXT mp patch have been posted. But single player seems to have been entirely forgotten, as it’s only had 1 patch since release. I know Flagship is a smaller studio, and they’re obviously trying to get the multiplayer side fixed up asap since that’s where paying subscribers are. But the decision to do NOTHING about the sp issues while fixing these same issues mp is royally cheesing a lot of people off.
Complaint #3: Would you like some bugs with those demons? I’ve been playing mostly solo online due to the above issue, but there’s still a lot of issues for a game that’s been out around 6 months now. I’ve had difficulty completing a few quests because the item or npc quest objective wasn’t there, a couple more because there were “friendly” npc’s on the playfield that killed the mobs I was supposed to kill for the quest. Also, the playfields are basically small areas linked together by “towns” or stations. About 5 or 6 times I’ve been 2-3 areas away from the station and gotten bounced out by “network server errors”. Upon restarting I have to go through the 2-3 areas I’ve already cleared and work my way through again. Not a huge deal due to most of the areas being fairly smallish, but a bit frustrating when it keeps happening. I thought Flagship was composed of a lot of ex-blizzard employees that knew all about network coding?
Complaint #4: Everything’s the same! Ok, we got the burned out city street level (loaded with breakable cardboard boxes and exploding barrels). We have the subway tunnel area (loaded with breakable cardboard boxes and exploding barrels). Then we have the deserted vagabond underground area (loaded with breakable cardboard boxes and exploding barrels). An arcade/plaza type place (loaded with breakable cardboard boxes and exploding barrels). Hmm, that’s pretty much it. Rinse and repeat for about 30-40 different levels. Oh, and sometimes levels contain a hellgate area, every one of which looks exactly the same, and sometimes a larger area inside that, which looks exactly like a museum (complete with dino skeletons). Sure once in a while you get nifty areas like the British Museum, or that park, but for the most part there are only about 5 different level types that you’ll see over and over and over again. Throw in the fact that every single mob seems to have the exact same color palette, and it’s deja vu all over again. A little (or a lot) more level/monster variety would interest me more than “100 new weapon types” on the upcoming patch notes.
Complaint #5: I have to waste skills on WHAT? Ok, H:L has a branching skill tree like D2 did. The big difference here is instead of having to put one point into a particular skill to access the skills below it, you might have to put 3 or more points into it. Why? Why does my engineer need to waste 3 points in concussive bots to get a haste bot? I could see if concussive bots actually provided some boost to the haste bot (more health/armor, etc), but they’re both untargettable and therefore unkillable.
Complaint $6: Credz for sale! The chat channels are filled with people selling palladium (the money used in H:L), level rushes, etc for real life cash. This was one of the most annoying things about D2, and when I got H:L I thought “they will surely weed this out now, right?” Wrong. At any given time you can see one of these spam messages on your chat box, that’s how pervasive it is.
The bottom line for me is I had less fun with Hellgate London the more I played it. I am probably still going to finish normal with my engineer, then maybe start a blademaster in elite just to see if the fun all of a sudden ramps up. Maybe it’s the class I was playing, and things will look completely different with a melee class character. I kind of doubt it though, I don’t think most of the issues I’m having are the result of my character class. The game doesn’t actually suck, it’s more that it’s kind of boring and too repetitive (the sameyness of all the monsters and levels doesn’t help at all). Plus it seems to be very very difficult to join teams on the party menu, and I can’t figure out how to talk on a specific channel like the lfg chat. So I haven’t really teamed too much, it’s mostly been solo
Anyhow, I’m curious as to whether anyone else is playing this and what thier thoughts are on it.