Cut some quotes to get under the 10k character limit

Some of the random mini-bosses or mobs can take way more time and effort to kill compared to the main quest bosses. And even if you put in the effort to kill a random OP boss, the loot you get from them is pretty lame and doesn’t make it worthwhile. And you run into these sort of mobs everywhere, making game progression slow and grindy.

I’m guessing it’s the “increased health” mobs you’re talking about here. Those (minion mobs that accompany elites) were a pain at lower levels, but I don’t notice them at all now at a higher level. The way I adapted at low levels was to just ignore them - I moved on, they followed me and got eventually killed when I AOEd them along with normal mobs. Or I just ran away from them and left them far behind.

There are over 100 unique dungeons and each gives a unique Codex aspect, so my early game focus (on my first character) was to complete each dungeon quickly once. Because there were so many, at lower levels I never tried to 100% clear dungeons - I’d run past nearly all mobs along the way to objectives (unless the objective was to kill all mobs). Maybe it became a non-issue for me because I just ignored them until I was powerful enough to kill them easily.

Re: Sorc mana issues

I deliberately went with a build that didn’t use mana (Arc Lash) because of the above, but have heard others say that resource management becomes less of an issue at high levels. There’s a codex power you can get from a dungeon (Witchwater in Hawezar) called the Prodigy’s Aspect (restores 15 mana after using a cooldown skill) which can help but, your options are limited at low levels. Later on, you can get a better roll of the Prodigy’s aspect from found items, combine that with cooldown reduction and mana cost reduction to ease the pain.

Speaking of mobility, I still haven’t come across any boots that provide a decent run/walk speed boost, so you move around at snails pace. There are horses, but you can’t get one until you complete Act III, and it is a major chore to get to there. Regardless, you can’t use your horse during a fight or inside a dungeon, so the slow movement is still an issue.

After you’ve complete the game once, you get the horse from level 1 on all other characters. Personally, I enjoyed the campaign, so it didn’t feel like a chore to me.

You can also get movement speed on your amulet (not sure if it can appear on other items). On my sorcerer, between my boots and amulet, I have 130% movement speed (about 20% on boots and 10% on amulet - neither of which are max rolls), which is a lot more pleasant.

The sizes of towns / NPC spread is also bit of an issue, with key NPCs being far apart from each other and your stash, so you spend a lot of time just running around from the blacksmith to the occultist to the stash etc, and the slow running speed doesn’t help.

Yeah, the design of some towns make them a pain to get around or reach the locations you want. I think the devs wanted to make the towns feel like actual towns and to spread out the player population among different locations (maybe to improve performance) so they spread out the locations of the NPCs.

I prefer something more functional and that streamlines gameplay. If I know that I want only want to salvage, sell, or stash items, I’ll go to the Tree of Whispers waypoint. If I want anything besides the basics, I’ll go to Cerrigar (everything is close except for stash) or Kyovashad.

Re: Assigning attribute points. Same with the lack of runes and runewords, which limits gameplay flexibility. I do like that you can reset your skills (at a cost), but as you get into paragon levels, the skill trees become very unweildy and a chore to reallocate if you reset them.

I didn’t miss the manual point allocation from D2. There’s always a mathematically optimal way of allocating points, so I’d always just look up a guide and put points into what was recommended.

You get a similar effect in D4 in the form of properties from items - items have a limited number of properties on them and you can choose items with properties that improve something you’re focusing on at the cost of other things. This becomes really obvious in hardcore when you often sacrifice damage for more life and higher defensive stats. The reverse is also possible, as is building for more mana/resource availability.

Paragon respecs definitely need an overhaul. Supposedly there will be a respec scroll in Season 1 but I don’t know how easy it will be to come by.

Also, D4 hides a lot of numbers and mechanics behinds the skills/spells, which makes it hard to calculate and come up with proper builds (which is probably also the reason why we still haven’t come across any decent build site - the Sorc builds on maxroll was crap and even pretty inaccurate in some areas).

My understanding was that they datamine the game files for those numbers. The players don’t know the details but the builds should be fine. I can only speak for the MaxRoll Arc Lash build and didn’t have a problem with it.

I also dislike that you’re only limited to using 6 skills at a time, and that you can’t remap them whichever way you want to, which again limits gameplay flexibility. This is especially limiting for those who play a spell/skill-heavy class like a sorc.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding but you can remap them - hit “S” and drag and drop skills to different slots. If you mean the keybindings, you can also change those.

The loot/gear in D4 sucks compared to D2, at least, from what I’ve seen so far. “Legendary” gear drops fairly regularly, but they don’t really give you the same feeling of awe and excitement like in D2. In D2, people would lose their shit over finding something like a Shako or SoJ or something, but in comparison, the gear in D4 feels very generic and not really memorable.

I’m not sure how I feel about the loot yet. There aren’t any sets. You can craft great legendaries with a rare and legendary aspect with good rolls, but that doesn’t have the same excitement as a great drop. Supposedly there are uniques that people would lose their shit over, but those sound too rare.

The attributes and effects of some items also aren’t really made obvious. Like, what the heck is “Item power” on an amulet supposed to mean? And just because something has a higher “item power” doesn’t automatically make it a better gear, so what’s the point of it? I don’t really get it.

I found this article helpful, especially the section on breakpoints. https://game8.co/games/Diablo-4/archives/414003

Re: Field of view too zoomed in

When I played the beta, it felt too zoomed in. Maybe I got used to it, but it didn’t bother me after the full release. It zooms out a bit more when you’re mounted, so I mount whenever I’m able. I don’t really mind the zoom level for the world now, but feel the minimap is too zoomed in.

I never liked or used the transparent overlay from the previous games but definitely understand why others would miss it.

As a Sorc, the design and animations of the some of the spells suck. Chain Lightning looks weak af and not really epic looking/OP, like how it was in D2. Hydras in particular look weak and atrocious compared to D2/R.

Spell effects become more impressive at higher levels (note that 5/5 in a skill isn’t considered “high level” - you need items to boost it higher for the better visual effects).

https://youtu.be/ER5cgXzQGYM

This is not to say Chain Lightning and Hydra are impressive at high level (I don’t know - I haven’t seen them).

Speaking of Hydras, I’m angry that I can’t cast more than one Hydra at a time like in D2. I believe you can get an item that may allow you to cast an additional Hydra, but I haven’t come across it as of l48. But I still shouldn’t have to rely on some rare item for what should’ve been a core spell mechanic, this makes the Hydra sorc build a lot less viable compared to earlier games.

This might be because of your level - legendaries drop a lot more frequently the higher your level. When I was playing, it felt like they just started to drop more frequently at L45. At higher level, for me, it’s an issue of having too many and stash space feeling way too limiting (stash space is one of my biggest gripes with the game currently).

From what I’ve gathered, sorcerers are considered one of the weakest classes in the endgame and need some buffs.

Re: Font

I actually prefer this font because I find it much easier to read.

https://uxplanet.org/why-letter-casing-is-important-to-consider-during-design-decisions-50402acd0a4e

Re: Mouse Pointer

You can increase the pointer size in the settings. I found this to be an issue too but after increasing the size to medium, it’s been fine for me. You can also increase the size a notch higher but I haven’t needed to.

Re: Music

This is a matter of personal taste. Out of all of the Diablo games, my favorite soundtrack is from D1. I didn’t find the music from D2 and D3 to be very memorable. There are some dungeon tracks in the D4 soundtrack that I really liked and that reminded me of D1. D1 is still my favorite but D4 comes in second for me.

Same with other audio effects and monster sounds. Why are the Fallen no longer singing praises of Rakanishu or Colenzo? They also don’t talk or make any funny/scary grunts, making them feel very lifeless and lacking in character.

I liked D3 and D1’s monster sounds the most. The Fallen do say Rakanishu, but it’s uncommon (not sure if only a certain type of fallen says it or if it’s just rare).

Re: Monster variety

I don’t have a problem with general monster variety but I think they could use a lot more different end bosses in dungeons (feels like there’s a handful of bosses being reused across 100+ dungeons).