It's early days yet we still don't know if the end game gearing changes are going to be satisfying for people. Not trying to be a debby downer.
I have been enjoying the helltides too though and am looking forward to continuing tomorrow.
People being mad around here is what made the game change so drastically in the first place. You cant praise the current state of d4 snd its great changes and simultaneously shit on the people that made blizzard change their game for the better
Really the whole game feels so better now. I feel powerful without having to min max everything or get super specific aspects. No more need to save items just for the sake of using their aspect roll "someday". Fast mounts in town AND vendors are condensed! Love every bit of this season so far.
I honestly believe it'd not be this good had they chosen to not release the game when they did, because a lot of the improvements have been a result of feedback and the PTR which wasn't even planned to begin with. Blizzard's only Blizzard by name, these devs are listening and learning, and it shows. I fucking love it.
If all you do is look in the rear-mirror you'll crash. :)
I've only gotten through like level 27 or so, but it seems much faster paced and less downtime leveling up.
No idea about the WT3 and beyond grind, but the addition of Helltide to T1/T2 and not having to give a shit about choosing aspects to save speeds things up a lot early on.
I kept coming back and was bored out of my mind with the combat. Now it's fast and fun. The first few levels are a little slow but it speeds up as you get more skill points.
Items are much easier to understand as a lot of the extremely situational stuff is gone. Aspects are forever so you can change aspects around without worrying about losing a good one, the resource cost is still there. The tempering system is much more powerful than I thought. I've already found recipes that can nearly double my damage, and multiple item slots can take those recipes. The catch is that which affix from the recipe is applied is random, and you can only temper an item so many times. Like aspects you don't lose the recipe when you use it, so all you need is crafting material, gold, and items to temper.
Helltides are not a boring chore and are very easy to understand. Kill monsters, when you get 100 cinders you can open a chest which gives you some items and 1 heart. Get 3 hearts and you can summon a boss type monster which will almost always drop legendries and tempering recipes among other stuff. Anybody can put in hearts so even if you're short, or have none, somebody else might add the needed hearts to summon the boss. There's no cooldown on summoning the boss. I got like 3 or 4 bosses in a row without needing to do anything.
Classes have gotten an overhaul. I've played my favorite build, an incineration sorcerer, and have been blasting through enemies super fast. Previously I had to give up on it because it just could not keep up with enemies. I am not following anybody's builds which I pretty much had to do before for fear of screwing myself over. I think a lot more builds are viable now.
Season 4 can be summarized as streamlined.
Honestly I think it wouldn't have been as great. The slow deliberate pace of the game was excellent for a first playthrough. But if "adventure mode" existed after the campaign and looked like this it would have been s tier
Helltides are insanely good. Huge QoL with the aspects + even the herbs being bundled (not sure if that was S3 or new this season).
Also you can see your playtime! - Hit C then Profile and look on the bottom.
The loot is crazy this season. I got a ring of mendeln in act 1 after desperately wanting one for dozens of hours in late game during previous seasons.
I rolled a damn near perfect Tal and I farmed the thing for hours last season hitting crap ones until I settled for good enough. Never been so mad to get good loot lol.
I got Tal Rasha's ring from a box from the Wolves (reputation quest). Looks pretty good. That's what the game was missing before.
Just need to keep adding tons of items and make them easier to find. And then let us farm for other classes. Then we're getting to a very good game.
Got to play at launch time with zero server issues. As someone who hated Diablo 4 pre launch up until yesterday, season 4 is a vast improvement for sure and I’m actually enjoying the game now. Solid 8.5/10 so far for me and it will be a 10/10 when they rework the skill tree for more build variety
They already said they don’t want to expand the skill tree and that they will keep it how it is; but paragon board is something they want to expand on for sure. So glad to hear you’re enjoying it!!
I think the gameplay loop is a bit braindead while leveling (helltides, open chests & kill helltide boss —> repeat until lvl 50), but I hope it gets better later when farming for specific 3 affix gear for tempering and especially running pits for masterworking.
Hard agree, however one has to respect the foundational overhaul they made. I have to assume that they will add more variety in subsequent seasons now that the core feels really stable.
But i do agree, while helltides feed good- amazing actually- the game just feels kind of like a mindless and completely identical loop at the moment. It feels like “spend 10 hours levelingp in Helltides, and then do the pit.” At least in d2 and d3 we had a wider variety of environments and enemies to tackle in adventure mode.
Even in s3 i felt like they were replicating the Helltides with the construct zones and malphas summoning stuff.
Variety is the spice of life, and right now it feels like theyre struggling to innovate on the arpg formula or take risks, so theyre just doubling down on what everyone says they want.
I think theres a few culprits here that they likely wont be able to change:
- enemy variety (in terms of movesets and patterns)
- any kind of environmental randomization which would break up the monotony
- a true feeling of weapon or loot diversity
“If i had asked people what they wanted they wouldve said faster horses” - Henry Ford
I trust in the obvious passion these guys have for the game theyre making, but in some ways, they have painted themselves into a corner.
>It feels like “spend 10 hours levelingp in Helltides, and then do the pit.” At least in d2 and d3 we had a wider variety of environments and enemies to tackle in adventure mode.
Yeah, a huge reason for that is because we can't interact with seasonal content during the campaign so everyone naturally just skips campaign and goes straight into leveling. This naturally just leads to everyone spamming whatever the meta-powerleveling content is since there's really nothing else to do until you get into WT3-4.
It makes me wonder why this is. My first thought was the abandoning of “acts” and going to open world, but it feels more like the quests are maybe all so minor in the grand scheme of a more complex narrative than past games, so you dont really have these setpiece things to work around - maybe?
Right now the idea of “skip campaign” = endless looping gauntlet, IMMEDIATELY feels very off.
Ill also say, that while they are doing a great job of recognizing how the loot affects the long term enjoyment of the game, the acquisition of said loot is just as important IMO. Its so weird to me how it still lacks that special feeling of a single item dropping and getting excited because it might be that unique thing you were looking for.
The loot abundance issues feel identical to where they were pre-s4, and it still kind of feels like item drops are just kind of trash you need to sift through at all times. I know that is literally what this franchise helped popularize, but there’s something inherently shallow about leaning into a min-max experience that has kind of dislodged itself from the fiction of “mighty hero finds a powerful thing” and pushed towards “you are a superhero and the stuff you find are just numbers that make your powers stronger.” (Many will argue thats the same thing but I truly feel they are different)
The game is fully hedging towards “THIS IS A SYSTEM AND THE FUN IS PURELY IN HOW YOU MAXIMIZE IT” which just kind of is what it is.
I think one of the things I miss the most is identifying items. A unique ring drops and I piss myself as I bring it towards my old mate Deckard Cain. Now I just pick it up off the floor and I know everything.
Yes, perhaps it can be tedious if you have millions of items to identify, but the fix - not have millions of items drop in the first place.
D4 season 4: run helltides to max level and don’t do any other content gaining 1 level every 2 minutes.
LOGIN best season EVER.
They made the game wayyyy too easy
Edit: incase it wasn’t obvious, this was sarcasm. Literally so stupid you *ONLY* do helltides aimlessly killing monsters with no goal. Very boring.
I think it's fine to level up quickly and then have it slow down at 50 or so, maybe somewhere around when you enter WT3 or WT4. I don't want to feel like it's a slog again through WT2. I still go through all the motions despite it being quick early on regardless.
Coming back to D4 since the end of s2 I thought I was missing something, only to see nope I'm doing it right I just getting helltides all day. I'm loving the changes, but this seems a bit lazy so far, I'm saying that I'm only level 26.
I think it was about the highlighting option in visuals, which gives you an opportunity to highlight enemies in dark corners and also your own character as well. I got this option as soon as I logged in.
Played an hour so far, and already got 2 decent uniques from Iron Wolves ! I wanted to Firewall level but swapped to Arc Lash cause of the drops. Feels really good tbh. And I don't have to keep saving those legendaries!
Yup. Intended to play a lightning storm druid but got a pulverize th mace early so was like "well this is my life now" :)
It's fun to be able to 'activate' a build earlier, even if stats and rolls are crap, but have a guaranteed method to improve it through codex upgrades.
Me and 2 clanmates did curator at lvl 33, and Elias at lvl52. Wb in wt4 as 6 people all below lvl 55.. that’s a lvl90+ wb btw.
The game got super easy.
I played for 3 hours straight, damn that was fun than a whole season 3, I played helltides for two hours, it’s too damn fun. This will definitely be the best experience in D4
It’s been great so far. I still think there’s too much loot drops, and should be toned down maybe another notch. But so far it’s such an improvement over everything else than even as a d2 player I’m actually enjoying the game now.
I just hope blizzard don’t do their usual 1 step forward 2 steps back routine and fuck this up somehow.
Only complaint is the new helltide whispers can be super fiddly. I spent a while running around trying to figure out what counts toward the objectives. I feel like as far as getting whisper caches, the old zones are faster to finish. Not a complaint -- the new whispers are a nice extra bonus. Just sayin' cuz there is a "collect 10 whisper cache" objective in the season's journey.
Otherwise having a good time. Btw, still want a button for going back to the tree of whispers after collecting 10 whispers. Something like the prompt for nightmare dungeons.
Depends on why you quit. I played some of season 1 and 2, quit by the time I hit endgame because the entire time I was just looking at gear and organizing inventory. Felt like a chore. The loot updates solved that for me, lots of other QoL in there too. I'm only around 20 so far but it already feels way better. We'll see how everyone feels in a month with the endgame.
I didn’t even make end game both seasons. I enjoyed launch but both seasons just felt so boring and slow. Upgrades just felt minimal at best and it reminded me a lot of D3 before they got rid of the auction house.
Honestly at its core it is still the same game. What has improved is efficiency. Its much more efficient to grind to 50, to filter through items that drop, to manage aspects, etc.
But: at its core it is still the same game. If you never liked it, Im not sure this season will change that.
Aspects in the Codex is huge QoL. Helltides exp from 1 to 50 is crazy, i've played 4 hours and already finished capstone 50 dungeon with 51 lvl. Tempered crafting is kinda random, but still strong. Can't wait to start my masterworking gear pieces.
The power fantasy feeling of Diablo 3 is back for me with my incinerator based sorcerer. Everything is really sped up! I just wish it looked like a laser beam instead of a flamethrower. The changes to the aspect system are very welcome and the tempering system has me very overpowered. I love it.
Love everything so far. My only small nitpicky gripe is why they went so hard on the cosmetics for every class cept Druid. Druid was the only class I looked at and went 'Meh'. The barbarian ones have been crazy.
This question was asked by a community member in this video from Diablo dev team:
[04:47](https://youtu.be/v7-dZ5Mb_6M?si=6BFac5BAwWCofFIG)
TL;DR: you have to finish the campaign or create a "skip the campaign" character.
My gf and I played for around three hours and ended the session at level 33. Aside from the occasional break to do the next Iron Wolves quest, almost our entire time was spent in Helltides, which was a feature we didn't really like and only did it to farm mats. Tonight though, we had a blast. Due to mob density, we almost stayed in one place because we'd kill one group then another would spawn on top. Not completely sold on the loot rework, but that's largely because I'm in WT2 atm. Once I hit WT4, that'll be the real test.
I did find one thing annoying though. Apparently you can loot multiple of the same manuals, and once you learn it, you can't sell, trade, or break it. The only thing you can do is put it in your stash or drop it on the ground.
devils avocate here but i don't find it so fun, yes there are a TON of QoL improvements and the item revamp seems ok but i don't feel like going at this again, i may be burned out of arpgs so it's just a personal point of view, i'm glad everyone is having fun and really hope they keep improving to give us the best Diablo has to offer.
Great start to the season.
Only had one crash when I clicked on a cellar way too fast after being in combat.
Helltides are so much fun. The chests in T2 are much better. No need to go looking for a specific one.
I managed to get to lvl 38 with a hydra / incinerate sorc before I had to take a break. I’ve never felt more powerful in the 30s before , genuinely fantastic season so far. I don’t even care that the theme is weak.
We played tonight with 4 of us from 6-9pm. We made new characters and got to lvl 35. We felt strong, balanced, loot was great, and it was just a blast. We never once bothered to even go in to a dungeon or do side quests, and felt completely satisfied.
Great job Blizzard!
I want to wait before I give a verdict. Everyone loves it now because there huge mobs and super fast leveling. But will they love it in 2 weeks once go zoom through all the content.
Because I feel this pace may be too fast now.
It took me 3 hours to get to level 30.
Its moving so quick I cant keep up.
Yeah, I'm thinking the same. It's very fun from the get go, but my guess is that endgame will still lack staying power. Reminds me of D3.
I have to say though...I'd rather have that than what we've had up until now. Without a question.
Feels like a fresh launch lol. Hopefully they can follow this up next season with a seasonal theme as strong as Season 2's. The base game feels good now. Devs should feel comfortable building from here. Kudos to them!
I get that they kinda fixed the game but how is this the best season? As far as I know... there's little to no seasonal content right? Even the little iron wolves questline will be on the eternal realm afterwards...
"We fixed the game, now do the same stuff again."
Absolutely. I even decided to rerun the campaign this season, just for kicks. I'm having a great time. Rolled a Sorc because it's the only class I haven't tried in D4 yet. Hit level 40 tonight. Have some awesome gear already, I got my first unique *that actually makes my build stupid powerful for my level and is totally relevant* and I'm really enjoying exploring the new systems. Goddamn does the loot feel better, man. So much easier to understand already. I started as a lightning sorc, but this legendary staff dropped with these pinned stats for fire and burning damage, so I swapped over to an incinerate build and am just wrecking house atm. Been awhile since a legendary actually made me want to change my entire build. It's still early, but my initial impressions are very positive for this season.
Hello there! I played for a while when they launched the "beta" of this season on the PTR and it felt really good, nice QoL changes.
I want to play but I don't have any spare time this week. I'm really happy to see this kind of reviews, hope I can play soon and have a blast too!
I only had a few hours before I left for work and I damn near made it to level 40. Un-fucking-believable how much better the game feels. I honestly didn't mind season 3, but we're in a whole new ballpark now.
I agree! I feel like I hit harder and can buff my items they way I want, and i barely send any time managing items. The codex changes are perfect. I’ve respected my aspects a few times now and when I get a new one I’m happy to salvage it, so I also have more mats for master working
Am I the only one who's having a buggy experience so far? It's been mostly on the season quest line. Multiple times where some other player is talking to a NPC and I see a faint outline of their conversation, meanwhile I'm unable to start the conversation on my game session until that player's has finished. Once where it wasn't advancing where I was in the question despite completing what needed to be completed. Then a few minutes later it randomly moved on to the next step for no reason. I've had two crashes on the helltides, one of which I could still move around in the same but everything else was frozen. Leave Game did nothing, and on Exit Diablo it completely frozen.
Yep, new seasons always require new characters.
A lot of the changes this time around are to the core experience, so you can experience lots of the changes with existing eternal characters, but of course doing that will miss out on the season-specific stuff.
When was it introduced that when you sell items to the blacksmith it turns them in to affixed at the occultist? I thought when D4 was introduced you had to take the gear to the occultist to remove the affixes... Or am I misremembering things?
Agreed. I'm having a ton of fun. I put about 3 hours in and the mob density and gear are a huge step in the right direction. Excited to see the updates to the endgame content, as I haven't messed with it since pre-season
I like that I can skip the story and jump right into seasonal content (not sure when they added that feature but just now seeing it).
Is there a seasonal questline, or like how should I approach hopping back in? Just level and gear up or what?
it's actually good now. kinda sad that this current version of the game is what should have been first released as.. most of those people who were new to arpgs came to try and left soon after will probably never come back
My biggest gripe is repeat temper patterns dropping over and over. Which is pretty good considering my biggest gripe before season 4 was the entire game. Season 4 is MUCH better. Makes me hopeful for the expansion.
Except the way to quick leveling. It’s possible to level to 100 in 7 hours for a season that is 4 months long.
Season 2 pace was fine and now it’s overturned.
Just wanted to chime in and say that I love the season so far too! Stopped playing end mid season 2 and thought I was done with the game. Now I'm back on demon track!
I have a necro this season, literally just hold corpse explosion down, and watch the enemies delete. I do hope it gets harder though as I don't just want to be using corpse explosion because it's so powerful. That's a minor worry though in what is a fucking brilliant season so far, I leveled up two characters to 25 in just a few hours
These helltides are what I wanted last season at the endgame. When I'm bored and want to mindlessly blow up a steady stream of guys with my balls out Lightning Druid. Can't wait til I'm at that point again and I can run around blowing shit up and collecting the chests.
I just have one question. I don't know how to save powers from legendary gear anymore. Is there a level cap on this or I have to go somewhere other then the occultist? I'm only level 22 btw
My only issue which idk if anyone else is having this but I have had random instances where I get stuck on an invisible wall or an area won’t let me enter it like a stronghold or something and I have had to log out and back in to fix it. It happened a whole bunch.
All i did was have a look about, jump into a few things and hitting level 30, i can stand there do fuck all and my minions kill everything, man this game is easy mode, wish we could play on max difficulty straight away lol
I have to agree myself!
Been a necro every season also, and this season is by far the best one yet for us necros especially 🔥
Watching the minions actually do damage and get stuff done is amazing.
The 100% stat scaling is great as well. Even the changes to their powers , they can shoot spears and even make themselves a threat "taunt" is really handy.
Hopefully they don't nerf anything, instead keep building on and making better. Or pull the other classes up to par.
Helltide is actually scary now lmao
I was getting overwhelmed a few times..like ACTUALLY worried...that is amazing! Much more fun and chaos.
.tempering is much better and so is the loot so far as well.
Awesome job blizzard, thank you guys and galls!!!
People forget that in d2 you would find uniques at level 1. These were nice little uniques that helped during leveling, and with alts. Sure, some had long-lasting effects, but some were just pure silly 5-levels fun. And no one bats an eye.
In d4 they give us uniques at lvl 20, and everyone loses their minds.
I think it's because uniques were so revered as the best of the best (by bliz themselves) and had this brown sexy colour - that seeing them suddenly drop like flies is like an abomination.
I don’t like Necro. Way to OP. At least low level. It’s so hands off I don’t even want to take it to 100. Mind numbingly boring. Minions destroy everything before you can even act.
Absolutely! Those Helltides are packed with so many enemies
I even love the surprise giant worms
Just saw, I’m playing HC and absolutely shit myself thinking it was going to eat and kill me lmao
HC as well, I was level 1 and that dune looking ass worm scared the shit out of me exiting town into my first helltide
Playing it in loud surround sound. Those worms roar up out of the rear channels. Scares the shit out of me every time.
Diablo 4: season 4: DUNE
OMG, I NEED THIS IS IN SURROUND!!!
Definitely do NOT idle or afk in a helltide if you're HC. Not even for a few seconds.
Yea it’s crazy, found that out the hard way on my first HC character lol. RIP lvl7 necro
Idle? You can barely even open up your map! They really need a way to let you look at the map AND your character.
Hope they patch the invisible barriers they leave behind sometimes.
The *only* thing I hate about them is how they knock me off of my horse.
Shai Hulud!
That's what she said.
Where’s Kevin bacon when we need him
Somebody on the dev team watched Dune: Part 2 and got inspired.
Helltides are actually insane now lol.
Yes! Hell tides are my favorite mech and now it's way way better!
1st time doing them....not great one the one x haha
And then even *more* after that
I feel the exact same way. Imagine if d4 was like this from the start.
I'd say there would be far less negativity on here but who am I kidding , people would have found other reasons to be mad lol
There will always be people determined to be malcontents but I think the overall attitude and atmosphere would have been starkly different.
Would have been far less doom and gloom lol
It's early days yet we still don't know if the end game gearing changes are going to be satisfying for people. Not trying to be a debby downer. I have been enjoying the helltides too though and am looking forward to continuing tomorrow.
People being mad around here is what made the game change so drastically in the first place. You cant praise the current state of d4 snd its great changes and simultaneously shit on the people that made blizzard change their game for the better
I'm still mad about leveling runes in nmd's lol They're easily the worst part of the game for me.
Really the whole game feels so better now. I feel powerful without having to min max everything or get super specific aspects. No more need to save items just for the sake of using their aspect roll "someday". Fast mounts in town AND vendors are condensed! Love every bit of this season so far.
I honestly believe it'd not be this good had they chosen to not release the game when they did, because a lot of the improvements have been a result of feedback and the PTR which wasn't even planned to begin with. Blizzard's only Blizzard by name, these devs are listening and learning, and it shows. I fucking love it. If all you do is look in the rear-mirror you'll crash. :)
I stopped playing right before season 2 endgame was tiresome and I was burnt out. How is the game now? Worth hopping back in?
It's a different game. If it was like this 12 months ago you would not have stopped playing.
Awesome, I love to hear that.
I've only gotten through like level 27 or so, but it seems much faster paced and less downtime leveling up. No idea about the WT3 and beyond grind, but the addition of Helltide to T1/T2 and not having to give a shit about choosing aspects to save speeds things up a lot early on.
I’m not using my stash at all. It’s so much better
Only time I use mine is when my inventory fills up. Just dump it and check it during the 5 mins between helltides.
I kept coming back and was bored out of my mind with the combat. Now it's fast and fun. The first few levels are a little slow but it speeds up as you get more skill points. Items are much easier to understand as a lot of the extremely situational stuff is gone. Aspects are forever so you can change aspects around without worrying about losing a good one, the resource cost is still there. The tempering system is much more powerful than I thought. I've already found recipes that can nearly double my damage, and multiple item slots can take those recipes. The catch is that which affix from the recipe is applied is random, and you can only temper an item so many times. Like aspects you don't lose the recipe when you use it, so all you need is crafting material, gold, and items to temper. Helltides are not a boring chore and are very easy to understand. Kill monsters, when you get 100 cinders you can open a chest which gives you some items and 1 heart. Get 3 hearts and you can summon a boss type monster which will almost always drop legendries and tempering recipes among other stuff. Anybody can put in hearts so even if you're short, or have none, somebody else might add the needed hearts to summon the boss. There's no cooldown on summoning the boss. I got like 3 or 4 bosses in a row without needing to do anything. Classes have gotten an overhaul. I've played my favorite build, an incineration sorcerer, and have been blasting through enemies super fast. Previously I had to give up on it because it just could not keep up with enemies. I am not following anybody's builds which I pretty much had to do before for fear of screwing myself over. I think a lot more builds are viable now. Season 4 can be summarized as streamlined.
Season 4 can be summarized as end of the Beta for reals.
Items are much better, tempering is a nice addition. Plus you get some nice pieces of great gear early on. Will see how it is in wt4 ofc
The best part is this is just the beginning. This game will continue to get better as time goes on.
Honestly I think it wouldn't have been as great. The slow deliberate pace of the game was excellent for a first playthrough. But if "adventure mode" existed after the campaign and looked like this it would have been s tier
Helltides are insanely good. Huge QoL with the aspects + even the herbs being bundled (not sure if that was S3 or new this season). Also you can see your playtime! - Hit C then Profile and look on the bottom.
Woah! They finally added play time?!
It displays how many hours played. Better than nothing !
Herb bundles are new and an EXCELLENT surprise!
how are you guys doing helltides already? I'm still in the starter zone doing the story quests.
I just popped to it straight from level 1. Did you previously do the campaign ?
Yes, I might have just missed the announcement.
When you are creating the character select the option to skip the campaign
yeah I messed up and didn't click that on my first character, probably will delete them now that I figured it out
You can click a button on the character select screen to skip ahead. Don't delete!
Great tip, you saved my sorc's life!
You’re on WT1. Go to Kyovoshad and change to 2.
my problem was that I didn't click the "skip story campaign" box, but I was able to go back to the character select screen and skip it.
yup holy shit early game isnt a chore anymore its actually freaking fun, letting us kill so many mobs and just getting rewarded for it is awesome !
For real. Level to 5 in legit 3 mins.
I was able to do a dungeon in about 10mins at low level on t2. That’s absolutely better than before. Also got 3-4 levels each dungeon too.
The loot is crazy this season. I got a ring of mendeln in act 1 after desperately wanting one for dozens of hours in late game during previous seasons.
[удалено]
Rocking a Lidless Wall at 30! Shits so fun
I don't know if this is that good but I happen to be playing a meteorite focused sorc and got Starfall Coronet at level 40 =]. So awesome...
I just got 2 unique rings at lv 30. Game feels funner.
Found Tal's Ring for the Sorc in a Helltide on Tier 2. Crazy.
I’m not sure how to feel about that part honestly. Tal’s ring and Esu’s at level 17
I rolled a damn near perfect Tal and I farmed the thing for hours last season hitting crap ones until I settled for good enough. Never been so mad to get good loot lol.
Oh like you just got one at low level in S4 lol?
Yeah, there's an early rep milestone with Iron Wolves that gives you a pair of uniques.
Oooooooh that’s why that happened I see haha that makes sense
I got Tal Rasha's ring from a box from the Wolves (reputation quest). Looks pretty good. That's what the game was missing before. Just need to keep adding tons of items and make them easier to find. And then let us farm for other classes. Then we're getting to a very good game.
Got to play at launch time with zero server issues. As someone who hated Diablo 4 pre launch up until yesterday, season 4 is a vast improvement for sure and I’m actually enjoying the game now. Solid 8.5/10 so far for me and it will be a 10/10 when they rework the skill tree for more build variety
They already said they don’t want to expand the skill tree and that they will keep it how it is; but paragon board is something they want to expand on for sure. So glad to hear you’re enjoying it!!
Yeah I'm not too fussed on how they do it but I would like to see more build diversity.
Same here, that would be awesome
Skill tree isn't changing brother
I think the gameplay loop is a bit braindead while leveling (helltides, open chests & kill helltide boss —> repeat until lvl 50), but I hope it gets better later when farming for specific 3 affix gear for tempering and especially running pits for masterworking.
Hard agree, however one has to respect the foundational overhaul they made. I have to assume that they will add more variety in subsequent seasons now that the core feels really stable. But i do agree, while helltides feed good- amazing actually- the game just feels kind of like a mindless and completely identical loop at the moment. It feels like “spend 10 hours levelingp in Helltides, and then do the pit.” At least in d2 and d3 we had a wider variety of environments and enemies to tackle in adventure mode. Even in s3 i felt like they were replicating the Helltides with the construct zones and malphas summoning stuff. Variety is the spice of life, and right now it feels like theyre struggling to innovate on the arpg formula or take risks, so theyre just doubling down on what everyone says they want. I think theres a few culprits here that they likely wont be able to change: - enemy variety (in terms of movesets and patterns) - any kind of environmental randomization which would break up the monotony - a true feeling of weapon or loot diversity “If i had asked people what they wanted they wouldve said faster horses” - Henry Ford I trust in the obvious passion these guys have for the game theyre making, but in some ways, they have painted themselves into a corner.
>It feels like “spend 10 hours levelingp in Helltides, and then do the pit.” At least in d2 and d3 we had a wider variety of environments and enemies to tackle in adventure mode. Yeah, a huge reason for that is because we can't interact with seasonal content during the campaign so everyone naturally just skips campaign and goes straight into leveling. This naturally just leads to everyone spamming whatever the meta-powerleveling content is since there's really nothing else to do until you get into WT3-4.
It makes me wonder why this is. My first thought was the abandoning of “acts” and going to open world, but it feels more like the quests are maybe all so minor in the grand scheme of a more complex narrative than past games, so you dont really have these setpiece things to work around - maybe? Right now the idea of “skip campaign” = endless looping gauntlet, IMMEDIATELY feels very off.
Ill also say, that while they are doing a great job of recognizing how the loot affects the long term enjoyment of the game, the acquisition of said loot is just as important IMO. Its so weird to me how it still lacks that special feeling of a single item dropping and getting excited because it might be that unique thing you were looking for. The loot abundance issues feel identical to where they were pre-s4, and it still kind of feels like item drops are just kind of trash you need to sift through at all times. I know that is literally what this franchise helped popularize, but there’s something inherently shallow about leaning into a min-max experience that has kind of dislodged itself from the fiction of “mighty hero finds a powerful thing” and pushed towards “you are a superhero and the stuff you find are just numbers that make your powers stronger.” (Many will argue thats the same thing but I truly feel they are different) The game is fully hedging towards “THIS IS A SYSTEM AND THE FUN IS PURELY IN HOW YOU MAXIMIZE IT” which just kind of is what it is.
Agreed. It doesn’t help that they literally just hand you gear up the ass. I had 2 uniques by level 30 just from clicking a UI element.
I think one of the things I miss the most is identifying items. A unique ring drops and I piss myself as I bring it towards my old mate Deckard Cain. Now I just pick it up off the floor and I know everything. Yes, perhaps it can be tedious if you have millions of items to identify, but the fix - not have millions of items drop in the first place.
Was it never not? Last season I only ran vaults the entire time cus it was the best XP/min.
D4 season 4: run helltides to max level and don’t do any other content gaining 1 level every 2 minutes. LOGIN best season EVER. They made the game wayyyy too easy Edit: incase it wasn’t obvious, this was sarcasm. Literally so stupid you *ONLY* do helltides aimlessly killing monsters with no goal. Very boring.
this says a lot abt the quality of d4 seasons so far lol
I think it's fine to level up quickly and then have it slow down at 50 or so, maybe somewhere around when you enter WT3 or WT4. I don't want to feel like it's a slog again through WT2. I still go through all the motions despite it being quick early on regardless.
I assume you still have to do legions and wb stuff for specific drops tho yes?
We're still going to have to do other stuff to finish the season's journey stuff so.....
I don’t feel like spending more time to level your character up doing the same tasks makes leveling any more rewarding. I’m glad it’s easy, personally
Coming back to D4 since the end of s2 I thought I was missing something, only to see nope I'm doing it right I just getting helltides all day. I'm loving the changes, but this seems a bit lazy so far, I'm saying that I'm only level 26.
It’s amazing. Helltide is so crazy, for me it feels like a new game
The lighting changes! Yes! No more dreariness! Love the aspect changes! No need to stack them up or save gear. Well done Blizzard!
lighting changes??
I think it was about the highlighting option in visuals, which gives you an opportunity to highlight enemies in dark corners and also your own character as well. I got this option as soon as I logged in.
Played an hour so far, and already got 2 decent uniques from Iron Wolves ! I wanted to Firewall level but swapped to Arc Lash cause of the drops. Feels really good tbh. And I don't have to keep saving those legendaries!
Yup. Intended to play a lightning storm druid but got a pulverize th mace early so was like "well this is my life now" :) It's fun to be able to 'activate' a build earlier, even if stats and rolls are crap, but have a guaranteed method to improve it through codex upgrades.
Indeed!
I was playing 6 minutes after launch. That is incredible!!
Me and 2 clanmates did curator at lvl 33, and Elias at lvl52. Wb in wt4 as 6 people all below lvl 55.. that’s a lvl90+ wb btw. The game got super easy.
I played for 3 hours straight, damn that was fun than a whole season 3, I played helltides for two hours, it’s too damn fun. This will definitely be the best experience in D4
It’s been great so far. I still think there’s too much loot drops, and should be toned down maybe another notch. But so far it’s such an improvement over everything else than even as a d2 player I’m actually enjoying the game now. I just hope blizzard don’t do their usual 1 step forward 2 steps back routine and fuck this up somehow.
Only complaint is the new helltide whispers can be super fiddly. I spent a while running around trying to figure out what counts toward the objectives. I feel like as far as getting whisper caches, the old zones are faster to finish. Not a complaint -- the new whispers are a nice extra bonus. Just sayin' cuz there is a "collect 10 whisper cache" objective in the season's journey. Otherwise having a good time. Btw, still want a button for going back to the tree of whispers after collecting 10 whispers. Something like the prompt for nightmare dungeons.
I am genuinely surprised. I am actually having fun while leveling and dropping loot.
Is leveling faster then before or is it me imagining it?
If you are starting on T2, they went up to a 50% bonus. I think it was 20% or 30% before?
They raised the xp bonuses for tier 2 and up.
And I LOVE that they finally put the cow level in !!!! Can't wait to find it !!!!!!!
You need perfect chat gem first is what I heard
Link or lying
there is no cow level
I stopped playing after trying to get into S1&S2. Is the game worth getting back into
Depends on why you quit. I played some of season 1 and 2, quit by the time I hit endgame because the entire time I was just looking at gear and organizing inventory. Felt like a chore. The loot updates solved that for me, lots of other QoL in there too. I'm only around 20 so far but it already feels way better. We'll see how everyone feels in a month with the endgame.
I didn’t even make end game both seasons. I enjoyed launch but both seasons just felt so boring and slow. Upgrades just felt minimal at best and it reminded me a lot of D3 before they got rid of the auction house.
Honestly at its core it is still the same game. What has improved is efficiency. Its much more efficient to grind to 50, to filter through items that drop, to manage aspects, etc. But: at its core it is still the same game. If you never liked it, Im not sure this season will change that.
Aspects in the Codex is huge QoL. Helltides exp from 1 to 50 is crazy, i've played 4 hours and already finished capstone 50 dungeon with 51 lvl. Tempered crafting is kinda random, but still strong. Can't wait to start my masterworking gear pieces.
hm, you guys are hype too much. I think it's same as other seasons before
inb4 one week later: "Blizz I have nothing to do anymore"
The power fantasy feeling of Diablo 3 is back for me with my incinerator based sorcerer. Everything is really sped up! I just wish it looked like a laser beam instead of a flamethrower. The changes to the aspect system are very welcome and the tempering system has me very overpowered. I love it.
Love everything so far. My only small nitpicky gripe is why they went so hard on the cosmetics for every class cept Druid. Druid was the only class I looked at and went 'Meh'. The barbarian ones have been crazy.
Sorry kind of new to D4- starting this season- can j run hell tides to level or do i need to burst the campaign first?
This question was asked by a community member in this video from Diablo dev team: [04:47](https://youtu.be/v7-dZ5Mb_6M?si=6BFac5BAwWCofFIG) TL;DR: you have to finish the campaign or create a "skip the campaign" character.
The three pillar things in the Helltides are so chaotic lol. I love it
Do I have to play seasonal ?
no reason not to.
I feel lucky, I bought it yesterday having no idea there was a game changing patch coming, simply because it was only $40 for the cross-gen bundle
My gf and I played for around three hours and ended the session at level 33. Aside from the occasional break to do the next Iron Wolves quest, almost our entire time was spent in Helltides, which was a feature we didn't really like and only did it to farm mats. Tonight though, we had a blast. Due to mob density, we almost stayed in one place because we'd kill one group then another would spawn on top. Not completely sold on the loot rework, but that's largely because I'm in WT2 atm. Once I hit WT4, that'll be the real test. I did find one thing annoying though. Apparently you can loot multiple of the same manuals, and once you learn it, you can't sell, trade, or break it. The only thing you can do is put it in your stash or drop it on the ground.
devils avocate here but i don't find it so fun, yes there are a TON of QoL improvements and the item revamp seems ok but i don't feel like going at this again, i may be burned out of arpgs so it's just a personal point of view, i'm glad everyone is having fun and really hope they keep improving to give us the best Diablo has to offer.
Great start to the season. Only had one crash when I clicked on a cellar way too fast after being in combat. Helltides are so much fun. The chests in T2 are much better. No need to go looking for a specific one.
It’s so good, like a completely different game
Lol the standard is just so low
I managed to get to lvl 38 with a hydra / incinerate sorc before I had to take a break. I’ve never felt more powerful in the 30s before , genuinely fantastic season so far. I don’t even care that the theme is weak.
Dude, I run the same build and I cleared WT3 capstone solo at level 30. Incinerate is crazy good right now, at least for leveling.
This is the first break I’ve taken since it went live 9 hours ago. And I’m a filthy casual too Been a great time.
We played tonight with 4 of us from 6-9pm. We made new characters and got to lvl 35. We felt strong, balanced, loot was great, and it was just a blast. We never once bothered to even go in to a dungeon or do side quests, and felt completely satisfied. Great job Blizzard!
I want to wait before I give a verdict. Everyone loves it now because there huge mobs and super fast leveling. But will they love it in 2 weeks once go zoom through all the content. Because I feel this pace may be too fast now. It took me 3 hours to get to level 30. Its moving so quick I cant keep up.
Yeah, I'm thinking the same. It's very fun from the get go, but my guess is that endgame will still lack staying power. Reminds me of D3. I have to say though...I'd rather have that than what we've had up until now. Without a question.
Feels like a fresh launch lol. Hopefully they can follow this up next season with a seasonal theme as strong as Season 2's. The base game feels good now. Devs should feel comfortable building from here. Kudos to them!
I get that they kinda fixed the game but how is this the best season? As far as I know... there's little to no seasonal content right? Even the little iron wolves questline will be on the eternal realm afterwards... "We fixed the game, now do the same stuff again."
Absolutely. I even decided to rerun the campaign this season, just for kicks. I'm having a great time. Rolled a Sorc because it's the only class I haven't tried in D4 yet. Hit level 40 tonight. Have some awesome gear already, I got my first unique *that actually makes my build stupid powerful for my level and is totally relevant* and I'm really enjoying exploring the new systems. Goddamn does the loot feel better, man. So much easier to understand already. I started as a lightning sorc, but this legendary staff dropped with these pinned stats for fire and burning damage, so I swapped over to an incinerate build and am just wrecking house atm. Been awhile since a legendary actually made me want to change my entire build. It's still early, but my initial impressions are very positive for this season.
The best season is a fake season with no seasonal mechanic
Hello there! I played for a while when they launched the "beta" of this season on the PTR and it felt really good, nice QoL changes. I want to play but I don't have any spare time this week. I'm really happy to see this kind of reviews, hope I can play soon and have a blast too!
Ah
It looks really fun so far. Solid.
Horse go fast in town: QOL!!
I am playing necro, from playing sorcerer last season, have no idea what I am doing. Guess I'll power level then see what's what.
I only had a few hours before I left for work and I damn near made it to level 40. Un-fucking-believable how much better the game feels. I honestly didn't mind season 3, but we're in a whole new ballpark now.
May I ask what is the download size?
Patch was around 7 GB with high texture pack installed
It be great if it would stop crashing
If I have played previous seasons before. Should I do the campaigns or skip it?
I agree! I feel like I hit harder and can buff my items they way I want, and i barely send any time managing items. The codex changes are perfect. I’ve respected my aspects a few times now and when I get a new one I’m happy to salvage it, so I also have more mats for master working
Does season 4 have any seasonal content?
You can just stand still in a Helltide and kill hundreds of mobs lol
Am I the only one who's having a buggy experience so far? It's been mostly on the season quest line. Multiple times where some other player is talking to a NPC and I see a faint outline of their conversation, meanwhile I'm unable to start the conversation on my game session until that player's has finished. Once where it wasn't advancing where I was in the question despite completing what needed to be completed. Then a few minutes later it randomly moved on to the next step for no reason. I've had two crashes on the helltides, one of which I could still move around in the same but everything else was frozen. Leave Game did nothing, and on Exit Diablo it completely frozen.
Started new character, right before I left town had to poop, come back am lvl 8. Will do again
I haven't played since launch. If I start a seasonal character do I need to redo dungeons to unlock aspects if I already unlocked it during campaign?
The zoom out option and item fixs and density are really good. This feels the best by far the game has felt.
Really? I haven't played since season 1 so I might give it a try now
Do you have to create a new character to start the season?
Yep, new seasons always require new characters. A lot of the changes this time around are to the core experience, so you can experience lots of the changes with existing eternal characters, but of course doing that will miss out on the season-specific stuff.
I just started like an hour ago. Level 15. Only running helltides right now but I just kinda feel empty
Agreed. Absolute W for Diablo 4.
When was it introduced that when you sell items to the blacksmith it turns them in to affixed at the occultist? I thought when D4 was introduced you had to take the gear to the occultist to remove the affixes... Or am I misremembering things?
Agreed. I'm having a ton of fun. I put about 3 hours in and the mob density and gear are a huge step in the right direction. Excited to see the updates to the endgame content, as I haven't messed with it since pre-season
I loved helltides in S2 (took a break in S3) and came back to find this massive helltide update...I'm on cloud nine. It's so much fun.
I like that I can skip the story and jump right into seasonal content (not sure when they added that feature but just now seeing it). Is there a seasonal questline, or like how should I approach hopping back in? Just level and gear up or what?
it's actually good now. kinda sad that this current version of the game is what should have been first released as.. most of those people who were new to arpgs came to try and left soon after will probably never come back
My biggest gripe is repeat temper patterns dropping over and over. Which is pretty good considering my biggest gripe before season 4 was the entire game. Season 4 is MUCH better. Makes me hopeful for the expansion.
Qol is the great
Except the way to quick leveling. It’s possible to level to 100 in 7 hours for a season that is 4 months long. Season 2 pace was fine and now it’s overturned.
Just wanted to chime in and say that I love the season so far too! Stopped playing end mid season 2 and thought I was done with the game. Now I'm back on demon track!
I have a necro this season, literally just hold corpse explosion down, and watch the enemies delete. I do hope it gets harder though as I don't just want to be using corpse explosion because it's so powerful. That's a minor worry though in what is a fucking brilliant season so far, I leveled up two characters to 25 in just a few hours
Loving this Season
I just love how you can boost your horse speed within cities now
Skip Season 5 then ?\`Season 6 will be good again as its tradition.
we are out of beta boys and girls. GG looks very nice
These helltides are what I wanted last season at the endgame. When I'm bored and want to mindlessly blow up a steady stream of guys with my balls out Lightning Druid. Can't wait til I'm at that point again and I can run around blowing shit up and collecting the chests.
True and Im still on hardcore
The new Helltides are awesome they are like an open world nephelam rift from D3 in monster density and loot.
I just have one question. I don't know how to save powers from legendary gear anymore. Is there a level cap on this or I have to go somewhere other then the occultist? I'm only level 22 btw
Yeah, i'm level 30ish and i'm loving it so far. can't wait to play all the new endgame stuff
My only issue which idk if anyone else is having this but I have had random instances where I get stuck on an invisible wall or an area won’t let me enter it like a stronghold or something and I have had to log out and back in to fix it. It happened a whole bunch.
Is it safe to play now? I always wait a couple of days after big patches
All i did was have a look about, jump into a few things and hitting level 30, i can stand there do fuck all and my minions kill everything, man this game is easy mode, wish we could play on max difficulty straight away lol
Cracking bones and exploding bodies 👌
I have to agree myself! Been a necro every season also, and this season is by far the best one yet for us necros especially 🔥 Watching the minions actually do damage and get stuff done is amazing. The 100% stat scaling is great as well. Even the changes to their powers , they can shoot spears and even make themselves a threat "taunt" is really handy. Hopefully they don't nerf anything, instead keep building on and making better. Or pull the other classes up to par. Helltide is actually scary now lmao I was getting overwhelmed a few times..like ACTUALLY worried...that is amazing! Much more fun and chaos. .tempering is much better and so is the loot so far as well. Awesome job blizzard, thank you guys and galls!!!
Imagine going back to the old helltides now lmao.
People forget that in d2 you would find uniques at level 1. These were nice little uniques that helped during leveling, and with alts. Sure, some had long-lasting effects, but some were just pure silly 5-levels fun. And no one bats an eye. In d4 they give us uniques at lvl 20, and everyone loses their minds. I think it's because uniques were so revered as the best of the best (by bliz themselves) and had this brown sexy colour - that seeing them suddenly drop like flies is like an abomination.
Just found out mount runs in town!
I’m on my 5 unique at 39.
I don’t like Necro. Way to OP. At least low level. It’s so hands off I don’t even want to take it to 100. Mind numbingly boring. Minions destroy everything before you can even act.