• n1ckn4m3@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    D4 is an exercise in how a lot of effort and a lot of thought can go into something and result in a game that's inferior in the important ways (is the game actually fun to play, is progression fun and rewarding) while also being technically superior to its predecessors – the game looks amazing, the engine is fantastic.

    I'm playing it with my wife and it's just not very fun yet. It reminds me of grinding levels in classic WoW, but without the benefit of getting new skills and feeling more powerful with the levels. I'm hoping that after some patches, seasons, and expansion packs that it gets to be a little more fun, but right now they've made leveling so slow and so inconsequential that the game is just a repetitive slog. You're not getting any new skills past level 50 but it takes absolutely eons longer to go from level 50 to 100 than it did to go from 1-50, all areas in the entire game except for nightmare dungeons are level scaled so you aren't actually getting any more powerful with each level, you're just watching numbers go up while killing exactly the same things in exactly the same way you have been for the last 50 levels.

    Appreciably, Diablo 3 was kind of crap at launch as well and it wasn't until they removed the RMAH, added a new class, added adventure mode and bounties, and added a lot of seasonal content that it fleshed out to being as fun as it is now. I'm hopeful that D4 eventually gets there but man it's just not the fun I was hoping for presently.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It reminds me of grinding levels in classic WoW, but without the benefit of getting new skills and feeling more powerful with the levels.

      The problem is the level scaling. It literally doesn't matter if you gain levels because everything else does too. You don't feel any accomplishment because you haven't gained any power over the monsters.

      You can't get your butt kicked by a boss and go elsewhere to gain a few more levels to try again because the boss gets more powerful too.

      There's nothing to push me to gain levels.

      • Xanvial@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Last few patch there's an update to reduce level scaling, so if your character is lvl 85 for example, the monster will be level 80

        This made the open world so much worse, leveling in there taking much longer so it becomes irrelevant, especially because after mid game most of the monster will be a few hit kill regardless of levels.

        Really glad they reverted this changes on next season, the open world monster will have same level again

    • qarbone@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The level scaling was what killed the game for me. Why am I going back to zones I trekked through nearly naked at the start of the game and having the exact same level of fight when I'm geared up? It cut the ankles out from any feelings of progression I might have felt. All for the sake of an open world that I didn't ask for and wasn't enthused about playing through. The open-world didn't serve the story any better amd only brought negatives. Even if they wanted to give you freedom to explore, the story (from what I played was already laid out in tiers. Why not have those zones' levels bracketed around those story tiers.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Slogging through the campaign for 40 hours with maybe 5hrs of interesting story/scenes and 10min of worthwhile cut scenes, all so I could do their Season 1 challenges, which had such riveting tasks as "Modify 2 pieces of armor at the blacksmith" and "upgrade your healing potion" to complete it. Again, this is after i finished the campaign and have a high level character utilizing all the resources/merchants/etc. they have. 15-20% of the "quests" belong in an intro tutorial.

      Anyone interested in D4 should just wait until it's like $15. It's incredibly dull.

        • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          We played as a group of 4 when we could but we’re mid-30’s with kids and jobs lol the game needs to be solid solo as well. It’s not, it’s just boring.

          • Daisyifyoudo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I don't know what the jobs and kids have to do with anything, but there is quite a bit of boredom involved with this one. I am still enjoying playing through the classes and messing with builds and aspects, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of endgame focus yet (nm dungeons get old quick) and the story is sooooo uninteresting. Which is a shame, cuz Lilith is very well done.

            It's still remarkably better than d3 was at release.

            • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I brought that up because it means we all need a decent single player experience for when our schedules don’t lineup, which is frequently. When you’re younger this isn’t as big of a problem.

      • d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        I couldn't even bring myself to finish the campaign, it was just so soulless and grindy, I gave up halfway.

      • n1ckn4m3@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Same experience here – I started a seasonal character and gave up at level 12 because while the malignant hearts were a neat concept, everything else was ridiculously trite and stupid.

        • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I can't believe it was supposed to last multiple months. By day 3 or 4 my buddies and I were like "well we've seen all there is to see." Probably put 6-8 hours into it. Thanks god BG3 dropped

    • alianne@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is me. I played at the start and for a bit of Season 1 but lost interest ~60 hours in. Maybe it'll be good in a couple years, but for now there are too many other fun games available to keep playing this one.

    • Fox@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Please try guild wars 2 with your wife if you have not already. It is brilliant with a partner.

      • n1ckn4m3@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I've been playing GW2 since beta – heck, I've been playing Guild Wars since the original game's beta, I am a sucker for a good MMO that isn't pay-per-month. I still remember the end of the original Guild Wars beta when meteors started falling down killing everyone in Ascalon. My wife isn't quite as interested in MMO-esque experiences, she more likes the couch co-op style (we played D3 until Paragon 950+ on PS4 Pro and play D4 on PS5), so I haven't been able to get her playing it yet – but I'll keep trying!