Uno's Diablo IV catchall.

[Unorthodox]

To say I'm a diablo nerd is an understatement. 

Beta tester, content creation, modding encompass my diablo II time. 

I still say Diablo II 1.04 is the best version to exist.  But recognize improvements in other areas, especially 1.10. 

I skipped diablo IIIs release based on the change to how skills worked. 

That said, the boys got involved when the expansion hit playstation, and I joined them.  I'd say Diablo III is closer to ye olde Gauntlet than Diablo with it's arcade styled action.  Big numbers flashy things really fast.  That said, despite me very specifically NOT being a trophy/acheivement chaser, I did platinum Diablo III on playstation.  To my knowledge the only game I've done so.  And i've done it on three separate accounts without specifically targeting achievements even though my boys have somehow NOT and I only played with them. 

I did download the mobile game...maybe played a day.  Meh. 

Enter Diablo IV.  Until very recently I've mostly ignored developement. 

The Beta Test begins next week for pre-orders.  I will not be playing that. 

Open Beta begins 3/24.  At the very least, I'm going to be downloading to see if my laptop will run and on the PS4 to see how it runs there.  If the boys are going to be diving in, I will likely be purchasing on release.  I have questions on whether crossplay is possible or not to decide what system we'll be playing on. 

From what I've seen so far it looks like closer to II than III but with significant QOL upgrades and a healthy dose of WOW.  It's the latter I'm not terribly sure I'm going to like.  Open world with instanced zones...I enjoyed how Guild Wars handled that.  Not how GW2 did.  I'm aware I'm in the minority here though. 

Early class impressions: 

Barbarian: solid as always.  Contender for first playthrough
Sorcerer: looks like some of my just for fun builds from II are back and likely my starter as a result
Necromancer:  Looks more like III than II.  where the skeleton army is mostly there for flavor rather than a feature.  Not interested to start until I see how the skills work in person and whether zookeeper style is viable.   
Druid: Never been my thing but want to try some builds for fun depending on how shapeshift plays.
Rogue: Would have preferred a different class name for dumb reasons.  Bow classes have never been my thing for Diablo styled games will definitely be trying to build a melee version at some point. 

[Unorthodox]

Alec got in early this morning and enjoyed what he saw, so it's working well on PS4. 

There was a 1.5 hour queue on the PC earlier today and I said F that. 
Looks like a 30 minute queue now that if it gets through without issue I may play a bit. 

[Unorthodox]

First impressions levels 1-7 on a Barb.

My dear god do I adore Lilith's design in absolutely every sense. 

Barbarian is HORRENDOUSLY underbalanced.  Maybe it's melee in general. 

It's shiny, and you're trying to hide it but that sure as hell seems like Diablo III's release state of [poopy] build system.  I gotta google if there's a work around or not.  Did they really not learn that lesson?

[Unorthodox]

Barbarian 7-12

I respecced my character after getting to a dungeon that had weird bonuses. 

Perhaps counter intuitively, the Diablo IV barb is meant to quick swap weapons.  So instead of focusing on the hammer, switching to a quick 2 weapon build to gain resource and a hammer skill and double handed slashing weapon skill to spend the resources, it started going better. 

Finished a Barbarian only dungeon that gained me a legendary aspect I can put on an item when I find one high enough quality. 

Seems everything scales to your level...which has made general overworld sometimes dodgy when a higher level person activates a map event.  I'd say it's MMO light in that respect.  Not as populated as big MMOs, looks like they're limiting local to 10-12 people. 

Enemy AI is better than normal for this kind of game.  Archers back away and spread out. 

The builds being locked thing broke itself open about level 9 so just some weird tutorial setup to force you into the concept I guess. 

Game is running very smooth on my 10ish year old laptop after some driver updates. 

[Unorthodox]

Barbarian 12-17

Higher end items coming online regularly.  Build starting to come together, finding the game rather difficult. 

Sorcerer 1-5

Game almost laughably easy.  Yeah, balance between classes is pretty [poop] tier. 

[Unorthodox]

Barb -20

As items get plus skills trying out more combos.  Remains a strange mix of trying to build defense and resources.

Melee focused Druid 1-6

Yeah, it's not Melee, it's just the Barb royally sucks.  I think it's the fact they start resources at 0 and have to build them. 

[Unorthodox]

Sorcerer 15 unlocked the enchantment class feature.  Focused completely on Fire.  Hydras are so stupidly overpowered it's laughable.  Erin says chain lightning is just as badly overpowered at this level.   

The enchant class feature is really straight forward.  Maybe detrimentally so in the long run

Druid 10 Completely werewolf.  Mostly single target DOT but some AOE.  Self-heal is quite handy, but you do need to charge up your resource by attacking, similar to a barb, but yours doesn't bleed off if you're still so it's more friendly to use. 

Kyle's Druid 15 :  AOE control build mix of bear, wolf, and elemental.  Useful party based build focused on de-buffing and tanking for Erin.

We did not unlock it's class feature.  Not sure if it was possible or not.   

Kyle's Barbarian 10:  Struggling to find a working build much like I was.  Settled on a bleed build and called it 'ok'. 

Barbarian 24:  Figuring we were missing something, I loaded up my 20, really read the skills and equipment.  I noticed a lot of equipment was flagged as "better" when maybe it wasn't.  So I purposely chose equipment for strength and life stats (have not worried about substats on other classes), discovered weapons add these substats to the character even if not in use, so loaded up on life leach on things I wasn't going to use, and respecced my build to take another look at the hammer build I initially started with. 

Suddenly the barb was just as good as the sorcerer, and could REALLY tank hits with no problem.

The barb has Berserk, Fortified, and something I forget as possible added buffs.  I'm convinced focusing on one and stacking it is the key to unlocking the class coupled with stat watching on the equipment.  Really, it was recommending intelligence equipment just because it had 1 more AC when the +20 strength equipment gets more than that from the strength stat it's boosting. 

Barbarian appears to have a REALLY long progression with the arsenal system class feature.  While we didn't unlock the tactics portion in the demo, just the progression of the basic arsenal looks like it will take weeks to fully level out any one of the weapon types at the rate I play. 

Alec's Rogue 10: Burst DPS sword build that was struggling.  I'm betting it's the stat equipment situation. 

Erin's Rogue 10: Bow sustain build struggling.  Same. 

Necro:  Not played by anyone. 

Couch Co-Op works well on PS4.  Drop in/drop out play.  Upgrade from Diablo 3 as you both can access inventory and skills at the same time. 

Cross progression across systems works well. 

We did not test cross play. 

Party is set to the party leaders world...and my barb got downleveled to some degree to Alec's level.  Didn't lose any skills but my stats were clearly at a % handicap.  Ultimately this won't matter when we're all 100. 

Queues and stability were much better after Friday.  Whether that was from the patch they pushed or people losing interest is open for debate. 

Randoms on the world map doing events was not as annoying as I anticipated. 

We did not join any of the world boss events. 

Peaking into end game content as much as possible:  Aspect farming to enhance items looks rather fun at least the first time.  This SEEMS to be account wide as well.  If they do seasons, though, that could get old. There were a couple other farming systems I could see but weren't in the beta. 

Fun enough I'm going to pre-order. 

The basic game.  None of the digital crap matters to me. 

Though that collectors box looks nice it aint worth the money. 

[Unorthodox]

One last beta "server Slam" coming over mother's day weekend.  hEts out of town that weekend, will likely be on with length being determined by how smooth it goes. 

Patches since the last beta include class balance and rolling drop rates back to normal levels from the beta. 

Torn between firing up a necro and playing barbarian again to see the balance changes. 

[Unorthodox]

Server slam recap:

Game stability was impeccable.  I had no wait times during this server slam.  Whether this was due to lack of interest or them figuring their [poop] is open to debate. 

Balance changes:  Sorceress rolled and fiddled with several builds.  Still felt powerful but not as stupidly easy as the first beta.  Able to come up with a shockingly tanky build which I ended up taking in to do the world boss that was the point of this server slam.  I'd purposely avoided watching content regarding the boss, so wasn't completely prepared.  Now I've seen it in action, confident I could take it in hardcore with a group. 

Unlike the first beta, I mistakenly thought you needed to finish the story to activate the boss, so plowed through the actual main quest instead of just randomly leveling.  I absolutely adore Lilith. 

Necromancer run...some history first. 

I ran a naked necromancer (no equipment) DAR in diablo II back in the day and beat normal difficulty.  I'm intimately familiar and fondly recall playtime with that necromancer. 

Fast forward to Guild Wars (yes, Guild Wars is basically a diablo game with half the developers of DII going on to make that) where the Necromancer sought to solve the 'problem' from Diablo II by making the minions degrade.   I enjoyed my necro/monk in that game as it still FELT like a necromancer building an army. 

Fast forward to Diablo III....and I actively HATE that necromancer.  They 'solved' the problem by making the skeletons nothing more than a cosmetic thing for some of your skills. 

Diablo IV FEELS right again.  You're actively building and maintaining your army.  (if you choose, there's other ways to play)  I actively leaned into that, dumping all my points into minion buffs and skills to help them.  This was the most "Diablo II" styled experience I've had in a game.

Hardcore Druid run:  Only got to level 15 before time run out. 

Hardcore servers were pretty devoid of players.  Not terribly surprising given the limited time given.   I misread the end time and thought I had more time to finish this run. 

Druid still felt weak, but I was in that hard space where I hadn't really found any decent gear yet, so hard to judge. 

[Unorthodox]

Early access starts this week.  I'm resolute in not paying for the early start. 

That puts me starting in 1 week.  Not doing anything silly like taking time off work or such.  Not planning to watch spoilers or read guides.  I'll figure things out as I go, like with the world boss.

Have enjoyed most the marketing.  Would have totally been to any of the live events if they were near. 

https://www.v36.fr/visite-virtuelle/230515-Diablo4_Chapelle/

[Buster's Uncle]

You like the name, don't you?

[Unorthodox]

Which Name? 

[Unorthodox]

[Buster's Uncle]

Devilation.  It first caught your attention for being named after Satan. 

[Unorthodox]

ORIGINAL Diablo? 

Lord thats a LONG time ago. 
Honestly don't recall.  I played the PS1 port back in the day.  Didn't have a computer at the time.  (Ok, had a free to us APPLE IIGs I think for hEt's schoolin)

Why or how I ended up with a Diablo copy is lost to time, but it sure did hook me.  It's one of the very few games I recall on the PS1. 

Final Fantasy 7
Tomb Raider  (I never liked any of the sequels as much as the first.  Too much focus on human enemies and not as much exploration as that first.)
Crash Bandicoot that come with the console, mostly remembered because hEt played. 
Armored Core (which is also getting a new game later this year, but I haven't played the last couple entries.  Love the series in general)
And Ogre Battle....the game that taught me to embrace being EVIL.  I TRIED.  I REALLY REALLY tried to be the 'good guy' in that game because that's what you're supposed to do...and it kept judging me more and more evil until I finally broke down and decided if I was the bad guy, by damn I would be THE BAD GUY.  I haven't really been the same since in morality option games. 


We bought the computer largely because Diablo II was coming out and my friend introduced me to Civ II.