[D4]Should I get Diablo IV?

• The game balance is whack. 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.

• As a Sorc, the gameplay isn't very enjoyable compared to the previous games. I constantly run out of mana in the early/mid game, preventing me from spamming my main spells. D2 had mana issues as well in the early game, but at least you could stock up on mana potions and map them to a hotkey, so it wasn't really a big issue. But even without a mana potion mechanic, D3 was still pretty fun to play as a Sorc and you could still spam spells, but I’m just not getting that feeling of fun in D4. I cast a Hydra and a couple of Chain Lightnings and I’m out of mana, so I'm forced to go back to the lame basic spell, which is not only very unsatisfactory, but does very little damage.

• Furthermore, the additional of unnecessary cooldowns makes the gameplay very annoying. For instance, Teleport is a spell that any Sorc would love to (ab)use, but adding a long cooldown on it seriously nerfs it, limiting mobility and creative use during fights.

• 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.

• 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.

• All of the above changes seem to be aimed at intentionally slowing down your gameplay and progression, which to me doesn't make any sense - an ARPG, at least for me, is supposed to be fast-paced and fun, but D4 moves along at a slow and annoying pace. In this aspect, even D3 was better because it gave you a movement speed boost if you broke a certain number of objects in a short timespan, and the combination of plenty of shrines and or boosts along the way made it fun.

• Not being able to adjust my attributes like in D1/D2 is very limiting. Like, what if I wanted to put more points into DEX for a max-block build? Or one that emphasized on greater mana availability at the cost of health? I can't really do that with D4. 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. 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).

• 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.

• 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.

• Legendary items are account bound, so you can't share your old/unwanted gear with your mates. This also means that there are no more "free" games like in D2R/PD2, where folks drop off unwanted loot.

• 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.

• The field-of-view is weird compared to the earlier games and even other ARPGs, it's less isometric and more top-down and too zoomed in. Because of how zoomed-in it is, you don't get to appreciate the terrain and you only see a small portion of the world, which can be a pain for navigating and finding your way around - you need to constantly keep referring to the map.

• Speaking of which, I miss the old transparent overlay automap in D2. In D4, I find myself constantly checking the big map and switching out, because the minimap is too zoomed in and kinda useless (why can’t I zoom it out?). Someone is working on making a transparent overlay map, but it's very limited right now and there's no guarantee that Blizzard won't ban you for using 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.

• 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.

• The font makes the game look cheap and not Diablo-y. Seems like they literally just used Times New Roman for everything, and I don’t get why, it makes the game look like a cheap and generic ARPG. I mean, D2R proves that the classic Diablo font still looks awesome on modern wide-screen monitors, same with Project Diablo 2 with their new S7 graphics and HD fonts, so there's no reason for Blizzard to ditch it. But even if they wanted to change the font just for the heck of it, couldn't they have used something better than freaking Times New Roman?! Seriously, it looks so ugly that I get angry every time I see it.

• One big issue on PC is the mouse pointer - it's tiny and gets lost on a big screen when there's lots of stuff happening, so as a result you end up misclicking and trying to figure out where your mouse has disappeared off to. As a sorc who likes to teleport into a mob, freeze em and fire off a chain of attacks, this disrupts my entire combo chain and I end up waiting for the long cooldown timers to expire before I can launch another attack, and as you can imagine, this is incredibly annoying. This was never an issue with D2 as it uses a large cursor that makes it very obvious where it is on the screen.

• The music so far has been very unremarkable and not dark and Diablo-y. I mean, it's not bad or anything but just not memorable, like the music in Diablo 1 and 2 - the haunting guitar strums, the middle eastern desert themed music, the spooky Indian chants in D2 A3, the epic heoric music from D2 A5. I can't really recall any epic BGM in D4, besides the music for Tristam, which was taken from D1. Music, to me, play a huge part in creating atmosphere, and that is missing from D4.

• 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.

• Speaking of monsters, they are so incredibly generic that it's mind-boggling that this is supposed to be a sequel to the Diablo series. Majority of the monsters that you fight are just humans/humanoids, or regular wild animals, with only a few actual "monsters". The design and names in particular are so dumb, for instance, a skeleton is called "Horror", and it's boss would be called "Horror Captain", also you fight humans called "Arsonists" or "Maurauders", and then there are beasts literally called "Beast" - did someone forget to update a placeholder name? It's like they ran out of budget and fired the creative department. Whereas in D2 the mini-bosses would get really cool sounding names which are randomly generated, sometimes giving making them sound really cool or really funny. To me, reading those monster names is just as much fun as killing them, whereas in D4 you just have to be content with fighting an ordinary looking bear called "Beast".

• Finally, the NPCs seem so lifeless as well, they don't greet you when you talk to them, no "Good morning" etc, also there are no memorable NPCs like good ol' Decard Cain with epic quotes like "Stay a while and listen". Cain's dialogs in D1/D2 are so memorable that you could even buy T-Shirts with his quotes - I don't see this happening with any D4 NPC.

TL;DR the game is very grindy and unbalanced, it feels like a cheap and generic ARPG. It lacks soul and doesn't feel like you're playing a Diablo game, besides the story and cutscenes (which is probably where all the money went to).

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