Chris InglisThe Diablo IV final server slam beta was run and done over the weekend, and it was impressive on several fronts. Firstly, I didn’t enter a server queue at all when I played at various times over the weekend, and I didn’t experience any lag – amazing. Second, the concerns I had noted in my first beta impressions about some of the classes being over or under powered were put to rest, at least the ones I tried to level 20 anyway. I delved more into the story this time and am intrigued to see what happens next.
It was evident early on Saturday that the power of necromancer minions had been altered from the last beta to be too killed too easily. They were definitely overpowered in the first betas but then went a little too far the other way early in the weekend. However, to Blizzard’s credit, a server-side hot fix rectified this when I played again on Sunday and apparently, they applied the changes without having to restart the servers which is rare. The lightning sorcerer felt well balanced where I struggled appropriately against bosses but felt powerful enough to handle groups of regular mobs. The rogue felt excellent and I specced him down the bow lines, and while I usually play warriors/paladins as the first class in these games, I am now very tempted to roll a rogue at release.
While I had planned to head to the first main story quest, there were just so many side quests that caught my attention. Some were simple where you had to go to a location and then use an emote, while others sent you off to a cave or mini dungeon. I hit level 20 on the rogue by primarily sticking to these side quests. I grabbed all I could in Kyovashad and then just picked a direction, slaying everything in my way and then picked up more at a new town. I scoured every corner of every area on the rogue and found the levelling pace at world difficulty 2 was great, if anything a little fast maybe. I then rolled a sorcerer and thought, I’m just going to run through everything and go straight from quest to quest and see how this playstyle differs having experienced it in detail already on the rogue.
I was worried that doing the same story and side quests would see fatigue set in, but not worrying about scouring every corner looking for loot, along with the different class abilities, was actually a lot of fun. It helps that the map is so large and that each class has their own unique dungeons to explore that I just picked a different direction to head. There are always world events happening everywhere you run, and the respawn times were quite quick on these, so I never felt I was running around aimlessly with nothing to kill. I also liked the fact that dungeons you haven’t looted on any character yet have a different icon compared to ones you have been to on all your characters. This helps you to really plan out your playstyle and know locations you want to prioritise to maximise XP and loot.
At times I would get to a boss and keep dying to it on world tier 2. I started to get frustrated thinking that I wasn’t powerful enough and was tempted to drop to world tier 1. Then I remembered we can change our skill builds on the fly. So, a few skill refunds here and reallocations there and I could eventually take them down while remaining in world tier 2. There’s an argument that we should just play in world tier 1 given the bonus xp and gold from tier 2 is limited to just killing monsters (note: this means quest and lilith altar xp is not 20% more in tier 2 – only monster kills). In saying that, I actually enjoyed the difficulty and challenge of some of the bosses in tier 2, and I easily got overrun and died if I took on too many mobs at once or didn’t efficiently kill mobs while in a world event. So, while it is likely to be faster to get to end game and therefore better loot just by steamrolling world tier 1, I prefer the additional challenge of world tier 2.
It was also cool that when you’re fighting in the wilderness as a solo player, any players that run close to you will kick in group XP even though we’re not in the same party. It’s these quality-of-life things that are going to make the levelling experience so enjoyable at release. I was a little apprehensive about the game after the first two beta weekends. I enjoyed my time in them but aside from the story, it felt a little too like Diablo 3. However, my experience was much more enjoyable over this server slam weekend, and I am now super excited for release on June 6. Now to agonise over which class I am going to main and which of my mates are going to play with me at launch. Bring it on Lilith!
#roundtablecoop
Yonan